Omsriaurobindomira

All

Life

Is

Yoga

“All life is Yoga.” – Sri Aurobindo

The Basis of Approach
to the Works of Sri Aurobindo

Sri Aurobindo | The Mother

SRI AUROBINDO
DIGITAL EDITION

SRI AUROBINDO BHAVAN
BERCHTESGADENER LAND

www.sriaurobindo.center

Vertrieb
Verlag und Fachbuchhandel
AURO MEDIA
Wilfried Schuh
Deutschland

www.auro.media

eBook Design

SRI AUROBINDO DIGITAL EDITION
Deutschland, Berchtesgaden

ALL LIFE IS YOGA
The Basis of Approach
to the Works of Sri Aurobindo
Selections from the Works of
Sri Aurobindo and the Mother
First edition 2021
ISBN 978-3-96387-080-4

© Photos and selections of the works of
Sri Aurobindo and the Mother:
Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust
Puducherry, India

Flower on the cover:
Lobelia erinus ‘Cambridge Blue’. Blue.
Spiritual significance and explanation given by the Mother:
Remembrance of Sri Aurobindo
Let us strive to realise the ideal of life he has set before us.

Publisher’s Note

This is one in a series of some e-books created by SRI AUROBINDO DIGITAL EDITION and published by AURO MEDIA under the title All Life Is Yoga. Our effort is to bring together, from Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, simple passages with a practical orientation on specific subjects, so that everyone may feel free to choose a book according to his inner need. The topics cover the whole field of human activity, because true spirituality is not the rejection of life but the art of perfecting life.

While the passages from Sri Aurobindo are in the original English, most of the passages from the Mother (selections from her talks and writings) are translations from the original French. We must also bear in mind that the excerpts have been taken out of their original context and that a compilation, in its very nature, is likely to have a personal and subjective approach. A sincere attempt, however, has been made to be faithful to the vision of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. These excerpts are by no means exhaustive.

Bringing out a compilation from the writings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, which have a profound depth and wideness unique, is a difficult task. The compiler’s subjective tilt and preferences generally result in highlighting some aspects of the issues concerned while the rest is by no means less significant. Also without contexts of the excerpts the passages reproduced may not fully convey the idea – or may be misunderstood or may reduce a comprehensive truth into what could appear like a fixed principle.

The reader may keep in mind this inherent limitation of compilations; compilations are however helpful in providing an introduction to the subject in a handy format. They also give the readers a direct and practical feel of some of the profound issues and sometimes a mantric appeal, musing on which can change one’s entire attitude to them.

The excerpts from the writings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother carry titles and captions chosen by the editor, highlighting the theme of the excerpts and, whenever possible, borrowing a phrase from the text itself. The sources of the excerpts are given at the end of each issue.

We hope these compilations will inspire the readers to go to the complete works of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother and will help them to mould their lives and their environments towards an ever greater perfection.

“True spirituality is not to renounce life, but to make life perfect with a Divine Perfection.” – The Mother

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THE BASIS OF APPROACH
TO THE WORKS OF SRI AUROBINDO

Seer deep-hearted, divine king of the secrecies,

Occult fountain of love sprung from the heart of God,

Ways thou knewest no feet ever in Time had trod.

Words leaped flashing, the flame-billows of wisdom’s seas.

Vast thy soul was a tide washing the coasts of heaven.

Thoughts broke burning and bare crossing the human night,

White star-scripts of the gods born from the book of Light

Page by page to the dim children of earth were given.

— Sri Aurobindo

* * *

Now, what the intellect has understood let the whole being realise. Mental knowledge must be replaced by the flaming power of progress.

— The Mother

Chapter 1

Sri Aurobindo: The Precursor of the Future

Words of the Mother

Sri Aurobindo has come on earth not to bring a teaching or a creed in competition with previous creeds or teachings, but to show the way to overpass the past and to open concretely the route towards an imminent and inevitable future.

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Sri Aurobindo does not belong to the past nor to history.

Sri Aurobindo is the Future advancing towards its realisation.

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The essential mistake was to have considered Sri Aurobindo’s teaching as one among the spiritual teachings – and the work done here now as one among the many aspects of the Divine works....

You must understand that what Sri Aurobindo represents in the world’s history, is not a teaching, not even a revelation; it is a decisive action direct from the Supreme.

And I am just trying to fulfil that action.

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Aurobindo gives [in those pages] a very brief glimpse of his own Work at present on earth, his Work of divinising matter...

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Since the beginning of earth history, Sri Aurobindo has always presided over the great earthly transformations, under one form or another, one name or another.

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Sri Aurobindo is an emanation of the Supreme who came on earth to announce the manifestation of a new race and a new world: the Supramental.

Let us prepare for it in all sincerity and eagerness.

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Man is the creation of yesterday.

Sri Aurobindo came to announce the creation of tomorrow: the coming of the supramental being.

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Sri Aurobindo came to tell the world of the beauty of the future that must be realised.

He came to give not a hope but a certitude of the splendour towards which the world moves. The world is not an unfortunate accident, it is a marvel which moves towards its expression.

The world needs the certitude of the beauty of the future. And Sri Aurobindo has given that assurance.

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Chapter 2

“Read Sri Aurobindo”

Words of the Mother

...there are the very few who want to understand life, its purpose and its goal. For them, Sri Aurobindo’s books are the best reading of all.

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You came to earth to learn to know yourself.

Read Sri Aurobindo’s books and look carefully within yourself s deeply as you can.

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As for reading the works of Sri Aurobindo, it opens the door of the future to us.

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Chapter 3

How to Read Sri Aurobindo’s Books

Words of the Mother

To read my books is not difficult because they are written in the simplest language, almost the spoken language. To draw profit from them, it is enough to read with attention and concentration and an attitude of inner goodwill with the desire to receive and to live what is taught.

To read what Sri Aurobindo writes is more difficult because the expression is highly intellectual and the language is much more literary and philosophic. The brain needs a preparation to be able truly to understand and generally a preparation takes time, unless one is specially gifted with an innate intuitive faculty.

In any case, I advise always to read a little at a time, keeping the mind as tranquil as one can, without making an effort to understand, but keeping the head as silent as possible, and letting the force contained in what one reads enter deep within. This force received in the calm and the silence will do its work of light and, if needed, will create in the brain the necessary cells for the understanding. Thus, when one re-reads the same thing some months later, one perceives that the thought expressed has become much more clear and close, and even sometimes altogether familiar.

It is preferable to read regularly, a little every day, and at a fixed hour if possible; this facilitates the brain-receptivity.

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Chapter 4

Presenting Sri Aurobindo’s Works to the Students

Words of the Mother

The important thing is that Sri Aurobindo’s writings should not be chewed and presented to the students as a semi-digested food. The teacher may give all the elements of appreciation but the students should have the direct contact, the joy of illumination. The teacher should be careful not to interpose himself as a screen between the mind of the student and the great consciousness of Sri Aurobindo.

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Chapter 5

How to Get Answers From Sri Aurobindo’s Books

Words of the Mother

Once or twice, as a game, you took one of your books or Sri Aurobindo’s and opened a page at random, and read out a sentence. Can these sentences give one a sign or an indication? What should we do to get a true answer?

Everybody can do it. It is done in this way: you concentrate. Now, it depends on what you want. If you have an inner problem and want the solution, you concentrate on this problem; if you want to know the condition you are in, which you are not aware of – if you want to get some light on the state you are in, you just come forward with simplicity and ask for the light. Or else, quite simply, if you are curious to know what the invisible knowledge has to tell you, you remain silent and still for a moment and then open the book. I always used to recommend taking a paper-knife, because it is thinner; while you are concentrated you insert it in the book and with the tip indicate something. Then, if you know how to concentrate, that is to say, if you really do it with an aspiration to have an answer, it always comes.

For, in books of this kind (Mother shows “The Synthesis of Yoga”), books of revelation, there is always an accumulation of forces – at least of higher mental forces, and most often of spiritual forces of the highest knowledge. Every book, on account of the words it contains, is like a small accumulator of these forces. People don’t know this, for they don’t know how to make use of it, but it is so. In the same way, in every picture, photograph, there is an accumulation, a small accumulation representative of the force of the person whose picture it is, of his nature and, if he has powers, of his powers. Now, you, when you are sincere and have an aspiration, you emanate a certain vibration, the vibration of your aspiration which goes and meets the corresponding force in the book, and it is a higher consciousness which gives you the answer.

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Chapter 6

Intellectual Preparation in Yoga

Words of Sri Aurobindo

It is not enough to devote ourselves by the reading of Scriptures or by the stress of philosophic reasoning to an intellectual understanding of the Divine; for at the end of our long mental labour we might know all that has been said of the Eternal, possess all that can be thought about the Infinite and yet we might not know him at all. This intellectual preparation can indeed be the first stage in a powerful Yoga, but it is not indispensable: it is not a step which all need or can be called upon to take. Yoga would be impossible, except for a very few, if the intellectual figure of knowledge arrived at by the speculative or meditative Reason were its indispensable condition or a binding preliminary. All that the Light from above asks of us that it may begin its work is a call from the soul and a sufficient point of support in the mind. This support can be reached through an insistent idea of the Divine in the thought, a corresponding will in the dynamic parts, an aspiration, a faith, a need in the heart. Any one of these may lead or predominate, if all cannot move in unison or in an equal rhythm. The idea may be and must in the beginning be inadequate; the aspiration may be narrow and imperfect, the faith poorly illumined or even, as not surely founded on the rock of knowledge, fluctuating, uncertain, easily diminished; often even it may be extinguished and need to be lit again with difficulty like a torch in a windy pass. But if once there is a resolute self-consecration from deep within, if there is an awakening to the soul’s call, these inadequate things can be a sufficient instrument for the divine purpose.

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Chapter 7

Reading of Books as Help in Sadhana

Words of Sri Aurobindo

Reading good books can be of help in the early mental stage – they prepare the mind, put it in the right atmosphere – can even if one is very sensitive bring some glimpses of realisation on the mental plane. Afterwards the utility diminishes – you have to find the right knowledge and experience in yourself.

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Chapter 8

Shastra and Beyond the Shastra

Words of Sri Aurobindo

The virtue of the Shastra is that it sets up a standard outside ourselves, different from our personal desires, reasonings, passions and prejudices, outside our selfishness and self-will, by living up to which in the right spirit we can not only acquire self-control but by reducing even the sattwic ahankara to a minimum prepare ourselves for liberation. In the old days the Shastra was the Vedic Dharma based upon a profound knowledge of man’s psychology and the laws of the world, revealing man to himself and showing him how to live according to his nature; afterwards it was the law of the Smritis which tried to do the same thing more roughly by classifying men according to the general classes of which the Vedas speak, the caturvarnya; today it is little more than blind mechanical custom and habitual social observance, a thing not sattwic but tamasic, not a preparatory discipline for liberation, but a mere bondage.

Even the highest Shastra can be misused for the purposes of egoism, the egoism of virtue and the egoism of prejudice and personal opinion. At its best it is a great means towards the preparation of liberation. It is sabda-brahma. But we must not be satisfied with mere preparation, we must, as soon as our eyes are opened, hasten on to actual freedom. The liberated soul and the sadhak of liberation who has surrendered even his actions to God, gets beyond the highest Shastra, sabdabrahmativartate.

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Chapter 9

Practise What You Read

Words of the Mother

It is a tale of ancient times, of what used to happen before there were printing presses and books, of the days when only the Guru or the Initiate had the knowledge and gave it only to those he considered worthy of having it. And for him, usually, “to be worthy of having it” meant putting into practice what one had learnt. He gave you a truth and expected you to practise it. And when you had put it into practice, he consented to give you another.

Now things happen quite differently. Everybody and anybody can have a book, read it right through and he is quite free to practise it or not as he pleases. This is all very well, but it creates a certain confusion in many minds, and people who have read many books think that it is enough and that all sorts of miraculous things must happen to them because they have read books, and that they don’t need to take the trouble of practising. So they become impatient and say, “How is it that although I have read all this I am still just the same person, have the same difficulties, haven’t achieved any realisation?” I very often hear remarks of this kind.

They forget only one thing, that they have obtained the knowledge – intellectual, mental knowledge – before having deserved it, that is, before having put into practice what they have read, and that, naturally, there is discrepancy between their state of consciousness and the ideas, the knowledge they can speak about at length but which they haven’t practised...

So, this is to tell you that you must not be impatient, that you must understand that in order to really possess knowledge, whatever it may be, you must put it into practice, that is, master your nature so as to be able to express this knowledge in action.

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Chapter 10

How to Read Sri Aurobindo and the Mother

Words of Nolini Kanta Gupta

Why do we read the works of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother? And if we read them, how to read them?

Do we read for the sake of study? to know things? to acquire knowledge? That is a secondary aspect, a profit gained by the way. The real purpose of coming in contact with the words of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo is to become conscious, to acquire consciousness, to be more and more conscious, increase more and more the consciousness. To understand, that is to say, to seize by the mind, to grasp intellectually the writings of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo is rather difficult. The easier, the more right way would be to enter into the atmosphere of the world that they have created with their words, to feel the vibration that the words emanate. For the words that they have uttered are not mere words taken or found in the dictionaries, they are not mere sounds, dead syllables, they are living entities, symbols of consciousness, the consciousness of which I have just spoken. These symbols, being symbols of consciousness are luminous, they shed light all along, they are full of power and extend power all along, they have life and they are full of delight. It is this inner world that is behind the outer world of words that one has to be in touch with, be aware of, in the first instance, before one can have a mental understanding; in other words you must cultivate the right attitude, a turn of your consciousness in tune with the consciousness that has worked out the words of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo. You have to take a plunge, as it were, dip into the waters, and be soaked in the caress of that element, to come in the living touch of the substance of words, go behind the meaning, if necessary, avoiding it even. You must contact the living sap, the rasa, that has poured itself out in the creation. If you have tasted of that, then – it has its own light – that will suffuse you automatically with its radiance; the delight of bathing in the living spring will formulate itself in rhythms of knowledge and true understanding.

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Chapter 11

To Read Sri Aurobindo

Words of Nolini Kanta Gupta

I learned that you want to know something about Sri Aurobindo and the Mother from me. But then there are three lines of approach: you may want to know about them, know of them or know them. Of course the last is the best. Indeed if you want to know truly something you have to become it. Becoming gives the real knowledge. But becoming Sri Aurobindo and the Mother means what? Becoming a portion of them, a part and parcel of their consciousness – that is what we are here for. And if you can do that, you know enough....

Once I told you, I think, how to study or approach Sri Aurobindo and the Mother in order to read them or understand their writings. There are two things: studying and reading; I made a distinction between the two. To study Sri Aurobindo is – I won’t say fruitless, that is too strong a word, but it can only be an aid or a supplementary way. Study means: you take the text, you understand mentally each word and phrase, if you don’t understand, you take a dictionary and try to catch the external meaning expressed by the words. That may be necessary but it is not the way to approach their works.

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APPENDIX

References

Quotations

CWSA Vol. 2, p. 677

CWM Vol. 12, p. 141

Sri Aurobindo: The Precursor of the Future

CWM Vol. 13, p. 4

CWM Vol. 13, p. 5

CWM Vol. 13, pp. 22-23

CWM Vol. 17, pp. 191-92

CWM Vol. 17, p. 10

CWM Vol. 13, p. 19

CWM Vol. 13, p. 19

CWM Vol. 13, p. 15

CWM Vol. 13, p. 22

CWM Vol. 12, pp. 116-17

“Read Sri Aurobindo”

CWM Vol. 17, p. 359

CWM Vol. 12, p. 204

CWM Vol. 12, p. 214

CWM Vol. 12, p. 205

CWM Vol. 12, p. 206

CWM Vol. 12, p. 206

CWM Vol. 12, p. 206

CWM Vol. 12, p. 396

CWM Vol. 12, p. 205

How to Read Sri Aurobindo’s Books

CWM Vol. 12, p. 203

CWM Vol. 10, p. 7

CWM Vol. 4, pp. 198-99

CWM Vol. 3, p. 65

CWM Vol. 12, p. 206

CWM Vol. 12, p. 397

CWM Vol. 9, p. 250

CWM Vol. 10, p. 103

CWM Vol. 12, p. 215

Presenting Sri Aurobindo’s Works to the Students

CWM Vol. 12, p. 209

CWM Vol. 12, pp. 210-11

CWM Vol. 12, pp. 337-38

How to Get Answers From Sri Aurobindo’s Books

CWM Vol. 8, pp. 162-64

Intellectual Preparation in Yoga

CWSA Vol. 23, pp. 81-82

CWSA Vol. 31, p. 12

CWSA Vol. 31, p. 11

CWSA Vol. 31, p. 13

CWSA Vol. 31, p. 54

CWSA Vol. 33, p. 276

CWM Vol. 12, p. 139

CWM Vol. 3, p. 64

CWM Vol. 12, p. 397

CWM Vol. 8, p. 365

CWM Vol. 16, pp. 194-95

Reading of Books as Help in Sadhana

CWSA Vol. 31, p. 63

CWSA Vol. 31, p. 73

CWSA Vol. 31, p. 70

CWSA Vol. 29, p. 318

CWSA Vol. 29, p. 254

CWSA Vol. 31, p. 62

CWSA Vol. 31, p. 78

CWSA Vol. 31, p. 63

CWSA Vol. 31, p. 64

CWM Vol. 17, p. 144

CWM Vol. 12, p. 133

CWSA Vol. 23, p. 81

Shastra and Beyond the Shastra

CWSA Vol. 15, p. 80

CWSA Vol. 23, pp. 55-56

Practise What You Read

CWM Vol. 9, pp. 67-71

CWM Vol. 10, p. 1

CWM Vol. 16, p. 272

CWM Vol. 17, p. 89

CWM Vol. 17, p. 31

CWM Vol. 14, p. 208

CWM Vol. 14, p. 208

CWM Vol. 14, p. 208

CWM Vol. 14, p. 208

CWM Vol. 14, p. 209

CWM Vol. 14, p. 209

CWM Vol. 14, p. 209

CWM Vol. 3, p. 228

CWSA Vol. 12, p. 443

CWSA Vol. 23, pp. 53-54

How to Read Sri Aurobindo and the Mother

Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta Vol. 4, pp. 254-55

To Read Sri Aurobindo

Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta Vol. 5, pp. 35-39

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CWM: Collected Works of the Mother, 2nd ed., Vols. 1-17
CWSA: Collected Works of Sri Aurobindo, 2012, Vols. 1-37