-09_Chapter 8.htm

Chapter 8

Power

Power means strength and force, Shakti, which enables one to face all that can happen and to stand and overcome, also to carry out what the Divine Will proposes. It can include many things, power over men, events, circumstances, means etc. But all this not of the mental or vital kind, but by an action through unity of consciousness with the Divine and with all things and all beings. It is not an individual-strength depending on certain personal capacities, but the Divine Power using the individual as an instrument.

SRI AUROBINDO

Force is the essential Shakti; Energy is the working drive of the Force, its active dynamism; Power is the capacity born of the Force; Strength is energy consolidated and stored in the Adhar.

SRI AUROBINDO

All the planes have their own power, beauty, some kind of perfection realised even among their imperfections; God is everywhere in some power of Himself though not everywhere in His full power, and even if His face does not appear, the rays and glories from it do fall upon things and beings through the veil and bring something of what we call perfect and absolute.

SRI AUROBINDO

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GODHEAD

I use the word Godhead because it expresses at once the essence of Divinity and its powers – it opens the door on both the impersonal and the personal aspects without stressing either.

SRI AUROBINDO

The Godhead with whom the soul of man has to enter into this closest oneness, is indeed in his supreme status a transcendent Unthinkable too great for any manifestation, Parabrahman; but he is at the same time the living supreme Soul of all things. He is the supreme Lord, the Master of works and universal nature. He at once exceeds and inhabits as its self the soul and mind and body of the creature. He is Purushottama, Parameshwara and Paramatman and in all these equal aspects the same single and eternal Godhead.

It is an awakening to this integral reconciling knowledge that is the wide gate to the utter release of the soul and an unimaginable perfection of the nature. It is this Godhead in the unity of all his aspects to whom our works and our adoration and our knowledge have to be directed as a constant inner sacrifice.

SRI AUROBINDO

He is the one Existence: he is the original and universal Delight that constitutes all things and exceeds them: he is the one infinite Consciousness that composes all consciousnesses and informs all their movements; he is the one illimitable Being who sustains all action and experience; his will guides the evolution of things towards their yet unrealised but inevitable aim and plenitude. To him the heart can consecrate itself, approach him as the supreme Beloved, beat and move in him as in a universal sweetness of Love and a living sea of Delight. For his is the secret Joy that supports the soul in all its experiences and maintains even the errant ego in its ordeals and struggles till all sorrow and suffering shall cease. His is the Love and the Bliss of the infinite divine Lover who is drawing all things by their own path towards his happy oneness.

SRI AUROBINDO

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GODHEAD.

564 Godhead

Pure and perfect, puts forth its force in the world.

Hibiscus rosa-sinensis Cromwell’ Shell white

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565 Ananda

DIVINE GRACE

An absolute faith and trust in the Grace is, in the last analysis, the Supreme Wisdom.

THE MOTHER

The more complete your faith, sincerity and surrender, the more will grace and protection be with you. And when the grace and protection of the Divine Mother are with you, what is there that can touch you or whom need you fear? A little of it even will carry you through all difficulties, obstacles and dangers; surrounded by its full presence you can go securely on your way because it is hers, careless of all menace, unaffected by any hostility however powerful, whether from this world or from worlds invisible. Its touch can turn difficulties into opportunities, failure into success and weakness into unfaltering strength. For the grace of the Divine Mother is the sanction of the Supreme and now or tomorrow its effect is sure, a thing decreed, inevitable and irresistible.

SRI AUROBINDO

ANANDA

Ananda is the secret delight from which all things are born, by which all is sustained in existence and to which all can rise in the spiritual culmination.

SRI AUROBINDO

Ananda is the very essence of the Brahman, it is the supreme nature of the omnipresent Reality.

SRI AUROBINDO

565 Ananda

Calm, tranquil, equal, smiling and very sweet in its truly simple austerity.

Hibiscus rosa-sinensis. Cream

566 Divine Grace

Thy kindness is infinite, we bow down before Thee in gratitude.

Hibiscus mutabilis. White changing to pink, double

566 Divine Grace

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567 Agni

The flame of purification which ought to precede all contact with the invisible worlds.

Hibiscus rosa-sinensis. Light salmon pink, double

AGNI.

Agni is at once a fire of aspiration, a fire of purification, a fire of Tapasya, a fire of transformation.

SRI AUROBINDO

Without Agni the sacrificial flame cannot burn on the altar of the soul. That flame of Agni is the seven-tongued power of the Will, a Force of God instinct with Knowledge. This conscious and forceful will is the immortal guest in our mortality, a pure priest and a divine worker, the mediator between earth and heaven. It carries what we offer to the higher Powers and brings back in return their force and light and joy into our humanity.

SRI AUROBINDO

568 Flame

Elegant and triumphant in its ardour.

Hibiscus schizopetalus. Light red

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569 Supramental Consciousness

SUPRAMENTAL CONSCIOUSNESS

A new consciousness must manifest on earth and in man. Only the appearance of a new force and light and power accompanying the descent of the supramental consciousness into this world can raise man out of the anguish and pain and misery in which he is submerged. For only the supramental consciousness bringing down upon earth a higher poise and a purer and truer light can achieve the great miracle of transformation. . . . The integral Yoga aims at scaling all the degrees of consciousness from the ordinary mental consciousness to a supramental and divine consciousness and, when the ascent is completed, to return to the material world and infuse it with the supramental force and consciousness that have been won, so that this earth may be gradually transformed into a supramental and divine world.

THE MOTHER

569 Supramental Consciousness

Gloriously awake and powerful. Luminous, sure of itself, infallible in its movements.

Hibiscus rosa-sinensis ‘Daffodil’. Yellow, double

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570 Power of the Supramental Consciousness

Organising and active, irresistible in its influence.

Hibiscus rosa-sinensis ‘Rukmini’. Deep gold, double

571 Effective power of the Supermind

All-powerful, it imposes itself on all in the certitude of its knowledge.

Hibiscus rosa-sinensis. Pink to light orange

571 Effective power of the Supermind

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BEAUTY OF SUPRAMENTAL YOUTH.

572 Supramental beauty in the physical

Its promise is charming.

Hibiscus rosa-sinensis. Light golden orange

573 Beauty of supramental youth

Exquisite in its freshness, powerful in its undeniable beauty.

Hibiscus rosa-sinensis. Salmon orange

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BEAUTY OF SUPRAMENTAL LOVE

Supramental love means an intense unity of soul with soul, mind with mind, life with life and an entire flooding of the body consciousness with the physical experience of oneness, the presence of the Beloved in every part, in every cell of the body.

SRI AUROBINDO

574 Beauty of Supramental Love (Flower of Auroville)

It invites us to learn to live at its height.

Hibiscus rosa-sinensis. Salmon pink

574 Beauty of Supramental Love (Flower of Auroville)

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BEAUTY OF TOMORROW

575 Beauty of tomorrow

In the physical world, of all things it is beauty that best expresses the Divine. The physical world is the world of form and the perfection of form is beauty. Beauty interprets, expresses, manifests the Eternal. Its role is to put all manifested nature in contact with the Eternal through the perfection of form, through harmony and a sense of the ideal which uplifts and leads towards something higher.

THE MOTHER

575 Beauty of tomorrow

The beauty that will express the Divine Power.

Hibiscus rosa-sinensis. Light or bright orange

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BEAUTY OF TOMORROW

True Beauty is as difficult to discover, to understand and, above all, to live as any other expression of the Divine. . . . Pure Beauty is universal, and one must be universal in order to see and recognise it.

THE MOTHER

Beauty is as much an expression of the Divine as Knowledge, Power or Ananda.

SRI AUROBINDO

Beauty and delight, whatever form it takes, – for we may speak here of the two as one, – has an unaging youth, an eternal moment, an immortal presence.

SRI AUROBINDO

576 Beauty of tomorrow manifesting the Divine

A beauty that exists only by and for the Divine.

Hibiscus rosa-sinensis. Orange

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577 Power of spiritual beauty

(Spiritual beauty ofAuroville)

Spiritual beauty has a contagious power.

Hibiscus rosa-sinensis. Salmon orange

578 Victorious beauty

When it has removed the ugliness of life.

Hibiscus rosa-sinensis ‘Grace Goo’. Golden ochre to mustard

579 Victorious love

Sure of itself, fearless, generous and smiling.

Hibiscus mutabilis. Pink, double

578 Victorious beauty

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ETERNAL YOUTH

Youth does not depend on the small number of years one has lived, but on the capacity to grow and progress. To grow is to increase one’s potentialities, one’s capacities; to progress is to make constantly more perfect the capacities that one already possesses.

THE MOTHER

To be young is to live in the future.

To be young is to be always ready to give up what you are in order to become what you should be.

To be young is never to accept the irreparable.

THE MOTHER

To know how to be reborn into a new life at every moment is the secret of eternal youth.

THE MOTHER

ETERNAL SMILE

If one can smile eternally, one is eternally young.

THE MOTHER

The eternal smile means the self-existent joy and gladness of the Spirit.

SRI AUROBINDO

580 Eternal youth

It is a gift the Divine gives to us when we unite with Him.

Hibiscus hirtus. Salmon orange

581 Eternal smile

A gift that only the Divine can give.

Hibiscus micranthus. White

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CHARM OF THE NEW CREATION

582 Ideal of the new creation

584 Charm of the new creation (Charm of Auroville)

The new creation is attractive to all those who want to progress.

Hibiscus rosa-sinensis. Light pink

585 Blossoming of the new creation (Blossoming of Auroville)

The more we concentrate on the goal, the more it blossoms forth and becomes precise.

Hibiscus rusa-sinensis. Bright orange or yellow, semi-double

586 Concentration of the new creation

(Concentration ofAuroville) Concentration on a precise goal is helpful to development.

Hibiscus rosa-sinensis. Yellow

582 Ideal of the new creation (Ideal of Auroville)

The ideal should be progressive so that it can be realised in the future. Hibiscus rosa-sinensis. Violet mauve

583 Beauty of the new creation (Beauty of Auroville)

The new creation strives to better manifest the Divine.

Hibiscus rosa-sinensis ‘Debbie Ann’. Crimson pink

584 Charm of the new creation

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587 Progress of the new creation

587 Progress of the new creation (Progress of Auroville)

Each must find the activity favourable to his Progress.

Hibiscus rosa-sinensis Reddish orange fringed Yellow

588 Manifold Power of the new creation

(Manifold Power of Auroville)

The new creation will be rich in possibilities.

Hibiscus rosa-sinensis ‘Splash.’ Bright red or orange red

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590 Firmness of the creation

590 Firmness of the creation (Firmness of Auroville)

The new creation wants to be streadfast in its manifestation.

Hibiscus rosa-sinensis. Yellow

590 Usefulness of the new creation(Usefulness of Auroville)

A creation that aims at reaching men to surpass themselves.

Hibiscus rosa-sinensis . Deep Pink

590 Usefulness of the new creation

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NEW CREATION

The only creation for which there is any place here is the supramental, the bringing of the divine Truth down on the earth, not only into the mind and vital but into the body and into Matter. . . . We are here to do what the Divine wills and to create a world in which the Divine Will can manifest its truth no longer deformed by human ignorance or perverted and mistranslated by vital desire. The work which the sadhak of the supramental yoga has to do is not his own work for which he can lay down his own conditions, but the work of the Divine which he has to do according to the conditions laid down by the Divine. Our yoga is not for our own sake but for the sake of the Divine.

SRI AUROBINDO

The supramental creation, since it has to be a creation upon earth, must be not only an inner change but a physical and external manifestation also. … It is the actual descent of the supramental Divine into Matter and the working of the Divine Presence and Power there that can alone make the physical and external change possible.

SRI AUROBINDO

591 Realisation of the new creation

591 Realisation of the new creation (Realisation of Auroville)

It is for this that we must prepare.

Hibiscus rosa-sinensis ‘Vasco’. Lemon yellow

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592 Power of consciousness

593 Consciousness one with the Divine Consciousness

595 Will one with the Divine Will

592 Power of consciousness

All the powers of controlling and governing the lower movements of the inconscient nature.

Hibiscus rosa-sinensis. Raspberry pink to red, double

593 Consciousness one with the Divine Consciousness

Smiling and happy, it no longer knows any shadows.

Hibiscus rosa-sinensis. Pink, double

594 Will in course of uniting itself with the Divine Will

On the way to perfection.

Hibiscus rosa-sinensis. Cream white, double

595 Will one with the Divine Will

A condition that triumphs over all obstacles.

Hibiscus syriacus. White, double

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WILL-DIVINE WILL

The will is a part of the consciousness and ought to be in human beings the chief agent in controlling the activities of the nature.

SRI AUROBINDO

Will is the power of consciousness turned towards effectuation. The Divine Will is the will expressing the highest Truth.

THE MOTHER

When I speak of the Divine Will, I mean . . . something that has descended here into an evolutionary world of Ignorance, standing at the back of things, pressing on the Darkness with its Light, leading things presently towards the best possible in the conditions of a world of Ignorance and leading it eventually towards a descent of a greater power of the Divine, which will be not an omnipotence held back and conditioned by the law of the world as it is, but in full action and therefore bringing the reign of light, peace, harmony, joy, love, beauty and Ananda, for these are the Divine Nature.

SRI AUROBINDO

FAITH

Faith is a general word — shraddha — the soul’s belief in the Divine’s existence, wisdom, power, love and grace. …

SRI AUROBINDO

Faith is the soul’s witness to something not yet manifested, achieved or realised, but which yet the Knower within us, even in the absence of all indications, feels to be true or supremely worth following or achieving.

SRI AUROBINDO

[Faith] is in reality an influence from the supreme Spirit and its light a message from our supramental being which is calling the lower nature to rise out of its petty present to a great self-becoming and self-exceeding. And that which receives the influence and answers to ‘the call is … the inner soul which better knows the truth of its own destiny and mission.

SRI AUROBINDO

596 Faith

You flame up and triumph.

Hibiscus rosa-sinensis. Red and white, double

Faith is certainly a gift given to us by the Divine Grace. It is like a door that suddenly opens upon an eternal truth, a door through which we can see it, almost touch it. … In the ignorance and darkness of the beginning, faith is the most direct expression of the Divine Power which comes to fight and conquer.

THE MOTHER

At every moment all the unforeseen, the unexpected, the unknown is before us — and what happens to us depends mostly on the intensity and purity of our faith.

THE MOTHER

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INDIVIDUAL POWER

597 Individual power

598 Enlightened individual power

God is infinite and his manifestation is infinite. The forms of his manifestation too are innumerable. Each form is a symbol of some divine power, vibhuti, concealed in it and to the seeing eye each finite carries in it its own revelation of the infinite.

SRI AUROBINDO

To realise its own power and to master as well as to know its world is… the increasing impulse of all individual life; that impulse is an essential feature of the growing self-manifestation of the Divine in cosmic existence.

SRI AUROBINDO

597 Individual power

Limited in its capacity and action.

Hibiscus rosa-sinensis ‘Viceroy’. Intense magenta

598 Enlightened individual power

Limited in its action, but of a very high capacity.

Hibiscus rosa-sinensis. Coral pink

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599 Power of the psychic consciousness

Psychic power organises the activities of the nature to make them progress.

Hibiscus rosa-sinensis ‘Alipore Beauty’. Rose pink, double

600 Psychic power in existence

600 Psychic power in existence

Manifold, imperious, irresistible in its understanding sweetness.

Hibiscus rosa-sinensis. Light pink

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601 Mentalised power

Power made urilisable.

Hibiscus rosa-sinensis. Lemon yellow

602 Power in the converted mind

When the mind turns towards the Divine, it becomes a powerful instrument.

Hibiscus rosa-sinensis. Bright ochre yellow

603 Power in the higher vital

A power that wants to be at the service of the Divine.

Hibiscus syriacus. Lavender changing to blue

604 Ananda in the physical

May it be welcome, even if it manifests itself rarely.

Hibiscus rosa-sinensis. Cream and red

605 Sweetness of power surrendered to the Divine

(Sweetness of Auroville) Sweetness itself becomes powerful when it is at the service of the Divine.

Hibiscus rosa-sinensis. Gold to apricot yellow

602 Power in the converted mind

603 Power in the higher vital

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ANANDA IN THE PHYSICAL

There comes a time . . . when one can feel in everything, in every object, every movement, every vibration, in everything around – not only people and conscious beings, but things, objects: not only trees and plants and living things, but simply any object one uses, the things around one — this delight, this delight of being, of being just as one is, simply being. And one sees that all this vibrates like that. One touches a thing and feels this delight. . . .

For this delight is everywhere. This delight is something very subtle. You move in the midst of things and it is as though they were all singing to you their delight. There comes a time when this becomes very familiar in the life around you. . . . In plants, in flowers, it is so wonderful! They speak all their joy, they express it. And as I said, in familiar objects, the things around you that you use, there is a state of consciousness in which each one is happy to be, just as it is. So at that moment one knows that one has touched the true delight. And it is not conditioned. I mean it does not depend on … it depends on. nothing. It does not depend on outer circumstances, it does not depend on a more or less favourable state, it does not depend on anything: it is a communion with the raison d’etre of the universe.

And when this comes it fills all the cells of the body. It is not even a thing that is thought out — one does not reason, one does not analyse, it is not that: it is a state in which one lives. And when the body shares in it, it is so fresh — so fresh, so spontaneous, so … it no longer looks back upon itself, there is no longer any sense of self-observation, of self-analysis or of analysing things. All this is like a canticle of joyous vibrations, but very, very quiet, without violence, without passion, nothing of all that. It is very subtle and very intense at the same time, and when it comes, it seems that the whole universe is a marvellous harmony.

THE MOTHER