(1310,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:14','2021-11-23 17:21:14','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-020_VALUE OF GYMNASTICS, MENTAL OR OTHER .htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">VALUE OF GYMNASTICS, MENTAL OR OTHER\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\"> Intellectual<b> </b>activity is a \nkind of gymnastics. What is the value of physical gymnastics? It develops the \nmuscles, makes them strong, supple and agile. But simply to develop them, to \nmake them grow as much as possible or to take delight in mere muscle-binding a \nbody is not the ideal; it rather frustrates the very object of gymnastics. The \nobject is to develop, strengthen, shape all the limbs of the body and organise \nand harmonise them into a beautiful and capable whole. A particular exercise is \nnot to be indulged for its own sake: all the energy of the body turned to that \nalone and the whole attention devoted to that one thing. An exclusive \nconcentration upon a single physical feat does not bring out the full capacity \nof the body. It is to that end, the fullness of the body potential, that the \nculture of the bodily limbs is to be directed. In the same way, mental \nculture—the power of thinking, reasoning, arguing—has its value in its relation \nto the total culture of the mind and consciousness. There are higher regions of \nconsciousness beyond the reach of the intellect; and you have to\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-63</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">stop all intellectual activity, make your mind a total blank \nbefore you can hope to reach there. And indulgence even in so-called higher or \nphilosophical speculations can only block the way to the true consciousness and \nknowledge. And yet you cannot leave the intellectual faculties uncared for or \nundeveloped on the plea that something higher is needed. In the physical body it \nneed not be your ideal to become a &quot;muscle man&quot;; but neither would you like to \nhave frail, ill-grown, rickety limbs that are weak and unshapely. With regard to \nyour mental body too it would not serve any purpose to have a mind or intellect \nthat is unable to think powerfully, cogently, closely. It is harmful when you \ntake to mental gymnastics only for its own sake, to exclusive intellectual \nacrobatics—discussions, disputations, verbal quibbles etc., etc.; in that case \nthe result attained is a disproportionate growth. But the development of the \nmind,<sub> </sub>even of the logical mind, can be and must be made part of the \nintegral development, it must attain its true form, stature and strength, as a \nhelp towards and finally as an expression in its own field of the divinity, the \nhighest and richest consciousness in man, even as the body too is to express and \nmake concrete the supreme beauty and vigour of the perfect being.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-64</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-020_VALUE OF GYMNASTICS, MENTAL OR OTHER','','publish','closed','open','','020_value-of-gymnastics-mental-or-other','','','2021-11-23 17:21:14','2021-11-23 17:21:14','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/020_value-of-gymnastics-mental-or-other/',0,'post','',0),(1311,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:15','2021-11-23 17:21:15','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-003_end_of_a_civilisation.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">THE END OF A CIVILISATION\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\"> The world has been going down in \nits course of degradation with an increased momentum since the very beginning of \nthe present century. One of the great symptoms of the decline is the prevalence \nof wars. It can be said in fact that there has been no real peace or even truce \nupon earth since the century opened with the Russo-Japanese War. Wars have \ncontinued since then uninterruptedly: some part or other of the world has always \nbeen involved. Indeed one can say it has been a single war carried on on many \nfronts, opening out at different times. Another noticeable thing about these \nwars is their nature; with the lapse of time they have become more and more \nextensive and more and more devastating. It is no longer now simply a clash of \narmies or professionals, of that section of society whose business it is to \nfight. Whole nations—literally the whole of a people including men, women, \nchildren of all ages—are now mobilised, have to take part in the fight and share \nthe same danger.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> Naturally, war meant always \nkilling; but the nature of killing has changed and even the motive too. Killing \nis now attended with cruelty, done with methods terribly\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-1</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">atrocious and revoltingly ingenious. And this has affected the \nvery consciousness and morale of man. Not only there is no decency or decorum, \nnot to speak of magnanimity and nobility of attitude and behaviour— once \nfamiliar things in stories of the Kshattriya, the Samurai, the Knights of \nold—there has come into the field a phenomenon for which it has itself found a \nname, <i>sadism, </i>wanton violence and on a mass scale. Man seems to have \nthrown off all mask, all the rules of civilised social life and has become worse \nthan the animal: he is now the Pisacha, the ghoul and the demon. He seems to \nhave reached the bottom of the pit.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> We know of worlds—vital \nworlds—which are made of the most unimaginable horror and ugliness and devilry. \nMany have contacted such domains either consciously in the course of their yogic \nexperiences or unconsciously in nightmare. They bear testimony to the stark \nmonstrosity of these worlds—the gloom, the fear, the pain and torture, the doom \nand damnation that reign there. That entire inner world seems to have \nprecipitated itself upon earth and taken a body here. A radiant poet spoke of \nParadise being transplanted upon earth in the shape of a happy city (the city of \nthe Raghus): today we have done the opposite miracle, the devil\'s capital city \nis installed upon earth, or even something worse. For, in the subtler worlds \nthere is a saving grace, after all. If you have within you somewhere an\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-2</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">aspiration, a trust, a faith, a light, the enemy cannot touch \nyou or maul you badly. You may have also around you there beings who help you, a \nteacher, a guide who is near visibly or invisibly to give you the necessary \nwarning or protection. But here below when the enemy has clothed himself in a \nmaterial form and armed himself with material weapons, you are almost helpless. \nTo save yourself from a physical blow, it is not always enough to have the \nproper inner consciousness only. Something more is needed.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> Therefore misery stalks large \nupon the earth. Nothing comparable to it, either in quality or quantity, can \nhistory offer as an example. Man finds no remedy for his ills, he does not dare \nto hope for any. He feels he is being irretrievably drawn into the arms of the \nArch-enemy.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> Perhaps it was necessary that it \nshould be so. A <i>pralaya, </i>a Deluge has to be there to end an epoch and \nbegin a new one. Indeed the civilisation that man has built up for millenniums, \nthat has reached its culmination in modern <i>scientism, </i>whatever gifts it \nmight have brought to him, however great and powerful and beautiful it might \nhave been at its best in its own sphere, still it had and was a limitation, \nacted as a deterrent to a further leap and progress of the consciousness. It is \nthe humanistic cycle that has reigned, from ancient Greece down to modern \nAmerica. Is it not time that\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-3</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">another consciousness should intervene, other gods make their \nappearance?\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">* \n* \n*\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\"> And yet if the civilisation \nreally goes, it will not be a small thing, even when measured on the cosmic \nscale. A civilisation is to be judged and valued not at its nadir, but at its \nzenith, in its total effect and not by a tempo­rary phase in its course. \nCivilisation really means pre­paration of the instrument: the human instrument \nthat is to express the Divine. The purpose of creation, we have often, said, is \nthe establishment of the highest spiri­tual consciousness in the embodied life \non earth. The embodied life means man\'s body and life and mind; individually and \nsocially these constitute the instrument through which the higher light is to \nmanifest itself. The instrument has to be prepared, made ready for the purpose. \nActually it is obscure, ignorant, narrow, weak; at the outset and for a long \ntime it expresses only or mainly the inferior animal nature. Civilisation is an \nattempt to raise this inferior nature, to refine, enlarge, heighten it, to \ncultivate and increase its potentialities and capacities. The present \ncivilisation, we have said, is a growth of thousands of years—at least five \nthousand years according to the most modest archaeological com­putation. In this \nperiod man has developed his brain,</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-4</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">his rational intelligence, has unravelled some of the great \nmysteries of nature; he has controlled and organised life to an extent that has \nopened new possibilities of growth and achievement; even with respect to the \nbody he has learnt to treat it with greater skill and endowed it with finer and \nmore potent efficiencies. There have been aberrations and misuses, no doubt; but \nthe essence of things achieved still remains and is always an invaluable asset: \nthat must not be allowed to go.</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> If the civilisation goes, it \nmeans the instrument is gone, the basis on which the edifice for the Divine \nConsciousness is to be built is removed, nothing remains to stand firmly on. So \nthe labour has to start again: one must begin from the beginning. The work has \nto be done and will be done, it cannot be allowed to terminate into a labour of \nSisyphus.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> Look at the individual. Why is \nthere in him the life-urge to persist, to endure, to survive? If life had no \nother meaning than mere living, then the best thing would have been to drop the \nbody as soon as it is badly damaged or incapacitated, through illness, accident \nor old age. Instead, why this attempt to prolong it, to refuse to accept the \npresent difficulties and disadvantages? The reason is that life requires time to \ngrow in consciousness, to acquire experiences, to assimilate and utilise them so \nas to transform them into powers of being,\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-5</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">time, that is to say, to build and forge the instrument so that \nit may house the higher consciousness and existence. In the present make-up, the \nbody, at a certain stage has to be given up; for the frame becomes too rigid and \nstiff to keep pace with the growing and fast moving inner consciousness. The \nthread is taken up again in another life; but there is always a considerable \nreduplication in this <i>natural </i>process, one has to repeat the stage of \nbabyhood and immaturity, a retempering of the instrument till it is capable of \nnewer uses. True, something of the experiences, their essence, is stored \nsomewhere in the depth of the being; but it is not utilised fully, it is not an \neffective element in element in the normal \nconsciousness. And although one always bases oneself upon one\'s past, the \nedifice constructed seems new every time. Yoga in the individual seeks to \neliminate this element of repeti­tion and unconsciousness and delay in the \nprocess of growth and evolution: its aim is to complete the cycle of individual \ngrowth in a single life.</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> Now the same principle can be \nextended to the wider collective development. Civilisation has reached a status \ntoday when the next higher status can be and must be attempted. Man has risen to \na considerable height in the mental sphere; the time and occasion are now here \nto step beyond into the supramental, the dynamically spiritual. Dangers are \nahead, even around and close: all the forces of the infra-human, the sub-\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-6</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">merged urges of animal atavism are pushing and pulling man down \nto a regression, to a reversion <i>to type. </i>The choice is indeed crucial. If \nthe civilisation is to perish, it means mankind has to start over again its life \ncourse, begin, that is to say, at the baby stage, once more to go through the \nslow process of centuries to acquire the mastery that was attained in the \nphysical, the vital and the mental domains. Already there have been such lost \nperiods in man\'s evolution now submerged in his consciousness and their gains \nare being with difficulty recovered. But a landslide at this critical hour will \nbe a colossal catastrophe—humanly speaking, some thing almost irremediable.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> For here is the sense of the \ncrisis. The <i>mantra </i>given for the new age is that man shall be transcended \nand in the process, man, as he is, shall go. Man shall go, but something of the \nvehicle that the present cycle has prepared will remain. For, that precisely has \nbeen the function of the passing civilisation, especially in its later stages, \nviz. to build up a terrestrial temple for the Lord. The aberration and \ndeformation, rampant today, mean only an excess of stress upon this aspect, upon \nthe external building which was ignored or not sufficiently considered in the \nearlier and higher curves of the present civilisation. The spiritual values have \ngone down, because the material values came to be regarded as valueless and this \nupset the economy or balance in\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-7</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">Nature. It is true that we have gone far, too far in our <i>\nrevanche. </i>And the problem that faces us today is this: whether mankind will \nbe able to change sufficiently and grow into the higher being that shall inhabit \nthe earth as its crown in the coming cycle or, being unable, will go totally, \ndisappear altogether or be relegated to the backwater of earthly life, somewhat \nlike the aboriginal tribes of today.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-8</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-003_end_of_a_civilisation','','publish','closed','open','','003_end_of_a_civilisation','','','2021-11-23 17:21:15','2021-11-23 17:21:15','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/003_end_of_a_civilisation/',0,'post','',0),(1312,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:15','2021-11-23 17:21:15','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-029_TO LEARN AND TO UNDERSTAND.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">TO LEARN AND TO UNDERSTAND\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">It is one thing to learn (<i>apprendre)</i>, quite another to \nunderstand <i>(comprendre). </i>In learning you take in a thing by your surface \nmind and it is a thing that comes in from outside like a foreign body; it is put \ninto you, almost driven and forced into you. You do not absorb it, make it \nwholly your own. If you are not mindful, leave it aside for sometime, it goes \nclean out of your memory. Understanding a thing, on the other hand, means, you \nabsorb it, get it into the stuff of your being, you live it in your \nconsciousness within. When you have understood a thing you never forget it; it \nhas become an element of your consciousness. Years and years might have passed, \nyet the thing would be as clear and vivid as it was on the first day. Why do you \nforget so easily the lessons that you learn—-with pain and difficulty—from books \nor at school from teachers? It is because you simply learn, but do not \nunderstand. You retain in your brain the words, the outer formula or forms, you \nnote down the information; but what they stand for, their import and inner law, \nthe living truth escape you totally. You read Einstein, read over and over again \nhis formulas and\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-88</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">equations and even commit them to memory—learn by rote; but \nafter a time, if you lose touch with them, they vanish from your mind or become \nvery vague and misty and you have to start again. That is because you learnt \nEinstein simply as a lesson, whereas if you entered into the perceptions these \nforms embody, the inner principles that determine them, if the Eins-teinian \nconsciousness became in some way your consciousness, then you would have \nunderstood and never forgotten. It would not be a lesson but an experience. What \nis needed, then, is this inner awakening by which you live a thing, identify \nyourself with it, become one with it and not simply meet or make a nodding \nacquaintance only with it. Unless there is this awakening or openness, as we \nsay, in the consciousness, however much a lesson is thrust into you, it will not \nenter deeply enough. You may learn, like a parrot, but you will not understand, \nit will pass over your head and soon be forgotten.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> Indeed it was not very much \nnecessary for the ancient sages and occultists to try to hide their knowledge in \nan obscure language, in codes and symbols and ciphers for fear of misuse by the \ncommon un-initiate; even if they had expressed their knowledge in ordinary \nlanguage, ordinary people would not have understood it at all. It would be like \nmy speaking to you in Chinese, you would make nothing of it.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-89</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">One comprehends only what one already possesses, that is to say, \nyou must have within you something at least of what you want to know and \nunderstand, something corresponding to it, similar in nature and vibration. That \nis what I mean when I say that you should be open, your mind and consciousness \nshould be turned and attuned to the object it wishes to seize; it must have some \nlight in it in order to receive the light outside and beyond. If it is mere \nobscurity, the light does not light; even if it manages to come it departs soon \nor is engulfed in the darkness.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> The human mind can seize things \nonly in three dimensions. A three-dimensional knowledge is its normal \npossession. But there is a fourth and a fifth dimension (which some \nintellectuals in Europe have begun to guess at): indeed there are at least as \nmany as twelve dimensions in reference to the present creation. We cannot \nreadily picture a four-dimensional object, a fifth dimension borders on the \nbizarre and beyond that it is all a blank to the human consciousness. If I spoke \nof these multi-dimensional experiences, what would you make of them?\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> For example, you read and hear \nmuch and constantly of the Divine. What is He or It to you in reality? Something \nvague, misty, wordy. The perception is not concrete to you. You can doubt, deny, \nrefuse credence as you like. But if you once experience it,\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-90</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">hold it in your inner being and consciousness, in however small \nway, however little of it, if you get the direct contact in whatever \nmanner—well, the thing is unforgettable, it lives, lives for ever. If the whole \nworld denies and scoffs, you are unshaken, you smile at the world, for you know \nwhat you know.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> What then is the way to this \nexperience, to this opening in the consciousness? The Presence is there, the \nLight is there, the Grace always leans down to you, surrounds you. On your side \nyou have to make a corresponding gesture. You have to ask for the thing \nsincerely, whole-heartedly, aspire for it tirelessly. You have to ask for it \npersistently, without losing faith or trust; you have to go on perseveringly \nwithout counting the time taken.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> There is an iron door there \nnailed and fixed. It has to be broken open. It is the door that shuts you within \nyour narrow ego-consciousness. You have to throw down that barrier and widen \nyourself out. You have to will for it, exert for it with a settled constancy. \nThere is the pressure on the other side too, the pressure of Grace. Your \naspiring will meeting the Grace will surely make the necessary opening in in the \ndead wall.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-91</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-029_TO LEARN AND TO UNDERSTAND','','publish','closed','open','','029_to-learn-and-to-understand','','','2021-11-23 17:21:15','2021-11-23 17:21:15','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/029_to-learn-and-to-understand/',0,'post','',0),(1313,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:15','2021-11-23 17:21:15','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-027_INDIVIDUAL AND COLLECTIVE SOUL.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">INDIVIDUAL AND COLLECTIVE SOUL\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\"> The individual has a soul. \nLikewise a collection of individuals, a group too has a soul. When persons \nhabitually meet together for a certain purpose, they form a set or society and \ngradually tend to develop a common consciousness which is the beginning of a \nsoul. At school, they who read together, the class, they who play together, the \nteam, all who live and move together inspired by the same or similar impulses \nand ideas possess a rudimentary soul. In the same way, a bigger group, the \nnation has also a soul, each its own according to its nature, tradition and \nculture. Even a continent has a soul. One can speak of the soul consciousness of \nEurope, of Asia or of Africa. Indeed each cell of an organism has a \nconsciousness of its own; it may be said to be the unit individual \nconsciousness. Many such cells combine to form the organism, the individual (who \nin this way may be viewed as a composite or collective being). Many individuals \nform the family—-each family with its group consciousness (whence the idea of <i>\nkuladharma, </i>the genius of the family or the tradition and stamp of a Royal \nHouse). Many families formed the tribe,\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-84</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">here too each with its particular consciousness. And then \nfamilies and tribes have formed the modern nation, each one a distinct and \nalmost a well-developed soul. The grouping continues to enlarge and we have the \nmany nations combining to form the human group as a whole; humanity too has its \nown consciousness and its own soul. There is no limit to the volume or dimension \nof the group. The earth has its soul consciousness, even as the sun or a star or \nany other planet. The solar system or a galactic system too is moved by its own \nsecret consciousness.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-85</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-027_INDIVIDUAL AND COLLECTIVE SOUL','','publish','closed','open','','027_individual-and-collective-soul','','','2021-11-23 17:21:15','2021-11-23 17:21:15','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/027_individual-and-collective-soul/',0,'post','',0),(1314,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:15','2021-11-23 17:21:15','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-031_TOWARDS REDEMPTION.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">TOWARDS REDEMPTION\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\"> As I have often said, creation is \nthe self-objectivisation of the Supreme Divine; it is the supreme consciousness \nputting itself out of itself so that it may look at itself. In so doing—in \nself-objectifying and self-dividing— it scattered itself abroad: the one \ninfinite multiplied itself into infinite atoms. Not only so, in detaching itself \nfrom itself the consciousness became the very opposite of itself: consciousness \nbecame unconsciousness, spirit became matter, delight became pain, knowledge \nbecame ignorance, and light became darkness. Boundless universality was the \nessential nature of the Divine, now it got clotted into the knots of egoism upon \nwhich is based this inconscient creation. In the midst of this utter negation, \nthis denial by the universe of its origin, the Divine Love descended and lodged \nitself in order to bring back the erring creation to its lost home. The Divine \nLove became involved and entangled in the Inconscient, became one with it; only \nso could she (it was indeed the Divine Mother in her Grace) suffuse the \ninconscient universe with her own substance and transmute it into its original \nnature. The first effect or visible sign of this descent or divine\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-94</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">infusion is the emergence of the psychic or the soul element in \nthe material body: it is the speck of consciousness imbedded in matter, \ninhabiting the apparently dead particle or aggregate of particles, which \ncontinually grows in and through its relation of action and reaction with its \nsurrounding unconsciousness, and at the same time extending its light into that \ndarkness transforms it gradually into what it was originally at its source.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\n&#8258;</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\"> The origin of creation is an \nindividualisation—the manifestation or emanation of many, as units, out of the \nundivided and indivisible Single. It meant freedom for each unit to choose: the \nindividual became, so to say, a unit of freedom. The immediate result, however, \nwas not very successful, apparently, that is to say. For the individual unit \nchose to follow a path exactly opposite to its origin: the individualisation \nhappened as if an element shot out of the infinite unity and flung itself in its \nmomentum, as far away as possible, to the other pole. That is how the one spirit \nbecame the infinite particles of inconscient matter. The purpose and problem \nthen set was to bring back the straying elements to their source and origin. The \nwork was long travail. It took and it is taking even\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-95</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">now ages and ages for the one Being who could do the thing to \nprepare slowly, mount the steps gradually along which creation slid down, \nrecover the ground painfully and achieve the hidden purpose, vindicating amply \nthe deviation and the fall. Through devious ways, long winding, arduous marches \nthe spirit of evolution laboured through millenniums: it was the instrument \nutilised by the Divine Grace.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> The original individual was a \nhard concentrated point of ego, concerned wholly and absolutely with itself. So \na situation of give and take was brought about so that even to exist meant to \nexist through others. Human society began in this way. The solitary human animal \nfor its own sake had to come out of its solitariness, take to a mate and thus \ngradually bring up a family. The wall of egoism was broken to that extent, its \nscope extended. This enlargement of the ego continued—still continues—increasing \nthe content of the unity. From the family the human ego enlarged into the tribe, \nand the tribal ego has now enlarged into the nation. Larger and larger \naggregates are being formed in place of the original individual unities. The \nnations too are now approaching and interpenetrating each other and in many ways \nthe whole of humanity has begun moving as an aggregate. The individual has thus \nlearnt to find himself in the life of humanity as a whole. He has to look up—or \nwill\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-96</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">soon have to look up—to the whole creation as one existence in \nand through which he has to exist. Thus the universe is recovering its original \nindivisible unity, but having gained something in the process; for it is now no \nlonger the featureless unity at the source but an enriched and multiple unity in \nexpression. Furthermore the individual can proceed yet beyond. He has to and now \nis able to, not only in his individual but in his collective consciousness—turn \nback and move straight to its original unity: he can establish direct contact, \ncommune and unite with the Divine Himself from whom it came and strayed away. \nThe ranges of ascent are within him and are in line with those outside which the \nuniverse is traversing in the path of evolution. Such is the process the Divine \nGrace has undertaken to fulfil the Divine\'s purpose in creation.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">* \n* \n*\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\"> The earliest sense of &quot;ego&quot; or \n&quot;I&quot; is limited and confined to one\'s own self as against others and other \nthings. It is then that one has the feeling of want and asks for things he has \nnot. He has shut out from his wingspread men and things, of his own accord, to \nenjoy his individual free will: he is now compelled to ask of them materials to \nenjoy, to grow and increase,</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-97</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">even to exist. On the other hand, if you enlarge yourself, if \nyou identify yourself with all, then you find all things within yourself, you \nhave no need to go out and seek for them, you have no feeling of want. Whatever \nis needed to be brought and utilised for a definite purpose or in a particular \ncircumstance, at a certain time or place, is automatically presented then and \nthere. You do not, however, lose your real &quot;I&quot;. Your &quot;I&quot; finds its &quot;I&quot; in all \nother &quot;I&quot;s and all other &quot;I&quot;s in the &quot;I&quot; you call yourself. You have lost your \nold ego, the small narrow person, and transcended and transmuted it into the \ncosmic and transcendental ego. The Divine is that ego and that individual \nperson. In reality it is the Divine alone who is that, in the supreme and truest \nsense.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-98</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-031_TOWARDS REDEMPTION','','publish','closed','open','','031_towards-redemption','','','2021-11-23 17:21:15','2021-11-23 17:21:15','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/031_towards-redemption/',0,'post','',0),(1315,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:15','2021-11-23 17:21:15','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-023_THE PERSONAL AND THE IMPERSONAL.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">THE PERSONAL AND THE IMPERSONAL\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\"> As you go up in your \nconsciousness towards the origin of things you come finally at the end of \nthings: you are beyond the names and forms that make up the universe, beyond \neven the subtle names and forms at the topmost. You arrive at something \nformless, impersonal, unthinkable, unique, infinite and eternal. It is at best a \nvast force or a state of consciousness. When you come in contact with it, you \nlose your personal form, your separate individuality and become the featureless \nabsolute. Many religions and philosophies consider this status to be the \nsupreme, the highest and the origin of things. In reality, however, it is not \nthe end of things nor the supreme status. You can rise further beyond. Your \nconsciousness enters into the formless and impersonal and merges its separate \nexistence there and then emerges again; it envisages a reality which is not \nformless but has a form, it is not impersonality but a Person, with which or \nwith whom you can have a personal relation unlike the relation or lack of \nrelation with the Impersonal. But this form beyond the formless is not like the \nforms of the inferior consciousness: it is the Form\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-73</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">of forms. And it is not a person like a human being or even a \ndivine being or god, but an essential Personality, the Person of persons. It has \nnot the limitation or exclusiveness of ego-bounded individuality (even the gods \nare ego-bounded); it has a kind of fluid boundedness or outline which is \nrecognizable as that of a definite Person, but it has not the fixity or rigidity \nof lower forms.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> And yet to arrive at this supreme \nPerson, to come in contact with Him, it is necessary to pass through and have \nthe experience of the formless impersonal infinity. For that breaks the inferior \nmoulds, the narrow egoistic formations which are only aberrations or obscure \nimages of the true Person.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> Somewhat on the same line the \nvital too has to proceed to transform itself. It must get rid of its ignorant \nand violent impulses, its obscure formations: it must be thoroughly cleansed and \npurified. For that it must learn to be quiet and silent—absolutely still and \npassive; and in that quiet passivity to feel, to be conscious of the Divine \nPresence, to be saturated with it. When once that is done, it is called upon to \ncome out and take part in active life. Normally, however, the tendency is, when \none has withdrawn and lived an inward quieted life, on coming back to outer \nlife, to turn to the old accustomed ways and reactions; one falls back into the \nold groove of the consciousness.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-74</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">The vital should then make the experience and the realisation of \nthe Divine Presence dynamic so that it may be a living reality; the vital must \nbe conscious of it in the midst of all activities, not merely in the indrawn \nstate. The energy of the vital must be put out into a complete and perfected \nliving, but it must not run into old moulds and take up the habitual modes; with \nthe constant sense of the Divine, the everpresent truth and beauty of the \nDivine\'s consciousness, the vital will possess a new life and create a new \npattern of living.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-75</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-023_THE PERSONAL AND THE IMPERSONAL','','publish','closed','open','','023_the-personal-and-the-impersonal','','','2021-11-23 17:21:15','2021-11-23 17:21:15','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/023_the-personal-and-the-impersonal/',0,'post','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` VALUES (1316,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:15','2021-11-23 17:21:15','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-018_A PAGE OF OCCULT HISTORY.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">A PAGE OF OCCULT HISTORY\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\"> At the beginning of creation, \nfour individual formations—the first personalities—made their appearance. There \nwere: (1) a Being of Light or Consciousness, (2) a Being of Truth or Reality, \n(3) a Being of Love or Ananda and (4) a Being of Life. And the first law of \ncreation was freedom of decision. These Beings were manifestations in the free \nmovement of the Divine; they themselves moved free, according to their \nindividualised conscious will. They stood out, as if in relief, on the \nbackground of the Divine Existence. For originally, although they differentiated \nthemselves from each other and from the Divine, yet they formed a unified \nharmony and lived and moved and had their being as different members of the same \ndivine Body. At first they stood out, but still essentially and apparently \nlinked on to their fountain and origin. Soon, however, they stood out no longer \non the Divine, but moved out of him, away and separate; they sought to fulfil \ntheir individualised will and destiny. The Divine did not impose its will or \nforce these individualities to turn round: that would frustrate the very purpose \nof creation. He allowed these independent beings to enjoy their full\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-56</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">independence, although they were born out of him and essential \npart and parcel of his own being. They went abroad on a journey of adventure, \neach carving out its own line of growth and fulfilment. The first fruit, the \ninevitable reaction of freedom was precisely, as is just said, a separation from \nthe Divine, each one encircled within its ego, limited and bound to its own fund \nof potency: individualism means limitation. Now, once separated, the connection \nwith the source snapped, that is to say in the outward activity, in dynamic \nmovement or becoming (not in essential being), the Four Independents lapsed into \ntheir opposites: Light changed to Darkness, i.e. consciousness to \nunconsciousness, Truth changed to Falsehood, Delight changed to Pain and \nSuffering, and Life changed to Death. That is how the four undivine principles, \nthe Powers of the Undivine came to rule and fashion the material creation.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> Into the heart of this Darkness \nand Falsehood and Pain and Death, a seed was sown, a grain that is to be the \nepitome and symbol of material creation and in and through which the Divine will \nclaim back all the elements gone astray, the prodigal ones who will return to \nrecognise and fulfil the Divine. That was Earth. And the earth, in her turn, in \nher labour towards the Divine Fulfilment, out of her bosom, threw up a being who \nwould again symbolise and epitomise the earth\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-57</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">and material creation. That is Man. For, man came with the soul \nin him, the Psychic Being, the Divine Flame, the spark of consciousness in the \nmidst of universal unconsciousness, a miniature of the original Divine \nLight-Truth-Love-Life. In the meantime, to help the evolution, to join hands \nwith the aspiring soul in the human being, there was created, on the defection \nof the First Lords—the Asuric Quaternity—a second hierarchy of luminous \nbeings—Devas, gods. (Something of this inner history of the world is reflected \nin the Greek legend of struggle between the Titans and the Olympians.) These \ngods, however, being a posterior creation, perhaps because they were young and \ninexperienced, could not cope immediately with their strong Elders. It is why we \nsee in the mythological legends the gods very often worsted at the hands of the \nAsuras, Indra hiding under the sea, Zeus threatened often with defeat and \ndisaster. It is only an intervention from the Supreme (the Greeks called it \nFate) that saved them in the end and restored the balance.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> However, the Asuras came to think \nbetter of the game and consented to use their freedom on the side of the Divine, \nfor the fulfilment of the Divine; that is to say, they agreed to conversion. \nThus they took birth as or in human beings, so that they may be in contact with \nthe hitman soul—Psyche—which is the only door or passage to the Divine in this \nmaterial world. But the\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-58</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">matter was not easy; the process was not straight. For, even \nagreeing to be converted, even basking in the sunshine of the human psychic, \nthese incorrigible Elders could not forget or wholly give up their old habit and \nnature. They now wanted to work for the Divine Fulfilment in order to magnify \nthemselves thereby; they consented to serve the Divine in order to make the \nDivine serve them, utilise the Divine End for their own purposes. They wished to \nsee the new creation after their own heart\'s desire.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> That is how things have become \ndifficult upon earth and are delaying the ultimate consummation which, however, \nis sure to come about when the wheel of Time or Fate has turned full circle.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-59</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-018_A PAGE OF OCCULT HISTORY','','publish','closed','open','','018_a-page-of-occult-history','','','2021-11-23 17:21:15','2021-11-23 17:21:15','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/018_a-page-of-occult-history/',0,'post','',0),(1317,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:15','2021-11-23 17:21:15','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-035_THE CONSTANTS OF THE SPIRIT.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">THE CONSTANTS OF THE SPIRIT\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">The Divine exists in three modes: (1) Existence, (2) \nConsciousness and (3) Bliss. Pure existence, pure consciousness and pure \nbliss—Sat-Chit-Ananda— these are the three fundamental elements out of which the \nworld is made; they are everywhere in all things, in all beings, in all domains \nand levels of being. Sach-chidananda is the supreme reality that is behind all, \neven here below, behind the mind, behind the life and behind the body too and \nbehind each form in each of these domains. It is that which upholds and sustains \neverything. Therefore in order to realise it, it is not necessary to mount up, \nleaving behind the mental, the vital and physical existence and go beyond. \nUsually when one seeks Sachchidananda one looks for it outside the universe, \nabove and beyond the creation, in the transcendent. In reality, however, one can \nmeet it from any place where one happens to be, either in the mind or in the \nvital or even in the physical; one has only to withdraw and sink down, or get \nbehind: it is there always. To meet Sachchidananda in and through the physical \nexistence is not very much more difficult or rare a thing than the\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-111</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">other ways; it is more difficult and rare to maintain it there \nconstantly and consciously, to make of it a dynamic physical possession. That is \nthe work to be done and for which Sri Aurobindo came.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-112</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-035_THE CONSTANTS OF THE SPIRIT','','publish','closed','open','','035_the-constants-of-the-spirit','','','2021-11-23 17:21:15','2021-11-23 17:21:15','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/035_the-constants-of-the-spirit/',0,'post','',0),(1318,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:15','2021-11-23 17:21:15','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-015_BODY,THE OCCULT AGENT.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">BODY, THE OCCULT AGENT\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\"> The\nbody has an individuality of its own.\nIt \nis an organised formation and acts as a \nwhole in each and all its parts. The human body is, par excellence, such a \nformation; for it is moved and controlled by the consciousness which overshadows \nor informs it, which is its master whose will \nit \nexecutes scrupulously. \n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> The body is an epitome of the \nworld. It encases within its frame the whole world, particularly the earth—earth \nitself being an epitome of the world— on a miniature scale, the <i>mikros </i>\nreproducing all the features and characters of the <i>makros.</i>\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> Such being the case, a wholly \nconscious body governed and inspired by the supreme Consciousness lives and \nmoves in the cosmic rhythm: not only does it register in itself the world \nhappenings, but also possesses an active power to control and even to change \nthose happenings by its individual movement. We may imagine the body to be a \nkind of map or chart of the earth. Each spot on the earth is represented by a \nparticular spot—a certain group of cells, for example—in the body. If the \nconsciousness ruling the body concentrates itself upon that point and\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-47</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">induces a change there, a corresponding change can be brought \nabout automatically on a larger scale in the part and conditions of the earth \nwith which it is connected. Thus without going out and moving about, without \nbeing the &quot;man on the spot&quot; to know things &quot;at first hand&quot;, one can, sitting, in \nhis room, by switching on a key, as it were, in one corner of the body, set in \nmovement a whole process of happenings in a particular region of the earth. By a \nconscious re-disposition of a few cells in your body, you can bring about a \ndesired change in world circumstances. The body is thus a control room for the \nconsciousness in respect of happenings upon earth. Naturally, any body cannot do \nthat, but only a body destined and trained for that purpose.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> A body, in this way, becomes the \ninstrument, a lever for producing mighty changes and creations upon earth. This \nconception of the occult potency of the body is at the basis of the rite or \ninstitution of sacrifice that was a characteristic feature of the old-world \nsociety. Iphigenia was offered as a victim to avert the wrath of the gods and \nbring victory to the Greeks. Sometimes an animal replaced the human victim and \nserved the same purpose and in the same way. And in a higher sense—indeed in the \nhighest sense—a body can sacrifice itself in such a way— wholly and \nintegrally—as to bring about a corresponding\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-48</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">integral reversal or revaluation in the physical world. A human \nbeing that makes of himself a holocaust—burns himself out at the altar of the \nDivine —keeping nothing for his own sake, living for the Divine alone, by \ncalling down the divine will in himself, brings into the earthly life too a \ndivine presence and transformation. A total physical sacrifice results \ninevitably into a total expression and embodiment of the Divine in the physical \nworld.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-49</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-015_BODY,THE OCCULT AGENT','','publish','closed','open','','015_bodythe-occult-agent','','','2021-11-23 17:21:15','2021-11-23 17:21:15','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/015_bodythe-occult-agent/',0,'post','',0),(1319,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:15','2021-11-23 17:21:15','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-019_DIRECTED CHANGE.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">DIRECTED CHANGE\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\"> Never<b> </b>to be bound by the \nexperiences of the past, never to try to recover and stick to the knowledge or \nrealisation gained, even though it may appear particularly precious or unique. \nThis is a motto you should always keep before your mind. When you try to repeat \nwhat you have once said, done or experienced, you arc sure to find very soon \nthat the thing is becoming more and more lifeless, mechanical, a matter of \nroutine and therefore perfectly useless. The soul has disappeared, the skeleton \nremains. You must live the word you utter at the time of uttering it, you must \nlive the experience that you wish to recall or express. It is only thus that \ntruth becomes living, possesses its force and light and gains its full value.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> In point of fact, however, no two \nsucceeding moments, whether in your consciousness or in the world movement, are \nexactly the same. Even if you try seriously and sincerely, you can never \nrecapture a thing of the past as it was or as it came to you, not, that is to \nsay, in the same exact manner. For you are no longer the same nor is the world. \nThe world is is a<i> </i>continuous flow, \nit has been very often declared:</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-60</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">but it is not a continual repetition or recurrence, a mere \ncyclic order. On the other hand, constant renewal is the very character of the \nchange. At every moment something new is coming down on the scene, something \nthat was not surges out: Nature is bringing out at every step something that was \nhidden or latent in her secret depth, something is thrown down from above into \nher normal movement, something unforeseen and unexpected. The march of time \nmeans evolution, that is to say, the addition of a new factor to the existing \nfactors, making manifest something that was unmanifest—<i>m</i>&#7771;<i>tam kancana \nbodhayanti, </i>as the Vedic Rishi says. Even if to an apparent sight everything \nseems to remain the same, yet it is not so in reality; always a new element is \nbeing poured into the existing circumstances, always an additional spark or \ninfluence enters into actual play of forces. It is the accumulated presure of \nall the variables that brings about the great changes upon earth and in humanity \nwhich are summed up in the word evolution—changes cosmological and \npsychological.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> You have to accept this principle \nof change and move on—to be one with the cosmic spirit,—never to stand still or \nturn back, but look forward and forge ahead. To be stagnant means to die and be \nfossilised. Now, if things change continually, it means things can change and \nmust be changed. Only, one must\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-61</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">see to the direction in which the change occurs. A change can \nbe, after all, for better or for worse. And you have the power, if you are \nconscious with the right consciousness, to direct the change and even to \ninitiate one of the right order. Have you ever climbed a hill? There are many \nways, paths, issues leading towards the top, some more or less direct, some \nzig-zag, others winding or taking a long round. This does not matter, provided \nyou look upward, have the sense of direction to the summit, then you mount up. \nOtherwise if you have your face downward or look below, you move downward away \nfrom the top. In the same way changes that happen will be directed according to \nthe direction of your look. And there is only one direction towards which you \nmust turn your look: towards the summit, towards the highest goal. It is to grow \nconscious, to grow more and more conscious—to be conscious of yourself, to be \nconscious of the universe and to be conscious of the Divine who dwells in you \nand permeates the world and then to manifest the Divine, in your physical life \nand in the physical life of the world.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-62</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-019_DIRECTED CHANGE','','publish','closed','open','','019_directed-change','','','2021-11-23 17:21:15','2021-11-23 17:21:15','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/019_directed-change/',0,'post','',0),(1320,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:16','2021-11-23 17:21:16','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-005_TYPES OF MEDITATION.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">TYPES OF MEDITATION\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">The first is to think on one subject in a continuous logical \norder. When, for example, you have to find the solution of a problem, you go \nstep by step from one operation to another in a chain till you finally arrive at \nthe conclusion. The thought is withdrawn from all other objects and is canalised \nalong a single line. This is a kind of meditation, although it may not be \nusually known by that name. It marks a progress in the makeup of the human \nconsciousness. For normally the mind moves at random, thoughts run about on many \nsubjects, various, contrary and contradictory, from moment to moment. There is \nneither direction, consistency or organisation: it is a confused mass of \nincomplete, half-formed thoughts. The control and organisation of this mass, to \nstart with, in a limited sphere and in a definite direction, the rejection of \nthe unnecessary and the irrelevent and the marshalling and ordering of the \nrequired elements form the first exercise towards mental growth. All high \nintelligence, all effective wielding of thought power needs this discipline. \nUnder the present circumstances of the world the school-life gives the best\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-11</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">opportunity for this development. This is a meditation that \nshould be obligatory and universal.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> The next type we may call \nconcentration, instead of meditation. Here we do not pursue a thought-line, but \nfix the thought upon one object unmoved. It means a further process of \nwithdrawing the consciousness from its habitual outgoing and dispersive \nmovement. The thought is held at a point and attention is focussed upon it: it \nis continuous and unbroken attention, for example, upon an idea, a phrase \n(mantra) or an image. One can concentrate also upon a physical point, say, \nfixing the gaze upon the tip of one\'s nose, or on a luminous point outside etc. \nIn this discipline the whole mind is gathered together and focussed: or, \neverything else is shut out leaving only one thing upon which all the light of \nthe consciousness is directed. It is a standstill consciousness, like a flame \nerect and immobile in a windless place.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> There is a third grade when the \nmind becomes a void, all thoughts being driven out, all vibrations \ntran-quillised. It is a wide silence suffused with a still luminosity. The \noperation is difficult. For it means a kind of continuous and methodical \ndrainage or rare-fication which takes more or less a very long time. First you \nthrow out well-formed ideas and notions, processes and products of reasoning and \njudgment— the bigger waves, as it were; as soon as these subside\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-12</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">you find there are smaller waves below or behind— half-formed \nthoughts, budding ideas, fugitive notions and so on; when these too are quieted \ndown, you come across still another layer of smaller ripples of thought, close \nto sensations, nervous reactions, vibrations of the brain-mind, rudimentary \npercepts etc. etc. One may go on like that if not <i>ad infinitum, </i>at least, \nto a considerable length. One arrives in the end at what is practically a \nvacuum, to all intents and purposes a silent mind. Even then it is a difficult \nand arduous process and may not be as absolute as one may expect. There are \nother surer and even perhaps easier processes to attain the same end. Thus \ninstead of striving and struggling and forcing your will upon the restless \nwaves, you simply relax yourself, by-pass them as it were,<sub> </sub>await and \naspire and open yourself towards the Silence that is above: call for the silence \nwith trust and reliance and it comes not unoften as a massive inundation, a \nglacial sweep and automatically overwhelms you, drowning and filling you from \ntop to toe. There is also another way: to contact, to enter into the Mother\'s \npresence. Mother\'s Presence means all the realisations to which we aspire \nconcretised, brought down, near <i>to </i>us, within our human reach. We have \nnot to travel far and wide, mount to inaccessible heights, labour and \nstrain—with blood and sweat and tears—to get what we want: all the gettings are \nready-made there\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-13</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">in our atmosphere, we have only to know and perceive, open \nsomething in us for them to flow in. That is perhaps the action of Grace: \nsilence, absolute silence, not only in the mind, but in the whole being, can \ncome this way too.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> The last process gives us the \nclue to the fourth type of meditation—the type, in fact, which is recommended \nfor us, both because it is the easiest—following as it does the line of least \nresistance, also because it gives the fullness of the result demanded. Instead \nof trying to manipulate the mental force with one\'s personal will and effort, \ninstead of seeking to control and command the consciousness, the best thing to \ndo would be to remain quiet as far as it is normally possible for one without \nstruggle and then turn the gaze to the other side, deep inward or high upward, \nbecome more conscious of the light, the Will that brought you to this Path, to \nbe alive with the secret delight, the flaming aspiration that is there within \nyou behind all the turbid turmoil of the surface life and consciousness. This \nPresence and Guidance will of itself place before you the elements and movements \nthat are to be rejected and those that are to be accepted and given your sincere \nassent help you in doing the necessary gesture. Indeed if you do not resist too \nmuch, it will throw out what is to be thrown out and bring in what is to be \nbrought in. That is how the instrument will be cleansed\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-14</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">and refined. Silence will be put in, for that is the basis; but \nnot silence alone, for it will be unified with a new dynamism expressing the \nDivine\'s Will—personal choice there will be none, neither for absolute quietude \nnor for mere activity.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-15</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-005_TYPES OF MEDITATION','','publish','closed','open','','005_types-of-meditation','','','2021-11-23 17:21:16','2021-11-23 17:21:16','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/005_types-of-meditation/',0,'post','',0),(1321,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:16','2021-11-23 17:21:16','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-036_SELFLESS WORKER.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">SELFLESS WORKER\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">The Prayer says: &quot;I look for my conscious mind and I find it no \nmore____&quot; Normally one is conscious of oneself. Whatever one does or whenever \none does something, the consciousness always remains behind, &quot;I am here, I am \ndoing&quot;. And if this sense of &quot;I am&quot; is not there, one can do nothing. All action \nstops automatically if I do not see or feel that I am acting. But that is the \nnature of ordinary consciousness; in the spiritual consciousness things are \notherwise. Spiritual consciousness means the consciousness in which this sense \nof &quot;I am doing&quot; or even &quot;I am&quot; has disappeared, got dissolved. Truly, the work \nis done not by me, by the sense of &quot;I-ness&quot;, but by Prakriti, Nature, apparently \nby Lower Nature, secretly by Higher Nature. When the &quot;I&quot; disappears, the force \nthat has been working continues to work, only the sense of &quot;I&quot; attached to it \n(in ignorance and by ignorance) is no longer there. Or, the &quot;I&quot; has completely \nmerged itself into the working Force and is one with it. What is conscious is \nnot the personality or the individual I, but the Force of action.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-113</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-036_SELFLESS WORKER','','publish','closed','open','','036_selfless-worker','','','2021-11-23 17:21:16','2021-11-23 17:21:16','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/036_selfless-worker/',0,'post','',0),(1322,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:16','2021-11-23 17:21:16','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-008_EARTH A SYMBOL.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">EARTH A SYMBOL\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">The earth is the centre of \nthe material universe. It has been created for concentrating the force that is \nto transform Matter. It is the symbol of the divine potentiality in Matter. As \nwe have said, the earth was created through a direct intervention of the Divine \nConsciousness: it is on the earth alone that there is and can be the direct \ncontact with the Divine. The earth absorbs and develops and radiates the divine \nlight; its radiation spreads through space and extends wherever there is Matter. \nThe material universe shares, to some extent, the gift that the earth brings \n—the light and harmony of the Divine Consciousness. But it is upon the Earth \nalone that there is the full and final flowering of that consciousness.</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> The psychic being is found on the \nearth alone, for it is a product of the earth: it is the touch of the Divine \nupon Matter. The psychic being is a child of the Earth: it is born and grows \nupon Earth, it is native to nowhere else. Still when it develops sufficiently \nand becomes an adult individuality, it can go to other physical domains, visit \nother planets, for example.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-23</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-008_EARTH A SYMBOL','','publish','closed','open','','008_earth-a-symbol','','','2021-11-23 17:21:16','2021-11-23 17:21:16','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/008_earth-a-symbol/',0,'post','',0),(1323,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:16','2021-11-23 17:21:16','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-004_DARKNESS TO LIGHT.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">DARKNESS TO LIGHT\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">The<b> </b>Darkness is the measure of the Light. The world as it \nis is exactly the opposite of what it has to be and shall be. And in order to be \nwhat it shall be it had to become what it is now, just not that which it will \nbe. The antipodes go together unavoidably: the depth of the precipice is the \nprecise measure of the height. Man\'s fall represents the ascent he has to make, \nhe is destined to make.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> Hurdles and obstacles are put \nthere in the way: not merely to test your strength, but to train it, to increase \nit, to discipline it. Difficulties abound precisely because by overcoming them \nyou attain to the fullness of your perfection. You have been built with elements \nand forces that are exactly in keeping with what you are expected to do with \nthem: you are placed in the midst of conditions and circumstances that are \nabsolutely proportionate to what you have to realise. Indeed you carry within \nyourself all the difficulties that are necessary to make your realisation \nperfection itself.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> When you receive a blow, do not \ndraw back or blink and sink down: hold up your head with courage and fortitude \nand say to yourself, here is another opportunity\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n<br>\n</p><p class=\"pageno\">Page-9</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">given to take another step forward. The blow is a finger of \nlight pointed towards a dark spot to be illumined, a weak link that has to be \nforged anew. In meeting and surmounting a difficulty you add another degree to \nyour ascension, another sinew as it were to your muscle. Remember a difficulty \nis never out of proportion to your strength: it comes in the exact measure of \nyour power to face it. It is your mind, your notion that makes the contrary \nsuggestion, a kind of illusion possesses you that you are beyond your depth and \nmust go adrift.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> You may not be able to do the \nideal thing at a given moment. You may not command the perfect gesture that is \nexpected of you in a set of circumstances: the Divine may seem to be veiled from \nyou and you do not hear the direct voice. But it does not matter. What is \nexpected of you is to do your best, do the best that you are capable of at that \nmoment. The highest that is present to you, the summit available for the time \nand under the circumstances—that should be the source and inspiration of your \nact. Act on the heights where you stand and aspire for higher heights.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-10</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-004_DARKNESS TO LIGHT','','publish','closed','open','','004_darkness-to-light','','','2021-11-23 17:21:16','2021-11-23 17:21:16','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/004_darkness-to-light/',0,'post','',0),(1324,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:16','2021-11-23 17:21:16','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-002_Publisher^s Note.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\">\n	Publishers\' Note</p>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<p class=\"para\">\n	The writings included in this volume, like \n	those in the preceding volume of the series, \n	are based on talks given by the Mother to \n	the young children of Sri Aurobindo Ashram. \n	They were originally published as Editorials \n	in The advent (1951 &amp; 1952).</p>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-002_Publisher\'s Note','','publish','closed','open','','002_publishers-note-2','','','2021-11-23 17:21:16','2021-11-23 17:21:16','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/002_publishers-note-2/',0,'post','',0),(1325,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:16','2021-11-23 17:21:16','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-006_THE CONSCIOUS BEING.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">THE CONSCIOUS BEING\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\"> The conscious being in us is \ntruly the psychic being. But it is behind at present and out of the picture. \nWhat is normally conscious then is the mind, a part of it which has got the \nlight is illumined. We are conscious through this portion, and even we identify \nourselves with it, know and feel it as our self, as &quot;I&quot;.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> The mind, however, has a central \nconsciousness which may be called the Witness Mind, the Purusha in the mind. It \nstands apart and observes whatever is happening in the mind and in other parts \nas well; it is in fact the observer of the whole <i>adhar. </i>The other parts \nare the vital and the physical. The vital too has its own central consciousness, \nits witness Purusha, which observes all the vital movements and also through its \nown angle the other parts. Likewise the physical has a Purusha and it too \nobserves through its own consciousness. The mental Purusha says, &quot;I see I am \nthinking, reasoning etc.&quot;; the vital Purusha says, &quot;I see I am angry, violent or \nenjoying, energising etc.&quot;; the physical Purusha says, &quot;I see I am acting, \nwalking, running etc.&quot; Now each of these three Purushas, in an ordinary person, \nstands separately, each is conscious\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-16</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">in its own way; they are not clearly conscious of each other; \nthey intermix, but not happily, they are more often than not at cross purposes. \nVery rarely are they unified and harmonised or bound together as a team for \nserving a common purpose, a single aim. That union and harmonisation can be done \nonly through the supreme Purusha, the Divine Witness who is the true conscious \nBeing, the one Purusha behind or above all the others, whose light first of all \ncentralises in the psychic being and then through it is canalised into its \ndelegates or emanations on the lower levels, the mind, the vital and the \nphysical.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> What is consciousness? It is the \ninverse of Inconscience. It is the creative essence of the universe: without \nconsciousness there is no creation. Inconscience means non-existence. The \nsupreme Non-manifest becomes conscious of itself, that is, objectifies itself, \nsees itself created or reflected in multiple centres: that is the origin of all \ncreation. By consciousness all is, by unconsciousness nothing is. Consciousness \nis light, consciousness is life.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> The original consciousness is one \nand indivisible and at its highest potential. But when it gets devolved and \ndivided, i.e., individualised, it gets at the same time diffracted and minimised, \nlike the reflections in a rough mirror. What we normally understand by \nconsciousness is this diminished degree of it in the\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-17</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">individual. But although diminished and diffracted in many forms \nand modes, the basic consciousness is still the divine consciousness which is \nthere behind and at the origin of all the partial formulations. It is through \nthis core of Divine Presence—which is nothing else than the psychic—that the \nindividual maintains and develops its contact with the Divine, grows into the \nfullness of the divine consciousness even as an individual and earthly \nembodiment.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-18</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-006_THE CONSCIOUS BEING','','publish','closed','open','','006_the-conscious-being','','','2021-11-23 17:21:16','2021-11-23 17:21:16','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/006_the-conscious-being/',0,'post','',0),(1326,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:16','2021-11-23 17:21:16','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-003_Realisation,Past and Future.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">THE YOGA OF SRI \nAUROBINDO\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p><hr></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"><b><i>Section One</i></b>\n</p>\n<br>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">REALISATION, PAST AND FUTURE\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\"> The whole material and physical \nworld, the whole earth—I mention earth, because we are concerned directly and \nmuch more with it than other regions—has been till now governed by forces of \nconsciousness that come from what Sri Aurobindo calls the Overmind. Even the \nthing man has named God is a force, a power in the Overmind. The entire universe \nhas been, so to say, under the domination of this status of consciousness. Even \nthen, you have to pass through many intermediary grades or levels to arrive at \nthe Overmind and when you reach there the first impression is that of a dazzling \nlight that almost blinds you. But one can and has to press on and go beyond. Sri \nAurobindo says, the rule of the Overmind is precisely coming to its end and the \nrule of the Supermind will replace it. All the past spiritual experiences were \nconcerned with the Overmind: so it is a thing known to all who have found the \nDivine and are identified with Him. What Sri Aurobindo says is this that there \nis something more than the Overmind, something that lies a step higher and that \nit is now the turn of this higher status to come down and reign. We need not \ntalk much of Overmind, because all the saints and seers, all religions and \nspiritual disciplines, scriptures and philosophies have spoken about it at \nlength. All the gods known and familiar to men are there in its\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-3</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">Pantheon. What we want, what is needed at present is a new \nrevelation, a manifestation in a new manner of which very few were conscious in \nthe past. We are not here merely to repeat the past.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> But it is so difficult. It is \ndifficult for people to come out of experiences they have had, of what they have \nheard and read about always and everywhere. It is difficult for them not to \nthink of the Supermind in terms of the Overmind, not to confuse the Supermind \nwith the Overmind. They are unable to conceive of anything beyond or different. \nSri Aurobindo used to say always that his Yoga began where all the past Yogas \nended: in order to realise his Yoga one must have already arrived at the extreme \nlimit of what the ancients realised. In other words, one must have had already \nthe perception of the Divine, the union and identification with the Divine. This \ndivinity, Sri Aurobindo says, is the Divine of the Overmind which is itself \nsomething quite unthinkable for the human consciousness, and even to reach there \none has to rise through many planes of consciousness and, as I said, one gets \ndazzled and dazed even at this level.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> There are beings of the vital \nwho, whenever they appear to man, are taken by him for the supreme godhead. You \nmay call it a disguise, but it is a very successful disguise, for people who see \nit most often get thoroughly convinced that what they see is indeed God himself. \nAnd yet such a god is only a vital being. Even so, the beings of the Overmind \nare stupendous in comparison\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-4</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">with us, human beings, who are truly bewildered whenever we come \nin contact with such entities. And Supermind and supramental beings are yet \nbeyond. So you realise the distance to be covered.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> But there is a kind of Grace that \ncomes to your help. If the scientist had again to go over all the experiments \nthat have been done, all what others have found in the past in his line in order \nto make a further progress, to come to a new discovery, then he will have to \npass his whole life in repeating the past and will have no time for anything \nelse. The scientist just opens instead a book or consults another person who is \nconversant with the past and gets all the knowledge he requires of it. Sri \nAurobindo wanted to do something like that in the spiritual domain. He asks you \nto gather the experience of the past,—it is all there recorded in earth\'s \nhistory, and pass on; basing yourself upon that, you rise up to still higher \nranges.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> You may pertinently ask, however, \nwhy we have not started with overmental beings, we should have had here, say, \nVivekanandas only and not ordinary frail human creatures.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> You think the work would have \nbeen easier? Such beings, on the contrary, would have been less manageable and \nmalleable. For what is most difficult is to convince someone who has had already \na realisation. He believes he has reached the goal and no further progress is \nnecessary for him. It generally happens especially to men who have made effort \nand realised the object of the\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-5</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">effort that they stop with that, because they feel they have \nreached their final goal. They get settled and fixed there. It was their \npersonal goal and they have got it. Their brain gets crystallised and their \nconsciousness fossilised. They will live there all their life and will never \nknow how to move. So I say, those who have had an experience or a realisation in \nthemselves are not necessarily the most advanced. Such a person lacks an element \nof simplicity, modesty, plasticity that spontaneously come to one who feels that \nhe has not grown fully and has to develop further.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> A &quot;realised person&quot;, if I may say \nso graphically and somewhat strongly, is a finished product to be kept in a \nglass-case for show in a museum. He is a sample showing what has been done and \nwhat could be done. But you do not have there the stuff to do more. I would \nprefer for my work to have someone who may have little knowledge, but who has \nmuch good will, a great aspiration, who feels within him this flame, this need \nto go on. I say, he may know little, he may have realised even less, but here is \ngood material with which one can go far, very far. Besides, there is another \npoint to note. As in mountain-climbing a guide is very useful, even \nindispensable, who can show you the proper way and make it easy for you to climb \nhigher and higher altitudes, so in spiritual ascension, a guide, if you have the \ngood fortune to meet one, will help you to rise much higher than you could do \nyourself with your own personal strength and your own personal view of a fixed \ngoal—\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-6</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">you are not proud of your discovery and you do not waste time or \nenergy in useless searches and enquiries.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> That is why\nI prefer children-children in body or\nin soul-and fear grown-ups steeped in \nerudition and realisation.</p> \n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-7</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-003_Realisation,Past and Future','','publish','closed','open','','003_realisationpast-and-future','','','2021-11-23 17:21:16','2021-11-23 17:21:16','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/003_realisationpast-and-future/',0,'post','',0),(1327,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:16','2021-11-23 17:21:16','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-028_Prayer and Aspiration.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">PRAYER AND ASPIRATION\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">There are many kinds of prayers. There is one external and physical, that is to say, simply words learnt by rote and repeated mechanically. It does not mean much. It has usually one result, however, making you quiet. If you go on repeating a few words or sounds for some time, it puts you into a state of calmness in the end. There is another kind which is the natural expression of a wish; you want a particular thing and you express it clearly. You can pray for an object or for a circumstance, you can pray also for a person or for yourself. There is still another kind in which the prayer borders on aspiration and the two meet: it is the spontaneous formulation of a living experience; it shoots out of the depth of your being, it is the utterance of something lived within: it wants to express gratitude for the experience, asks for its continuation or seeks an explanation. It is then what I said almost an aspiration. Aspiration, however, does not necessarily formulate itself in words; if it uses words at all, it makes of them a kind of invocation. Thus, you wish to be in a certain condition. You have, for example, found in you something which is not in harmony with your ideal, a movement of obscurity or ignorance or even bad will. You wish to see it changed. You do not express the thing in so many words, but it rises up in you like a flame, an ardent offering of the experience itself which seeks increase\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-105</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">and greatening, to be made more clear and precise. It is true all this is capable of being expressed in words, if one tries to recall and note down the experience. But the experience, the aspiration itself is, as I say, like a flame shooting up and contains within it the very thing it asks for. I say &quot;asks for&quot;, but the movement is not at all that of a desire; it is truly a flame, the flame of purifying will carrying at its centre the very object which it wished to be realised. The discovery of a fault in you impels you to make it an occasion for more progress, for greater self-discipline, for further ascension towards the Divine. It opens out a door upon your future, which you wish to be clearer, truer, intenser; all that gathers in you like a concentrated force and hurls you up in a movement of ascension. It needs no expression in words. It is indeed a flame that leaps up. Such is true aspiration. Prayer usually is something much more external; it is about a very precise object. It is always formulated; for the formulation itself makes what a prayer is. You may have an aspiration and you can transcribe it into a prayer, but the aspiration itself exceeds the prayer. It is something much more intimate, much more self-forgetful, living only in the object it wishes to be or to do, almost identified with it. A prayer can be of a very high quality. Instead of being a request for a fulfilment of your particular desire, it may express your thankfulness and gratefulness for what the Divine has done and is doing for you. You are not busy with your little self and its egoistic interests, you ask for the Divine\'s ways in you and in the world.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-106</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">This leads you to the border of aspiration. For aspiration too has many degrees and it is expressed on many levels. But the core of aspiration is in the psychic being, it is there at its purest, for there is its origin and source. Prayers come from the other, the lower or secondary levels of being. That is to say, there are physical or material prayers, asking for physical or material things, vital prayers, mental prayers: there are psychic prayers and spiritual prayers too. Each has its own character and its own value. I say again there is a certain type of prayer which is so spontaneous and so disinterested, more like an appeal or a call, generally not for one\'s own sake, but acting sometimes like an intercession with the Divine on behalf of others. Such a prayer is extremely powerful. I have seen innumerable cases where such a prayer had brought about its immediate fulfilment. It means a great faith, a great fervour, a great sincerity and also a great simplicity of heart, something which does not calculate, which does not bargain or barter, does not give with the idea of receiving. The majority of prayers are precisely made with the idea of giving so that one may receive. But I was speaking of the rarer variety which also does exist, which is a kind of thanksgiving, a canticle or a hymn.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nTo sum up then it can be said that a prayer is always formed of words. Words have different values, according to the state of consciousness of the person when he formulates it. But always prayer is a formulated thing. But one can aspire without formulating. And then, prayer\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-107</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">needs a person to whom one prays. There is, of course, a certain class of people whose conception of the universe is such that there is no room in it for the Divine (the famous French scientist Laplace, for example). Such people are not likely to favour the existence of any being superior to themselves to whom they can appeal or look up for guidance and help. There is no question of prayer for them. But even they, though they may not pray, may aspire. They may not believe in God, but they may believe, for example, in progress. They may conceive of the world as a progressive movement, that it is becoming better and better, rising higher and higher, growing constantly to a nobler fulfilment. They can ask for, will for, aspire for such progress; they need not look for the Divine. Aspiration requires faith, certainly, but not faith necessarily in a personal God. But prayer is always addressed to a person, a person who hears it and grants it. There lies the great difference between the two. Intellectual people admit aspiration, but prayer they consider as something inferior, fit for unintellectual persons. The mystics say, aspiration is quite all right, but if your aspiration is to be heard and fulfilled, you must also pray, know how to pray and to whom—who else but the Divine? The aspiration need not be towards any person; the aspiration is not for a person, but for a state of consciousness, a knowledge, a realisation. Prayer adds to it the relation to a person. Prayer is a personal thing addressed to a person for a thing which he alone can grant.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-108</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-028_Prayer and Aspiration','','publish','closed','open','','028_prayer-and-aspiration','','','2021-11-23 17:21:16','2021-11-23 17:21:16','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/028_prayer-and-aspiration/',0,'post','',0),(1328,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:17','2021-11-23 17:21:17','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-001_Pre_Content.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\">\n	<p class=\"paracenter\">\n<img alt=\"40 - 0001-1.jpg\" src=\"/Nolini/The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo Part - 7/_images/40 - 0001-1.jpg\" style=\" width:273.84pt; height:429.84pt;\"></p>\n	<hr>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"><b>\nTHE YOGA </b>\n<b>OF </b>\n<b>SRI AUROBINDO</b></p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"><b>\nPart Seven</b></p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\nNOLINI KANTA GUPTA</p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\nSRI AUROBINDO ASHRAM </p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\">\n	PONDICHERRY\n	</p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\">\n	<b>1955</b></p>\n	<hr>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"><i>\nPublishers :  </i></p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\">\n	sri aurobindo ashram \n	</p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\">\n	pondicherry</p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\nFirst Edition ...... March, \n1955</p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"><i>\nAll rights Reserved</i></p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\nSri Aurobindo Ashram Press </p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\">\n	Pondicherry</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\nPrinted \nin India</p></td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','the-yoga-of-sri-aurobindo-part-7-001_Pre_Content','','publish','closed','open','','the-yoga-of-sri-aurobindo-part-7-001_pre_content','','','2021-11-23 17:21:17','2021-11-23 17:21:17','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/the-yoga-of-sri-aurobindo-part-7-001_pre_content/',0,'post','',0),(1329,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:17','2021-11-23 17:21:17','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-032_How to feel that we belong to the Divine.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">HOW TO FEEL THAT WE BELONG TO THE DIVINE\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n<i>How to feel that we belong to the Divine and that the Divine is acting in us?</i>\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nNot with the head, although one can always begin by it; for the light touches the head first. One must feel with one\'s sensation, that is, sense it in a flaming aspiration that seeks to realise. For example, as it may happen sometimes to an athlete: supposing you are trying to lift <b>a </b>heavy weight and are intensely concentrated upon it. Suddenly you feel without your knowing it how, that another Force is lifting it up, something has taken hold of your hands and is making them do the impossible. The body seems to be inexistent at that moment. Many writers too have the same experience. Something in them which is not their own self thinks, sees much more clearly, is infinitely more conscious, and organises the thoughts and the words. It is not the writer that writes but this something else. At such times the small person which struggles and attempts is no longer there. Indeed, for the experience to be complete and not to disturb it, the physical person must keep quiet as much as possible.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nTo have such an experience, you must first have the will for it; you must will and aspire, try to be less and less an egoist, to have less and less the feeling of being a particular\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-115</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">person. You must have then within you this flame, this ardent yearning, this need of union. It is a kind of luminous enthusiasm that possesses you, an irresistible necessity of your being to dissolve in the divine and not to be separately. True, it is a state that does not last long—in the beginning—you have the contrary experience immediately after. But if you continue, persist in your will and aspiration, the other state will come again. The two alternate for a time till the complete fusion is achieved. Finally there is no longer the distinction of your personal being and the Divine Being, the two are one. There is no more the state of yearning towards, an ecstatic sense of submission in which the two are still separate. The state of fusion and mingling, of complete identity is extremely simple and supremely spontaneous. I heard once from an Indian Sufi at Paris of this state of consciousness. They too knew of it.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\n<i>Is that then the final stage, no more progress after that?</i>\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThere is no end to progress. For, this perfect union can happen before the \ntransformation of the body. The union is a thing of the consciousness. There is \na great difference between even physical consciousness and physical matter. The \nmost advanced mystic may get to the realisation in the physical consciousness, \nbut that does not include physical matter. The transformation of the material \nbody has not been done nor even attempted perhaps in the past. It can be done \nonly if life is sufficiently prolonged;</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-116</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">you do not leave the body unless you will it so and thus have the necessary time at your disposal to bring about the change, Sri Aurobindo once said—and he said it without the least hesitation—that it will take about three hundred years to do it, I can add, from the time when the last stage of union with the Divine I have described is achieved.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThree hundred years is the minimum, I should say. You must realise what it means to transform the body. The body with all its organs and functionings works automatically without the intervention of your consciousness, and is built upon an animal plan. If your heart stops for the hundredth part of a second, your body goes off. You cannot do without a single of your organs and you must keep watch over their proper functioning. Transformation means the replacement of this purely material arrangement by a systematic concentration of forces. You must bring about an arrangement of forces, according to a certain kind of vibrations, replacing each organ by a centre of self-conscious energy which governs through the concentration of a higher force. There will no longer be a stomach, no more a heart even. These things will give place to a system of vibrations which respresent what they really are. The material organs are symbols of energy centres; they are not the essential reality, they only give a form or figure to it under certain circumstances. The transformed body will function through its real energy centres, not through their representatives as developed in an animal body. For that you must first of all be\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-117</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">conscious of these centres and their functionings; instead of an unconscious automatic movement there has to be a movement of conscious control. Thus one will have at his disposal not physical animal organs but the symbolic vibrations, the symbolic energies. This does not mean that there will not be any definite recognizable form. The form will be built up with qualities rather than with solid (dust) particles. It will be so to say a practical or pragmatic form: it will be supple and mobile, unlike the fixed grossly material shape. As the expression of your face changes with your feeling, impulsion, even so the body will change according to the need of the inner movement: have you never had this kind of experience in your dream? You rise up in the air and you give as it were a push with your elbow in one direction and your body extends that way; you give a kick with your foot and you land somewhere else: you can be transparent at will and go easily through a solid wall! The transformed body will behave somewhat in the same way, it will be light, lurninous, elastic. Lightness, luminosity, elasticity will be the very fundamental qualities of the body.</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nTo prepare such a body 300 years is nothing; even a thousand years will not be too much. Naturally, I am speaking of the same body. If you change your body in between, it will no longer be the same body. At 50 the body already begins to wear out. But, on the contrary, if you have a body that goes on perfecting itself, if each passing year represents a step in progress, then you can continue indefinitely: for after all, you are immortal.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-118</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">There is another difficulty one has to face in the work of transformation. A particular body cannot change unless there is some sort of a corresponding change in the surrounding bodies and in the surroundings generally also; for one lives and moves through mutual interchange in the midst of others. A collective change takes more time than individual change. So it is no longer an individual consciousness, but the collective consciousness that has to do the work.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe world progresses. And being in the world you too must progress. It is a progress, however, which the Divine effects in you without your knowledge or collaboration. The progress is therefore very slow; Nature does not calculate the time she takes for her work, she has eternity before her and she is not in a hurry. Centuries and millenniums are mere instants in her march forward. One day she will arrive at the goal she has fixed for her, even at the complete transformation of the body and the advent of the superman. But the work will be hastened if there is conscious collaboration from man. Most people, by far the largest majority indeed, are not conscious of the action of the Divine in them. To be conscious means to be attentive to what is being done, to be receptive and to be passive to its influence. The more you give yourself and the more sincere you are, the swifter and the more assured is your realisation. You can do in a few moments what would otherwise take years. That is the aim of Yoga.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-119</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-032_How to feel that we belong to the Divine','','publish','closed','open','','032_how-to-feel-that-we-belong-to-the-divine','','','2021-11-23 17:21:17','2021-11-23 17:21:17','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/032_how-to-feel-that-we-belong-to-the-divine/',0,'post','',0),(1330,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:17','2021-11-23 17:21:17','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-004_The Spiral Universe.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">THE SPIRAL UNIVERSE\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">Evolution does not proceed in a straight line, but in a spiral. That is \nto say, it is not a constant progress in one direction, but consists of \nprogression, regression and an ultimate progression. The spiral movement means \nthat all things must enter into the phenomenon of evolution, so that it is not \none thing only that progresses and others remain behind but that all move \nforward—all move forward but at different speeds and also from different \nstarting-points. And they move not straight as the crow flies, but in a circle \nlike the soaring eagle. When you concentrate upon one point of the circle, you \nwill see relatively to it many others not advancing at all but receding and the \npoint itself will seem at times to be going back towards a position already left \nbehind. One goes back to pick up certain elements that have not been included in \nthe progress, not properly dealt with. It happens usually that when you progress \nin one thing, you forget another; so you have to turn back and take up the \nneglected element. Thus you have to go round and round, as it were, until you \ninclude the totality of your being, even embrace the totality of the universe. \nWhen you have, however, gathered the bypassed factor and come back to the \noriginal position from where you seemed to have\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-8</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">regressed, you find that you are \nnot exactly at the same point but at a corresponding point on a higher plane. \nThat forms a spiral, not merely a circle.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> There are, in the universe, an \ninfinite number of points moving, each forming a spiral; so there are an \ninfinite number of spirals. And these spirals do not lie only side by side, but \ncross each other and thus give an aspect of contrariness and contradictoriness. \nSo if you wish to take a total view of the movement of universal progress, you \nwill be somewhat puzzled. There are so many lines that advance and there are so \nmany which recede at the same time. Some come into the light, others go into the \nbackground and none independent or self-sufficient. There is a sort of \nintermingling, even coordination.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> The universe can thus be \nconceived as a globe consisting of an infinite number of intersecting spirals. \nOne can give to each spiral a different colour, each representing one aspect of \nnature\'s movement. A model globe of this kind may perhaps be constructed. A \nsection only of the curve of a spiral is on the outside, the rest is within the \nglobe and can be seen because of its special colour, provided we consider the \nglobe as something transparent. It is these multiple sections outside that form \nthe surface of the globe. The inside is of course full of spirals, excepting \nthat section of a spiral which is outside. And yet though crossing and \nrecrossing they do not form an opaque mass. One can see through and follow the \nbrilliant lines of various colours. That is\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-9</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">how I see it. You can try to make \na geometrical figure of it, if possible.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> Nature has a plan of its own. It \nis not like the coherent rational plan of man. Nature\'s plan is made of an \naspiration, a decision and a goal. But the way is quite fantastic, so it appears \nto man. Nature seems to move from moment to moment, under the stress of the \noccasion; there are advances, withdrawals, trials, contradictions, demolitions \nof things, laborious building up, and again throwing down. It is a complete \nchaos. She begins a thing, leaves it half done, takes up another, rejects one \nthing altogether, begins anew something left off, makes, remakes, unmakes, \nseparates, mixes up. She follows a million lines of advance at the same time but \nnot from the same point and each with its own speed and rhythm. There is such a \ntangle that seems to make no sense. Still there is a plan, she pursues an object \nwhich seems to be very clear to her, although veiled to the human eye. The \nspiral globe I spoke of was meant to give some idea of this complex unity in \nNature\'s plan.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> You can bring in a better order, \nwith less waste and more efficiency a more conscious organisation. But for that \nman must change his own inner organisation first. In his own consciousness and \nbeing he must bring out a new order, a new cosmos.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-10</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-004_The Spiral Universe','','publish','closed','open','','004_the-spiral-universe','','','2021-11-23 17:21:17','2021-11-23 17:21:17','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/004_the-spiral-universe/',0,'post','',0),(1331,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:17','2021-11-23 17:21:17','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-042_The Homogeneous Being.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">THE HOMOGENEOUS BEING\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nA thing is homogeneous when all its parts are similar, are <i>like itself; </i>\nin other \nwords, when the whole being is under the same influence, moved by the same \nconsciousness, the same impulsion, the same \nwill. \nNormally\na man is formed of \nmany kinds of fragments, all\ndisparate, each \nbecoming active in its turn at different moments. \nA part may become active, so different from the previous one, that the \nman \nseems altogether a new \nperson. Each element in us has its own nature and activity, demands its own \nfulfilment, acts almost as an independent personality. We are composed indeed of \nmultiple personalities.</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThus, for example, you are now in a very good \nstate of consciousness. You have the feeling that you really live for an\n ideal, for the Divine and are happy. Suddenly something happens; you \nmeet someone, not very desirable, or you do something, not commendable, \nor you are in the midst of some untoward circumstances and you find you \nhave lost your experience, so much so that you may even lose the memory \nof it. You wonder how this could have happened. A submerged part of your\n being has come up, an element that lay aside is now in front: it has \ncome overshadowing or pushing the other into the background.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThere are many examples of such double, triple, \nquadruple or multiple personality. The separate personalities are not \nconscious of each other, each acts independently\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-161</p>\n<br><hr>\n<p class=\"para\">and goes \nits own way. \nThey live together, but do not mix or mingle with each other; they are contained \nin the same body, that is the only connection. It is like a sack in which \npebbles and pearls-if they are indeed real pearls -have been thrown together and \nthe only bond of union is the sack. This is not homogeneity; this is called \nheterogeneity.</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nI knew a person who had a will, a clarity of \nthought and ideas, who prepared intelligently all that needed to be done\n with regard to a particular work. All on a sudden there was a reversal \nof the whole being. Another person surged up who not only did not \ncontinue the work of his predecessor, but undid it all. He destroyed in 10 minutes\n what took months for the other to build up. And you can understand the \ndismay of the first person when he came back and saw the havoc done: he \nhad to start over again. \n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"><i> What then one should do? What is the remedy? \n</i></p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">You have to find out in you a seat of consciousness, a signpost firmly \nplanted, deep inside, which is at the same time a mirror. All things, \nall happenings must pass in front of the mirror; they will be reflected \nthere in their true nature, exactly as they are in their truth and not \nas they appear or pretend to be. And according to their nature and \nquality you are to give them places around; the signpost will show where\n each has to go for its place. The Mirror will judge and test each \nsentiment, each impulse, each sensation that comes up. If it is \npleasant, if it is luminous, if it is what it should be, give it a place\n near the centre. If, on the other hand, it is grey, obscure, </p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-162</p>\n<br><hr>\n<p class=\"para\">doubtful, put it away, farther off. If, by \nchance, any of the unpleasant elements has forced its way up and \noccupied a near seat, you must warn it sternly and remove it, give it \nits appropriate seat; when it has recognised itself, changed itself, \nthen only it can be allowed within a nearer ring. It is in this way that\n you should arrange and group all the elements of your being, according \nto the value and quality of each one around the central consciousness. \nThat is how you organise your being. You build up a pattern of \nconcentric rings, the nearer the ring to the centre, the purer must be \nthe elements that compose it and therefore of greater value and \nsignificance. If you can arrange in this way all the parts and parcels \nof your being around the psychic centre, each in its own place according\n to its role and function and all turned towards the central \nconsciousness and inspired and moved by it and there is no element which\n sounds a differing note, then you have the perfect homogeneity of your \nnature.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIt is a very interesting exercise in which you \ncan engage yourself. If you take it up and follow regularly and \nassiduously, you will amuse yourself immensely and with profit. Time \nwill never hang heavy, it will bear golden fruits. At the end, say of \ntwo or three years, you will see, if you look back, how much you have \nchanged, you wonder how you could have thought or acted as you did. You \nfind yourself a considerably changed personality. You can start the \nexperiment from today itself and see how life becomes more and more \namusing, interesting and significant.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-163</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-042_The Homogeneous Being','','publish','closed','open','','042_the-homogeneous-being','','','2021-11-23 17:21:17','2021-11-23 17:21:17','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/042_the-homogeneous-being/',0,'post','',0),(1332,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:17','2021-11-23 17:21:17','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-022_Why are Dreams Forgotten.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">WHY ARE DREAMS FORGOTTEN?\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\"> It is because dreams do not occur \nalways in the same domain. It is not always the same part of the being that \ndreams nor is it the same place where one dreams. If one were in conscious \ncommunication with all the parts of one\'s being then one would remember all his \ndreams. But it is only with a few parts of your being that you remain in \nconscious contact in sleep. For example, you have a dream in the subtle \nphysical, that is to say, in the domain very near the physical. This generally \nhappens towards the end of the night, in the early hours of the morning just \nbefore you get up (say between four and five). Before rising from bed, if you \nremain very quiet, without making any movement and concentrate a little, you \nwill be able to remember the dreams that you had immediately before: the \ncommunication between the physical and the subtle physical being close, you \nwould be able to remember easily enough. Now if you begin from the beginning \nwhat happens is something like this. As you fall into sleep, the body becomes \nquiet and the vital too goes to rest; but the mind continues to be active, it \nhas not gone to sleep. You have now what are called mental dreams built out of \nall kinds of ideas and imaginations set free. After a time the mind gets tired \nand falls silent; the vital has rested sufficiently and wakes up in its turn and \nmoves about. Your dreams of the mental domain\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-78</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">are pushed back giving place to vital dreams. When you are \nactive in the vital you very often go out of your body, visit all kinds of \nplaces and get involved in various exploits and adventures. If you wake up \nsuddenly then, you would remember your vital exploits in sleep. Some people \ntrain themselves to get up at fixed hour of the night. They thus bring to memory \nthe dreams they had just before waking. Now the vital too after having been \nsufficiently active gets tired and goes to rest. Yet another part of the being \nnow replaces the vital and comes forward. It may be the turn of the subtle \nphysical to enter the arena. The vital is pushed back and you lose contact with \nit.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> To become conscious of all the \nvarious movements of your nights, to recover them in your memory, some sort of \ntraining is necessary. The different states of the being in which you roam at \nnight are, as you have seen, usually separate from each other. There is a gap in \nbetween two states; you jump from one to the other. There is no highway passing \nthrough all the domains of your consciousness connecting them without break or \ninterruption. That means forgetfulness. When you leap from one into the other, \nyou push back, that is forget, the one you leave behind. So you have to \nconstruct a bridge and very few people know how to do it; it requires more \nengineering skill than to build a material bridge. You may have very wonderful \nexperiences in sleep, but you forget them all; perhaps you remember, as I have \nsaid, the last one, the one nearest to the physical mind. The\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-79</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">best way then to remember and become conscious of the whole \nnight is to begin at the end and go backward. Catch hold of the last image that \nstill persists in your memory, like the loose end of a thread and then pull, \npull slowly, till image after image comes back: it is something like the \nunrolling of a cinema film in the reverse direction. When you lose trace, stop \nand concentrate a little; try to call back whatever stray bit or faint \nimpression still persists or can be more easily revived and then again pull \nslowly, gently, pick up whatever shows itself, try to join the bits. In this \nway, after some trial and training you will be able to recover a good part of \nthe lost underworld.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> There are, however, many ways of \ngoing about the thing. For you must know that your nights are not all the same. \nEach one is different and brings its own kind of sleep and dream. As each day is \ndifferent having its own particular kind of activity, each night too likewise \ncomes with its peculiar experiences. You may think that one day is more or less \nexactly like the previous day, that you are doing the same thing from day to \nday; but it is not so. Outwardly the activities may appear to be the same, but \nreally their nature and significance vary from one day to another. No two \nmoments are alike in the universe. Your night too is an universe of its own \nkind. Each night brings its own problem and needs its own solution.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-80</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-022_Why are Dreams Forgotten','','publish','closed','open','','022_why-are-dreams-forgotten','','','2021-11-23 17:21:17','2021-11-23 17:21:17','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/022_why-are-dreams-forgotten/',0,'post','',0),(1333,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:17','2021-11-23 17:21:17','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-044_The Divine Family.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">THE DIVINE FAMILY\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nWhen people, far separated from one another, \nbelonging to different parts of the world or pursuing most diverse \nprofessions, meet and gather and work for a common purpose, it means \nthat they are kindred souls and have met together and worked together \nbefore in other lives. They felt they belonged to the same family and \nresolved to act together and collaborate in a common endeavour for a \ncommon ideal. Indeed, the souls, in their psychic reality, are grouped \nin big families, as it were; they come down in groups again and again to\n take up and continue the work they are engaged in till it is complete.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nAt a given moment, when the time is ripe, they \nare called up. The souls are like children asleep, in the peace and \nrepose of the psychic world, awaiting the urge or order for another \nbirth. As soon as the order is given, they wake up and rush down towards\n the earth. When they drop thus into the earth\'s atmosphere, they are no\n longer together, they are scattered about all over the earth. One does \nnot know even where one drops. Also once under the material conditions \nand circumstances here below, things take a very different aspect. For, \nthe inner impulse, the original purpose gets veiled; the psychic forgets\n itself and is now surrounded and hedged in by forces, things and \npersons perhaps quite foreign and contradictory to its nature. Now comes\n the\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-170</p>\n<br><hr>\n<p class=\"para\">labour of the soul, to find itself, to look about\n for the lost end of the thread. The inner urge must be strong enough, \nthe original will categorical enough for the being to surmount all \nobstacles, pass through all vicissitudes, work through all the windings \nof a labyrinthine journey and finally arrive. Some perhaps do not arrive\n at all in a particular life or arrive only to stop at a distance: \nothers arrive not in a straight line, but, as I have said, after a \ntortuous and round-about wandering. In other words, in their external \nmind and impulsion, they look for other things, they are interested in \nobjects that are far other than the soul\'s interest—like the person who \nenquired of Yoga, as she thought a Yogi could give her back her spoilt \nbeauty. And yet the soul makes use of such trivial or absurd means to \nturn the man towards itself, guide him gradually to the place or the \nfamily to which he really belongs.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe material world is full of things that draw \nyou away from your soul\'s quest, from approaching your home. Normally \nyou are tossed about by the forces of ignorant Nature and you are driven\n even to do the utmost stupidities. There is but one solution, to find \nyour psychic being; and once you have found it, cling to it desperately \nand not to allow yourself to be drawn out by any temptation, any other \nimpulsion whatsoever.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-171</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-044_The Divine Family','','publish','closed','open','','044_the-divine-family','','','2021-11-23 17:21:17','2021-11-23 17:21:17','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/044_the-divine-family/',0,'post','',0),(1334,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:17','2021-11-23 17:21:17','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-008_Record of World-History.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">RECORD OF WORLD-HISTORY\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nAll that has happened upon earth, everything from the beginning of \ncreation till now, everything without exception has been recorded somewhere in \nsome particular world or region of consciousness. All that man has thought, his \nresearches and discoveries, his findings and conclusions are kept intact, \ncarefully stored. If you want to know anything of the past history of the earth, \nthe happening at a particular time and place, you have simply to transplant \nyourself into that world and look into the records.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> It is a very curious place, \nsomething like a vast library. It consists of an infinite number of cells, as it \nwere, each containing all information on a particular subject. They seem to be \nsquares in shape and they remain closed normally. If you have to consult a \nparticular square, you press a button and it opens and out of it comes a roll of \nwritten matter. You unroll it and find out what you want. There are millions and \nmillions and millions of these cells and rolls, around, above, everywhere. \nFortunately in the mental world you can move anywhere as you like, you do not \nrequire lifts and ladders to get up.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> The point, however, is how to go \nthere at all. Well, the first thing is that you must completely silence your \nmind. Mental cogitations, agitations you must leave behind, no thoughts must \nenter your consciousness, it\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-19</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">must be tranquil and still, like \na transparent sheet of water or smooth and polished like a mirror. The \ndescription I have given of a library is only an image, the real thing is \nsomething different. However, you have in this way some idea to go upon. In the \nsilent mind you form a point of consciousness and send it out as an emissary to \ngather the required information. This point of consciousness must be absolutely \ndetached and free to go as it likes; for if it were in any way kept tied to the \nnormal movements of your own mind, then you will not go further than what is in \nyour head. You must be able to make your brain a blank, you must have no \npreconceived notion, no idea that the solution of your problem might lie in this \nway or that. As I say, your mind has to be a thoroughly blank page, a clean \nslate, with nothing written on it, no mark even. There should be instead a \nsincere aspiration to know the truth, without postulating beforehand what kind \nof truth it might be; otherwise you will meet your own formation in the brain.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> You can certainly test and \ncorrect the information you get from your inner voyage by outside information, \nwhat others have found or what is recorded in books. The inner knowledge need \nnot and should not replace, the outer knowledge, but supplement it, both should \nsupport and complete each other. But there is a mixture about which you must be \nvery careful. Your silent mind, your inner consciousness receives the necessary \nknowledge, but as you want to express it or translate in normal terms, that is \nto say, as your brain gets active again, it may and\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-20</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">often does supply its own \nmaterials and formations and the original knowledge gets disturbed and \ndistorted. Sometimes what you may do is to dictate most passively the things you \nsee or perceive and let another take down in writing as you proceed. You must \nsay exactly as you see and the other write down exactly as he hears.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> It is the image of reading a book \nthat I have given you. But it is, as I said, only an image. What it is really is \na kind of perception. And the perception may be in the form of an image, it may \nbe in the form of a narrative. At other times it may be a simple answer to a \nparticular question. There are many kinds and varieties of record, differing \naccording to the types or levels of consciousness that you go to.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nNaturally the process is not easy and available to everybody, as an \nordinary book. It requires a special aptitude and a special discipline.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-21</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-008_Record of World-History','','publish','closed','open','','008_record-of-world-history','','','2021-11-23 17:21:17','2021-11-23 17:21:17','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/008_record-of-world-history/',0,'post','',0),(1335,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:17','2021-11-23 17:21:17','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-035_Yogic Centres.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"><i>Section Five</i>\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">THE YOGIC CENTRES\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThere are, of course, the seven well-known \nyoga-centres in the human body. They are, beginning from below, (1) the \nend of the spine, (2) the lower abdomen, (3) the navel, (4) the heart, \n(5) the throat, (6) between the eyebrows and (7) the crown of the head. \nBut there are others extending from below the spine which are not so \nwell-known. It is true, however, that the centres in the individual \nbeing end with the spine; what is below belongs more to the universal \nnature. There is a centre above and beyond the crown; there is also, on \nthe other side, a centre below and away from under the feet. The \nyoga-centres are centres of consciousness and energy; they are the \nsources of the various types and qualities of consciousness and \nenergy—they indicate the many planes of consciousness-energy. There are \npeople who actually feel that their force and strength come from below, \nas if these stream into them like a spring from under the feet. This \nregion from below the spine-end to the feet is that of the subconscient \nand what extends further down is the domain of the inconscient. We may \ndistinguish five more centres in this lower or infra-spinal region apart\n from the spine-end itself <i>(muladhara), </i>\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-129</p>\n<br><hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\nof centres as twelve—the mystic number for completeness or integrality.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe centre at the bottom of the spine, which is the \nbasis of the individual consciousness is seen as a serpent —a serpent \ncoiled up and asleep, with perhaps just the head sticking up in a very \nsomnolent manner. It represents the normal human consciousness, bottled \nup, narrow, ignorant, asleep; human energy, too, at this level is \nobscure and mechanical, extremely limited. The whole energy potential, \nthe consciousness-force is locked up in the physical body consciousness.\n Now the serpent does not remain asleep forever. It has to wake up, it \nwakes up. That is to say, man\'s consciousness awakes, grows and rises \nupward. The serpent one day shakes its head, lifts it up a little more, \nbegins to sway its hood, as if trying to throw off the sleep and look \nabout. It slowly uncoils itself and rises more and more. It rises and \npasses through the centres one by one, becomes more and more awake, \ngathers new light and potency at each centre. Finally, fully awakened, \nit rises to its full height, erect, straight like a rod, its tail-end at\n the bottom of the spine and its hood touching the crown of the man\'s \nhead. The man is then the fully awakened, the perfectly self-conscious \nman. The movement does not stop there, however; for the serpent presses \nfurther on, it strikes with its hood the bottom of the crown and in the \nend breaks through and passes beyond like a flash of lightning. One need\n not fear the break through, there is no actual, physical breaking or \nfracture of the\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-130</p>\n<br><hr>\n<p class=\"para\">skull. Although it is said that once you have gone \nover and beyond your head, you are not likely to return, you go for \ngood. In other words, the body does not hold together very long after \nthe experience, it drops and dies. And yet it need not be so, it is not \nthe whole truth. For when you have gone beyond, you can come back too, \ncarrying the superconscient light with you. That is to say, the serpent,\n now luminous,—pure and free energy —can enter the body again, this time\n with its head down and the tail up. It enters blazing, illumining with \nits superconscient light the centres one by one, giving man richer and \nricher consciousness, energy and life, transforming the being more and \nmore. The Light comes down easily enough to the heart region; then the \ndifficulty begins, the regions below gradually become darker and denser \nand it is hard task for the Light to penetrate as it goes further down. \nIf it succeeds in reaching the bottom of the spine, it has achieved \nsomething miraculous. But there is a further progress necessary, if \nman—and the world with him—is to realise a wholly transformed \nsupraconscient life. In other words, the Light must touch and enter not \nonly the physical stratum of our being but the others too that lie \nbelow, the subconscient and inconscient. That has been till now a sealed\n dungeon, something impossible to approach and tackle.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nAnd yet it is not an impossibility. Not only it is \nnot impossible, we have to make it possible. Not only so, man\'s destiny \ndemands that it should be inevitable. If man is to be a transformed \nbeing, if he is to incarnate\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-131</p>\n<br><hr>\n<p class=\"para\">here below something of the Divine Reality, if his \nsocial life on earth is to be the expression of the light and harmony of\n the Spirit Consciousness, then he has to descend into these nether \nregions, break open the nethermost as he has done in regard to the \nuppermost and unite the two.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nHere is a curious story about man and his destiny. \nWhat is he, the normal man? He is a slave, a bond slave. He may have the\n illusion that he has ideas and movements, his own, he has even free \nscope to put them to execution. But it will not take long to discover \nthat it is an illusion, a great deception. His plans do not mature, his \nefforts beat against an iron wall. The more he observes and sees things \nsquarely he finds that he is bound hand and foot. He is driven by forces\n and things over which he has no control whatsoever. He is a slave to \ncircumstances; he is checked by the will of others. His own will has no \npower or scope; it is wholly ineffectual. He feels more and more a great\n burden pressing upon the back of the head bending it down, a heavy \nweight lies upon his shoulders. He somehow trudges on like a beast of \nburden. He has no free choice or will; his wishes and desires are not \nconsulted. He is driven helplessly on.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nBut the story does not end here. Man can, if he \nchooses, alter the situation, turn the tables. He has in him the source \nof freedom—what he vaguely feels in his outer consciousness; there is a \ncentre from where he is capable of reacting and reasserting. It is the \ncentre\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-132</p>\n<br><hr>\n<p class=\"para\">where lies his <i>dharma, </i>\nthe law of his being. It is \nhis soul. If he once comes in contact with that, makes that the base of his \nlife, he is free from that moment. He holds his head erect. He is no longer bent \ndown. The burden of inexorable circumstances weighs no more on him. He has \ntranscended the circumstances, he stands over them, looks over them. He is now \nthe master and they obey him, he has not to obey them.</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThis consummation is supremely effected when there \nis the double breaking of the barrier I was speaking about. The first is\n the piercing of the veil above, when the consciousness rises into the \nsuperconscient, takes the human being into the divine being; the second \nis the rending of the lower veil and the descent of the divine \nconsciousness into the most material, the subconscient and the \ninconscient, realising the divine life on earth.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-133</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-035_Yogic Centres','','publish','closed','open','','035_yogic-centres','','','2021-11-23 17:21:17','2021-11-23 17:21:17','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/035_yogic-centres/',0,'post','',0),(1336,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:17','2021-11-23 17:21:17','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-048_Specialisation.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">SPECIALISATION\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nYou must extend, enlarge, enrich your mind. It must be full of thoughts and ideas. It must be stored with the results of your observation and study. It must not be a &quot;poor mind&quot;, a mind, that is to say, that has not many ideas nor the capacity of reasoning and argument. Your mind must be capable of thinking of many different things, gathering knowledge of different kinds, considering a problem from many different sides, not following only a single line or track: it must be somewhat like a Japanese fan opening out full circle in all directions.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nYou have, for example, several subjects to learn at school. Well, learn as many as possible. If you read at home, read as many varieties as possible. I know you are usually asked and advised to follow a different way. You are to take as few subjects as possible and <i>specialise. </i>\nYes, that is the general \nideal: <i>specialisation, </i>to be an expert in \none thing. If you \nwish to be a good philosopher, do philosophy only; \nif \nyou wish to be a good \nchemist, do only chemistry; and even you should concentrate upon only one \nproblem or thesis in philosophy or chemistry. In sports you are asked to do the \nsame. Choose one item and ft.&quot; your attention upon that alone. If you want to be \na good tennis player, think of tennis alone. However, lam not of that opinion. \nMy experience is different. I believe, there are general faculties in man which \nhe should acquire \n<br>\n</p><p class=\"pageno\">Page-189</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">and cultivate more than specialise himself. Of course, if it is your ambition to be a Monsieur or Madame Curie who wanted to discover one particular thing, to find out a new mystery of a definite kind, then you have to concentrate upon the one thing in view. But even then, once the object is gained, you can turn very well to other things. Besides, it is not an impossibility in the midst of the one-pointed pursuit to find occasions and opportunities to be interested in other pursuits.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nFrom my childhood I have been hearing of the same lesson; I am afraid it was taught also in the days of our fathers and grandfathers and great grandfathers, namely, that if you wish to be successful in something you must do that only and nothing else. I was rebuked very much because I was busy with many different things at the same time. I was told I would be in the end good for nothing. I was studying, I was painting, I was doing music and many other things. I was repeatedly warned that my painting would be worthless, my music would be worthless, my studies would be incomplete and defective if I had my way. Perhaps it was true; but I found my way had its advantages also—precisely the advantages I was speaking of at the outset, namely, it widens and enriches the mind and consciousness, makes it supple and flexible, gives it a spontaneous power to understand and handle anything new presented to it. If, however, I had wanted to become an executant of the first order and play in concerts, then of course I would have had to restrict myself. Or in painting if my aim was to be one of the great\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-190</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">artists of the age, I could have done only that and nothing else. One understands the position very well, but it is only a point of view. I do not see why I should become the greatest musician or the greatest painter. It seems to me to be nothing but vanity.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nBut it is a very natural and spontaneous movement in man to change from one work to another in order to maintain a kind of balance. Change also means rest. We have often heard of great artists or scholars seeking for rest and having great need of it. They find it by changing their activity. For example, Ingres was a painter; painting was his normal and major occupation. But whenever he found time he took up his violin. Curiously, it was his violin which interested him more than his painting. He was not very good at music, but he took great pleasure in it. He was sufficiently good at painting, but it interested him less. But the real thing is that he needed a stable poise or balance. Concentration upon a single thing is very necessary, I have said, if one aims at a definite and special result; but one can follow a different line that is more subtle, more comprehensive and complete. Naturally, there is a physical limit somewhere to your comprehensiveness; for on the physical plane you are confined in respect of time and space; and also it is true that great things are difficult to achieve unless there is a special concentration. But if you want to lead a higher and deeper life, you can command capacities which are much greater than those available to the methods of restriction and limitation belonging to the normal consciousness.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-191</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">There is a considerable advantage in getting rid of one\'s limits, if not from the point of view of actual accomplishment, at least from the point of view of spiritual realisation.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-192</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-048_Specialisation','','publish','closed','open','','048_specialisation','','','2021-11-23 17:21:17','2021-11-23 17:21:17','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/048_specialisation/',0,'post','',0),(1337,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:18','2021-11-23 17:21:18','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-033_Sincerity is Victory.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">SINCERITY IS VICTORY\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nTo be sincere and to be candid are not the same thing. To be candid means a simplicity based, in a large measure, upon an ignorance of things. A child is candid, because he is simple and ignorant and hides nothing; he is incapable of it and has no will to deceive anyone. But sincerity is different.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nSincerity is a most difficult thing to have, but it is also the most effective of things. If you have sincerity, you are sure of victory. But it must be true sincerity. Sincerity means that all the elements of your being, all its movements, each and every one, from the most spiritual to the most physical, from the inmost to the outermost, from the topmost to the bottom-most, all parts, severally and wholly and equally are turned to the Divine, they ask for nothing else than the Divine, they live for and by the Divine.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nAnd it is not an easy thing. To be sincere in a part, to be sincere on the whole, to be sincere at moments is easy enough; everybody can have or achieve that much. It is within the capacity of any human being with normal good will, to be sincere in his psychic movements, even if these are rare. But to be sincere in the very cells of your physical body is a still rarer and arduous achievement. To make the body cells so one-pointed that they too feel they cannot live but for the Divine and in and\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-120</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">through the Divine. That is true sincerity and that is what you must have.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nFirst you must observe that there is not a day in your life, not an hour, not even a minute when you have not got to rectify or intensify your sincerity. I do not say that you deceive the Divine. None can deceive the Divine, not even the greatest of the Asuras. When you have understood that, still then you will always find moments in your everyday life when you try to deceive yourself. Almost automatically you bring forward reasons in favour of whatever you do. I do not speak of grosser things as when you have quarrelled with a person, for example, and in your anger throw the whole blame upon him. I knew a child who gave a good blow to the door, because it thought the door was at fault. It is always the other party who is in the wrong. But even when you have passed beyond this baby stage, when you are supposed to be a little more reasonable, you do the stupidest of things and produce reasons in self-justification. The real test of sincerity, the very minimum of true sincerity lies here; in your reaction to a given situation, whether you can take automatically the right attitude and do exactly the thing to be done. When, for example, one speaks angrily to you, do you catch the contagion and become angry on your side also or are you able to maintain an unshakable calm and lucidity, see the other man\'s point or behave as one should?\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThis is, I say, the very beginning of sincerity, its rudiments. And if you look into you with keener eyes,\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-121</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">you will discover thousands of insincerities, more subtle, none the less seizable. Try to be sincere, occasions will multiply when you catch yourself insincere: you will know how difficult a thing it is. You say you belong to the Divine, to the Divine alone and to nothing or to nobody else; &quot;it is the Divine who moves me and does everything in me&quot;. And then you do whatever pleases you; you use the Divine as a cloak to cover your indulgence of desires and passions. This also is a gross insincerity and it should not be difficult for you to detect it. Although this is a very common deception, more perhaps to deceive others than to deceive oneself. The mind catches hold of an idea, &quot;all this is Brahman&quot;, &quot;I am Brahman&quot;,—and you believe or pretend to believe that you have realised it and you can do nothing wrong. There are however subtler movements of insincerity or want of sincerity, even when you have not put on the divine cloak as the cover for your lapses. Even when you think you are sincere there may be movements which are not quite straight, behind which, if you probe unflinchingly, you will find lurking something undesirable. Look to the little movements, thoughts, sensations and impulses, that crowd the margin of your daily life; how many of them are solely turned to the Divine, how many of them are fired with an aspiration towards something higher? You should consider yourself fortunate if you find a few of the kind.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nWhen I say that if you are sincere you are sure of victory, I mean that kind of sincerity, whole and\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-122</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">undivided: the pure flame that burns like an offering, the intense joy of existing for the Divine alone where nothing else exists, nothing has any meaning or reason for existence but in the Divine. Nothing has value or interest if it is not this call, this aspiration, this opening to the supreme truth; all this that we call the Divine. You must serve the only reason for which the universe exists: take it away, all disappears.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-123</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-033_Sincerity is Victory','','publish','closed','open','','033_sincerity-is-victory','','','2021-11-23 17:21:18','2021-11-23 17:21:18','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/033_sincerity-is-victory/',0,'post','',0),(1338,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:18','2021-11-23 17:21:18','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-029_Offering And Surrender.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">OFFERING AND SURRENDER\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">They are not quite the same thing: they are rather two aspects of the same thing. They do not belong altogether to the same level of consciousness. For example, you have resolved to make an offering of your life to the Divine. All on a sudden there happens a very unpleasant thing: you did not expect it. Your first movement is to react and protest. And yet you have made the offering; but something in you turns. If you are, however, consistent in your offering, you will hold the protesting part in your hands and put it before the Divine and say, &quot;let thy will be done&quot;. In surrender, on the other hand, there is a natural spontaneous unprotesting adhesion. Even if there happens something unpleasant or contrary to your expectations, you are equally unperturbed and tranquil.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIn the beginning you make a general surrender or submission, in principle, as it were: it is in your inner being. It must be brought forth gradually in the outer being, carried out in all the details of life. That is how difficulties arise. You have made your offering, you say, even you have worked at it for a long time, worked hard, given much time and much will; suddenly you find, upsetting your calculations, something different happens, you have not succeeded in something. So there is a revolt, a turning back and so on. But what you have to\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-109</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">do is to renew your offering, reaffirm your adhesion. When the adhesion is complete, when there is the spontaneous acceptance of the Divine Will in everything, in every manner of happening, then comes the surrender, the perfect obedience which is calm, tranquil, at peace in either case, whether things happen in this way or that.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nYou ask if you cannot make a mistake unwittingly, do a wrong even if you do not want to. It is not likely. If you are sincere to the core, you are always conscious and you cannot be taken unawares. It is some form or degree of insincerity that veils your sense of right and wrong, makes you unconscious, as it were. Your discrimination is clouded, because you wish things to happen in a way, or do not wish them to happen in another way. On the other hand, if you are straight, if you are indifferent to either way and await only the Divine\'s will, you will always immediately perceive if there is or likely to be a wrong move in you; you know it intimately in a very precise manner, for you are ready to rectify it.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nPerfect sincerity does not want to err: it will give up everything rather than live in an illusion. It is a very precise movement, but it is also a very delicate movement. For when you do a thing, even the right thing, the mental and the vital are there that seek to profit by it, a profit, at least of personal satisfaction, to have a good opinion of oneself. It is difficult not to hoodwink oneself.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-110</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-029_Offering And Surrender','','publish','closed','open','','029_offering-and-surrender','','','2021-11-23 17:21:18','2021-11-23 17:21:18','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/029_offering-and-surrender/',0,'post','',0),(1339,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:18','2021-11-23 17:21:18','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-015_Divine Justice.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">DIVINE JUSTICE\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n<i>Why do people receive force from the Divine even when He knows that they are not sincere?</i>\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nYou must understand once for all that the Divine, when he acts is not moved by human notions. Possibly he does things even without what we call reason. In any case the reasons are not of the human kind; above all, the Divine has not that sense of justice which man has. For example, when you see a man full of greed for money, trying to cheat people just for the sake of getting a few rupees, your idea of justice cries out that such a man should be deprived of all money, he must be reduced to poverty. But actually you find things happening to the contrary. Although that is only the appearance of the situation; behind there is an altogether different picture. The greedy gets the object of his greed, but he has to make an exchange, give up some other possibilities. He gets money but he loses in his consciousness. And then it also happens very often that when he does get what he desired so much, he finds himself not so happy, generally he is even less happy than before: he is tormented by the wealth he has gained. You must not judge things by apparent success or by apparent failure. One can say, on the whole, that the Divine gives what one asks for and that is the best\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-49</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">way in which one gets his lesson. If your desire is ignorant, unconscious, obscure, selfish, you increase in yourself ignorance, unconsciousness, obscurity and selfishness, that is to say, you move away more and more from truth and consciousness and happiness, away from the Divine, in other words. For the Divine, however, there is only one thing which is true, the Divine Consciousness, the Divine Union. Each time you put material things in front of you, you become more and more material, you push behind more and more the Divine. To the eye of the ignorant you may have all the appearance of wonderful success, but this success, from the standpoint of truth, is a terrible defeat, you have bartered truth for falsehood.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nTo judge by appearances, by apparent success is an act of complete ignorance. Even in the case of a person hardened to the core, who has apparently the utmost success, there is a counterpart: exactly this hardening, this veil that is put up thicker and thicker between the outer consciousness and the inner truth becomes also more and more unbearable. The outer success has to be paid for very dearly. One must be very great, very pure, one must have a very high, very unselfish spiritual consciousness to be able to succeed and yet not be affected. There is nothing so difficult to bear than success. That is the true test in life. When you are not successful, you turn very naturally to yourself, go within you, seek there comfort for the outer failure. And they who have the Flame within them and the Divine helping them truly,\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-50</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">that is to say, if they are mature enough to get the help, if they are ready to follow the path, must expect blows coming upon them one after another, because that helps. Indeed that is the most powerful, most direct and most effective help. But if you have success take care! Ask yourself, at what price you have had it. What is the thing you have paid for the success? Of course there are people of a different kind. They who have gone beyond, who are conscious of their soul, who are entirely surrendered, they can succeed and success does not touch them. But one has to rise very high to be able to shoulder the burden of success. It is perhaps the last and final test that the Divine puts to anyone. He says: &quot;Now that you are noble and high and unselfish, you belong to Me alone. I shall make you triumph. We shall see if you can bear the blow&quot;\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nTo the Asuras too the Divine gives what they ask for. Generally it is in that way that their end comes all the sooner. An Asura is a conscious being. He knows that he has an end. He knows that the attitude he has taken in this universe will necessarily destroy him after a time. Of course the Asura\'s time is much longer than human time. Even then he knows that there will come an end for him, for he has cut himself from Eternity. What he seeks is to carry out his desires to the utmost extent possible till the day of his doom, the final defeat comes. And very possibly if he is allowed his way the defeat will be hastened. That is why exactly when great things are about to happen, at that moment the adverse forces\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-51</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">become the most active, most violently active and apparently the most successful. They are given a free field as it were to rush to their doom.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-52</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-015_Divine Justice','','publish','closed','open','','015_divine-justice','','','2021-11-23 17:21:18','2021-11-23 17:21:18','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/015_divine-justice/',0,'post','',0),(1340,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:18','2021-11-23 17:21:18','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-024_On Occultism.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"><i>Section Four</i></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<hr></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">ON OCCULTISM\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">It has been often said and it is very true that as soon as you enter the domain of the invisible, the very first things you meet are literally frightful. If you have no fear, then alone you are safe; but the least fear means the utmost peril. It is for this reason that in ancient days the aspirant had to pass through a severe discipline for a long time precisely with the object of getting rid of fear and therefore of all possibility of danger before he was permitted to start on the way.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThat is why till now I have not spoken to you of it. But if any of you feel you have a disposition for such things, or some special aptitude in this direction and are ready to surmount all weaknesses, well, I am at your disposal, ready to help you and initiate you into the mysteries. But I am afraid you have still to grow a little more, become more mature before I can take up the charge.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nOf course, age is really no bar. I was doing occultism when I was 12 years old. But I must tell you I had no fear, I had fear of nothing. Here you come out of the body, you are connected with the body by the very tiniest, almost imperceptible, bit of thread, as it were. If the thread snaps, there is an end of it all, the end of your life. So you come out into another world and begin to look about and see what kind of world it is. Generally, the first things you see, as I said, are absolutely terrifying.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-87</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">In your normal view, the air about you is empty; there is nothing—you see the blue of the sky or the white cloud or the sunshine and everything is beautiful. But when you have the other sight, the picture is quite different. You see that the whole atmosphere is filled with a multitude of small formations, which are the remains of desires and mental deformations and they crowd about you in such a way that the whole thing gives you a very disagreeable impression. Indeed, it is positively ugly more often than not. They come near you, attack you, press upon you and you fear and tremble. Then they assume formidable proportions. But if you are not shaken, if you can look with the eye of a calm curiosity, you will find then there is nothing so very terrifying. Things are not beautiful perhaps, but they are not frightful either.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nI shall tell you a story to illustrate my point. I knew a Dane who was a painter, a painter of some talent. He was interested in occultism. Some of you might have heard of him. He had come here and met Sri Aurobindo. He did a portrait too of Sri Aurobindo. It was during the first Great War. He returned to France and saw me. He asked me to teach him this science. I taught him how to come out of the body, how to maintain control etc. etc. I told him especially, what I tell you now, not to have fear. Now he came to me one day and narrated his experience of a night. He had a dream; but of course it was not a dream: he knew how to come out of the body and was out consciously. Once out he was trying to find\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-88</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">where he was. Suddenly he saw moving towards him a tiger, huge and formidable, evidently with dire intentions. He remembered, however, my advice. So he kept calm and quiet and said to himself: &quot;There is no danger, I am protected, nothing can happen to me, I am surrounded by the power of protection.&quot; And he looked straight at the animal calmly and fearlessly. As he continued looking, strange to say, he saw the tiger diminishing in size, shrinking and shrinking, till at last it became a small harmless cat!\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nWhat did the tiger represent? I told the painter that perhaps in the course of the day or at some time he was angry with some one and indulged in violent thoughts, wishing him harm etc. Now, as in the physical world, so too in the occult world there is a law of action and reaction or return movement. You cherish a bad thought; it returns upon you as an attack from outside. So the tiger might have represented some bad thought or impulse in him which came back upon him, like, as it is said, a boomerang. It is exactly one of the reasons why one should have control over one\'s thoughts and feelings and sensations. For if you think ill of a person, wish unpleasant things for him, then in your dream you are likely to see the person coming to attack you, more violently perhaps than you thought of doing. In your ignorance and impulse of self-justification you say, &quot;Just see, was I not right in my feeling towards this man, he wanted to kill me!&quot; In point of fact, however, the contrary is the truth. It is a common law in occultism that if you make\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-89</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">a formation—a mental formation, for example, to the effect that an accident or some unpleasant thing should happen to a person and you send out the formation to do its work, then, if it so happens that the person concerned is on a higher level of consciousness, that is to say, if he wishes harm to none, is quite disinterested and indifferent in the matter, then the formation approaches him but does not enter into his atmosphere or touch him, it rebounds upon the sender. In that case a serious accident may happen to the sender of the formation: if one wishes death to another, death may come to himself. That is often the result of <i>black magic </i>\nwhich is a deformation of occultism</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nFormations are of many kinds. A formation is made for a particular work. When the work is done, the formation too dissolves. But it is a huge and complex subject. You cannot learn the whole of chemistry in one hour.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nI shall tell you another story in this connection, for it has an occult bearing.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThere was a very well-known scientist in Paris. He has written the story in a book of his. He wanted to know to what extent man\'s reason can affect or influence his reflex movements, how far one can control one\'s instinctive or subconscious impulsions by the force of conscious intelligence. So one day he went to the Zoo. Among the animals there were huge snakes, one was particularly notorious for its vicious character, that is to say, it could be easily excited and put into anger. It was a very big animal, black but beautiful. The serpents\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-90</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">were of course kept within glass cases, the glass being sufficiently thick to prevent any possibility of accident. He came before meal-time, when it was hungry; for after food they go to sleep. He stood before the glass-pane, quite near and began teasing and exciting the animal. I do not remember exactly what he did to rouse the animal, but there it was wild with anger; it shot out like a spring and darted at the face of the gentleman who was just on the other side of the glass almost touching it. He knew very well that nothing could happen to him, the barrier was sound and secure and yet each time the snake darted at him, he leaped back to avoid the blow as it were. The thing repeated continually and however much he repeated to himself all the reasons of his safety and security, the reflex gesture could not be controlled.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nOnly the scientist did not know one thing—an element of occult knowledge escaped him. The physical movement of the serpent was accompanied by a considerable amount of a vital projection of its nervous energy. It was that which struck him with an irresistible force. It was almost like a violent physical shock and mere reason has no power to control it. To check and control, you must learn the occult way.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-91</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-024_On Occultism','','publish','closed','open','','024_on-occultism','','','2021-11-23 17:21:18','2021-11-23 17:21:18','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/024_on-occultism/',0,'post','',0),(1341,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:18','2021-11-23 17:21:18','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-043_Service Human and Divine.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\">\n	Service Human and Divine</p>\n<br>\n	<p class=\"para\">To wish to serve humanity, to do good to it shows ambition and egoism? How?\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nWhy do you wish to serve humanity? What is your \npurpose? What is your motive? Do you know in what consists the good to \nhumanity? And do you know better than humanity itself what is good for \nit? Or do you know it better than the Divine? You say the Divine is \neverywhere, so if you serve humanity, it is the Divine whom you serve. \nWell, if the Divine is everywhere, he is in you too; so the best and the\n most logical thing should be to begin by serving yourself.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIs there then no need for service to humanity? \nHospitals, nursing organisations, charitable institutions have not been \nuseful to humanity? Has not the spirit of philanthropy mended and \nimproved the conditions of human life?\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nHas it, I ask? You have tried to help a few \npeople here and there. But what does it amount to compared to what needs\n to be done? The proverbial drop in the ocean or less than that even. \nYou remember the story of St. Vincent de Paul? He began giving alms to \nthe poor. On the first day there were ten, on the second some twenty, on\n the third more than fifty and the number went on swelling in more than \ngeometrical progression. And then? Colbert, the King\'s Minister, \nremarked seeing the plight of the\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-164</p>\n<br><hr>\n<p class=\"para\">saint: \"Our brother seems to be giving birth endlessly to his poor people\".\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nI do not think that the spirit of charity has in \nany way improved human conditions. I do not see that men have become \neither more or less subject to disease and indigence than before. \nCharity was always there and misery has coexisted with it ever. I do not\n think the ratio between the two has diminished in any way. You remember\n the ironical but pertinent remark of someone who said in view of \nscience\'s attempts to cure and remove misery: \"Poor philanthropists \nwould be in a sad plight, their occupation will go!\" The true reason why\n one wishes to do charity is elsewhere, it is to please oneself, it is \nfor self-satisfaction. It amuses you to do the thing: it gives you the \nsense that you are doing something, that you are a valuable member of \nhumanity, not like the others, that you are somebody. What else all that\n is except that you are vain, full of self-importance, full of yourself?\n That is what I meant when I said that it is ambition or egoism that \nmakes you humanitarian. Of course, if it pleases you to do the work, if \nyou feel happy in doing it, you are at perfect liberty to do the work \nand continue. But do not imagine that you are doing any real or \neffective service to humanity; particularly do not imagine that by that \nyou are serving God, leading a spiritual life or doing Yoga.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nJust an illustration of the quality of the spirit\n that animates humanitarianism. A charitable man will give generously \nfor a thing that is known, recognised, appreciated;\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-165</p>\n<br><hr>\n<p class=\"para\">he will be liberal if he finds his name attached \nto the work, announced and pronounced, if there is fame for him in it. \nBut ask him a dole for something genuine, comparatively modest or out of\n the way, something that is truly spiritual and divine, you will find \nhis purse-strings tightened, his heart closed up. A gift that bears no \nvalue to the giver does not tempt the ordinary humanitarian. There is \nindeed another different category of givers, of the opposite kind, who \nwant precisely to remain anonymous: they would be displeased if their \nname were announced. But the motive here too is not very different; in \nfact it is the same motive acting a<i> rebours, </i>\nbackward as \nit were. Here there is the additional element of self-glorification: one gives \nand people do not know who, it is something all the more to be proud of.</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nYou must look into yourself, question yourself \nbefore you do a thing simply because it is the thing normally done and \nit is how things are normally done. You can do good to others, if you \nknow what is that good and if you possess that in yourself. If you wish \nto help others, you must be on a higher level than theirs. If you are \none with the others, level with them in nature and consciousness, what \ncan you do but share in their ignorance and blind movements and \nperpetuate them? So it happens really that the first thing to do is to \nserve yourself.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nYou will make a remarkable discovery as you \nproceed to know what you are and who you are. That is how you should \nbegin. \"I want to serve humanity. How can I serve? Who is this \'I\' that \nwants to serve?\" You say,\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-166</p>\n<br><hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\"I am such a person, this form and this name.\" \nBut the form you have now was not there when you were a baby: it has \nbeen changing constantly. All the elements of your body are being \nrenewed totally. Neither are your sensations and feelings those you had a\n few years ago. Your thoughts and ideas have moved through revolutions. \nThe \"I\" covers a sum of everchanging factors. There is nothing \nparticularly to be called \"I\": it is only a ring of changes. An empty \nname seems to be the only constant thing. One element at a time comes \nforward—an idea, a feeling, an impulse—and that is your \"I\" for \nthe moment. At another moment another element comes up and becomes your \n\"I\". You are not one \"I\" but a crowd of many \"I\"s. So what is the value \nof the declaration of one of the I\'s that it has found the goal, the \ntruth, the duty you have to follow? Thus if you proceed further, \nquestioning and analysing yourself thoroughly and sincerely, you will \nstumble upon the reality. You will find that \"I\" does not exist at all. \nWhat exists is something else: it is the one indivisible reality, the \nDivine alone.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIt is this self-discovery that will give you the basic \nknowledge, the foundation of your life, the discovery that your self as yourself \ndoes not exist, you are indeed nothing. This sense of nothingness must pervade \nyour being, fill all the elements of your being before the truth can dawn upon \nyou and the Divine Presence can be felt. And what you have been doing all along \nis the very contrary thing, asserting your egoism, your vanity— pretending that \nyou were somebody, you could do something,</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-167</p>\n<br><hr>\n<p class=\"para\">that the world needed your help and you \ncan give that help. Nothing of the kind. When you discover this truth \nand accept it, when you are humbled and in true humility you approach \nlife and reality, you will find your real career and vocation.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIn a deeper sense it is indeed by serving \nyourself that you serve others best. When you discover a dark spot in \nyou, a grain of egoism, ambition, selfishness, when you do not yield to \nits impulsion but surmount it, when you thus conquer in your self a \nmovement that leads you astray, in the same gesture you make the \nconquest for the sake of others too, you create the same possibility in \nothers. There can be nothing more dynamic than this setting of personal \nexample. It is not that others observe you and imitate you; the \ninfluence is more subtle and more powerful. You create the opportunity, \nmake an opening, bring into active play the force of your realisation, \neven without the knowledge of others; the others are only benefited by \nthe invisible help that is lent to them. But you must be on your guard \nhere too. You must not say, \"I will help others, so let me improve \nmyself.\" There should not be any such spirit of barter or bargain. \nConfine yourself to your own business; how others are affected or not \naffected is not your concern. If you entertain that kind of idea, you \ninvite the same vanity and egoism, by the backdoor. Yours should be like\n the blooming of a flower; it blooms out of its own joy and delight of \nself-fulfilment; in the process, by its very existence it spreads its \nperfume all around, fills the\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-168</p>\n<br><hr>\n<p class=\"para\">surrounding with its glad vibration, but that \nsimply happens, it does not do all that purposely or intentionally. Even\n so the soul that perfects himself: the victory he wins for himself is \ncontagious and extends automatically.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nI have said your ego is an illusion. Your \"I\" \ndoes not exist at all. There is nothing like separate, distinct \nindividualities and individual fulfilments. The Divine alone exists and \nthe Divine\'s Will. He is the single and unique and all-embracing \nreality. What then is the source of this variety and diversity of \nexistence? What is the significance, if any, of the many individualities\n and personalities, their appearance and play on the world-stage?\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThat is another story. I leave it for a future occasion.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-169</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-043_Service Human and Divine','','publish','closed','open','','043_service-human-and-divine','','','2021-11-23 17:21:18','2021-11-23 17:21:18','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/043_service-human-and-divine/',0,'post','',0),(1342,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:18','2021-11-23 17:21:18','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-040_The Psychic Being-Some Mysteries.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">THE PSYCHIC BEING—SOME MYSTERIES\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n<i>Does the psychic being progress always?</i>\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThere are two kinds of progress in the \npsychic and they are very different. One consists in its formation and \nbuilding and organisation; for the psychic begins by being only a little\n divine spark hidden in the inner person and out of this spark comes and\n gradually develops an independent conscious person who has his own will\n and activity. As I say, the psychic being is originally like a spark \nfrom the divine consciousness: it grows into a conscious individuality \nthrough the experiences of successive lives. This progress then is like \nthe progress of the growing child. It is a thing in formation and it \nremains so for a long time in most human beings. It is not a fully \nindividualised being there, not fully conscious and master of itself; it\n needs many births, one after another, to build itself and become fully \nconscious. In the end, however, there does come a time when it is a \ncompleted personality, fully individualised, fully conscious of itself \nand its destiny. When such a psychic being incarnates in a human being, \nit makes a great difference. For the man is born free, so to say, he is \nnot bound to his circumstances, his surroundings or his origin or \natavism, like ordinary people. When he comes upon earth, he feels he has\n a work to do in the world, he has a mission to fulfil. To that extent \nthen his cycle of progress is completed, that is to say, he has no more \nneed\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-148</p>\n<br><hr>\n<p class=\"para\">to take birth in a body to make further progress. \nTill then rebirth is a necessity, it is compulsory; for it is through \nreincarnation—taking up a new body that he progresses, develops and \ngrows. It is in the physical life and in the physical body that the soul\n slowly builds itself until it becomes a fully conscious being. But once\n it is fully formed, it is free either to take birth or not to at will. \nThere then one kind of progress stops. But if the fully formed being now\n wishes to become an instrument for the work of the Divine, if he \nchooses to be a worker upon earth to help in the fulfilment of the \ncosmic purpose of the Divine, instead of going away and resting in the \npsychic bliss of his own world, then he has to make a new kind of \nprogress, a progress towards capacity to work, to organise and execute \nthe work to express and embody the will of the Divine. As long as the \nworld continues, as long as he chooses to work for the Divine, he will \ncontinue to progress. But if he wishes to withdraw into the psychic \nworld and gives up or refuses to work for the divine Plan, then he can \nremain in the static state beyond the range of progress. For, as I have \nsaid, progress exists only upon earth in the physical world. You cannot \nprogress everywhere. In the psychic world there is a kind of blissful \nrepose. You remain what and where you are without moving.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nEverything upon earth progresses, has to progress. \nAll men, without exception, even those who have no sense of the psychic,\n whether they wish or not, must progress. The psychic progresses in them\n in spite of themselves\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-149</p>\n<br><hr>\n<p class=\"para\">and they have to follow the curve of its growth and \ndevelopment. That is to say, man ascends in the scale of life and grows,\n grows exactly as a child does. In the process of growth there comes a \ntime when one reaches the summit and one changes the direction or the \nplane of progress. At the outset there is the purely physical progress, \nlike that of the child; then there comes the mental progress, later on \nthe psychic progress and the spiritual progress, so that unless progress\n changes its direction, when it has reached its limit on a particular \nlevel, one has to come down the curve, that is to say, instead of \nprogression there will be retrogression, which means in the end \ndisintegration and decomposition. Precisely because in the purely \nphysical world there cannot be a perpetual and constant progress, there \nis in this domain this curve of growth, apogee, decline and \ndecomposition. All that does not advance must recede. This is exactly \nwhat happens in the domain of matter. Matter does not know how to \nprogress indefinitely, it has not learnt it; so after a time it is tired\n of progressing or growing. Given this constitution, one cannot go \nbeyond a limit. But there is in man side by side with his physical \ngrowth, a vital growth and a mental growth as well. The mental \nespecially can progress long after the body has ceased to progress. The \nbody does not grow; even when it is declining, the mind still can \ncontinue to grow, to rise to higher heights. There is a mental ascension\n contrariwise to the physical descent. But they who do Yoga, who become \nconscious of their psychic being and are identified with it, who live \nwith\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-150</p>\n<br><hr>\n<p class=\"para\">its life, never cease to progress, they move upward \ntill the last breath of their life; even when they die their progress \ndoes not stop. The body is on the decline, because it cannot keep step \nwith the inner march forward, it cannot transform itself and mould \nitself into the rhythm of the inner consciousness. The discrepancy \nincreases so much between the two, that there is a snap at the end and \nthat is death. However, on the purely spiritual level too there is no \nprogress. The domain of the pure spirit means a static condition; there \nis no progressive movement there, for it is beyond the field of \nprogress, beyond all manifestation. For when you are merged in the \nSpirit, you have come out of creation and there is no question of \nprogress, or even of any movement.</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\n<i>When the psychic is about to take rebirth does it choose its form beforehand?</i>\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIt depends. As I have told you now, there are \npsychic beings that are just on the way of formation and growth, they \nusually cannot choose at the beginning, they cannot choose very much. \nBut when they have come to a certain degree of development and \nconsciousness, they make a choice; generally when they are still in the \nbody, when they have gathered a certain amount of experience, they \ndecide what is to be their next field of experience. I shall give you an\n illustration, although somewhat external. A psychic being, for example,\n needed the experience of power, authority, command and wanted to know \nthe\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-151</p>\n<br><hr>\n<p class=\"para\">reactions of these movements and also how to turn \nthem towards the Divine, to learn, in a word, what these things can \nteach. So the soul took the body of a king (or a queen). When it had the\n necessary experience, learnt what it had to learn, it gave up the body,\n no longer useful. It is at that moment when it decides to leave the \nbody but is still in the body that the soul makes the choice of the next\n experience. The choice very often takes a course of action and \nreaction. If the soul has experienced and studied a particular field, \nits choice falls upon a contrary field on the following occasion. Thus \nif the soul has had the experience of a kingly position and worked \nthrough that to enter into a conscious relation with the Divine, then at\n the moment of leaving the body that served with power and authority and\n command, it perhaps would say: \"This time I shall take a middle \nposition, neither high nor low, where there will be no need to lead \nmostly an external life, where one is neither in great luxury nor in \ngreat misery.\" With that resolution it returns to the psychic world for \nthe necessary rest, for the assimilation of past experiences and \npreparation for the future. When the time comes for return upon earth, \nfor the descent into a physical body, it remembers naturally the choice \nit made, but from that higher and subtler plane at that moment the \nmaterial world is not seen in the way we do, it appears in a different \nform; still one can notice the differences in the surroundings and \nactivities. One has not the vision of the details, but a total or global\n vision is there. It can choose an atmosphere, it can choose even a \nparticular country. It has in\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-152</p>\n<br><hr>\n<p class=\"para\">view a certain kind of education, civilisation and \ninfluence, the kind of life that it wishes to lead. Then as it comes \ndown and looks about, it distinguishes very clearly the different kinds \nof vibrations and makes its way accordingly. It aims, as it were, at the\n place where to drop. But it can hit the target only approximatively. \nFor there are one or two other factors besides which come into play. For\n there is not only its own choice, from above, there must also be a \nreceptivity from below, an aspiration that draws to it the particular \nbeing or the particular type of being. Usually the call is from a \nmother, sometimes from both the parents. If the parent has some \naspiration or receptivity, something that is sufficiently passive and \nopen and looking up towards something higher, in that case, the thing \nappears to the psychic being as a luminous vibration which beckons it. \nIt is the answer to its will. It shows the place it is to go to. It \ncannot fix the day of its birth. There will naturally be a period of \nuncertainty, but that is not expected to go beyond a year. The second \nfactor that somewhat modifies or qualifies his choice comes from the \nnature of the birth itself. The soul, the conscious being, precipitates \ninto the inconscience, for the physical world, even human consciousness,\n at its very best, is an inconscient thing when compared to the psychic \nconsciousness. It is as though the soul fell head downmost. That makes \nit dazed and for a long time it does not know what is what. It does not \nknow where it is, what it is doing nor why it is there; a complete blank\n possesses it. It is unable to express itself, especially, as a baby, it\n has\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-153</p>\n<br><hr>\n<p class=\"para\">not the proper amount of brain to understand or \nmanifest anything. Very rarely do children show the exceptional being \nthat they have within them. Cases do occur indeed, but they are very few\n and far between. Generally it takes time for the soul to come to its \nown. It wakes up but slowly from its numbness, it is only gradually that\n it begins to understand that it is there for some reason and by choice.\n This oblivion is occasioned by the presence of the mind and mental \neducation which completely shuts off the psychic consciousness. All \nkinds of circumstances, happenings, experiences—external and \nemotional—are then needed to strike open the doors within, to bring the \nmemory that one comes from elsewhere and for a very special reason. It \nis the normal longer process. But one may have the chance of meeting \nearly enough someone who knows; then instead of groping and fumbling \nthrough ignorance and darkness, you get the light and the help that give\n you the swift and straight contact.</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe psychic will and psychic development are things \nthat are completely outside the range of common notions. Ideas of \njustice and reward and punishment have no place here at all. Many people\n come to me and complain: \"What have I done in my past life that I have \nto be under such difficult conditions now, to suffer so much!\" I always \nreply: \"But don\'t you see it is a blessing for you, the divine grace \nupon you? In your past life perhaps you yourself asked for such \nconditions so that you may make greater progress through them!\" This way\n of looking at the thing may seem very new. But truth lies that way.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-154</p>\n<br><hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\n<i>How is it possible for a psychic being once \nliving the life of intelligence and creativity to enter again into a \nlife of stupidity and ordinariness?</i>\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nI did not say quite like that. The psychic being is \nnot stupid. What happens may be described in this way: for example, \nsuppose the psychic being has had the experience of the life of a \nwriter. The function of the writer is to express himself, his \nperceptions and observations and judgments in words: he has a certain \nfield, a certain range of associations and circumstances in which to \nlive and move. But there are other fields and ranges beyond and outside \nof which he has no experience. So he may say to himself: I have lived \nwith my head, I know something of the intellectual reactions to life: \nnow let me live with my heart and experience the reactions of feeling \nand passion. Indeed, sometimes an overactivity of the intellect \nimpoverishes the capacities of the heart. So the psychic being, in order\n to have this new kind of experience, abandons his intellectual heights,\n so to say, and comes down to the vital plane. He is no longer a \ncreative genius, but an ordinary man, but with a heart enriched or \nenriching itself with its intense or generous movements. (One can \nremember in this connection the story of Shankaracharya who being a \nSannyasi from boyhood has had no experience of love; he entered the body\n of a king in order to gather this experience.) It is not rare to see \npsychic beings that have reached the maximum of their growth in certain \ndirections, take up a very modest and ordinary life in some other new\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-155</p>\n<br><hr>\n<p class=\"para\">direction or for some other purpose. One who was a \nking, for example, as I already narrated once, who has had the \nexperiences of power and authority and domination, the imperial heights,\n may choose to descend to ordinary life, to work as an obscure person \nwithout being troubled by the pomps of high position; he may choose very\n bourgeois surroundings, very mediocre conditions among mediocre men and\n things, to procure, so to say, a kind of incognito so that he may work \nin peace and quiet. Can you say it is a decline and a fall? It is only \nfacing life, meeting its problems from another angle, another point of \nview. You must know, for consciousness, the true consciousness —the \nconsciousness of the psychic—glory and obscurity are the same, success \nand failure are the same. What is important is the growth of \nconsciousness. Certain conditions which to your human eye appear \nfavourable, may in reality be quite unfavourable for the growth of \nconsciousness. With your ordinary thoughts and your ordinary reactions \nyou judge everything according to success and failure. But that is the \nvery last way of judging, for it is the most artificial, most \nsuperficial and absolutely contrary to truth. In human life, as it is \norganised at present, it is perhaps only once in a million cases, or \neven less than that, that truth is given the first place; always there \nis an element of show mixed up. When a man has success, much success, \nyou may be sure there is mixed up with it as much show.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-156</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-040_The Psychic Being-Some Mysteries','','publish','closed','open','','040_the-psychic-being-some-mysteries','','','2021-11-23 17:21:18','2021-11-23 17:21:18','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/040_the-psychic-being-some-mysteries/',0,'post','',0),(1343,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:18','2021-11-23 17:21:18','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-021_Bad Thought Formation.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">BAD THOUGHT-FORMATION\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nA bad<b> </b>thought is a bad act. You may not know it, but an evil thought is truly an evil act. If you think ill of a man and wish him ill, you are responsible for the mishaps that may befall him to the same degree as when you act ill towards him. Unfortunately, an evil thought is not a recognised crime and nobody intervenes when you think ill. Not only so, there are a good many people who consider it a play to excite wicked thoughts in others. They do so (innocently, they think,) sometimes through sheer stupidity, more often through vanity, through an air of self-importance for having said something interesting.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nWhen you have a bad thought, you make an evil formation and you carry it about you or throw it out. It happens sometimes that when you pass by a man, you suddenly feel unwell, you may not connect the two and you may know nothing of the matter, but in fact the man may have been entertaining an evil thought and it has pounced upon you.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nWhen you find out the cause, then what you have to do is to chase it away, as if it were a fly. The flies are sometimes very troublesome, the more you drive them away the more they come and take it as an amusing game. But if you are serious and have the will, you succeed in driving them out. In the same manner when an evil formation\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-69</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">seeks to possess or touch you, push it away immediately, push it away again and again till it disappears.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\n<i>Why should there be a bad will at all, you ask?</i>\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nYou go into the very origin of things. Why is there inconscience, ignorance and obscurity? You ask for the why and wherefore of the universe. Why is creation like this and not otherwise? Every one has explained in his own way. The philosophers have done so, the scientists have done so on different lines. But, none has found the way out. You ask why there is bad will, but the truly interesting and important thing is to find a means whereby there would be no bad will. What is the use of asking why there is pain and suffering and misery, unless it is to find out the remedy? If you look for the why, you may find as many explanations as you like, each may be useful in a way, but none leads you anywhere, except into a blind alley.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThere are many things in the world you do not approve of. Some people who, as they put it, wish to have the knowledge, want to find out why it is so. It is a line of knowledge. But I say it is much more important to find out how to make things otherwise than they are at present. That is exactly the problem Buddha set before himself. He sat under a tree and continued till he found the solution. The solution, however, is not very satisfactory: &quot;You say, the world is bad, let us then do away with the world&quot;; but to whose profit, as Sri Aurobindo\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-70</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">asks very pertinently? The world will no longer be bad, since it will exist no more. The world will have to be rolled back into its origin, the original pure existence or non-existence. Then man will be, in Sri Aurobindo\'s words, the all-powerful master of something that does not exist, an emperor without an empire, a king without a kingdom. It is a solution. But there are others, which are better. We consider ours to he the best. There are some who say, like the Buddha, evil comes from ignorance, remove the ignorance and evil will disappear. Others say that evil comes from division, from separation; if the universe were not separated from its origin, there would be no evil. Others again declare that it is an evil will that is the cause of all, of separation and ignorance. Then the question is, from where does this bad will come? If it were at the origin of things, it must have been in the origin itself. And then some question the bad will itself,—there is no such thing, essentially, fundamentally, it is pure illusion.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\n<i>Do animals have a bad will?</i>\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nI do not think so. Things spoken of in relation to animals as monstrous are not really due to a bad will. Let us take for example the insect world. Of all animals it is this species which seems to have most the attribute of wickedness, something akin to a bad will. It may, however, be simply that we are applying our own mode of consciousness to theirs, we impute bad will to an\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-71</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">action which is not really of the kind. For example, there are insects whose larva can live only upon a living being; they have to feed upon a living creature, they do not get nourishment from dead flesh. So the parent insect before laying the eggs that are to become larvae first prepares the ground: it finds another insect or a small animal, stings into a nerve centre and paralyses it; then safely lays eggs in that paralysed body, which not being dead feeds the larvae when they come out of the eggs. All this looks very much machiavellian. But nothing is reasoned out here, it is pure instinct. Would you call it bad will? it is simply the will to propagate. You can say perhaps that these insects are moved by a spirit of the species which is conscious and has a conscious will and that this will is an evil will. These beings that create or form the various species of the insect world—many working in a much more monstrous way than the example I have given—must then truly be frightful, inspired by a perverse and diabolic imagination. Quite possible. For it is said that the origin of the insect world is in the vital; the builders of that world belong to the vital and not to the material plane of consciousness; in other words, they not only symbolise, but they represent and live the evil will. They are fully conscious of their evil will and they exercise that will deliberately and with a set purpose. Man\'s bad will is often only a reflection, an imitation of the bad will of vital beings which is a will clearly hostile to the created world, whose express intention it is to make things as painful, as difficult, as ugly,\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-72</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">as monstrous as possible. It is these beings, some say, that have created the insects. Even then, the insects cannot be described as representing the evil will, since they do not do mischief purposely, they are moved by an unconscious will in them. The bad will is really that will which does evil for the sake of doing evil, which seeks to destroy for the sake of destroying, that takes pleasure in doing wrong. In the animal I do not think there is this kind of evil will, especially in the higher species. What is there is the instinct of self-preservation, obscure and violent reactions, but not the kind of evil that human will shows in the perverse human mental. I believe it is the human mind under the direct influence of vital beings that begins to work in the perverse way. Titans, Asuras are the beings of ill-will, they belong totally to the vital world and when they manifest themselves in this world of ours, they mean mischief, they do evil for the sake of doing evil, they destroy for the sake of destroying, they have the delight of negation.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nPeople speak of the wickedness of cats, when the cats, for example, play with the mice before eating them. I have observed the matter and I know what it is. It is not at all as you think. The cats do what they do, not through wickedness or wanton cruelty. The mother cat hunts for the sake of her young ones. She catches a mouse; if she gave it immediately as it is to the babies, they would not be able to eat, it would be hard and tough flesh. So she plays with it, to us she seems to do so; she plays,\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-73</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">that is to say, throws it up, rolls it, catches it again, gives it a few blows, tosses it once more, all that simply to soften the flesh, to prepare it beforehand, so that the little ones can put their teeth into it and eat easily. It is not certainly playing with the intention of only playing, for the pleasure of it. There is as much ill-will behind it as there is behind man\'s killing in the slaughter-house. The animal hunts and prepares its food, its prey, in the best way it can. It has no oven, no fireplace, no cooking; it must have some way of its own to make its food soft and edible.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIt is said also that the first expression of love in living beings is the desire to eat him whom one loves. To love means to embrace, to absorb, to devour. This seems to prove the fact that when the tiger catches its victim or the snake his, the victim in either case, although alarmed in the beginning, do not at all suffer, but lets himself go in a sort of delight of being devoured. I shall narrate to you a true story, the experience of a person from whom I heard it. A man was passing through a bush in the company of friends. The friends were a little ahead, he was behind. Suddenly he was caught by a tiger, a man-eater. The companions turned back to know what had become of their absent friend. They followed the marks and ran up just in time to prevent the tiger from swallowing their friend. When he had recovered a little he was told what a frightful experience he must have gone through. &quot;Not at all&quot;, he declared to the astonishment of everybody, &quot;just imagine, I did not know what\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-74</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">had happened, but as I was being dragged along by the tiger, I felt a great love for him and I had a great desire that he should eat me!&quot; Well, it is a true fact and I do not exaggerate. Once upon a time I saw with my own eyes something very similar. In the zoological gardens of Paris, a huge python was kept in a cage. It was the hour of feeding the animals and I happened to be present. The cage was opened and a young white rabbit was put in. It was a pretty little animal. As soon as it saw the serpent, it ran to the other corner of the cage and sat doubled up all trembling. The serpent had not moved at all, had simply turned round its head. It seemed as if it was half asleep, \nquietly it put out its neck and head and began to look at the rabbit. It was horrible, the picture. The serpent only looked at the rabbit without moving. Now I saw another picture. The rabbit that was a mass of fright, ceased trembling; it had shrunk itself, it became normal. Then it lifted its head, opened wide its eyes and gazed at the serpent; it began to move slowly, very slowly, forward and when it had come sufficiently near, the neck of the serpent shot out and the rabbit was in its mouth. Then came the task of preparing the food. The serpent rolled, twisted, broke the limbs of its prey, munched it into something like a soft mass that might more easily go down the gullet. Where is the ill will, the wickedness in all this? When a man does anything like it, he does not do it spontaneously, through his natural instinct, but driven by his mind and mental perversions, a thing different from the healthy instinct\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-75</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">that he has no more. But man wanted to act freely and independently!\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nWhat is instinct exactly? It is Nature\'s consciousness. Nature is conscious of her action; it is not an individual consciousness. It is a global or collective consciousness. There is also a consciousness of the species. Each species has its consciousness which is called sometimes the spirit of the species, that is to say, a conscious being presiding over a particular species. Nature is conscious in the sense that she knows what she wants, she knows her whither and her how, her end and the way to go towards it. To man much of Nature seems incoherent, because his consciousness is narrow and he has not an over-all vision. When you look at the small details, the little fragments, you do not understand; you do not find any link, sequence, sense. But Nature has a conscious will, she is a conscious being. Perhaps the word &quot;being&quot; is too human. When we speak of Nature\'s being, we naturally think of the human being, only a little bigger, or perhaps much bigger but working more or less in the same way. But it is not so. Instead of the word &quot;being&quot;, I would prefer the word &quot;entity&quot;. The conscious entity that is Nature has a conscious will and it does things much more deliberately and purposively than man, and it has formidable forces at its disposal. Man speaks of blind and violent Nature. But it is man who is blind and violent, not Nature. You say an earthquake is a terrible affair. Thousands of houses crash into dust, millions of people are killed, whole cities\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-76</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">devastated, entire portions of earth are swallowed up etc. etc. Yes, from the human point of view Nature seems monstrous. But what has she done after all? When you get a knock on your body somewhere, there appears a blue patch. Are you worried about it? Your earthquake is nothing more than a reshuffling of a cell in your body. You destroy thousands of cells every moment of your life. You are monstrous? That is the relative proportion. And consider, we are speaking of earth alone and earthly events. But what is this earth itself in the bosom of the universe? A point, a zero. You are walking on the ground and are not looking down. You place one step forward and then another and you trample thousands of innocent ants under your feet. If you were an ant you would have cried out, what a cruel and stupid force! Imagine other forces stalking about much bigger than yourself and under their casual steps millions of creatures like you are crushed, continents are pressed down and mountains kicked up. They do not even notice such catastrophic happenings! The only difference between man and ant is that man knows what happens to him and the ant does not. But even there are you sure?\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-77</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-021_Bad Thought Formation','','publish','closed','open','','021_bad-thought-formation','','','2021-11-23 17:21:18','2021-11-23 17:21:18','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/021_bad-thought-formation/',0,'post','',0),(1344,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:18','2021-11-23 17:21:18','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-017_^^Divine Disgust^^.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">DIVINE DISGUST\n</p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIt is a &quot;disgust&quot; filled with all compassion. It is something which takes upon itself the wrong vibrations in others to cure them. Instead of throwing a wrong movement back upon the wrong doer in a spirit of cold justice, it draws it within itself, absorbs it in order to eliminate it or transform it, reducing as much as possible its material consequences. You know the ancient legend of Shiva who has a dark patch upon his throat, because he swallowed all the poison of the world: it is a figure of divine disgust.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nNaturally, the poison will not have the same effect upon the Divine as upon man. For there is an essential difference between a state of ignorance and a state of knowledge. Something untoward happens to you in your normal state of ignorance, it has a certain character and brings mentally certain results: but the same thing happening to you in a state of knowledge will not carry the same effect. For example, take a very material thing, a blow, a right royal physical blow; well, if you are in a state of inconscience and ignorance, as you usually are, you will have to suffer the full consequence that depends wholly upon the force of the blow, who or what gave the blow and the helplessness of the object. But the same blow delivered in the same way by the same agent but upon a being who is conscious and full of knowledge, will produce instantly a reaction reducing the natural consequences to a minimum,\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-57</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">even annulling the consequences altogether; for the reaction here is a reaction of knowledge, of light and not that of ignorance, of obscurity. On the moral level the action can be clearly noticed. For example, you can receive an emotional shock, not in egoistic blindness, that is to say, identifying yourself with it or drowned in it; you can hold it away from you, look at it in an objective manner, see what it is, note the nature of its vibration etc. etc., and then you put the light of your knowledge, the ultraviolet ray, as it were, of truth upon it. As a result, there comes a new disposition, the shock loses its effectivity. Even so, the physical result of a physical blow can likewise be obviated. If that were not possible what would be the utility of the Divine taking upon himself the evil thing. Evil would continue in the same way and the world continue suffering in the same way. Precisely because the obscure vibrations are transformed into vibrations of light in the divine consciousness that the Divine takes upon and within himself all the ills of the world.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIn the case of the physical occurrence, the knowledge I speak of is the inner knowledge of the body cells, their existence, composition, distribution and the knowledge of the consequences of the blow, its natural and expected effects. Also at the same time there should be the knowledge of what the cells should be like, how they ought to react to the blow. And the procedure adopted too is quite different from that of physical Nature which takes hours, days, months to repair a damage; the inner knowledge can do the thing immediately. This inner knowledge can be\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-58</p>\n<hr>\n	<p class=\"para\">brought down from its highest source. Instead of the \n	mere psychological knowledge, one can call down the supramental knowledge and focus it upon the part of the body endangered. If the elements of the body, the cells come under the influence of the force of truth and receive it, then there can be an immediate new ordering of the elements according to the higher law. That will bring about not only the cure from the blow received, the mending of the accident, but initiate a big progress in the general consciousness. This power to command the consciousness has no limit. If you have committed an error, even a grave error, and if you can yet call upon the consciousness of truth, this power of the supramental and allow it to work, it will give you an occasion to make a formidable progress. In other words, never be discouraged if you have blundered, blundered even more than once. Only you must keep your will firm, and take sometime the unshakable resolution not to repeat. Rest assured you will in the end triumph over your difficulty.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-59</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-017_Divine Disgust','','publish','closed','open','','017_divine-disgust','','','2021-11-23 17:21:18','2021-11-23 17:21:18','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/017_divine-disgust/',0,'post','',0),(1345,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:18','2021-11-23 17:21:18','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-034_Images of gods and goddesses.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">IMAGES OF GODS AND GODDESSES\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\"><i> Are the usual images of gods and goddesses true to reality?</i>\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> Well, when a little child draws a picture of an object, is there any likeness? It is about the same or even worse here. For the child is simple and sincere, while the image-maker is full of prejudices and preconceived ideas, stuffed with things he has heard or read. And he is tied to his constructions. But at times, here and there, very rarely indeed, artists appear with an inner vision, with a great aspiration and a great purity of soul; they do things that are acceptable. But they are exceptions, the contrary is the rule.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nI have seen some of these forms in the vital world and also in the mental world; they are truly creations of man. There is a Power from beyond that manifests, but in this triple world of Ignorance man creates God Himself in his own image and beings that appear there are more or less the outcome of the creative human thought. So at times we do have things that are truly frightful. I have seen formations that are so obscure, so ununderstandable, so inexpressive! There are some divine beings that are treated worse than the others. Take, for example, this poor Mahakali. What has man made of her, wildly terrible, a nightmare beyond imagination! Such creations however live in a very inferior world, in the lowest vital\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-124</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">world; and if there is anything there of the original being, it is such a far reflection that it is hardly recognisable. And yet it is that which is pulled by the human consciousness. When, for example, an image is made and installed and the priest calls down into it a form, an emanation of a god, through an inner invocation—there is usually a whole ceremony in this connection—if the priest is someone having the power of evocation, then the thing succeeds (what Ramkrishna did in the Kali temple). But generally priests are people with the commonest ideas and the most traditional training and education; when they think of the gods they give them attributes and appearances which are popular, which belong normally to entities of the vital world, at best to mental formations but which do not represent in any way the truth of the beings behind. All idols in temples or the household gods worshipped by the many are inhabited by beings who know only how to lead you to unhappiness and disaster. They are so far away from the divinity that one means to worship. There are certain family Kalis that are real monsters. <b>I </b>have even advised some to throw such an image into the Ganges to get rid of the evil influence emanating from it. But of course it is always the fault of man and not of the divinity. For man wishes so much to make his gods in his own image.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-125</p>\n	<hr></td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-034_Images of gods and goddesses','','publish','closed','open','','034_images-of-gods-and-goddesses','','','2021-11-23 17:21:18','2021-11-23 17:21:18','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/034_images-of-gods-and-goddesses/',0,'post','',0),(1346,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:18','2021-11-23 17:21:18','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-045_The Nature and Destiny of Art.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"><i>Section Six</i>\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<hr></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">THE NATURE AND DESTINY OF ART\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">True art means the expression of beauty in the material world. In a world wholly converted, that is to say, expressing integrally the divine reality, art must serve as the revealer and teacher of this divine beauty in life. In other words, the artist must be able to enter into communion with the Divine and receive the inspiration as to what should be the form or forms for the material realisation of the divine beauty. At the same time, in expressing true beauty in the physical, he also sets an example, becomes an instrument of education. Art not only creates beauty, but educates the taste of people to find true beauty, the essential beauty that expresses the divine truth. That is the true role of art. But between that and what it is now there is a great difference.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe decline comes in the normal course of evolution which follows a spiral movement. From the beginning of the last century to the middle of it, art became totally a debased thing, commercial, obscure, ignorant, something very far from its true nature and function. But the spirit of art cannot die; only as it rose as a movement of protest or revolt, the forms it chose were equally bad. In attempting to counteract the general debasing of taste it went to the other extreme, as is the character of all movement of nature. One was a servile copy of nature, it was pointed out or not even that. In those days it used\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-175</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">to be called photographic art, if one were to abuse it. But now it is no longer a term of abuse, for photography has developed into a consummate art. Neither could it be truly called realism, for there are realistic paintings which belong to a very high order. That art was conventional, artificial, lifeless. Now the reaction to this movement said: we do not concern ourselves with physical life any more, the reality as we see with outward eyes is no longer our business; we want instead to express the vital life, the mental life. Hence came a whole host of reformers and rebels—cubists, surrealists, futurists and so on—who sought to create art with their head. They forgot the simple truth that in art it is not the head that commands, but the feeling of beauty in the heart. So art landed into the most absurd, ridiculous and frightful of worlds. Indeed with the two wars behind us we have gone further in that direction. Each war has brought down a world in decomposition. And now we seem to be in the very heart of chaos.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nPerhaps we are at the bottom of the curve and it is time to mount up. This disintegration is a necessary prelude; it is even from a certain point of view a better condition than that of the epoch of Queen Victoria or the Second Empire in France, the age of the practical successful bourgeoisie, of snug contentment and dull mediocrity, of death in life. As I say, the movement of progress follows a curve. In a certain epoch some fine things are expressed in a fine way. Then follows an epoch which is tired of the old things, wants to find new things and\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-176</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">express in a new way. The age of Louis XIV, for example, was an age dominated by the sense of artistic creation and it represented the peak of a certain type of the truly beautiful in art and life. In the course of social evolution other ideas, other needs appeared—those of a commercial age. So the curve took a downward course. For there is nothing so antagonistic to art as commerce. For the association of commerce with art means the popularisation of something which is exceptional: it is putting within the reach of all and sundry a thing which is understood and appreciated only by the chosen few, the elite. Perhaps it is because of this, because art has no outlet in the world, it has in these days turned to other directions, into the domains of the mental and the vital, into sideways and bypaths of consciousness. When, however, better conditions prevail, when instead of the spirit of mercantilism, there appears upon earth the sense of a more beautiful reality, then art will be reborn and come to its own. That seems to be still a long way off.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe art of this decadent epoch is what I call mushroom art. You know how mushrooms grow? They grow anywhere and do not seem to form part, for example, of what you cultivate or where you cultivate. Just think of it! There is a spot on the wall which becomes humid and you see it soon covered with this growth. You have a tree which does not get the sunlight, you will find its roots covered with mushrooms. It is a kind of spontaneous growth which is not linked to the spot where it</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-177</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">grows. It is not a limb of its environment, but something extraneous added to it. Instead of mushrooms, I could have spoken of parasites: they belong to the same category. You have seen parasite plants? They grow upon trees, they fix themselves there. They have not their own life and organs, they do not draw their food directly from earth, as all normal plants do; they live upon the life of another, make use of the labour of another. There are also animal parasites that live upon another animal, growing and profiting by its labour. Parasites or mushrooms have no raison d\'etre to be where they are—they are invaders, interpolators, anomalies.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIn ancient times, in the great ages, in Greece, for example or even during the Italian Renaissance, particularly, however, in Greece and in Egypt, they erected buildings, constructed monuments for the sake of public utility. Their buildings were meant for the most part to be temples, sanctuaries to lodge their gods and deities. What they had in view was something total, whole and entire, beautiful and complete in itself. That was the purpose of architecture embodying the harmony of sweeping and majestic lines: sculpture was a part of architecture supplying details of expression and even painting came up to complete the expression: but the whole held together in a coordinated unity which was the monument itself. The sculpture was for the monument, the painting was for the monument; it was not that each was separate from the other and existed for itself and one did not know why it was there. In India, when a temple was\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-178</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">being built, for example, what was aimed at was a total creation, all the parts combined to give effect to one end, to make a beautiful vesture for God, the one object of their adoration. All the great epochs of art were of this kind. But in modern times, in the latter part of the last century, Art became a matter of business. A painting was done in order to be sold. You do your paintings, put each one in a frame and place them side by side or group them, that is, lump them together without much reason. The same with regard to sculpture. You do a statue and set it up anywhere without any connection whatsoever with the surrounding. It is always something foreign, extraneous in its setting, like a mushroom or a parasite. The thing in itself may not be quite ugly, but it is out of place, it is not part of an organic whole. We exhibit art today. Indeed, it is exhibitionism, it is the showing off of cleverness, talent, skill, virtuosity. A piece of architecture does not incarnate a living force as it used to do once upon a time. It is no longer the expression of an aspiration, of something that lifts up the spirit nor the expression of the magnificence of the Divine whose dwelling it is meant to be. You build houses here and there, pell-mell or somehow juxtaposed without any coordinating idea governing them, without any relation to the environment where they are situated. When you enter a house, it is the same thing. A bit of painting here, a bit of sculpture there, some <i>objects of art </i>\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-179</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">scopic collection. It gives a shock to the truly sensitive artistic taste.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nI do not say that a museum is not necessary or useful. It is a good means of education, that is to say, getting information about what other people or other epochs did. It is an aid to the historical knowledge of things. But it is far from being artistic. A museum is not the place where art can find its highest or its true expression. There is an art which seeks to coordinate, integrate distinct, discrete, contrary objects. It is called decorative art. And in so far as this art is successful, we are a step forward even in these days towards true art.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nHere in India things are and should be a little different. In spite of the modern European invasion and in spite of certain lapses in some directions—I may refer to what Sri Aurobindo calls the Ravi Varma interlude—the heart of India is not anglicised or Europeanised. The Calcutta School is a sign—although their attempt is rather on a small scale—yet it is a sign that India\'s artistic taste, in spite of a modern education, still turns to what is essential and permanent in her culture and civilisation. You have still before you, within your reach, the old temples, the old paintings, to teach you that art creation is meant to express a faith, to give you the sense of totality and organisation. You will note in this connection another fact which is very significant. All these paintings, all these sculptures in caves and temples bear no signature. They were not done with the idea of making a name. Today you fix your name to every bit of work you do,\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-180</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">announce the event with a great noise in the papers, so that the thing may not be forgotten. In those days the artist did what he had to do, without caring whether posterity would remember his name or not. The work was done in an urge of aspiration towards expressing a higher beauty, above all with the idea of preparing a dwelling fit for the deity whom one invokes. In Europe in the cathedrals of the Middle Age, things were done in the same spirit. There too at that time works were anonymous and bore no signature of the author. If any name came to be preserved, it was more or less by accident.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nHowever, even the commercialism of today, hideous as it is, has an advantage of its own. Commercialism means the mixing together of all parts of the world. It effaces the distinction between Orient and Occident, brings the Orient near to the Occident and the Occident near to the Orient. With the exchange of goods, there happens an exchange of ideas and even of habits and manners. In ancient days Rome conquered Greece and through that conquest was herself conquered by the Culture and Civilisation of Greece. The thing is happening today on a much greater scale and more intensely perhaps. At one time Japan was educating herself on the American pattern; now that America has conquered Japan physically, she is being conquered by the spirit of Japan; even in objects manufactured in America, you notice the Japanese influence in some way or other.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-181</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-045_The Nature and Destiny of Art','','publish','closed','open','','045_the-nature-and-destiny-of-art','','','2021-11-23 17:21:18','2021-11-23 17:21:18','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/045_the-nature-and-destiny-of-art/',0,'post','',0),(1347,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:19','2021-11-23 17:21:19','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-000_Contents.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n<p class=\"paracenter\">THE   YOGA OF SRI   AUROBINDO</p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">Part VII</p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">CONTENTS</p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\n<a href=\"the-yoga-of-sri-aurobindo-part-7-001_Pre_Content\">Pre-Content</a></p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\">\n	<a href=\"-002_PUBLISHERS-NOTE\">Publisher\'s Note</a></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\n	</p></div>\n<table class=main frame=\"box\" rules=\"all\" border=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"5\" width=\"100%\" style=\"border-width: 0px\">\n	<tr class=row>\n<td class=cell align=\"right\" width=\"45%\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\"></td>\n<td class=cell align=\"left\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\">\n<p class=\"para\">\n<b>Section One</b></td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr class=row>\n<td class=cell align=\"right\" width=\"45%\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\"></td>\n<td class=cell align=\"left\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\">\n<p class=\"para\">\n<a href=\"-003_Realisation,Past-and-Future\">Realisation—Past and Future</a></p>\n</td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr class=row>\n<td class=cell align=\"right\" width=\"45%\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\"></td>\n<td class=cell align=\"left\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\">\n<p class=\"para\">\n<a href=\"-004_The-Spiral-Universe\">The Spiral Universe</a></p>\n</td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr class=row>\n<td class=cell align=\"right\" width=\"45%\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\"></td>\n<td class=cell align=\"left\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\">\n<p class=\"para\">\n<a href=\"-005_This-Expanding-Universe\">This Expanding Universe</a></p>\n</td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr class=row>\n<td class=cell align=\"right\" width=\"45%\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\"></td>\n<td class=cell align=\"left\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\">\n<p class=\"para\">\n<a href=\"-006_The-World-Serpent\">The World Serpent</a></p>\n</td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr class=row>\n<td class=cell align=\"right\" width=\"45%\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\"></td>\n<td class=cell align=\"left\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\">\n<p class=\"para\">\n<a href=\"-007_This-Mystery-of-Existence\">This Mystery of Existence</a></p>\n</td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr class=row>\n<td class=cell align=\"right\" width=\"45%\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\"></td>\n<td class=cell align=\"left\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\">\n<p class=\"para\">\n<a href=\"-008_Record-of-World-History\">Record of World-History</a></p>\n</td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr class=row>\n<td class=cell align=\"right\" width=\"45%\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\"></td>\n<td class=cell align=\"left\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\">\n<p class=\"para\">\n<a href=\"-009_Freedom-and-Destiny\">Freedom and Destiny</a></p>\n</td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr class=row>\n<td class=cell align=\"right\" width=\"45%\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\"></td>\n<td class=cell align=\"left\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\">\n<p class=\"para\">\n<b>Section Two</b></td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr class=row>\n<td class=cell align=\"right\" width=\"45%\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\"></td>\n<td class=cell align=\"left\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\">\n<p class=\"para\">\n<a href=\"-010_The-Divine-Truth-s-Its-name-and-form\">The Divine Truth—Its name and form</a></p>\n</td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr class=row>\n<td class=cell align=\"right\" width=\"45%\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\"></td>\n<td class=cell align=\"left\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\">\n<p class=\"para\">\n<a href=\"-011_The-Symbolic-Ignorance\">The Symbolic Ignorance</a></p>\n</td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr class=row>\n<td class=cell align=\"right\" width=\"45%\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\"></td>\n<td class=cell align=\"left\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\">\n<p class=\"para\">\n<a href=\"-012_Diseases-and-Accidents\">Diseases and Accidents</a></p>\n</td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr class=row>\n<td class=cell align=\"right\" width=\"45%\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\"></td>\n<td class=cell align=\"left\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\">\n<p class=\"para\">\n<a href=\"-013_The-Problem-of-Evil\">The Problem of Evil</a></p>\n</td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr class=row>\n<td class=cell align=\"right\" width=\"45%\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\"></td>\n<td class=cell align=\"left\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\">\n<p class=\"para\">\n<a href=\"-014_This-Ugliness-of-the-World\">This Ugliness of the World</a></p>\n</td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr class=row>\n<td class=cell align=\"right\" width=\"45%\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\"></td>\n<td class=cell align=\"left\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\">\n<p class=\"para\">\n<a href=\"-015_Divine-Justice\">Divine Justice</a></p></td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr class=row>\n<td class=cell align=\"right\" width=\"45%\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\"></td>\n<td class=cell align=\"left\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\">\n<p class=\"para\">\n<a href=\"-016_The-Divine-Suffering\">The Divine Suffering</a></p>\n</td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr class=row>\n<td class=cell align=\"right\" width=\"45%\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\"></td>\n<td class=cell align=\"left\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\">\n<p class=\"para\">\n<a href=\"-017_Divine-Disgust\">&quot;Divine Disgust&quot;</a></p>\n</td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr class=row>\n<td class=cell align=\"right\" width=\"45%\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\"></td>\n<td class=cell align=\"left\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\">\n<p class=\"para\">\n<b>Section Three</b></td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr class=row>\n<td class=cell align=\"right\" width=\"45%\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\"></td>\n<td class=cell align=\"left\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\">\n<p class=\"para\">\n<a href=\"-018_Things-Significant-and-Insignificant\">Things Significant and Insignificant</a></p>\n</td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr class=row>\n<td class=cell align=\"right\" width=\"45%\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\"></td>\n<td class=cell align=\"left\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\">\n<p class=\"para\">\n<a href=\"-019_Why-do-we-forget-things\">Why do we forget things?</a></p>\n</td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr class=row>\n<td class=cell align=\"right\" width=\"45%\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\"></td>\n<td class=cell align=\"left\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\">\n<p class=\"para\">\n<a href=\"-020_How-to-get-rid-of-troublesome-thoughts\">How to get rid of troublesome thoughts</a></p>\n</td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr class=row>\n<td class=cell align=\"right\" width=\"45%\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\"></td>\n<td class=cell align=\"left\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\">\n<p class=\"para\">\n<a href=\"-021_Bad-Thought-Formation\">Bad Thought Formation</a></p>\n</td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr class=row>\n<td class=cell align=\"right\" width=\"45%\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\"></td>\n<td class=cell align=\"left\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\">\n<p class=\"para\">\n<a href=\"-022_Why-are-Dreams-Forgotten\">Why are Dreams Forgotten</a></p>\n</td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr class=row>\n<td class=cell align=\"right\" width=\"45%\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\"></td>\n<td class=cell align=\"left\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\">\n<p class=\"para\">\n<a href=\"-023_To-the-Children-of-the-Ashram\">To the Children of the Ashram</a></p>\n</td>\n	</tr>\n</table>\n<table class=main frame=\"box\" rules=\"all\" border=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"5\" width=\"100%\" style=\"border-width: 0px\">\n	<tr class=row>\n<td class=cell width=\"44%\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\"></td>\n<td class=cell style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\">\n<p class=\"para\"><b>Section Four</b></td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr class=row>\n<td class=cell width=\"44%\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\"></td>\n<td class=cell style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\">\n<p class=\"para\"><a href=\"-024_On-Occultism\">On Occultism</a></p>\n</td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr class=row>\n<td class=cell width=\"44%\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\"></td>\n<td class=cell style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\">\n<p class=\"para\">\n<a href=\"-025_Mysticism-and-Occultism\">Mysticism and Occultism</a></p>\n</td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr class=row>\n<td class=cell width=\"45%\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\"></td>\n<td class=cell style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\">\n<p class=\"para\">\n<a href=\"-026_Meditation-and-Some-Questions\">Meditation and Some Questions</a></p>\n</td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr class=row>\n<td class=cell width=\"44%\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\"></td>\n<td class=cell style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\">\n<p class=\"para\">\n<a href=\"-027_Meditation-and-Meditation\">Meditation and Meditation</a></p>\n</td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr class=row>\n<td class=cell width=\"44%\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\"></td>\n<td class=cell style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\">\n<p class=\"para\">\n<a href=\"-028_Prayer-and-Aspiration\">Prayer and Aspiration</a></p>\n</td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr class=row>\n<td class=cell width=\"44%\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\"></td>\n<td class=cell style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\">\n<p class=\"para\">\n<a href=\"-029_Offering-And-Surrender\">Offering and Surrender</a></p>\n</td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr class=row>\n<td class=cell width=\"44%\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\"></td>\n<td class=cell style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\">\n<p class=\"para\">\n<a href=\"-030_Equality-of-the-Body-Equality-of-the-Soul\">Equality of the Body—Equality of the Soul</a></p>\n</td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr class=row>\n<td class=cell width=\"44%\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\"></td>\n<td class=cell style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\">\n<p class=\"para\">\n<a href=\"-031_Personal-Effort-and-Will\">Personal Effort and Will</a></p>\n</td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr class=row>\n<td class=cell width=\"44%\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\"></td>\n<td class=cell style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\">\n<p class=\"para\">\n<a href=\"-032_How-to-feel-that-we-belong-to-the-Divine\">How to feel that we belong to the Divine</a></p>\n</td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr class=row>\n<td class=cell width=\"44%\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\"></td>\n<td class=cell style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\">\n<p class=\"para\">\n<a href=\"-033_Sincerity-is-Victory\">Sincerity is Victory</a></p>\n</td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr class=row>\n<td class=cell width=\"44%\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\"></td>\n<td class=cell style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\">\n<p class=\"para\">\n<a href=\"-034_Images-of-gods-and-goddesses\">Images of gods and goddesses</a></p>\n</td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr class=row>\n<td class=cell width=\"44%\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\"></td>\n<td class=cell style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\">\n<p class=\"para\"><b>Section Five</b></td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr class=row>\n<td class=cell width=\"44%\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\"></td>\n<td class=cell style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\">\n<p class=\"para\"><a href=\"-035_Yogic-Centres\">Yogic Centres</a></p>\n</td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr class=row>\n<td class=cell width=\"44%\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\"></td>\n<td class=cell style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\">\n<p class=\"para\">\n<a href=\"-036_The-Inner-and-the-Outer\">The Inner and the Outer</a></p>\n</td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr class=row>\n<td class=cell width=\"44%\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\"></td>\n<td class=cell style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\">\n<p class=\"para\">\n<a href=\"-037_And-This-Agile-Reason\">And This Agile Reason</a></p>\n</td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr class=row>\n<td class=cell width=\"44%\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\"></td>\n<td class=cell style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\">\n<p class=\"para\">\n<a href=\"-038_The-Force-of-Body-Consciousness\">The Force of Body Consciousness</a></p>\n</td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr class=row>\n<td class=cell width=\"44%\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\"></td>\n<td class=cell style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\">\n<p class=\"para\">\n<a href=\"-039_The-Body-and-the-Psychic\">The Body and the Psychic</a></p>\n</td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr class=row>\n<td class=cell width=\"44%\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\"></td>\n<td class=cell style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\">\n<p class=\"para\">\n<a href=\"-040_The-Psychic-Being-Some-Mysteries\">The Psychic Being—Some Mysteries</a></p>\n</td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr class=row>\n<td class=cell width=\"44%\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\"></td>\n<td class=cell style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\">\n<p class=\"para\">\n<a href=\"-041_The-Past-Lives-and-the-Psychic-Being\">The Past Lives and the Psychic Being</a></p>\n</td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr class=row>\n<td class=cell width=\"44%\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\"></td>\n<td class=cell style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\">\n<p class=\"para\">\n<a href=\"-042_The-Homogeneous-Being\">The Homogeneous Being</a></p>\n</td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr class=row>\n<td class=cell width=\"44%\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\"></td>\n<td class=cell style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\">\n<p class=\"para\">\n<a href=\"-043_Service-Human-and-Divine\">Service Human and Divine</a></p>\n</td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr class=row>\n<td class=cell width=\"44%\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\"></td>\n<td class=cell style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\">\n<p class=\"para\"><a href=\"-044_The-Divine-Family\">The Divine Family</a></p>\n</td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr class=row>\n<td class=cell width=\"44%\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\"></td>\n<td class=cell style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\">\n<p class=\"para\"><b>Section Six</b></td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr class=row>\n<td class=cell width=\"44%\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\"></td>\n<td class=cell style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\">\n<p class=\"para\">\n<a href=\"-045_The-Nature-and-Destiny-of-Art\">The Nature and \nDestiny of Art</a></p></td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr class=row>\n<td class=cell width=\"44%\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\"></td>\n<td class=cell style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\">\n<p class=\"para\">\n<a href=\"-046_Music-Its-Origin-and-Nature\">Music—Its Origin and Nature</a></p>\n</td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr class=row>\n<td class=cell width=\"44%\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\"></td>\n<td class=cell style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\">\n<p class=\"para\">\n<a href=\"-047_Indian-and-European-Music\">Indian and European Music</a></p>\n</td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr class=row>\n<td class=cell width=\"44%\" style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\"></td>\n<td class=cell style=\"border-style: none; border-width: medium\">\n<p class=\"para\"><a href=\"-048_Specialisation\">Specialisation</a></p>\n</td>\n	</tr>\n</table>\n</html>','the-yoga-of-sri-aurobindo-part-7-00_Contents','','publish','closed','open','','the-yoga-of-sri-aurobindo-part-7-00_contents','','','2021-11-23 17:21:19','2021-11-23 17:21:19','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/the-yoga-of-sri-aurobindo-part-7-00_contents/',0,'post','',0),(1348,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:19','2021-11-23 17:21:19','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-013_The Problem of Evil.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">THE PROBLEM OF EVIL\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nGod has created the world, the material world as it is? Yes and No, more \n&quot;No&quot; than &quot;Yes&quot;. For he has not created it directly. There have been many \ncreators, rather <i>formateurs, </i>\nform-rqakers, in between the world and God, who joined in the work of creation. \nWho are they? They have been given various names. Creation generally follows a \nprinciple of gradation. It is done step by step, world rising out of world \nsuccessively. Each world is a particular state of being, a particular mode of \nconsciousness. Each state is inhabited by entities, individualities, \npersonalities and each one has created a world around \nhim or \nassisted in the creation of certain types or species upon earth. The last of \nthese creators or Fashioners are \nthose of the vital. At the top are those of what Sri Aurobindo calls the \nOvermind. It was these that created, that is to say, gave the first forms to \nearthly beings and things. They sent out their emanations and these again theirs \nin their turn and so on. Thus it was not the Divine Will which acted directly \nupon Matter and gave the world the form it could \'or should have had. There are \nlayers and planes, graded intermediaries through which the Will has had to act. \nI spoke of the overmental and the vital plane. There is also the mental plane \nbetween them. There are mental beings who are also creators, giving form to some \nbeings that have taken body upon earth.</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-39</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\"> Thus, there is a tradition which \nsays that the world of insects is the outcome of the creators of the vital \nworld. That is why when you see the insects under a microscope they take on \nappearances that are absolutely diabolical. Enlarged on a screen they look like \nveritable monsters, so terrifying they are. Microscopic monsters they are. So it \nis said, beings of the vital world thought of amusing themselves and created \nthese impossible beasts making human existence uncomfortable.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> You can of course ask how these \nintermediaries themselves came into being, not out of the Divine? Intermediaries \ncome out of other still higher and higher intermediaries till the chain reaches \nthe Supreme. Originally, that is to say, if you trace back to the original \nsource, there is there, of course, only the Divine. Then how has the deformation \ncome in? I explained to you once that if you do not remain one with the Divine, \nunder his direct influence, do not follow the movement of creation or expansion \nexactly as the Divine wills, this rupture of contact is sufficient to bring \nabout the greatest evil of all, division. Even the most luminous, the most \npowerful beings may decide to follow their own movement instead of obeying the \ndivine movement. They may be in themselves marvellous beings, and human beings, \nif they saw them, would take them for the Divine himself, yet they can, since \nthey follow their own will and work not in harmony with the universe, be the \nsource of the greatest disorders. There is nothing that is not the Divine, only \nthere comes about a disorder,\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-40</p>\n	<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">that is to say, each thing is not in its proper place. The problem is, this has to be remedied.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nAs to the question why this deviation, this evil at all, I can say, first of all, what you call evil may be only what is not convenient to you, but from the standpoint of universal arrangement that may be the most convenient. Secondly, the thing might have been just an accident, so to say, in the beginning. And what we are concerned with is not so much its why or even how but with the remedy to be found for the evil that is there. Viewing philosophically, however, we may note that the universe in which we live is evidently one movement out of many (actual and possible), that it follows its own law which is not the same elsewhere, that if the principle on which this universe has been created is that of free will, then you cannot prevent the disorderly movement from happening until a knowledge comes and illumines the choice. If one is free to choose, one may choose the wrong thing, not necessarily the right thing, for if it were decided from beforehand that the choice must be always good and in the right direction, then the choice will no longer be free.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nBut in reality these questions cannot be adequately answered in that way. It is a problem to which mental answers—of which the mental formulations even—only serve to diminish the dimensions of the problem; the question itself reduces the problem to a more or less elementary formula corresponding only vaguely and superficially and incompletely to the reality of things.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-41</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\nTo be able to understand you must become. If you want to understand the why and the how of the universe you must identify yourself with the universe. And that is not easy.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIn truth the question itself is wrong. It is childish. It presupposes things that are themselves questionable. There are certain ideas about creation which have been almost universally current, more or less permanently accepted by human thought during ages; they are of an astounding simplicity. There is a world here, it is said, and up there somewhere there is a being called God. This person one day thought of creating some kind of thing, a visible form. The world was the result. Evidently we see a lot of mistakes in his work. We conclude the creator perhaps is a well-meaning benevolent person, but not all-powerful; some other thing or being there is that contradicts him. Or perhaps he is all-powerful but then has no heart and must be cruelty itself—viewing the condition of his creation which is a story of sorrow and trouble and misery. Such an idea, I say, is simplicity itself, the simplicity of a child brain. When one speaks of God the creator as a potter making a pot, one thinks of him as a human being, only in bigger proportions. Truly, it is not God who has made man in his image, it is man who has made God in his image.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nAs I say, the question is wrongly put. The very form of the question already assumed a certain notion about God and creation. Your postulates or axioms themselves are vitiated.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-42</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe universe and its creator are not separate things, they are one and identical in their origin. The universe is God himself projected into Space (and Time). So the universe is the Divine in one aspect or another. You cannot divide the two, making one the creator and the other his work, the watchmaker and his watch. You put your idea of the Divine upon him and ask, why he has created such a nasty world. If the Divine were to answer, &quot;It is not I, it is yourself. Become myself again, you will no longer feel and see as you do now. You are not yourself, therefore your question and your problem&quot;! Indeed when you unite your consciousness with the divine consciousness there is no longer any problem. Everything appears then natural and simple, and correct and as it should be. It is when you cut yourself from your origin and stand outside, in front of him and against him that all the trouble begins. Of course you may ask, how is it that the Divine has tolerated a part of himself going out and separating itself and creating all this disorder? I would reply on behalf of the Divine, &quot;If you want to know, you had better unite yourself with the Divine, for that is the only way of knowing why he has done so. It is not by questioning him by your mind that you will get the answer. The mind cannot know. And I repeat, when you come to this identification, all problems are solved. The feeling, one can explain, that things are not all right, that they should be otherwise comes precisely from the fact that there is a divine will unfolding itself in a continuous progression, that things\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-43</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">that were and are have to give place to things that shall be and shall be better and better than they have been. The world that was good yesterday will no longer be so tomorrow. The universe might have appeared quite harmonious in some other age but now appears quite discordant: it is because we see the possibility of a better universe. If we found it as it should be, we would not do what we have to do, we would not try to make it better. Even so, we would conceive the Divine in a very human way; for we remain imprisoned within ourselves, confined to this consciousness of ours which is like a grain of sand in the infinite immensity. You want to understand the immensity? That is not possible. It is possible only under one condition; be one with the immensity. The drop of water cannot very well ask how is the ocean: it has to lose itself into the ocean.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-44</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-013_The Problem of Evil','','publish','closed','open','','013_the-problem-of-evil','','','2021-11-23 17:21:19','2021-11-23 17:21:19','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/013_the-problem-of-evil/',0,'post','',0),(1349,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:19','2021-11-23 17:21:19','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-007_This Mystery of Existence.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">THIS MYSTERY OF EXISTENCE\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nHave you ever asked yourself why there is this universe at all, at least \nthis earth with which we are so much concerned and which seems to us so real, so \nauthentic? It would perhaps be very wise on your part if you did not! I have \noften spoken to you of Theon. He was truly a sage in his own way. People used to \ncome to him and ask questions. Many asked why there was an universe. He would \nanswer, &quot;But what is that to you?&quot; Some would ask, &quot;Why is the universe like \nthis?&quot; To that he would say, &quot;It is what it is, how does it matter?&quot; Others \nagain would remark, &quot;I do not consider the world a satisfactory affair.&quot; There, \nwe begin to come more to the point. To those who find the world unsatisfactory I \nwould say, &quot;Get to work, try to change it. Find a way that it may be otherwise, \nthat it may be made better. Things are what they are, it is no use speculating \nover that and getting worried. Seek for the means of remedy, so that things may \nbe made what they should be. Why are things what they are? Not that one cannot \nknow the reason, although one may not always be sure of it. The best thing to do \nis to take whatever is as it is and try to change it towards that which it \nshould be. Now the wonder of it is that if you are sincere, if you want to know \nsincerely and work sincerely, you will come to know why things are what they \nare—the cause, the origin</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-17</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">and the process, for they are all \none. There is one truth at the base of things; if that were not there, nothing \nwould be. If you seize that truth, you seize at the same time the origin of the \ncreation and the means of changing it as well. In other words, if you are in \ncontact with the Divine—for the Divine is that base—you are in possession of the \nkey to all things, you know the why, the how and the process for change. One \nthing to do then is to start doing the thing. But you might say, it is too much, \ntoo difficult, too big for you—to work in the world or for the world. Well then, \nstart with yourself. You are a little mass of substance, a symbol or \nrepresentative of the universe. Let your work then be to form and fashion that \nparticle. Concentrate upon it, go within—even within that little person of \nyourself you will find the long looked-for key.&quot;\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-18</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-007_This Mystery of Existence','','publish','closed','open','','007_this-mystery-of-existence','','','2021-11-23 17:21:19','2021-11-23 17:21:19','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/007_this-mystery-of-existence/',0,'post','',0),(1350,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:19','2021-11-23 17:21:19','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-037_And This Agile Reason.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">AND THIS AGILE REASON\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nReason is an agility gymnast. It can move in \nall varieties of ways, make infinite twists, the most impossible \ncontortions with equal ease and skill. It does not seek the truth, \nalthough it may pretend to do so; for it cannot find the truth. The law \nof uncertainty or indeterminacy seems also to be the last word of modern\n Science. What Reason does and can do is to justify, find arguments for \nwhatever position it is put in or called upon to support. Its business \nis to supply \"proofs\": it can do so as the spider brings out of itself \nthe whole warp and woof of the cobweb. There is no truth, that is to \nsay, no conclusion which it cannot demonstrate and all with equal \ncogency. That was indeed the great discovery of the great Kant who described it as the antinomies of Reason. Reason finds it infinitely exhilarating to <i>pirouette ad infinitum, </i>\ni.e., beating about the bush \nwithout caring to look for the fact or reality hidden in the bush.</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIs it then to say that this faculty is a falsehood \nand that it can lead you only to falsehood? Not necessarily. It becomes a\n falsehood when you try to live according to it, according to an idea or\n ideas it has taken a fancy to; for then it is bound to land you in \ncontradictions. Otherwise, if it is not a question of practical \napplication, if it is merely a play or playfulness in the mental world, \nit is harmless acrobatics; and even in its own way it can be of\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-135</p>\n<br><hr>\n<p class=\"para\">some use in making your brain sharp, alert, strong and supple.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nReason is a bad master; a free-lance, it often goes \namuck. But controlled and yoked, reined in and guided by the higher \nlight, it is a help, even a necessity; for it gives the immediate form \nin which to hold and fix in the physical world the truth-movements of \nthe higher consciousness.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-136</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-037_And This Agile Reason','','publish','closed','open','','037_and-this-agile-reason','','','2021-11-23 17:21:19','2021-11-23 17:21:19','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/037_and-this-agile-reason/',0,'post','',0),(1351,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:19','2021-11-23 17:21:19','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-006_The World Serpent.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">THE WORLD-SERPENT\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\"> The universe is often conceived as a serpent coiling round and eating \nitself, the head turning about and swallowing the tail. The image is that of a \nsphere or globe enclosing the whole existence and that of something without end \nor beginning, infinite. It also gives the idea of a perpetual lengthening out, \nthat is, constant creation, but at the same time of a turn back: the unrolling \nof the universe is not in a straight line, but circular.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> The universe is however a complex \nentity. It is not made of only one plane, but consists of many planes \nsuperimposed upon each other. Thus at the bottom as the basis is the \nphysical—matter—and at the top as the acme is the most subtle, the spiritual: in \nbetween there are gradations whose number varies according to the mode of the \noutlook.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> Reverting to the image of the \nserpent, one can say that its head represents the spirit, the supreme \nconsciousness, and the tail the other end, matter or supreme unconsciousness. \nThe image, furthermore, gives a graphic picture of the great truth that extremes \nmeet, the head bends round and catches the tail. Psychologically this means that \nif one rises higher and higher in consciousness, starting from the body \nconsciousness, traversing Life and Mind and Overmind and reaches the very \nsource, the head and front of consciousness, then, curious to\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-15</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">say, one finds oneself all on a \nsudden landed in the heart of matter. In the occult language this is expressed \nby saying that the consciousness that shines on the highest peak, is imbedded \nalso here below in the cavern of dead matter. If one rises sufficiently high, \nrung by rung, to the extreme end of the ladder, one comes round exactly at the \npoint from where one started without having to pass through all the rungs. \nConversely too if one probes sufficiently deep into the farthest comer of \nmatter, the last limit of inconscience, one comes out into the blaze of the same \ninfinity that covers above and below and around.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> One can recall here the curious \nconclusion reached by some modern scientists in regard to the spherical \ncharacter of the universe that the universe being an endless bounded plane it is \nquite likely that a particular star you see in front of you may not at all be \nsituated direct against you, but that it might be sending out rays that have \ncome round the whole sphere and taken you, as it were, from behind!\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-16</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-006_The World Serpent','','publish','closed','open','','006_the-world-serpent','','','2021-11-23 17:21:19','2021-11-23 17:21:19','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/006_the-world-serpent/',0,'post','',0),(1352,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:19','2021-11-23 17:21:19','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-009_Freedom and Destiny.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">FREEDOM AND DESTINY\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nFrom a certain point of view whatever happens here hi the material world \nis a reproduction or realisation of whatever has already happened or existed on \nanother level of reality. In this world then there would be no free choice, \neverything being predetermined. From another standpoint, however, one can say \nwith equal truth that the world here is being recreated every moment; it is not \na mere replay or flash-back of a past event, a pre-existent phenomenon, but \nsomething ever new and fresh. Take, for an example, a material body, of a \nparticular chemical composition, having some well-defined properties; it behaves \naccording to that nature and produces inevitably results deducible from it. Now, \nif a new element is introduced into the thing at any moment, the whole quality \nof the composition and its behaviour will change. Something like that happens in \nthe universe.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> The universe is a huge mass of \ninnumerable elements forming a certain composition and in accordance with this \ncomposition all are organised within itself. But such an arrangement is not the \nend or the culmination; it is not static, but moving forward; it is in the \nprocess of development. For at any moment, through the action of a different \nkind, one or more new elements can be introduced into the total mass that forms \nthe universe at a given time and that will necessarily change the whole inner \ncomposition. The universe, the material universe,\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-22</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">I mean, is a concretisation of a \ncertain aspect or emanation of the Supreme. This concretisation is progressive, \nnot necessarily in a constant and regular way, but in answer to a law, with a \nsubtle kind or degree of liberty. Thus, in the composition of the universe at a \nmoment new elements penetrate and alter the organisation. The organisation that \nwas perfect in itself and moved and unrolled itself according to a definite plan \nand pattern, suddenly finds itself changed and the inner relations too are \nmodified and attain a different poise. That may give the impression of something \nincoherent or imprecise or miraculous, according to the manner in which one \nlooks at the problem. So there are these two simultaneous facts or factors: \nthere is a determinism which is absolute in its way with a complementary \nmovement of liberty, the unforeseen addition into a fixed existing sum.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> This addition comes from the \naspiration of the supreme consciousness. There is nothing to wonder at the \nphenomenon. There is an aspiration acting in the world, moving with a certain \nend in view; the purpose is to bring back the fallen and obscured consciousness \nto its original and normal state of the divine consciousness. Each time that \nthis aspiring consciousness meets an obstacle in its working, a new resistance \nto conquer or to transform, it calls for a new Force. And this new Force is a \nkind of new creation. In the human being too there are different domains in \nobedience to a law of correspondence; in each there is for him a different \ndestiny and each is absolute in its line. But there is also\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-23</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">in him, through his aspiration, a \ncapacity to enter into relation with a domain higher than where he happens to be \nand bring down an action of this higher domain into the lower determinism. So we \ncan say that there is a horizontal determinism in each domain, absolute in its \nnormal working; but there is also a vertical intervention from other higher \ndomains or even from the highest and then the lower determinism is changed \ncompletely. Thus every human being is at once a sum of various determinisms, \nabsolute in their way, and there is also an absolute liberty that can intervene \nby bringing down other forces into the apparently rigid frame of destiny of the \nlower worlds and alter it. That is how things in the world give the impression \nof the unforeseen, the incalculable, the miraculous.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> You may call this intervention \nGrace; for without the Divine Grace this could not happen. There is a \nconsciousness and a vision of things where all are brought back to this single \nsource; Grace only exists, nothing else is there. That does every thing. But as \nyou have not risen to that summit, had not that extreme realisation, you have to \ntake into account your own person, your personal aspiration, the thing that \ncalls for the Grace and to which the Grace responds. The two are needed here. \nBoth are ultimately ways of viewing the same truth. The mind, however, finds it \ndifficult to conceive both in a simultaneous movement. The rigid distinctions it \nmakes takes away much from the supple and subtle and integral truth of a total \nexperience.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-24</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-009_Freedom and Destiny','','publish','closed','open','','009_freedom-and-destiny','','','2021-11-23 17:21:19','2021-11-23 17:21:19','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/009_freedom-and-destiny/',0,'post','',0),(1353,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:19','2021-11-23 17:21:19','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-025_Mysticism and Occultism.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">MYSTICISM AND OCCULTISM\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\"> Mysticism is more or less an emotional relation with what one feels to be a Divine Power—it is a relation very intimate, emotive and intense with something invisible which one takes for the Divine.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nOccultism is the knowledge of invisible forces and the power to handle them. It is a science, altogether a science. I always compare occultism with chemistry or physics; for occult knowledge is very much like scientific knowledge, only science deals with material objects and forces, while occultism deals with invisible entities and energies, their potentials of combination and association. And as by your chemical or physical knowledge you control material phenomena, in the same way by the occult knowledge you control subtle phenomena, make them active and effective. The procedure also is quite scientific. It is to be learnt exactly as you do a science. It is not a matter of feeling or emotion: it is nothing vague or uncertain. You must work as in a laboratory. You have to learn the laws of action and reaction and apply them. Only there are not many people to teach you. Also it is not without danger. There are in this field combinations as explosive as any chemical combination.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIt is a thing, however, that can be learnt. But one must have the aptitude. If you have the power latent\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-92</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">in you, you can develop it by practice; but if you have not, you can try for 50 years, it will come to nothing. Everybody cannot have the occult power; it is as if you said that everybody in the world could be a musician or a painter or a poet. There are people who can and there are those who cannot. Usually, if you are interested in the subject, unless it is a mere idle curiosity, it is a sign that you have the gift. You then try. But, as I say, it is to be done with great precaution.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThus, for example, when one goes out of the body— I have often spoken to you of this phenomenon—even if it be just to a little extent, even if only mentally—then what goes out is a part of the consciousness that controls the normal activities of the body, what remains is the portion that is automatic, producing the spontaneous involuntary movements such as blood circulation or secretion etc.; also other nervous or automatic thought movements; this region is no longer under the control of the conscious thinking part. Now, there is always in the atmosphere around you a good number of small entities, quite small often, that are generally formed out of the disintegrated remains of a dead human being: they are like microbes, the microbes of the vital. They have forms and can be visible and they have a will of their own. You may not say they are always wicked, but they are full of mischief, that is to say, they like amusing themselves at the cost of human beings. As soon as they see that someone is not sufficiently protected, they rush in and take possession of the automatic\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-93</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">mentality and bring about all kinds of disagreeable happenings—nightmares, various physical disturbances —you feel choked, bite or swallow your tongue and even more serious things. When you wish to go into trance, to have the experience of being outside the body, you must have someone by your side, not only to keep watch on your physical body, but also to prevent the vital entities from getting possession of the nerve centres which, as I said, are no longer under the control and protection of the conscious intelligence. There is a still greater danger. When one goes out of the body in a more or less concrete or material way, retaining only a thin and fragile contact—a thread of light, as it were —with the body, this thread of contact must be protected, for the attack of the hostiles may come upon it and cut it; if it is cut one can no longer return into the body, and that means death.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nAll that signifies that occultism is not a joke or a mere play; you cannot take to it simply to amuse yourself. It must be done as it ought to be done, under proper conditions and with great care. The one thing absolutely essential is, I repeat once more, to be totally fearless. If you happen to meet in your dreams terrible scenes and are frightened, then you must not approach occultism. If, on the contrary, you can remain perfectly tranquil in the face of the most frightful menaces causing you only amusement, if you can handle such situations safely and successfully, that would show that you have some capacity and then you can try seriously. There are people who\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-94</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">are real fighters in their sleep; if they meet an enemy they can face him, they can not only defend, but can attack and conquer.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-95</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-025_Mysticism and Occultism','','publish','closed','open','','025_mysticism-and-occultism','','','2021-11-23 17:21:19','2021-11-23 17:21:19','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/025_mysticism-and-occultism/',0,'post','',0),(1354,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:19','2021-11-23 17:21:19','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-030_Equality of the Body-Equality of the Soul.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"> \nEQUALITY OF THE BODY-EQUALITY OF THE SOUL\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">Equality of the external being means good health, a solid body, controlled nerves—when you are not shaken by the least shock, when you are calm, quiet, poised, balanced. In that condition you can receive into you a great force in yourself from above (or, from the environing energy around you) and yet not get upset. If one of you at any time had received some such force, he must have known by experience that without a perfectly sound physical health, one could not contain or hold it. You cannot remain still, you are restless, you move about, talk, cry, weep, jump or dance, just to throw out the energy you are unable to hold. You scatter about what it is not possible for you to gather and assimilate. In order to be able to gather and assimilate the force, the body and the nerves must be quiet and strong.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nEquality of the soul is different; it is psychological, not physical. It is the power to bear the impact of things, good or bad, without being grieved or elated, discouraged or enthused, without any upsetting or disturbance. Whatever happens you remain serene and at peace. But both the equalities are necessary. There are many equalities, in fact. Apart from the equality of the vital, and the equality of the body, there is also the equality of the mind proper. That is to say, all ideas from all quarters may\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-111</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">come into your head, even the most contradictory: yet you remain quiet, untroubled, and even unconcerned. You are a witness, you see them, sort them, arrange them, put each idea in its proper place, appreciate the value of each, determine the relation of each to the other, and to the whole, but you are not swayed by any particular one.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-112</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-030_Equality of the Body-Equality of the Soul','','publish','closed','open','','030_equality-of-the-body-equality-of-the-soul','','','2021-11-23 17:21:19','2021-11-23 17:21:19','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/030_equality-of-the-body-equality-of-the-soul/',0,'post','',0),(1355,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:19','2021-11-23 17:21:19','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-019_Why do we forget things.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">WHY DO WE FORGET THINGS?\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">There are many reasons, of course. First and the most important is that we use the faculty of &quot;memory&quot; in order to remember. Memory is a mental instrument depending upon the formation and growth of the brain. Your brain is developing constantly unless, of course, it is already degenerating; the development can continue for a long time, longer than that of the body. In the process there are necessarily things replaced by others; and as the instrument grows, elements that were useful at one stage are no longer so at a subsequent state and have to give place to others more suitable. The net result of our acquisitions remains there in essence, but all that led to it, the intermediary steps are suppressed. Indeed, a good memory means nothing more than that—that is to say, to remember the results only, so that the fundamentals are sifted and stored, namely, those alone that are useful for further construction. This is more important than just trying to retain some particular items in a rigid, manner.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThere is another thing. Apart from the fact that memory by itself in its very nature is a defective organ, there is the other fact that there are different states of consciousness one following another. Each state faithfully records the phenomena of that moment, whatever they\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-64</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">may be. Now, if your mind is calm and clear, wide and strong, you can by concentrating your consciousness on that moment bring out of it and recall in your present active state what is recorded there of your movements then; you can, that is to say, go back to the particular state of consciousness at a given moment and live it again. What is registered in your consciousness is never obliterated and hence not really forgotten. You can live a thousand years and you will not have forgotten that. Therefore, if you do not want to forget a thing, you must retain it through your consciousness, and not through your mental memory. As I have said, the mental memory fades away, new things, things of today replace old things, things of yesterday. But that of which you are <b><i>conscious </i></b>\nin your consciousness, you can never \nforget. It lies somewhere in the background, returns to you at your bidding. You \nhave only towithdraw to that state of the consciousness where it lies embedded. \nIn this way you can recall things that you knew perhaps centuries ago. It is how \nyou remember your past lives. For, a movement of consciousness never dies out, \nit is only the impressions on the surface brain-mind that are fugitive. What you \nhave learnt with this superficial instrument laboriously-only read, heard, \nnoted, underlined-leaves no lasting mark, but what is imbibed, breathed in into \nthe stuff of consciousness remains. The brain is being constantly renewed and \nreformed. Old cells, cells that have become weak and atrophied are replaced by \nyounger and stronger ones or the old cells combine differently or enter into \nother organisations.</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-65</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">Thus the old impressions or memories they carried are obliterated.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIt is, as I say, by entering into a previous state of consciousness where you experienced a thing that you can always call back the thing. Only you must know how to get at the point, submerged somewhere in the depths. The body, after death, dissolves, the greater part of the vital and the mind dissolves also—only a small portion that has been well organised, given a compact cohesive form endures. Such an achievement is a rare phenomenon. But it is otherwise with the consciousness. Consciousness is eternal. If you contact the consciousness you discover the whole mystery of the earth and creation. It is consciousness that can create.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-66</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-019_Why do we forget things','','publish','closed','open','','019_why-do-we-forget-things','','','2021-11-23 17:21:19','2021-11-23 17:21:19','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/019_why-do-we-forget-things/',0,'post','',0),(1356,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:20','2021-11-23 17:21:20','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-014_This Ugliness of the World.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">THIS UGLINESS IN THE WORLD\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nEverything in the world has at its source a supreme truth, how is it then that the world has become ugly in its expression? Why are things at all ugly? Because there are other things that intervene between the Source and the manifestation. For example, if I asked you: &quot;do you know your true being&quot;? what would you say? You do not know; it would be wonderful if you did. It is the same with all beings and things. And yet you are already a sufficiently developed being, a thinking being, and have gone through many stages of refinement; you are not quite the lizard walking on the wall! Still you cannot tell what is the truth of your being. That is the secret of the deformation in the world. It is because there is all the unconsciousness—the Inconscient—that has been created by the fact of separation from one\'s origin. It is this inconscience which prevents the Source from manifesting in its own nature, although it is there always. It is there, therefore all things exist, the world exists; but in its expression it is deformed, because it has to manifest itself through inconscience, through ignorance and obscurity. But how did it come about? The will to create was originally a will that projected itself towards individual formation; what it arrived at, however, was not the true individual (or individualisation)</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-45</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\"> but a breaking up of the solid unity into infinitesimal fragments. The original indivisible unity became a sum of infinitely divided unities. These unities or units were individualisations of things separate and feeling and acting as such. It is precisely the feeling of separation from others that gives you the impression that you are an individual. Otherwise you would feel that you were only a fluid mass. That is to say, you are no longer conscious simply of your rigid outer form and all that cuts you off from others and makes of you a separate individual, you are conscious of the vital forces that move about everywhere, of the inconscient that is the foundation of all, you have the impression that you are a moving mass with all kinds of contradictory movements in it which cannot be separated from each other. You would not have the impression that you are an individual being, but that you are something like one note or vibration in a whole complex. The original will was to form individual beings capable of becoming conscious again of their divine origin. This process of individualisation created the necessity that to be an individual one must feel oneself separate: that is why one is cut off from the original consciousness, at least apparently, and is fallen into inconscience. For the Life of life is the Origin alone and if it is separated from that source, consciousness naturally turns into unconsciousness and you lose trace of the truth of your being. That is the process of the creation or formation of the world by which the pure origin does not manifest directly in its essence and\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-46</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">purity, but through deformation, that is to say, unconsciousness and ignorance. That is how ugliness came in, death and disease, wickedness and misery and all. It is the movement, I say, brought in by the necessity of individual formation that has produced these things, each and every one of them, that is the one source of the multiple evil in all its modes and vibrations. I do not say this was indispensable—that problem I<i> </i>\nmay take up later on. But for the moment I \ndirect you to the source in order to show the remedy. And there is no point in \nquestioning why it is so. As I said, the only way to settle the world problem is \nto be conscious again, to recover the lost consciousness. Of course, \nif you \nsay like some religions that good is good and evil evil and they \nwill \nalways remain so, then there is no longer any problem. An eternal struggle binds \nthe two together and whichever wins for the moment will make the world a little \nbetter at one moment and a little worse at another. But the two exist, continue \nto exist eternally and indissolubly intertwined. But you have seen it is not \nlike that; one can come out of the tangle into the perfect unity of the truth, \nfor it is that which is the only and original source.</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIt is this perfect truth, let me repeat, that has scattered itself abroad, into these innumerable little atoms, into these insignificant brain cells which, in spite of all their ignorance, are still moved by a secret stir of consciousness: these little specks of darkness reach out towards light which they can find, for it is within them. They will\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-47</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">arrive at what they seek. It may take time more or less, but they will reach in the end. That is then the remedy: it lies in the very heart of evil itself.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-48</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-014_This Ugliness of the World','','publish','closed','open','','014_this-ugliness-of-the-world','','','2021-11-23 17:21:20','2021-11-23 17:21:20','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/014_this-ugliness-of-the-world/',0,'post','',0),(1357,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:20','2021-11-23 17:21:20','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-041_The Past Lives and the Psychic Being.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">PAST LIVES AND THE PSYCHIC BEING\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">Most people are not at all conscious of what \nis happening in them. Their consciousness or being is a mixture of \nmental, vital and physical elements, a kind of hotchpotch. There are a \nfew, very few indeed, who are conscious— conscious of what is beyond the\n three, viz. their psychic being. For it is only that element which \nendures, continues through successive lives. Certain people have known \nor learnt some rudiments of the matter—who believe in rebirth, but \nconceive it in the most childish manner. Their idea is as if the person \nchanged his body like a robe. There are persons even who have written \nbooks describing seriously all the lives they passed through since the \ntime they were monkeys! As I have said, it is the psychic element alone \nthat persists after death, all the rest gets dissolved. And in 999 cases\n out of 1,000, the psychic is a very small formation lying behind and \ntaking little part in the actual life of the person. I speak of the \naverage man, not of the Yogi, that is to say, one who has a developed \npsychic being to the extent that it is capable of controlling and \nguiding the outer life. How often does an ordinary man get in contact \nwith his psychic being! Years and years pass for many or most to have \njust a passing taste of this movement. It is this moment that abides and\n is carried over to the next life, all other things are simply effaced. \nAt\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-157</p>\n<br><hr>\n<p class=\"para\">a given point of our life, there comes a special \ncircumstance, there is a call within, an absolute inner necessity that \nbrings forward the psychic and the contact is made perhaps for an \ninstant. That experience is preserved in the psychic memory. More than \nthe outer circumstances and the physical events, however, what is \ncherished in the consciousness is the intimate emotion, the vibration \nthat accompanied the perception at the time. At the most, a word said, a\n phrase heard, just a passing scene is all that is stored, net and \nclear, engraved as it were. But above all it is the soul\'s state that is\n the most important thing. It is these scattered elements that serve as \nstepping-stones or signposts on the soul\'s forward journey. They are the\n constants that build up the personality of a man. On rare occasions \nthere is a larger clearing, the circumstances preserved are sufficiently\n definite to point to a date and a historical person. Usually, however, \none cannot say, \"I was such a person, I lived in such a country or did \nsuch things.\" These psychic flashes, more in some cases, less in others,\n are the only genuine and authentic records of the story of a person\'s \nlives.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIt is a being who is completely identified with his \npsychic, who has organised his whole person, in all its parts, around \nthis centre, in fact, a being of one piece, entirely and solely turned \nto the Divine that can alone remember or hold in his consciousness \nsomething like a totality of his personal history. For in his case even \nwhen the body drops, the other parts being integrated and taken up into \nthe soul substance maintain their\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-158</p>\n<br><hr>\n<p class=\"para\">individual existence; the personality formed around \nthe psychic continues with its memory intact: even it can pass from one \nlife to another without losing the consciousness.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nA psychic memory has a very definite character; it \nhas a wonderful intensity. It stores the unforgettable moments of life, \nthose when the consciousness was most luminous, most powerful, most \nactive. They are the happiest and the most fortunate moments of life. \nBut they cannot be spoken about.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThere are people who say and perhaps believe too \nthat they were such and such persons and even give a detailed \ndescription of their past lives. There are also the well-known spirit \ncommunications through a medium at <i>spirit sittings. </i>\nSomeone comes and tells you \nhe was Napoleon, another was Shakespeare and so on. How many Shakespeare \nand Napoleons and Caesars have manifested in this way, there is no counting! \nThere are spirits who are extremely talkative and bewitch you with extraordinary \nstories, many that seem so true and genuine on the face, many others, of course,\nfull \nof the grossest self-contradictions. The \nfact, however, is that usually these spirits are small beings of the vital, \noften remnants of a dead person, broken bits of his decomposed personality, \ndesires that have persisted, coagulated imaginations set free that move about \nand seek to possess and settle upon a living person. The small spirits of the \nvital are often not of good disposition; they amuse themselves at the cost of \nthe gullible human being, making a fool of</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-159</p>\n<br><hr>\n<p class=\"para\">him. In that world it is easy to read the mind of \nothers: the spirit sees clearly what is there in your head even if you \ndo not speak it out. That is how it reveals secrets known to you alone, \neven secrets you have totally forgotten. They can imitate other \npersonalities. They know many other small tricks to confuse or astound \nyou.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-160</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-041_The Past Lives and the Psychic Being','','publish','closed','open','','041_the-past-lives-and-the-psychic-being','','','2021-11-23 17:21:20','2021-11-23 17:21:20','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/041_the-past-lives-and-the-psychic-being/',0,'post','',0),(1358,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:20','2021-11-23 17:21:20','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-023_To the Children of the Ashram.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">TO THE CHILDREN OF THE ASHRAM\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">In the beginning, naturally, there were no children in the Ashram. They were not accepted, they were refused admittance. It is only after the last great war that they began to come in, that is to say, when their families sought for a safe shelter. Since then they are being accepted and I do not regret it. I believe that for the future there is much more stuff among children who know nothing than among grown up men who think they know everything. Have you any idea of the art of sculpture? how they make images out of clay? you take a quantity of clay and then moisten it with water. The earth must be very fine powder and with water you make a good paste of it. Then you begin to work upon it, to give it a form gradually. But so long as you work, the clay must be kept soft, moist; then only you can change it, refashion it as you like. And when it is done the figure is baked and it becomes hard and fixed. If you have to make a change now, you can only break it and begin anew; for it is now solid and unchangeable. In life too something like that happens. As you grow you lose your softness, suppleness, malleability, you become more and more crystallised, fossilised, immobilised. Unless you break the form into a thousand bits, there is no chance of its being remoulded, reshaped according to a new pattern. A child is an unformed paste and one</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-81</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">can do something with it. The great advantage of the child is that it has not grown, it wishes to grow, the one idea that possesses children is how to become grown up men. They do not know, however, that once they are grown up, that is to say, developed and formed, they lose three-fourths of their value which lies precisely in this element in them which is unformed and yearns for a form, which seeks always to go forward, to progress and need not be broken in order to be corrected or reshaped.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nA grown-up man is somewhat like a traveller who has taken a whole life-time to come up on the peak, he has been going round and round the hill-side, not knowing the straight road or the easy ascent. Once on the top such men are already old and exhausted and have now neither the energy nor the time to scale a further height. There are some, however, who know the way or who have been shown the way, they follow the short cut and are soon on the top. They are still full of youthful energy, look out on the horizon and see what other ranges are to be negotiated. The others have not only no inclination to see beyond, but they are full of the feeling that they have done considerable work—in wandering about, that is to say—and now yearn for a well-earned rest. You, my children, are, on the other hand, being carried up from the very bottom by a funicular railway, as it were, straight to the summit. There you will stand before the whole world, before yourselves and see and make your choice for a further adventure. All this on\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-82</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">one condition, you remain young, childlike, glad, happy, happy to be a child, plastic matter in the hand of the Divine.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\n<i>Why were children not accepted before?</i>\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIt is because where there are children, you have to do nothing else but to be busy with them. The children are an all-absorbing subject. Everything must be organised for and about them, everything must turn round them; all must be planned in view of their welfare. So the outlook changes totally. Things were different before. First of all, there was a kind of austerity and bareness which suited the grown-ups, but which could not be imposed upon children. To the grown-up you can say, &quot;Take it or leave it&quot;. If you are not pleased with the conditions, if you find it hard to bear, you are not obliged to be here, you may see your own way. You cannot say the same thing to a child. You have no right to ask of a child what is not suitable to his normal growth and development. Children must reach a certain state of maturity before they can make a choice. You cannot compel them to choose before they have the capacity to choose. So first of all you have to give them all things they are normally in need of. Well, that brings about a revolution in the organisation. I have lived a solitary life, I know the life of solitary men living in a group. That is quite a different thing. Children demand other conditions, other arrangements.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-83</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\nWe no longer tell the young newcomers, you are going to do yoga. We tell them, you will find here conditions in which you can grow freely and grow better. Here you will learn under what conditions the world and society can be made better. Then it will be time for you to choose your line of destiny.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-84</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-023_To the Children of the Ashram','','publish','closed','open','','023_to-the-children-of-the-ashram','','','2021-11-23 17:21:20','2021-11-23 17:21:20','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/023_to-the-children-of-the-ashram/',0,'post','',0),(1359,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:20','2021-11-23 17:21:20','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-026_Meditation and Some Questions.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">MEDITATION AND SOME QUESTIONS\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n<i>Why am I unable to meditate?</i>\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">Because you have not learnt it. A sudden fancy seizes you and you say, &quot;Now I will sit down and meditate&quot;. But to sit down cross-legged, cross-armed, eyes closed is not doing meditation. You have to learn how to meditate, even as you learn to do mathematics or play on the piano. There are regular courses of meditation given by all teachers in ail ages and countries. There are so many rules and regulations. There are all kinds of instructions, such as, to keep the mind quiet, to be silent and not to think, to gather all your thoughts and concentrate them etc., etc. You have been taught how to sit, stand, walk, eat: you do not remember the method and the discipline, because you did that when you were very young. In the same way if you were taught how to meditate in your childhood, you would not find it difficult to do today. Unfortunately you were not taught. You are not taught things of that kind. You are not taught even how to sleep. You think that to go to bed and lie down anyway is the way to sleep. Not at all. You are to learn to sleep exactly in the same way as you learn how to walk or eat. You do not learn so many things, you are not taught. As you grow in years, slowly, laboriously through unpleasant experiences, through suffering\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-96</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">and blundering, in the end you come to know of certain fundamental things. And when you are old, and your hairs are grey, you see you are beginning to learn something, when, that is to say, it is too late. Instead of that, if your parents, the people who looked after you took the trouble of teaching you what you have to do, to do it well—to act well, to think well, to feel well, in the correct manner—then you could avoid all the blunders you have been making all your life. You are surprised when you fall ill, when you feel tired and exhausted. For you know nothing. It requires years to learn something, to learn even the most elementary things such as to be clean.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nTo live as one should, in the right way, is a very difficult art. It requires study, it requires practice. Try simply to keep the body healthy, the mind quiet, and the heart full of good will—these are some of the indispensable elements for the basis of decent living; you will see the thing is not easy.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\n<i>Is some kind of work necessary for us to do, apart from our study?</i>\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThat depends upon you, upon your aim. If you wish to do sadhana, you should naturally give at least some time to a work that is not selfish, that is, not done for the sake of yourself. Study is very good, very necessary, even indispensable; precisely because it is just one of the things I referred to a little while ago, which you<br>\n</p><p class=\"pageno\">Page-97</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">should learn when you are young, it becomes difficult when you are grown up. There may come, of course, an age when you have done the basic studies and when you have the urge to do sadhana. Then you must take up something which is not exclusively personal. You must do something disinterested, not concerned with yourself. If you are concerned with yourself only, you shut yourself within a kind of shell and you are not open to the universal forces. An unselfish movement, an unselfish action, however small, opens the door to something other than your little self. Normally you are imprisoned in your shell and you know of the existence of other similar shells only when you knock against them. But to be aware of the one Force that pervades all, of the mutual dependence of things and beings is quite another matter: it is the indispensable basis for Sadhana.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\n<i>But cannot one study for the sake of the Divine, to prepare oneself for the divine work?</i>\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nOne can. But that requires quite a different attitude. You have to study in altogether another spirit. First of all, there would be no subject that pleases you, none that displeases you, neither a class that bores you, nor one that amuses you. There would be no difficult lessons nor easy lessons, neither would there be a teacher who is unpleasant nor another who is pleasant. All such likes and dislikes, prejudices and preferences disappear. You are in a condition when you begin to learn from everything\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-98</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">that you meet with, everything is an occasion for an experience, a knowledge: everything prepares you for the divine work, everything is interesting. If you study in that spirit, it is quite all right.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\n<i>How is it that so much money is allowed to be wasted here? People entrusted with a work seem to spend lavishly according to their fancy!</i>\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nMoney is not the only thing that is wasted. The Energy, the Consciousness is wasted a thousand times more, infinitely more than money. There is not a second when there is no wastage, sometimes worse things are there. There is a habit, I hope it is unconscious, to take in as much energy, as much consciousness as one is capable of and then use it for one\'s personal satisfaction. It is a thing happening every minute. If all this energy, all this consciousness that is being ceaselessly poured upon you all were used for the right purpose, that is to say, for the divine work, for preparing the divine work, we would have gone by now far on the road, much farther than where we are at present. But unfortunately everyone, if not consciously, at least instinctively, absorbs as much as possible this divine gift and misuses it for selfish ends.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nWho thinks of it?—that this Force is there which is infinitely greater, infinitely more precious than ail money power, this force is there and is being given consciously, constantly, with an endless patience and perseverance\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-99</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">with a single end in view, that of accomplishing the divine work—I say, who thinks of not wasting it? Who recollects that it is a sacred duty for all to progress, to prepare themselves so that they may understand better and live better? It is because you live by the divine energy and the divine consciousness that you are able to live upon them, spend them for your own self\'s sake. People are shocked when they see a few thousand rupees wasted, but they do not notice that a whole flood of consciousness and knowledge is being turned aside from its true direction.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIf one wants to do a divine work upon earth, one must come there with tons of patience and endurance, one must be able to live in eternity and wait till consciousness awakes in every one, the consciousness of true honesty.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-100</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-026_Meditation and Some Questions','','publish','closed','open','','026_meditation-and-some-questions','','','2021-11-23 17:21:20','2021-11-23 17:21:20','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/026_meditation-and-some-questions/',0,'post','',0),(1360,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:20','2021-11-23 17:21:20','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-039_The Body and the Psychic.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">THE BODY AND THE PSYCHIC\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">I\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">You ask why the body has a limited receptive power. \nThe reason is that in the physical world things must not get mixed up, \nthey must remain somewhat stable, in shape and position. For example, if\n your body suddenly began to melt and flow towards another, it would be \nrather troublesome; you would find it disgusting if the body of your \nneighbour, like a fluid, were to pour into your own fluid body. It is to\n prevent such a mixture that a greater concentration in masses was \nnecessary, a kind of fixity of force that separates them. Indeed it was \nto separate one individuality from another that this fixity was needed. \nAnd it is precisely this fixity again that prevents the body from \nprogressing as rapidly as it could and should. As you grow up and attain\n your normal size and constitution, you become more and more rigid in \nyour body. As a child you have this plasticity of growth. Children \nchange continually, they change visibly. This plasticity, this growth \nand development continue, so long as you remain young. But beyond, say, \nforty, people generally feel that they have reached their goal, they sit\n down to gather the fruits of their labour; they gradually become dry as\n dust, hard like wood, and even like stone in the end. The body then not\n being able to\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-139</p>\n<br><hr>\n<p class=\"para\">adapt itself to the movement of the inner change, gets fossilised and crumbles, which means death.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\n<i>After death there is then no further progress?</i>\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThat depends. There is a kind of progress sometimes.\n There are, for example, writers, musicians, artists, people who lived \non a high mental level, who feel that they have yet something to do upon\n earth, they did not finish their work, fulfil their mission, reach the \ngoal they set before them. So they wish to remain in the earth\'s \natmosphere as much as possible, retain as much cohesion of their being \nas needed and seek to manifest themselves and progress through other \nliving human forms. I have seen many such cases. I shall tell you the \nvery interesting case of a musician, a pianist, a pianist of a very high\n order; he had hands that had become something marvellous, full of \nskill, accuracy, precision, force, swiftness; it was truly remarkable. \nThe man died comparatively young and with the feeling that had he lived \nhe would have continued to advance in his musical self-expression. Such \nwas the intensity of his aspiration that his subtle hands retained their\n form without getting dissolved and wherever there was someone passive \nand receptive and at the same time good musician the hands of the dead \nman would enter into the living hands that played. In the case that I \nsaw the man used to play well enough normally but quite in the ordinary \nway; he became, however, as he continued to play all on a sudden not\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-140</p>\n<br><hr>\n<p class=\"para\">only a virtuoso, but a marvellous artist; it \nwas the hands of the other person who made use of him. The same thing \nmay happen with regard to a painter; in his case too, the hands are the \ninstrument. For certain writers also a like thing may happen; but here \nit is the brain of the dead man that retains its formation and it is \nthis that enters the brain of the living writer which must be receptive \nenough to allow the formation in all its precision. I have seen a writer\n who was nothing extraordinary in his normal capacity, but used to write\n things much more beautiful in those moments than he was capable of \ndoing or was doing usually. I know the case of a musical composer, not \nexecutor like the one I cited before, which was particularly remarkable.\n In the case of the composer, like the writer, it is the brain that \nserves him; for the executor the hands are the chief instrument. \nBeethoven, Bach, Cesar Franck were great composers, although the last \none was an executor also. The composition of music is a cerebral \nactivity. Now the brain of a great musician used to enter in contact \nwith that of the composer and made him compose marvellous pieces. The \nman was writing a musical opera. You must remember what a complicated \nthing an opera music is. It is a complex whole in which roles are \ndistributed to a very large number of performers each playing \ndifferently on different instrument and they must all of them together \nand severally express the idea and the theme the composer has in his \nmind. Now, this man I am speaking of, when he sat down with the blank \npaper in\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-141</p>\n<br><hr>\n<p class=\"para\">front, used to receive the musical formation in his \nbrain and wrote down continuously as if he was recording something \nready-made placed before him. I saw him filling up a whole page from top\n to bottom with all the details of orchestration. He had no need to hear\n any instrument, he did it all on paper; and the distribution was \nperfect. He himself was not very unconscious, he used to feel that \nsomething entered into him and helped him to bring out the music.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nYou must note here that when I speak of a formation \nentering into a living person, the formation does not mean the man \nhimself who is dead, that is to say, his soul or psychic being. I say \nthat it is only a special faculty which continues to remain in the earth\n atmosphere, even after the death of the man to whom the faculty \nbelonged: it was so well developed, well formed that it continues to \nretain its independent identity. The soul, the true being of the man is \nno longer there; I have told you often that after death it goes away as \nsoon as possible to the psychic world, its own world, for rest, \nassimilation and preparation. Not that it cannot happen otherwise. A \nsoul incarnating as a great musician may incarnate again in or as a \ngreat musician, although I said in another connection that a soul \nusually prefers to vary, even to contrast and contradict its \nincarnations with each other. Take, for example, the great violinist, \nIsaie; he was a Belgian and the most marvellous violonist of his \ncentury. I knew him and I am sure he was an incarnation, at least, an \nemanation, of the soul that was the\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-142</p>\n<br><hr>\n<p class=\"para\">great Beethoven. It may not have been the whole \npsychic being that so reincarnated, but the soul in its musical \ncapacity. He had the same appearance, the same head. When I saw him \nfirst appearing on the stage I was greatly surprised, I said to myself, \nhe looks so like Beethoven, the very portrait of that great genius. And \nthen he stood, the bow poised, one stroke and there were in it three or \nfour notes only, but three or four supreme notes, full of power, \ngreatness and grandeur; the entire hall was suffused with an atmosphere \nmarvellous and unique. I could recognise very well the musical genius of\n Beethoven behind. It may be possible here too the soul of Beethoven in \nits entirety—the whole psychic being—was not present; the central \npsychic might have been elsewhere gathering more modest commonplace \nexperiences, as a shoemaker, for example. But what was left and what \nmanifested itself was something very characteristic of the great \nmusician. He had disciplined his mental and vital being and even his \nphysical being in view of his musical capacity and this formation \nremained firm and sought to reincarnate. The musical being was \noriginally organised and fashioned around the psychic consciousness and \ntherefore it acquired its peculiar power and its force of persistence, \nalmost an immortality. Such formations, though not themselves the \npsychic being, have a psychic quality, are independent beings, possess \ntheir own life and seek their fulfilment by manifesting and incarnating \nthemselves whenever the occasion presents itself.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-143</p>\n<br><hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\n<i>Can a Psychic Being take two bodies at the same time?</i>\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe matter is not so simple. I have told you often \nthat the psychic being is the result of an evolution, that is to say, it\n is the expression of the divine consciousness that has entered and \nspread itself into Matter and slowly raises Matter and develops it so \nthat it may return to the Divine. The psychic being is formed \nprogressively by the divine centre through many lives or incarnations. \nThere comes a time when it attains a kind of perfection, the perfection \nof its growth and formation. It has then often an aspiration towards \ngreater realisation, a further progress to manifest better or further \nthe Divine. As the result of this pull, it generally draws towards \nitself a being of a higher order, from a higher plane, from the \nOvermind, as Sri Aurobindo calls it, a being of involution who \nincarnates in the psychic being. These over-mental entities are termed \ngods or divinities by men. Now when the fusion takes place, of a god \ninto a psychic being, the latter naturally increases in stature and \npartakes of the nature of the god and acquires also the capacity to \nproduce emanations; that is to say it throws out of itself a part which \npossesses an independent existence and can incarnate in others. In this \nway there may be not only two but several emanations or projections of \nthe same original being. In other words, there may be a single \npsycho-divine origin but many personalities coming out of it. That is \nhow it happens sometimes that different people feel a sort of affinity \nand\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-144</p>\n<br><hr>\n<p class=\"para\">even identity, and with reason, because they carry \nwithin them the same deity, out of which they, that is, their psychic \nbeing came. It is not the same thing as the doubling of the personality \nwhere in throwing oneself out of oneself one loses a portion, as when \nyou cut a body into two there are only two halves. Here the projection \nis a whole and independent personality. If you emanate a being out of \nyou, you remain whole and entire without losing anything of yourself and\n the emanation too is a being whole and entire living its independent \nlife.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">II</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n<i>What is the work of the Psychic? What is its function?</i>\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe Psychic is like the wire between the generator \nand the lamp. What is the generator and what is the lamp, or rather, who\n is the generator and who the lamp? The Divine is the generator and the \nbody, the visible being is the lamp. The function then of the Psychic is\n to connect the two. In other words, if there were no Psychic in Matter,\n Matter could not come in direct contact with the Divine. All human \nbeings, including yourself, all carry the Divine within you, you have \nonly to enter within you to find Him. It is a unique speciality of the \nhuman being,- rather of all embodied beings living upon earth. In the \nhuman being, the psychic becomes more conscious and formed; more \nconscious and therefore also</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-145</p>\n<br><hr>\n<p class=\"para\">more free, it is individualised. You should note \nthat it is a speciality of the earth alone. It is the direct infusion of\n a purifying and redeeming agent into the most obscure and unconscious \nMatter to waken it by degrees towards the divine consciousness, the \ndivine presence, to the Divine Himself. It is the psychic presence that \nmakes of man an exceptional being. Perhaps it is not good to tell it to \nhim too often, for as it is he is already puffed up and thinks very \nhighly of himself and there is no need to encourage him in that \ndirection. Still it is a fact: so much so that beings from other worlds,\n worlds of what are known as demi-gods or even gods, beings from what \nSri Aurobindo calls the Overmind, are anxious to take a physical body \nupon earth so that they may experience the Psychic, as they do not \npossess it. These beings have very many qualities which men have not, \nbut they lack this divine presence which is quite an exceptional thing \nbelonging to the earth alone. All the inhabitants of the higher \nworlds—the Higher Mind, the Overmind and other domains—do not have the \npsychic being. Naturally, the beings of the vital worlds have not got it\n either. But these vital beings do not regret, for they do not want to \nhave it. There are, however, a few exceptional beings on this level who \nwish to be converted and therefore desire a physical body; but the rest \ndo not want, they are bound to the law of their being and cannot \nrepudiate it.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nSo I say and we are bound to admit that it is an exceptional virtue in the human being to bear the psychic in\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-146</p>\n<br><hr>\n<p class=\"para\">him. But to tell the truth, he does not seem to have\n profited much by it. He does not look like considering his virtue as \nsomething very desirable, from the manner he has been treating this \npresence. He prefers to it his mental ideals, he prefers to it his vital\n demands and he prefers to it his physical habits. I do not know how \nmany of you have read the Bible. But there is a story that I used to \nlike always. There were two brothers, Esau and Jacob. Esau had gone out \nhunting and felt tired and hungry. He came back home and found his \nbrother preparing a dish. He asked Jacob to feed him. Jacob said he \nwould give him food if he, Esau, sold his birthright to him. Esau said, \nof what use is the birthright to me now, and sold it to his brother. You\n understand the significance? You can of course take it quite in the \nsuperficial way. But I took it differently. The birthright is the right \nto be son of God. And Esau was quite ready to give up his divine right \nfor a mess of pottage. It is an old story, but it is eternally true.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-147</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-039_The Body and the Psychic','','publish','closed','open','','039_the-body-and-the-psychic','','','2021-11-23 17:21:20','2021-11-23 17:21:20','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/039_the-body-and-the-psychic/',0,'post','',0),(1361,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:20','2021-11-23 17:21:20','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-038_The Force of Body Consciousness.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">THE FORCE OF BODY-CONSCIOUSNESS\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThere is a state of consciousness in which \nyou perceive that the effect of things, circumstances, movements, all \nthe activities of life upon yourself depends almost exclusively upon \nyour attitude towards them. You become then conscious, conscious to the \nextent of realising that things in themselves are neither good nor bad, \nthey are so only in relation to ourselves: their effect, I say, depends \nentirely upon the way in which we regard these things. If we take, for \nexample, a circumstance as a gift from God, as a divine Grace, as an \noutcome of the total harmony, it will help us to become more conscious \nand truer and stronger. The same identical circumstance, if we take it \ndifferently, as a blow of Fate, as a bad force wishing us harm, becomes,\n on the contrary, a damper on our consciousness, it takes away our \nstrength, brings obscurity, creates disharmony. And yet in either case \nit is altogether the same circumstance. I would like you to have the \nexperience and make the experiment. For your ideal is to be master of \nyourselves. But not that only. You should not only be master of your own\n selves, but master of the circumstances of your life, the \ncircumstances, at least, that immediately surround you and concern you. \nYou must note further that it is an experience that is not confined to \nthe mind alone: it need not happen in your head only, it may and indeed \nmust continue into the body.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-137</p>\n<br><hr>\n<p class=\"para\">Certainly, this is a realisation needing great \nlabour, much concentration and self-mastery: you have to force the \nconsciousness into the body, into dense Matter. It is the attitude of \nthe body that will in the end determine everything: shocks and contacts \nof the outside world will change its nature according to the way in \nwhich they are received by the body. And if you attain perfection in \nthat line, you can become even master of accidents. Such a thing is \npossible, not only possible, but it is sure to happen, for it is a \nforward step in man\'s progress. First of all, you have to realise the \npower in your mind to the extent that it can act upon circumstances and \nchange their effect upon you. Then the power can descend into Matter, \ninto the substance, the cells of your body and endow the body with this \ncapacity of control over things outside and around you.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThere is nothing impossible in the world. We \nourselves put the limit; always we say, this is possible, that is \nimpossible, one can do this, one cannot do that. Sometimes we admit a \nthing to be possible but ask who would do it, so it is impossible and so\n on. Like slaves, like prisoners we bind ourselves to our limits. You \ncall it common sense, but it is a stupid, narrow, ignorant sense; it \ndoes not truly know the laws of life. The laws of life are not what we \nthink them to be, what our mind or intellect conceives them to be; they \nare quite otherwise.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-138</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-038_The Force of Body Consciousness','','publish','closed','open','','038_the-force-of-body-consciousness','','','2021-11-23 17:21:20','2021-11-23 17:21:20','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/038_the-force-of-body-consciousness/',0,'post','',0),(1362,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:20','2021-11-23 17:21:20','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-018_Things Significant and Insignificant.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"><b><i>Section Three</i>\n</b>\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<hr></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">THINGS SIGNIFICANT AND INSIGNIFICANT\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\"> All things are insignificant in ordinary life. The thoughts you think, the actions you do, the feelings you experience, all your movements have no significance at all, they possess no value. They belong to the superficial part of your being, they come and pass away, like ripples on the sea. leaving no trace or effect in the depths. Only at a rare moment, if ever you come in contact with a corner of your soul, if something of that inmost consciousness touches <b>or </b>gazes at any limb of yours, that flash of a moment is the only significant thing that happens in the midst of all the useless mass that is your life. This is the only precious point and the rest a world of rubbish. To make your life significant, to give it its true meaning and value, you must then draw back from the surface trivialities and look for something else behind. You must go very deep indeed if things are to cease being insignificant.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-63</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-018_Things Significant and Insignificant','','publish','closed','open','','018_things-significant-and-insignificant','','','2021-11-23 17:21:20','2021-11-23 17:21:20','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/018_things-significant-and-insignificant/',0,'post','',0),(1363,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:20','2021-11-23 17:21:20','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-046_Music-Its Origin and Nature.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">MUSIC—ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nMusic, you must remember, like any other art, is a means for expressing something—some idea, some feeling, some emotion, a certain aspiration and so on. There is even a domain where all these movements exist and from where they are brought down under a musical form. A good composer with some inspiration would produce good music; he is then called a good musician. A bad musician can have also a good inspiration, he can receive something from the higher domain, but possessing no musical capacity, he would produce only what is very commonplace, very ordinary and uninteresting. However, if you go beyond, precisely over to this place where lies the origin of music, get to the idea, the emotion, the inspiration behind, you can then taste of these things without being stopped by the form. Still this musical form can be joined on to what is behind or beyond the form; for it is that which originally inspired the musician to compose. Of course, there are instances where no inspiration exists, where the source is only a kind of sound mechanics, which is not, in any case, always interesting. What I mean is this that there is an inner state in which the outer form is not the most important thing: there lies the origin of music, the inspiration that is beyond. It is trite to say, but one often forgets that it is not sound that makes music, the sound has to express something.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-182</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThere is a music that is quite mechanical and has no inspiration. There are musicians who play with great virtuosity, that is to say, they have mastered the technique and execute faultlessly the most complicated and rapid movements. It is music perhaps, but it expresses nothing; it is like a machine. It is clever, there is much skill, but it is uninteresting, soulless. The most important thing, not only in music, but in all human creations, in all that man does even, is, I repeat, the inspiration behind. The execution naturally is expected to be on a par with the inspiration; but to express truly well, one must have truly great things to express. It is not to say that technique is not necessary; on the contrary, one must possess a very good technique; it is even indispensable. Only it is not the one thing indispensable, nor is it as important as the inspiration. For the essential quality of music comes from the region where it has its source.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nSource or origin means the thing without which an object would not exist. Nothing can manifest upon earth physically unless it has its source in a higher truth. Thus material existence has its source and inspiration in the vital, the vital in its turn has behind it the mental, the mental has the overmental and so on. If the universe were a flat object, having its origin in itself, it would quickly cease to exist. (That is perhaps what Science means when it postulates the impossibility of perpetual motion). It is because there is a higher source which inspires it, a secret energy that drives it towards manifestation\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-183</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">that Life continues: otherwise it would exhaust itself very soon.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThere is a graded scale in the source of music. A whole category of music is there that comes from the higher vital, for example: it is very catching, perhaps even a little vulgar, something that twines round your nerves, as it were, and twists them. It catches you somewhere about your loins—navel centre—and charms you in its way. As there is a vital music there is also what can be called psychic music coming from quite a different source; there is further a music which has spiritual origin. In its own region this higher music is very magnificent; it seizes you deeply and carries you away somewhere else. But if you were to express it perfectly—execute it—you would have to pass this music too through the vital. Your music coming from high may nevertheless fall absolutely flat in the execution, if you do not have that intensity of vital vibration which alone can give it its power and splendour. I knew people who had very high inspiration, but their music turned to be quite commonplace, because their vital did not move. Their spiritual practice put their vital almost completely to sleep; yes, it was literally asleep and did not work at all. Their music thus came straight into the physical. If you could get behind and catch the source, you would see that there was really something marvellous even there, although externally it was not forceful or effective. What came out was a poor little melody, very thin, having nothing of the power of harmony which is there when one can bring into play the vital energy. If\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-184</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">one could put all this power of vibration that belongs to the vital into the music of higher origin we would have the music of a genius. Indeed, for music and for all artistic creation, in fact, for literature, for poetry, for painting etc. an intermediary is needed. Whatever one does in these domains depends doubtless for its intrinsic value upon the source of the inspiration, upon the plane or the height where one stands. But the value of the execution depends upon the strength of the vital that expresses the inspiration. For a complete genius both are necessary. The combination is rare, generally it is the one or the other, more often it is the vital that predominates and overshadows.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nWhen the vital only is there, you have the music of <i>cafe concert </i>\n<i>concert </i>and cinema.\nIt \nis extraordinarily clever \nand <i>concert </i>and cinema. It\nis extraordinarily clever and at the same time extraordinarily \ncommonplace, even vulgar. Since, however, it is so clever,\nit catches hold of your \nbrain, haunts your memory, rings in (or wrings) your nerves; it becomes so \ndifficult to get rid of its influence, precisely because it is done so well, so \ncleverly. It is \nmade vitally with vital vibrations, but what is behind is not, to say the least, \nwholesome. Now imagine the same vital power of expression joined to the \ninspiration coming from above, say, the highest possible\ninspiration when the entire heaven seems to open out, then it is music \nindeed! Some things in Cesar Franck, some in Beethoven, some in Bach, some in \nsome others possess this sovereignty.\nBut after all it is only a moment, it comes for a moment and does not \nabide. There is no \nartist whose \'whole \nwork is executed at such a pitch. The inspiration at the same time \nextraordinarily commonplace, even vulgar. Since, however, it is so clever,\nit \ncatches hold of your \nbrain, haunts your memory, rings in (or wrings) your nerves; it becomes so \ndifficult to get rid of its influence, precisely because it is done so well, so \ncleverly. \nIt is made vitally with \nvital vibrations, but what is behind is not, to say the least, wholesome. \nNow imagine the same vital power of expression joined to the inspiration coming \nfrom above, say, the highest possible\ninspiration when \nthe entire heaven seems to open out, then it is music indeed! Some things \nin Cesar Franck, some in Beethoven, some in Bach, some in some others \npossess this sovereignty.\nBut after all it is \nonly a moment, it comes for a moment and does not abide.\nThere is no artist \nwhose \'whole \nwork is executed at such a pitch. The inspiration</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-185</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\ncomes like a flash of lightning, most often it lasts just long enough to be grasped and held in a few snatches.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nSomething similar to that experience may happen to you when your consciousness is all attentive and concentrated; you feel suddenly that you are being carried aloft, that all your energies are gathered and lifted up, as if your head has opened out and you are thrown into the free air, into the far spaces of extraordinary heights and magnificent lights. The experience gives you in a few seconds what one may in the normal course of things achieve after many years of difficult yoga. Only immediately after the experience you drop down below upon the earth, because the basis has not been built; even you may begin to doubt whether you had really the experience. Still the consciousness has been prepared, something definitive has been done and remains.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-186</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-046_Music-Its Origin and Nature','','publish','closed','open','','046_music-its-origin-and-nature','','','2021-11-23 17:21:20','2021-11-23 17:21:20','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/046_music-its-origin-and-nature/',0,'post','',0),(1364,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:20','2021-11-23 17:21:20','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-020_How to get rid of troublesome thoughts.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">HOW TO GET RID OF TROUBLESOME THOUGHTS?\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">There are several ways and also it depends upon the case. The first and the easiest way is to think of something else. Concentrate your attention upon a subject which has nothing to do with what troubles you. You can read something interesting or take up a work that demands care and consideration. Something creative would be more effective; writers and artists, for example, when they are engaged in their particular occupation forget everything else, their whole mind is engrossed in that one matter. But, of course, once the work is done, the trouble begins again, if one has not learnt to control the thoughts in the meanwhile. So there is the second method which is a little more difficult. You have to learn a movement of rejection. As you reject or throw away a physical object, even so you must throw away and reject the thought. It is more difficult, but if you succeed, it is more effective. You have to practise and continue the endeavour, repeat and persevere and there is no reason why you should not succeed, if you are thoroughly sincere and serious.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThere is a third method. It is to bring down from above a greater light which is in its nature the very opposite of the thoughts you are dealing with, opposite in a very radical and deep sense; that is to say, if the thoughts that trouble you are obscure and ignorant, especially if they\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-67</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">happen to rise from the subconscient or the inconscient, supported by the mere instincts, then, by calling down the light from above and turning it upon the dark thoughts you can simply dissolve them or transform them, wherever possible. It is the supreme means, but perhaps not within the easy reach of all. But if you succeed in it, not only the thoughts do not come, their very cause is removed. The first method is to turn aside, the second to face and fight, the third to rise above and transform. In the third you are not only cured, but you make a progress —a true progress.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-68</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-020_How to get rid of troublesome thoughts','','publish','closed','open','','020_how-to-get-rid-of-troublesome-thoughts','','','2021-11-23 17:21:20','2021-11-23 17:21:20','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/020_how-to-get-rid-of-troublesome-thoughts/',0,'post','',0),(1365,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:21','2021-11-23 17:21:21','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-016_The Divine Suffering.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">THE DIVINE SUFFERING</p>\n<p class=\"para\">Generally speaking, when one is unhappy, it is one more suffering added to the collective suffering of the Divine. The Divine acts upon Matter in a state of deep compassion: this compassion is translated in Matter and is figured there by what we call Psychic Sorrow. It is, as it were, a reversed image of the original reality.</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe Divine\'s compassion, translated in the individual physical consciousness, becomes a sorrow that is not egoistic, a sorrow that is an expression of one\'s identification with the universal sorrow through sympathy. I have described the experience at some length in one of the <i>Prayers and Meditations. </i>\nI spoke there of &quot;the sweetest tears that I shed in life&quot;; for those tears were \nnot for my sake, I was not weeping for myself. In almost every case man grieves \nfor egoistic reasons, in the human way. Whenever anyone loses a person he loves, \nhe suffers and weeps, not over the condition of the person: in ninety-nine cases \nout of a hundred or even more, people do not know in what condition the person \ngone may be, they do not and cannot know if the person is happy or unhappy, if \nhe is sufferingor is in peace. It is the sense of separation that causes the \ngrief, the feeling that he will not be with them any more which they so much \nwish. At the root of all human sorrow, there lies this return upon one\'s own \nself, more or less conscious, more or less</p><p class=\"pageno\">Page-53</p>\n<hr>\n	<p class=\"para\">admitted. But when you feel unhappy for the unhappiness of others, there comes in a mixture. That is to say, to your personal grief is added a psychic element which I described as the reversed image of the Divine Compassion. Now, if you can distinguish between the two, the personal anguish and the disinterested sorrow, come out of what is egoistic and concentrate upon the divine element, make yourself one with it, then you can in that way come in contact with the great universal compassion, which is something immense, vast, calm, mighty, profound, which is perfect peace and infinite Bliss. If you know then how to enter into your suffering, go down to the very bottom of it, pass beyond the portion that is egoistic and personal, go farther on, then you arrive at the door of a wonderful revelation. Not that you should seek suffering for the sake of the suffering and in order to have the experience; but when it is there, when it has come upon you, then try what I have suggested, cross the border, the barrier of egoism in your suffering: note first where is the egoistic part, what is it that makes you suffer, what is the egoistic reason of your suffering, then step across and beyond, towards something universal, towards a greater principle. You enter then into the vast, the infinite compassion, the door of the Psychic opens for you. If, in that domain, you see me in tears, as you say you did in your dream, then you can identify yourself with me at the moment, enter into those tears as it were, melt into them. That will open the door and it will bring you an experience, a very unique experience\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-54</p>\n<hr>\n	<p class=\"para\">that leaves always a deep mark upon the consciousness. It is never blotted out altogether even if the door closes again and you become once more what you are in your ordinary movements. That experience, that mark remains behind and you can recall it, go back to it, refer to it in your moments of concentration. You feel then the immensity of an infinite sweetness, a great peace, pervading all your being, it is not in your thought only; it goes out and sympathises with everything and can cure everything.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nOnly you must sincerely wish, you must have the will, to be cured. Everything lies there. Now I always come back to the same theme. You must be sincere. If you want an experience for the sake of the experience and, once you have it, to go back to your ordinary ways, that will not do. You must sincerely will to be cured—cured precisely of the ordinary ways—you must have the aspiration, the true aspiration to overcome the obstacle, to mount up and up, above and beyond yourself, so that you may drop all that pulls you back, drags you down, to break all limits, clarify and purify yourself, rid yourself of all that lies in your way. If you have this will, the true intense will not to fall back into past errors, to rise out of obscurity and ignorance towards the light, shorn of all that is human, too human—too small, too ignorant —then that will and that aspiration shall act, act gradually, strongly and effectively bringing you a complete and definitive result. But beware, there must be nothing that clings to the old movements, that does not declare itself\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-55</p>\n<hr>\n	<p class=\"para\">but hides its head and when the occasion is opportune puts up its snout.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nSo I say you must be truly sincere, very truly. If you discover anything clutching, sticking somewhere in the depths, you must be ready to pluck it out, wholly erase it and see no mark of it is left behind. Yes, sometimes you repeat your mistakes. You repeat till your suffering becomes too acute to bear and compels you to be sincere in spite of yourself as it were. But you need not try that line. It is a method, but a bad method: bad, because it destroys so many things, wastes so much energy, leaves such wrong vibrations. In the intensity of your suffering you do discover the will towards perfect sincerity. But you can be sincere also in less arduous and tortuous a way.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThere is a moment in the life of every one, there is a moment when this need of perfect sincerity comes as a matter of ultimate choice. There is a moment in the life of the individual and there is a moment in the life of the group also to which the individual belongs, when that choice has to be made, the final purification has to be performed. It is a question then almost of life and death, the progress has to be made if one is to survive.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-56</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-016_The Divine Suffering','','publish','closed','open','','016_the-divine-suffering','','','2021-11-23 17:21:21','2021-11-23 17:21:21','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/016_the-divine-suffering/',0,'post','',0),(1366,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:21','2021-11-23 17:21:21','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-005_This Expanding Universe.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">THIS EXPANDING UNIVERSE\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe universe is a manifestation, that is to say, the un-folding of \ninfinite possibilities. The unfolding has not stopped, it is continuing and will \ncontinue, throwing out or bringing into physical expression all that lies behind \nand latent. The universe may be considered as a sphere or globe, a totality or \nassemblage containing everything that exists here and is being manifested. \nBeyond and outside, as it were, this circle of creation lies the transcendent, \nthe Supreme Divine, in his own status. The transcendent means the unmanifest. It \ndoes not mean, however, the void; for it contains all that is to be manifested, \neach and everything in its potentiality, its essence, in a seed form. All is \nthere as a secret possibility, a fundamental truth of being—all is there not \nsimply as a general idea, but in every detail, though as it were on a \nmicroscopic scale, something like the chromosomes in life plasm. The \ntranscendent is beyond time and space. Manifestation or creation begins with the \nformulation of time and space, the frame in which what lay latent is gradually \nbrought out and displayed. The transcendent is consciousness absorbed in itself, \nidentified with itself; manifestation is consciousness waking and looking at \nitself as its object <i>(La prise de conscience objective de soi). </i>\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"><b><i> </i></b>\nNow, one can be seated or fixed \nexclusively in the</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-11</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">status of the unmanifest; to such \na one the infinite and eternal is an everpresent reality, there is nothing like \npast or future, everything is. One knows and is in the presence of a fixed \nactuality; whatever happened, whatever will happen—as it seems to us—all are \nthere realised on the same plane and at the same moment (although the terms \nplane and moment do not quite apply there). It is the world or status of the \nabsolutely determined. Free choice or indeterminacy, the unexpected and the \nunforeseen have no place here.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> On the contrary, the sphere of \nmanifestation is precisely the field of the sudden and the incalculable, that is \nto say, of free will. Things appear here that were not before, forces come into \nplay that were not expected or even imagined. They all move along lines that \nshift and change continually. This is the status of becoming —sambh&#363;ti, \n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> But in between the two, on the \nborderland, as it were, there is a poise of consciousness which combines both in \nan integral perception, it is a single movement of both being and becoming. It \nis the Supermind. It is the point where what is or exists in the unmanifest just \nbecomes It is the Supermind. \nIt is \nthe point where what is or exists in the unmanifest just <i>becomes </i>in the \nmanifest, the pure truth or reality above at standstill stirs and begins to come \nout or disengage</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-12</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">itself through a play of possibles. It is like a cinema film that is rolled up and kept in a spool till \nit is put on the projector and rolled out gradually upon the screen of life and \nin life-size presentation.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> The transcendent then is an \nintegral reality, for it contains all and the whole, but it is of fixed \ndimension <i>—avyaya, </i>it neither \nincreases, nor decreases: it is the Stable, the <i>Stagnant-sthanuracaloyam. </i>\nThe cosmos, on the other hand, is not only moving and changing, butalso ever \nincreasing or expanding. For new possibles are becoming reals here and \nadding to the sum of its factors. Out of the transcendent, the unmanifest, are \nconstantly shooting down potentials and becoming dynamic in the universe making \nit richer and ever richer.</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> Furthermore, this expansion is \nnot merely accretion but a growth, that is to say, it is directed and has a \nsense and purpose and end in view. In fact all the possibles that find play, the \nelements that enter here below are necessary in as much as they contribute to \nthe meaning of the Play, to the working out of the denouement. We can take again \nthe analogy of the cinema film and say that the unrolling film is interesting \nbecause it has a continuous and developing story to tell, with a beginning, a \nmiddle and an end. Likewise, the manifestation too tells a connected story—it is \nnot a drivel, but has a goal; it is a process elaborated by a <i>final cause. </i>\nEven like an individual being it is an \norganism, ever growing and bringing out its latent possibilities, moving towards \na high fruition of its aspiration and destiny.</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-13</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\"> In this sense manifestation is a \nmore complete—and more and more complete—reality than the non-manifest Supreme. \nThe non-manifest, the transcendent is an integral reality, the manifestation a \ncompleter reality, since it adds to it its own reality, the actuality of \nconcrete expression.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-14</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-005_This Expanding Universe','','publish','closed','open','','005_this-expanding-universe','','','2021-11-23 17:21:21','2021-11-23 17:21:21','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/005_this-expanding-universe/',0,'post','',0),(1367,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:21','2021-11-23 17:21:21','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-011_The Symbolic Ignorance.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">THE SYMBOLIC IGNORANCE\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\"> How can there be dark spots in \nthe light of the full consciousness (the Mother\'s consciousness)? The darkness \nis only relative and depends upon the degree or status of consciousness. At the \noutset, on lower and narrower ranges, the light is dim and confined: it is \nsurrounded by a much greater and denser area of darkness. As the consciousness \ngrows, that is to say, manifests itself, as it rises and widens, the obscurity \ntoo recedes more and more and slowly fades away. This consciousness is not \npersonal, but something impersonal. In other words, it holds within itself the \nuniverse including especially the earth. And earth is a dark object; it is made \nof ignorance and unconsciousness. The light envelops it and only gradually \npenetrates and transforms it. The Mother\'s consciousness is thus the \nrepresentative consciousness; it represents all that is yet unconscious and \nstriving secretly without knowing towards consciousness; it is also at the same \ntime the light itself that acts and transforms. The divine consciousness \nembodied acting upon itself thus symbolises and embodies its action upon what \nwould be viewed as others.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-30</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-011_The Symbolic Ignorance','','publish','closed','open','','011_the-symbolic-ignorance','','','2021-11-23 17:21:21','2021-11-23 17:21:21','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/011_the-symbolic-ignorance/',0,'post','',0),(1368,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:21','2021-11-23 17:21:21','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-036_The Inner and the Outer.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">THE INNER AND THE OUTER\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">The external part of the being is turned to \nthe Divine: you are conscious of your ideal and as much as possible you \nconform your behaviour to it. You appear what you want to be. But just \nbehind the line, on the other side of your consciousness—in the \nsubconscious, as it is called —the picture is different. The light has \nnot touched there: the movements go the other way. Things— thoughts, \nimpulses, feelings—hide which you would not like to own. Not that you \nconsciously and deliberately hide them: but they are there as inevitable\n part and parcel of the original ordinary nature. They form the backyard\n of the consciousness; there are ail kinds of nooks and corners, if not \nquite open spaces, which have accumulated darkness and dirt. This \ntwo-sidedness is common, in fact, universal; you have to be one-sided, \nthat is, of one piece, wholly turned to the light. You must be conscious\n of these hidden elements and bring them out, expose them to the light \ncalmly, candidly, fearlessly, so that the luminous force may act on \nthem. They have to be drawn out and rejected, or if possible, to be \npurified and changed. Some are capable of change and become right \nmovements; others are wholly wrong, they belong to the inferior \nconsciousness and have to be cast away without pity.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-134</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-036_The Inner and the Outer','','publish','closed','open','','036_the-inner-and-the-outer','','','2021-11-23 17:21:21','2021-11-23 17:21:21','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/036_the-inner-and-the-outer/',0,'post','',0),(1369,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:21','2021-11-23 17:21:21','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-012_Diseases and Accidents.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">DISEASES AND ACCIDENTS\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"><i>If the body is ill, does the mind too fall ill?</i>\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">Not necessarily, to be sure. Illnesses are, as I have told you, generally \na dislocation among the different parts of the being, a kind of disharmony. It \nmay well be that the body has not followed the movement of progress, it might \nhave lagged behind while the other parts have, on the contrary, made progress. \nIn that case there is an unbalance, a breaking of harmony and that produces an \nillness, I mean, in the body, for the mind and the vital also might remain all \nright. There are many people who have been ill for years, suffering from \nterrible and incurable diseases, and still maintained their mental power \nmarvellously clear and active and continuing to make progress in that domain. \nThere was a French poet, a very good poet, Sully Prudhomme, by name; he was \nmortally ill and it was during that time that he wrote his most beautiful poems. \nHe was always in a very good humour, charming, smiling, pleasant to everyone \neven while his body was going to bits. You may remember how the great Louis XIV \nused to joke and laugh, while, in his last days, his body was being lacerated \nand given over to leeches by his doctors and surgeons. It depends upon \nindividual and individual. For there are people of the other type who get \nthoroughly\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-31</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">disturbed from head to foot if \nthere is the slightest bodily indisposition. Each one has his own combination of \nthe elements.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> There is of course a relation \nbetween the mind and the body, quite a close relation. In most cases it is the \nmind that makes the body ill, at least it is the most important factor in the \nillness. I have said, there are people who keep their mind clear although their \nbody suffers. But it is very rare and very difficult to keep the body healthy \nwhen the mind suffers or is unbalanced. It is not impossible, but very very \nexceptional. For I explained to you that it is the mind which is the master of \nthe body, the body is an obedient and obliging servant. Unfortunately one does \nnot usually know how to make use of one\'s mind, not only so, one makes bad use \nof it and as bad as possible. The mind possesses a considerable power of \nformation and of direct action on the body. It is precisely this power which is \nused by people to make their body ill. As soon as there is something which does \nnot go well, the mind begins to worry about it, makes formations of coming \ncatastrophes, indulges in all kinds of imaginary dangers ahead. Now, instead of \nthus letting the mind run amuck and do havoc, if the same energy were used for a \nbetter purpose, if good formations are made, namely, giving self-confidence to \nthe body, telling it that there is nothing to be anxious about, it is only a \npassing unease and so on, in that case, the body would be put in a right \ncondition of receptivity and the illness pass away quietly even as it came. That\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-32</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">is how the mind is to be taught \nto give good suggestions to the body and not to throw mud into it. Marvellous \nresults follow if you do it properly.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> When an accident happens there is \nin it a critical moment. For example, you slip and you fall. Now between the \nmoment when you slip and the moment when you fall, there is just a fraction of a \nsecond when you are, as it were, given the choice. It can either be nothing or \nsomething very serious. Only to make the choice you must have a perfectly \nawakened consciousness and your being must be constantly in contact with the \npsychic. There is no time to bring in the contact, one <i>must \nalready\' \nbe in \ncontact. So, just between  </i>the \nslip and the fall, If the mental and psychic formation is sufficient, you come \nout unscathed. If, on the contrary, the body thinks, as it is its habit, &quot;Oh,\nI \nhave slipped&quot; and becomes apprehensive-it \nis, as I say, a matter of a fraction of a second, even less-then the catastrophe \nhappens. You have the capacity to prevent an accident happening, you are given \nthe choice at a momentary moment. But for that you must learn to be wide awake, \nto be fully conscious. When you are in that condition you can prevent an \naccident, you can sto~\nan \ni1ne~~ \ncoming into you. But it \nis just the matter of a split second and \nyou must not miss it.</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> And yet there is still another \nmoment. When you have fallen and are already hurt; you have still now the open chance whether it will turn well or ill, whether it will stop at being just a \nmishap or become something</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-33</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">really serious or as serious as \npossible. I do not know if you have noticed that there are certain people who do \nnot seem to miss any occasion for an accident. Every time there is a \npossibility, they have it. And the accident is never slight, it tends to be \nserious and often very serious. People say, what an unlucky fellow! Chance is \nnever on his side! etc. etc. But all that is sheer ignorance. Everything depends \nabsolutely upon the working of the consciousness. I could cite any number of \nexamples and such striking examples. There are people who might have been killed \nbut came out of the accident safe and sound. There are others for whom what was \nquite harmless in the beginning turns worse and worse and proves in the end, \nperhaps, fatal.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> But you must understand it is not \nthe working of thought, ordinary thought. The thought may be as good in one as \nin the other. It all depends upon the moment of choice. There are people who \nknow how to react in the right manner and at the right moment. It is the \ncharacter that matters. Such people have a wakeful, alert consciousness; they \nare not asleep, they are on the watch constantly within themselves. And at the \nright moment they call for the aid, they invoke the divine force, yes, exactly \nat the right moment. And the danger is warded off. On the other hand, whenever \nthere is something going wrong, some dislocation in the being, if you are seized \nby fear, dark foreboding or defeatism in the consciousness, then you are done \nfor.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-34</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\"> It is not the mind, as I say, \nwhich decides. It is an inner attitude, a poise of the being, the right \nconsciousness which reacts in the right manner. Its effect goes very far. You do \nnot know what a power it is. Even if it is there just for a fraction of a \nsecond, it works miracles. Only it must be there already, you must be already in \nthe state of wakefulness, you cannot order it at the moment, you have no time.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> You may say again that it is the \nDivine Grace that saves. But would you explain to me how it works? It would be \ninteresting indeed to find out who had precisely the awakened consciousness, had \nthe faith and the inner trust, had called for the help and had in him that which \nanswered automatically—and even in a way unconsciously—to something that came \nin. Human intelligence is a relative thing and has varying degrees of power. \nUsually it understands by contrasts and contraries. It does not understand a \ntruth in its absoluteness. For example, I have received hundreds of letters \nthanking me because they were saved from dangers. But I do not remember to have \nreceived a letter thanking me because things were normal and nothing had \nhappened. Men perceive the action of Grace only when there is the atmosphere of \nthe pessimist and there is a danger and they have escaped from it, that is to \nsay, when there is already the beginning of the accident, when the accident has \ncome to pass. When they come out of the danger safely only then they take note \nof the force that saved. Otherwise they would not have even thought of it.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-35</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\"> If the voyage they undertook came \noff without any accident they would not think of any action of Grace present \nthere. They would take it as a matter of course. But precisely because it is so, \nthere may be acting here a Grace of a higher order and there may be existing \nalready a deeper preexistent harmony between the consciousness of the person and \nthe higher force to which it responds. The chance of an accident is already the \nbeginning of the dislocation I spoke of. But the situation becomes complicated \nif it is a case of collective accident. The result here depends upon the \natmosphere of the persons involved. It is the proportion of these two elements \nin the personnel of a collective accident that determines the character and \nmagnitude of the accident.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> I will tell you a story, I mean a \ntrue story, in this connection. There was a pilot who was considered what is \ncalled an <i>ace </i>among his fellowmen \nin the first Great War. He was an extraordinary aviator and the hero of \nmany victories. Nothing had happened to him at any time. But towards the end of \nhis life, an event occurred-some private tragedy-and all at once he had the \nfeeling that something was going to happen to him; an accident perhaps, and it \nwas all finished with him. He had come out of the war but was still \nin the \narmy. He wanted to make a flight to South Africa, from France right up to the \nsouth of Africa. He started from France and made for Madagascar, so far as I \nremember, and then wanted to fly back to France. Now, my brother was at that \ntime the Governor of Congo and needed to join his post as soon as possible.</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-36</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">He asked for a place in the aeroplane of the pilot I am speaking about. It was not a regular service plane, \nbut one of those used for experimentation to show what the machines were capable \nof and the skill of the airmen. Many tried to dissuade my brother from making \nthe journey, saying that these adventurous trips were always dangerous. My \nbrother however did not mind the risk. Nothing serious happened, but for a \nslight breakdown in the middle of the Sahara which was easily got over, and the \nplane made safe journey and deposited him at his place in Congo. The plane \ncontinued further down, to Madagascar, as I said. Now the pilot started back, he \ndid half the journey, his plane crashed and he was killed forthwith. I shall \nexplain to you what really the matter was. What happened had to happen, it was a \nforegone conclusion. My brother had an absolute faith in his destiny, a \ncertainty that nothing would touch him. The consciousness of the other was on \nthe contrary full of doubt and apprehension. So the mixture of the two \natmospheres brought about this that in the first instance the accident could not \nbe prevented, but it stopped short of catastrophe. But once the destiny of my \nbrother was not there with the machine,—like Caesar\'s destiny that made the \nboatman go safely across the river through a storm—the protection was also \nwithdrawn and the pilot had to go down under the full blast of his bad fate. I \ncan narrate another analogous story, it is with regard to a ship. There were two \npersons, husband and wife. They went by air to Indo-China. They had an accident, \na very serious accident. All were killed\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-37</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">except only these two. Now they \nhad to return to France. They did not want to travel by air, they had the \nexperience of it. So they took a boat, I mean a ship, which they thought would \nbe quite safe. Now what happened was absolutely unexpected, quite extraordinary. \nIn the middle of the Red Sea, in broad daylight, the ship struck against a reef \nand sank—a thing that does not happen even once perhaps in a million cases. All \nthe passengers were drowned except, miraculous again to say, the pair. There are \npeople like that, they carry misfortune with them, but the misfortune is for \nothers, they themselves escape somehow.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> If you look at the thing in an \nordinary way, you do not notice it. But the fact is there. You must be very \ncareful about your associations. An unfortunate association may prove disastrous \nto you. The <i>karma </i>of others may fall upon you, unless you have the inner \nknowledge, the vision and the necessary power. If you see a person with \nsomething like a dark whirl around avoid him at all cost. The moral of it all is \nthat it is very useful to look into things a little more deeply than to observe \nthe surface only.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-38</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-012_Diseases and Accidents','','publish','closed','open','','012_diseases-and-accidents','','','2021-11-23 17:21:21','2021-11-23 17:21:21','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/012_diseases-and-accidents/',0,'post','',0),(1370,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:21','2021-11-23 17:21:21','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-027_Meditation and Meditation.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">MEDITATION AND MEDITATION</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">Some people, when they sit for meditation, think they go into a remarkable condition and are proud of it. But most often what they do in meditation is simply to let loose their thoughts: it is a sort of kaleidoscope that moves in their head. There are some, however, who can remain without any thought for a while; but if they are called out all on a sudden at the time for some reason or other, they wake up furious, saying a nice meditation is spoilt and fret and fume against the whole world. There are all the same a few who know how to meditate, they do come to a sort of union with the Divine. Certainly, this is very good. There are others who can follow the tram of an idea up to a point, even up to the central point of the idea. This is also very good. But most get into a half-sleepy condition, that is to say, very tamasic. The mind is inert, aspiration inert, the whole being is inert. They can remain in that condition for hours together. Well, nothing is more durable than inertia. And when they come out of it, they think they have achieved something very great. But they simply fell into unconsciousness.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nYes, some know how to meditate. But even supposing you know how to enter into the divine consciousness, that experience must have some effect upon your external life—naturally it would differ according to the person concerned. There are some who cut themselves clean\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-101</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">into two. These, as I have said, when they enter into meditation, have or think they have experiences and very fine experiences. But when they come back and begin to act, they become the most ordinary people, with the most ordinary reactions, doing all kinds of things that should not be done. They think of themselves alone, busy arranging their own life, without a thought for others, whether one could be useful to the world or not. And yet in meditation, they came into contact with some higher and deeper consciousness and reality. It is for this reason that people who have found it difficult to change human nature, have declared it an impossibility and advised that the one thing to do under the circumstances is to abandon the world and escape. Naturally, if all could run away there would no more be any world. But, luckily or unluckily, the existence of the world does not depend upon the will of individuals: they had no hand in the creation of the world and they do not know how it came about. Is it simply because some get away from the world that the world will cease to exist—for them, perhaps, but for others? Although I am not sure whether even they really succeed in getting away. In any case, I do not believe that you can transform yourself by meditation. But when a work is there before you and you do it as well as you can, also while doing it you take care not to forget the Divine and you give yourself up to him so that he may change your being, change your reactions into something beautiful and luminous, then indeed the Divine will transform you.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-102</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\nI have never seen people who left off everything to sit in a more or less empty meditation making any progress; in any case their progress is very small. On the contrary, I have seen people, full of enthusiasm for the work of transformation in the world, devote themselves to that work without reservation: they give themselves up with no idea of personal salvation. Yes, it is such people I have seen making the most wonderful progress. On the other hand I have seen very many living in monasteries: well, they are not worth talking about. It is not by running away from the world that you will change it: it is only by working steadily at it that you can bring about the change.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\n<i>Does this mean that meditation is of no use at all?</i>\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nMeditation will come to you as much as is necessary for you. When it comes it seizes you; then you should not resist. You sit down and go within yourself, withdraw yourself inside and you make the needed inner advance. When that is done you come out and start again with your work. But above all, do not be vain. People who believe they are exceptional creatures and have more merit, put a bar to all their progress. I must insist on the need of humility. People have often spoken much about it but without understanding it very well. Be humble, but in the right way. If you could but root out this weed that is vanity! How difficult it is, yes, how difficult! You cannot do a single good thing, make the slightest progress, without being puffed up secretly somewhere, cherishing a\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-103</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">hidden self-satisfaction! You have to deal hammer blows to break that hard core of egoism. You have to work all your life to destroy this poisonous herb. You think you have done it and you are so satisfied with the idea of having done it at last.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-104</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-027_Meditation and Meditation','','publish','closed','open','','027_meditation-and-meditation','','','2021-11-23 17:21:21','2021-11-23 17:21:21','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/027_meditation-and-meditation/',0,'post','',0),(1371,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:21','2021-11-23 17:21:21','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-010_The Divine Truth-s-Its name and form.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"><b><i>Section Two</i></b>\n</p>\n<br>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">THE DIVINE TRUTH—ITS NAME AND \nFORM\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe divine truth at the heart of things, people have called by all kinds \nof names, every one presenting it from his own angle of experience. But always \nit is the one Reality. There are millions of ways leading towards it; but one \nthing is certain, you can find it, whatever the way you follow, whatever the \nform you give it: the result is the same, the final experience is identical. If \nall have touched the thing, they touch the same thing always. And the proof that \nthey have touched the thing is that it is the same for all; if it is not the \nsame thing, then they have not touched it. You can give it any name you like: a \nname is only a word.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> What is the value of a word, \nafter all? Have you not noticed that there are people who do not understand you, \nhowever clearly you speak to them. There are others again who understand you if \nyou utter only two words. The external form—the sound of a word—has a meaning, \nif there is a force of thought behind; the greater the force of thought, the \nmore powerful and precise and clear it is, the greater the chance of people \nreceiving the force and understanding the word that carries the force. But if \nsomeone speaks without thinking, usually it is impossible to understand him; he \nwould seem to you to make only a noise. You must have noticed also that people \nwho have lived together and are habituated to each other\'s\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-27</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">thought and talk, do not require \nany definition of the words they use or even a large use to understand each \nother. There has been a mental adjustment and the words are only an excuse for \nthe inner contact, the contact between brain and brain which underlies or\neven precedes the words. But when you meet \na new person, it takes you time to adapt and adjust yourself to understand the \nwords he uses.</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> It is the meaning, the thought \nbehind the word that is important. When the thought is powerfully thought, it \nproduces a vibration of which the word is only a carrier, an intermediary. \nIndeed, you can develop the thought-power to such an extent that you are able to \nestablish a direct material contact with the minimum or even no words at all. \nNaturally this requires a strong power of concentration. But you will find that \nthe bodily mechanism is only a mechanical means; it is an instrument, but not \nalways important or indispensable.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\n<i>When we are conscious of the Divine, do we see Him in all things in some \nparticular form ?</i>\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> You expect to see a divine form \nin each and all things? It may happen so. But I am not sure; I have the \nimpression that there is a large part of imagination in such experiences. You \nmay, for example, see the form of Krishna or Christ or Buddha in every being or \nthing. But I say that much of human conception enters into this perception. \nOtherwise what I was telling you just now would\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-28</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">not be true. I said all who have \nthe consciousness of the Divine, all who get the contact with the Divine, \nwherever one may be, to whatever age or country he may belong, all have the same \nessential experience. If it were not so, the Hindus would always see one of \ntheir gods, the Europeans one of theirs, the Japanese a third variety and so on. \nThis may be an addition of each one\'s own mental: formation, but it would not be \nthe Reality in its essence or purity which is beyond all form. One can have a \nperception of the Divine Presence, a very concrete perception, one can have even \na personal contact with the Divine, but it need not happen in and through the \nkind of form you imagine; it is something inexpressible, beyond all explanation \nor definition, it is evident only to one who has the experience. It may be as \nyou are suddenly lifted up into a peculiar condition, you find yourself in the \npresence of the Divine which takes a form familiar to you, a form you have been \naccustomed to associate with the Divine, because of your education, your \nupbringing and tradition. But, as I say, it is not the supreme essence of the \nexperience: the form gives after all a limitation to the experience, takes away \nfrom it its universality and a large measure of its power.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-29</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-010_The Divine Truth-Its name and form','','publish','closed','open','','010_the-divine-truth-its-name-and-form','','','2021-11-23 17:21:21','2021-11-23 17:21:21','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/010_the-divine-truth-its-name-and-form/',0,'post','',0),(1372,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:21','2021-11-23 17:21:21','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-031_Personal Effort and Will.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">PERSONAL EFFORT AND WILL\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">In personal effort there is a feeling of effort, of tension: the effort is felt as personal i.e. you rely upon yourself and you have the impression that if you do not do at each step what is to be done all will be lost. Will is different. It is the capacity to concentrate upon what one does so that it may be done well and to continue to do so till the thing is done.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nSupposing under given circumstances a work has come upon you. Take an artist, for example, a painter. He has an inspiration and has decided to do a painting. He knows very well that if he has not the inspiration he will not be able to do anything good, the painting would be nothing more than a daub. If he is simply passive, with neither effort nor will, he would tell the Divine: Here I leave the palette, the brush and the canvas, you will do the painting now. But the Divine does not act in that way. The painter himself must arrange everything, concentrate upon his subject, put all his will upon a perfect execution. On the other hand, if he has not the inspiration, he may take all the trouble and yet the result be nothing more than a work like other thousands of examples. You must feel what your painting is to express and know or find out how to express it. A great painter often gets a very exact vision of the painting he is to do. He has the vision and he sets himself to work out the</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-113</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">vision. He labours day by day, with a will and consciousness, to reproduce as exactly as possible what he sees clearly with his inner sight. He works for the Divine; his surrender is active and dynamic. For the poet too it is the same thing. Anyone who wants to do something for the Divine, it is the same.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-114</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-031_Personal Effort and Will','','publish','closed','open','','031_personal-effort-and-will','','','2021-11-23 17:21:21','2021-11-23 17:21:21','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/031_personal-effort-and-will/',0,'post','',0),(1373,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:21','2021-11-23 17:21:21','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-002_Publisher^s Note.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"><i>PUBLISHERS\' NOTE</i></p>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\"><i>\nThe writings included in this \nvolume, like those in the two preceding volumes \nof the series, are based on talks given by the \nMother to the young children of Sri Aurobindo \nAshram. They were originally published in \nJournals connected with the Ashram, during the \nyears 1953—1954</i></p>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-002_Publisher\'s Note','','publish','closed','open','','002_publishers-note-3','','','2021-11-23 17:21:21','2021-11-23 17:21:21','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/002_publishers-note-3/',0,'post','',0),(1374,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:22','2021-11-23 17:21:22','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-047_Indian and European Music.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">INDIAN AND EUROPEAN MUSIC\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe difference is both in regard to the source and the expression and in an inverse way. In European music a very high—spiritual—inspiration is a rare thing. The psychic source also is very rare. But if at all it is a very high spiritual source or otherwise it is the vital that is the source. The expression is always there, apart from some exceptions naturally; but it is almost always vital, because the source is very often purely vital. At times, as I said, it comes from high above, then it is really marvellous. At times, more rarely, it is psychic: something of it was in the religious music, but it is not frequent. Indian music, on the other hand, almost always, that is to say, when we have good musicians, has a psychic source, the source, for example, of the Ragas. It does not come from the top heights, it has rather an inner and intimate origin. But it has very rarely a sufficient vital body. I have heard a good deal of Indian music, quite a good deal indeed. I came across very rarely any that has a great vital force, not more than four or five times. But I have heard oftener that with a psychic inspiration behind. It is a music directly translated from the inner into the physical. To listen you must concentrate, as it is something very thin, very fine and tenuous, having nothing of the vital vibration with its strong intense resonances. You can glide into it, let yourself be carried along the flow, entering the psychic\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-187</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">source. It has that effect, it acts something like an intoxication, something that takes you into a kind of trance. If you listen well and are attentive and let yourself go, you slowly glide and dip, dip into the psychic consciousness; but if you remain in the external consciousness, such a thin stream expresses itself there that the vital gives no response and finds it extremely flat and monotonous. If, however, along with the psychic vibration there were also a vital force expressing it, the result would be interesting indeed.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nI like this kind of music, with a theme, a single theme moving and developing gradually with variations: countless variations playing out the same constant theme, variations branching out and coming back again to the original basic theme. In Europe too there was something of the kind in its otherwise very different style. Bach had it, Mozart too. In modern times some musicians like Debussy, Raval and the Russian Borodine and a few others have caught something of it. You take a certain number of notes, in a certain relation and upon that scheme you play variations, almost an infinite number of variations. It is marvellous: it takes you deep inside and, if you are ready, gives you the consciousness of the psychic, something that draws you back from the external physical consciousness and connects you with something other where within.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-188</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-047_Indian and European Music','','publish','closed','open','','047_indian-and-european-music','','','2021-11-23 17:21:22','2021-11-23 17:21:22','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/047_indian-and-european-music/',0,'post','',0),(1375,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:22','2021-11-23 17:21:22','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-005_The Body Human.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">THE BODY HUMAN \n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe human frame is a miracle of creation. It would not be far wrong to say that the whole trend of physical evolution has been to bring out this morphological marvel. It has not been a very easy task for Nature to raise a living creature from its original crawling &quot;crouching slouching&quot; horizontal position to the standing vertical position which is so normal and natural to the human body. Man has proportionately a larger cranium with a greater and heavier content of the grey substance in comparison with the (vertebral) column upon which it is set; his legs too have to carry a heavier burden. And yet how easy and graceful his erect posture! It is a balancing feat worthy of the cleverest rope-dancer. Look at a bear or even at a chimpanzee standing and moving on its hind legs; what an uncouth ungainly gait, forced and ill at ease! He is more natural and at home in the prone horizontal position. The bird was perhaps an\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-34</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">attempt at change of position from the horizontal to the vertical: the frame here attained an angular incline (cf. <i>tiryak, </i>\nas the bird is called in Sanskrit), but to \nmaintain even that position it was not possible to increase or enlarge the head. \nIt is not idly that Hamlet exclaims:</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\n&quot;What a piece of work is man!...how infinite in faculty...in form and moving how express and admirable...the beauty of the world...the paragon of animals!&quot;\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe perfection of the anatomical and morphological structure in man consists precisely in its wonderful elasticity—the \'infinite faculty\' or multiple functioning referred to by Shakes-peare. This is the very characteristic character of man both with regard to his physical and psychological make-up. The other species are, everyone of them, more or less, a specialised formation; we have there a closed system, a fixed and definite physical mould and pattern of life. A cat or a crow of a million years ago, like \'the immemorial elm\' was not very different\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-35</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">from its descendant of today; not so with man. I mean, the human frame, in its general build, might have remained the same from the beginning of time, but the uses to which it has been put, the works that have been demanded of it are multifarious, indeed of infinite variety. Although it is sometimes stated that the human body too has undergone a change (and is still undergoing) from what was once heavy and muscular, tall and stalwart, with a thicker skeletal system, towards something lighter and more delicate. Also an animal, like the plant, because of its rigidity of pattern, remains unchanged, keeping to its own geographical habitat. Change of climate meant for the animal a considerable change, a sea-change, a change of species, practically. But man can easily—much more easily than an animal or a plant—acclimatise himself to all sorts of variable climates. There seems to be a greater resilience in his physical system, even as a physical object. Perhaps it contains a greater variety of component elements and centres of energy which support its versatile action. The human frame, one may say, is like the solar\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-36</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">spectrum that contains all the colour vibrations and all the lines characteristic of the different elements. The solar sphere is the high symbol for man.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe story runs <i>(Aitareya Upaishad) </i>\nthat once the gods wished to come down and inhabit an earthly frame. Several \nanimal forms (the cow, the horse) were presented to them one after another, but \nthey were not satisfied, none was considered adequate for their habitation. At \nlast the human frame (with its conscious personality) was offered to them and \nimmediately they declared that that was indeed the perfect form they <i>needed-Sllkritam \nbateti-and </i>they entered into it.</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe human frame is the abode of the gods; it is a temple of God, as we all know. But the most significant thing about it is that the gods alone do not dwell there: all beings, all creatures crowd there, even the ungodly and the undivine. The Pashu (the animal), the Pisacha (the demon), the Asura, (the Titan) and the Deva (the god) all find comfortable lodging in it—there are many chambers indeed in this mansion of the Lord. Man was made\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-37</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">after the image of God and yet Lucifer had access into that tabernacle and all his host with him. This duality of the divine and the un-divine, the characteristic mark of human nature as it is, presents a field and a labour through which man\'s progress has to be worked out. The soul, the divine flame, has been placed in Ignorance, that is to say, what is apparent Ignorance, the frame of Matter, just because this Matter in Ignorance is to be smelted, purified, given its original and intrinsic substance, shape and character. The human person in its actual form is not obviously something absolutely perfect and divine. The type, the norm it represents is divine, but it has been overlaid with all obscure and base elements —it has to be washed and cleaned thoroughly, smelted and reconditioned. The dark ungodly elements mar and vitiate; they must be removed on the one hand, but on the other, they point out and test the salvaging work that has to be done and is being done. Man is always at the cross-roads. This is his especial difficulty and this is also his unique opportunity. His consciousness has a double valency, in contradistinction\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-38</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">to the animal\'s which is, it can be said, monovalent, in that it is amoral, has not the sense of divided loyalty and hence the merit of choice. The movements of the animal follow a fixed stereotyped pattern, it has not got to deviate from the beaten track of its instincts. But man with his sense of the moral, of the good, of the progressive is at every step of his life faced with a dilemma, has to pause at a parting of the ways, always looks before and after and is puzzled at a <i>cas de conscience. </i>\nThat, we have said, has been made or \nhim the condition of growth, of a conscious and willed change with an \never-increasing tempo towards perfect perfection. That furnishes the occasion \nand circumstance by which he rises to divinity itself, becomes the Divine. He \nbecomes the Divine thus not merely in \nthe own home of the Divine, but on all the \nlevels of the manifestation: all the planes of consciousness with all the \nhierarchy of beings -powers and personalities-find a new play of harmony, a \nsupreme and global fulfilment in the transfigured human vehicle. The frame \nitself that encases the human consciousness acts</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-39</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">as a living condenser: the very contour in its definiteness seems to exert a pressure towards an ever larger and higher synthesis, or, it may be compared to a kind of field of force (Einsteinian, for example) that controls, regulates, moves and configurates all elements within its range. The human frame even as a frame possesses a magic virtue.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nVaishnavism sees the Divine as a human person, the human person <i>par excellence. </i>\nKrishna\'s body is a radiant form of \nconsciousness <i>(chinmaya), </i>\nno doubt, but it is as definite, \ndeterminate, and concrete as the physical body, it is the physical itself but in \nits true substance. And its exquisiteness consists in its being human in form. \nThe Vedantin\'s Maya does not touch it, it is beyond the illusory consciousness. \nFor they say Goloka stands above Brahmaloka.</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe Christian conception of God-man is also extremely beautiful and full of meaning. God became man: He sent down upon earth his own and only Son to live among men as man. This indeed is His supreme Grace, His illimitable love for mankind. It is thus,\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-40</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">in the words of the Offertory, that He miraculously created the dignity of human substance, holding Himself worthy to partake of our humanity. This carnal sinful body has been sanctified by the Christ having assumed it. In and through Him—his divine consciousness —it has been strained and purified, uplifted and redeemed. He has anointed, it and given it a place in Heaven even by the side of the Father. Again, Mary—symbolising the earth or body consciousness, as Christian mystics themselves declare—was herself taken up bodily into the heavenly abode. The body celestial is this very physical human body cleared of its dross and filled with the divine substance. This could have been so precisely because it was originally the projection, the very image of God here below in the world of Matter. The mystery of Transubstantiation repeats and confirms the same symbology. The bread and wine of our secular body become the flesh and blood of the God-Man\'s body. The human frame is, as it were, woven into the very fabric of God\'s own truth and substance. The human form is inherent in the Divine\'s\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-41</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">own personality. Is it mere anthropomorphism to say like this? We know the adage that the lion, were he self-conscious and creative, would paint God as a super-lion, that is to say, in his own image. Well, the difference is precisely here, that the lion is not self-conscious and creative. Man creates—not man the mere imaginative artist but man the seer, the Rishi —he expresses and embodies, represents faithfully the truth that he sees, the truth that he is. It is because of this &quot;conscious personality&quot;, referred to in the parable of the Aitareya Upa-nishad,—that God has chosen the human form to inhabit.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThis is man\'s great privilege that, unlike the animal, he can surpass himself (the capacity, we may note, upon which the whole Nietzschean conception of humanity was based). Man is not bound to his human nature, to las anthropomorphism, he can rise above and beyond it, become what is (apparently) non-human. Therefore the Gita teaches: By thy self upraise thy self, lower not thy self by thy self. Indeed, as we have said, man means the whole gamut of existence. All the worlds\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-42</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">and all the beings in all the worlds are also within his frame; he has only to switch or focus his consciousness on to a particular point or direction and he becomes a particular type in life. Man can be the very supreme godhead or at the other extreme a mere brute or any other intermediary creature in the hierarchy extending between the two.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe Divine means the All: whatever there is (manifest or beyond) is within Him and is Himself. Man too who is within that Divine is the Divine in a special way; for he is a replica or epitome of the Divine containing or embodying the threefold status and movement of the Divine—the Transcendent, the Cosmic and the Individual. He is co-extensive with the Divine. Only, the Divine is conscious, supremely conscious, while Man is unconscious or at best half-conscious. God has made himself the world and its creatures, the transcendental has become the material cosmos, true; but God has made himself Man in a special sense and for a special purpose. Man is not a fabrication of the Lower Maya, a formation thrown up in the evolutionary course by a temporary idea in the\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-43</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">Cosmic Mind and developed through the play of forces; on the other hand, it is a typal reality, a Real-Idea—a formation of the original truth-consciousness, the Divine\'s own transcendental existence. Man is the figure of the Divine Person. The Impersonal become or viewed as the Personal takes up the human aspect, the human, that is to say, as its original prototype in the superconscience.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe conception of a personal immortality —the impersonal is naturally always immortal, there is no problem there—of a physical immortality even attains a significant value looked at from this standpoint. The urge for immortality is not merely a wish to continue indefinitely an earthly life, because of its pleasures or because of an unreasoning attachment; it means regaining and establishing the immortal body that one has or that one is essentially and potentially. The body seeks to be immortal, for it contains and secretly is its immortal Formal Cause (to make use of an Aristotelian term). The materialisation of an immortal being and figure of being —that is the consummation demanded of human life on earth.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-44</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe spirit, the pure self in man is formless; but his soul—the spirit cast into the evolutionary mould in manifestation—has a form: it possesses a personal identity of its own. Each soul or Psyche is a contoured consciousness, as it were: it is not a vague indefinite charge of consciousness, but consciousness having magnitude and dimensions. And the physical body is a visible formula, a graph of that magnitude, an image— —a faithful image or shadow thrown upon the wall of this cave of earthly life,—of a reality above and outside, as Plato conceived the phenomenon. And the human appearance too is an extension or projection of an inner and essential reality which brings out or takes up that configuration when fronting the soul in its evolutionary march through terrestrial life. A mystic poet says:\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\n<i>All dreams of the soul </i>\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\"><i>End in a beautiful man\'s or woman\'s body—</i><sup>1</sup>\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThis is not the utterance of a mere profane consciousness, such also is the experience of a\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\n<sup>1</sup> W. B. Yeats: <i>The Wild Swans at Coole</i>\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-45</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">deeper spiritual truth. For the Divine in one of its essential aspects is Ardhanarishwara, the original transcendental Man-Woman. And we feel and almost see that it is a human Face to which our adoration goes when we hear another mystic poet chant for us the <i>mantra:</i>\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\n<i>Invading the secret clasp of the Silence and</i>\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n<i>crimson Fire thou frontest eyes in a timeless Face.<sup>1</sup></i>\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\n<sup>1</sup> Sri Aurobindo: <i>The Bird of Fire</i>\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-46</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-005_The Body Human','','publish','closed','open','','005_the-body-human','','','2021-11-23 17:21:22','2021-11-23 17:21:22','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/005_the-body-human/',0,'post','',0),(1376,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:22','2021-11-23 17:21:22','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-008_The Sunlit Path.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">II \n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">THE SUNLIT PATH \n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nSri Aurobindo speaks of the sunlit path in Yoga. It is the path of happy progress where dangers and difficulties, violent ups and downs are reduced to a minimum, if not altogether obviated. In ideal conditions it is as it were a smooth and fair-weather sailing, as much of course as it is humanly possible. What are then these conditions? It is when the sadhaka keeps touch with his inmost being, his psychic consciousness, when this inner Guide and Helmsman is given the charge; for then he will be able to pass sovereignly by all shoals and rocks and storm-racks, through all vicissitudes gliding on—slow or swift as needed— inevitably towards the goal. A doubting mind, an impetuous vital urge, an inert physical consciousness, though they may be there in any strength, cannot disturb or upset the even tenor of the forward march. Even outward circumstances\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-70</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">bow down to the \npressure of the psychic temperament and bring to it their happy collaboration.</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThis may not always mean that all is easy and difficulty is simply not, once the psychic is there. It becomes so when the psychic is there fully in front; even otherwise when the inner being is in the background, still sensed and, on the whole, obeyed, although there are battles, hard battles to be fought and won, then even a little of this Consciousness saves from a great fear. For, then, in all circumstances, you will have found a secret joy and cheer and strength that buoy you up and carry you through.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nLike the individual, nations too have their sunlit path and the path of the doldrum as well. So long as a nation keeps to the truth of its inner being, follows its natural line of development, remains faithful to its secret godhead, it will have chosen that good part which will bring it divine blessings and fulfilment. But sometimes a nation has the stupidity to deny its self, to run after an <i>ignis fatuus, </i>\nthen grief and sorrow and frustration lie \nahead. We are afraid India did take such a</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-71</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">wrong step when she refused to see the great purpose behind the present war and tried to avoid contributing her mite to the evolutionary Force at work. On the other hand, Britaim in a moment of supreme crisis, that meant literally life or death, not only to herself or to other nations, but to humanity itself, had the good fortune to be led by the right Inspiration, the whole nation rose as one man and swore allegiance to the cause of humanity and the gods. That was how she was saved and that was how she acquired a new merit and a fresh lease of life. Unlike Britain, France bowed down and accepted what should not have been accepted and cut herself adrift from her inner life and truth, the result was five years of hell. Fortunately, the hell in the end, proved to be a purgatory, but what a purgatory! For there were souls who were willing to pay the price and did pay it to the full cash and nett. So France has been given the chance again to turn round and take up the thread of her life where it snapped.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nOnce more another crisis seems to be looming before the nations, once more the choice has to\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-72</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">be made and acted upon. In our weakness it is natural and easy to invoke God, to feel the presence of a higher Guidance, to trust in a heavenly light; but it is in our strength that we must know whose strength it is, and in whose strength it is that we conquer.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIf the present war has any meaning, as we all declare it has, then we must never lose sight of that meaning. And our true victory will come only in the process of the realisation of that meaning. That is the sunlit path we refer to here which the nations have to follow in their mutual dealings. It is the path of the evolutionary call to which we say we have responded and to which we must remain loyal and faithful in thought, in speech and in deed. If we see dark and ominous clouds gathering round us, dangers and difficulties suddenly raising their heads, then we must look about and try honestly to find out whether we have not strayed away from the sunlit path.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-73</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-008_The Sunlit Path','','publish','closed','open','','008_the-sunlit-path','','','2021-11-23 17:21:22','2021-11-23 17:21:22','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/008_the-sunlit-path/',0,'post','',0),(1377,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:22','2021-11-23 17:21:22','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-010_Sectarianism or Loyalty.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">IV \n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">SECTARIANISM OR LOYALTY\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nModern culture demands that one should not be bound to one creed or dogma, swear by one principle or rule of life or be led blindly by one man. Truth, it is said, has many facets and the human being is also not a Cyclops, a one-eyed creature. To fix oneself to one mode of seeing and believing and even behaving is to be narrow, restricted, sectarian. One must be able to see many standpoints, appreciate views of variance with one\'s own, appraise the relativity of all standards. Not to be able to do so leads to obscurantism and fanaticism. The Inquisitors were monomaniacs, obsessed by an <i>idée fixe. </i>On the other hand, the wisest counsel seems to have been given by Voltaire who advised the inquirers to learn from anywhere and everywhere, even Science from the Chinese. In our Indian legends we know that Uddhava did not hesitate to accept and learn</p>\n</p>\n<p class=\"pageno\">Page-78</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\nfrom more than a dozen Gurus. That is as it should be if we would have a mind and consciousness large and vast and all-encompassing.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nAnd yet there is a question. While attempting to be too liberal and catholic one may happen to turn a dilettante. Dilettante is one who takes an interest, an aesthetic, a dispassionate and detached interest in all things. His interest is intellectual, something abstract and necessarily superficial; it is not a vital interest, not a question of his soul, an urgent problem of his living.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nA spiritual interest is nothing if it is not in this way a question that touches life to its core. That means a definite goal and appropriate means to reach that goal, and that again necessarily involves a choice, a process of acceptance and rejection. The goal is also called the <i>Ishta, </i>\nthe godhead that one seeks] the Divine that is \nfulfilled in oneself. Being a personality, an individual, one has to choose, one \ncan best follow the line of evolution and growth and fulfilment of that \npersonality and individuality-e-that is the call of the Psyche, the direction of \nthe jiva. \nIn other words, one</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-79</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">has to be loyal and faithful to one\'s nature and being. That is why it is said: Better to perish while fulfilling one\'s own law of life than to flourish by fulfilling another\'s law. By being curious about another\'s Dharma—it is this kind of curiosity that led to the original fall of man, according to the Bible—that is to say, if one is vitally curious, allows onself to be influenced and so affected and diverted by what is an outside and foreign force, because not in the line of one\'s own truth and development, one asks for a mixture and intervention which bring confusion, thwart the growth and fufilment, as that falsifies the nature.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIt is not only bad influences that affect you badly, even good influences do so—like medicines that depend upon the particualr constitution for their action. In ancient times this was called <i>varnasankara or dharmasankara, </i>\nas, for example, when a Kshatriya sought \nto follow the rule of life of a Brahmin or <i>vice versa. </i>This kind of \nadmixture or <i>mesalliance</i> was not favoured, as it was likely to bring \nabout an obscurity in the consciousness and in the end frustration in the \nspiritual life. That was</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-80</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">the original psychological reason why heresy was considered such a dangerous thing in all religions.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIt is not sufficient to say that God is one and therefore wherever He is found and however He is found and whoever finds Him one must implicitly accept and obey and follow. God is one indeed: but it is equally true that he is multiple. God is not a point, but a limitless infinity, so that when one does reach Him one arrives at a particular spot, as it were, enters into only one of his many mansions. Likewise, God\'s manifestation upon earth has been infinitely diverse, his Vibhutis, Ava-taras, his prophets and vicegerents have been of all sorts and kinds. Precisely because God is at once one and infinitely multiple and because human nature also is likewise, if one in essence, infinitely multiple in expression, each one, while seeing and finding the one God, seeks and finds him in and through a particular formulation. That is the original meaning, the genesis and justification of creeds and dogmas. Only, it must be borne in mind, that one can be faithful even to a particular creed and dogma\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-81</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">and yet transcend it, live a particular mode of life and yet possess at the back of it and as its support the very sense and consciousness of infinity itself. Where there is this synthetic and transcendent experience dogmatism has no place, nor conflict between creed and creed.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nOne can be as catholic and boundless as infinity, still one can and has to bow down to a special figure of it, since or if one who approaches it has a figure of his own. Just in the same way as when one is in the body, one has to live a particualr life framed by the body, even the mind as well as the life are canalised in the mould of the body consciousness, and yet at the same time one can live in and through the inner consciousness immeasurably innumerably in other bodies, in the unbarred expanse of the cosmic and the transcendent. The two experiences are not contradictory, rather they reinforce each other.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nUddhava might have had numberless teachers and instructors, but the Guru of his soul was Sri Krishna alone, none other. We may learn many things from many places, from books, from nature, from persons; intuitions\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-82</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">and inspirations may come from many quarters, inside and outside, but the central guidance flows from one source only and one must be careful to keep it unmixed, undefiled, clear and pure. When one means nothing more than playing with ideas and persons and places, there is no harm in being a globe-trotter; but as soon as one becomes serious, means business, one automatically stops short, finds and sticks to his Ishta, even like the Gopis of Sri Krishna who declared unequivocally that they would not move out of Brindaban even by a single step.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-83</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-010_Sectarianism or Loyalty','','publish','closed','open','','010_sectarianism-or-loyalty','','','2021-11-23 17:21:22','2021-11-23 17:21:22','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/010_sectarianism-or-loyalty/',0,'post','',0),(1378,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:22','2021-11-23 17:21:22','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-015_Mater Dolorosa.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">IX \n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">MATER DOLOROSA \n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nSuffering, Distress and Death today hold the earth in thrall. And yet can there be any other issue in temporal life? That seems to be the ineluctable fate for mankind. Ages ago it was declared, the wages of sin is death.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nDoubters ask, however, if sinners alone suffered, one would not perhaps mind; but along with sinners why should innocents, nay even the virtuous, pass under the axe? What sins indeed babes commit? Are the sins of the fathers truly visited upon coming generations? A queer arrangement, to say the least, if there is a wise and just and benevolent God! Yes, how many honest people, people who strive to live piously, honestly and honourably, according to the law of righteousness, fail to escape! All equally undergo the same heavy punishment. Is it not then nearer the truth to say that a most mechanical Nature, a mere gamble of chance,\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-97</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">a statistical equation, as mathematicians say, moves the destiny of creatures and things in the universe, that there is nowhere a heart or consciousness in the whole business?\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nSome believers in God or in the Spirit admit that it is so. The world is the creation of another being, a not-God, a not-Spirit— whether Maya or Ahriman or the Great Evil. One has simply to forget the world, abandon earthly existence altogether as a nightmare. Peace, felicity one can possess and enjoy— but not here in this vale of tears, <i>anityam asukham lokam imam, </i>\nbut elsewhere beyond.</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIs that the whole truth? We, for ourselves, do not subscribe to this view. Truth is a very complex entity, the universe a mingled strain. It is not a matter of merely sinners and innocents that we have to deal with. The problem is deeper and more fundamental. The whole question is,—where, in which world, on which level of consciousness do we stand, and, what is more crucial, how much of that consciousness is dynamic and effective in normal life. If we are in the ordinary consciousness and live wholly with that\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-98</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">consciousness, it is inevitable that, being in the midst of Nature\'s current, we should be buffeted along, the good and the evil, as we conceive them to be, befalling us indiscriminately. Or, again, if we happen to live in part or even mainly in an inner or higher consciousness, more or less in a mood of withdrawal from the current of life allowing the life movements to happen as they list, then too we remain, in fact, creatures and playthings of Nature and we must not wonder if, externally, suffering becomes the badge of our tribe.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nAnd yet the solution need not be a total rejection and transcendence of Nature. For what is ignored in this view is Nature\'s dual reality. In one form, the inferior <i>(apara), </i>\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe whole question then is this—now far\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-99</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">has this Higher Nature been a reality with us, to what extent do we live and move and have our being in it. It is when the normal existence, our body, our life and our mentality have all adopted and absorbed the substance -of the Higher Prakriti and become it, when all the modes of Inferior Prakriti have been discarded and annihilated, or rather, have been purified and made to grow into the modes of the Higher Prakriti, that our terrestrial life can become a tiling of absolute beauty and perfect perfection.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIf, on the contrary, any part of us belongs to the Inferior Nature, even if the larger part dwells in some higher status of Nature, even then we are not immune to the attacks that come from the inferior Nature. Those whom we usually call pious or virtuous or honest have still a good part of them imbedded in the Lower Nature, in various degrees they are yet its vassals; they owe allegiance to the three gunas, be it even to sattwa—sattwa is also a movement in Inferior Nature; they are not free. Has not Sri Krishna said: <i>Traigunya--vishaya veda nistraigunyo bhavarjuna ? </i>\nThe only</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-100</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">thing we must remember is that freedom from the gunas does not necessarily mean an absolute cessation of the play of Prakriti. Being in the gunas we must know how to purify and change them, transmute them into their higher and divine potentials.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThis is a counsel of perfection, one would say. But there is no other way out. If humanity is to be saved, if it is at all to progress, it can be only in this direction. Buddha\'s was no less a counsel of perfection. He saw the misery of man, the three great maladies inherent in life and his supreme compassion led him to the discovery of a remedy, a radical remedy,— indeed it could remove the malady altogether, for it removed the patient also. What we propose is, in this sense, something less drastic. Ours is not a path of escape, although that too needs heroism, but of battle and conquest and lordship.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIt is not to say that other remedies—less radical but more normal to human nature— cannot be undertaken in the meanwhile. The higher truths do not rule out the lower. These too have their place and utility in Nature\'s\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-101</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">integral economy. An organisation based on science and ethicism can be of help as a palliative and measure of relief; it may be even immediately necessary under the circumstances, but however imperative at the moment it does not go to the root of the matter.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-102</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-015_Mater Dolorosa','','publish','closed','open','','015_mater-dolorosa','','','2021-11-23 17:21:22','2021-11-23 17:21:22','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/015_mater-dolorosa/',0,'post','',0),(1379,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:22','2021-11-23 17:21:22','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-011_Sincerity.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">V \n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">SINCERITY \n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe \nfirst condition of the spiritual life, and the last condition as well, is sincerity. One must sincerely want the spiritual life in order to have it. The soul—the psychic being—is always sincere: it is made of the very stuff of sincerity, for it is a part, or a spark of the Divine Consciousness itself. When one feels the call, turns one\'s back to the worldly life, moves towards the life spiritual, one follows then the urge of one\'s true being, the psychic being: one is then naturally sincere, firmly and spontaneously devoted to the Divine, unequivocally loyal and faithful to the Beloved and the Master.</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThis central sincerity, however, has to be worked out in actual life. For, one may be true in the spirit, but false—weak, that is to say—in the flesh. The light of the central being usually finds its way first into the mind. One becomes then mentally sincere: in other\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-84</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">words, one has the idea, the thought that the Divine is the goal and nothing else can or shall satisfy. With the light in the mind, one sees also in oneself more and more the dark spots, the weaknesses, the obstacles—one becomes conscious of one\'s feelings, discovers elements that have to be corrected or purged. But this mental sincerity, this recognition in the understanding is not enough: it remains mostly ineffective and barren with regard to life and character. One appears in this stage to lead a double life: one knows and understands, to some extent at least, but one is unable to act up even to that much knowledge and understanding. It is only when the power of sincerity descends still further and assumes a concreter form, when the vital becomes sincere and is converted, then the urge is there not only to see and understand, but to do and achieve. Without the vital\'s sincerity, its will to be transformed, one remains at best a witness, one has an inner perception or consciousness of the Divine, but in actual living one lets the old ordinary nature to go its own way. It is the sincerity in the vital, its will to possess the\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-85</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">Divine and the Divine alone, its ardour to collaborate with the Divine that brings about the crucial, the most dynamic change. Sadhana instead of being a mere mental occupation, an intellectual pursuit, acquires the urgency of living and doing and achieving. Finally, the vital sincerity, when it reaches its climax, calls for the ultimate sincerity—sincerity in the body. When the body consciousness becomes sincere then we cannot but be and act as decided and guided by the divine consciousness; we live and move and have our being wholly in the divine manner. Then what the inmost being, the psychic, envisages in the divine light, the body inevitably and automatically executes. There is no gap between the two. The spirit and the flesh—soul and body—are soldered, fused together in one single compact entity. One starts with the central sincerity in the psychic being and progress of sadhana means the extension of this sincerity gradually to all the outlying parts and levels of the being till, when the body is reached, the whole consciousness becomes, as it were, a massive pyramid of loyalty.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-86</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-011_Sincerity','','publish','closed','open','','011_sincerity','','','2021-11-23 17:21:22','2021-11-23 17:21:22','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/011_sincerity/',0,'post','',0),(1380,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:22','2021-11-23 17:21:22','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-002_The New Year Initiation.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">THE NEW YEAR INITIATION </p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n<i>&quot;O Lord, the world implores Thee to prevent it from falling back always into the same stupidities.</i>\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n<i>&quot;Grant that the mistakes recognised may never be renewed.</i>\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n<i>&quot;Grant, lastly, that its actions may be the exact and sincere expression of its proclaimed ideals-.&quot;</i>—1944\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">(I)\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThis is the New Year Prayer the Mother has formulated for our sake. This is the turn She would have us give to our sadhana for the year. What is the special import of this new orientation? It is, one may say, to direct our efforts towards an objective expression, towards an application to life on the material plane.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-1</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\nOne starts on the path of sadhana with an almost entire unconsciousness—it is so in all evolutionary process. A goal is there, vague and indistinct, far off. Within him also the sadhaka feels an equally indefinite and indefinable urge, he seems to move without any fixed aim or purpose, with an urge simply to move and move on. This is what he feels as a yearning, as an aspiration—<i>charaivete, </i>\nas the Upanishad says. Then step by step as he \nprogresses, his consciousness grows luminous, the aim also begins to take a \nclear and definite shape. The mind is able slowly to understand and grasp what\nit \nwants, the heart\'s yearning and attraction also \nbegin to be transparent, quiet but deep. Still this cannot be called a change of \nnature, let alone transformation. Then only will our nature consent really to \nchange when we become, when even our sense-organs become subject to our inner \nconsciousness, when our actions and activities are inspired, guided and formed \nby the power and influence of this inner light.</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIn the beginning, the sadhaka finds himself a divided personality—in his heart there is\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-2</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">the awakening of aspiration, the divine touch, but with all its outward impulses, the physical consciousness remains subject to the control of old fixed habits under the sway of the lower nature. Ordinarily, man is an unconscious sinner, that is to say, he has no sense of what sins he commits. But he becomes a conscious sinner when he reaches the level of which we are speaking. The conflicts, fears, agonies, compunctions in this stage have perhaps been nowhere more evident than in the life of the Christian seeker. In this state we know what to do but cannot do it—the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. We want to do the right thing, we try to do it again and again, yet we fail every time. It is not that we fail only in respect of the movements of our heart and mind, in practice also we commit the same stupidities time and again. These stupidities— and their name is legion—are lust, anger, greed, ignorance, vanity, envy, distrust, disobedience, revolt; repentance, constant repentance and earnest supplication for the divine grace—that is the remedy, says the devout Christian.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-3</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\nBut we, for ourselves, do not give any such supreme place to repentance. For, after all, it is a lower impulse, a vital impulse as we call it; it does not allow the memory of the sin to be forgotten; rather by dwelling upon it constantly, it keeps it alive, makes the impression of the sin all the more lurid. And not unoften does it lead to luxuriating in sinfulness. Behind the sense of repentance is this consciousness, this idea that man is, by nature, corrupt, his sin is original. That is why the Christian seeker has accepted sorrow and suffering, abasement and mortification as the indispensable conditions of his sadhana. This calls to our mind a witty remark of Anatole France, that prince of humorists, that one could not be a lover of Christ unless one sinned—the more one sinned, the more could one grow in righteousness; the more the repentance, in other words, the more the divine grace.</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nWe have said that this is not our path. The divine grace is a fact—without that nothing is possible. From one point of view, the divine grace is unconditioned. But it does not follow\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-4</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">that the precedent of Jagai-Madhai is the invariable law of spiritual life. The law is rather this that the field must be ready, the being and the consciousness must get into a certain mould, attain certain order and disposition so that the descent of the Divine Grace, its manifestation and play may be possible. For, just as the divine grace is true, so is it equally true that the individual is essentially one with the Divine, sin and ignorance are his external sloughs, identity with the Divine is his natural right. We, therefore, lay equal stress on this hidden aspect of man, on the freedom of his will, on his personal effort which is the determining factor of his destiny. For in the field of ignorance or half-knowledge, in the nether hemisphere of his consciousness, it is this power that directly builds up that ordered state of the being with whose support the divine grace can actualise itself and give a material shape to the integral fulfilment.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> Hence the Mother gives the \ndirection that though external lapses may be natural to our external nature, now \nthat our inner consciousness\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-5</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">has awakened, the vision and the earnestness to see and recognise our mistakes have developed—assuming that this much of development has taken place in us—we must awake to the situation and be on the alert, we must bring such control to bear upon our vital impulses, upon our nervous centres as will prevent, for good and all, errors and stupidities from upsurging again and invading our physical self and our field of action. When we have reached this stage, we have acquired the capacity to ascend to another level of consciousness. It is then that we can lay the foundations of a new order in the world—it is then that along with the purification, the achievement will begin to take on a material form.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">(2)\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe scope of this New Year Prayer does not limit itself only to our individual sadhana —it embraces also the collective consciousness which is specially the field of its application. It is the muffled voice of entire humanity in\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-6</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">its secret aspiration that is given expression here. It is by the power of this <i>mantra, </i>protected by this invulnerable armour,—if we choose to accept it as such,—that the collective life of man will attain its fulfilment. We have often stated that the outstanding feature of the modern world is that it has become a Kurukshetra of Gods and Titans. It is no doubt an eternal truth of creation, this conflict between the divine and the anti-divine, and it has been going on in the heart of humanity since its advent upon earth. In the inner life of the world this is a fact of the utmost importance, its most significant principle and mystery. Still it must be said that never in the annals of the physical world has this truth taken such momentous proportions as in the grim present. It is pregnant with all good and evil that may make or mar human destiny in the near future. Whether man will transcend his half-animal state and rise to the full height of his manhood, nay even to the godhead in him, or descend back to the level of his gross brute nature—this is the problem of problems which is being dealt with and solved in</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-7</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">the course of the mighty holocaust of the present world war.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIn her last year\'s message<sup>1</sup> the Mother gave a clear warning that we must have no more hesitation, that we must renounce one side, free ourselves from all its influence and embrace the other side without hesitation, without reservation. At the decisive moment in the life of the world and of mankind, one must definitely, irrevocably choose one\'s loyalty. It will not do to say, like the over wise and the over liberal, that both sides—the Allies and the Axis Powers—are equal—equally right or equally wrong—and that we can afford to be outside or above the prejudices or interests of either. There is no room today for a neutral. He who pretends to be a neutral is an enemy to the cause of truth. Whoever is not with us is against us.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\n<sup>1</sup> &quot;The hour has come when a choice has to be made, radical and definitive.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nLord, give us the strength to reject the falsehood and emerge in Thy truth, pure and worthy of Thy victory.&quot; —1943\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-8</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\nWe who have taken the side that is for Light and Evolution and the great Future, must be thoroughly alive to the heavy responsibility that lies on us. The choice of the path is not by itself sufficient. Next to that, we have to see, at every step, and make sure that we are really walking straight along the true path, that we do not fall and slip down, that we do not stray unawares into a wrong track or a blind alley.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nSo far as the World War is concerned all nations and peoples and groups on our side who have felt and proclaimed that they stand for equality, fraternity and freedom, the priests and prophets of a new future, of a happier humanity, all such warriors are also facing a solemn ordeal. For them also the time has come to be on their guard and be watchful. They must see that they give exact expression in their actions to what they have thought, felt and proclaimed. They have to prove by every means, by thought, word and deed, that their entire being is really one, whole and indivisible, in ideal and in intention.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nToday at the beginning of the new year we\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-9</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">have to bear in mind what aim, what purpose inspired us to enter into this tremendous &quot;terrible work&quot;, what force, what strength has been leading us to victory. They who consider themselves as collaborators in the progressive evolution of Nature must constantly realise the truth that if victory has come within the range of possibility, it has done so in just proportion to their sincerity, by the magic grace of the Mahashakti, the grace which the aspiration of their inner consciousness has called down. And what is now but possible will grow into the actual if we keep moving along the path we have so far followed. Otherwise, if we falter, fail and break faith, if we relapse into the old accustomed track, if under pressure of past habits, under the temptation of immediate selfish gain, under the sway of narrow parochial egoism, we suppress or maim the wider consciousness of our inner being or deny it in one way or another, then surely we shall wheel back and fall into the clutches of those very hostile powers which it has been our determined effort to overthrow. Even if we gain an outward victory it will be a disastrous,</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-10</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">moral and spiritual defeat. That will mean a tragic reversal—to be compelled to begin again from the very beginning. Nature will not be baulked of her aim. Another travail she will have to undergo and that will be far more agonising and terrible.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nBut we do not expect such a catastrophe. We have hope and confidence that the secret urge of Nature, the force of the Mahashakti will save man, individually and collectively, from ignorance and foolishness, vouchsafe to him genuine good sense and the true inspiration.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-11</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-002_The New Year Initiation','','publish','closed','open','','002_the-new-year-initiation','','','2021-11-23 17:21:22','2021-11-23 17:21:22','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/002_the-new-year-initiation/',0,'post','',0),(1381,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:22','2021-11-23 17:21:22','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-018_The Soul^s Odyssey.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">XII\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">THE SOUL\'S ODYSSEY\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n<i>Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting; </i>\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\"><i> The Soul that rises with us, our Life\'s Star, \n</i>\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\"><i> Hath had elsewhere its setting,</i>\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n<i>And cometh from afar; </i>\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\"><i> Not in entire forgetfulness, \n</i>\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\"><i> And not in utter nakedness, \n</i>\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\"><i> But trailing clouds of glory do we come \n</i>\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\"><i> From God, who is our home...</i>\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">Rarely has a poet-a \nsecular poet, I meangiven utterance to a deep spiritual and occult truth \nwith such clarity and felicity. It \nis, however, quite open to doubt whether \nWordsworth himself was fully cognisant of the truth he expressed; the words that \nwere put into his mouth carry a significance and a symbolism considerably beyond \nwhat his mind seemed to have received and understood. The passage may be taken \nas one more illustration of  \n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n<br> \n</p><p class=\"pageno\">Page-114</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\nMatthew Arnold\'s characterisation of Wordsworth\'s genius at its best, it is then Nature herself that takes up the pen and writes for the poet.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe deep spiritual truth we are referring to is the Odyssey of the human soul. And it is also an occult phenomenon happening in the world of the inner reality. The Soul\'s own home is in God, is God; for it is part and parcel of the divine consciousness, it is essentially one in being and nature with the supreme Reality. It is a nucleus, a centre of individuation, a projection in a particular name and form of the infinite and eternal Being and Consciousness and Bliss on this side of manifestation or evolutionary Nature. Being in and with the Divine, merged within it, the Soul has, at the same time, its own proper domain, exclusively its own, and its own inalienable identity. It is the domain where the Soul enjoys its <i>swa-rajya, </i>\nits absolute freedom, dwelling \nin its \nnative light and happiness and glory. But the story changes, the curve of its \ndestiny takes a sudden new direction when it comes down upon earth, when it \ninhabits a mortal body. Within the body, it no longer occupies itspatent</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-115</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">frontal position, but withdraws behind a veil, as it were: it takes its stand behind or within the depth of the heart, as spiritual practice experiences it. It hides there, as in a cavern, closed in now by the shades of the prison-house which its own body and life and mind build round it. Yet it is not wholly shut out or completely cut off; for from its secret home it exerts its influence which gradually, slowly, very slowly indeed, niters through—bathes, clarifies, illumines the encasement, makes it transparent and docile in the end. For that is the Soul\'s ultimate function and fulfilment.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIn the meanwhile, however, &quot;our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting.&quot; A physical incarnation clouds the soul-consciousness and involves loss of memory, amnesia. The soul\'s travail therefore in a physical body is precisely to regain the memory of what has been forgotten. Spiritual discipline means at bottom this remembering, and all culture too means nothing more than that—that is also what Plato thought when he said that all knowledge, all true knowledge consists in renriniscence.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-116</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\nMan, in his terrestrial body, although fallen, because shrouded and diverted from his central being of light and fire, is yet not, as I have said, wholly forsaken and cut adrift. He always carries within him that radiant core through all the peregrinations of earthly sojourn. And though the frontal consciousness, the physical memory has no contact with it, there is a stream of inner consciousness that continues to maintain the link. That is the silver lining to the dark cloud that envelops and engulfs our normal life. And that is why at times—not unoften—there occurs a crack, a fissure in the crust of our earthly nature of ignorance and a tongue of flame leaps out—one or other perhaps of the seven sisters of which the Upanishad speaks. And then a mere man becomes a saint, a seer, a poet, a prophet, a hero. This is the flaming godhead whom we cherish within, Agni, the leader of our progressive life, the great Sacrifice, the child whom we nourish, birth after birth, by all that we experience and do and achieve. To live normally and naturally in that fiery element—like the legendary Salamander—to mould one\'s  consciousness\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-117</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">and being, one\'s substance and constitution, even the entire cellular organisation into the radiant truth is the goal of man\'s highest aspiration, the ultimate end of Nature\'s evolutionary urge and the cycle of rebirth.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-118</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\n<u>\n<i>Works\' by the same Author</i></u>\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe Yoga of Sri Aurobindo <i>(in five parts)</i>\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe Coming Race\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nTowards a New Society\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe Malady of the Century\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe Approach to Mysticism\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe World War (1939-45)—Its Inner Bearings\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nTowards the Light <i>(Aphorisms)</i>\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nTo the Heights \n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nPoets and Mystics\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-119</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-018_The Soul\'s Odyssey','','publish','closed','open','','018_the-souls-odyssey','','','2021-11-23 17:21:22','2021-11-23 17:21:22','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/018_the-souls-odyssey/',0,'post','',0),(1382,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:23','2021-11-23 17:21:23','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-014_Dynamic Fatalism.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">VII</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">DYNAMIC FATALISM\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n&quot;The supramental change is a thing decreed and inevitable.&quot; If it is so, then what is the necessity at all of work and labour and travail— this difficult process of sadhana? The question is rather naive, but it is very often asked. The answer also could be very simple. The change decreed is precisely worked out through the travail: one is the end, the other is the means; the goal and the process, both are decreed and inevitable. If it is argued, supposing none made the effort, even then would the change come about, in spite of man\'s inaction? Well, first of all, this is an impossible supposition. Man cannot remain idle even for a moment: not only the inferior Nature, but the higher Nature too is always active in him— remember the words of the Gita—though behind the veil, in the inner consciousness. Secondly, if if is really so, if man is not labouring\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-94</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">and working and making the attempt, then it must be understood that the time has not yet come for him to undergo the change, he has still to wait: one of the signs of the imminence of the change is this very intensity and extensiveness of the labour among mankind. If, however, a particular person chooses to do nothing, prefers to wait and see—hopes in the end to jump at the fruit all at once and possess it or hopes the fruit to drop quietly into his mouth—well, this does not seem to be a likely happening. If one wishes to enjoy the fruit, one must share in the effort to sow and&quot; grow. Indeed, the process itself of reaching the higher consciousness involves a gradual heightening of the consciousness. The means is really part of the end. The joy of victory is the consummation of the joy of battle.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nMan can help or retard the process of Nature, in a sense. If his force of consciousness acts in line with Nature\'s secret movement, then that movement is accelerated: through the soul or self that is man, it is the Divine, Nature\'s lord and master who drives and helps Nature forward. If, on the contrary, man follows\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-95</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">his lesser self, his lower ego, rajasic and tamasic, then he throws up obstacles and barriers which hamper and slow down Nature\'s march.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIn a higher sense, from a transcendental standpoint, however, this too is only an appearance. In reality man neither helps nor hinders Prakriti. For in that sphere the two are not separate entities. What is viewed as the helping hand of man is really Nature helping herself: man is the conscious movement of Nature. In that transcendent status the past and the future are rolled together in the eternal present and all exist there as an accomplished fact: there is nothing there to be worked out and achieved. But lower down there is a play of forces, of conflicting possibilities and the resultant is a balance of these divergent lines. When one identifies oneself with the higher static consciousness one finds nothing to be done, all is realised—&quot;the eternal play of the eternal child in the eternal garden&quot;. But when one lives in the Kurukshetra of forces, one cannot throw away one\'s Gandiva and say, &quot;I will not fight&quot;.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-96</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-014_Dynamic Fatalism','','publish','closed','open','','014_dynamic-fatalism','','','2021-11-23 17:21:23','2021-11-23 17:21:23','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/014_dynamic-fatalism/',0,'post','',0),(1383,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:23','2021-11-23 17:21:23','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-012_True Humility.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">VI\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">TRUE HUMILITY\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\"> It is not by repeating <i>mea culpa </i>ad infinitum that one can show one\'s true humility. In owning too much and too often one\'s sins, one may be just on the wrong side of virtue. There lurks a strain of vanity in self-maceration: the sinner in an over-dose of self-pity almost feels himself saintly. Certainly, one must stand before oneself face to face, not hide or minimise \nor explain away one\'s errors and lapses, all one\'s omissions and commissions. \nBut one need not brood over them, merely repenting and repining. One sees \nsteadily, without flinching, what one actually is and then resolutely and \nsincerely takes to the ways and means of changing it, becoming what one has to \nbe. A fall, the discovery of a new frailty should be an occasion not to chastise \nand punish yourself, thus to depress yourself and harden your nature, but to \nenthuse you with a fresh resolution,</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-87</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">to rekindle your aspiration so that you may take another step forward. And, naturally, this you must do not with the sense that you can succeed or move forward by any inherent capacity of yours—your failures are there always as standing eye-openers to you. No,<sub> </sub>it is not your self but the Divine Self that will come to your succour and lift you up— <i>tameva esha vrinute tanum swam</i>—to him alone it unveils its own body. That is the humility to be learnt. But it does not mean that you are to remain merely passive, inert—you cannot but be that if you are only a &quot;weeping willow&quot;—a dead-weight upon the force of Grace that would carry you up. Rather you should throw your weight, whatever it is, on the side of the Divine. An atmosphere of alacrity and happiness and goodwill goes a long way to the redemption and regeneration of the consciousness. This is demanded of you; the rest is the work of the Divine. It is under such conditions that the Divine\'s help becomes all the more speedy and effective. Otherwise, mere contrition and lamentation and self-torture mean, as I have said, a ballast, a burden upon the force</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-88</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">of progress and purification; as Sri Krishna says in the Gita, by oppressing oneself one oppresses only the Divine within. Humility, in order to be true and sincere, need not be sour and dour in appearance or go about in sack-cloth and ashes. On the contrary, it can be smiling and buoyant: and it is so, because it is at ease, knowing that things will be done—some things naturally will be undone too—quietly, quickly, if necessary, and inevitably, provided the right consciousness, the right will within is maintained. The humble consciousness does not, of course, take credit for what is being done for it, nor does it concentrate wholly or chiefly on its utter futility and smallness. It feels small or helpless not in the sense as when one feels weak and miserable and almost undone, but as a child feels, naturally and innocently, in the lap of its mother: only perhaps it is more awake and self-conscious than the child mentality.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nHumility is unreservedly humble, as it envisages the immensity of the labour the Divine has undertaken, sees the Grace, infinite and inscrutable, working miracles every moment:\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-89</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">and it is full of gratitude and thanksgiving and quiet trust and hopefulness. Certainly, it means self-forgetfulness and selflessness, as it cannot co-exist with the sense of personal worth and merit, with any appreciation of one\'s own tapasya and achievement, even as it thrives ill upon self-abasement and self-denigration, for if one is <i>rajasic, </i>the other is <i>tamasic </i>egoism —egoism, in any case. Absolute nullity of the egoistic self is the condition needed, but anything less than that, any lowering of the consciousness beyond this zero point means reaffirming the ego in a wrong direction. True humility has an unostentatious quietness, as it has a living and secret contact with the divine consciousness.</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-90</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-012_True Humility','','publish','closed','open','','012_true-humility','','','2021-11-23 17:21:23','2021-11-23 17:21:23','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/012_true-humility/',0,'post','',0),(1384,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:23','2021-11-23 17:21:23','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-016_Origin and Nature of Suffering.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">X\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">ORIGIN AND NATURE OF SUFFERING\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nSuffering there is, some say, because the soul takes delight in it: if there was not the soul\'s delight behind, there would not be any suffering at all. There are still two other positions with regard to suffering which we do not deal with in the present context, namely,\n(1)that it does not exist at all, the absolute Ananda of the Brahman being the sole reality, suffering, along with the manifested world of which it is a part, is illusion pure and simple, (2)that suffering exists, but it comes not from soul or God but from the Antidivine: it is at the most tolerated by God and He uses it as best as He can for His purpose. That, however, is not our subject here. We ask then what delight can the soul take when the body is suffering, say, from cancer. If it is delight, it must be of a perverse variety. Is it not the whole effort of\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-103</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">mankind to get rid of pain and suffering, make of our life and of the world, if possible, a visible play of pure and undefiled Ananda?\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nOn the other hand, we do find that suffering is not always mere suffering, that it can be turned into a thing of joy; it is a fact proved in the lives of many a martyr and many a saint. Many indeed are those who have not only borne suffering passively but have welcomed it and courted it with happiness and delight. If it is said it is a perverse kind of pleasure, and if one wishes to hang it by calling it <i>masochism, </i>\nwell, we do not solve the problem in that \nway, we seek to hide it \nbehind a big word; it is at the most a \npoint of view. What agrees with one\'s temperament (or prejudices) one calls \nnatural and what one does not like appears to him perverse. Another person may \n&quot;have a different temperament and accordingly a different vocabulary.</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nAn ascetic chastising himself with all kinds of rigours, a patriot immolating himself relentlessly at the altar of his motherland, a <i>Satyagrahi </i>\nfasting to death does not merely suffer, \nbut takes a delight in suffering. He does so because</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-104</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">he holds that there is something greater than this preoccupation of avoiding pain and suffering, than this ordinary round of a life made of the warp and woof of enjoyment and disappointment. There is a greater delight that transcends these common vital norms, the dualities of the ordinary life. In the case of the ascetic, the martyr, the patriot, the delight is in an ideal, moral, religious or social. All that can be conceded here is that the suffering voluntarily courted does not cease to be suffering, is not itself transmuted into or felt as delight but that it is suppressed or dominated by the other feeling and consciousness.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nTrue, but even this is an intermediate state. For there is another in which suffering is not merely suppressed but sublimated, wholly transmuted: there is then nothing else but delight, pure and entire. That is the soul state, the state of permanent dwelling in the Spirit. Now, we come back to the question why or how does the soul, being all delight, become in life the very opposite of its essential nature, a thing of misery, why does the spirit descend or condescend to take the form of matter: it\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-105</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">is an old-world and eternal problem that has been asked and faced and answered in various ways through the ages.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nHere is, briefly, how we view the question. The soul accepts a mortal life of pain and suffering, welcomes an apparent denial of its essential nature for two reasons: (1) to grow and increase in consciousness through such experiences,— pain and suffering being one variety of the fuel that tends the Fire that is our soul; and (2) to transfer its inalienable purity into Matter, by its secret pressure and influence gradually transform earthly life into a movement of its own divine state, the state of inviolable Bliss.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nAll experiences, all contacts with the forms and forces of Life and Matter act indeed as fuel to the flame of the soul\'s consciousness, whether they are good, bad or indifferent according to some outward view or standard. And in response to the nature and degree of the growth and increase demanded, does the soul choose its fuel, its external mode of life and surroundings. If suffering and misery help to kindle and increase the flame, the soul has\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-106</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">no <i>jugupsa, </i>\nrepulsion for them. Indeed it accepts the forms of misery in order to cure them, \ntransform them, to bring out of them theiroriginal norms of beauty and bliss of \nwhich they are a degradation and an aberration.</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n<br>\n</p><p class=\"pageno\">Page-107</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-016_Origin and Nature of Suffering','','publish','closed','open','','016_origin-and-nature-of-suffering','','','2021-11-23 17:21:23','2021-11-23 17:21:23','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/016_origin-and-nature-of-suffering/',0,'post','',0),(1385,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:23','2021-11-23 17:21:23','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-004_Arjuna orThe Ideal Disciple.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">ARJUNA \n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">OR \n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">THE IDEAL DISCIPLE\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">What makes a true disciple? For it is not everyone that can claim or be worthy of or meet the demands of the title. Disciplehood, like all great qualities, that is to say, qualities taken at their source and origin, is a function of the soul. Indeed, it is the soul itself coming up and asking for its native divine status; it is the call of the immortal in the mortal, the voice of the inmost being rising above the clamours and lures of the world, above the hungers and ties of one\'s own nature. When that rings out clear and unmistakable, the Divine reveals Himself as the Guru, the Path is shown and the initiation given. Even such a cry was Arjuna\'s when he said:\n<i>&quot;sisyaste\'ham sadhi mam twam prapannam&quot;</i>—it is a most poignant utterance in which the whole being bursts forth as it were, and delivers itself of</p><br>\n<p class=\"pageno\">Page-28</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">all that it needs and of all that it gives. It needs the Illumination: it can no longer bear the darkness and confusion of Ignorance in which if is entangled; and it gives itself whole and entire, absolutely and without reserve, throws itself simply at the mercy of the Divine. Arjuna fulfils, as very few can so completely, the fundamental conditions—the <i>sine qua non </i>\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nA certain modern critic, however, demurs. He asks why Arjuna was chosen in preference to Yudhishthira and doubts the wisdom and justice of the choice (made by Sri Krishna or the author of the Gita). Is not the eldest of the Pandavas also the best? He possesses in every way a superior <i>adhara. </i>He has knowledge and wisdom; he is free from passions, calm and self-controlled; he always acts according to the dictates of what is right and true. He is not swayed by the impulses of the moment or by considerations relating to his personal self; serene and unruffled he seeks to fashion his conduct by the highest possible standard available to him. That is why he is called <i>dharmaraja. </i>If such a one is not to be</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-29</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">considered as an ideal disciple, who else can be?\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nTo say this is to miss the whole nature of discipleship, at least as it is conceived in the Gita. A disciple is not a bundle of qualifications and attainments, however high or considerable they may be. A disciple is first and foremost an aspiring soul. He may not have high qualities to his credit; on the contrary, he may have what one calls serious defects, but even that would not matter if he possessed the one thing needful, the unescapable urge of the soul, the undying fire in the secret heart. Yudhishthira may have attained a high status of <i>sattwic </i>\nprinciples of conduct, modes of living—and taken refuge in the Lord alone, made \nthe Lord\'s will the sole and sufficient law of life. Even though to outward \nregard such a person be full of sins, the Lord promises to deliver him from all \nthat. It is the soul\'s love for the Divine given unconditionally and without </p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-30</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">reserve that can best purify the dross of the inferior nature and render one worthy of the Divine Grace.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nSuch was Arjuna\'s capacity; herein lay his strength, his spiritual superiority. It was because he could be so intimate with the Divine as to call him his friend and companion and playmate and speak to him in familiar and homely terms—even though he felt contrition for having in this way perhaps slighted the Lord and not paid sufficient regard towards him. Yet this turn of his soul and nature points to the straightness and simplicity and candidness that were there and it was this that helped to call in the Divine and the Divine choice to fall upon him.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nYudhishthira may have been and is great —greater perhaps than Arjuna—in many ways. But the Divine is no respecter of greatness: he looks only for the little thing no larger than the thumb secreted within the heart,— what is the quality, how it rings. We might recall in this connection that the first anthropoid ape who evolved into man or showed the definite turn towards humanity could not\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-31</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">have been a mighty ape, great in the qualities of its species; rather the probability is that it was a very commonplace, unpretentious, inglorious ape in whom the first ray of human reason dawned, and perhaps with his frail and delicate physical frame he was at a great disadvantage in the struggle for existence with his big and burly and &quot;great&quot; comrades. And yet it was such a one who surmounted ape-hood. Similarly, a great man, great in the human qualities need not necessarily be the most eligible for the spiritual realisation. <i>Na medhaya na bahuna srutena.</i>\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nAll this, however, is not to say that Arjuna was in his external human nature, built of an inferior stuff; indeed, even from the human and profane standpoint, Arjuna\'s was a heroic nature, if ever there was one. Still what one remarks in him is his representative character, that is to say, he is an average man, only the strengths and weaknesses are perhaps stressed and intensified in him. He is a hero, to be sure—we must remember also the other condition that a spiritual aspirant is to fulfil, <i>nayamatma balahinena labhyah</i>\n— but that did</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-32</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">not immune him to the normal reactions of a normal man; on the contrary, the reactions were especially strong and violent, necessary indeed to bring out the whole implication of a spiritual crisis. Arjuna\'s doubts and depression, misgivings and questionings (Vishada Yoga) are what more or less every aspirant has to pass through when he arrives at the crucial point of his soul\'s journey and has either to choose the higher curve or follow the vicious circle. And at this threshold of the spiritual journey what is required of the true aspirant, the ideal disciple, is the resolution to face the situation, to go through to the end at the command and under the loving guidance of the Master. On this line Arjuna stands for us all and shows, by his example, how we can take courage and march out of the inferior nature into the peace and light and power of the higher divine nature.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-33</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-004_Arjuna or The Ideal Disciple','','publish','closed','open','','004_arjuna-or-the-ideal-disciple','','','2021-11-23 17:21:23','2021-11-23 17:21:23','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/004_arjuna-or-the-ideal-disciple/',0,'post','',0),(1386,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:23','2021-11-23 17:21:23','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-000_Contents.htm</title>\n</head>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">THE YOGA OF SRI  AUROBINDO</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">Part Three</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">Contents</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"><a href=\"the-yoga-of-sri-aurobindo-part-3-000_Pre_content\">Pre-Content</a></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"><a href=\"-001_Publishers-Note\">Publishers Note</a></p>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n<td class=cell width=\"44%\" valign=\"top\">\n</td>\n<td class=cell>\n<a href=\"-002_The-New-Year-Initiation\">the new year initiation</a></td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td class=cell width=\"44%\" valign=\"top\">\n</td>\n<td class=cell>\n<a href=\"-003_Yogic-Initiation-Amd-Aptitude\">yogic initiation amd aptitude</a></td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td class=cell width=\"44%\" valign=\"top\">\n</td>\n<td class=cell>\n<a href=\"-004_Arjuna-orThe-Ideal-Disciple\">arjuna or the ideal disciple</a></td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td class=cell width=\"44%\" valign=\"top\">\n</td>\n<td class=cell>\n<a href=\"-005_The-Body-Human\">the body human</a></td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td class=cell width=\"44%\" valign=\"top\">\n</td>\n<td class=cell>\n<a href=\"-006_Some-Conceptions-and-Misconceptions\">some conceptions and misconceptions</a></td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td class=cell width=\"44%\" valign=\"top\">\n</td>\n<td class=cell>\n<a href=\"-007_Here-or-Otherwhere\">here or otherwhere</a></td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td class=cell width=\"44%\" valign=\"top\">\n</td>\n<td class=cell>\n<a href=\"-008_The-Sunlit-Path\">the sunlit path</a></td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td class=cell width=\"44%\" valign=\"top\">\n</td>\n<td class=cell>\n<a href=\"-009_The-Spiritual-Outlook\">the spiritual outlook</a></td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td class=cell width=\"44%\" valign=\"top\">\n</td>\n<td class=cell>\n<a href=\"-010_Sectarianism-or-Loyalty\">sectarianism or loyalty</a></td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td class=cell width=\"44%\" valign=\"top\">\n</td>\n<td class=cell>\n<a href=\"-011_Sincerity\">sincerity</a></td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td class=cell width=\"44%\" valign=\"top\">\n</td>\n<td class=cell>\n<a href=\"-012_True-Humility\">true humility</a></td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td class=cell width=\"44%\" valign=\"top\">\n</td>\n<td class=cell>\n<a href=\"-013_The-Sprit-Of-Tapasya\">The Spirit of Tapasya</a></td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td class=cell width=\"44%\" valign=\"top\">\n</td>\n<td class=cell>\n<a href=\"-014_Dynamic-Fatalism\">dynamic fatalism</a></td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td class=cell width=\"44%\" valign=\"top\">\n</td>\n<td class=cell>\n<a href=\"-015_Mater-Dolorosa\">mater dolorosa</a></td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td class=cell width=\"44%\" valign=\"top\">\n</td>\n<td class=cell>\n<a href=\"-016_Origin-and-Nature-of-Suffering\">origin and nature of suffering</a></td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td class=cell width=\"44%\" valign=\"top\">\n</td>\n<td class=cell>\n<a href=\"-017_The-Tragic-Spirit-in-Nature\">the tragic spirit in nature</a></td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td class=cell width=\"44%\" valign=\"top\">\n</td>\n<td class=cell>\n<a href=\"-018_The-Souls-Odyssey\">the soul\'s odyssey</a></td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','the-yoga-of-sri-aurobindo-part-3-00_Contents','','publish','closed','open','','the-yoga-of-sri-aurobindo-part-3-00_contents','','','2021-11-23 17:21:23','2021-11-23 17:21:23','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/the-yoga-of-sri-aurobindo-part-3-00_contents/',0,'post','',0),(1387,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:23','2021-11-23 17:21:23','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-017_The Tragic Spirit in Nature.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">XI \n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">THE TRAGIC SPIRIT IN NATURE\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe wages of sin, it is said, is death. Well, it can, with equal if not greater truth, be said that the wages of virtue too is death! It seems as though on this mortal earth nothing great or glorious can be achieved which is not marred somehow or other, sometime or other. The blazon of virtue goes very rarely without a bar sinister branded across. Some kind of degradation, ignominy or frustration always attends or rounds off the spectacle of wonder. In the moral world too there seems to exist an inexorable law that action and reaction are equal in degree and opposite in kind.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe glorious First Consul and Emperor did not end in a blaze of glory: he had to live and die as the commonest of prisoners. Even his great prototype, the mighty Caesar, did not meet a different fate—he too fell—\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-108</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\n<i>O what a fall was there my countrymen!</i></p>\n<p class=\"para\"><i> Then I and you and all of us fell down—</i>\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nA Jeanne d\'Arc, another glorious creature, Deliverer of France, the sweetest thing that ever put on a human body, was burnt as a witch. Socrates had to drink the hemlock for having brought down heavenly knowledge upon earth. The Christ, God\'s own son and beloved, perished on the Cross. Krishna, the Avatara, was killed by a chance arrow; and Arjuna, the peerless hero of Kurukshetra, Krishna\'s favourite, had to see days when he could not even lift his own bow with which he once played havoc. And in our own days, a Ramakrishna, who could cure souls could not cure his own cancer. This is the &quot;tears of things&quot;—spoken of by a great poet—the tragedy that is lodged in the hearts of things.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThere runs a pessimistic vein in Nature\'s movement. Due to the original Inconscience out of which she is built and also because of a habit formed through millenniums it is not possible for her to expect or envisage anything else than decay, death and frustration\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-109</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">in the end or on the whole. To every rise there must be a fall, a crest must end in a trough. Nature has not the courage nor the faculty to look for any kind of perfection upon earth. Not that within her realm one cannot or should not try for the good, the noble, even the perfect, but one must be ready to pay the price. Good there is and may be, but it is suffered only on payment of its Danegeld to Evil. That is the law of sacrifice that seems to be fundamental to Nature\'s governance.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe Evil, we have said, is nothing else than the basis of unconsciousness or Inconscience in. Nature. It is this which pulls the being— whatever structure of consciousness can be reared upon it—down to decay and frustration. It is the force of gravitation or inertia. Matter is unconsciousness; the body, formed basically of matter, is unconsciousness too. The natural tendency of Matter is towards disintegration and dissolution; the body, therefore, is mortal <i>—bhasmantamidam shariram. </i>\nThe scope and range of mortality is measured by the \nscope and range of unconsciousness. Matter is the most concrete and solid \nform of unconsciousness;</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-110</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">but it casts its shadow upon the higher levels too—life and mind always lie in the penumbra of this original evil.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nA great personality means a great rise in consciousness; therefore it means also a strain upon the normal consciousness and hence a snap or scission sometime and somewhere. As the poet describes the tragic phenomenon—\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"><i>......Poised on the unreachable abrupt</i>\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n<i>snow-solitary ascent, </i>\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\"><i>Earth aspiring lifts to the illimitable light,</i>\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n<i>then ceases broken and spent—</i>\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe tragedy can happen in either of two ways. The individual\'s own unconsciousness can reach and overthrow and spoil his higher poise, or the collective unconsciousness too can invade and overwhelm the individual in his high status, who is declared not unoften the highbrow, an enemy of the people—although atonement is sometimes attempted at a late period (as in the case of the Christ or Jeanne d\'Arc, for example). A way however was discovered in India by which one could avoid\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-111</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">this life\'s inevitable tragic denouement. It was very simple, viz., to rise up from the inert ignorant unconsciousness, rise sufficiently high and fly or shoot into the orbits of other suns from where there is no more downfall, being totally free from all earthly downpull.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nBut this need not be the only solution. Matter (the basic unconsciousness) was the master in this material world because, it was not properly faced and negotiated. One sought to avoid and by-pass it. It was there Sphinx like and none stopped to answer its riddle. The mystery is this. Matter, material Nature that is dubbed unconsciousness is not really so. That is only an appearance. Matter is truly <i>inconscient, </i>\nthat is to say, it has an inner core of \nconsciousness which is its true reality. This hidden flame of consciousness \nshould be brought out from its cave and made manifest, dynamic on the surface. \nThen it will easily and naturally agree to submit to the higher law of \nImmortality. This would mean a reconditioning, a transmutation of the very basis \nof mind and life. The material foundation, the body conditions thus changed will \nbring about \n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n<br>\n</p><p class=\"pageno\">Page-112</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">that status of the wholeness of consciousness which holds and stabilises the Divine in the human frame, which never suffers from any scar or diminution even in its terrestrial embodiment.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-113</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-017_The Tragic Spirit in Nature','','publish','closed','open','','017_the-tragic-spirit-in-nature','','','2021-11-23 17:21:23','2021-11-23 17:21:23','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/017_the-tragic-spirit-in-nature/',0,'post','',0),(1388,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:23','2021-11-23 17:21:23','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-007_Here or Otherwhere.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">NOTES AND COMMENTS\n</p>\n<br>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">I \n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">HERE OR OTHERWHERE\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nA question is often asked of us whether it is possible to do Yoga while remaining in the world. Some declare outright that it is not possible: world and Yoga are, like oil and water, absolutely different things, they do not go together. World means, to put it plainly, earning money and raising family. Well, these two are the very opposite of Yoga, for they involve, at their best, desire and attachment and, at their worst, dishonesty and deceit, lust and libertinage. There is the other school, on the contrary, that pronounces that a Yogic life must be lived in the world if it is not our intention to leave the world altogether and seek and merge in the Beyond, the otherwhere, the immutable transcendent Brahman. It is quite possible for one to be in the very midst of the worldly forces and yet remain unshaken by them. Therefore it has been said: When the</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-63</p><hr>\n<p class=\"para\">causes of disturbances are there and still the mind is not \ndisturbed—that indeed is the sign of a wise steadiness.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIt can however be asked, what then is meant by being in the world ? If it means merely sitting quiet, suffering and observing nonchalantly the impacts of the world—something in the manner described by Matthew Arnold in his famous lines on the East—, well, that stoic way, the way of indifference is a way of being in the world which is not very much unlike not being in the world; for it means simply erecting a wall of separation or isolation within one\'s consciousness without moving away physically. It is a psychological escapism. But if by living in the world we should mean participating in the movements of the world—not only being but becoming, not merely standing as a witness but moving out as a doer—then the problem becomes different. For the question we have to ask in that case is what happens to our duties—life in the world being a series of duties, duty to oneself (self-preservation), duty to the family (race-preservation), duty to the country, to humanity and, finally, duty to God (which\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-66</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">last belongs properly to the life in Yoga). Now, can all these duties dwell and flourish together? The Christ is categorical on the point. He says, in effect: Leave aside all else and follow Me and look not back. Christ\'s God seems to be a jealous God who does not tolerate any other god to share in his sovereign exclusiveness. You have to give up, if you wish to gain. They who lose life shall find it and they who stick to life shall as surely lose it.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nBut is not Gita\'s solution somewhat different ? Sri Krishna urges Arjuna to be in the very thick of a deadly fight, not a theoretical or abstract combat, but take a hand in the direst manslaughter, to &quot;do the deed&quot; (even like Macbeth) but Yogically. Yes, Gita\'s position seems to be that—to accept all life integrally, to undertake all necessary work <i>(kartavyam karma) </i>\nand turn them Godward. Gita seeks to do it \nin its own way whichconsists of two major \nprinciples: (I) to do the work, whatever it may be, unattached-without any \ndesire for the fruit, simply as a thing that has to be done, and (2)\nto do it \nas a sacrifice, as an offering to\nthe supreme Master of works.</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-67</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe question naturally turns upon the nature and the kind of work whether there \nis a choice and selection in it. Gita speaks indeed of all works, <i>kritsna-karmakrit, </i>but does that really mean any and every work that an ignorant man, an ordinary man steeped in the three Gunas does or can do? It cannot be so. For, although all activity, all energy has its source and impetus in the higher consciousness of the Divine, it assumes on the lower ranges indirect, diverted or even perverted formulations and expressions, not because, indeed, of the inherent falsity of these so-called inferior strata, the instruments, but because of their temporary impurity and obscurity. There are evidently activities and impulsions born exclusively of desire, of attachment and egoism. There are habits of the body, urges of the vital, notions of the mind, there are individual and social functions that have no place in the spiritual scheme, they have to be rigorously eschewed and eliminated. Has not the Gita said, this is desire, this is passion born of the quality of Rajas?... There is not much meaning in trying to do these works unattached or to turn them towards the</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-68</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">Divine. When you are unattached, when you turn to the Divine, these simply drop away of themselves. Yes, there are social duties and activities and relations that inevitably dissolve and disappear as you move into the life divine. Some are perhaps tolerated for a period, some are occasions for the consciousness to battle and surmount, grow strong and pass beyond. You have to learn to go beyond and new-create your environment.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIt was Danton who said, one carries not his country with him at the sole of his shoe. Even so you cannot hope to shift bodily your present social ensemble, place it wholesale in the divine life on the plea that it will be purified and transformed in the process. Purification is there indeed, but one must remember purification literally means burning and not a little of the past and present has to be burnt down to ashes.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-69</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-007_Here or Otherwhere','','publish','closed','open','','007_here-or-otherwhere','','','2021-11-23 17:21:23','2021-11-23 17:21:23','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/007_here-or-otherwhere/',0,'post','',0),(1389,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:23','2021-11-23 17:21:23','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-000_Pre_content.htm</title>\n</head>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\n<img alt=\"123%20-%200001-1.jpg\" border=\"0\" src=\"/Nolini/The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo Part - 3/_images/123%20-%200001-1.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"478\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\nTHE YOGA</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\nOF</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\nSRI AUROBINDO</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\nTHE YOGA OF SRI AUROBINDO</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\nPart Three</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\nNOLINI KANTA GUPTA</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">SRI \nAUROBINDO LIBRARY </p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\nMADRAS</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\nPublishers: </p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">Sri \nAurobindo Library </p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\n369, Esplanade, George Town. </p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\nMadras</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"><i>\nAll Rights Reserved</i></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\nFirst Edition ... 1946 </p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\nSecond Edition ... 1951</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">Sri \nAurobindo Ashram Press </p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\nPondicherry</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\nprinted in India</p>\n</html>\n','the-yoga-of-sri-aurobindo-part-3-000_Pre_Content','','publish','closed','open','','the-yoga-of-sri-aurobindo-part-3-000_pre_content','','','2021-11-23 17:21:23','2021-11-23 17:21:23','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/the-yoga-of-sri-aurobindo-part-3-000_pre_content/',0,'post','',0),(1390,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:23','2021-11-23 17:21:23','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-006_Some Conceptions and Misconceptions.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">SOME CONCEPTIONS AND MISCONCEPTIONS\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">(1)\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\"> A question is asked, where, in what stage or level of Involution does the principle of exculsive concentration (the principle of Ignorance) come in? If, as Sri Aurobindo says, it comes subsequently at a later stage, where was it then before? was it not in the Absolute Reality itself ? There can be nothing that is not inherent in the Absolute Reality. We all know, nothing comes out of nothing. Then, if it is in the original Reality already, why should it come out at a later stage and not be active from the very beginning? This standpoint seems to have been anticipated by some schools (Visishtadwaita Vedanta, for example) who describe in consequence the Reality (Brahman) as consisting, when viewed as a totality, of both Knowledge and Ignorance—<i>Chit-Achif, </i>the Ignorance is a sort of peripheral reality not</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-47</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">rouching or affecting the Knowledge, but connected with or depending upon the nuclear reality, something like the physical body coexisting with and depending on the soul or self. One can also remember in this connection the Purusha-Prakriti relation in Sankhya. Such a standpoint, I suppose, is the precursor or philosophical background of what is well-known as the Manichean principle.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nSri Aurobindo\'s view is different. It is something like this—I am putting the thing as simply as possible, without entering into details or mysteries that merely confuse the brain. The Absolute Reality contains all, nothing can be outside, pain and sin and all; true. But these do not exist as such in the supreme status, they are resolved each into its ultimate and fundamental force of consciousness. When we say all things, whatever they are, exist in the Divine Consciousness, the Absolute, we have an idea that they exist there as they do here as objects or entities: it goes without saying, they do not. Naturally we have to make a distinction between things of Knowledge and things of Ignorance. Although there\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-48</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">is a gradation between the two—Knowledge rolls or wraps itself gradually into Ignorance and Ignorance unrolls or unfolds itself slowly into Knowledge—still in the Divine Consciousness things of Knowledge alone exist, things of Ignorance cannot be said to exist there on the same title, because, as I have said, the original truths of things alone are there—not their derivations and deformations. One can say indeed that in the supreme Light darkness exists as a possibility; but this is only a figure of speech. Possibility does not mean that it is there like a seed—or even a chromosome rod —to sprout and grow. Possibility really means just a chance of the consciousness acting in a certain way, developing in a particular direction under certain conditions.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nMatter exists in the absolute Consciousness, not as Matter but as its fundamental substratum, as that radical mode of being or consciousness which by the devolution of consciousness and the interaction of Knowledge and Ignorance in the end works itself out as Matter. So also with regard to Life and with regard to Mind. If things are to exist in the highest status of\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"pageno\">Page-49</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">consciousness, the Divine Consciousness, exactly as they exist now, there would be no point or meaning in creation or manifestation. Manifestation or creation does not mean merely unveiling or unrolling in the sense of unpacking. It means a gradual shift in the stress of consciousness, giving it a particular mode of action.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe unrolling or Involution is the path traced by consciousness in its changing modes of concentration. The principle of concentration is inherent in consciousness. Sri Aurobindo speaks of four modes or degrees of this concentration: (1) the essential, (2) the integral, (3) the total or global and (4) the separative. The first is &quot;a sole in-dwelling or an entire absorption in the essence of its own being&quot;—it is the superconscient Silence, at one end, and the Inconscience, at the other. The second is the total Sachchidananda, the supramental concentration; the third, multiple or totalising overmental awareness; the fourth is the exclusive concentration of Ignorance. All the four, however, form the integral play of one indivisible consciousness.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-50</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\nHere we come to the very heart of the mystery. As we have put it thus far, the process of Involution would appear as a series of stages in a descending order, a movement along a vertical line, as it were, one stage following another, more or less separate from each other, the lower being ever more ignorant, more separative, more exclusive. But this is not the whole picture. At each lower stage the higher is not merely high above, but also comes down and stands behind or becomes immanent in the the lower. Along with the vertical movement there is also a horizontal movement. In other words, even when we are sunk in the lowest stratum of Ignorance—in the domain of Matter —we have also there all the other strands behind, even the very highest, not merely as a \npassive or neutral entity, but as dynamic \nagents, exerting their living pressure to the full.Indeed the Ignorance is not \nmere Ignorance, but Knowledge itself, the very highest Knowledge, but in a \nparticular mode of activity. What appears ignorant is full of a secret \nKnowledge-it is just the outer surface, the facet that appears as its opposite \nbecause of a</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-51</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">particular manner of concentration, a total self-abandonment in the object of Knowledge. That Knowledge stands revealed if the mask is put away, that is to say, if we get behind, if we <i>release </i>\nthe exclusiveness of the concentration. \nThis release or getting behind does not mean necessarily the dissolution of the \nstatus itself-for it is the pressure from behind, the concentration of the \nhidden consciousness that creates the status and its troth-forms; with the \nexclusiveness goes away only the twist, the aberration produced by it. When the \nconsciousness withdraws from its mode and field of exclusive concentration, it \nneed not concentrateagain \'On the withdrawal only, it can be an inclusive \nconcentration also embracing both the status-the frontal and the behind. Both \ncan be held together in one single movement of consciousness possessing the \ndouble function \'Of projection and comprehension<i> prajnana </i>and <i>uijnana.</i></p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> Such a synthetic poise is not a \nmere theoretical possibility: it is an actuality and is being demonstrated by \nthe fact of evolution. The partial release of the absolutely exclusive concentration\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-52</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">of consciouness in Matter has given rise to Life which is a double poise: Life plays in and through Matter and has not dissolved Matter. Likewise a further release of concentration has given birth to Mind which still bases itself upon and is woven into Life and Matter. The change-over from unconsciousness to consciousness and from consciousness to super-consciousness is the movement of consciousness from a unilateral towards an ever widening multiple poise and functioning of concentration.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe exclusive concentration was the logical and inevitable final term of a movement of separativity and exteriorisation. It had its necessity and utility. Its special function was utilised by Nature for precision and perfection in details of execution in the most material order of reality. Indeed, what can be more exact and accurate than the laws of physics, the mathematical laws that govern the movements of the material particles? Furthermore, if we look at the scientist himself, do we not find in him an apt image of the same phenomenon? A scientist means a specialist—the more\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-53</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">specialised and restricted his view, the surer he is likely to be in his particular domain. And specialised knowledge means a withdrawal from other fields and viewpoints of knowledge, an ignorance of them. Likewise, a workman who moulds the head of a pin is all concentrated upon that single point of existence—he forgets the whole world and himself in that act whose perfect execution seems to depend upon the measure of his self-oblivion. But evidently this is not bound to be so. A one-pointed self-absorption—that is Ignorance— is certainly an effective way of dealing with material objects—things of Ignorance; but it is not the only way. It is a way or mechanism adopted by Nature in a certain status under certain conditions. One need not always forget oneself in the act in order to do the act perfectly. An unconscious instinctive act is not always best done—it can be done best consciously, intuitively. A wider knowledge, a greater acquaintance with objects and facts and truths of other domains too is being more and more insisted upon as a surer basis of specialisation.   The  pinpointed  (one might\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-54</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">almost say geometrically pointed) consciousness in Matter that resolves itself into unconsciousness acts perfectly but blindly; the vast consciousness also acts there with absolute perfection but consciously—conscious to the highest degree. As we have said, super-consciousness does not confine itself to the supreme status alone, to the domain of pure infinity, but it comes down and embraces the most inferior status too, the status of the finite. Precisely because it is infinity, it is not bound to its infinity but can express its infinity in and through infinite limits.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">(2)\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe principle of &quot;exclusive concentration&quot; does not by itself really create the &quot;objects&quot; of the material world; it creates the perception —the illusory perception—of separativeness, that objects are more or less closed systems, distinct and isolated from one another. The sense of limitation—and hence actual limitation, not however real or essential limitation —comes out of the exclusive concentration.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-55</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThis does not mean  that  the  limitation\nor discreteness of objects is merely <i>psychological </i>(mental), not <i>ontological, </i>as one may say. In Sri Aurobindo\'s outlook the distinction between psychological and ontological is not trenchant and absolute. For, &quot;psychological&quot;, according to him, does not mean merely &quot;mental&quot; but also &quot;relating to consciousness&quot;; and although mind does not create material objects, consciousness may do so—indeed it is the force of the original consciousness, which is the force of being, that has created the physical plane of multiplicity. This creative power is the self-projecting energy of consciousness—<i>prajnana. </i>It is, in other words, the force of individuation inherent in the play of consciousness. Now, as I have already said, at a certain stage, under certain conditions, through a gradation of stages, this force of individuation originally and intrinsically existing and working in and through unity and integration, is possessed or veiled by or &quot;devolves&quot; into a force of limitation, meaning separateness and exclusion. What would otherwise be an ensemble, an organism of individualities held</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-56</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">together and moving as various forms or lines of force of one and the same reality, is now broken up and becomes a conglomeration of isolated entities. Unity is transformed into multiplicity, solidarity is lost in plurality.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nWe can, however, make a distinction between &quot;limitation&quot; and &quot;delimitation&quot; or individuation. Limitation is a movement of Ignorance: it is the result of exclusive concentration. It creates separateness, forgets the unity. Delimitation, on the contrary, is a movement of knowledge, of pure consciousness dynamic. It creates diversity, multiplicity maintained in unity.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIt is to be added that the limitation in Ignorance is after all apparent; that does not mean it is unreal or illusory, in the sense of Mayavada. Here is the distinction: Mayavada holds all formation as <i>maya, </i>\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-57</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">itself but under certain conditions. Again, Mayavada speaks of the Brahman, the Absolute or Transcendent as the sole and true reality: it is the Stable, the Unmoving, the utter Unity cancelling, negating all movement and multiplicity. Sri Aurobindo views the highest reality as dynamic also, permeating the multiplicity and becoming the multiplicity, becoming or existing as the multiplicity in a movement of Knowledge, becoming and appearing also at first in a movement and mood of Ignorance as the material multiplicity but gradually transmuting this ignorant multiplicity into a movement and embodiment of Knowledge. For the Knowledge was always there in and behind the Ignorance, secretly informing and guiding, moulding and transforming it.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThus, for example, we would not say pain is an illusion, because Ananda is the root of all and is the All. We say pain is also a reality: it is a temporary and localised form of Ananda, Ananda muted and deformed, under certain stresses and conditions. Ananda is there always, but not away and aloof from pain; it is not the opposite or the negation of pain. Nor is\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-58</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">pain a superimposition, as something foreign, upon Ananda, so that when it passes away, like a cloud, Ananda appears automatically in its full glory. We consider pain as a formation of Ananda, it is the first result of an effort of consciousness to hold Ananda in and through a form, but it need not and cannot be the last consummation.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIn fact, the Mayavadin ascribes true reality <i>(paramarthika) </i>to the transcendental alone; even when that reality is spoken of as within and behind—and not merely beyond—the world and the individual, he takes it to mean as something away and aloof from the appearances, unmixed and untouched by these, and hence practically transcendent. Sri Aurobindo gives full and independent value to each of these triple states which, united and fused together, form the true and total reality. The transcendent reality is also immanent in the cosmos as the World-Power and the World-Consciousness and the Creative Delight: it is also resident in the individual as the individual godhead—<i>antaryamin</i>—the conscious Energy that informs, inspires, drives</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-59</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">and directs all local formations towards a divine fulfilment in time and in this physical domain. In this view nothing is illusory—even though some may be temporary—they are all contributory to the Divine End and take their place there in a transfigured form and rhythm. We are here far from being such stuffs as dreams are made of.</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nOne must not forget, however, that the principle of exclusive concentration cannot be isolated from the total action of consciousness and viewed as functioning by itself at any time. We isolated it for logical comprehension. In actuality it is integrated with the whole <i>nisus </i>of consciousness and operates in conjunction with and as part of the total drive. That total drive at one point results in the multiple realities of Matter. When the element of limitation in the physical plane is ascribed to the exclusiveness of a stress in consciousness, it should not be forgotten that the act is, as it were, a &quot;joint and several responsibility&quot; of the whole consciousness in its multiple functioning. And the reverse movement is also likewise a global act: there too the force that</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-60</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">withdraws, ascends or eliminates cannot be isolated from the other force that reaffirms, re-establishes, reintegrates,—the principle of exclusiveness (like that of pain) is not proved to be illusory and non-existent, but reappears in its own essential nature as a principle of centering or canalisation of consciousness.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-61</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-006_Some Conceptions and Misconceptions','','publish','closed','open','','006_some-conceptions-and-misconceptions','','','2021-11-23 17:21:23','2021-11-23 17:21:23','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/006_some-conceptions-and-misconceptions/',0,'post','',0),(1391,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:24','2021-11-23 17:21:24','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-009_The Spiritual Outlook.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">III \n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\nTHE SPIRITUAL OUTLOOK\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">The spiritual outlook is a global view, unlike the mental which is very often the view from a single angle or in rare cases, at the most, from a few angles. The ordinary man, even the most cultured and enlightened, has always a definite standpoint from which he surveys and judges; indeed without such a standpoint he would not be considered educated and worthy of consideration. In other words, he aspects one side of his object and thus perceives only a partial truth. That there are other standpoints, that other people may view the same thing from other grounds does not trouble him or troubles him to the extent that he considers them all mistaken, illusory. He condescends to admit other standpoints if they are near enough to his, if they support or confirm it. Otherwise if they are contrary or contradictory to what he perceives and concludes, then evidently</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"pageno\">Page-74</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">they are to be discarded and thrown away into the dustbin as rubbish.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe spiritual consciousness dawns precisely with the rejection of this monomania, this obsession of one-track mentality. It means, in other words, nothing less than coming out of the shell of one\'s egoism. To be able thus to come out of oneself, enter into others\' consciousness, see things as others see them, that is the great initiation, the true beginning of the life of the spirit. For the Spirit is the truth of all things: all things, even what appears evil and reprehensible, exist and have their play because of a core of truth and force of truth in each. Mind and mind\'s external consciousness and practical drive compel one to take to a single line of perception and action and that which is more or less superficial and immediately necessary. But it is only when one withdraws from the drive of Maya and gets behind, gets behind all opposing views and standpoints and tries to see what is the underlying truth that seeks to manifest in each, that one enters the gateway of the spiritual consciousness.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-75</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe spiritual consciousness is global, not in the sense that it is eclectic, that is to say, the sum-total of all the superficial views, but in the sense that it experiences the one dynamic truth that underlies all and which manifests its varying powers and potentials in various objects and forces, which expresses itself in multiple standpoints and modes and angles of vision.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nWhen the Divine acts, it acts always in and through this transcendental and innermost truth of things. When it helps the seeker, it touches and inspires the secret soul in him— his truth—not like the human teacher or reformer who addresses himself to the outer personality, to laws and codes, prohibitions and injunctions, reward and punishment, for the education and instruction of his pupil. Indeed, the Divine chastises also in the same way. The Asura or the anti-divine he does not kill with one blow nor even with many blows of his thunderbolt or burn away with his red wrath. The image of Zeus or Jehovah is a human figuration: it depicts the human way of dealing with one\'s enemies. The Divine deals with the undivine in the divine way,\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-76</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">for the undivine too is not something outside the Divine. The Asura also has his truth, his truth in the Divine, only it has been degraded and deformed under circumstances. The Divine simply disengages, picks up that core of truth and takes it away so that it can no longer be appropriated and deformed by the Asura who now losing the secret support of his truth automatically crumbles to pieces as mere husk and chaff. If there is something more than the merely human in the image of Durga, the Goddess transfixing her lance right into the heart of the Asura may be taken as indicative of this occult truth.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThere is then this singular and utter harmony in the divine corsciousness resolving all contraries and incompatibles. <i>Neha nanasti kinchana, </i>\nthere is no division or disparity here. \nEstablished in this consciousness, the spiritual man naturally and inevitably \nfinds that he is in all and all are in him and that he is all and all are he, \nfor all and he are indivisibly that single(yet multiple) reality. The \nbrotherhood of man is only a derivative from the more fundamental truth of the \nuniversal selfhood of man. </p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-77</p></td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-009_The Spiritual Outlook','','publish','closed','open','','009_the-spiritual-outlook','','','2021-11-23 17:21:24','2021-11-23 17:21:24','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/009_the-spiritual-outlook/',0,'post','',0),(1392,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:24','2021-11-23 17:21:24','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-001_Publisher^s Note.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\">\n	PUBLISHERS\' NOTE</p>\n	<br>\n	<p class=\"para\">The essay entitiled \n	&quot;The Body Human&quot; was first published in the <i>Sri Aurobindo Mandir \n	Annual, </i>Calcutta (1945). The other essays appeared all in the \n	Quarterly, <i>The Advent, </i>Madras. The Notes and Comments were \n	editorials written for <i>The Advent </i>(1944-46).</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-001_Publisher\'s Note','','publish','closed','open','','001_publishers-note','','','2021-11-23 17:21:24','2021-11-23 17:21:24','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/001_publishers-note/',0,'post','',0),