Sri Aurobindo Quotes

You have a strong active nature. And this in you is a point of strength. If you can mould it rightly this will become a very great strength. On the other hand, this too is your weak point - a hindrance in sadhana.

Samskrit language, as has been universally recognized by those competent to form a judgment, is one of the most magnificent, the most perfect, the most prominent and wonderfully sufficient literary instrument developed by the human mind.

Safety lies in tending towards our highest and not in resting content with an inferior potentiality..... To rest in or follow after an inferior potentiality may seem safe, rational, comfortable, easy, but it ends badly, in some futility or in a mere circling down the abyss or in a stagnant morass. Our right and natural road is towards the summits.

Spirituality is the master key of the Indian mind. It is this dominant inclination of India which gives character to all the expressions of her culture. In fact, they have grown out of her inborn spiritual tendency of which her religion is a natural out flowering. The Indian mind has always realized that the Supreme is the Infinite and perceived that to the soul in Nature the Infinite must always present itself in an infinite variety of aspects.

If Hell were possible, it would be the shortest cut to the highest heaven. For verily God loveth.

Metaphysical thinking will always no doubt be a strong element in her mentality, and it is to be hoped that she will never lose her great, her sovereign powers in that direction.

One may come armoured, Invinsible. His will immobile meets the mobile hour. The world blows cannot bend this Victor Head. Calm and sure are his steps in the growing night. The goal recedes, he hurries not his pace. He asks from no help from the inferior Gods. His eyes are fixed on the immutable aim.

She saw the myriad gods, and beyond God his own ineffable eternity; she saw that there were ranges of life beyond our present life, ranges of mind beyond our present mind and above these she saw the splendors of the spirit.

They proved to me by convincing reasons that God does not exist; Afterwards I saw God, for he came and embraced me. And now what am I to believe- the reasoning of others or my own experience? Truth is what the soul has seen and experienced; the rest is appearance, prejudice and opinion.

True knowledge is not attained by thinking. It is what you are; it is what you become.

When mind is still, then truth gets her chance to be heard in the purity of the silence.

Yes, this Purusha consciousness must be maintained; otherwise the calm will not last. The knocks and blows that come from outside cannot disturb one, if this Purusha consciousness remains at the back.

The great are strongest when they stand alone, A God-given might of being is their force.

To doubt the experience is to discourage it. Let it be developed, see what is in it.

In order to explain why the ordinary Sadhus and Yogis take to tobacco and gānja [an intoxicant], I said that these cause stimulation of the physical brain. But these have reactions. And to stimulate the brain thus is not the proper process.

Man is a transitional being, he is not final; for in him and high beyond him ascend the radiant degrees which climb to a divine supermanhood. The step from man towards superman is the next approaching achievement in the earth's evolution. There lies our destiny and the liberating key to our aspiring, but troubled and limited human existence — inevitable because it is at once the intention of the inner Spirit and the logic of Nature's process.

[S]tand aside and watch the working of the divine power in yourself.

One who loves God finds the object of his love everywhere.

Arise, transcend Thyself, Thou art man and the whole nature of man Is to become more than himself.

When thou findest thyself scorning another, look then at thy own heart and laugh at thy folly.

There is the physical mind which is mechanical but the awareness which is the essential character (dharma) of the mind is also to some extent present there.

The all-embracing vast being which is there behind the play of the universe and with which you will have to identify yourself - for this is your true self.

Fear not to be nothing that thou mayst be all.

That within us which seeks to know and to progress is not the mind but something behind it which makes use of it.

To be free from all egoistic motive, careful of truth in speech and action, void of self-will and self-assertion, watchful in all things, is the condition for being a flawless servant.

One can see light above the head; that indicates a consciousness outside the body. But that itself is not the Truth-Consciousness or Vijnana. But much light descending from there illumines this consciousness.

Trust the divine power, and she will free the godlike elements in you and shape all into an expression of divine nature.

Propaganda is necessary only for the sake of money!

Sit in meditation ! But do not think ! Look only at your mind ! You will see thoughts coming into it ! Before they can enter, throw these away from your mind till your mind is capable of entire silence.

The subliminal mind receives and remembers all those touches that delight the soul. Our soul takes joy in this right touching by the Essence of all experience.

Recover the source of all strength in yourself, and all else will be added to you ... political freedom, the mastery of human thought, the hegemony of the world.

The business of both parent and teacher is to enable and to help the child to educate himself, to develop his own intellectual, moral, aesthetic and practical capacities and to grow freely as an organic being, not to be kneaded and pressured into form like an inert plastic material

Forgiveness is praised by the Christian and the Vaishnava, but for me, I ask, "What have I to forgive and whom?"

The spiritual path is one of falling on your face, getting up, brushing yourself off, turning and looking sheepishly at God and then taking the next step.

The higher Truth is all the time working in us but through the lower power - Aparashakti. It is when we become conscious of the play of this higher Power then only yoga begins.

What is required is faith. Man has body, life and mind but that is not all that constitutes man. He has risen to the mind as a result of evolution. Now a higher consciousness will be evolved - this I call Supermind. It is the instrument of the Divine Consciousness, the Truth-Consciousness.

What do you want to do sadhana for? The aim should not be the satisfaction of egoism: "I want to be a great yogi; I shall have so much power and with that power I shall establish myself in the world." All such thoughts must be thrown far away.

But few are those who tread the sunlit path; Only the pure in soul can walk in light.

Not in the state of unconsciousness, but in full awareness when the higher Power will descend into and direct us, then only the yogic life will begin.

A total spiritual direction given to the whole life and the whole nature can alone lift humanity beyond itself. . . It is only the full emergence of the soul, the full descent of the native light and power of the Spirit and the consequent replacement or transformation and uplifting of our insufficient mental and vital nature by a spiritual and supramental Supernature that can effect this evolutionary miracle.

The first and the most important thing is to know that life is one and immortal. Only the forms, countless in number, are transient and brittle. The life everlasting is independent of any form but manifests itself in all forms. Life then does not die... but the forms are dissolved.

The first principle of true teaching is that nothing can be taught.

In order to satisfy the vital being, it must be offered some activity, and at the same time the mind should be slowly made to take interest in yoga.

The aggressive and quite illogical idea of a single religion for all mankind, a religion universal by the very force of its narrowness, one set of dogmas, one cult, one system of ceremonies, one ecclesiastical ordinance, one array of prohibitions and injunctions which all minds must accept on peril of persecution by men and spiritual rejection or eternal punishment by God, that grotesque creation of human unreason which has been the parent of so much intolerance, cruelty and obscurantism and aggressive fanaticism, has never been able to take firm hold of the Indian mentality.

This world is a vast unbroken totality, a deep solidarity joins its contrary powers.

Do not allow things to intrude from outside.

The most vital issue of the age is whether the future progress of humanity is to be governed by the modern economic and materialistic mind of the West or by a nobler pragmatism guided, uplifted and enlightened by spiritual culture and knowledge.

Outside and above the mind there is the play of a consciousness which is lighted by the higher Truth, but man is not conscious of it and of that he has to be conscious.