Works of Sri Aurobindo

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-66_The-Sences.htm

The Senses  

           

The senses are liars − they do not convey to us the truth of things but only an incomplete and even falsified appearance of things.

           

It is extremely ignorant to think that the eyes and ears never deceive us. Every psychologist knows that they do; it is a fact known to all that one cannot rely on human evidence based on the eyes and ears and that human deductions founded on them can lead to gross errors. The same incident reported by ten different persons elicits ten different versions.

 

Accurate perception: a perception which does not deform the Truth.

 

Purified senses can be obtained only by a total surrender to the Truth. 

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The Body (the Physical)  

 

Physical centre: occupied mainly with material things, it likes to have an ordered life.

Divine Mother,

I want to realise Your Presence in all the parts of my being, penetrating even the body — only I don’t know how to do it. You are the very reason of my being; why then do I live now without feeling Your Presence even in the cells of my body?

 

The physical nature is obscure and recalcitrant everywhere; it is very difficult for it to become conscious of the divine Presence.

That is why we must be patient and keep on aspiring with the certitude of Victory.

My blessings are always with you.

25 June 1935  

Each victory we win over the obscure physical Nature is the promise of a greater one to come.

 

In the physical the joy of being is the best expression of gratitude towards the Divine.

16 June 1941 

The Divine is present in the very atoms of our body.

22 May 1954  

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The physical being itself can be the seat of perfect existence, knowledge and bliss.

29 May 1954

For the body, to know means to be able to do. In fact the body knows only what it can do.

23 June 1954  

Peace in the physical: to want what God wills is its best condition.

 

Peace in the cells: the indispensable condition for the body’s progress.

 

Light in the cells: the first step towards purity in the cells.

 

Purity in the cells cannot be obtained except through conquest of desires; it is the true condition for good health.

 

May I not expect a line with regard to the unprecedented nature of the resistance in the body I experienced the other night?

 

It is the resistance of the mentalised substance in the cells of  

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the body and can be overcome only by an integral and total conversion.

Blessings.

                16 June 1961  

            Can the very physical cells of one’s body have more aspiration than the rest of the being?

 

It is quite possible as the “sadhana” is done now in the body itself.

                January 1966  

The inner progress has been sufficiently rapid for the exterior being to find it difficult to follow. Now the body must learn to receive the Divine Force and to keep it.

 

Transparency in the physical: the physical prepares itself for transformation.

 

Ananda in the physical: may it be welcome, even if it manifests itself rarely.

 

Ananda in the physical body: purified of all desire and all repulsion, in a perfect equality and surrender, the physical body is ready to enjoy the divine Ananda.  

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Ananda in the centres: this will be one of the good results of the conversion of the physical.

           

Integral even basis in the material: when all your material movements are organised, harmonised and co-ordinated and when all things find themselves in you in their respective places and your entire material basis is thus prepared and becomes ready to receive the Light and the Power.

 

The material consciousness has a firm and solid steadfastness. 

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The Subconscient  

 

(Mother told a sadhak that his hatred of someone was due to a strong attraction for the person. When asked to explain, she wrote:)

 

I was referring to some evidently subconscient movement − but you need not worry about it nor fix your attention upon it − one day the understanding will come spontaneously.

  

These are the explanations, the excuses the mind always finds in such cases; but these mental explanations follow or at the most accompany the movements to be explained, they never precede them.

What starts the movement is an obscure impulse, instinctive, almost mechanical and unconscious in its origin, something that contradicts without knowing why. (It is this unconsciousness which repels X although it is not a legitimation for repulsion or shrinking − these being themselves movements of unconsciousness.)

                April 1932  

Has the subconscient accepted the Higher Consciousness?

 

If the subconscient were to accept the Consciousness, it would no longer be the subconscient, it would become consciousness. I think that you mean: has the subconscient submitted to the rule, to the law of the higher Consciousness? This is not done as a whole, for the subconscient is vast and complex; there is a mental subconscient, a vital subconscient, a physical subconscient, a bodily subconscient.   

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We have to wrest the subconscient fragment by fragment from its ignorant and inert resistance.

1 July 1935  

These small physical inconveniences can also be made use of to hasten the progress. The seat of all these resistances is in the subconscient. We must enter there with a conscious will and establish the rule of the Divine even in semi-conscious matter.

                2 February 1938  

Your first attitude of detachment was the true one. The weakness that you are experiencing now is the result mostly of collective suggestion acting through subconscient memories of old ideas and feelings.

Our help and blessings are with you.

6 January 1939  

Subconscient remembrance must be purified of all that is useless.

 

Power of the truth in the subconscient: it can act only when sincerity is perfect.

 

As your aspiration is sincere, whatever was in the subconscient standing in the way of the Divine Realisation has come to the surface in order to be transformed; and you must rejoice at these occasions to make a progress.

4 July 1955  

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Can one learn to control one’s subconscient as one controls one’s conscious thought?

 

It is especially during the body’s sleep that one is in contact with the subconscient. In becoming conscious of one’s nights, control of the subconscient becomes much easier.

The control can become total when the cells become conscious of the Divine in them and when they open themselves voluntarily to His influence. This is what the consciousness that descended on the earth last year is working for. Little by little the subconscient automatism of the body is being replaced by the consciousness of the Divine Presence governing the entire functioning of the body.

13 April 1970  

The Divine Will acting in the subconscient: the rare moments when the Divine asserts Himself visibly.

 

About accidents: can one say that unconsciousness and disharmonious vibrations attract accidents and that the mistake is never one-sided? This is why it would be better, after an accident, to stop driving for a time, until one has made “great progress in self-mastery and in consciousness”.

 

This should be done and it is indispensable to enlighten one’s subconscient.

1971 

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General  

 

There is a psychological health as much, as a physical health; there is a beauty and harmony of the sensations as much as a beauty of the body and its movements.

 

Get out of your mind to have the true intelligence.

Get out of your sensations to have the true feelings.

Get out of your sensitiveness to have the true dynamism.

 

For the mind − knowledge.

For the heart − love and joy.

For the life − power.

For the matter − beauty.  

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