Namjapa of Mantra

in Sadhana

A Compilation from the Works of

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother

Namjapa of Mantra

in Sadhana

© All writings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother

are copyright of Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust

and have been reproduced here with their kind permission.

©2020 AuroPublications, Sri Aurobindo Society, Puducherry

www.aurosociety.org

Year of Publication 2020

Compilation done by Jamshed M. Mavalwalla

Proof reading and help in searching quotations done by Archana Udaykumar

Cover done by Kavita Dutta

Help in making e-book by Uttam Mondal

Foreword

All over the world, there is a growing interest in Spirituality and Yoga.  There is a search for the true meaning and purpose of life, for deeper solutions to the problems which confront us all, and how we can contribute to the evolutionary change and progress.

In this search, more and more persons are turning to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother for guidance and enlightenment.  But in their voluminous literature, they do not know where to find the answers they are looking for.

In this regard the Mother has said,

“It is not by books that Sri Aurobindo ought to be studied but by subjects—what he has said on the Divine, on Unity, on religion, on evolution, on education, on self-perfection, on supermind, etc., etc.” (CWM 12: 206)

On another occasion she said:

“If you want to know what Sri Aurobindo has said on a given subject, you must at least read all he has written on that subject. You will then see that he seems to have said the most contradictory things. But when one has read everything and understood a little, one sees that all the contradictions complement one another and are organised and unified in an integral synthesis.” (CWM 16: 309-310)

While there are several compilations which are now available, many sincere spiritual seekers have felt the need of Comprehensive Compilations from Sri Aurobindo and the Mother on specific subjects, where the contents are further organised into sub-topics, so that one can get all that one is looking for at one place.

These books are an effort to fulfill this need and thus help spiritual seekers in their journey and sadhana.  We hope these compilations will help us to get a greater mental clarity about a subject so that we can channel our efforts in the right direction. For Sri Aurobindo has written:

“It is always better to make an effort in the right direction; even if one fails the effort bears some result and is never lost.” (CWSA 29: 87)

We will be glad to get suggestions and feedback from the readers.

Vijay

Preface

In the series of comprehensive compilations we present one method which can become a part of sadhana in this book ‘Namjapa of Mantra in Sadhana’.

The quotations in this compilation are taken from the volumes of the Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo (CWSA) and the Collected Works of the Mother (CWM), Second Edition. Each quotation is followed by the book title, volume number and the page number it has been taken from. This compilation also has quotations from the Mother’s conversations with a sadhak Mona Sarkar.

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. Those who would like to go through the fuller text are advised to go through the Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo (CWSA) and the Collected Works of the Mother (CWM), Second Edition.

The section headings and sub-headings have also been provided by the compiler to bring clarity on the selected topic. Also to emphasize certain portion in the quotations, the compiler has bold-faced some words.

Jamshed M. Mavalwalla

Contents

I—The Principle of the Japa

II—The Objective of Japa and Mantra

III—Japa on the Name of the Divine

IV—Conditions for Japa to Succeed

V—Japa While Concentrating on the Heart Centre

VI—Japa While Concentrating on the Head Centre

VII—Japa Must Be in Company With Work and Mental Activity

VIII—Repetition of Name with the Breadth Not Encouraged

IX—Mere Repetition of Words Cannot Have Much Effect

X—Resistance While Doing Japa

XI—If Not Succeeded in Reaching Divine By the Processes of Japa

XII—Traditional Japas

XIII—The Mantra is a Word of Power and Light that Comes from the Overmind Inspiration

XIV—Mantras Are Revealed Verses of Power of a Divine Inspiration and Source

XV—The Word is the Mantra

XVI—All Words or Mantras Were Formed from the Roots of Sanskrit Language

XVII—The Process of Formation of the Mantra and the Conditions of its Effectivity

XVIII—Out of Silent Brahman Aspect the Word Proceeds

XIX—The Word Has the Power to Create

XX—Explanation on How Creation Happened by the Word

XXI—Limited power of Human Speech Gives No Idea of the Original Creative Force of the Divine Word

XXII—The Psychological Truth in the Name of God, the Vibrations of the Mantra

XXIII—The Mantra is that Word of Power Born Out of the Secret Depths of our Being

XXIV—No Mantras Given for Initiation in the Integral Yoga

XXV—The Sadhana of Integral Yoga Does Not Proceed Through Mantras

XXVI—If Japa Helps You Then It Is Alright

XXVII—The Only Mantra Used in This Sadhana

XXVIII—The Mantra Is the Psycho-spiritual Symbol, an Instrument and a Sound Body for the Divine Manifestation

XXIX—Word as an Agency to Reveal Concealed Potential Knowledge

XXX—By the Word We Can Call Gods into Ourselves to Destroy the Powers of Darkness

XXXI—The Scriptures are shabdam Brahma, the Word

XXXII—To Fix the Mind on the Object of Adoration Is Done with a Mantra or a Divine Name

XXXIII—When the Sadhak Is Developed then Word is Only an Excuse for Inner Power to Awaken

XXXIV—The Path of Intellectual Being to Get Inner Power to Awaken

XXXV—Help One Receives by the Habit of Repeating Mantra

XXXVI—Lack of Repetition Impairs the Effect of Mantras

XXXVII—The Great Scriptures like Veda, Upanishads, Gita Have a Power to Awaken a Spiritual Impulse

XXXVIII—Verses of the Gita Used as Japa

XXXIX—OM is the Mantra

XL—The Mantra So’ham

XLI—The Gayatri Mantra

XLII—The Mantras of the Veda

XLIII—In Veda’s Saraswati is the Word, the Inspiration from the Truth-consciousness

XLIV—Usage of Mantras by Rishis

XLV—The Mantra in Rajyoga

XLVI—Mantra for People in the Country for 1971 Crises

XLVII—Mantra in Poetry

XLVIII—Mantras Written by Sri Aurobindo

XLIX—Reviving Mantra Bande Mataram

L—Reciting the book The Mother

LI—Supermind or Gnosis is the Supreme Word

LII—Repeating Mantra for Better Sleep

LIII—Use of a Mantra in Special Circumstances

LIV—Each Verse of Sri Aurobindo’s Epic Savitri Is a Mantra

LV— Other Quotations on Japa, Mantra and Word

LVI—Short Summary

I—The Principle of the Japa

“It is very good news that you got rid of the attack and it was the japa that helped you to do it. This and past experience also shows that if you can overcome the old association of the japa with sterility and sorrow, it can do its natural function of creating the right consciousness—for that is what the japa is intended to do. It first changes the vibrations of the consciousness, brings into it the right state and the right responses and then brings in the power or the presence of the Deity. Several times before you wrote to me that by doing japa you got rid of the old impulse and recovered calm and the right turn of the consciousness and now it has helped you to get rid of the invasion of sorrow and despondency. Let us hope that this last will also soon lose its strength like the impulse and calm and serenity begin to establish itself in the whole nature.” (CWSA 29: 329) (CWSA 35: 827–828)

“The word is a sound expressive of the idea. In the supra-physical plane when an idea has to be realised, one can by repeating the word-expression of it, produce vibrations which prepare the mind for the realisation of the idea. That is the principle of the Mantra and of japa. One repeats the name of the Divine and the vibrations created in the consciousness prepare the realisation of the Divine. It is the same idea that is expressed in the Bible, ‘God said, Let there be Light, and there was Light.’ It is creation by the Word.” (CWSA 29: 322) (CWSA 27: 7)

II—The Objective of Japa and Mantra

“By all means use the method of japa and bhakti. I have never insisted on your using the method of dry or hard tapasya—it was some idea or feeling in your own mind that made you lay so much stress on it. There are some to whom it is natural and necessary for a time, but each ought to move in his own way and there is no one rule for all—even if the objective is and must be the same, contact and union and opening to the Divine.” (CWSA 28: 343)

“It is said that Mantra Japa leads to a certain mechanisation of the sadhana, as the sadhaka becomes dependent on Nature to the extent that he has to awaken the Mantra in order to touch and identify himself with the Divinity. Is this charge against Japa true?

It depends on the way in which the japa is done.

If rightly done, the mantra is a means of opening to the light and knowledge etc. from above and it ceases as soon as that is done.” (CWSA 35: 827)

“Sweet Mother,

How can one draw energy into oneself from outside?

That depends on the kind of energy one wants to absorb, for each region of the being has a corresponding kind of energy. If it is physical energy, we absorb it principally through respiration, and all that facilitates and improves respiration increases at the same time the absorption of physical energy.

But there are many other kinds of energies, or rather many other forms of Energy, which is one and universal.

And it is through the various yogic exercises of breathing, meditation, japa and concentration that one puts oneself in contact with these various forms of Energy.” (CWM 16: 222)

“I do not believe a mantra can change the physical consciousness. What it does, if it is effective, is to open the consciousness and to bring into it the power of that which the mantra represents.” (CWSA 29: 323)(CWSA 35: 827)

III—Japa on the Name of the Divine

“It [the effectiveness of namajapa] depends on the person and how he does it. The Name of the Divine is in itself a power, if it is taken with the right faith and in the right attitude.” (CWSA 29: 327)

“Whatever name is called the Power that answers is the Mother.

Each name indicates a certain aspect of the Divine and is limited by that aspect; the Mother’s Power is universal.” (CWSA 29: 327)

“Naturally, whatever name one concentrates on [while awake] will repeat itself [in sleep], if any does. But the calling of Mother in sleep is not necessarily a repetition—it is the inner being that often calls to her in difficulty or in need.” (CWSA 29: 327)

“The name of the Divine is usually called in for protection, for adoration, for increase of bhakti, for the opening up of the inner consciousness, for the realisation of the Divine in that aspect. As far as it is necessary to work in the subconscious for that, the Name must be effective there.” (CWSA 29: 327)

“The name of God, the mantra, is still the keystone of all Indian yoga. We shall not realise the full bearing & rationale of this great Vedic conception unless we first impress on our minds the Vedic idea of existence & creation, for Vak, the Word, is in that idea the effective agent of creation. All created existence is in the Vedic philosophy a formation by force of consciousness, Chit-shakti, not, as modern thought supposes it to be, a formation by Force of unconscious inanimate Being. Creation itself is only a manifestation, phenomenon or appearing in form, vayas, vayunam, vīti, [of] that which is already existent as consciousness, but latent as form in universal Being.” (CWSA 16: 721)

IV—Conditions for Japa to Succeed

“As for the way out of the impasse, I know only of the quieting of the mind which makes meditation effective, purification of the heart which brings the divine touch and in time the divine presence, humility before the Divine which liberates from egoism and the pride of the mind and of the vital, the pride that imposes its own reasonings on the ways of the spirit and the pride that refuses or is unable to surrender, sustained persistence in the call within and reliance on the Grace above. These things come by the inner discipline which you had begun to practice some time ago, but did not continue. Meditation, japa, prayer or aspiration from the heart can all succeed, if they are attended by these or even some of these things. But I do not know that you can be promised what you always make the condition of any inner endeavour, an immediate or almost immediate realisation or beginning of concrete realisation.” (CWSA 29: 47) (CWSA 35: 619)

“I don’t think you understood very well what Mother was trying to tell you. First of all she did not say that prayers or meditation either were no good—how could she when both count for so much in Yoga? What she said was that the prayer must well up from the heart on a crest of emotion or aspiration, the Japa or meditation come in a live push carrying the joy or the light of the thing in it. If done mechanically and merely as a thing that ought to be done (stern grim duty!), it must tend towards want of interest and dryness and so be ineffective. It was what I meant when I said I thought you were doing Japa too much as a means for bringing about a result—I meant too much as a device, a process laid down for getting the thing done. That again was why I wanted the psychological conditions in you to develop, the psychic, the mental—for when the psychic is forward, there is no lack of life and joy in the prayer, the aspiration, the seeking, no difficulty in having the constant stream of bhakti and when the mind is quiet and in turned and upturned there is no difficulty or want of interest in meditation.” (CWSA 29: 226)

“Namochcharana has power but only if it comes from the heart and the soul; mere repetition with the mind is not enough.” (CWSA 29: 327)

“Namajapa has a great power in it.” (CWSA 29: 327)

“There is such a thing as mantra-shakti; but it acts only

on certain conditions.”(CWSA 29: 323)

“When one repeats a mantra regularly, very often it begins to repeat itself within, which means that it is taken up by the inner being. In that way it is more effective.” (CWSA 29: 323)

“The ‘double’ voice is a frequent phenomenon; it happens very often when one has been long repeating a mantra that a voice or consciousness within begins to repeat it automatically—also prayer can be taken up in the same way from within. It is usually by an awakening of the inner consciousness or by the going in of the consciousness more deeply within from its outward poise that this happens. This is supported in his case by the fact that he feels himself halfway to trance, his body seems to melt away, he does not feel the weight of the book etc.; all these are well-known signs of the inner consciousness getting awake and largely replacing the outer. The moral effects of his new condition would also indicate an awakening of the inner consciousness, the psychic or psychic-mental perhaps.” (CWSA 30: 199–200)

“The condition you describe in your work shows that the

inner being is awake and that there is now the double consciousness. It is the inner being which has the inner happiness, the calm and quiet, the silence free from any ripple of thought, the inwardly silent repetition of the name. The automatic repetition of the mantra is part of the same phenomenon—that is what ought to happen to the mantra, it must become a conscious but spontaneous thing repeating itself in the very substance of the consciousness itself, no longer needing any effort of the mind. All these doubts and questionings of the mind are useless. What has to happen is that this inner consciousness should be always there not troubled by any disturbance with the constant silence, inner happiness, calm quietude, etc., while the outer consciousness does what is necessary in the way of work etc. or, what is better, has that done through it—it is the latter experience that you have some days as someone pushing the work with so much continuous force without your feeling tired.” (CWSA 30: 232)

“I am sorry the old reaction to the japa has recurred. Perhaps the mind is doing it too much as a means for a result. The japa is usually successful only on one of two conditions, if it is repeated with a sense of its significance, a dwelling of something in the mind on the nature, power, beauty, attraction of the Godhead it signifies and is to bring into the consciousness, that is the mental way,—or if it comes up from the heart or rings in it with a certain sense or feeling of bhakti making it alive, that is the emotional way. Either the mind or the vital has to give it support or sustenance. But if it makes the mind dry and the vital restless, it must be missing that support and sustenance. There is of course a third way, the reliance on the power of the mantra or name in itself, but then one has to go on till that power has sufficiently impressed its vibrations on the inner being to make it at a given moment suddenly open to the Presence or the Touch. But if there is a struggling or insistence for the result, then this effect which needs a quiet receptivity in the mind is impeded. That is why I insisted so much on mental quietude and on not too much straining or effort—to give time to allow the psychic and the mind to develop the necessary condition of receptivity—a receptivity as natural as when one receives an inspiration for poetry and music. It is also why I do not want you to discontinue your poetry—it helps and does not hinder the preparation because it is a means of developing the right position of receptivity and bringing out the bhakti which is there in the inner being. To spend all the energy on japa or meditation is a strain which even those who are accustomed to successful meditation find it difficult to do—unless in periods when there is an uninterrupted flow of experiences from above.” (CWSA 29: 328–329)

“My words about the great secret of sadhana [“That is a great secret of sadhana, to know how to get things done by the Power behind or above instead of doing all by the mind’s effort.”] simply pointed out that that was the most effective way if one could get the things done by the Power behind, did not rule out mental effort so long as one could not do that. Ramakrishna’s way of putting it was the image of the baby monkey and baby cat; I have only said the same thing in other words; both are permissible methods, only one is more easily effective. Any method sincerely and persistently followed can end by bringing the opening. You yourself chose the method of prayer and japa because you believed in that, and I acquiesced [agreed] because it does prepare something in the consciousness and, if done with persistent faith and bhakti, it can open all the doors. Another method is concentration and aspiration in the heart which opens the inner emotional being. Another is the concentration in the head of which I spoke which opens the inner mind or opens the passage through the Brahmarandhra to the higher consciousness. These things are no fantastic invention of mine which one can dismiss as a new-fangled and untested absurdity; they are recognised methods which have succeeded in thousands of cases and here also there are plenty who have found their effect. But whatever method is used will not bring its effect at once; it must be done persistently, simply, directly till it succeeds. If it is done with a mind of doubt or watching it as an experiment to see if it succeeds or if it is continually crossed by a spirit of hasty despondency saying constantly, “You see it is all useless,” then it ought to be obvious that the opening will be very difficult, because there is that clogging it every time there is a pressure or a push to open. That is why I wanted you to get rid of these two things and have harped on that so much, because I know by my own experience and that of others how strongly they can stand in the way of what you seek. For you are not the only one who have been troubled by these two obstacles; most have had to struggle against them. If one can get rid of them in their central action, the survival of their activity in the circumference does not so much matter; for then the opening becomes possible, both to make and to keep and the rest can follow.” (CWSA 31: 729–730)

V—Japa While Concentrating on the Heart Centre

“In the heart-centre one concentrates in an aspiration, for an opening, for the presence or living image of the Divine there or whatever else is the object. There may be japa of a name but, if so, there must also be a concentration on it and the name must repeat itself there in the heart-centre.” (CWSA 29: 308–309)

“Concentration in the heart is one method, concentration in the head (or above) is another; both are included in this Yoga and one has to do whichever one finds easiest and most natural. The object of the concentration in the heart is to open the centre there (heart-lotus), to feel the presence of the Divine Mother in the heart and to become aware of one’s soul or psychic being which is a portion of the Divine.” (CWSA 29: 325)

VI—Japa While Concentrating on the Head Centre

“It is not necessary to give up Gayatri Japa or the process which you are following at present. Concentration in the heart is one method, concentration in the head (or above) is another; both are included in this Yoga and one has to do whichever one finds easiest and most natural. ... The object of the concentration in the head is to rise to the Divine Consciousness and bring down the Light of the Mother or her Force or Ananda into all the centres. This movement of ascent and descent is implied in the process of your japa and it is not therefore necessary to renounce it.” (CWSA 29: 325–326)

VII—Japa Must Be in Company With Work and Mental Activity

“This movement [of restlessness, sadness, gloom] is one that always tries to come when you have a birthday or a darshan and is obviously a suggestion of forces that want to disturb you and give you a bad birthday or bad darshan. You must get rid of the idea that it is in any way helpful for sadhana, e.g. makes you remember the Divine etc.—if it does it makes you remember the Divine in the wrong way and in addition brings up the weakness, also depression, self-distrust etc. etc. `A quoi bon cheerfulness? It puts you in the right condition for the psychic to work and without knowing it you grow in just the right perceptions and right feelings for the spiritual attitude. This growth I have been observing in you for a fairly long time now and it is in the cheerful states that it is the most active. Japa, thinking of the Divine is all right, but it must be on this basis and in company with work and mental activity, for then the instrument is in a healthy condition. But if you become restlessly eager to do nothing but japa and think of nothing but the Divine and of the ‘progress’ you have or have not made (Ramana Maharshi says you should never think of ‘progress’, it is according to him a movement of the ego), then all the fat is in the fire—because the system is not yet ready for a Herculean effort and it begins to get upset and think it is unfit and will never be fit. So be a good cheerful worker and offer your bhakti to the Divine in all ways you can but rely on him to work out things in you.” (CWSA 31: 203)

“The work should not be diminished for that purpose [meditation and japa]. On the other hand it is not necessary for you to work all the time. If the work assigned to you is finished earlier, it does not matter about your not keeping the full office hours.” (CWSA 29: 224)

VIII—Repetition of Name with the Breadth Not Encouraged

“I did not encourage the name with the breathing because that seemed like pranayam. Pranayam is a very powerful thing, but if done haphazardly it may lead to the raising of obstructions and even in extreme cases illness in the body.” (CWSA 29: 327)

“Any Yogi who knows something about pranayama or japa can tell you that the running of the name in the breath is not a small phenomenon but of great importance in these practices and, if it comes naturally, a sign that something in the inner being has done that kind of sadhana in the past.” (CWSA 30: 16)

IX—Mere Repetition of Words Cannot Have Much Effect

“Sweet Mother,

What is the use of Japa?Is it a good method to repeat words like ‘Silence’ and ‘Peace’ in order to establish silence and peace in oneself when one sits down to meditate?

A mere repetition of words cannot have much effect.” (CWM 16: 304)

X—Resistance While Doing Japa

“The fear, anger, depression etc. which used to rise when making the japa of the names came from a vital resistance in the nature (this resistance exists in everyone) which threw up these things because of the pressure on the vital part to change which is implied in sadhana. These resistances rise and then, if one takes the right attitude, slowly or quickly clear away. One has to observe them and separate oneself from them, persisting in the concentration and sadhana till the vital becomes quiet and clear.” (CWSA 30: 255)

"In this world there are conditions for everything—if a man refuses to fulfil the conditions for Yoga, what is the use of appealing to the Divine’s omnipotence? He does not believe that the Divine is here. He regards us as Gurus. Yes, but he begins by disputing all my way of Yoga. He does not understand and does not care to understand my processes. He has ideas of his own, does not want peace or equality or surrender or anything else, wants only Krishna and bhakti. He has read things in Ramakrishna and elsewhere as to how to do it, insists on following that. Rejects all suggestions I can make as unpracticable. Erects a sadhana of violent meditation, japa, prayer—for these are the traditional things, has no idea that there are conditions without which they cannot be effective. Meditates, japs, prays himself into pits of dullness and disappears. Also tries in spite of my objections a wrestling tapasya which puts his vital into revolt. Then by a stroke of good luck I succeed unexpectedly in making a sort of psychic opening. Decides to try surrender, purification of the heart, rejection of ego, true humility etc.—tries a little of it and is really progressing. After two months finds that Krishna is not appearing—gets disgusted and drops the beastly thing.” (CWSA 35: 441)

“But all these questionings and repinings at each moment because you have not yet reached, only delay and keep an impeding curtain before the heart and the eyes. For at every step when one makes an advance, the opposite forces will throw this doubt like a rope between the legs and stop one short with a stumble—it is their métier to do that. One must not give them that advantage. Instead of saying, ‘I want only the Divine, why is the Divine not already here?’, one must say, ‘Since I want only the Divine, my success is sure, I have only to walk forward in all confidence and his own hand will be there secretly leading me to him by his own way and at his own time.’ That is what you must keep as your constant mantra and it is besides the only logical and reasonable thing to do—for anything else is an irrational self-contradiction of the most glaring kind. Anything else one may doubt—whether the supermind will come down, whether this world can ever be anything but a field of struggle for the mass of men,—these can be rational doubts—but that he who desires only the Divine shall reach the Divine is a certitude much more certain than that two and two make four. That is the faith every sadhak must have in the bottom of his heart, supporting him through every stumble and blow and ordeal. It is only false ideas still casting their shadow on your mind that prevent you from having it. Push them aside for good and see this simple inner truth in a simple and straightforward way—the back of the difficulty will be broken.” (CWSA 29: 97)

XI—If Not Succeeded in Reaching Divine By the Processes of Japa

“I may stress one point, however, that there need not be only one way to realisation of the Divine. If one does not succeed or has not yet succeeded in reaching him, feeling him or seeing him by the established process of meditation or by other processes like japa, yet one may have made progress towards it by the frequent welling up of bhakti in the heart or a constantly greater enlargement of it in the consciousness or by work for the Divine and dedication in service. You have certainly progressed in these two directions, increased in devotion and shown your capacity for service. You have also tried to get rid of obstacles in your vital nature and so effect a purification, not without success, in several difficult directions. The path of surrender is indeed difficult, but if one perseveres in it with sincerity, there is bound to be some success and a partial overcoming or diminution of the ego which may help greatly a farther advance upon the way. I can see no sufficient reason for the discouragement which so often overtakes you and sometimes makes you think that you are not cut out for the path; to indulge such a thought is always a mistake.” (CWSA 29: 212–213)

XII—Traditional Japas

“There are classical or traditional Japas which are intended to subdue the lower mind and establish a connection with higher forces or with deities. These Japas must be given by the Guru, who at the same time infuses them with the power of realisation. They are useful only for those who want to do an intensive yoga and spend five or six hours a day in yogic practices.

Japa such as you describe it cannot have much effect except to create a tamasic dullness, which should not be mistaken for mental silence.” (CWM 16: 304)

“While... let us take the mantra, for instance, which is a form of occultism; unless the mantra is given by a guru and the guru transmits his occult or spiritual power to you with the mantra, you may repeat your mantra thousands of times, it will have no effect.” (CWM 9: 392)

“Mr. Ber talked to us last Friday about mantras.

2 kinds of masters according to Ramakrishna:

The master who gives the mantra and who is thus an indirect means of spiritualisation.

The master who has had the deep experience of divine union and who by his presence alone transmits spirituality—Abdul Baha.” (CWM 2:113)

XIII—The Mantra is a Word of Power and Light that Comes from the Overmind Inspiration

“The mantra as I have tried to describe it in The Future Poetry is a word of power and light that comes from the Overmind inspiration or from some very high plane of Intuition. Its characteristics are a language that conveys infinitely more than the mere surface sense of the Words seems to indicate, a rhythm that means even more than the language and is born out of the Infinite and disappears into it, and the power to convey not merely the mental, vital or physical contents or indications or values of the thing uttered, but its significance and figure in some fundamental and original consciousness which is behind all these and greater. The passages you mention from the Upanishad and the Gita have certainly the Overmind accent. But ordinarily the Overmind inspiration does not come out pure in human poetry—it has to come down to an inferior consciousness and touch it or else to lift it by a seizure and surprise from above into some infinite largeness. There is always a mixture of the two elements, not an absolute transformation though the higher may sometimes dominate. You must remember that the Overmind is a superhuman consciousness and to be able to write always or purely from an overmind inspiration would mean the elevation of at least a part of the nature beyond the human level.” (CWSA 27: 26–27)

XIV—Mantras Are Revealed Verses of Power of a Divine Inspiration and Source

“In ancient times the Veda was revered as a sacred book of wisdom, a great mass of inspired poetry, the work of Rishis, seers and sages, who received in their illumined minds rather than mentally constructed a great universal, eternal and impersonal Truth which they embodied in Mantras, revealed verses of power, not of an ordinary but of a divine inspiration and source. The name given to these sages was Kavi, which afterwards came to mean any poet, but at the time had the sense of a seer of truth,—the Veda itself describes them as kavayaḥ satya’śrutaḥ, ‘seers who are hearers of the Truth’ and the Veda itself was called śruti, a Word which came to mean ‘revealed Scripture’. The seers of the Upanishad had the same idea about the Veda and frequently appealed to its authority for the truths they themselves announced and these too afterwards came to be regarded as Sruti, revealed Scripture, and were included in the sacred Canon.” (CWSA 16: 3)

“The antique view of the world as a psycho-physical and not merely a material reality is at the root of the ancient ideas about the efficacy of the mantra and the relation of the gods to the external life of man; hence the force of prayer, worship, sacrifice for material ends; hence the use of them for worldly life and in so-called magic rites which comes out prominently in the Atharva Veda and is behind much of the symbolism of the Brahmanas.” (CWSA 15: 493)

“Mantras come to many people in meditation. The Rishis say in the Veda that they had the Truth by vision and inspiration, ‘truth-hearing seers’, kavayaḥ satya’śrutaḥ. —Veda is śruti got by inner hearing.” (CWSA 29: 323)

“In the portions translated in this book we have many mystic verses and whole hymns which, however mystic, tear the veil off the outer sacrificial images covering the real sense of the Veda. ‘Thought’, says the Rishi, ‘has nourished for us human things in the Immortals, in the Great Heavens; it is the milch-cow which milks of itself the wealth of many forms’—the many kinds of wealth, cows, horses and the rest for which the sacrificer prays; evidently this is no material wealth, it is something which Thought, the Thought embodied in the Mantra, can give and it is the result of the same Thought that nourishes our human things in the Immortals, in the Great Heavens. A process of divinisation, and of a bringing down of great and luminous riches, treasures won from the Gods by the innerwork of sacrifice, is hinted at in terms necessarily covert but still for one who knows how to read these secret Words, niṇyā  vacāṁsi, sufficiently expressive, kavaye nivacanā .” (CWSA 16: 13)

“Existence is not a fluke, a random creation by nobody, a thing that unaccountably happened to be. It carries in itself the Word of God, it is full of a hidden Divine Presence.” (CWSA 12: 218)

XV—The Word is the Mantra

[Here Word is with Capital W]

“What does the Word mean?

That’s something else. The Word—it is not pronounced speech and words. There are old traditions which speak of ‘Let there be light and there was light.’ The Word is the Mantra. But it is something quite exceptional, it is when the will formulated in the spirit wants to come down into matter and act directly upon matter that it makes use of the sound—not only of the word but of the sound, the vibration of the sound—to act directly upon matter itself, in matter. It is the opposite movement. You are in the region of thought formulated in words, then from there you may rise higher and get an expression of the silent idea; again from there you may rise yet higher and have the Force: the Force is the Consciousness which is the very source of that thought. And so it becomes a total consciousness instead of something formulated—expressed and formulated. That is, you climb right back to the source. From there, once you possess this light in itself, this consciousness in itself and want to act upon matter to produce a result, this will comes down from plane to plane, and as it becomes more and more material, it defines itself clearly in words or even in a single word, and when it touches matter, instead of its being a silent word, it becomes a word articulated with sounds: a vibration that will act directly upon matter. But one must first have gone high up above in order to be able to come down again. One must have reached the silent consciousness to be able to descend and do this. It must come from above, the source of this word must be up there, not in any intermediary domain. That then is the Word. And one must do what I have said—it is not an easy thing.” (CWM 6: 98–99)

XVI—All Words or Mantras Were Formed from the Roots of Sanskrit Language

“The Sanscrit language … is the language of the Satyayuga based on the true and perfect relation of vak and artha. Every one of its vowels and consonants has a particular and inalienable force which exists by the nature of things and not by development or human choice; these are the fundamental sounds which lie at the basis of the Tantric bijamantras and constitute the efficacy of the mantra itself. Every vowel and every consonant in the original language had certain primary meanings which arose out of this essential shakti or force and were the basis of other derivative meanings. By combination with the vowels, the consonants, and, without any combination, the vowels themselves formed a number of primary roots, out of which secondary roots were developed by the addition of other consonants. All Words were formed from these roots, simple Words by the addition again of pure or mixed vowel and consonant terminations with or without modification of the root and more complex Words by the principle of composition. This language increasingly corrupted in sense and sound becomes the later Sanscrit of the Treta, Dwapara and Kali Yuga, being sometimes partly purified and again corrupted and again partly purified so that it never loses all apparent relation to its original form and structure. Every other language, however remote, is a corruption formed by detritions and perversion of the original language into a Prakrit or the Prakrit of a Prakrit and so on to increasing stages of impurity. The superior purity of the Indian language is the reason of its being called the Sanscrit and not given any local name, its basis being universal and eternal; and it is always a rediscovery of the Sanscrit tongue as the primary language that prepares first for a true understanding of human language and, secondly, for a fresh purification of Sanscrit itself.” (CWSA 16: 475–476)

“The Hindu is popularly credited with thirty crores and more of gods, as many inhabitants for all the many heavens as there are men in this single earthly peninsula India; and he has no objection to adding, if need be, to this mighty multitude. Here are temples, images, a priesthood, a mass of unintelligible rites and ceremonies, the daily repetition of Sanskrit mantras and prayers, some of them of a prehistoric creation, a belief in all kinds of supraphysical beings and forces, saints, gurus, holy days, vows, offerings, sacrifice, a constant reference of life to powers and influences of which there can be no physical evidence instead of a rational scientific dependence on the material laws which alone govern the existence of mortal creatures.” (CWSA 20: 146)

XVII—The Process of Formation of the Mantra and the Conditions of its Effectivity

“The process of formation of the mantra is described in the second verse along with the conditions of its effectivity. Agastya presents the stoma, hymn at once of affirmation and of submission, to the Maruts. Fashioned by the heart, it receives its just place in the mentality through confirmation by the mind. The mantra, though it expresses thought in mind, is not in its essential part a creation of the intellect. To be the sacred and effective word, it must have come as an inspiration from the supra-mental plane, termed in Veda, Ritam, the Truth, and have been received into the superficial consciousness either through the heart or by the luminous intelligence, manīṣā. The heart in Vedic psychology is not restricted to the seat of the emotions; it includes all that large tract of spontaneous mentality, nearest to the subconscient in us, out of which rise the sensations, emotions, instincts, impulses and all those intuitions and inspirations that travel through these agencies before they arrive at form in the intelligence. This is the ‘heart’ of Veda and Vedanta, hṛdaya, hṛd, or brahman. There in the present state of mankind the Purusha is supposed to be seated centrally. Nearer to the vastness of the subconscient, it is there that, in ordinary mankind,—man not yet exalted to a higher plane where the contact with the Infinite is luminous, intimate and direct,—the inspirations of the Universal Soul can most easily enter in and most swiftly take possession of the individual soul. It is therefore by the power of the heart that the mantra takes form. But it has to be received and held in the thought of the intelligence as well as in the perceptions of the heart; for not till the intelligence has accepted and even brooded upon it, can that truth of thought which the truth of the Word expresses be firmly possessed or normally effective. Fashioned by the heart, it is confirmed by the mind.

But another approval is also needed. The individual mind has accepted; the effective powers of the Cosmos must also accept. The words of the hymn retained by the mind form a basis for the new mental posture from which the future thought energies have to proceed. The Maruts must approach them and take their stand upon them, the mind of these universal Powers approve and unite itself with the formations in the mind of the individual. So only can our inner or our outer action have its supreme effectivity.” (CWSA 15: 271–272)

XVIII—Out of Silent Brahman Aspect the Word Proceeds

“The silent and the active Brahman are not different, opposite and irreconcilable entities, the one denying, the other affirming a cosmic illusion; they are one Brahman in two aspects, positive and negative, and each is necessary to the other. It is out of this Silence that the Word which creates the worlds for ever proceeds; for the Word expresses that which is self-hidden in the Silence. It is an eternal passivity which makes possible the perfect freedom and omnipotence of an eternal divine activity in innumerable cosmic systems.” (CWSA 21: 30–31)

“The silence of the Ineffable is a truth of divine being, but the Word which proceeds from that silence is also a truth, and it is this Word which has to be given a body in the conscious form of the nature.” (CWSA 24: 707)

“We have therefore to make that the basis of all effectuation whether of consciousness or force or being, whether of knowledge or will or delight. We have, as we have seen, to live in the consciousness of the Absolute transcendent and of the Absolute manifested in all relations, impersonal and manifest as all personalities, beyond all qualities and rich in infinite quality, a silence out of which the eternal Word creates, a divine calm and peace possessing itself in infinite joy and activity. We have to find Him knowing all, sanctioning all, governing all, containing, upholding and informing all as the Purusha and at the same time executing all knowledge, will and formation as Prakriti.” (CWSA 23: 421)

“All that takes form in itself will be the manifested potentialities of the One, the Word or Name vibrating out of the nameless Silence, the Form realising the formless essence, the active Will or Power proceeding out of the tranquil Force, the ray of self-cognition gleaming out from the sun of timeless self-awareness, the wave of becoming rising up into shape of self-conscious existence out of the eternally self-conscious Being, the joy and love welling for ever out of the eternal still Delight.” (CWSA 21: 165)

XIX—The Word Has the Power to Create

“Sweet Mother, there’s a flower you have named ‘The Creative Word”.

Yes.

What does that mean?

It is the word which creates.

There are all kinds of old traditions, old Hindu traditions, old Chaldean traditions in which the Divine, in the form of the Creator, that is, in His aspect as Creator, pronounces a word which has the power to create. So it is this... And it is the origin of the mantra. The mantra is the spoken word which has a creative power. An invocation is made and there is an answer to the invocation; or one makes a prayer and the prayer is granted. This is the Word, the Word which, in its sound... it is not only the idea, it is in the sound that there’s a power of creation. It is the origin, you see, of the mantra.

In Indian mythology the creator God is Brahma, and I think that it was precisely his power which has been symbolised by this flower, ‘The Creative Word’. And when one is in contact with it, the words spoken have a power of evocation or creation or formation or transformation; the words... sound always has a power; it has much more power than men think. It may be a good power and it may be a bad power. It creates vibrations which have an undeniable effect. It is not so much the idea as the sound; the idea too has its own power, but in its own domain—whereas the sound has a power in the material world.

I think I have explained this to you once; I told you, for example, that words spoken casually, usually without any reflection and without attaching any importance to them, can be used to do something very good. I think I spoke to you about ‘Bonjour’, ‘Good Day’, didn’t I? When people meet and say ‘Bonjour’, they do so mechanically and without thinking. But if you put a will into it, an aspiration to indeed wish someone a good day, well, there is a way of saying “Good Day” which is very effective, much more effective than if simply meeting someone you thought: “Ah! I hope he has a good day”, without saying anything. If with this hope in your thought you say to him in a certain way, “Good Day”, you make it more concrete and more effective.

It’s the same thing, by the way, with curses, or when one gets angry and says bad things to people. This can do them as much harm—more harm sometimes—than if you were to give them a slap. With very sensitive people it can put their stomach out of order or give them palpitation, because you put into it an evil force which

has a power of destruction.” (CWSA 7: 342–343)

“The Supreme Word

The Upanishad, reversing the usual order of our logical thought which would put Mind and Sense first or Life first and Speech last as a subordinate function, begins its negative description of Brahman with an explanation of the very striking phrase, Speech of our speech. And we can see that it means a Speech beyond ours, an absolute expression of which human language is only a shadow and as if an artificial counterfeit. What idea underlies this phrase of the Upanishad and this precedence given to the faculty of speech?

Continually, in studying the Upanishads, we have to divest ourselves of modern notions and to realise as closely as possible the associations that lay behind the early Vedantic use of words. We must recollect that in the Vedic system the Word was the creatrix; by the Word Brahma creates the forms of the universe. Moreover, human speech at its highest merely attempts to recover by revelation and inspiration an absolute expression of Truth which already exists in the Infinite above our mental comprehension. Equally, then, must that Word be above our power of mental construction.

All creation is expression by the Word; but the form which is expressed is only a symbol or representation of the thing which is. We see this in human speech which only presents to the mind a mental form of the object; but the object it seeks to express is itself only a form or presentation of another Reality. That reality is Brahman. Brahman expresses by the Word a form or presentation of himself in the objects of sense and consciousness which constitute the universe, just as the human Word expresses a mental image of those objects. That Word is creative in a deeper and more original sense than human speech and with a power of which the utmost creativeness of human speech can be only a far-off and feeble analogy.” (CWSA 18: 29)

“The word used here for utterance means literally a raising up to confront the mind. Brahman, says the Upanishad, is that which cannot be so raised up before the mind by speech.

Human speech, as we see, raises up only the presentation of a presentation, the mental figure of an object which is itself only a figure of the sole Reality, Brahman. It has indeed a power of new creation, but even that power only extends to the creation of new mental images, that is to say of adaptive formations based upon previous mental images. Such a limited power gives no idea of the original creative puissance which the old thinkers attributed to the divine Word.” (CWSA 18: 30)

“The Word has its seed-sounds—suggesting the eternal syllable of the Veda, AUM, and the seed-sounds of the Tantriks— which carry in them the principles of things; it has its forms which stand behind the revelatory and inspired speech that comes to man’s supreme faculties, and these compel the forms of things in the universe; it has its rhythms,—for it is no disordered vibration, but moves out into great cosmic measures,— and according to the rhythm is the law, arrangement, harmony, processes of the world it builds. Life itself is a rhythm of God.

But what is it that is expressed or raised up before the mental consciousness by the Word in the phenomenal world? Not Brahman, but truths, forms and phenomena of Brahman. Brahman is not, cannot be expressed by the Word; he does not use the Word here to express his very self, but is known only to his own self-awareness. And even the truths of himself that stand behind the forms of cosmic things are in their true reality always self-expressed to his eternal vision in a higher than the mental vibration, a rhythm and voice of themselves that is their own very soul of movement. Speech, a lesser thing, creates, expresses, but is itself only a creation and expression. Brahman is not expressed by speech, but speech is itself expressed by Brahman. And that which expresses speech in us, brings it up out of our consciousness with its strivings to raise up the truth of things to our mind, is Brahman himself as the Word, a Thing that is in the supreme superconscience. That Word, Speech of our speech, is in its essence of Power the Eternal himself and in its supreme movements a part of his very form and everlasting spiritual body, brahmaṇo rūpam.” (CWSA 18: 32–33)

“Therefore it is not the happenings and phenomena of the world that we have to accept finally as our object of pursuit, but That which brings out from itself the Word by which they were thrown into form for our observation by the consciousness and for our pursuit by the will. In other Words, the supreme Existence that has originated all.

Human speech is only a secondary expression and at its highest a shadow of the divine Word, of the seed-sounds, the satisfying rhythms, the revealing forms of sound that are the omniscient and omnipotent speech of the eternal Thinker, Harmonist, Creator. The highest inspired speech to which the human mind can attain, the Word most unanalysably expressive of supreme truth, the most puissant syllable or mantra can only be its far-off representation.” (CWSA 18: 33)

“In the system of the Mystics, which has partially survived

in the schools of Indian Yoga, the Word is a power, the Word creates. For all creation is expression, everything exists already in the secret abode of the Infinite, guhā hitam, and has only to be brought out here in apparent form by the active consciousness. Certain schools of Vedic thought even suppose the worlds to have been created by the goddess Word and sound as first etheric vibration to have preceded formation. In the Veda itself there are passages which treat the poetic measures of the sacred mantras,—anuṣṭubh, triṣṭubh, jagatī, gāyatrī,—as symbolic of the rhythms in which the universal movement of things is cast.” (CWSA 15: 270–271)

XX—Explanation on How Creation Happened by the Word

“The Vedic use of the Mantra is only a conscious utilisation of this secret power of the Word. And if we take the theory that underlies it together with our previous hypothesis of a creative vibration of sound behind every formation, we shall begin to understand the idea of the original creative Word. Let us suppose a conscious use of the vibrations of sound which will produce corresponding forms or changes of form. But Matter is only, in the ancient view, the lowest of the planes of existence. Let us realise then that a vibration of sound on the material plane presupposes a corresponding vibration on the vital without which it could not have come into play; that again presupposes a corresponding originative vibration on the mental; the mental presupposes a corresponding originative vibration on the supramental at the very root of things. But a mental vibration implies thought and perception and a supramental vibration implies a supreme vision and discernment. All vibration of sound on that higher plane is, then, instinct with and expressive of this supreme discernment of a truth in things and is at the same time creative, instinct with a supreme power which casts into forms the truth discerned and eventually, descending from plane to plane, reproduces it in the physical form or object created in Matter by etheric sound. Thus we see that the theory of creation by the Word which is the absolute expression of the Truth, and the theory of the material creation by sound-vibration in the ether correspond and are two logical poles of the same idea. They both belong to the same ancient Vedic system.

This, then, is the supreme Word, Speech of our speech. It is vibration of pure Existence, instinct with the perceptive and originative power of infinite and omnipotent consciousness, shaped by the Mind behind mind into the inevitable Word of the Truth of things; out of whatever substance on whatever plane, the form or physical expression emerges by its creative agency. The Supermind using the Word is the creative Logos.” (CWSA 18: 31–32)

XXI—Limited power of Human Speech Gives No Idea of the Original Creative Force of the Divine Word

“Human speech, as we see, raises up only the presentation of a presentation, the mental figure of an object which is itself only a figure of the sole Reality, Brahman. It has indeed a power of new creation, but even that power only extends to the creation of new mental images, that is to say of adaptive formations based upon previous mental images. Such a limited power gives no idea of the original creative puissance which the old thinkers attributed to the divine Word. …

Next, let us examine the relation of human speech to sound in general. We see at once that speech is only a particular application of the principle of sound, a vibration made by pressure of the breath in its passage through the throat and mouth. At first, beyond doubt, it must have been formed naturally and spontaneously to express the sensations and emotions created by an object or occurrence and only afterwards seized upon by the mind to express first the idea of the object and then ideas about the object. The value of speech would therefore seem to be only representative and not creative.” (CWSA 18: 30)

“As a matter of fact, even ordinarily, even daily and hourly we do produce by the Word within us thought-vibrations, thought forms which result in corresponding vital and physical vibrations, act upon ourselves, act upon others, and end in the indirect creation of actions and of forms in the physical world. Man is constantly acting upon man both by the silent and the spoken Word and he so acts and creates though less directly and powerfully even in the rest of Nature. But because we are stupidly engrossed with the external forms and phenomena of the world and do not trouble to examine its subtle and non physical processes, we remain ignorant of all this field of science behind.” (CWSA 18: 31)

“The Upanishad does not assert the unreality, but only the incompleteness and inferiority of our present existence. All that we follow after here is an imperfect representation, a broken and divided functioning of what is eternally in an absolute perfection on that higher plane of existence. … Our speech, limited, mechanical, imperfectly interpretative of the outsides of things, restricted by the narrow circle of the mind, based on the appearances of sense is only the far-off and feeble response, the ignorant vibration returned to a creative and revelatory Word which has built up all the forms which our mind and speech seek to comprehend and express.” (CWSA 18: 68)

XXII—The Psychological Truth in the Name of God, the Vibrations of the Mantra

“This free & great movement of illumination descending from above to us below … this winged & mighty descent of Truth is what we call Sruti or revelation. There are three Words which are used of illumined thought, drishti, sruti & smriti, sight, hearing and remembrance. The direct vision or experience of a truth or the thought-substance of a truth is called drishti, and because they had that direct vision or experience, that pratyaksha not of the senses, but of the liberated soul, the Rishis are called drashtas. But besides the truth and its artha or thought-substance in which it is represented to the mind, there is the vak or sound symbol, the inevitable Word in which the truth is naturally enshrined & revealed & not as in ordinary speech half concealed or only suggested. The revelation of the vak is sruti. The revealed Word is also revelatory and whoever has taken it into his soul, though the mind may not understand it, has the Truth ready prepared in the higher or sushupta reaches of his being from whence it must inevitably descend at a future date or in another life to his lower & darkened consciousness in order to liberate & illumine. It is this psychological truth which is the foundation of the Hindu’s trust in the Name of God, the vibrations of the mantra and the sound of the Veda. For the vak carries, in the right state of the soul, an illumination with it of the truth which it holds, an inspiration of its force of satyam which is less than drishti but must in the end lead to drishti. A still more indirect action of the vijnana [Truth] is smriti; when the truth is presented to the soul and its truth immediately & directly recognised by a movement resembling memory—a perception that this was always true and already known to the higher consciousness.” (CWSA 18: 429–430)

XXIII—The Mantra is that Word of Power Born Out of the Secret Depths of our Being

“But, in fact, speech is creative. It creates forms of emotion, mental images and impulses of action. The ancient Vedic theory and practice extended this creative action of speech by the use of the Mantra. The theory of the Mantra is that it is a Word of power born out of the secret depths of our being where it has been brooded upon by a deeper consciousness than the mental, framed in the heart and not originally constructed by the intellect, held in the mind, again concentrated on by the waking mental consciousness and then thrown out silently or vocally —the silent Word is perhaps held to be more potent than the spoken—precisely for the work of creation. The Mantra can not only create new subjective states in ourselves, alter our psychical being, reveal knowledge and faculties we did not before possess, can not only produce similar results in other minds than that of the user, but can produce vibrations in the mental and vital atmosphere which result in effects, in actions and even in the production of material forms on the physical plane.” (CWSA 18: 30–31)

“Still the letter of the Scripture binds and confuses, as the

apostle of Christianity warned his disciples when he said that the letter killeth and it is the spirit that saves; and there is a point beyond which the utility of the Scripture itself ceases. The real source of knowledge is the Lord in the heart; ‘I am seated in the heart of every man and from me is knowledge,’ says the Gita; the Scripture is only a verbal form of that inner Veda, of that self-luminous Reality, it is śabdabrahma: the mantra, says the Veda, has risen from the heart, from the secret place where is the seat of the truth, sadanād ṛtasya, guhāyām. That origin is its sanction; but still the infinite Truth is greater than its word. Nor shall you say of any Scripture that it alone is all-sufficient and no other truth can be admitted, as the Vedavadins said of the Veda, nānyad astīti vādinaḥ. This is a saving and liberating Word which must be applied to all the Scriptures of the world.” (CWSA 19: 92)

“The insistence of the ordinary mind and its wrong reasonings, sentiments and judgments, the random activity of the thinking mind in concentration or its mechanical activity, the slowness of response to the veiled or the initial touch are the ordinary obstacles the mind imposes just as pride, ambition, vanity, sex, greed, grasping of things for one’s own ego are the difficulties and obstacles offered by the vital. As the vital difficulties can be fought down and conquered, so can the mental. Only one has to see that these are the inevitable obstacles and neither cling to them nor be terrified or overwhelmed because they are there. One has to persevere till one can stand back from the mind as from the vital and feel the deeper and larger mental and vital Purushas within one which are capable of silence, capable of a straight receptivity of the true Word and Force as of the true silence. If the nature takes the way of fighting down the difficulties first, then the first half of the way is long and tedious and the complaint of the want of the response of the Divine arises. But really the Divine is there all the time, working behind the veil as well as waiting for the recognition of his response and for the response to the response to be possible.” (CWSA 31: 20–21)

XXIV—No Mantras Given for Initiation in the Integral Yoga

“The idea of your friend that it is necessary to receive a mantra from here and for that he must come is altogether wrong. There is no mantra given in this Yoga. It is the opening of the consciousness to the Mother from within that is the true initiation and that can only come by aspiration and rejection of restlessness in the mind and vital. To come here is not the way to get it. Many come and get nothing or get their difficulties raised or even fall away from the Yoga. It is no use coming before one is ready, and he does not seem to be ready. Strong desire is not a proof of readiness. When he is inwardly ready, then there will be no difficulty about his coming.” (CWSA 32: 333) (CWSA 35: 825)(CWSA 29: 326)

“Write to him that compliance with his request to see me is impossible. I do not see anyone—I do not speak with anybody or give oral instructions in Yoga. As for the rest, this is a special path of Yoga and only those are accepted who have a special call to it, not merely a general desire for the spiritual life. It is not a life of Sannyasa or a Yoga that can be done by Japa etc. but something much more difficult, so difficult that even those who have a call do not find it easy to go through to the end, and for those who have not the call, it would be impossible. If he likes, however, he can go on practising his Japa with an aspiration towards this path and if he gets any experiences by which a call to it becomes evident, then I can reconsider his case.” (CWSA 35: 554)

“An almighty love and wisdom are at work for your uplifting. Therefore never be troubled by the time that is being taken, even if it seems very long, but when imperfections and obstructions arise, be apramatta, dhīra, have the utsāha, and leave God to do the rest. Time is necessary. It is a tremendous work that is being done in you, the alteration of your whole human nature into a divine nature, the crowding of centuries of evolution into a few years. You ought not to grudge the time. There are other paths that offer more immediate results or at any rate, by offering you some definite kriyā you can work at yourself, give your ahaṅkāra the satisfaction of feeling that you are doing something, so many more prāṇāyāmas today, so much longer a time for the āsana, today, so much longer a time for the ¯asana, so many more repetitions of the japa, so much done, so much definite progress marked. But once you have chosen this path, you must cleave to it. Those are human methods, not the way that the infinite Shakti works, which moves silently, sometimes imperceptibly to its goal, advances here, seems to pause there, then mightily and triumphantly reveals the grandiose thing that it has done. Artificial paths are like canals hewn by the intelligence of man; you travel easily, safely, surely, but from one given place to another. This path is the broad and trackless ocean by which you can travel widely to all parts of the world and are admitted to the freedom of the infinite. All that you need are the ship, the steering-wheel, the compass, the motive-power and a skilful captain. Your ship is the Brahmavidya, faith is your steering-wheel, self-surrender your compass, the motive-power is she who makes, directs and destroys the worlds at God’s command and God himself is your captain. But he has his own way of working and his own time for everything. Watch his way and wait for his time. Understand also the importance of accepting the Shastra and submitting to the Guru and do not do like the Europeans who insist on the freedom of the individual intellect to follow its own fancies and preferences which it calls reasonings, even before it is trained to discern or fit to reason. It is much the fashion nowadays to indulge in metaphysical discussions and philosophical subtleties about Maya and Adwaita and put them in the forefront, making them take the place of spiritual experience.” (CWSA 13: 87–88)

XXV—The Sadhana of Integral Yoga Does Not Proceed Through Mantras

“The sadhana of this Yoga does not proceed through any set mental teaching or prescribed forms of meditation, mantras or others, but by aspiration, by a self-concentration inwards or upwards, by self-opening to an Influence, to the Divine Power above us and its workings, to the Divine Presence in the heart, and by the rejection of all that is foreign to these things. It is only by faith, aspiration and surrender that this self-opening can come.” (CWSA 29: 20)

“In India the Guru gives a mantra as soon as he accepts a disciple and tells him to go ahead with it. We have no mantra except the Mother’s name. But usually we give work, tell them to aspire, reject, open to the Mother. I don’t know whether you call that the practical course. Anyhow people have got into difficulties here even without any practical course, most while doing their ‘twelve years’ and in some cases we have had to push them into active sadhana as the only way to control the lower forces and get them out of it.” (CWSA 32: 139)

XXVI—If Japa Helps You Then It Is Alright

“Sweet Mother, are religious exercises very important for those who have an ordinary consciousness?

Religious exercises? I don’t know! What do you mean by religious exercises?

Japa, etc.

Oh, those things! If it helps you, it is all right. If it doesn’t help you, it is just... This is one of those altogether relative things. It is altogether relative. Its value lies only in the effect it has on you and the extent to which you believe in it. If it helps you to concentrate, it is good. The ordinary consciousness always does it just through superstition, with the idea that ‘If I do this, if I go to the temple or church once a week, if I offer prayers, something very fine will happen to me.’ This is superstition, spread all over the world, but it has no value at all from the spiritual point of view.

Mother, for instance, on certain days of the year we have Lakshmi-puja, Mahakali-puja, and all that....

That’s because it amuses you, my children!

But on these days you give us blessings also!

Yes, because that amuses you! (Laughter) Eh?

You give us blessings only to amuse us?

Come now! It pleases you; I said ‘amuses’; it’s... I was disrespectful; but it’s because it pleases you.” (CWM 6: 193)

XXVII—The Only Mantra Used in This Sadhana

“As a rule the only mantra used in this sadhana is that of the Mother or of my name and the Mother. The concentration in the heart and the concentration in the head can both be used each has its own result. The first opens up the psychic being and brings bhakti, love and union with the Mother, her presence within the heart and the action of her Force in the nature. The other opens the mind to self-realisation, to the consciousness of what is above mind, to the ascent of the consciousness out of the body and the descent of the higher consciousness into the body.” (CWSA 29: 326)(CWSA 35: 825)

“The correspondent asked whether there is any difference of Force when one repeats only the Mother’s name and when one repeats both the names of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother together.

There is not necessarily any difference of Force. Usually the Mother’s name has the full power in it; but in certain states of consciousness the double Name may have a special effect.” (CWSA 29: 326) (CWSA 35: 826)

“I humbly request Sri Aurobindo and you to send me

some mūla-mantra which I can repeat in meditation and concentration and as nāma-smaraṇa. Coming from the Mother and Sri Aurobindo, it will have a potency to lead me quickly on the path.

“We do not usually give any mantra. Those who repeat something in meditation call on the Mother.” (CWSA 35: 826)

(CWSA 29: 326)

“In this Yoga there is no fixed mantra, no stress is laid on mantras, although sadhaks can use one if they find it helpful or so long as they find it helpful. The stress is rather on an aspiration in the consciousness and a concentration of the mind, heart, will, all the being. If a mantra is found helpful for that, one uses it. OM if rightly used (not mechanically) might very well help the opening upwards and outwards (cosmic consciousness) as well as the descent.” (CWSA 35: 826)

“How to open to the Mother? The following are the means:

(1) To remember You constantly or from time to time—

Good.

…

(2) By taking Your name through Japa—

Helpful.” (CWM 14: 40)

Written by Sri Aurobindo to his secretary, who replied to the enquirer.—Ed.

“Sri Aurobindo says in reply to your letter that you can meditate on the Mother in the heart and call on her—remember her and dedicate or offer to her all your life and thoughts and actions. If you like you can make a japa of her name. You can call to her to purify your being and change your nature.

Or you can concentrate to call down from above you (where it always is) first her calm and peace, then her power and light and her ananda. It is always there above the head—but superconscient to the human mind—by aspiration and concentration it can become conscient to it and the adhar can open to it so that it descends and enters into mind, life and body.” (CWSA 32: 154–155)

(A sadhak wrote that devotees were performing ceremonies much like the worship of deities in front of the photographs of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. Stating that for proper worship there should be a bija-mantra [seed-mantra] to invoke the deity, he asked whether there was such a mantra for Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.

Mother replied :)

I always advise to let the mantra rise from the depth of the heart as a sincere aspiration.” (CWM 15: 32–33)

“I find no harm if I repeat the name of Sri Krishna, whose very being has taken the form of our Lord Sri Aurobindo and his Parashakti, the Mother.

There is no harm in that; it is not incompatible or inconsistent with this Yoga.” (CWSA 35: 826–827)

XXVIII—The Mantra Is the Psycho-spiritual Symbol, an Instrument and a Sound Body for the Divine Manifestation

“But the most direct spiritual use of the psychic consciousness is to make it an instrument of contact, communication and union with the Divine. A world of psycho-spiritual symbols is readily opened up, illuminating and potent and living forms and instruments, which can be made a revelation of spiritual significances, a support for our spiritual growth and the evolution of spiritual capacity and experience, a means towards spiritual power, knowledge or Ananda. The mantra is one of these psycho-spiritual means, at once a symbol, an instrument and a sound body for the divine manifestation, and of the same kind are the images of the Godhead and of its personalities or powers used in meditation or for adoration in Yoga.” (CWSA 24: 879)

“Finally, at the summit of the ascension, this arising and expanding energy meets with the superconscient self which sits concealed behind and above our physical and mental existence; this meeting leads to a profound samadhi of union in which our waking consciousness loses itself in the superconscient. Thus by the thorough and unremitting practice of Pranayama the Hathayogin attains in his own way the psychic and spiritual results which are pursued through more directly psychical and spiritual methods in other Yogas. The one mental aid which he conjoins with it, is the use of the mantra, sacred syllable, name or mystic formula which is of so much importance in the Indian systems of Yoga and common to them all. This secret of the power of the mantra, the six chakras and the Kundalini Shakti is one of the central truths of all that complex psycho-physical science and practice of which the Tantric philosophy claims to give us a rationale and the most complete compendium of methods. All religions and disciplines in India which use largely the psycho-physical method, depend more or less upon it for their practices.” (CWSA 24: 538)

XXIX—Word as an Agency to Reveal Concealed Potential Knowledge

“Nothing can be taught to the mind which is not already concealed as potential knowledge in the unfolding soul of the creature. So also all perfection of which the outer man is capable, is only a realising of the eternal perfection of the Spirit within him. We know the Divine and become the Divine, because we are That already in our secret nature. All teaching is a revealing, all becoming is an unfolding. Self-attainment is the secret; self-knowledge and an increasing consciousness are the means and the process.

The usual agency of this revealing is the Word, the thing heard (śruta). The Word may come to us from within; it may come to us from without. But in either case, it is only an agency for setting the hidden knowledge to work. The word within may be the utterance of the inmost soul in us which is always open to the Divine; or it may be the word of the secret and universal Teacher who is seated in the hearts of all. There are rare cases in which none other is needed, for all the rest of the Yoga is an unfolding under that constant touch and guidance; the lotusof the knowledge discloses itself from within by the power of irradiating effulgence which proceeds from the Dweller in the lotus of the heart. Great indeed, but few are those to whom self knowledge from within is thus sufficient and who do not need to pass under the dominant influence of a written book or a living teacher.

Ordinarily, the Word from without, representative of the Divine, is needed as an aid in the work of self-unfolding; and it may be either a word from the past or the more powerful word of the living Guru. In some cases this representative word is only taken as a sort of excuse for the inner power to awaken and manifest; it is, as it were, a concession of the omnipotent and omniscient Divine to the generality of a law that governs Nature. …

But usually the representative influence occupies a much larger place in the life of the sadhaka. If the Yoga is guided by a received written Shastra,—some Word from the past which embodies the experience of former Yogins,—it may be practised either by personal effort alone or with the aid of a Guru. The spiritual knowledge is then gained through meditation on the truths that are taught and it is made living and conscious by their realisation in the personal experience; the Yoga proceeds by the results of prescribed methods taught in a Scripture or a tradition and reinforced and illumined by the instructions of the Master. This is a narrower practice, but safe and effective within its limits, because it follows a well-beaten track to a long familiar goal.” (CWSA 23: 54–55)

“What then are the standards of truth in the interpretation of the Scripture? The standards are three, the knower, knowledge and the known.

The known is the text itself that we seek to interpret. We must be sure we have the right Word, not an emendation to suit the exigency of some individual or sectarian opinion; the right etymology and shade of meaning, not one that is traditional or forced to serve the ends of a commentator; the right spirit in the sense, not an imported or too narrow or too elastic spirit.

The knower is the original drashta or seer of the mantra, with whom we ought to be in spiritual contact. If knowledge is indeed a perishable thing in a perishable instrument, such contact is impossible; but in that case the Scripture itself must be false and not worth considering. If there is any truth in what the Scripture says, knowledge is eternal and inherent in all of us and what another saw I can see, what another realised I can realise. The drashta was a soul in relation with the infinite Spirit, I am also a soul in relation with the infinite Spirit. We have a meeting-place, a possibility of communion.

Knowledge is the eternal truth, part of which the drashta expresses to us.” (CWSA 12: 36)

XXX—By the Word We Can Call Gods into Ourselves to Destroy the Powers of Darkness

“We have to call in the aid of the Gods to destroy the opposition of these powers of Darkness who conceal the Light from us or rob us of it, who obstruct the flowing of the streams of Truth, ṛtasya dhārāḥ , the streams of Heaven and obstruct in everyway the soul’s ascent. We have to invoke the Gods by the inner sacrifice, and by the Word call them into us,—that is the specific power of the Mantra,—to offer to them the gifts of the sacrifice and by that giving secure their gifts, so that by this process we may build the way of our ascent to the goal.” (CWSA 16: 20)

“By expression then we create and men are even said to create the gods in themselves by the mantra. Again, that which we have created in our consciousness by the Word, we can fix there by the Word to become part of ourselves and effective not only in our inner life but upon the outer physical world. By expression we form, by affirmation we establish. As a power of expression the Word is termed gīḥ or vacas; as a power of affirmation, stoma. In either aspect it is named manma or mantra, expression of thought in mind, and brahman, expression of the heart or the soul,—for this seems to have been the earlier sense of the word brahman, afterwards applied to the Supreme Soul or universal Being.” (CWSA 15: 271)

“It is certainly better not to dwell on the difficulties or give them too much voice, because, our experience shows us, to do so helps to make them return like a recurring decimal. The Coué formula is too crude and simple to be entirely true in principle, but it has a great practical force, and behind it there is a very great truth in a world and a consciousness governed by the Overmind Maya: it is this, that what we affirm strongly gets power to persist in the consciousness and experience and calls circumstances to its support, what we deny and reject and refuse to support by the power of the Word, tends, after a time and some resistance, to lose force in the consciousness and the circumstances and movements that support it tend also to recur less often and finally disappear. It is fundamentally the principle of the mantra. On that ground I approve of your resolution not to give any more the avalambana of the written word to these things. A constant affirmation from within on the other side—of that which is to be realised—brings always in the end a response from above.” (CWSA 31: 561)

XXXI—The Scriptures are shabdam Brahma, the Word

“The spirit who lies concealed behind the material world, has given us, through the inspiration of great seers, the Scriptures as helpers and guides to unapparent truth, lamps of great power that send their rays into the darkness of the unknown beyond which He dwells, tamasah parastat. They are guides to knowledge, brief indications to enlighten us on our path, not substitutes for thought and experience. They are shabdam Brahma, the Word, the oral expression of God, not the thing to be known itself nor the knowledge of Him. Shabdam has three elements, the word, the meaning and the spirit. The word is a symbol, vak or nama; we have to find the artha, the meaning or form of thought which the symbol indicates. But the meaning itself is only the indication of something deeper which the thought seeks to convey to the intellectual conception. For not only words, but ideas also are eventually no more than symbols of a knowledge which is beyond ideas and words. Therefore it comes that no idea by itself is wholly true. There is indeed a rupa, some concrete or abstract form of knowledge, answering to every name, and it is that which the meaning must present to the intellect. We say a form of knowledge, because according to our philosophy, all things are forms of an essentially unknowable existence which reveals them as forms of knowledge to the essential awareness in its Self, its Atman or Spirit, the Chit in the Sat. But beyond nama and rupa is swarupa, the essential figure of Truth, which we cannot know with the intellect, but only with a higher faculty.” (CWSA 12: 33)

“The Gita in later chapters speaks highly of the Veda and the Upanishads. They are divine Scriptures, they are the Word. The Lord himself is the knower of Veda and the author of Vedanta, vedavid vedāntakṛt; the Lord is the one object of knowledge in all the Vedas, sarvair vedair aham eva vedyaḥ, a language which implies that the word Veda means the book of knowledge and that these Scriptures deserve their appellation.” (CWSA 19: 92)

“The world abounds with scriptures sacred and profane, with revelations and half-revelations, with religions and philosophies, sects and schools and systems. To these the many minds of a half-ripe knowledge or no knowledge at all attach themselves with exclusiveness and passion and will have it that this or the other book is alone the eternal Word of God and all others are either impostures or at best imperfectly inspired, that this or that philosophy is the last word of the reasoning intellect and other systems are either errors or saved only by such partial truth in them as links them to the one true philosophical cult.” (CWSA 19: 3)

XXXII—To Fix the Mind on the Object of Adoration Is Done with a Mantra or a Divine Name

“There is also the consecration of the thoughts to the Divine. In its inception this is the attempt to fix the mind on the object of adoration,—for naturally the restless human mind is occupied with other objects and, even when it is directed upwards, constantly drawn away by the world,—so that in the end it habitually thinks of him and all else is only secondary and thought of only in relation to him. This is done often with the aid of a physical image or, more intimately and characteristically, of a mantra or a divine name through which the divine being is realised.” (CWSA 24: 574)

XXXIII—When the Sadhak Is Developed then Word is Only an Excuse for Inner Power to Awaken

“Sweet Mother, here: ‘In some cases this representative word is only taken as a sort of excuse for the inner power to awaken and manifest...’ Then in this case is it the individual’s aspiration or the power of the word?

This depends a great deal on the degree of the sadhak’s development, you see. If he is developed and conscious enough to be indirect contact with the spiritual Force which is working behind the words, then the word is only an excuse. But if for him it must pass through his mental understanding in order to have its effect, then the word takes on a much greater importance. It depends on the degree of development.

If one is capable of receiving directly, then one opens a book for instance, finds a sentence and has an illumination; because it was just the word one was waiting for in order to put himself into contact with the Force he needed to take the next step.” (CWSA 7: 341–342)

XXXIV—The Path of Intellectual Being to Get Inner Power to Awaken

“Otherwise [The sadhak is not developed] one must take a book, study it, read it sentence by sentence, word by word, and then reflect and then understand it and then assimilate it and then, later, very slowly, after the assimilation and understanding, it begins to have an effect on the character and one makes some progress.

In one case it is a direct contact, you see, and just one sentence, one word... one reads a word, reads a sentence, and has an illumination. And then one receives all the Force that one needs. The other is the path of the learned man, the scholar, who is an intellectual being and needs to learn, reflect, assimilate, reason about all he has learnt, in order to make progress. It is long, it is laborious.” (CWSA 7: 341–342)

XXXV—Help One Receives by the Habit of Repeating Mantra

“When you are playing and suddenly become aware that something is going wrong—you are making mistakes, are inattentive, sometimes opposing currents come across what you are doing—if you develop the habit, automatically at this moment, of calling as by a mantra, of repeating a word, that has an extraordinary effect. You choose your mantra; or rather, one day it comes to you spontaneously in a moment of difficulty. At a time when things are very difficult, when you have a sort of anguish, anxiety, when you don’t know what is going to happen, suddenly this springs up in you, the word springs up in you. For each one it may be different. But if you mark this and each time you face a difficulty you repeat it, it becomes irresistible. For instance, if you feel you are about to fall ill, if you feel you are doing badly what you are doing, if you feel something evil is going to attack you, then.... But it must be a spontaneity in the being, it must spring up from you without your needing to think about it: you choose your mantra because it is a spontaneous expression of your aspiration; it may be one word, two or three words, a sentence, that depends on each one, but it must be a sound which awakens in you a certain condition. Then, when you have that, I assure you that you can pass through everything without difficulty. Even in the face of a real, veritable danger, an attack, for instance, by someone who wants to kill you, if, without getting excited, without being perturbed, you quietly repeat your mantra, one can do nothing to you. Naturally, you must truly be master of yourself; one part of the being must not be trembling there like a leaf; no, you must do it entirely, sincerely, then it is all-powerful. The best is when the word comes to you spontaneously: you call in a moment of great difficulty (mental, vital, physical, emotional, whatever it may be) and suddenly that springs up in you, two or three words, like magical words. You must remember these and form the habit of repeating them in moments when difficulties come. If you form the habit, one day it will come to you spontaneously: when the difficulty comes, at the same time the mantra will come. Then you will see that the results are wonderful. But it must not be an artificial thing or something you arbitrarily decide: ‘I shall use those words’; nor should somebody else tell you, ‘Oh! You know, this is very good’—it is perhaps very good for him but not for everyone.” (CWM 4: 388–389)

XXXVI—Lack of Repetition Impairs the Effect of Mantras

“Lack of repetition impairs the effect of mantras.” [Words charged with spiritual power. The Dhammapada] (CWM 3: 261)

“... you must persist in what you do if you want to get a result. The Dhammapada tells us, for example, that if you

have a mantra and do not repeat it sufficiently, there is no use in having it and that if you are inattentive, you lose the benefit of vigilance, and that if you do not continue in the good habits that you acquire, they are useless—that is to say, you must persevere.” (CWM 3: 263)

XXXVII—The Great Scriptures like Veda, Upanishads, Gita Have a Power to Awaken a Spiritual Impulse

“The Word has power—even the ordinary written word has a power. If it is an inspired word it has still more power. What kind of power or power for what depends on the nature of the inspiration and the theme and the part of the being it touches. If it is the Word itself,—as in certain utterances of the great Scriptures—Veda, Upanishads, Gita,—it may well have a power to awaken a spiritual impulse, an uplifting, even certain kinds of realisation. To say that it cannot contradicts spiritual experience.

The Vedic poets regarded their poetry as mantras, they were the vehicles of their own realisations and could become vehicles of realisation for others. Naturally, these mostly would be illuminations, not the settled and permanent realisation that is the goal of Yoga—but they could be steps on the way or at least lights on the way. Many have such illuminations, even initial realisations while meditating on verses of the Upanishads or the Gita. Anything that carries the Word, the Light in it, spoken or written, can light this fire within, open a sky, as it were, bring the effective vision of which the Word is the body. In all ages spiritual seekers have expressed their aspirations or their experiences in poetry or inspired language and it has helped themselves and others. Therefore there is nothing absurd in my assigning to such poetry a spiritual or psychic value and effectiveness to poetry of a psychic or spiritual character.” (CWSA 29: 322–323) (CWSA 27: 714–715)

XXXVIII—Verses of the Gita Used as Japa

“Verses of the Gita can be used as japa, if the object is to realise the Truth that the verses contain in them. If X’s father has taken the salient verses containing the heart of the teaching for that purpose, then it is all right. Everything depends on the selection of the verses. A coherent summary of the Gita’s teaching cannot easily be put together by putting together some verses, but that is not necessary for a purpose of this kind which could only be to put the key truths together—not for intellectual exposition but for grasping in realisation which is the object of japa.” (CWSA 29: 328)

“At this stage of the Yoga and even throughout the Yoga this form of desire, this figure of the ego is the enemy against whom we have to be always on our guard with an unsleeping vigilance. We need not be discouraged when we find him lurking within us and assuming all sorts of disguises, but we should be vigilant to detect him in all his masks and inexorable in expelling his influence. The illumining Word of this movement is the decisive line of the Gita, ‘To action thou hast a right but never under any circumstances to its fruit.’ The fruit belongs solely to the Lord of all works; our only business with it is to prepare success by a true and careful action and to offer it, if it comes, to the divine Master.” (CWSA 23: 222)

“The Gita is in its foundation a Vedantic work; it is one of the three recognised authorities for the Vedantic teaching and, although not described as a revealed Scripture, although, that is to say, it is largely intellectual, ratiocinative, philosophical in its method, founded indeed on the Truth, but not the directly inspired Word which is the revelation of the Truth through the higher faculties of the seer, it is yet so highly esteemed as to be ranked almost as a thirteenth Upanishad.” (CWSA 19: 68)

XXXIX—OM is the Mantra

“OM is the mantra, the expressive sound-symbol of the Brahman Consciousness in its four domains from the Turiya to the external or material plane. The function of a mantra is to create vibrations in the inner consciousness that will prepare it for the realisation of what the mantra symbolises and is supposed indeed to carry within itself. The mantra OM should therefore lead towards the opening of the consciousness to the sight and feeling of the One Consciousness in all material things, in the inner being and in the supraphysical worlds, in the causal plane above now superconscient to us and, finally, the supreme liberated transcendence above all cosmic existence. The last is usually the main preoccupation with those who use the mantra.

… OM if rightly used (not mechanically) might very well help the opening upwards and outwards (cosmic consciousness) as well as the descent.” (CWSA 29: 323–324) (CWSA 35: 825–826)

“It occurs to me to beg Thee for a key word for japa.

OM.” (CWM 15: 33)

“OM is the signature of the Lord.” (CWM 15: 33)

“The mantra of the divine Consciousness brings its light of revelation, the mantra of the divine Power its will of effectuation, the mantra of the divine Ananda its equal fulfilment of the spiritual delight of existence. All word and thought are an out flowering of the great OM,—OM, the Word, the Eternal. Manifest in the forms of sensible objects, manifest in that conscious play of creative self-conception of which forms and objects are the figures, manifest behind in the self-gathered superconscient power of the Infinite, OM is the sovereign source, seed, womb of thing and idea, form and name,—it is itself, integrally, the supreme Intangible, the original Unity, the timeless Mystery self-existent above all manifestation in supernal being.4 This sacrifice is therefore at once works and adoration and knowledge.” (CWSA 19: 329)

The Mandoukya Upanishad

1. OM is this imperishable Word, OM is the Universe, and this is the exposition of OM. The past, the present and the future, all that was, all that is, all that will be, is OM. Likewise all else that may exist beyond the bounds of Time, that too is OM.” (CWSA 18: 193)

XL—The Mantra So’ham

“A divine Name or a Mantra (like the So’ham) can enter the adhara and move in the breathing as in your experience. When it does so, that is not the opening of which I speak in the sentence you quote, but it may come to make the aspiration effective by helping in the opening—by removing something that prevents the opening and by leading to the experience it carries in it.

The experience to which the So’ham mantra leads is the realisation of one Being everywhere, all as the Divine, oneself and all as essentially one with that Divine. It is an experience in which one’s separate personal existence shut up in the body ceases to be the normal thing; one feels the body as a point or small thing in a vast existence, consciousness or Ananda that is the Divine and oneself as spread out in that vast consciousness—as if the world were within us and not we inside the world or as if the world were one with us and one with the Divine. It is the ‘cosmic consciousness’ that comes by this mantra. For our Yoga this is a beginning only, not the end as it is in the ordinary Yoga,—a liberation, not the Siddhi.” (CWSA 29: 324–325)

XLI—The Gayatri Mantra

“The power of the Gayatri is the Light of the divine Truth. It is a mantra of Knowledge.” (CWSA 29: 325)

“The Gayatri mantra is the mantra for bringing the light of Truth into all the planes of the being. The other [Sri Aurobindo Mira] has a general power.” (CWSA 29: 325)

“It is not necessary to give up Gayatri Japa or the process which you are following at present.” (CWSA 29: 325)

“The symbol of the Sun is constantly associated with the higher Light and the Truth: it is in the Truth concealed by an inferior Truth that are unyoked the horses of the Sun, it is the Sun in its highest light that is called upon in the great Gayatri Mantra to impel our thoughts.”  (CWSA 16: 16)

XLII—The Mantras of the Veda

“But far more interesting to me was the discovery of a considerable body of profound psychological thought and experience lying neglected in these ancient hymns [of the Veda]. And the importance of this element increased in my eyes when I found, first, that the mantras of the Veda illuminated with a clear and exact light psychological experiences of my own for which I had found no sufficient explanation either in European psychology or in the teachings of Yoga or of Vedanta, so far as I was acquainted with them, and, secondly, that they shed light on obscure passages and ideas of the Upanishads to which, previously, I could attach no exact meaning and gave at the same time a new sense to much in the Puranas.” (CWSA 15: 39)

“Brahman in the Veda signifies ordinarily the Vedic Word or mantra in its profoundest aspect as the expression of the intuition arising out of the depths of the soul or being. It is a voice of the rhythm which has created the worlds and creates perpetually. All world is expression or manifestation, creation by the Word. Conscious Being luminously manifesting its contents in itself, of itself, tmanā is the superconscient; holding its contents obscurely in itself it is the subconscient. The higher, the self-luminous descends into the obscure, into the night, into darkness concealed in darkness, tamas tamasā gūḍham where all is hidden in formless being owing to fragmentation of consciousness, tucchyenābhvapihitam. It arises again out of the Night by the Word to reconstitute in the conscient its vast unity, tan mahinājāyataikam. This vast Being, this all-containing and all-formulating consciousness is Brahman. It is the Soul that emerges out of the subconscient in Man and rises towards the superconscient. And the Word of creative Power welling upward out of the soul is also brahman.” (CWSA 15: 318)

“For it is a fact that the tradition of a secret meaning and a mystic wisdom couched in the Riks of the ancient Veda was as old as the Veda itself. The Vedic Rishis believed that their Mantras were inspired from higher hidden planes of consciousness and contained this secret knowledge. The words of the Veda could only be known in their true meaning by one who was himself a seer or mystic; from others the verses withheld their hidden knowledge. In one of Vamadeva’s hymns in the fourth Mandala (IV.3.16) the Rishi describes himself as one illumined expressing through his thought and speech Words of guidance, ‘secret Words’—niṇyā vacāṁsi—‘seer-wisdoms that utter their inner meaning to the seer’—kāvyāni kavaye nivacanā. The Rishi Dirghatamas speaks of the Riks, the Mantras of the Veda, as existing ‘in a supreme ether, imperishable and immutable in which all the gods are seated’, and he adds ‘one who knows not That what shall he do with the Rik?’ (I.164.39) He further alludes to four planes from which the speech issues, three of them hidden in the secrecy while the fourth is human, and from there comes the ordinary Word; but the Word and thought of the Veda belongs to the higher planes (I.164.45). Elsewhere in the Riks the Vedic Word is described (X.71) as that which is supreme and the topmost height of speech, the best and the most faultless.” (CWSA 16: 7–8)

“The Veda became to the later scholastic and ritualistic idea of Indian priests and pundits nothing better than a

book of mythology and sacrificial ceremonies; European scholars seeking in it for what was alone to them of any rational interest, the history, myths and popular religious notions of a primitive people, have done yet worse wrong to the Veda and by insisting on a wholly external rendering still farther stripped it of its spiritual interest and its poetic greatness and beauty. But this was not what it was to the Vedic Rishis themselves or to the great seers and thinkers who came after them and developed out of their pregnant and luminous intuitions their own wonderful structures of thought and speech built upon an unexampled spiritual revelation and experience. The Veda was to these early seers the Word discovering the Truth and clothing in image and symbol the mystic significances of life. It was a divine discovery and unveiling of the potencies of the Word, of its mysterious revealing and creative capacity, not the Word of the logical and reasoning or the aesthetic intelligence, but the intuitive and inspired rhythmic utterance, the mantra. Image and myth were freely used, not as an imaginative indulgence, but as living parables and symbols of things that were very real to their speakers and could not otherwise find their own intimate and native shape in utterance, and the imagination itself was a priest of greater realities than those that meet and hold the eye and mind limited by the external suggestions of life and the physical existence.” (CWSA 20: 319–320)

“The Rishi was not the individual composer of the hymn, but the seer (draṣṭā) of an eternal truth and an impersonal knowledge. The language of Veda itself is Śruti, a rhythm not composed by the intellect but heard, a divine Word that came vibrating out of the Infinite to the inner audience of the man who had previously made himself fit for the impersonal knowledge. The words themselves, dṛṣṭi and śruti, sight and hearing, are Vedic expressions; these and cognate words signify, in the esoteric terminology of the hymns, revelatory knowledge and the contents of inspiration.” (CWSA 15: 10)

“We see everywhere this use of language dominating the Word of the Vedic hymns.” (CWSA 15: 56)

“The Divine, the Deva, manifests itself as conscious Power of the soul, creates the worlds by the Word out of the waters of the subconscient, apraketaṁ salilaṁ sarvam,—the inconscient ocean that was this all, as it is plainly termed in the great Hymn of Creation. This power of the Deva is Brahma, the stress in the name falling more upon the conscious soul-power than upon the Word which expresses it. The manifestation of the different world-planes in the conscient human being culminates in the manifestation of the superconscient, the Truth and the Bliss, and this is the office of the supreme Word or Veda. Of this supreme word Brihaspati is the master, the stress in this name falling upon the potency of the Word rather than upon the thought of the general soul-power which is behind it. Brihaspati gives the Word of knowledge, the rhythm of expression of the superconscient, to the gods and especially to Indra, the lord of Mind, when they work in man as ‘Aryan’ powers for the great consummation.” (CWSA 15: 318)

XLIII—In Veda’s Saraswati is the Word, the Inspiration from the Truth-consciousness

“Saraswati is the Word, the inspiration, as I suggest, that comes from the Ritam, the Truth-consciousness. Bharati and Ila must also be different forms of the same Word or knowledge.” (CWSA 15: 95)

“THE SYMBOLISM of the Veda betrays itself with the greatest clearness in the figure of the goddess Saraswati. In many of the other gods the balance of the internal sense and the external figure is carefully preserved. The veil sometimes becomes transparent or its corners are lifted even for the ordinary hearer of the Word; but it is never entirely removed. … But Saraswati will submit to no such treatment. She is, plainly and clearly, the goddess of the Word, the goddess of a divine Inspiration.” (CWSA 15: 91)

“… Saraswati, the divine Word, who represents the stream of inspiration that descends from the Truth-consciousness, and thus limpidly runs their sense:

‘May purifying Saraswati with all the plenitude of her forms of plenty, rich in substance by the thought, desire our sacrifice.” (CWSA 15: 90)

XLIV—Usage of Mantras by Rishis

“The Rishis of the Upanishads followed another method. They sought to recover the lost or waning knowledge [of the Veda’s] by meditation and spiritual experience and they used the text of the ancient mantras as a prop or an authority for their own intuitions and perceptions; or else the Vedic Word was a seed of thought and vision by which they recovered old truths in new forms. What they found, they expressed in other terms more intelligible to the age in which they lived. In a certain sense their handling of the texts was not disinterested; it was not governed by the scholar’s scrupulous desire to arrive at the exact intention of the Words and the precise thought of the sentences in their actual framing. They were seekers of a higher than verbal truth and used Words merely as suggestions for the illumination towards which they were striving.” (CWSA 15: 14)

“The Rishis’ use of language was governed by this ancient psychology of the Word.” (CWSA 15: 54–55)

XLV—The Mantra in Rajyoga

“The Rajayogic Pranayama purifies and clears the nervous system; it enables us to circulate the vital energy equally through the body and direct it also where we will according to need, and thus maintain a perfect health and soundness of the body and the vital being; it gives us control of all the five habitual operations of the vital energy in the system and at the same time breaks down the habitual divisions by which only the ordinary mechanical processes of the vitality are possible to the normal life. It opens entirely the six centres of the psycho-physical system and brings into the waking consciousness the power of the awakened Shakti and the light of the unveiled Purusha on each of the ascending planes. Coupled with the use of the mantra it brings the divine energy into the body and prepares for and facilitates that concentration in Samadhi which is the crown of the Rajayogic method.” (CWSA 24: 540)

“Rajayogic concentration is divided into four stages; it commences with the drawing both of the mind and senses from outward things, proceeds to the holding of the one object of concentration to the exclusion of all other ideas and mental activities, then to the prolonged absorption of the mind in this object, finally, to the complete ingoing of the consciousness by which it is lost to all outward mental activity in the oneness of Samadhi. The real object of this mental discipline is to draw away the mind from the outward and the mental world into union with the divine Being. Therefore in the first three stages use has to be made of some mental means or support by which the mind, accustomed to run about from object to object, shall fix on one alone, and that one must be something which represents the idea of the Divine. It is usually a name or a form or a mantra by which the thought can be fixed in the sole knowledge or adoration of the Lord. By this concentration on the idea the mind enters from the idea into its reality, into which it sinks silent, absorbed, unified. This is the traditional method.” (CWSA 24: 540–541)

XLVI—Mantra for People in the Country for 1971 Crises

(The message below was distributed at the Ashram with the introduction: “A mantra given by the Mother for all people in the country for the present crisis.”)

“Supreme Lord, Eternal Truth

Let us obey Thee alone

and live according to Truth.”

June 1971 (CWM 13: 371)

XLVII—Mantra in Poetry

“Taking the impression it creates for a starting point and the trend of English poetry for our main text, but casting our view farther back into the past, we may try to sound what the future has to give us through the medium of the poetic mind and its power for creation and interpretation. The issues of recent activity are still doubtful and it would be rash to make any confident prediction; but there is one possibility which this book strongly suggests and which it is at least interesting and may be fruitful to search and consider. That possibility is the discovery of a closer approximation to what we might call the mantra in poetry, that rhythmic speech which, as the Veda puts it, rises at once from the heart of the seer and from the distant home of the Truth,—the discovery of the Word, the divine movement, the form of thought proper to the reality which, as Mr. Cousins excellently says, ‘lies in the apprehension of a something stable behind the instability of Word and deed, something that is a reflection of the fundamental passion of humanity for something beyond itself, something that is a dim shadowing of the divine urge which is prompting all creation to unfold itself and to rise out of its limitations towards its Godlike possibilities.’ Poetry in the past has done that in moments of supreme elevation; in the future there seems to be some chance of its making it a more conscious aim and steadfast endeavour.” The Future Poetry (CWSA 26: 10)

“What then is the nature of poetry, its essential law? what is the highest power we can demand from it, what the supreme music that the human mind, reaching up and in and out to its own widest breadths, deepest depths and top most summits, can extract from this self-expressive instrument? and how out of that does there arise the possibility of its use as the mantra of the Real? Not that we need spend any energy in a vain effort to define anything so profound, elusive and indefinable as the breath of poetic creation; to take the myriad-stringed harp of Saraswati to pieces for the purpose of scientific analysis is a narrow and barren amusement. But we stand in need of some guiding intuitions, some helpful descriptions which will serve to enlighten our search; to fix in that way, not by definition, but by description, the essential things in poetry is neither an impossible, nor an unprofitable endeavour.” (CWSA 26: 11)

“Pleasure, certainly, we expect from poetry as from all art; but the external sensible and even the inner imaginative pleasure are only first elements. For these must not only be refined in order to meet the highest requirements of the intelligence, the imagination and the ear; but afterwards they have to be still farther heightened and in their nature raised beyond even their own noblest levels, so that they may become the support for something greater beyond them; otherwise they cannot lead to the height on which lives the Mantra.

For neither the intelligence, the imagination nor the ear are the true or at least the deepest or highest recipients of the poetic delight, even as they are not its true or highest creators; they are only its channels and instruments: the true creator, the true hearer is the soul. The more rapidly and transparently the rest do their work of transmission, the less they make of their separate claim to satisfaction, the more directly the word reaches and sinks deep into the soul, the greater the poetry. Therefore poetry has not really done its work, at least its highest work, until it has raised the pleasure of the instrument and transmuted it into the deeper delight of the soul. A divine Ananda, a delight interpretative, creative, revealing, formative,—one might almost say, an inverse reflection of the joy which the universal Soul felt in its great release of energy when it rang out into the rhythmic forms of the universe the spiritual truth, the large interpretative idea, the life, the power, the emotion of things packed into an original creative vision,—such spiritual joy is that which the soul of the poet feels and which, when he can conquer the human difficulties of his task, he succeeds in pouring also into all those who are prepared to receive it. This delight is not merely a godlike pastime; it is a great formative and illuminative power.” (CWSA 26: 11–12)

“A high or a fine adequacy, effectivity, intellectual illuminativeness and a carefully tempered aesthetic satisfaction are the natural and proper powers of its speech. But the privilege of the poet is to go beyond and discover that more intense illumination of speech, that inspired word and supreme inevitable utterance, in which there meets the unity of a divine rhythmic movement with a depth of sense and a power of infinite suggestion welling up directly from the fountain-heads of the spirit within us. He may not always or often find it, but to seek for it is the law or at least the highest trend of his utterance, and when he can not only find it, but cast into it some deeply revealed truth of the spirit itself, he utters the mantra.

But always, whether in the search or the finding, the whole style and rhythm of poetry are the expression and movement which come from us out of a certain spiritual excitement caused by a vision in the soul of which it is eager to deliver itself. The vision may be of anything in Nature or God or man or the life of creatures or the life of things; it may be a vision of force and action, or of sensible beauty, or of truth of thought, or of emotion and pleasure and pain, of this life or the life beyond. It is sufficient that it is the soul which sees and the eye, sense, heart and thought-mind become the passive instruments of the soul. Then we get the real, the high poetry.” (CWSA 26: 17)

“The Mantra, poetic expression of the deepest spiritual reality, is only possible when three highest intensities of poetic speech meet and become indissolubly one, a highest intensity of rhythmic movement, a highest intensity of inter woven verbal form and thought-substance, of style, and a highest intensity of the soul’s vision of truth. All great poetry comes about by a unison of these three elements; it is the insufficiency of one or another which makes the inequalities in the work of even the greatest poets, and it is the failure of some one element which is the cause of their lapses, of the scoriae in their work, the spots in the sun. But it is only at a certain highest level of the fused intensities that the Mantra becomes possible.” (CWSA 26: 19)

“There is a higher style of poetry than this which yet falls below the level to which we have to climb. It is no longer poetical language of a merely intellectual, vital or emotional force, but instead or in addition a genuinely imaginative style, with a certain, often a great beauty of vision in it, whether objective or subjective, or with a certain, often a great but indefinite soul power bearing up its movement of word and rhythm. It varies in intensity: for the lower intensity we can get plenty of examples from Chaucer, when he is indulging his imagination rather than his observation, and at a higher pitch from Spenser; for the loftier intensity we can cite at will for one kind from Milton’s early poetry, for another from poets who have a real spiritual vision like Keats and Shelley. English poetry runs, indeed, ordinarily in this mould. But this too is not that highest intensity of the revelatory poetic Word from which the Mantra starts. It has a certain power of revelation in it, but the deeper vision is still coated up in something more external; sometimes the poetic intention of decorative beauty, sometimes some other deliberate intention of the poetic mind overlays with the more outward beauty, beauty of image, beauty of thought, beauty of emotion, the deeper intention of the spirit within, so that we have still to look for that beyond the image rather than are seized by it through the image. A high pleasure is there, not unspiritual in its nature, but still it is not that point where pleasure passes into or is rather drowned in the pure spiritual Ananda, the ecstasy of the creative, poetic revelation.” (CWSA 26: 29–30)

“To arrive at the Mantra he [the poet] may start from the colour of a rose, or the power or beauty of a character, or the splendour of an action, or go away from all these into his own secret soul and its most hidden movements. The one thing needful is that he should be able to go beyond the word or image he uses or the form of the thing he sees, not be limited by them, but get into the light of that which they have the power to reveal and flood them with it until they overflow with its suggestions or seem even to lose themselves and disappear into the revelation and the apocalypse. At the highest he himself disappears into sight; the personality of the seer is lost in the eternity of the vision, and the Spirit of all seems alone to be there speaking out sovereignly its own secrets.” (CWSA 26: 37–38)

“And behind these uneasy suggestions lay the one fact that for causes already indicated an age of reason dominated by the critical, scientific or philosophic intelligence is ordinarily unfavourable and, even when it is most catholic and ample, cannot be quite favourable to great poetic creation. The pure intellect cannot create poetry. The inspired or the imaginative reason does indeed play an important, sometimes a leading part, but even that can only be a support or an influence; the thinking mind may help to give a final shape, a great and large form, saṁ mahemā manīṣayā, as the Vedic poets said of the Mantra, but the Word must start first from a more intimate sense in the heart of the inner being, hṛdā taṣṭam; it is the spirit within and not the mind without that is the fount of poetry. Poetry too is an interpreter of truth, but in the forms of an innate beauty, and not so much of intellectual truth, the truths offered by the critical mind, as of the intimate truth of being.” (CWSA 26: 211)

“I have spoken in the beginning of the Mantra as the highest and intensest revealing form of poetic thought and expression. What the Vedic poets meant by the Mantra was an inspired and revealed seeing and visioned thinking, attended by a realisation, ... of some inmost truth of God and self and man and Nature and cosmos and life and thing and thought and experience and deed. It was a thinking that came on the wings of a great soul rhythm, chandas. For the seeing could not be separated from the hearing; it was one act. Nor could the living of the truth in oneself which we mean by realisation, be separated from either, for the presence of it in the soul and its possession of the mind must precede or accompany in the creator or human channel that expression of the inner sight and hearing which takes the shape of the luminous word. The Mantra is born through the heart and shaped or massed by the thinking mind into a chariot of that godhead of the Eternal of whom the truth seen is a face or a form. And in the mind too of the fit outward hearer who listens to the Word of the poet-seer, these three must come together, if our Word is a real Mantra; the sight of the inmost truth must accompany the hearing, the possession of the inmost spirit of it by the mind and its coming home to the soul must accompany or follow immediately upon the rhythmic message of the Word and the mind’s sight of the Truth. That may sound a rather mystic account of the matter, but substantially there could hardly be a more complete description of the birth and effect of the inspired and revealing Word, and it might be applied, though usually on a more lowered scale than was intended by the Vedic Rishis, to all the highest outbursts of a really great poetry. But poetry is the Mantra only when it is the voice of the inmost truth and is couched in the highest power of the very rhythm and speech of that truth. And the ancient poets of the Veda and Upanishads claimed to be uttering the Mantra because always it was this inmost and almost occult truth of things which they strove to see and hear and speak and because they believed themselves to be using or finding its innate soul rhythms and the sacrificial speech of it cast up by the divine Agni, the sacred Fire in the heart of man. The Mantra in other Words is a direct and most heightened, an intensest and most divinely burdened rhythmic Word which embodies an intuitive and revelatory inspiration and ensouls the mind with the sight and the presence of the very self, the inmost reality of things and with its truth and with the divine soul-forms of it, the Godheads which are born from the living Truth. Or, let us say, it is a supreme rhythmic language which seizes hold upon all that is finite and brings into each the light and voice of its own infinite.” (CWSA 26: 217–218)

“The Veda speaks in one of its symbolic hints of the fountain of eternal Truth round which stand the illumined powers of thought and life. There under the eyes of delight and the face of imperishable beauty of the Mother of creation and bride of the eternal Spirit they lead their immortal dance. The poet visits that marvellous source in his superconscient mind and brings to us some strain or some vision of her face and works. To find the way into that circle with the waking self is to be the seer-poet and discover the highest power of the inspired word, the Mantra.” (CWSA 26: 240)

“A supreme, an absolute of itself, a reaching to an infinite and utmost, a last point of perfection of its own possibilities is that to which all action of Nature intuitively tends in its unconscious formations and when it has arrived to that point it has justified its existence to the spirit which has created it and fulfilled the secret creative will within it. Speech, the expressive Word, has such a summit or absolute, a perfection which is the touch of the infinite upon its finite possibilities and the seal upon it of its Creator. This absolute of the expressive Word can be given the name which was found for it by the inspired singers of the Veda, the Mantra. Poetry especially claimed for its perfected expression in the hymns of the Veda this name. It is not confined however to this sense, for it is extended to all speech that has a supreme or an absolute power; the Mantra is the word that carries the godhead in it or the power of the godhead, can bring it into the consciousness and fix there it and its workings, awaken there the thrill of the infinite, the force of something absolute, perpetuate the miracle of the supreme utterance.” (CWSA 26: 313)

"... kind of poetry (where there is the intimate experience) can be of great power and value—witness Blake. Revelation is greater than inspiration—it brings the direct knowledge and seeing, inspiration gives the expression, but the two are not always equal. There is even an inspiration without revelation, when one gets the word but the thing remains behind the veil; the transcribing consciousness expresses something with power, like a medium, of which it has not itself the direct sight or the living possession. It is better to get the sight of the thing itself than merely express it by an inspiration which comes from behind the veil, but this kind of poetry too has often a great light and power in it. The highest inspiration brings the intrinsic Word, the spiritual mantra; but even where the inspiration is less than that, has a certain vagueness or fluidity of outline, you cannot say of such mystic poetry that it has no inspiration, not the inspired Word at all. Where there is no inspiration, there can be no poetry.” (CWSA 27: 99)

“I want to produce something Upanishadic. But I get no glimmering at all of the sovereignly spiritual-poetic. The poem, Yoga, which I am sending you, almost tells me what I should do to solve my difficulty; but the manner in which it tells seems to drive home the fact of my being so far from what I want—the sheer stupendous mantra.

I fear it is only eloquence—a long way from the mantra. From the point of view of a poetic eloquence there are some forceful lines and the rest is well done, but— there is too much play of the mind, not the hushed intense receptivity of the seer which is necessary for the mantra.” (CWSA 27: 608)

“What kind of power or power for what depends on the nature of the inspiration and the theme and the part of the being it touches. If it is the Word itself,—as in certain utterances of the great Scriptures—Veda, Upanishads, Gita,— it may well have a power to awaken a spiritual impulse, an uplifting, even certain kinds of realisation. To say that it cannot contradicts spiritual experience.

The Vedic poets regarded their poetry as mantras, they were the vehicles of their own realisations and could become vehicles of realisation for others. Naturally, these mostly would be illuminations, not the settled and permanent realisation that is the goal of Yoga—but they could be steps on the way or at least lights on the way. Many have such illuminations, even initial realisations while meditating on verses of the Upanishads or the Gita. Anything that carries the Word, the Light in it, spoken or written, can light this fire within, open a sky, as it were, bring the effective vision of which the Word is the body. In all ages spiritual seekers have expressed their aspirations or their experiences in poetry or inspired language and it has helped themselves and others. Therefore there is nothing absurd in my assigning to such poetry a spiritual or psychic value and effectiveness to poetry of a psychic or spiritual character.” (CWSA 27: 714–715)

“This sudden opening can come if the Power within wishes to express itself in that way. I have seen more than once a sudden flowering of capacities in every kind of activity come by a rapid opening of the consciousness, so that one who laboured long without the least success to express himself in rhythm becomes a master of poetic language and cadences almost in a day. Poetry is a question of the right concentrated silence or seeking somewhere in the mind with the right openness to the Word that is trying to express itself—for the Word is there ready to descend in those inner planes where all artistic forms take birth, but it is the transmitting mind that must change and become a perfect channel and not an obstacle.” (CWSA 27: 124)

“Personal capacity belongs to the temporary surface personality which you have put forward in this life and which is mutable, is already changing and can change much farther—e.g. the poems you are writing are certainly beyond what was your original capacity—they belong to a range of experience to the Word of which you have opened by a development beyond your old mental self—a farther development beyond not only your old mental self but also your old vital self is needed to get the concrete realisation of that range of experience.” (CWSA 27: 719)

“As for the poetry, well—you have developed up to a point at which your work is of a very rare and unique quality—in no way inferior to that of the others of whom you speak, … Yours rises probably from the fact that in order to have free command of the highest planes of poetry, you have to rise into them and not only open to the Word from them—it is therefore the same difficulty in another form. Otherwise, if you had the old self-satisfaction of which you draw so glowing a picture, you would have found your present poetry marvellous and gone on writing freely only oscillating between the different planes achieved and content to do so. This is not a proof of incapacity but of the will to greater things. Only that will must not be in the mind only but take full hold of the vital also and must be a will that what you write of shall be a part not only of thought but of life. Which comes back to what I have written above—get free from the obscure hesitation to open and let the force do its work.” (CWSA 27: 720)

“A ‘literary man’ is one who loves literature and literary activity for their own separate sake. A Yogi who writes is not a literary man for he writes only what the inner Will and Word wants him to express. He is a channel and an instrument of something greater than his own literary personality.” (CWSA 27: 727) (CWSA 29: 291)

XLVIII—Mantras Written by Sri Aurobindo

OM anandamayi chaitanyamayi [satyamayi parme]1

“Sri Aurobindo wrote this mantra around 1927 as one of several miscellaneous notations connected with Record of Yoga. … Note that he did not complete the transliteration in Latin script. The text was first published as a message in November 1955. Still later the Mother completed the transliteration in her own hand …”  (CWSA 35: 829)

“In the prayer you gave us this time for Kali Puja, you have written something in Sanskrit.

It is Sri Aurobindo who has written a mantra. [OM anandamayi chaitanyamayi satyamayi parame]

... It is an evocation.” (CWM 7: 365)

Om Tat Sat Jyotir Arvinda

OM Satyam Jnanam Jyotir Arvinda

(CWSA 35: 830)

“Let us meditate on the most auspicious (best) form of

Savitri, on the Light of the Supreme which shall illumine us with the Truth.”  (CWSA 35: 831)

“(Tat savitur varam rupam jyotih parasya dhimahi, yannah satyena dipayet.)

Let us meditate on the most auspicious (best) form of Savitri, on the Light of the Supreme which shall illumine us with the Truth. (Sri Aurobindo’s translation)”

(SABCL 26: 513)

“From the non-being to true being,

From the darkness to the Light,

From death to Immortality.

OM Peace! Peace! Peace!

(Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, I.3.28)

So be it.

Sri Aurobindo.”

(SABCL 26: 513)

“One of Sri Aurobindo’s disciples wrote this quotation [in sanscrit] from the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (I.3.28) in his note book. Below it Sri Aurobindo wrote … (tathastu): ‘So be it1’ – Ed. (CWSA 35: 831)

“OM Sri Aurobindo Mira

Open mind, my heart, my life to your Light, your Love, your Power. In all things may I see the Divine.

16-7-1938

This was given by Sri Aurobindo to a sadhak who had asked him for a brief prayer with Sri Aurobindo and the Mother’s names to use as a mantra. While giving it, Sri Aurobindo wrote:

‘I have written for you a brief prayer with the names in the form of mantra. I hope it will help you to overcome your difficulty and get an inner foundation.” (16-7-1938)

On receiving the mantra the Sadhak inquired:

‘Have I to consider the names and the prayer as one mantra?’

Sri Aurobindo replied: ‘Yes’. (18-7-1938)”

(SABCL 26: 512)

“Let my Peace be always with you. Let your mind be calm and open; let your vital nature be calm and responsive; let your physical consciousness be a quiet and exact instrument, calm in action and silence. Let there be my light and Power and Peace upon you; let there be ever Power and Light and Peace.” (CWSA 35: 833)

“In the night as in the day be always with me.

In sleep as in waking let me feel in me always the reality of your presence.

Let it sustain and make to grow in me Truth, consciousness and bliss constantly and at all times.” (CWSA 35: 833)

XLIX—Reviving Mantra Bande Mataram

“It was anything but intrepid [fearless] at the time; it was the mantra of Bande Mataram and the leap into revolutionary action that changed the people of the province [province of Bengal].” (CWSA 36: 69)

“Ours is the eternal land, the eternal people, the eternal religion, whose strength, greatness, holiness may be over clouded but never, even for a moment, utterly cease. The hero, the Rishi, the saint, are the natural fruits of our Indian soil; and there has been no age in which they have not been born. Among the Rishis of the later age we have at last realised that we must include the name of the man who gave us the reviving mantra which is creating a new India, the mantra Bande Mataram.

The Rishi is different from the saint. His life may not have been distinguished by superior holiness nor his character by an ideal beauty. He is not great by what he was himself but by what he has expressed. A great and vivifying message had to be given to a nation or to humanity; and God has chosen this mouth on which to shape the words of the message. A momentous vision had to be revealed; and it is his eyes which the Almighty first unseals. The message which he has received, the vision which has been vouchsafed to him, he declares to the world with all the strength that is in him, and in one supreme moment of inspiration expresses it in words which have merely to be uttered to stir men’s inmost natures, clarify their minds, seize their hearts and impel them to things which would have been impossible to them in their ordinary moments. Those words are the mantra which he was born to reveal and of that mantra he is the seer.

What is it for which we worship the name of Bankim today? what was his message to us or what the vision which he saw and has helped us to see? He was a great poet, a master of beautiful language and a creator of fair and gracious dream figures in the world of imagination; but it is not as a poet, stylist or novelist that Bengal does honour to him today. It is probable that the literary critic of the future will reckon Kapalkundala, Bishabriksha and Krishnakanter Will  as his artistic masterpieces, and speak with qualified praise of Devi Chaudhurani, Ananda Math, Krishnacharit or Dharmatattwa. Yet it is the Bankim of these latter works and not the Bankim of the great creative masterpieces who will rank among the Makers of Modern India. The earlier Bankim was only a poet and stylist—the later Bankim was a seer and nation-builder.” (CWSA 1: 637–638)

“The third and supreme service of Bankim to his nation

was that he gave us the vision of our Mother. The bare intellectual idea of the Motherland is not in itself a great driving force; the mere recognition of the desirability of freedom is not an inspiring motive. There are few Indians at present, whether loyalist, moderate or nationalist in their political views, who do not recognise that the country has claims on them or that freedom in the abstract is a desirable thing. But most of us, when it is a question between the claims of the country and other claims, do not in practice prefer the service of the country; and while many may have the wish to see freedom accomplished, few have the will to accomplish it. There are other things which we hold dearer and which we fear to see imperilled either in the struggle for freedom or by its accomplishment. It is not till the Motherland reveals herself to the eye of the mind as something more than a stretch of earth or a mass of individuals, it is not till she takes shape as a great Divine and Maternal Power in a form of beauty that can dominate the mind and seize the heart that these petty fears and hopes vanish in the all-absorbing passion for the Mother and her service, and the patriotism that works miracles and saves a doomed nation is born. To some men it is given to have that vision and reveal it to others. It was thirty-two years ago that Bankim wrote his great song and few listened; but in a sudden moment of awakening from long delusions the people of Bengal looked round for the truth and in a fated moment somebody sang Bande Mataram. The mantra had been given and in a single day a whole people had been converted to the religion of patriotism. The Mother had revealed herself. Once that vision has come to a people, there can be no rest, no peace, no farther slumber till the temple has been made ready, the image installed and the sacrifice offered. A great nation which has had that vision can never again bend its neck in subjection to the yoke of a conqueror.” Rishi Bankim Chandra  (CWSA 1: 640–641)

“Sj. Aurobindo said that he was exceedingly pleased to know that the song [‘Bande Mataram’] had become so popular in all parts of India, and that it was being so repeatedly sung. He said that he would make this national anthem the subject of his speech. The song, he said, was not only a national anthem as the European nations look upon their own, but one replete [stuffed] with mighty power, being a sacred mantra, revealed to us by the author of Anandamath, who might be called an inspired rishi. He described the manner in which the mantra had been revealed to Bankim Chandra, probably by a sannyasi under whose teaching he was. He said that the mantra was not an invention, but a revivification of the old mantra which became extinct so to speak by the treachery of one Navakisan. The mantra of Bankim Chandra was not appreciated in his own day and he predicted that there would come a time when the whole of India would resound with the singing of the song, and the word of the prophet was miraculously fulfilled. The meaning of the song was not understood then because there was no patriotism, except such as consisted in making India the shadow of England and other countries, which dazzled the sight of the sons of this our motherland with their glory and opulence. The so-called patriots of that time might have been the well-wishers of India but not certainly ones who loved her. One who loved his mother never looked to her defects, never disregarded her as an ignorant, superstitious, degraded and decrepit woman. The speaker then unfolded the meaning of the song. As with the individual, so with the nation, there were three bodies or Koshas, the Sthula, Sukshma and Karana Shariras. In this way the speaker went on clearing up the hidden meaning of the song. The manner in which he treated of love and devotion was exceedingly touching and the audience sat before him like dumb statues, not knowing where they were or whether they were listening to a prophet revealing to them the higher mysteries of life. He then concluded with a most pathetic appeal to true patriotism and exhorted the audience to love the motherland and sacrifice everything to bring about her salvation.”

[Delivered in Amravati on 29 January 1908. Text (third-

person report) published as a news item in the Bande Mataram on 5 February 1908.] (CWSA 7: 845–846)

“When a great people rises from the dust, what mantra is the sanjivani mantra or what power is the resurrecting force of its resurgence? In India there are two great mantras, the mantra of ‘Bande Mataram’ which is the public and universal cry of awakened love of Motherland, and there is another more secret and mystic which is not yet revealed. The mantra of ‘Bande Mataram’ is a mantra once before given to the world by the Sannyasins of the Vindhya hills. It was lost by the treachery of our own countrymen because the nation was not then ripe for resurgence and a premature awakening would have brought about a speedy downfall. But when in the great earthquake of 1897 there was a voice heard by the Sannyasins, and they were conscious of the decree of God that India should rise again, the mantra was again revealed to the world. It was echoed in the hearts of the people, and when the cry had ripened in silence in a few great hearts, the whole nation became conscious of the revelation. Who imagined when the people of Bengal rose in 1905 against the Partition that that was the beginning of a great upheaval? It is a passing tempest, said the wise men of England, let it go over our heads and we will wait. But the tempest did not pass, nor the thunders cease. So there was a reconsideration of policy and the wise men said,—The people of Bengal are easily cowed down, and we will try whether force cannot do what patience has failed to do. When Sir Bampfylde Fuller met Lord Curzon at Agra, this was the policy agreed on between them—to hammer the Bengalis into quietude. But Sir Bampfylde Fuller has gone and the movement remains. Hare too will go, and many will go, but the movement will remain.” (CWSA 7: 877)

“When Bankim discovered the mantra Bande Mataram and the song wrote itself out through his pen, he felt that he had been divinely inspired, but the people heard his song and felt nothing. ‘Wait’ said the prophet, ‘wait for thirty years and all India will know the value of the song I have written.’ The thirty years have passed and Bengal has heard; her ears have suddenly been opened to a voice to which she had been deaf and her heart filled with a light to which she had been blind. The Mother of the hymn is no new goddess, but the same whom we have always worshipped; only she has put off the world-form in which she was familiar to us, she has assumed a human shape of less terrible aspect, less fierce and devastating power to attract her children back to her bosom.” (CWSA 7: 1114–1115)

Kumartuli Speech

Delivered at Kumartuli Park, Calcutta, on 11 July 1909. Text published in the Bengalee on 13 July and reproduced in the Karmayogin on 14 August.

“He [Sri Aurobindo] had heard many warnings recently that those who persisted in public agitation would be deported. For himself, and he was not a model of courage, residence for the best part of a year in a solitary cell had been an experience which took away all the terrors of deportation. (Cheers) If he had ever had any fears, the kindness of the authorities in giving him that experience had cured him of them. (Laughter) He had found that with the ideal of Swaraj to uphold and the mantra of ‘Bande Mataram’ in the heart, there was nothing so very terrible in jail or deportation. That was the first thing he would like to impress on them as the result of his experience. Imprisonment in a righteous cause was not so terrible as it seemed, suffering was not so difficult to bear as our anticipations made it out. The prize to which they aspired was the greatest to which a nation could aspire and if a price was asked of them, they ought not to shrink from paying it.” (CWSA 8: 103–104)

“The 7th of August was very near. It was the birthday of the boycott, the birthday of the new spirit in India.

It was not much they had to do. Only once more to utter the sacred mantra of ‘Bande Mataram’, once more to declare that India was not lifeless, that Bengal was faithful to the vow she had made. He waited to see what would happen on that date in Bengal, whether they would attend in their hundreds or in their thousands or in their tens of thousands. It was Bengal on which the burden of the struggle fell because she first had preached the Gospel and she first had had the courage to bear suffering for the Gospel. Therefore God had given them the privilege to bear the greater part of the suffering. By so doing He had shown a great love towards Bengal. The fate of India was with the Bengalis.” (CWSA 8: 105)

L—Reciting the book The Mother

“Some mornings I recite The Mother silently with an aspiration to know what it contains. But sometimes it seems to me that this is intellectual and so not part of our discipline. Should I continue with this recitation?

Yes, if you find that it helps you.

I also recite the Gita with the view to understanding it but along the lines of Essays on the Gita. Is this a good idea?

Yes. It does not matter whether it is mental, if it helps you. These things often help the mind to get into the psychic attitude.” (CWSA 35: 102)

LI—Supermind or Gnosis is the Supreme Word

“Supermind or Gnosis is the supreme Truth, the supreme Thought, the supreme Word, the supreme Sight, the supreme Will-Idea; it is the inner and outer extension of the Infinite who is beyond Space, the unfettered Time of the Eternal who is timeless, the supernal harmony of all absolutes of the Absolute.” (CWSA 23: 485)

LII—Repeating Mantra for Better Sleep

“So, [to have a better sleep] a total relaxation, a sort of complete calm, without tension, in which everything is stopped. But this is only the beginning.

Afterwards, you make a self-giving as total as possible, of everything, from top to bottom, from outside to inside, and an eradication, as total as possible, of all the resistance of the ego. And you begin repeating your mantra—your mantra, if you have one, or any Word which has a power for you, a Word leaping forth from the heart spontaneously, like a prayer, a Word which sums up your aspiration. After repeating it a certain number of times, if you are accustomed to do so, you enter into trance. And from that trance you pass into sleep. The trance lasts as long as it should and quite naturally, spontaneously, you pass into sleep. But when you come back from this sleep, you remember everything; the sleep was like a continuation of the trance.” (CWM 15: 379)

“Fundamentally, the sole purpose of sleep is to enable the body to assimilate the effect of the trance so that the effect may be received everywhere, and to enable the body to do its natural nocturnal function of eliminating toxins. And when you wake up, … the effect of the trance continues.

Even for those who have never been in trance, it is good to repeat a mantra, a word, a prayer before going into sleep. But there must be a life in the words; I do not mean an intellectual significance, nothing of that kind, but a vibration. And its effect on the body is extraordinary: it begins to vibrate, vibrate, vibrate...and quietly you let yourself go, as though you wanted to go to sleep. The body vibrates more and more, more and more, more and more, and away you go. That is the cure for tamas.

It is tamas which causes bad sleep. There are two kinds of bad sleep: the sleep that makes you heavy, dull, as if you lost all the effect of the effort you put in during the preceding day; and the sleep that exhausts you as if you had passed your time infighting. I have noticed that if you cut your sleep into slices (it is a habit one can form), the nights become better. That is to say, you must be able to come back to your normal consciousness and normal aspiration at fixed intervals—come back at the call of the consciousness. But for that you must not use an alarm-clock! When you are in trance, it is not good to be shaken out of it.” (CWM 15: 379–380)

LIII—Use of a Mantra in Special Circumstances

“This is not a case of ordinary madness, but, as your brother himself feels, an attack of evil forces. When the light descended into him, there was something in his brain that was not prepared or able to bear the descent and this gave the opportunity for the attack and the overthrow of the equilibrium.

It may be possible to set matters right without any personal contact. He should repeat as a mantram the words contained in the enclosed paper (which he should not reveal to others) after concentrating on the sign above it. He should repeat three times a day (the three Sandhyas), twelve times in all, and also whenever attacked.

Information should be sent from time to time about his condition.” (CWSA 35: 828)

LIV—Each Verse of Sri Aurobindo’s Epic Savitri Is a Mantra

1. Each Verse of Savitri Is like a Revealed Mantra

“Each verse of Savitri is like a revealed Mantra which surpasses all that man possesses by way of knowledge, and I repeat this, the words are expressed and arranged in such a manner that the sonority of the rhythm leads you to the origin of sound, which is OM.” (‘Sweet Mother’ Conversations with the Mother recollected by Mona Sarkar: 47–48)

2. Savitri is a mantra for the transformation of the world

“Savitri is a mantra for the transformation of the world.”

3. What is there in the Epic Savitri

“My child, yes, everything is there [in Savitri]: mysticism, occultism, philosophy, the history of evolution, the history of man, of the gods, of creation, of Nature; how the universe was created, why, for what purpose, what destiny—all is there. You can find there all the answers to all your questions. Everything is explained, even the future of man and of the evolution, all that nobody yet knows. He has expressed them in beautiful and clear words so that spiritual adventurers who wish to solve the mysteries of the world may understand it more easily. But the mystery is well hidden behind the lines and one must rise to the required level of true consciousness to discover it. All the prophecies, all that is going to happen is presented with a precise and wonderful clarity. Sri Aurobindo gives you here the key to find the Truth, to discover the Consciousness, to solve the problem of what the universe is. He has also indicated how he has opened the door of the Inconscience so that the light may penetrate there to transform it. He has shown the path, how to liberate oneself from the Ignorance and to climb up to the superconscience; each stage, each plane of consciousness, how one can scale them, how one can cross the very barrier of death and attain Immortality. You will find the entire route in detail, and as you go forward you can discover things altogether unknown to man. That is what Savitri is and yet much more. It is truly an experience–reading Savitri. All the secrets that man possesses, he has revealed them, as well as all that awaits him in the future; all this is found in the depths of Savitri; but one must have the knowledge to discover them,–the experience of the planes of consciousness, the experience of the Supermind, even the experience of the conquest of Death. He has noted all the stages, marked each step needed in order to advance in an integral way in the integral Yoga.

All this is his own experience, and what is most surprising is that it is also my own experience. It is my sadhana which he has described. Each object, each event, each realisation, all the descriptions, even the colours are exactly what I saw and the words, phrases are also exactly what I heard. And all this before having read the book. I read Savitri many times afterwards, but earlier, when he was writing he used to read it to me. Every morning I used to hear him read Savitri, at night he would write and in the morning read out to me. And I observed something strange, that–day after day, the experiences he read out to me in the morning were those I had had the previous night, word for word. Yes, all the descriptions, the colours, the pictures I had seen, the words I had heard, all, all, I heard it, put by him into poetry, into miraculous poetry. Yes, they were exactly my experiences of the previous night which he read out to me the following morning. And it was not just one day, but for days and days together. And every time I used to compare what he said with my previous experiences and they were always the same. I repeat, it was not that I had told him my experiences and that he had noted them down afterwards, no, he knew already what I had seen. It is my experiences he has presented all along and they were also his experiences. It is, moreover, the picture of our adventure together into the unknown or rather into the Supermind.

These are experiences lived by him, realities, supracosmic truths. He experienced all these as one experiences joy and sorrow in a physical manner. He has walked in the darkness of inconscience, even in the neighbourhood of death, endured the sufferings of perdition, and he has emerged from the mud, the world-misery to breathe the sovereign plenitude and enter the supreme Ananda. He has traversed them all, these realms, borne the consequences, suffered and endured physically what one cannot imagine. Nobody till today has suffered like him. He has accepted suffering to transform suffering into the joy of union with the Supreme. It is something unique and incomparable in the history of the world. It is something that has never happened, he is the first to have traced the path in the Unknown, so that we may be able to walk with certitude towards the Supermind. He has made the work easy for us. Savitri is his whole Yoga of transformation, and this Yoga, it is for the first time that we see it appear in the earth-consciousness.

And I think that man is not yet ready to receive it. It is too high and too vast for him. He cannot understand it, grasp it, for it is not by the mind that one can understand Savitri. One needs spiritual experiences in order to understand and assimilate it. The more one advances on the path of Yoga, the more one assimilates and the better. No, it is something which will be appreciated only in the future, it is the poetry of tomorrow of which he has spoken in The Future Poetry. It is too subtle, too refined,—it is not in the mind or by the mind, it is in meditation that Savitri is revealed.

… It will be known what it is, but in a distant future. It is only the new race with a new consciousness which will be able to understand. I assure you there is nothing under the blue sky to compare with Savitri. It is the mystery of mysteries. It is the super-epic, it is super-literature, super-poetry, super-vision, it is a super-work even if one considers the number of lines he has written. No these human words are not adequate to describe Savitri. Yes, one needs superlatives, hyperbolas to describe it. It is a hyper-epic. No, words express nothing of what Savitri is. There are no proper adjective to describe what Savitri is, at least I do not find them. It is of immense value—spiritual value and all other values; it is eternal in its subject, and infinite in its appeal, miraculous in its mode and power of execution; it is a unique thing, the more you come in contact with it, the higher will you be lifted up. Ah, truly it is something! It is most beautiful thing he has left for man, the highest possible. What is it? When will man know it? When is he going to lead a life of truth? When is he going to accept this in his life? This yet remains to be known.” (‘Sweet Mother’ Conversations with the Mother recollected by Mona Sarkar: 48–51)

4. How to Read ‘Savitri’

“Do you read Savitri?

Yes, Mother.

You have read the whole of it?

Yes, Mother, I have read it twice.

Have you understood all that you have read?

Not much, but I like poetry, that is why I read it.

It does not matter if you do not understand Savitri, read it always. You will see that every time you read it, something new will be revealed to you. Each time you will get a new glimpse, each time a new experience; things which were not there, things you did not understand arise and suddenly become clear. Always an unexpected vision comes up through the words and lines. Every time you try to read and understand, you will see that something is added, something which was hidden behind is revealed clearly and vividly. I tell you, the very verses you have read once before, will appear to you in a different light each time you re-read them. This is what happens invariably. Always your experience is enriched, it is revelation at each step.

But you must not read it as you read other books or newspapers. You must read with an empty head, a blank and vacant mind, without there being any other thought; you must concentrate much, remain empty, calm and open; then the words, rhythms, vibrations will penetrate directly to this white page, will put their stamp upon the brain, will explain themselves without your making any effort.

Savitri alone is sufficient to make you climb to the highest peaks. If truly one knows how to meditate on Savitri, one will receive all the help one needs. For one who wishes to follow this path, it is a visible help, as though the Lord himself were taking you by the hand and leading you to the destined goal. And then, every question, however personal it may be, has its answer here, every difficulty finds here its solution, indeed there is everything that is necessary for doing the Yoga.

He has crammed the whole universe in a single book. It is a marvellous work, magnificent and of an incomparable perfection.” (‘Sweet Mother’ Conversations with the Mother recollected by Mona Sarkar: 45–46)

“It may then be said that Savitri is a revelation, it is a meditation, it is a quest of the Infinite, of the Eternal. If it is read with this aspiration for Immortality, the reading itself will serve as a guide towards Immortality. To read Savitri is indeed to practise Yoga, spiritual concentration; one can find there all that is needed to realise the Divine. Each step of Yoga is noted here, including the secret of all other Yogas. Surely, if one follows sincerely what is revealed here in each verse one will finally reach the transformation of Supramental Yoga. It is truly the infallible guide who never abandons you; its support is always there for him who wants to follow the path.” (‘Sweet Mother’ Conversations with the Mother recollected by Mona Sarkar: 47)

“My child, everyday you are going to read Savitri; read properly, with the right attitude, concentrating a little before opening the pages and trying to keep the mind as empty as possible, absolutely without a thought. The direct road is through that–the heart. I tell you, if you try to really concentrate with this aspiration you can light the flame, the psychic flame, the flame of purification in a very short time, perhaps in a few days. What you cannot do normally, you will do it with the help of Savitri. Try and you will see how very different it is, how new, if you read with this attitude, with this something at the back of your consciousness; as though it were an offering to Sri Aurobindo. You know it is charged, fully charged with consciousness; as though Savitri were a being, a real Guide. I tell you, whoever wants to practice Yoga, if he tries sincerely and feels the necessity, he will be able to climb with the help of Savitri to the highest rung of the ladder of Yoga, will be able to find the secret that Savitri represents. And this without the help of a Guru. And he will be able to practise it anywhere. Savitri by itself will be his guide, for all that he needs he will find in Savitri. If he remains absolutely quiet when he is faced with a difficulty, or when he does not know where to turn in order to go forward and how to overcome obstacles, for all these hesitations and these incertitudes which overwhelm us at every moment, he will have the necessary indications, and the necessary concrete help. If he remains absolutely calm, open, if he aspires sincerely, always he will be as if led by the hand. If he has faith, the will to give himself and essential sincerity, he will reach the final goal.

Indeed, Savitri is something concrete, living, it is all replete, packed with consciousness, it is the supreme knowledge above all human philosophies, all human religions. It is the spiritual path, it is Yoga, Tapasya, Sadhana, everything, in its single body. Savitri has an extraordinary power, it sends out vibrations for him who can receive them, the true vibrations of each stage of consciousness. It is incomparable, it is truth in its plenitude, the Truth Sri Aurobindo brought down on the earth. My child, one must try to find the secret that Savitri represents, the prophetic message Sri Aurobindo reveals there for us. This is the work before you, it is hard but it is worth the trouble.” (‘Sweet Mother’ Conversations with the Mother recollected by Mona Sarkar: 51–52)

5. About the Conversations with Mona Sarkar on Savitri

This is how that talk on Savitri came about….

When I went to see the Mother on my 26th birthday, She spoke to me first about kindling the psychic flame. Then She spoke about Savitri. She had spoken to me about Savitri earlier, but this time, it was in a special way, for it was a complete teaching that She revealed. I remained as quiet and as concentrated as I could, in order to assimilate Her words.

Back home, I wanted to note down what the Mother had explained to me about Savitri. But something within me kept saying that the task was too difficult, that I would not be capable of rendering it, that it was too beautiful and much too extraordinary and that I would spoil it all. So I put aside the idea of writing down what the Mother had explained.

Years passed, but some phrases kept echoing in my mind, words like: ‘I have launched myself in a rudderless boat upon the vastness of the Infinite.’ The Mother had spoken to me these magical words of Sri Aurobindo. And likewise there were many others which came floating in occasionally. But even then, I did not like the idea of noting them down. Then one day, I was advised by Nolini-da to put down what the Mother had told me, and I began my work.

However seven years had passed. … I could only try to be as docile and receptive an instrument as possible. I then concentrated and what the Mother had told me, began to come back gradually: ‘Each verse of Savitri is like a Mantra which surpasses all that man possessed by way of knowledge, and is arranged in such a way that the sonority of the rhythm leads you to the origin of sound, which is OM.... It is the most beautiful thing He has left for man, the highest possible’. So, slowly, bit by bit, almost the whole of it was written down, in French.

Later on, I read to the Mother this report written from memory. She heard it and gave Her Blessings. She intended to work anew on the text and make some changes. She started the work but perhaps the time to reveal everything had not come and the circumstances did not allow Her to finish.

The Mother found this report … ‘very useful’. She once wrote to a disciple: ‘… years ago I have spoken at length about it to Mona Sarkar and he has noted in French what I said. Some time back I have seen what he has written and found it correct on the whole’.” (‘Sweet Mother’ Conversations with the Mother recollected by Mona Sarkar: 42–43)

6. The Verse about Mantra From Savitri

“As when the mantra sinks in Yoga's ear,

Its message enters stirring the blind brain

And keeps in the dim ignorant cells its sound;

The hearer understands a form of words

And, musing on the index thought it holds,

He strives to read it with the labouring mind,

But finds bright hints, not the embodied truth:

Then, falling silent in himself to know

He meets the deeper listening of his soul:

The Word repeats itself in rhythmic strains:

Thought, vision, feeling, sense, the body's self

Are seized unutterably and he endures

An ecstasy and an immortal change;

He feels a Wideness and becomes a Power,

All knowledge rushes on him like a sea:

Transmuted by the white spiritual ray

He walks in naked heavens of joy and calm,

Sees the God-face and hears transcendent speech:

An equal greatness in her life was sown.” (CWSA 34:375)

7. Savitri was in intention a sort of symbolic epic of the aim of supramental Yoga

“You once quoted to me two lines written by yourself:

Piercing the limitless unknowable,

Breaking the vacancy and voiceless peace.

Where do they occur? They produce such a wonderful impression of a slow, majestic widening out into infinity.

The lines I quoted from myself are not in any published poem, but in the unfinished first book of ‘Savitri, A Legend and a Symbol’ which was in intention a sort of symbolic epic of the aim of supramental Yoga!” (CWSA 27: 261)

8. Savitri Has a General Overmind Influence

“The poem was originally written from a lower level, a mixture perhaps of the inner mind, psychic, poetic intelligence, sublimised vital, afterwards with the Higher Mind, often illumined and intuitivised, intervening. Most of the stuff of the first book is new or else the old so altered as to be no more what it was; the best of the old has sometimes been kept almost intact because it had already the higher inspiration. Moreover there have been made successive revisions each trying to lift the general level higher and higher towards a possible Overmind poetry. As it now stands there is a general Overmind influence, I believe, sometimes coming fully through, sometimes colouring the poetry of the other higher planes fused together, sometimes lifting any one of these higher planes to its highest or the psychic, poetic intelligence or vital towards them.” (CWSA 27: 274–275)

“No, I do not work at the poem [Savitri] once a week; I have other things to do. Once a month perhaps, I look at the new form of the first book and make such changes as inspiration points out to me —so that nothing shall fall below the minimum height which I have fixed for it.” (CWSA 27: 261)

“We have been wondering why you should have to write

and rewrite your poetry—for instance Savitri—ten or twelve times.

That is very simple. I used Savitri as a means of ascension. I began with it on a certain mental level, each time I could reach a higher level I rewrote from that level. Moreover I was particular —if part seemed to me to come from any lower level, I was not satisfied to leave it because it was good poetry. All had to be as far as possible of the same mint. In fact, Savitri has not been regarded by me as a poem to be written and finished, but as a field of experimentation to see how far poetry could be written from one’s own Yogic consciousness and how that could be made creative. I did not rewrite Rose of God or the Sonnets except for two or three verbal alterations made at the moment.”  (CWSA 27: 272)

“In the new form it [Savitri] will be a sort of poetic philosophy of the Spirit and of Life much profounder in its substance and vaster in its scope than was intended in the original poem. I am trying of course to keep it at a very high level of inspiration, but in so large a plan covering most subjects of philosophical thought and vision and many aspects of spiritual experience there is bound to be much variation of tone: but that is, I think, necessary for the richness and completeness of the

treatment.” (CWSA 27: 279–280)

9. Few Lines from Savitri Having Overmind Intuition

“Are not these lines a snatch of the sheer Overmind?

All in her pointed to a nobler kind.

Near to earth’s wideness, intimate with heaven,

Exalted and swift her young large-visioned spirit,

Winging through worlds of splendour and of calm,

O’erflew the ways of Thought to unborn things.

Ardent was her self-poised unstumbling will,

Her mind, a sea of white sincerity,

Passionate in flow, had not one turbid wave.

As in a mystic and dynamic dance

A priestess of immaculate ecstasies,

Inspired and ruled from Truth’s revealing vault,

Moves in some prophet cavern of the Gods,

A heart of silence in the hands of joy

Inhabited with rich creative beats

A body like a parable of dawn

That seemed a niche for veiled divinity

Or golden temple-door to things beyond.

Immortal rhythms swayed her time-born steps;

Her look, her smile awoke celestial sense

In this earth-stuff and their intense delight

Poured a supernal beauty on men’s lives.

The great unsatisfied godhead here could dwell.

Vacant of the dwarf self’s imprisoned air,

Her mood could harbour his sublimer breath

Spiritual that can make all things divine:

For even her gulfs were secrecies of light.

At once she was the stillness and the Word,

An ocean of untrembling virgin fire,

A continent of self-diffusing peace.

In her he met a vastness like his own;

His warm high subtle ether he refound

And moved in her as in his natural home.” (CWSA 33: 14–16)

This passage is, I believe, what I might call the Overmind Intuition at work expressing itself in something like its own rhythm and language. It is difficult to say about one’s own poetry, but I think I have succeeded here and in some passages later on in catching that very difficult note; in separate lines or briefer passages (i.e. a few lines at a time) I think it comes in not unoften.” (CWSA 27: 289–290)

Q: I shall consider it such a great favour if you will give

me an instance in English of the inspiration of the pure Overmind ...

...

If difficult metres could be illustrated on demand, is it impossible to illustrate in a satisfying measure something so natural as the Overmind? I am not asking for hundreds of lines—even eight will more than do.

I have to say Good Heavens again. Because difficult metres can be illustrated on demand, which is a matter of metrical skill, how does it follow that one can produce poetry from any blessed plane on demand? It would be easier to furnish you with hundreds of lines already written out of which you could select for yourself anything overmindish if it exists (which I doubt) rather than produce 8 lines of warranted overmind manufacture to order. All I can do is to give you from time to time some lines from Savitri, on condition you keep them to yourself for the present. It may be a poor substitute for the Overmental, but if you like the sample, the opening lines, I can give you more hereafter—and occasionally better. E.g.

It was the hour before the Gods awake.

Across the path of the divine Event

The huge unslumbering spirit of Night, alone

In the unlit temple of immensity,

Lay stretched immobile upon silence’ marge,

Mute with the unplumbed prevision of her change.

The impassive skies were neutral, waste and still.

Then a faint hesitating glimmer broke.

A slow miraculous gesture dimly came,

The insistent thrill of a transfiguring touch

Persuaded the inert black quietude

And beauty and wonder disturbed the fields of God.

A wandering hand of pale enchanted light

That glowed along the moment’s fading brink,

Fixed with gold panel and opalescent hinge

A gate of dreams ajar on mystery’s verge.

There! Promise fulfilled for a wonder.” (CWSA 27: 264–265)

10. Savitri is represented in the poem Savitri as an incarnation of the Divine Mother

“Savitri is represented in the poem as an incarnation of the Divine Mother.” (CWSA 27: 276)

LV— Other Quotations on Japa, Mantra and Word

“Remember what is the whole basis of the Yoga. It is not founded upon the vehement emotionalism of the Bhakti-marga to which the temperament of Bengal is most prone, though it has a different kind of Bhakti, but on samata and atma-samarpana. Obedience to the divine Will, not assertion of self-will, is the very first mantra. But what can be a more violent assertion of self-will than to demand the result you desire, whether external or internal, at once, ... and not in God’s muhurta, God’s moment? You say that there is complete utsarga, but it cannot be complete, if there is any kind of revolt or vehement impatience. Revolt and impatience mean always that there is a part of the being or something in the being which does not submit, has not given itself to God, but insists on God going out of his way to obey it. That may be very well in the Bhaktimarga, but it will not do on this Way.” (CWSA 36: 228–229)

“It is difficult and the way long and the encouragement given meagre? What then? Why should you expect so great a thing to be easy or that there must be either a swift success or none? The difficulties have to be faced and the more cheerfully they are faced, the sooner they will be overcome. The one thing to do is to keep the mantra of success, the determination of victory, the fixed resolve, ‘Have it I must and have it I will.’ Impossible? There is no such thing as an impossibility—there are difficulties and things of longue haleine [long-term, lengthy], but no impossibles. What one is determined fixedly to do, will get done now or later—it becomes possible.

There—that is my counterblast to your variations on Schopenhauer. I conclude—drive out dark despair and go bravely on with your poetry, your novels—and your Yoga. As the darkness disappears, the inner doors too will open.” (CWSA 29: 115–116)

“What X quotes about the limitation of the power of the Guru to that of a teacher who shows the way but cannot help or guide is the conception of certain paths of Yoga such as the pure Adwaitin and the Buddhist which say that you must rely upon yourself and no one can help you; but even the pure Adwaitin does in fact rely upon the Guru and the chief mantra of Buddhism insists on śaraṇam to Buddha. For other paths of sadhana, especially those which like the Gita accept the reality of the individual soul as an ‘eternal portion’ of the Divine or which believe that Bhagavan and the bhakta are both real, the help of the Guru has always been relied upon as

an indispensable aid.” (CWSA 29: 200)

“But real unity cannot come to the race, until man surmounting his egoistic nature is one in heart and spirit with man and real freedom cannot be till he is free from his own lower nature and finds the force of the truth which has been so vainly taught by the saints and sages that the fullness of his perfected individuality is one thing with a universality by which he can embrace all mankind in his heart, mind and spirit. But at present individuals and nations are equally remote from accepting any such inner mantra of unity and we can only hope at most that the best will increasingly turn their minds in that direction and create again and this time with a newer and more luminous insistence a higher standard of human aspiration.” (CWSA 25: 662)

“It is news to me that I have excluded Mahomedans from the Yoga. I have not done it any more than I have excluded Europeans or Christians. As for giving up one’s past, if that means giving up the outer forms of the old religions, it is done as much by the Hindus here as by the Mahomedans. The Hindus here—even those who were once orthodox Brahmins and have grown old in it,—give up all observance of caste, take food from Pariahs and are served by them, associate and eat with Mahomedans, Christians, Europeans, cease to practise temple worship or Sandhya (daily prayer and mantras), accept a non-Hindu from Europe as their spiritual director. These are things people who have Hinduism as their aim and object would not do—they do it because they are obliged here to look to a higher ideal in which these things have no value. What is kept of Hinduism is Vedanta and Yoga, in which Hinduism is one with Sufism of Islam and with the Christian mystics. But even here it is not Vedanta and Yoga in their traditional limits (their past), but widened and rid of many ideas that are peculiar to the Hindus. If I have used Sanskrit terms and figures, it is because I know them and do not know Persian and Arabic. I have not the slightest objection to anyone here drawing inspiration from Islamic sources if they agree with the Truth as Sufism agrees with it. On the other hand I have not the slightest objection to Hinduism being broken to pieces and disappearing from the face of the earth, if that is the Divine Will. I have no attachment to past forms; what is Truth will always remain; the Truth alone matters.” (CWSA 28: 411–412)

“I never intended that X should stay here; he came for darshan and sat down here without a ‘by your leave’. I allowed him to remain for a while to see if he got any profit out of it; afterwards came his repeated illness and he somehow stuck on till now. What I meant by some concrete method was things like repetition of a mantra, pranayama, asana etc. He has been doing these things even here or some of them at least; it is the only thing he really understands (or misunderstands?); but purification of the heart he has not been capable of doing. What I mean by subtle methods is psychological, non-mechanical processes—e.g. concentration in the heart, surrender, self-purification, working out by inner means the change of the consciousness. This does not mean that there is no outer change,—the outer change is necessary but as a part of the inner change. If there is impurity and insincerity within, the outer change will not be effective; but if there is a sincere inner working, the outer change will help it and accelerate the process. What use is X’s eating less except for his body’s health? But if a man seeks to restrain and get rid of his greed for food or attachment, (not by starvation, though), then he is doing something useful to his sadhana.” (CWSA 30: 42)

“There was no conflict or wavering between Yoga and politics; when he started Yoga, he carried on both without any idea of opposition between them. He wanted however to find a Guru. He met the Naga Sannyasi in the course of his search, but did not accept him as Guru, though he was confirmed by him in a belief in Yoga-power when he saw him cure Barin in almost a moment of a violent and clinging hill-fever by merely cutting through a glassful of water cross-wise with a knife while he repeated a silent mantra. Barin drank and was cured. He also met Brahmananda and was greatly impressed by him; but he had no helper or Guru in Yoga till he met Lele and that was only for a short time.” (CWSA 36: 110)

“For the pragmatic mind of the Vedavadins the Aryan religion of the Rishis meant the strict performance of the Vedic sacrifices and the use of the sacred Vedic mantras in order to possess all human desires in this world, wealth, progeny, victory, every kind of good fortune, and the joys of immortality in Paradise beyond. For the idealism of the Brahmavadins this was only a preliminary preparation and the real object of man, true puruṣārtha, began with his turning to the knowledge of the Brahman which would give him the true immortality of an ineffable spiritual bliss far beyond the lower joys of this world or of any inferior heaven. Whatever may have been the true and original sense of the Veda, this was the distinction which had long established itself and with which therefore the Gita has to deal.” (CWSA 19: 87)

“The way of works too turns into an adoration and a

devotion of self-giving because it is an entire sacrifice of all our will and its activities to the one Purushottama. The outward Vedic rite is a powerful symbol, effective for a slighter though still a heavenward purpose; but the real sacrifice is that inner oblation in which the Divine All becomes himself the ritual action, the sacrifice and every single circumstance of the sacrifice. All the working and forms of that inner rite are the self-ordinance and self-expression of his power in us mounting by our aspiration towards the source of its energies. The Divine Inhabitant becomes himself the flame and the offering, because the flame is the Godward will and that will is God himself within us. And the offering too is form and force of the constituent Godhead in our nature and being; all that has been received from him is given up to the service and the worship of its own Reality, its own supreme Truth and Origin. The Divine Thinker becomes himself the sacred mantra; it is the Light of his being that expresses itself in the thought directed Godward and is effective in the revealing Word of splendour that enshrines the thought’s secret and in the rhythm that repeats for man the rhythms of the Eternal. The illumining Godhead is himself the Veda and that which is made known by the Veda. He is both the knowledge and the object of the knowledge. The Rik, the Yajur, the Sama, the word of illumination which lights up the mind with the rays of knowledge, the word of power for the right ordaining of action, the word of calm and harmonious attainment for the bringing of the divine desire of the spirit, are themselves the Brahman, the Godhead. The mantra of the divine Consciousness brings its light of revelation, the mantra of the divine Power its will of effectuation, the mantra of the divine Ananda its equal fulfilment of the spiritual delight of existence. All word and thought are an out flowering of the great OM,—OM, the Word, the Eternal. Manifest in the forms of sensible objects, manifest in that conscious play of creative self conception of which forms and objects are the figures, manifest behind in the self-gathered superconscient power of the Infinite, OM is the sovereign source, seed, womb of thing and idea, form and name,—it is itself, integrally, the supreme Intangible, the original Unity, the timeless Mystery self-existent above all manifestation in supernal being.(AUM,—A the spirit of the gross and external, Virat, U the spirit of the subtle and

internal, Taijasa,Mthe spirit of the secret superconscient omnipotence, Prajna, OM the Absolute, Turiya.—Mandukya Upanishad.) This sacrifice is therefore at once works and adoration and knowledge.” (CWSA 19: 328–329)

“In living beings, the Godhead tells Arjuna, I am consciousness by which they are aware of themselves and their surroundings. I am mind among the senses, mind by which they receive the impressions of objects and react upon them. I am man’s qualities of mind and character and body and action; I am glory and speech and memory and intelligence and steadfastness and forgiveness, the energy of the energetic and the strength of the mighty. I am resolution and perseverance and victory, I am the sattwic quality of the good, I am the gambling of the cunning; I am the mastery and power of all who rule and tame and vanquish and the policy of all who succeed and conquer; I am the silence of things secret, the knowledge of the knower, the logic of those who debate. I am the letter A among letters, the dual among compounds, the sacred syllable OM among Words, the Gayatri among metres, the Sama-veda among the Vedas and the great Sama among the mantras. I am Time the head of all reckoning to those who reckon and measure. I am spiritual knowledge among the many philosophies, arts and sciences. I am all the powers of the human being and all the energies of the universe and its creatures.” (CWSA 19: 364)

“Is it true that the deep significance of mantras like ‘OM Shanti Shanti Shanti” and of Words like ‘paix’ in the Mother’s Prayers is lost because of too much familiarity?

Yes, it must be the familiarity—for I remember when I first read the OM Shanti Shanti Shanti of the Upanishads it had a powerful effect on me. In French it depends on the form or the way in which it is put.” (CWSA 35: 12)

“The Europeans have seen in our Veda only the rude chants of an antique and primitive pastoral race sung in honour of the forces of Nature, and for many their opinion is conclusive of the significance of the mantras. All other interpretation is to them superstitious. But to me the ingenious guesses of foreign grammarians are of no more authority than the ingenious guesses of Sayana. It is irrelevant to me what Max Muller thinks of the Veda or what Sayana thinks of the Veda. I should prefer to know what the Veda has to say for itself and, if there is any light there on the unknown or on the infinite, to follow the ray till I come face to face with that which it illumines.” (CWSA 12: 35)

The World of Word-Music

“Nishikanta seems to have put himself into contact with an inexhaustible source of flowing word and rhythm—with the world of Word-music, which is one province of the World of Beauty. It is part of the vital World no doubt and the joy that comes of contact with that beauty is vital—but it is a subtle vital which is not merely sensuous. It is one of the powers by which the substance of the consciousness can be refined and prepared for sensibility to a still higher beauty and Ananda. Also it can be made a vehicle for the expression of the highest things. The Veda, the Upanishad, the Mantra, everywhere owe half their power to the rhythmic sound that embodies their inner meanings.” (CWSA 27: 17–18)

“A Rishi is one who sees or discovers an inner truth and puts it into self-effective language—the mantra. Either new truth or old truth made new by expression and intuitive realisation.

He [Ramana Maharshi] has experienced certain eternal truths by process of Yoga—I don’t think it is by Rishilike intuition or illumination, nor has he the mantra.” (CWSA 27: 103)

“The action of the French Revolution was the vehement death-dance of Kali trampling blindly, furiously on the ruins She made, mad with pity for the world and therefore utterly pitiless. She called the Yatudhani in her to her aid and summoned up the Rakshasi. The Yatudhani is the delight of destruction, the fury of slaughter, Rudra in the Universal Being, Rudra, the bhuta, the criminal, the lord of the animal in man, the lord of the demoniac, Pashupati, Pramathanatha. The Rakshasi is the unbridled, licentious self-assertion of the ego which insists on the gratification of all its instincts good and bad and furiously shatters all opposition. It was the Yatudhani and the Rakshasi who sent their hoarse cry over France, adding to the luminous mantra, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, the stern and terrible addition ‘or Death.’ Death to the Asura, death to all who oppose God’s evolution, that was the meaning. With these two terrible Shaktis Kali did Her work. She veiled Her divine knowledge with the darkness of wrath and passion, She drank blood as wine, naked of tradition and convention She danced over all Europe and the whole continent was filled with the warcry and the carnage and rang with the hunkara and the attahasyam. It was only when She found that She was trampling on Mahadeva, God expressed in the principle of Nationalism, that She remembered Herself, flung aside Napoleon, the mighty Rakshasa, and settled down quietly to her work of perfecting nationality as the outer shell within which brotherhood may be securely and largely organised.” (CWSA 1: 513)

“The doctrine that social & commercial progress must precede or will of themselves bring about political strength & liberty, is a fourth & very dangerous lie; for a nation is no aggregate of separable functions, but a harmony of functions, of which government and political arrangement is the oldest, most central and most vital and determines the others.

Our only hope of resurgence was in some such great unsealing of the eyes to the Maya in which we existed and the discovery of some effective mantra, some strong spiritual impulse which should have the power to renovate us from within. For good or for evil the middle class now leads in India, and whatever saving impulse comes to the nation, must come from the middle class, whatever upward movement begins, it must initiate and lead.” (CWSA 7: 1107)

“This then is our object and by what means do we seek it? We seek it by feeling our separateness and pushing forward our individual self-fulfilment by what we call Swadeshi—Swadeshi in commerce and manufacture, in politics, in education, in law and administration, in every branch of national activity. No doubt this means independence, it means freedom; but it does not mean rebellion. There are some who fear to use the word ‘freedom’, but I have always used the word because it has been the mantra of my life to aspire towards the freedom of my nation. And when I was last in jail I clung to that mantra; and through the mouth of my counsel I used this word persistently. What he said for me—and it was said not only on my behalf, but on behalf of all who cherish this ideal,—was this: If to aspire to independence and preach freedom is a crime you may cast me into jail and there bind me with chains. If to preach freedom is a crime then I am a criminal and let me be punished. But freedom does not mean the use of violence—it does not mean bombs; it is the fulfilment of our separate national existence. If there is any authority mad enough to declare that Swadeshism, national education, arbitration, association for improvement of our physique, is illegal, it is not stamping out anarchism; it is on the contrary establishing a worse anarchism from above.”  (CWSA 8: 40–41)

“I am not eager to be the Guru of anyone. It is more spontaneously natural for me to be the universal Mother and to act in silence through love.

But as you put the question, I shall answer.

From the time you started using a mantra, I had put in it the power to make it effective. Now that you have stated what is the Word of this mantra, I am confirming the power into it.” (CWM 13: 83)

“For this great movement resulted in a new and more

permanently powerful statement of thought and spirituality, Veda culminating in Vedanta. And it held in itself two strong tendencies which worked towards the disintegration of the old Vedic thought and culture. First, it tended to subordinate more and more completely the outward ritual, the material utility of the mantra and the sacrifice to a more purely spiritual aim and intention. The balance, the synthesis preserved by the old Mystics between the external and the internal, the material and the spiritual life was displaced and disorganised. A new balance, a new synthesis was established, leaning finally towards asceticism and renunciation, and maintained itself until it was in its turn displaced and disorganised by the exaggeration of its own tendencies in Buddhism.” (CWSA 15: 15)

“I have the feeling that a spirit of confusion has entered into the school and is making a... They mean the same thing and they use different terms, and so the terms clash. I know that they have a very similar aspiration, but each one speaks his own language and so the languages are not in harmony and they argue about nothing. There, I think that the best thing to do would be for each one to remain quiet for a while. Tell me your solution.

I too, with the people who are... who are with me, I

never used to have any difficulty, and now it is as if we were speaking in a different language.

A: And instead of stressing the things that bring us closer, we lay stress on the points of divergence, so...

Yes, they lay stress on that. But for me, it has a strange effect: it makes me feel as if I am ill. There is nothing wrong with me. I am well and that gives me the feeling of being ill, all the time.

A: It is a vibration of disharmony.

Yes, in truth it is the transition from the ordinary mental consciousness to the supramental consciousness. The mental consciousness is panic-stricken in the presence of the supramental consciousness. I have the feeling—I shall tell you, this is how it comes to me—that at every moment one could die, the vibration is so different. And so it is only when I am very still... the being, the consciousness... the old consciousness—which is not the mental consciousness at all, but still—the old consciousness goes on repeating its mantra. There is a mantra... it goes on repeating its mantra. And so that is like a background, like a point of contact.... It is strange.... And then beyond that, there is something which is full of light and force, but which is so new that it causes almost a panic. So, you understand, if the same thing... I who am... I have a long experience, eh? So if it causes that in me, if something like that occurs in the others, I have the feeling that we shall all go mad!

There, that will do.

Does this correspond to something?

A: Yes, Mother.

So I think that we should keep very quiet so as not to lose the... (CWM 12: 445–446)

“This divine word is the satya mantra, it is the thought by whose truth the Angirases bring the Dawn to birth and make the lost Sun to rise in the heavens. This word is also called the arka, a vocable which means both hymn and light and is sometimes used of the sun. It is therefore the word of illumination, the word which expresses the truth of which the Sun is the lord, and its emergence from the secret seat of the Truth is associated with the outpouring by the Sun of its herded radiances; so we read in VII.36.1, ‘Let the word come forward from the seat of the Truth; the Sun has released wide by its rays the cows,’ pra brahmaitu sadanād ṛtasya, vi raśmibhiḥ sasṛje sūryo gāḥ..” (CWSA 15: 167)

“But it is especially the Word that the Angirases possess; their seerhood is their most distinguishing characteristic. They are brāhmaṇāsaḥ pitaraḥ somyāsaḥ . . .  ṛtāvṛdhaḥ. (VI.75.10), the fathers who are full of the Soma and have the Word and are therefore increasers of the Truth. Indra in order to impel them on the path joins himself to the chanted expressions of their thought and gives fullness and force to the Words of their soul, aṅgirasām ucathā jujuṣvān brahmā tūtod gātum iṣṇan (II.20.5).” (CWSA 15: 184)

“The hymn is therefore an invocation to Agni for the journey to the supreme good, the divine birth, the bliss. And its opening verse is a prayer for the necessary conditions of the journey, the things that are said here to constitute the form of the pilgrim sacrifice, adhvarasya peśaḥ , and among these comes first the forward movement of the Angirases; “Forward let the Angirases travel, priests of the Word, forward go the cry of heaven (or, of the heavenly thing, cloud or lightning), forward move the fostering Cows that diffuse their waters, and let the two pressing-stones be yoked (to their work)—the form of the pilgrim sacrifice,” pra brahmāṇo aṅgiraso nakṣanta, pra krandanur nabhanyasya vetu; pra dhenava udapruto navanta, yujyātām adrī adhvarasya peśaḥ. The Angirases with the divine Word, the cry of Heaven which is the voice of Swar the luminous heaven and of its lightnings thundering out from the Word, the divine waters or seven rivers that are set free to their flowing by that heavenly lightning of Indra the master of Swar, and with the outflowing of the divine waters the outpressing of the immortalising Soma, these constitute the form, peśaḥ, of the adhvara yajña And its general characteristic is forward movement, the advance of all to the divine goal, as emphasised by the three verbs of motion, nakṣanta, vetu, navanta and the emphatic pra,

forward, which opens and sets the key to each clause.” (CWSA 15: 189)

“The Aryan is the sacrificer, yajamāna, yajyu; the gods who receive, uphold, impel his sacrifice are yajata, yajatra, powers of the sacrifice; the Dasyu is the opposite of both, he is ayajyu. The Aryan in the sacrifice finds the divine word, gīḥ, mantra, brahma, uktha, he is the brahmā or singer of the word; the gods delight in and uphold the word, girvāhas, girvaṇas, the Dasyus are haters and destroyers of the Word, brahmadviṣaḥ, spoilers of speech, mṛdhravācaḥ. They have no force of the divine breath or no mouth to speak it, they are anāsaḥ ; and they have no power to think and mentalise the word and the truth it contains, they are amanyamānāḥ: but the Aryans are the thinkers of the word, manyamānāḥ , holders of the thought, the thought-mind and the seer-knowledge, dhīra, manīṣī kavi; the gods are also the supreme thinkers of the Thought, prathamo manotā dhiyaḥ, kavayaḥ.” (CWSA 15: 234)

“The object of the sacrifice is to win the higher or divine being and possess with it and make subject to its law and truth the lower or human existence. The ghṛta of the sacrifice is the yield of the shining Cow; it is the clarity or brightness of the solar light in the human mentality. The Soma is the immortal delight of existence secret in the waters and the plant and pressed out for drinking by gods and men. The word is the inspired speech expressing the thought-illumination of the Truth which rises out of the soul, formed in the heart, shaped by the mind. Agni growing by the ghṛta, Indra forceful with the luminous strength and joy of the Soma and increased by the Word, aid the Angirases to recover the herds of the Sun.” (CWSA 15: 243)

“Brihaspati is the Master of the creative Word. If Agni is the supreme Angiras, the flame from whom the Angirases are born, Brihaspati is the one Angiras with the seven mouths, the seven rays of the illuminative thought and the seven words which express it, of whom these seers are the powers of utterance. It is the complete thought of the Truth, the seven-headed, which wins the fourth or divine world for man by winning for him the complete spiritual wealth, object of the sacrifice. Therefore Agni, Indra, Brihaspati, Soma are all described as winners of the herds of the Sun and destroyers of the Dasyus who conceal and withhold them from man. Saraswati, who is the stream of the Word or inspiration of the Truth, is also a Dasyu-slayer and winner of the shining herds; and they are discovered by Sarama, forerunner of Indra, who is a solar or dawn goddess and seems to symbolise the intuitive power of the Truth.” (CWSA 15: 243)

“The Dasyu is the undivine being who does no sacrifice, amasses a wealth he cannot rightly use because he cannot speak the word or mentalise the superconscient Truth, hates the Word, the gods and the sacrifice and gives nothing of himself to the higher existences but robs and withholds his wealth from the Aryan. He is the thief, the enemy, the wolf, the devourer, the divider, the obstructor, the confiner. The Dasyus are powers of darkness and ignorance who oppose the seeker of truth and immortality. The gods are the powers of Light, the children of Infinity, forms and personalities of the one Godhead who by their help and by their growth and human workings in man raise him to the truth and the immortality.” (CWSA 15: 244–245)

“Similarly if these Dasyus who refuse the gift and the sacrifice, and hate the Word and the gods and with whom the Aryans are constantly at war, these Vritras, Panis and others, are not human enemies but powers of darkness, falsehood and evil, then the whole idea of the Aryan wars and kings and nations begins to take upon itself the aspect of spiritual symbol and apologue.” (CWSA 15: 245–246)

“Gotama Rahugana is the seer of this Hymn, which is a stoma in praise of Agni, the divine Will at work in the universe.

Agni is the most important, the most universal of the Vedic gods. …

… Agni fulfilled becomes mighty in his own home—in the Truth, the Right, the Vast. It is thither that he is leading upward the aspiration in humanity, the soul of the Aryan, the head of the cosmic sacrifice.

It is at the point where there is the first possibility of the great passage, the transition from mind to supermind, the transfiguration of the intelligence, till now the crowned leader of the mental being, into a divine Light,—it is at this supreme and crucial point in the Vedic Yoga that the Rishi, Gotama Rahugana, seeks in himself for the inspired Word. The Word shall help him to realise for himself and others the Power that must effect the transition and the state of luminous plenitude from which the transfiguration must commence.” (CWSA 15: 277–278)

“Agni, then, is the god who has to become conscient in the mortal. Him the inspired Word has to express, to confirm in this gated mansion and on the altar-seat of this sacrifice.” (CWSA 15: 279)

“The solution of the problem depends on right realisation, and right realisation starts from the right illuminative Word, expression of the inspired Thought which is sent to the seer out of the Vast. Therefore the Rishi asks farther, “What word is uttered to Agni?” What word of affirmation, what word of realisation? Two conditions have to be satisfied. The Word must be accepted by other divine Powers, that is, it must bring out some potentiality in the nature or bring into it some light of realisation by which the divine Workers may be induced to manifest in the superficial consciousness of humanity and embrace openly their respective functions. And it must be illuminative of the double nature of Agni, this Lord of the lustrous flame. Bhāma means both a light of knowledge and a flame of action. Agni is a Light as well as a Force.

The Word arrives. Yo martyeṣu amṛto ṛtāvā. Agni is, preeminently, the Immortal in mortals. It is this Agni by whom the other bright sons of Infinity are able to work out the manifestation and self-extension of the Divine (devavīti, devatāti) which is at once aim and process of the cosmic and of the human sacrifice. For he is the divine Will which in all things is always present, is always destroying and constructing, always building and perfecting, supporting always the complex progression of the universe. It is this which persists through all death and change. It is eternally and inalienably possessed of the Truth.” (CWSA 15: 280)

“Will is the first necessity, the chief actualising force. When therefore the race of mortals turn consciously towards the great aim and, offering their enriched capacities to the Sons of Heaven, seek to form the divine in themselves, it is to Agni, first and chief, that they lift the realising thought, frame the creative Word. For they are the Aryans who do the work and accept the effort,— the vastest of all works, the most grandiose of all efforts,—and he is the power that embraces Action and by Action fulfils the work. What is the Aryan without the divine Will that accepts the labour and the battle, works and wins, suffers and triumphs?

Therefore it is this Will which annihilates all forces

commissioned to destroy the effort, this strongest of all the divine Puissances in which the supreme Purusha has imaged Himself, that must bestow its presence on these human vessels. There it will use the mind as instrument of the sacrifice and by its very presence manifest those inspired and realising Words which are as a chariot framed for the movement of the gods, giving to the Thought that meditates the illuminative comprehension which allows the forms of the divine Powers to outline themselves in our waking consciousness. (CWSA 15: 283)

“Surya Savitri, who is Bhaga, stands between the Infinite and the created worlds within us and without. All things that have to be born in the creative consciousness he receives into the Vijnana; there he puts it into its right place in the divine rhythm by the knowledge that listens and receives the Word as it descends and so he looses it forth into the movement of things, āśrāvayati ślokena pra ca suvāti.  When in us each creation of the active Ananda, the prajāvat saubhagam,, comes thus out of the unmanifest, received and heard rightly of the knowledge in the faultless rhythm of things, then is our creation that of Bhaga Savitri, and all the births of that creation, our children, our offspring, prajā, apatyam, are things of the delight, viśvā vāmāni. This is the accomplishment of Bhaga in man, his full portion of the world-sacrifice.” (CWSA 15: 305)

“In the second verse the necessity of Indra’s guidance is affirmed expressly. Vayu is to come putting away all denials that may be opposed to the manifestation of the unmanifested, niryuvāṇo aśastīḥ. The word aśastīḥ means literally “not-expressings” and describes the detention by obscuring powers like Vritra of the light and power that are waiting to be revealed, ready to be called out into expression through the influence of the gods and by the instrumentality of the Word. The Word is the power that expresses,  śastram, gir, vacas. But it has to be protected and given its right effect by the divine Powers. Vayu is to do this office; he has to expel all powers of denial, of obscuration, of non-manifestation. To do this work he must arrive “with his steeds of the yoking and Indra for charioteer”, niyutvān indrasārathiḥ.” (CWSA 15: 311)

“This great creation he effects by establishing the triple principle of mind, life and body, always present together and involved in each other or evolved out of each other in the world of the cosmic labour and fulfilment. The three together form the triple seat of Agni and there he works out the gradual work of accomplishment or perfection which is the object of the sacrifice. Brihaspati forms by sound, by his cry, raveṇa, for the Word is the cry of the soul as it awakens to ever-new perceptions and formations. ‘He who established firmly by force the ends of the earth, Brihaspati in the triple seat of the fulfilment, by his cry’.” (CWSA 15: 319)

“In the second it is connected with dadhire and suggests that the Rishis, meditating on the intuitions that rise up from the soul with the cry of Brihaspati in the sacred and enlightening Word, holding them firmly in the thought, became illuminated in mind, open to the full inflow of the superconscient. They were thus able to bring into the front of the conscious being that activity of the soul-thoughts which works usually in the background, veiled, and to make it the leading activity of their nature.” (CWSA 15: 320)

“It is by the powers of the Word, by the rhythmic army of the soul-forces that Brihaspati brings all into expression and dispelling all the darknesses that encompass us makes an end of the Night. These are the “Brahma”s of the Veda, charged with the word, the brahman, the mantra; it is they in the sacrifice who raise heavenward the divine Rik, the Stubh or Stoma. Ṛk, connected with the word arka which means light or illumination, is the Word considered as a power of realisation in the illuminating consciousness; stubh is the Word considered as a power which affirms and confirms in the settled rhythm of things. That which has to be expressed is realised in consciousness, affirmed, finally confirmed by the power of the Word. The “Brahma”s or Brahmana forces are the priests of the Word, the creators by the divine rhythm. It is by their cry that Brihaspati breaks Vala into fragments.” (CWSA 15: 322)

“For such a soul attains to a firmly settled existence in its own proper home, the Truth-consciousness, the infinite totality, and for it at all times Ila, the highest Word, premier energy of the Truth-consciousness, she who is the direct revealing vision in knowledge and becomes in that knowledge the spontaneous self-attainment of the Truth of things in action, result and experience,— Ila grows perpetually in body and richness.” (CWSA 15: 324)

“Brahmanaspati is the creator by the Word; he calls light and visible cosmos out of the darkness of the inconscient ocean and speeds the formations of conscious being upward to their supreme goal. It is from this creative aspect of Brahmanaspati that the later conception of Brahma the Creator arose.” (CWSA 15: 345–346)

“The force and the thought of man, the force that proceeds from Rudra the Mighty and the thought that proceeds from Brahmanaspati, the creative Master of the Word, have to go forward in the great journey for or towards this Vishnu who stands at the goal, on the summit, on the peak of the mountain.” (CWSA 15: 348–349)

“Soma is addressed here as Brahmanaspati, a word sometimes applied to other gods, but usually reserved for Brihaspati, Master of the creative Word.” (CWSA 15: 355)

“Our sacrifice is the offering of all our gains and works to the powers of the higher existence. The whole world is a dumb and helpless sacrifice in which the soul is bound as a victim self offered to unseen Gods. The liberating Word must be found, the illuminating hymn must be framed in the heart and mind of man and his life must be turned into a conscious and voluntary offering in which the soul is no longer the victim, but the master of the sacrifice. By right sacrifice and by the all-creative and all expressive Word that shall arise out of his depths as a sublime hymn to the Gods man can achieve all things. He shall conquer his perfection; Nature shall come to him as a willing and longing bride; he shall become her seer and rule her as her King.

By the hymn of prayer and God-attraction, by the hymn of praise and God-affirmation, by the hymn of God-attainment and self-expression man can house in himself the Gods, build in this gated house of his being the living image of their deity, grow into divine births, form within himself vast and luminous worlds for his soul to inhabit. By the word of the Truth the all-engendering Surya creates; by that rhythm Brahmanaspati evokes the worlds and Twashtri fashions them; finding the all-puissant Word in his intuitive heart, shaping it in his mind the human thinker, the mortal creature can create in himself all the forms, all the states and conditions he desires and, achieving, can conquer for himself all wealth of being, light, strength and enjoyment.” (CWSA 15: 377)

“But seerhood brings with it not only the far vision but the far hearing. As the eyes of the sage are opened to the light, so is his ear unsealed to receive the vibrations of the Infinite; from all the regions of the Truth there comes thrilling into him its Word which becomes the form of his thoughts.” (CWSA 15: 480)

“Elsewhere in the Riks the Vedic Word is described (X.71)

as that which is supreme and the topmost height of speech, the best and the most faultless. It is something that is hidden in secrecy and from there comes out and is manifested. It has entered into the truth-seers, the Rishis, and it is found by following the track of their speech. But all cannot enter into its secret meaning. Those who do not know the inner sense are as men who seeing see not, hearing hear not, only to one here and there the Word desiring him like a beautifully robed wife to a husband lays open her body. Others unable to drink steadily of the milk of the Word, the Vedic cow, move with it as with one that gives no milk, to him the Word is a tree without flowers or fruits. This is quite clear and precise; it results from it beyond doubt that even then while the Rig Veda was being written the Riks were regarded as having a secret sense which was not open to all. There was an occult and spiritual knowledge in the sacred hymns and by this knowledge alone, it is said, one can know the truth and rise to a higher existence. This belief was not a later tradition but held, probably, by all and evidently by some of the greatest Rishis such as Dirghatamas and Vamadeva.” (CWSA 16: 8)

“The god hearing the mantra means that the divine truth it seeks to express comes and illumines and dwells in the mentality; the Word becomes a chariot of the godhead, … a robe that he wears, … a dwelling he inhabits, … So long as the Word is not heard by the god, does not call him into itself to manifest his status and working in the mental realisation it produces, it is not effective, nor is the realisation a true seeing.” (CWSA 16: 560)

“For the world in the old Vedic conception is a rhythm of action and movement in God’s conscious being; or rather it is a combination and concord of rhythms; … it is Vak, a formation of His Word, a formal harmony of His self-expressive consciousness, a harmony discovered and selected out of God’s infinite possibilities and exposed therefore to the perpetual attack of those infinite possibilities.” (CWSA 17: 507)

“Then there is the Life-force, the Prana, that works in our vital being and nervous system. The Upanishad speaks of it as the first or supreme Breath; elsewhere in the sacred writings it is spoken of as the chief Breath or the Breath of the mouth, mukhya, āsanya; it is that which carries in it the Word, the creative expression.” (CWSA 18: 19)

“In our scrutiny of the seven principles of existence it was found that they are one in their essential and fundamental reality: for if even the matter of the most material universe is nothing but a status of being of Spirit made an object of sense, envisaged by the Spirit’s own consciousness as the stuff of its forms, much more must the life-force that constitutes itself into form of Matter, and the mind-consciousness that throws itself out as Life, and the Supermind that develops Mind as one of its powers, be nothing but Spirit itself modified in apparent substance and in dynamism of action, not modified in real essence. … These are the seven Words of the ancient sages; by them have been created and in the light of their meaning are worked out and have to be interpreted the developed and developing harmonies of the world we know and the worlds behind of which we have only an indirect knowledge.” (CWSA 22: 499–500)

“One feels here [in the letters of Krishnaprem] a stream from the direct sources of Truth that one does not meet so often as one could desire. Here is a mind that can not only think but see —and not merely see the surfaces of things with which most intellectual thought goes on wrestling without end or definite issue and as if there were nothing else, but look into the core. The Tantriks have a phrase paśyantī vāk to describe one level of the Vak-Shakti, the seeing Word; here is paśyantī buddhi, a seeing Intelligence. It might be because the seer within has passed beyond thought into experience, but there are many who have a considerable wealth of experience without its clarifying their eye of thought to this extent; the soul feels, but the mind goes on with mixed and imperfect transcriptions, blurs and confusions in the idea. There must have been the gift of right vision lying ready in this nature.” (CWSA 28: 330)

“I indicate the psychological powers which they [six Vedic Gods] bring with them:

Mitra—Harmony.

Varuna—Wideness.

Aryaman—Power, Tapasya.

Brihaspati—Wisdom (Word and Knowledge).

Vishnu—Cosmic Consciousness.

Vayu—Life.” (CWSA 28: 459)

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

Truth cannot be attained by the mind's thought but only by identity and silent vision. Truth lives in the calm wordless Light of the eternal spaces; she does not intervene in the noise and cackle of logical debate.

Thought in the mind can at most be Truth's brilliant and transparent garment; it is not even her body. Look through the robe, not at it, and you may see some hint of her form. There can be a thought-body of Truth, but that is the spontaneous supramental Thought and Word that leap fully formed out of the Light, not any difficult mental counterfeit and patchwork. The supramental Thought is not a means of arriving at Truth, for Truth in the supermind is self-found or self-existent, but a way of expressing her. It is an arrow from the Light, not a bridge to reach it.” (CWSA 12: 255)

“The gospel of true supermanhood gives us a generous ideal for the progressive human race and should not be turned into an arrogant claim for a class or individuals. It is a call to man to do what no species has yet done or aspired to do in terrestrial history, evolve itself consciously into the next superior type already half foreseen by the continual cyclic development of the world-idea in Nature’s fruitful musings. …

Nietzsche first cast it [the gospel of supermanhood], the mystic of Will-worship, the troubled, profound, half-luminous Hellenising Slav with his strange clarities, his violent half-ideas, his rare gleaming intuitions that came marked with the stamp of an absolute truth and sovereignty of light. But Nietzsche was an apostle who never entirely understood his own message. His prophetic style was like that of the Delphic oracles which spoke constantly the Word of the Truth but turned it into untruth in the mind of the hearer. Not always indeed; for sometimes he rose beyond his personal temperament and individual mind, his European inheritance and environment, his revolt against the Christ-idea, his war against current moral values and spoke out the Word as he had heard it, the Truth as he had seen it, bare, luminous, impersonal and therefore flawless and imperishable. But for the most part this message that had come to his inner hearing vibrating out of a distant Infinite like a strain caught from the lyre of far-off Gods, did get, in his effort to appropriate and make it nearer to him, mixed up with a somewhat turbulent surge of collateral ideas that drowned much of the pure original note.” (CWSA 13: 151–152)

“About Tantric yoga; your experiment in the smashâna was a daring one,—but it seems to have been efficiently & skilfully carried out, & the success is highly gratifying. In these kriyas there are three considerations to be held in view, 1st, the object of the kriya. Of course there is the general object of muktibhukti which Tantriks in all ages have pursued, but to bring it about certain subjective results & conditions are necessary in ourselves & our surroundings & each separate kriya should be so managed as to bring about an important result of the kind. Big kriyas or numerous kriyas are not always necessary; the main thing is that they should be faultlessly effective like your last kriya or the small one with which you opened your practices. That is the second consideration viz the success of the kriya itself & that depends on the selection & proper use of the right mantra & tantra,—mantra, the mental part, & tantra, the practical part. These must be arranged with the greatest scrupulousness. All rashness, pride, ostentation etc, the rajasic defects,—also, all negligence, omission, slipshod ritual,—the tamasic defects, must be avoided. Success must not elate your minds, nor failure discourage. 3dly, angarakshana is as important as siddhi. There are many Tantriks in this Kaliyuga who are eager about siddhi, careless in angarakshana. They get some siddhi, but become the prey of the devils & bhutas they raise. Now what is the use of a particular siddhi, if the sadhakas are destroyed? The general & real object,—mukti & bhukti,—remains unfulfilled. Angarakshana is managed, first, by the selection & arrangement of the right siddhi-mantra & kriya, secondly, by the presence behind the sadhaka of one who repeats what is called an angarakshaka mantra destructive of the pretas & Rakshasas or prohibitive of their attacks. The last function I have taken on myself; it is your business so to arrange the kriya that the bhutas get no chance for … or for the seizure & destruction of the sadhaka. I have found that my mantra has been more & more successful in protection, but it is not yet strong enough to prevent all … of a dangerous character. It will take some more … to increase its power. It is for this reason that I do not yet tell you to go on swiftly in your course of practices. Still there is no harm in quickening the pace in comparison with the past. Remember always the supreme necessity of mauna in Tantric practices. In Vedantic & Puranic exercises expansion is not dangerous, but the goddess of the Tantra does not look with a favourable eye on those who from pride, ostentation or looseness blab about the mantra or the kriya. In Tantric sadhana secrecy is necessary for its own sake. Those who reveal mantra or kriya to the unfit, suffer almost inevitably; even those who reveal them unnecessarily to the fit, impair somewhat the force of their Tantric action.” (CWSA 36: 182–183)

“Indian philosophy was intuitive in its beginnings, stimulative rather to the deeper vision of things,—nothing more exalted and profound, more revelatory of the depths and the heights, more powerful to open unending vistas has ever been conceived than the divine and inspired Word, the mantra of Veda and Vedanta. When that philosophy became intellectual, precise, founded on the human reason, it became also rigidly logical, enamoured of fixity and system, desirous of a sort of geometry of thought. The ancient Greek mind had instead a kind of fluid precision, a flexibly inquiring logic; acuteness and the wide-open eye of the intellect were its leading characteristics and by this power in it it determined the whole character and field of subsequent European thinking. Nor is any Greek thinker more directly stimulating than the aphoristic philosopher Heraclitus; and yet he keeps and adds to this more modern intellectual stimulativeness something of the antique psychic and intuitive vision and Word of the older Mystics. The trend to rationalism is there, but not yet that fluid clarity of the reasoning mind which was the creation of the Sophists.” (CWSA 13: 215)

“There are however two critical superstitions which seriously interfere with the naturalness & ease rhymed poetry demands, the superstition of the perfect rhyme and the superstition of the original rhyme. It is no objection to a rhyme that it is imperfect. There is nothing occult or cryptic in rhyme, no divine law compelling us to assimilate two rhymed endings to the very letter such as the law of the Védic chant by which a single letter mispronounced sterilizes the mantra. Rhyme is a convenience and an ornament intended to serve certain artistic purposes, to create certain sound-effects, and if the effect of a perfect rhyme is beautiful, melodious and satisfying, an imperfect rhyme has sometimes its own finer effect far more subtle, haunting and suggestive; by limiting the satisfaction of the ear, it sets a new chord vibrating in the soul.” (CWSA 1: 248–249)

The Parable of Sati

“Daksha, the great Prajapati, had a daughter, named Sati, whom he loved beyond all his children, and the Rishis wedded her to Mahadeva, the great lord of the Universe. The choice of the Rishis was not pleasing to Daksha, because he was unable to see in Mahadeva anything but a houseless ascetic wandering with the beasts of the field and the demons of the night, a beggar’s bowl in his hand, his body smeared with ashes, a tiger’s skin for his only robe. His scorn increased the more he came to know of his son-in-law, a bhang-eating lazy ne’er-do-well with no ascertainable means of livelihood, no home, no property, no degree or other educational qualification, no stake in the world. He cursed the Rishis for fools and evil counsellors, visionaries who saw in this pauper with his bowl and his matted hair the Master of the World. So when he had to offer a great sacrifice, he sent invitations to all the Gods, but deliberately excluded his son-in-law. The result was disastrous. Sati, full of grief and indignation at the affront to her lord, gave up her body and disappeared from mortal ken. Then came Mahadeva in his wrath, the mighty One, the destroyer of Universes, and broke Daksha’s sacrifice to pieces and shattered the hall of sacrifice and slew Daksha in his hall.

There was a Daksha too in India which was called the Indian National Congress. Like Daksha it was a great figure, a Prajapati with numerous offspring, full of dignity, sobriety, wisdom, and much esteemed by the gods. This Daksha too had a daughter whom he loved, the young Indian Nation. When the time for her marriage came, she chose for herself the bridegroom offered to her by the Rishis who declared him to be Mahadeva, the Destiny of India and her fated Lord. It was at sacred Benares that she first saw Mahadeva face to face and betrothed herself to him, but the marriage took place at Calcutta with a fourfold mantra, Swaraj, Swadeshi, Boycott, National Education, as the sacred formula of union. The marriage did not please Daksha, but the Rishis were importunate and Sati firm, so he was compelled to give way. He cursed the Rishis freely. ‘What manner of husband is this they have given to my Sati? A homeless beggar, wild and half crazy with the bhang he has drunk, wandering on the hills in company with the wild beasts and the demons, without culture, enlightenment and education, rude in speech, rough in manners, ill-clad, destitute, with no past, no present and no future! Yet these fanatics call him the Master of the World, an embodiment of the Almighty, and what not!” So he hid his grief and wrath but determined to be revenged. For Mahadeva the Mighty, the Destiny of India, had long wandered in the wilderness with a beggar’s bowl in his hand, poor and destitute, an ascetic smeared with ashes and clad in a tiger’s skin, with no home in which he could lay down his head. And when he came to the marriage, it was in fearsome guise and in evil company, drunk with the bhang of a wild inspiration, shouting “Bombom Bande Mataram” at the top of his mighty voice, disreputable in appearance and unfit to associate with polite and cultured gentlemen such as Daksha had hitherto made his friends, poor, shaggy, ill-clad, with no visible means of existence and no tangible prospects in the future; and his companions were a wild company of lathi bearing National Volunteers and other disquieting phantasms quite out of place in Daksha’s tastefully got-up and elegant marriage pandal. How could Daksha realize that in this uncouth figure was the Destroyer and Creator of an Universe, One who held the fate of India and of the world in his hands? The Rishis only knew it and they were called visionaries and fanatics for their pains.” (CWSA 7: 1073–1075)

“It [Pranava japa] is supposed to have a force of its own although that force cannot fully work without the meditation on the meaning. But my experience is that in these things there is no invariable rule and that most depends on the consciousness or the power of response in the sadhak. With some it has no effect, with some it has a rapid and powerful effect even without meditation—for others the meditation is necessary for any effect to come.” (CWSA 29: 324)

“It is the body that ends by saying the mantra! Spontaneously, so spontaneously that even if you by chance think of other things, your body will be saying the mantra. You do not have this experience?

No.

And it is the body that aspires, the body that says the mantra, the body that wants the light, the body that wants the consciousness you, you can think of other things, Tom, Dick or Harry, a book, etc., it has no importance.” (CWM 11: 98)

[During the years 1961 to 1973 the Mother had frequent conversations with one of her disciples about the experiences she was having at the time. … Selected transcripts of the tape-recorded conversations were seen, approved and occasionally revised by the Mother for publication … they appeared under the titles ‘Notes on the Way’] Publisher’s Note CWM 11

“The note continues:

The seat and the field of its [the body’s] consciousness as

well as the quality of its activity change and vary according to the beings present, on a whole scale from the most material up to the most spiritual, passing through hall varieties of intellectual activity.

‘But the perception of the Presence is constant and associated with all states of consciousness, whatever they are...’

Ah! I became aware that the cells, everywhere like this, all the time, all the time were repeating their Mantra, all the time, all the time.

‘And the Mantra is repeated spontaneously and automatically in a kind of ‘fluid’ peace.’

It is for this, well, one cannot say that it was suffering, one cannot say that it was ill; this is not possible, not possible.” (CWM 11: 126–127)

“Nor must we attach ourselves even to the truths we hold most securely, for they are but forms and expressions of the Ineffable who refuses to limit himself to any form or expression; always we must keep ourselves open to the higher Word from above that does not confine itself to its own sense and the light of the Thought that carries in it its own opposites.” (CWSA 23: 330–331)

“Therefore, we scrutinise them and perceive that there are first these forms of mind, life, speech and sense, all of them figures and imperfect suggestions, and then behind them the cosmic principles through which the One acts. It is to these cosmic principles that we must proceed and turn them from their ordinary aim and movement in the world to find their own supreme aim and absolute movement in their own one Godhead, the Lord, the Brahman; they must be drawn to leave the workings of ordinary mind and find the superconscient Mind, to leave the workings of ordinary speech and sense and find the supra-mental Sense and original Word, to leave the apparent workings of mundane Life and find the transcendent Life.” (CWSA 18: 93–94)

“The Vedas in the widest terms, ‘all the Vedas’,—which

might well include the Upanishads also and seems to include them, for the general term Śruti is used later on,—are declared to be unnecessary for the man who knows. ‘As much use as there is in a well with water in flood on every side, so much is there in all the Vedas for the Brahmin who has the knowledge.’ Nay, the Scriptures are even a stumbling-block; for the letter of the Word—perhaps because of its conflict of texts and its various and mutually dissentient interpretations—bewilders the understanding, which can only find certainty and concentration by the light within.” (CWSA 19: 87)

LVI—Short Summary

I—The Principle of the Japa

1.      Japa first changes the vibrations of the consciousness, brings into it the right state and the right responses and then brings in the power or the presence of the Deity

2.      By doing japa you can get rid of the old impulses and recover calm and the right turn of the consciousness and then it can help you to get rid of the invasion of sorrow and despondency

3.      One can get rid of an attack by the help of japa

4.      The japa with sterility and sorrow needs to be overcome

5.      Without sterility and sorrow japa can do its natural function of creating the right consciousness

6.      In the supra-physical plane when an idea has to be realised, one can by repeating the word-expression of it, produce vibrations which prepare the mind for the realisation of the idea

7.      That is the principle of the Mantra and of japa

8.      One repeats the name of the Divine and the vibrations created in the consciousness prepare the realisation of the Divine

II—The Objective of Japa and Mantra

1.      The objective of japa must be to contact the Divine and union with the Divine and opening to the Divine

2.      There are some to whom japa is natural and necessary for a time

3.      The method of dry or hard tapasya of doing japa was never insisted upon

4.      The effect of japa depends on the way in which the japa is done

5.      Japa of mantra if rightly done is a means of opening to the light and knowledge from above

6.      A certain mechanisation of the sadhana depends on the way in which the japa is done

7.      Japa can put oneself in contact with various forms of Energy

8.      Mantra if it is effective, opens the consciousness and brings into it the power which the mantra represents

9.      Mantra cannot change the physical consciousness

III—Japa on the Name of the Divine

1.      The Name of the Divine is in itself a power, if it is taken with the right faith and in the right attitude

2.      The effectiveness of namajapa depends on the person and how he does it

3.      Each name indicates a certain aspect of the Divine and effectiveness of namjapa is limited by that aspect

4.      The effect of namjapa of the Mother’s name is

universal

5.      Whatever name is called the Power that answers is the Mother

6.      Whatever name one concentrates while awake can repeat itself in sleep

7.      The calling of Mother in sleep is not necessarily a repetition, it is the inner being that often calls to her in difficulty or in need

8.      The Name of the Divine is usually called in for

a. protection,

b. for adoration,

c. for increase of bhakti,

d. for the opening up of the inner consciousness

e. or for the realisation of the Divine

f. can be effective to work in the subconscious

9.       The name of God, the mantra, is still the keystone of all Indian yoga

10.      In Vedic conception Vak, the Word, is the effective agent of creation

11.      All created existence is in the Vedic philosophy a formation by force of consciousness, Chit-shakti

12.      Creation itself is only a manifestation, phenomenon or appearing in form, of that which is already existent as consciousness, but latent as form in universal Being

IV—Conditions for Japa to Succeed

1.      Japa can succeed, if it is attended by following things or even some of these things

2.      The quieting of the mind, purification of the heart, humility before the Divine, surrender, sustained persistence in the call within and reliance on the Grace above

3.      The japa must well up from the heart on a crest of emotion or aspiration

4.      The japa must come in as a live push carrying the joy or the light of the thing in it

5.      If japa is done mechanically and merely as a thing that ought to be done, it will tend towards dryness and so will be ineffective

6.      Japa should not be done as a means for bringing about a result, as a device, as a process laid down for getting the thing done

7.      Namajapa has power only if it comes from the heart and the soul

8.      Mere repetition with the mind is not enough

9.      Namajapa has a great power in it

10.      Mantra-shakti acts only on certain conditions

11.      When one repeats a mantra regularly, very often it begins to repeat itself within

12.      This means that mantra is taken up by the inner being

13.      When mantra is taken up by the inner being then it is more effective

14.      The ‘double’ voice is a frequent phenomenon and it happens when one has been long repeating a mantra

15.      A voice or consciousness within begins to repeat it automatically is usually by an awakening of the inner consciousness

16.      Or by the going in of the consciousness more deeply within from its outward poise that this happens

17.      This is supported in his case by the fact that he feels himself halfway to trance, his body seems to melt away, he does not feel the weight of the book etc.; all these are well-known signs of the inner consciousness getting awake and largely replacing the outer

18.      When the inner being is awake then there is the double consciousness

19.      It is in the inner being that the inwardly silent repetition of the name takes place

20.      The automatic repetition of the mantra is what ought to happen to the mantra

21.      It must become a conscious but spontaneous thing repeating itself in the very substance of the consciousness itself, no longer needing any effort of the mind

22.      The japa is usually successful only on one of two conditions

22 a. If it is repeated with a sense of its significance, a dwelling of something in the mind on the nature, power, beauty, attraction of the Godhead it signifies and is to bring into the consciousness, that is the mental way

22 b. Or if it comes up from the heart or rings in it with a certain sense or feeling of bhakti making it alive, that is the emotional way

23.      Either the mind or the vital has to give it support or sustenance

24.      But if it makes the mind dry and the vital restless, it must be missing that support and sustenance of the mind or the vital

25.      There is of course a third way, the reliance on the power of the mantra or name in itself

26.      But then one has to go on till that power has sufficiently impressed its vibrations on the inner being to make it at a given moment suddenly open to the Presence or the Touch

27.      If there is a struggling or insistence for the result, then this effect which needs a quiet receptivity in the mind is impeded

28.      That is the reason why mental quietude is insisted on

29.      Do not allow too much straining or effort but give time to allow the psychic and the mind to develop the necessary condition of receptivity a receptivity as natural as when one receives an inspiration for poetry and music

30.      To spend all the energy on japa or meditation is a strain which even those who are accustomed to successful meditation find it difficult to do—unless in periods when there is an uninterrupted flow of experiences from above

31.      Any method sincerely and persistently followed can end by bringing the opening

32.      Sri Aurobindo acquiesced the method of japa because it does prepare something in the consciousness and, if done with persistent faith and bhakti, it can open all the doors

33.      But whatever method is used it will not bring its effect at once; it must be done persistently, simply, directly till it succeeds

34.      If it is done with a mind of doubt or watching it as an experiment to see if it succeeds or if it is continually crossed by a spirit of hasty despondency then obviously  the opening will be very difficult

35.      Because there is a clogging every time there is a pressure or a push to open

36.      Get rid of these two things doubt and despondency

37.      A mantra cannot change the physical consciousness

38.      A mantra if it is effective opens the consciousness and brings into it the power of that which the Mantra represents

V—Japa While Concentrating on the Heart Centre

1.      While concentrating on the heart centre one may do

japa of a name

2.      But there must also be a concentration on the heart-centre and the name must repeat itself

3.      The object of the concentration in the heart is to open the centre of heart-lotus, to feel the presence of the Divine Mother in the heart and to become aware of one’s soul or psychic being which is a portion of the Divine

VI—Japa While Concentrating on the Head Centre

1.      The movement of ascent and descent while concentrating in the head is implied in the process of japa

2.      The object of the concentration in the head is to rise to the Divine Consciousness and bring down the Light of the Mother or her Force or Ananda into all the centres

VII—Japa Must Be in Company With Work and Mental Activity

1.      Japa, is all right, but it must be on this basis and in company with work and mental activity

2.      For then the instrument is in a healthy condition

3.      Do not become restlessly eager to do nothing but japa and think of nothing but the Divine and of the ‘progress’ you have or have not made

4.      Because the system is not yet ready for a Herculean effort and it begins to get upset and think it is unfit and

will never be fit

5.      So be a good cheerful worker and offer your bhakti to the Divine in all ways you can but rely on him to work out things in you

6.      To do japa the work should not be diminished

VIII—Repetition of Name with the Breadth Not Encouraged

1.      Sri Aurobindo does not encourage the name with the breathing because that seemed like pranayam

2.      Pranayam is a very powerful thing, but if done haphazardly it may lead to the raising of obstructions and even in extreme cases illness in the body

3.      The running of the name in the breath is not a small phenomenon but of great importance in these practices

4.      If running of the name in the breath comes naturally it is a sign that something in the inner being has done that kind of sadhana in the past

IX—Mere Repetition of Words Cannot Have Much Effect

1.      A mere repetition of words cannot have much effect

X—Resistance While Doing Japa

1.      The fear, anger, depression which may rise when making the japa of the names comes from a vital resistance in the nature

2.      This resistance exists in everyone which threw up these things because of the pressure on the vital part to change

3.      These resistances rise and then, if one takes the right attitude, slowly or quickly it clears away

4.      One has to observe them and separate oneself from them, persisting in the concentration and sadhana till the vital becomes quiet and clear

5.      In Yoga there are conditions for everything

6.      Japa is a traditional thing

7.      There are conditions of japa without which japa cannot be effective

8.      A sadhana of violent meditation, japa can put one into pits of dullness

9.      At every step when one makes an advance, the opposite forces will throw this doubt like a rope between the legs and stop one short with a stumble

10.      Instead of saying, ‘I want only the Divine, why is the Divine not already here?’

11.      One must say ‘Since I want only the Divine, my success is sure, I have only to walk forward in all confidence and his own hand will be there secretly leading me to him by his own way and at his own time’

12.      That is what you must keep as your constant

mantra

13.      Besides it is the only logical and reasonable thing to do, for anything else is an irrational self-contradiction of the most glaring kind

14.      Sri Aurobindo says that he who desires only the Divine shall reach the Divine is a certitude much more certain than that two and two make four

15.      That is the faith every sadhak must have in the bottom of his heart, supporting him through every stumble and blow and ordeal

16.      It is only false ideas still casting their shadow on your mind that prevent you from having it

17.      Push these false ideas aside for good and see this simple inner truth in a simple and straightforward way, the back of the difficulty will be broken

XI—If Not Succeeded in Reaching Divine By the Processes of Japa

1.      If one has not yet succeeded in reaching Divine, feeling him or seeing him by the processes of japa

2.      Yet one may have made progress towards it by the frequent welling up of bhakti in the heart

3.      Or a constantly greater enlargement of the consciousness

4.      Or by work for the Divine and dedication in service

XII—Traditional Japas

1.      There are classical or traditional Japas which are intended to subdue the lower mind and establish a connection with higher forces or with deities

2.      These Japas must be given by the Guru, who at the same time infuses them with the power of realization

3.      They are useful only for those who want to do an intensive yoga and spend five or six hours a day in yogic practices

4.      A mere repetition of words like silence or peace cannot have much effect except to create a tamasic dullness, which should not be mistaken for mental silence

5.      Mantra, is a form of occultism

6.      Unless the mantra is given by a guru and the guru transmits his occult or spiritual power to you with the mantra, you may repeat your mantra thousands of times, it will have no effect

7.      The master who gives the mantra and is an indirect means of spiritualisation

XIII—The Mantra is a Word of Power and Light that Comes from the Overmind Inspiration

1.      The Mantra is a Word of power and light that comes from the Overmind inspiration

2.      Or Mantra comes from some very high plane of

Intuition

3.      Mantras characteristics are a language that conveys infinitely more than the mere surface sense of the Words seems to indicate

4.      Mantras characteristics are a rhythm that means even more than the language and is born out of the Infinite and disappears into it

5.      The power of Mantra to convey is not merely the mental, vital or physical contents or indications or values of the thing uttered

6.      But its significance and figure in some fundamental and original consciousness which is behind all these and greater

7.      Ordinarily the Overmind inspiration does not come out pure in human poetry

8.      You must remember that the Overmind is a superhuman consciousness and to be able to write always or purely from an overmind inspiration would mean the elevation of at least a part of the nature beyond the human level

XIV—Mantras Are Revealed Verses of Power of a Divine Inspiration and Source

1.      Rishis, seers and sages, who received in their illumined minds a great universal, eternal and impersonal Truth which they embodied in Mantras

2.      Mantras are revealed verses of power, not of an ordinary but of a divine inspiration and source

3.      The Veda describes these Rishis as ‘seers who are hearers of the Truth’

4.      The Veda itself was called śruti, a Word which came to mean ‘revealed Scripture’

5.      Afterwards Upanishad came to be regarded as Śruti, a revealed Scripture

6.      The very old view of the world is a psycho-physical and not merely a material reality

7.      This is at the root of the ancient ideas about the efficacy of the mantra

8.      Mantras come to many people in meditation

9.      The Rishis say in the Veda that they had the Truth by vision and inspiration, ‘truth-hearing seers’

10.      The Thought embodied in the Mantra is the result of the same Thought that nourishes our human things in the Immortals, in the Great Heavens

11.      A process of divinisation and of a bringing down of great and luminous riches, treasures won from the Gods by the inner work of sacrifice, is hinted at in terms necessarily covert but still for one who knows how to read these secret Words is sufficiently expressive

12.      Existence carries in itself the Word of God; it is full of a hidden Divine Presence

XV—The Word is the Mantra

[Here Word is with Capital W]

1.      The Word is not a pronounced speech but it is something quite exceptional

2.      When the will formulated in the spirit wants to come down into matter and act directly upon matter that it makes use of the sound, the vibration of the sound

3.      You are in the region of thought formulated in words, and then from there you may rise higher and get an expression of the silent idea

4.      Again from there you may rise yet higher and have the Force, the Force is the Consciousness which is the very source of that thought

5.      From there, once you possess this light in itself, this consciousness in itself and want to act upon matter to produce a result

6.      This consciousness will comes down from plane to plane, and as it becomes more and more material, it defines itself clearly in words and when it touches matter, instead of its being a silent word, it becomes a word articulated with sounds: a vibration that will act directly upon matter

7.      For this one must first have gone high up above in order to be able to come down again

8.      One must have reached the silent consciousness to be able to descend and do this

9.      It must come from above; the source of this word must be up there, not in any intermediary domain

10.      That then is the Word

XVI—All Words or Mantras Were Formed from the Roots of Sanskrit Language

1.      The Sanskrit language is the language of the Satyayuga based on the true and perfect relation of vak and artha

2.      Every one of its vowels and consonants has a particular and inalienable force which exists by the nature of things and not by development or human choice

3.      These are the fundamental sounds which lie at the basis of the Tantric bija-mantras and constitute the efficacy of the mantra itself

4.      Every vowel and every consonant in the original language had certain primary meanings which arose out of this essential shakti or force and were the basis of other derivative meanings

5.      The Hindus of India daily repeat the Sanskrit mantras

XVII—The Process of Formation of the Mantra and the Conditions of its Effectivity

1.      The mantra, though it expresses thought in mind, is not in its essential part a creation of the intellect

2.      Mantra to be the sacred and effective word, must

have come as an inspiration from the supra-mental plane

3.      In mantra the Truth have been received into the superficial consciousness either through the heart or by the luminous intelligence

4.      The heart in Vedic psychology includes all that large tract of spontaneous mentality, and all those intuitions and inspirations that travel through these agencies before they arrive at form in the intelligence

5.      In the present state of mankind the Purusha is supposed to be seated centrally in the heart

6.      It is by the power of the heart that the mantra takes form

7.      But mantra has to be received and held in the thought of the intelligence as well as in the perceptions of the heart

8.      For not till the intelligence has accepted can that truth of thought which the truth of the Word expresses be firmly possessed or normally effective

9.      Mantra fashioned by the heart, is confirmed by the mind

10.      But another approval is also needed, the effective powers of the Cosmos must also accept

11.      The words of the hymn retained by the mind form a basis for the new mental posture from which the future thought energies have to proceed

12.      The Maruts must approach them and take their stand upon them, the mind of these universal Powers approve and unite itself with the formations in the mind of the individual

13.      So only can our inner or our outer action have its supreme effectivity

XVIII—Out of Silent Brahman Aspect the Word Proceeds

1.      The silent and the active Brahman are one Brahman in two aspects and each is necessary to the other

2.      It is out of this Silence that the Word which creates the worlds for ever proceeds

3.      For the Word expresses that which is self-hidden in the Silence

4.      The silence of the Ineffable is a truth of divine being, but the Word which proceeds from that silence is also a truth

5.      It is this Word which has to be given a body in the conscious form of the nature

6.      It is out of silence the eternal Word comes which creates

7.      The Word vibrating out of the nameless Silence

XIX—The Word Has the Power to Create

1.      In old Hindu traditions in which the Divine in His aspect as Creator, pronounces a word which has the

power to create

2.      This power to create is the origin of the mantra

3.      The mantra is the spoken word which has a creative power

4.      An invocation is made and there is an answer to the invocation

5.      This is the Word in its sound has the a power of creation

6.      When one is in contact with power of the creator God Brahma then the words spoken have a power of evocation or creation or formation or transformation

7.      The sound of words always has a power and the sound has much more power than men think

8.      It can be a good power and it may be a bad power

9.      The sound creates vibrations which have an undeniable effect

10.      It is not so much the idea of the word that has effect but the idea has its own power, but in its own domain

11.      Whereas the sound has a power in the material world

12.      In the Vedic system the Word was the creatrix

13.      By the Word Brahma creates the forms of the universe

14.      Moreover, human speech at its highest merely

attempts to recover by revelation and inspiration an absolute expression of Truth which already exists in the

Infinite above our mental comprehension

15.      Equally, then, must that Word be above our power of mental construction

16.      All creation is expression by the Word

17.      We see this in human speech which only presents to the mind a mental form of the object

18.      But the object it seeks to express is itself only a form or presentation of another Reality

19.      That reality is Brahman

20.      Brahman expresses by the Word a form or presentation of himself in the objects of sense and consciousness which constitute the universe, just as the human Word expresses a mental image of those objects

21.      That Word is creative in a deeper and more original sense than human speech and with a power of which the utmost creativeness of human speech can be only a far-off and feeble analogy

22.      The Upanishad says that Brahman is that which cannot be so raised up before the mind by speech

23.      Human speech rises up only the mental figure of an object

24.      Human speech has a power of new creation, but it only extends to the creation of new mental images

25.      Such a limited power gives no idea of the original creative puissance which the old thinkers attributed to the

divine Word

26.      The Word has its seed-sounds

27.      The Word has its forms which compel the forms of things in the universe

28.      The Word has its rhythms and it is no disordered vibration, but moves out into great cosmic measures

29.      According to the rhythm of the Word is the law, arrangement, harmony, processes of the world it builds

30.      What is it that is expressed before the mental consciousness by the Word is not Brahman, but truths, of Brahman

31.      Speech, a lesser thing

32.      The Word, Speech of our speech, is in its essence of Power the Eternal himself and in its supreme movements a part of his very form and everlasting spiritual body

33.      Human speech is only a secondary expression and at its highest a shadow of the divine Word

34.      The highest inspired speech to which the human mind can attain is the Word most unanalysably expressive of supreme truth, the most puissant syllable or mantra

35.      In the system of the Mystics, the Word is a power, the Word creates

36.      For all creation is expression, everything exists already in the secret abode of the Infinite, and has only to be brought out here in apparent form by the active consciousness

37.      Certain schools of Vedic thought even suppose the worlds to have been created by the goddess Word and sound as first etheric vibration to have preceded formation

XX—Explanation on How Creation Happened by the Word

1.      The Vedic use of the Mantra is only a conscious utilisation of this secret power of the Word

2.      And if we take the theory that a creative vibration of sound is behind every formation, we shall begin to understand the idea of the original creative Word

3.      Let us suppose a conscious use of the vibrations of sound which will produce corresponding forms or changes of form

4.      But Matter is only, in the ancient view, the lowest of the planes of existence

5.      Let us realise then that a vibration of sound on the material plane presupposes a corresponding vibration on the vital without which it could not have come into play; that again presupposes a corresponding originative vibration on the mental

6.      The mental presupposes a corresponding originative vibration on the supramental at the very root of things

7.      But a mental vibration implies thought and perception and a supramental vibration implies a supreme vision and discernment

8.      All vibration of sound on that higher plane is, then,

instinct with and expressive of this supreme discernment of a truth in things and is at the same time creative, instinct with a supreme power which casts into forms the truth discerned and eventually, descending from plane to plane, reproduces it in the physical form or object created in Matter by etheric sound

9.      Thus we see that the theory of creation by the Word which is the absolute expression of the Truth, and the theory of the material creation by sound-vibration in the ether correspond and are two logical poles of the same idea

10.      They both belong to the same ancient Vedic system.

11.      This, then, is the supreme Word, Speech of our speech

12.      It is vibration of pure Existence, instinct with the perceptive and originative power of infinite and omnipotent consciousness, shaped by the Mind behind mind into the inevitable Word of the Truth of things; out of whatever substance on whatever plane, the form or physical expression emerges by its creative agency

13.      The Supermind using the Word is the creative Logos

XXI—Limited power of Human Speech Gives No Idea of the Original Creative Force of the Divine Word

1.      Human speech, raises up the mental figure of an object which is itself only a figure of the sole Reality, Brahman

2.      The power of Human speech only extends to the creation of new mental images, that is to say of adaptive formations based upon previous mental images

3.      Such a limited power gives no idea of the original creative puissance which the old thinkers attributed to the divine Word

4.      Human speech is only a vibration made by pressure of the breath in its passage through the throat and mouth

5.      Human speech must have been formed to express the sensations and emotions created by an object or occurrence and only afterwards seized upon by the mind to express first the idea of the object and then ideas about the object

6.      The value of human speech would therefore seem to be only representative and not creative

7.      Ordinarily, we do produce by the word within us thought-vibrations, thought forms

8.      These thought-vibrations which result in corresponding vital and physical vibrations, act upon ourselves, act upon others

9.      Man is constantly acting upon man both by the silent and the spoken word

10.      So man acts and creates though less directly and powerfully even in the rest of Nature

11.      But because we are stupidly engrossed with the external forms and phenomena of the world and do not trouble to examine its subtle and nonphysical processes, we remain ignorant of all this field of science behind

12.      The Upanishad asserts the incompleteness and inferiority of our present existence

13.      All that we follow after here is an imperfect representation, a broken and divided functioning of what is eternally in an absolute perfection on that higher plane of existence

14.      Our speech is limited, mechanical, imperfectly interpretative of the outsides of things, restricted by the narrow circle of the mind, based on the appearances of sense

15.      While a creative and revelatory Word has built up all the forms which our mind and speech seek to comprehend and express

XXII—The Psychological Truth in the Name of God, the Vibrations of the Mantra

1.      The mighty descent of Truth is called Sruti or revelation

2.      There are three Words which are used of illumined thought, drishti, sruti & smriti, sight, hearing and remembrance

3.      The direct vision or experience of a truth or the

thought-substance of a truth is called drishti

4.      Because they had that direct vision or experience of the liberated soul, the Rishis are called drashtas

5.      But besides the truth and its artha or thought-substance in which it is represented to the mind, there is the vak or sound symbol, the inevitable Word in which the truth is naturally enshrined & revealed

6.      The revelation of the vak is sruti

7.      The revealed Word is also revelatory and whoever has taken it into his soul, though the mind may not understand it, has the Truth ready prepared in the higher reaches of his being

8.      From whence the revealed Word must inevitably descend at a future date or in another life to his lower & darkened consciousness in order to liberate & illumine

9.      It is this psychological truth which is the foundation of the Hindu’s trust in the Name of God, the vibrations of the mantra and the sound of the Veda

10.      For the vak carries, in the right state of the soul, an illumination with it of the truth which it holds, an inspiration of its force of satyam which is less than drishti but must in the end lead to drishti

11.      A still more indirect action of the vijnana [Truth] is smriti; when the truth is presented to the soul and its truth immediately & directly recognised by a movement resembling memory, a perception that this was always true and already known to the higher consciousness

XXIII—The Mantra is that Word of Power Born Out of the Secret Depths of our Being

1.      In fact, speech is creative and speech creates forms of emotion, mental images and impulses of action

2.      The ancient Vedic theory and practice extended this creative action of speech by the use of the Mantra

3.      The theory of the Mantra is that it is a Word of power born out of the secret depths of our being where it has been brooded upon by a deeper consciousness than the mental

4.      Mantra is framed in the heart and not originally constructed by the intellect

5.      Mantra is held in the mind, again concentrated on by the waking mental consciousness and then thrown out silently or vocally

6.      The silent Word is perhaps held to be more potent than the spoken, precisely for the work of creation

7.      The Mantra can not only create new subjective states in ourselves, alter our psychical being, reveal knowledge and faculties we did not before possess

8.      The Mantra can not only produce similar results in other minds than that of the user, but can produce vibrations in the mental and vital atmosphere which result in effects, in actions and even in the production of material forms on the physical plane

9.      The mantra, says the Veda, has risen from the

heart, from the secret place where is the seat of the truth

10.      But still the infinite Truth is greater than its Word

11.      The real source of knowledge is the Lord in the heart

12.      The Scripture is only a verbal form of that inner Veda, of that self-luminous Reality

13.      We cannot say that any Scripture that it alone is all-sufficient and no other truth can be admitted

14.      The deeper and larger mental and vital Purushas within one which are capable of a straight receptivity of the true Word and Force

XXIV—No Mantras Given for Initiation in the Integral Yoga

1.      There Is No Mantra Given in the Integral Yoga

2.      Giving mantra is not the true initiation in Integral Yoga

3.      In Integral Yoga the true initiation is the opening of the consciousness to the Mother from within and that can only come by aspiration and rejection of restlessness in the mind and vital

4.      Integral Yoga is not a life of Sannyasa or a Yoga that can be done by Japa but something much more difficult

5.      So difficult that even those who have a call do not find it easy to go through to the end, and for those who

have not the call, it would be impossible

6.      Repetitions of the japa is a human method, not the way that the infinite Shakti works, which moves silently, sometimes imperceptibly to its goal

7.      Artificial paths are like canals hewn by the intelligence of man; you travel easily, safely, surely, but from one given place to another

8.      This path is the broad and trackless ocean by which you can travel widely to all parts of the world and are admitted to the freedom of the infinite

XXV—The Sadhana of Integral Yoga Does Not Proceed Through Mantras

1.      The sadhana of Integral Yoga does not proceed through any set mental teaching or prescribed forms of meditation, mantras

2.      But by aspiration, by a self-concentration inwards or upwards, by self-opening to an Influence, to the Divine Power above us and its workings, to the Divine Presence in the heart, and by the rejection of all that is foreign to these things

3.      It is only by faith, aspiration and surrender that this self-opening can come

4.      In India the Guru gives a mantra as soon as he accepts a disciple and tells him to go ahead with it

5.      In Integral Yoga there is no mantra except the

Mother’s name

6.      In the Ashram work is given, sadhaks are told to aspire, reject all lower movements and open to the Mother

XXVI—If Japa Helps You Then It Is Alright

1.      If japa helps you, then it is all right

2.      The value of japa lies only in the effect it has on you and the extent to which you believe in it

3.      If japa helps you to concentrate, it is good

XXVII—The Only Mantra Used in This Sadhana

1.      The only mantra used in this sadhana is that of the Mother’s name or of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother’s name

2.      There is no difference of Force when one repeats only the Mother’s name or when one repeats both the names of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother

3.      The Mother’s name when repeated has the full power in it

4.      But in certain states of consciousness the double Name of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother’s name may have a special effect

5.      Sri Aurobindo and the Mother do not usually give any mantra

6.      Those who repeat something in meditation call on

the Mother

7.      In Integral Yoga there is no fixed mantra and no stress is laid on mantras

8.      Although sadhaks can use mantras if they find it helpful

9.      The stress in Integral Yoga is rather on an aspiration in the consciousness and a concentration of the mind, heart, will, all the being

10.      If a mantra is found helpful then one uses it

11.      OM if rightly used, not mechanically, might very well help the opening upwards and outwards in cosmic consciousness, as well as the descent

12.      Taking the Mother’s name can be helpful

13.      Sri Aurobindo suggested that if you like you can make a japa of the Mother’s name

14.      The Mother advises to let the mantra rise from the depth of the heart as a sincere aspiration

15.      The name of Sri Krishna is not incompatible or inconsistent with this Yoga

XXVIII—The Mantra Is the Psycho-spiritual Symbol, an Instrument and a Sound Body for the Divine Manifestation

1.      The mantra is one of these psycho-spiritual symbols, an instrument and a sound body for the divine manifestation

2.      Psycho-spiritual symbol illuminates, which can be made a support for our spiritual growth and the evolution of spiritual capacity and experience, a means towards spiritual power, knowledge or Ananda

3.      The mantra, sacred syllable, name or mystic formula which is of so much importance in the Indian systems of Yoga

4.      This secret power of the mantra is one of the central truths of all that complex psycho-physical science and practice

5.      All religions and disciplines in India which use largely the psycho-physical method, depend more or less upon it for their practices

XXIX—Word as an Agency to Reveal Concealed Potential Knowledge

1.      Nothing can be taught to the mind which is not already concealed as potential knowledge in the unfolding soul

2.      All teaching is a revealing, all becoming is an unfolding

3.      The usual agency of this revealing of knowledge is the Word

4.      The Word may come to us from within; it may come to us from without

5.      But in either case, the Word is only an agency for

setting the hidden knowledge to work

6.      The Word within may be the utterance of the inmost soul in us which is always open to the Divine

7.      Or the Word within may be the Word of the secret and universal Teacher who is seated in the hearts of all

8.      Ordinarily, the Word from without, representative of the Divine, is needed as an aid in the work of self-unfolding

9.      It may be either a word from the past or the more powerful word of the living Guru

10.      If the Yoga is guided by a received written Shastra, which is some Word from the past which embodies the experience of former Yogins

11.      Then it may be practised either by personal effort alone or with the aid of a Guru

12.      The spiritual knowledge is then gained through meditation on the truths that are taught and it is made living and conscious by their realisation in the personal experience

13.      The Yoga then proceeds by the results of prescribed methods taught in a Scripture or a tradition and reinforced and illumined by the instructions of the Master

14.      We must be sure we have the right Word to reveal the knowledge

15.      The word must not be an emendation to suit the exigency of some individual or sectarian opinion

16.      The Word must have the right etymology and shade

of meaning, not one that is traditional or forced to serve the ends of a commentator

17.      The Word must have the right spirit in the sense, not an imported or too narrow or too elastic spirit

18.      The knower is the original seer of the mantra, with whom we ought to be in spiritual contact

XXX—By the Word We Can Call Gods into Ourselves to Destroy the Powers of Darkness

1.      We have to call in the aid of the Gods to destroy the opposition of the powers of Darkness who conceal the Light from us or rob us of it, who obstruct the flowing of the streams of Truth and obstruct in every way the soul’s ascent

2.      For this we have to invoke the Gods by the inner sacrifice

3.      By the Word we call the Gods into us

4.      Invoking and calling Gods is the specific power of the Mantra

5.      Men are even said to create the gods in themselves by the mantra

6.      That which we have created in our consciousness by the Word, we can fix there by the Word to become part of ourselves and effective not only in our inner life but upon the outer physical world

7.      It is certainly better not to dwell on the difficulties

or give them too much voice, because, to do so helps to make them return like a recurring decimal

8.      What we deny and reject and refuse to support by the power of the Word, tends, after a time and some resistance, to lose force in the consciousness

9.      The circumstances and movements that support what we deny tend also to recur less often and finally disappear

10.      This is fundamentally the principle of the mantra

11.      A constant affirmation from within of that which is to be realised, brings always in the end a response from above

XXXI—The Scriptures are shabdam Brahma, the Word

1.      The Scriptures are helpers and guides to unapparent truth, lamps of great power that send their rays into the darkness of the unknown beyond which He dwells

2.      The Scriptures are guides to knowledge, brief indications to enlighten us on our path, not substitutes for thought and experience

3.      The Scriptures are shabdam Brahma, the Word, the oral expression of God, not the thing to be known itself nor the knowledge of Him

4.      Shabdam has three elements, the word, the

meaning and the spirit

5.      The Word is a symbol, vak or nama; we have to find the artha, the meaning or form of thought which the symbol indicates

6.      But the meaning itself is only the indication of something deeper which the thought seeks to convey to the intellectual conception

7.      There is indeed a rupa, some concrete or abstract form of knowledge, answering to every name, and it is that which the meaning must present to the intellect

8.      But beyond nama and rupa is swarupa, the essential figure of Truth, which we cannot know with the intellect, but only with a higher faculty

9.      The Veda and the Upanishads are divine Scriptures, they are the Word

10.      Minds of a half-ripe knowledge or no knowledge at all attach themselves with exclusiveness and passion and will have it that this or the other book is alone the eternal Word of God

11.      They consider all others are either impostures or at best imperfectly inspired

12.      They consider that this or that philosophy is the last word of the reasoning intellect and other systems are either errors or saved only by such partial truth in them as links them to the one true philosophical cult

XXXII—To Fix the Mind on the Object of Adoration Is Done with a Mantra or a Divine Name

1.      Even when human mind is directed upwards or constantly drawn away by the world it is occupied with other objects

2.      To fix the mind on the object of adoration is done so that in the end it habitually thinks of him and all else is only secondary and thought of only in relation to him

3.      To fix the mind on the object of adoration is done often with the aid of a physical image or, more intimately and characteristically, of a mantra or a divine name through which the divine being is realised

XXXIII—When the Sadhak Is Developed then Word is Only an Excuse for Inner Power to Awaken

1.      If representative word is an of excuse for the inner power to awaken and manifest depends a great deal on the degree of the sadhak’s development

2.      If he is developed and conscious enough to be indirectly contact with the spiritual Force which is working behind the words, then the word is only an excuse

3.      But for him it must pass through his mental understanding in order to have its effect, and then the word takes on a much greater importance

4.      If one is capable of receiving directly, then one

opens a book for instance, finds a sentence and has an illumination

5.      This happens because it was just the word one was

waiting for in order to put himself into contact with the Force he needed to take the next step

XXXIV—The Path of Intellectual Being to Get Inner Power to Awaken

1.      If the sadhak is not developed one must take a book, study it, read it sentence by sentence, word by word, and then reflect and then understand it and then assimilate it

2.      Then, later, very slowly, after the assimilation and understanding, it begins to have an effect on the character and one makes some progress

3.      This is the path of the learned man, the scholar, who is an intellectual being and needs to learn, reflect, assimilate, reason about all he has learnt, in order to make progress

4.      This path is long, it is laborious

XXXV—Help One Receives by the Habit of Repeating Mantra

1.      If you have developed the habit repeating a mantra then when something is going wrong or you are making mistakes or you are inattentive or sometimes opposing currents come across what you are doing then automatically at this moment, of calling it has an

extraordinary effect

2.      When things are very difficult, when you have a sort of anguish, anxiety, when you don’t know what is going to happen, suddenly the mantra springs up in you then you can pass through everything without difficulty

3.      Each time you face a difficulty you repeat the mantra, it becomes irresistible

4.      If you feel you are about to fall ill, if you feel you are doing badly what you are doing, if you feel something evil is going to attack you, then the mantra can come spontaneously

5.      The mantra springs up from you without your needing to think about it

6.      You choose your mantra because it is a spontaneous expression of your aspiration

7.      This mantra may be one word, two or three words, a sentence but it must be a sound which awakens in you a certain condition

8.      Then, you can pass through everything without difficulty even in the face of a real, veritable danger

9.      If someone wants to kill you and if you without getting excited, without being perturbed, you quietly repeat your mantra, one can do nothing to you

10.      Naturally, you must truly be master of yourself; one part of the being must not be trembling there like a leaf; no, you must do it entirely, sincerely, then it is all-powerful

11.      The best is when the word comes to you spontaneously

12.      In a moment of great difficulty the mantra springs up in you like magical words

13.      You must form the habit of repeating the mantra in moments when difficulties come then the results are wonderful

XXXVI—Lack of Repetition Impairs the Effect of Mantras

1.      The Dhammapada says that lack of repetition impairs the effect of mantras

XXXVII—The Great Scriptures like Veda, Upanishads, Gita Have a Power to Awaken a Spiritual Impulse

1.      The inspired Word has power

2.      What kind of power depends on the nature of the inspiration and the theme and the part of the being it touches

3.      The great Scriptures like Veda, Upanishads, Gita, may well have a power to awaken a spiritual impulse, an uplifting, even certain kinds of realisation

4.      To say that the great Scriptures cannot awaken a spiritual impulse contradicts spiritual experience

5.      The Vedic poets regarded their poetry as mantras

6.      Their poetry were the vehicles of their own realisations and could become vehicles of realisation for others

7.      These poetries mostly would be illuminations, not the settled and permanent realisation that is the goal of Yoga

8.      But they could be steps on the way or at least lights on the way

9.      Many have such illuminations, even initial realisations while meditating on verses of the Upanishads or the Gita

10.      Anything that carries the Word, the Light in it, spoken or written, can light this fire within, open a sky, as it were, bring the effective vision of which the Word is the body

11.      In all ages spiritual seekers have expressed their aspirations or their experiences in poetry or inspired language and it has helped themselves and others

12.      Therefore there is nothing absurd in assigning to such poetry a spiritual or psychic value and effectiveness to poetry of a psychic or spiritual character

XXXVIII—Verses of the Gita Used as Japa

1.      Verses of the Gita can be used as japa, if the object is to realise the Truth that the verses contain in them

2.      Everything depends on the selection of the verses of the Gita

3.      A coherent summary of the Gita’s teaching cannot easily be put together by putting together some verses

4.      When we find desire and ego lurking in us the illumining Word of the decisive line of the Gita is ‘To action thou hast a right but never under any circumstances to its fruit’

5.      The Gita is in its foundation a Vedantic work; it is one of the three recognised authorities for the Vedantic teaching and, although not described as a revealed Scripture

6.      The Gita is largely intellectual, ratiocinative, philosophical in its method, founded indeed on the Truth, but not the directly inspired Word which is the revelation of the Truth through the higher faculties of the seer

XXXIX—OM is the Mantra

1.      OM is the mantra, the expressive sound-symbol of the Brahman Consciousness in its four domains from the Turiya to the external or material plane

2.      The function of a mantra is to create vibrations in the inner consciousness that will prepare it for the realisation of what the mantra symbolises and is supposed indeed to carry within itself

3.      The mantra OM should therefore lead towards the

opening of the consciousness to the sight and feeling of the One Consciousness in all material things, in the inner being and in the supraphysical worlds, in the causal plane above now superconscient to us and, finally, the supreme liberated transcendence above all cosmic existence

4.      OM if rightly used and not used mechanically then it might very well help the opening upwards and outwards into the cosmic consciousness, as well as the descent

5.      A key word for japa can be OM

6.      OM is the signature of the Lord

7.      The mantra of the divine Consciousness brings its light of revelation

8.      The mantra of the divine Power brings its will of effectuation

9.      The mantra of the divine Ananda its equal fulfilment of the spiritual delight of existence

10.      All word and thought are an out flowering of the great OM

11.      OM is the Word, the Eternal

12.      OM is the sovereign source, seed, womb of thing and idea, form and name

13.      OM is this imperishable Word

14.      OM is the Universe, all that was, all that is, all that will be, is OM

15.      All that may exist beyond the bounds of Time too is OM

XL—The Mantra So’ham

1.      When a Mantra like So’ham enters the adhara and moves in the breathing, it may make the aspiration effective by helping in the opening, by removing something that prevents the opening and thereby leading to the experience it carries in it

2.      The experience which the So’ham mantra leads is the realisation of one Being everywhere, all as the Divine, oneself and all as essentially one with that Divine

3.      It is an experience in which one’s separate personal existence shut up in the body ceases to be the normal thing

4.      One feels the body as a point or small thing in a vast existence, consciousness or Ananda that is the Divine and oneself as spread out in that vast consciousness

5.      As if the world were within us and not we inside the world or as if the world were one with us and one with the Divine

6.      It is the ‘cosmic consciousness’ that comes by this mantra

7.      For Integral Yoga this is a beginning only, not the end as it is in the ordinary Yoga, a liberation, not the Siddhi

XLI—The Gayatri Mantra

1.      The power of the Gayatri is the Light of the divine Truth

2.      Gayatri is a mantra of Knowledge

3.      The Gayatri mantra is the mantra for bringing the light of Truth into all the planes of the being

4.      It is not necessary to give up Gayatri Japa

5.      In the great Gayatri Mantra it is the Sun in its highest light that is called upon to impel our thoughts

XLII—The Mantras of the Veda

1.      The mantras of the Veda were illuminated with a clear and exact light of psychological experiences of Sri Aurobindo’s own experience

2.      Sri Aurobindo had not found sufficient explanation either in European psychology or in the teachings of Yoga or of Vedanta

3.      Brahman in the Veda signifies mantra in its profoundest aspect as the expression of the intuition arising out of the depths of the soul or being

4.      Brahman is a voice of the rhythm which has created the worlds and creates perpetually

5.      All world is expression or manifestation, creation by the Word

6.      The Vedic Rishis believed that their Mantras were inspired from higher hidden planes of consciousness and contained the secret knowledge

7.      The Words of the Veda could only be known in their true meaning by one who was himself a seer or mystic

8.      The Rishi Dirghatamas speaks of the Mantras of the Veda, as existing ‘in a supreme ether, imperishable and immutable in which all the gods are seated’

9.      The great seers and thinkers who came after the Vedic Rishis considered the Veda as the Word discovering the Truth and clothing in image and symbol the mystic significances of life

10.      It was a divine discovery and unveiling of the potencies of the Word, of its mysterious revealing and creative capacity

11.      Not the Word of the logical and reasoning or the aesthetic intelligence, but the intuitive and inspired rhythmic utterance, the mantra

12.      The language of Veda itself is Śruti, a rhythm not composed by the intellect but heard, a divine Word that came vibrating out of the Infinite to the inner audience of the man who had previously made himself fit for the impersonal knowledge

13.      We see everywhere the use of language dominating the Word of the Vedic hymns

14.      The Divine creates the worlds by the Word out of the waters of the subconscient

15.      Brihaspati gives the Word of knowledge, the rhythm of expression of the superconscient, to the gods

XLIII—In Veda’s Saraswati is the Word, the Inspiration from the Truth-consciousness

1.      Saraswati is the Word, the inspiration, that comes from the Truth-consciousness

2.      Saraswati is the goddess of the Word, the goddess of a divine Inspiration

3.      Saraswati, the divine Word, represents the stream of inspiration that descends from the Truth-consciousness

XLIV—Usage of Mantras by Rishis

1.      The Rishis of the Upanishads sought to recover the lost or waning knowledge by using the text of the ancient mantras as a prop for their own intuitions and perceptions

2.      The Vedic Word was a seed of thought and vision by which the Rishis recovered the old truths in new forms

3.      What they found, they expressed in other terms more intelligible to the age in which they lived

4.      These Rishis were seekers of a higher than verbal truth and used Words merely as suggestions for the illumination towards which they were striving

5.      The Rishis’ use of language was governed by this ancient psychology of the Word

XLV—The Mantra in Rajyoga

1.      The Rajayogic Pranayama purifies and clears the nervous system

2.      It opens entirely the six centres of the psycho-physical system and brings into the waking consciousness the power of the awakened Shakti and the light of the unveiled Purusha on each of the ascending planes

3.      Coupled with the use of the mantra it brings the divine energy into the body and prepares for and facilitates that concentration in Samadhi which is the crown of the Rajayogic method

4.      In Rajayogic concentration use has made of mantra by which the mind, accustomed to run about from object to object, shall fix on one alone, and that one must be something which represents the idea of the Divine

XLVI—Mantra for People in the Country for 1971 Crises

1.      Supreme Lord, Eternal Truth, Let us obey Thee alone and live according to Truth

XLVII—Mantra in Poetry

1.      The mantra in poetry is that rhythmic speech which, as the Veda puts it, rises at once from the heart of the seer and from the distant home of the Truth

2.      The mantra in poetry is the discovery of the Word,

the divine movement, the form of thought proper to the reality

3.      Poetry in the past has done something that is a dim shadowing of the divine urge which is prompting all creation to unfold itself and to rise out of its limitations towards its Godlike possibilities

4.      In the future there seems to be some chance of poetry making it a more conscious aim and steadfast endeavour

5.      The highest power we can demand from poetry is the possibility of its use as the mantra of the Real

6.      We expect pleasure from poetry as from all art

7.      The external sensible and even the inner imaginative pleasure are only first elements

8.      This pleasure of poetry must be refined in order to meet the highest requirements of the intelligence, the imagination and the ear

9.      Afterwards pleasure of poetry have to be still farther heightened and in their nature raised beyond even their own noblest levels, so that they may become the support for something greater beyond them

10.      This poetry can lead to the height on which lives the Mantra

11.      The soul is the deepest or highest recipients of the poetic delight

12.      The intelligence, the imagination, the ear are only poetic delight’s channels and instruments

13.      Therefore poetry has not really done its highest work, until it has raised the pleasure of the instrument and transmuted it into the deeper delight of the soul

14.      A divine Ananda, a spiritual joy is that which the soul of the poet feels and which he succeeds in pouring also into all those who are prepared to receive it

15.      This delight is not merely a godlike pastime; it is a great formative and illuminative power

16.      The privilege of the poet is to go beyond and discover that more intense illumination of speech, that inspired Word and supreme inevitable utterance

17.      In that inspired Word there meets the unity of a divine rhythmic movement with a depth of sense and a power of infinite suggestion welling up directly from the fountain-heads of the spirit within us

18.      The poet may not always find the inspired Word, but to seek for it is the highest trend of his utterance

19.      When the poet finds it, and cast into it some deeply revealed truth of the spirit itself, he utters the mantra

20.      The whole style and rhythm of poetry are the expression and movement which come from us out of a certain spiritual excitement caused by a vision in the soul of which it is eager to deliver itself

21.      The vision may be of anything in Nature or God or man or the life of creatures or the life of things; it may be a vision of force and action, or of sensible beauty, or of truth of thought, or of emotion and pleasure and pain, of

this life or the life beyond

22.      It is sufficient that it is the soul which sees and the eye, sense, heart and thought-mind become the passive instruments of the soul

23.      Then we get the real, the high poetry

24.      The Mantra, poetic expression of the deepest spiritual reality, is only possible when three highest intensities of poetic speech meet and become indissolubly one

25.      A highest intensity of rhythmic movement

26.      A highest intensity of inter woven verbal form and thought-substance, of style

27.      And a highest intensity of the soul’s vision of truth

28.      All great poetry comes about by a unison of these three elements

29.      It is the insufficiency of one or another which makes the inequalities in the work of even the greatest poets, and it is the failure of some one element which is the cause of their lapses

30.      But it is only at a certain highest level of the fused intensities that the Mantra becomes possible

31.      In English poetry Keats and Shelley had a real spiritual vision which has a certain power of revelation in it but the deeper vision is still coated up in something more external

32.      Sometimes the poetic intention of decorative beauty, sometimes with the more outward beauty, beauty of image, beauty of thought, beauty of emotion, the deeper intention of the spirit within, so that we have still to look for that beyond the image rather than are seized by it through the image

33.      In mantra the pleasure passes into or is rather drowned in the pure spiritual Ananda, the ecstasy of the creative, poetic revelation

34.      To arrive at the Mantra the poet may start from the colour of a rose, or the power or beauty of a character, or the splendour of an action, or go away from all these into his own secret soul and its most hidden movements

35.      The one thing needful to arrive at the Mantra is that he should be able to go beyond the Word or image he uses or the form of the thing he sees, not be limited by them, but get into the light of that which they have the power to reveal and flood them with it until they overflow with its suggestions or seem even to lose themselves and disappear into the revelation and the apocalypse

36.      At the highest he himself disappears into sight; the personality of the seer is lost in the eternity of the vision, and the Spirit of all seems alone to be there speaking out sovereignly its own secrets

37.      The pure intellect cannot create poetry

38.      The inspired or the imaginative reason does indeed play an important, sometimes a leading part, but even that can only be a support or an influence

39.      The Vedic poets said of the Mantra that the Word

must start first from a more intimate sense in the heart of the inner being, it is the spirit within and not the mind without that is the fount of poetry

40.      Poetry too is an interpreter of truth, but in the forms of an innate beauty, and not so much of intellectual truth, the truths offered by the critical mind, as of the intimate truth of being

41.      The Mantra is the highest and intensest revealing form of poetic thought and expression

42.      What the Vedic poets meant by the Mantra was an inspired and revealed seeing and visioned thinking, attended by a realisation of some inmost truth of God and self and man and Nature and cosmos and life

43.      The Mantra is born through the heart and shaped or massed by the thinking mind into a chariot of that godhead of the Eternal of whom the truth seen is a face or a form

44.      If our Word is a real Mantra; the sight of the inmost truth must accompany the hearing, the possession of the inmost spirit of it by the mind and its coming home to the soul must accompany or follow immediately upon the rhythmic message of the Word and the mind’s sight of the Truth

45.      Poetry is the Mantra only when it is the voice of the inmost truth and is couched in the highest power of the very rhythm and speech of that truth

46.      The ancient poets of the Veda and Upanishads

claimed to be uttering the Mantra because always it was this inmost and almost occult truth of things which they strove to see and hear and speak and because they believed themselves to be using or finding its innate soul rhythms and the sacrificial speech of it cast up by the divine Agni, the sacred Fire in the heart of man

47.      The Mantra in other words is a direct and most heightened, an intensest and most divinely burdened rhythmic Word which embodies an intuitive and revelatory inspiration and ensouls the mind with the sight and the presence of the very self, the inmost reality of things and with its truth and with the divine soul-forms of it, the Godheads which are born from the living Truth

48.      Mantra is a supreme rhythmic language which seizes hold upon all that is finite and brings into each the light and voice of its own infinite

49.      The Veda speaks in one of its symbolic hints of the fountain of eternal Truth round which stand the illumined powers of thought and life

50.      There under the eyes of delight and the face of imperishable beauty of the Mother of creation and bride of the eternal Spirit they lead their immortal dance

51.      The poet visits that marvellous source in his superconscient mind and brings to us some strain or some vision of her face and works

52.      To find the way into that circle with the waking self is to be the seer-poet and discover the highest power of

the inspired Word, the Mantra

53.      Speech has such a summit or absolute, a perfection which is the touch of the infinite upon its finite possibilities and the seal upon it of its Creator

54.      This absolute of the expressive Word is the Mantra

55.      Poetry in the hymns of the Veda has perfect expression of the Mantra

56.      The Mantra is the Word that carries the godhead in it or the power of the godhead, can bring it into the consciousness and fix there it and its workings, awaken there the thrill of the infinite, the force of something absolute, perpetuate the miracle of the supreme utterance

57.      Revelation is greater than inspiration

58.      Revelation brings the direct knowledge and seeing

59.      Inspiration gives the expression

60.      There is even an inspiration without revelation, when one gets the Word but the thing remains behind the veil

61.      It is better to get the sight of the thing itself than merely express it by an inspiration which comes from behind the veil, but this kind of poetry too has often a great light and power in it

62.      The highest inspiration brings the intrinsic Word, the spiritual mantra; but even where the inspiration is less than that, has a certain vagueness or fluidity of outline

63.      You cannot say of such mystic poetry that it has no inspiration, not the inspired Word at all

64.      Where there is no inspiration, there can be no poetry

65.      Only eloquence in poetry is a long way from the mantra

66.      The hushed intense receptivity of the seer is necessary for the mantra in poetry and not the play of mind

67.      The Word as in certain utterances of the great Scriptures like Veda, Upanishads, Gita, may well have a power to awaken a spiritual impulse, an uplifting, even certain kinds of realisation

68.      To say that Word cannot awaken a spiritual impulse contradicts spiritual experience

69.      The Vedic poets regarded their poetry as mantras, they were the vehicles of their own realisations and could become vehicles of realisation for others

70.      These poetries would be illuminations, not the settled and permanent realisation that is the goal of Yoga

71.      These poetries could be steps on the way or at least lights on the way

72.      Poetry is a question of the right concentrated silence or seeking somewhere in the mind with the right openness to the Word that is trying to express itself

73.      For the Word is there ready to descend in those inner planes where all artistic forms take birth

74.      But it is the transmitting mind that must change and become a perfect channel and not an obstacle

75.      The poems you are writing are certainly beyond what was your original capacity, for they belong to a range of experience to the Word of which you have opened by a development beyond your old mental self

76.      Your poetry rises in order to have free command of the highest planes of poetry, you have to rise into them and not only open to the Word from them

77.      This rising into the Word is not a proof of incapacity but of the will to greater things

78.      Only that will must not be in the mind only but take full hold of the vital also and must be a will that what you write of shall be a part not only of thought but of life

79.      A Yogi who writes is not a literary man for he writes only what the inner Will and Word wants him to express

80.      A Yogi is a channel and an instrument of something greater than his own literary personality

XLVIII—Mantras Written by Sri Aurobindo

1.      OM anandamayi chaitanyamayi satyamayi parme

2.      Om Tat Sat Jyotir Arvinda

3.      OM Satyam Jnanam Jyotir Arvinda

4.      Tat savitur varam rupam jyotih parasya dhimahi, yannah satyena dipayet

5.      Let us meditate on the most auspicious (best) form

of Savitri, on the Light of the Supreme which shall illumine us with the Truth

6.      From the non-being to true being,

From the darkness to the Light,

From death to Immortality.

OM Peace! Peace! Peace! (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, I.3.28)

Sri Aurobindo wrote: ‘tathastu’ ‘So be it’

7.      OM Sri Aurobindo Mira

Open mind, my heart, my life to your Light, your Love, your Power. In all things may I see the Divine

8.      Let my Peace be always with you. Let your mind be calm and open; let your vital nature be calm and responsive; let your physical consciousness be a quiet and exact instrument, calm in action and silence. Let there be my light and Power and Peace upon you; let there be ever Power and Light and Peace

9.      In the night as in the day be always with me.

In sleep as in waking let me feel in me always the reality of your presence.

Let it sustain and make to grow in me Truth, consciousness and bliss constantly and at all times

XLIX—Reviving Mantra Bande Mataram

1.      Mantra of Bande Mataram changed the people of

the province of Bengal to become fearless

2.      The hero, the Rishi, the saint, are the natural fruits of our Indian soil; and there has been no age in which they have not been born

3.      Among the Rishis we have at last realised that we must include the name of the man who gave us the reviving mantra which is creating a new India, the mantra Bande Mataram

4.      A great and vivifying message had to be given to a nation or to humanity; and God has chosen Bankim’s mouth on which to shape the Words of the message

5.      A momentous vision had to be revealed; and it is his eyes which the Almighty first unseals

6.      The message which he has received, the vision which has been vouchsafed to him, he declares to the world with all the strength that is in him

7.      In one supreme moment of inspiration expresses it in words which have merely to be uttered to stir men’s inmost natures, clarify their minds, seize their hearts and impel them to things which would have been impossible to them in their ordinary moments

8.      Those words are the mantra which he was born to reveal and of that mantra he is the seer

9.      Bankim with his latter works will rank among the Makers of Modern India

10.      The earlier Bankim was only a poet and stylist but the later Bankim was a seer and nation-builder

11.      The supreme service of Bankim to his nation was that he gave us the vision of our Mother

12.      The bare intellectual idea of the Motherland is not in itself a great driving force

13.      It is not till the Motherland reveals herself to the eye of the mind as something more than a stretch of earth or a mass of individuals

14.      It is not till the Motherland takes shape as a great Divine and Maternal Power in a form of beauty that can dominate the mind and seize the heart that petty fears and hopes vanish in the all-absorbing passion for the Mother and her service, and the patriotism that works miracles and saves a doomed nation

15.      To some men it is given to have that vision and reveal it to others

16.      Bankim wrote this great song Bande Mataram

17.      In a sudden moment of awakening from long delusions the people of Bengal looked round for the truth and in a fated moment somebody sang Bande Mataram

18.      The mantra had been given and in a single day a whole people had been converted to the religion of patriotism

19.      The Mother had revealed herself

20.      Once that vision has come to a people, there can be no rest, no peace, no farther slumber till the temple has been made ready, the image installed and the sacrifice offered

21.      A great nation which has had that vision can never again bend its neck in subjection to the yoke of a conqueror

22.      The song ‘Bande Mataram’ is stuffed with mighty power, being a sacred mantra, revealed to us by the author of Anandamath, who might be called an inspired Rishi

23.      The mantra had been revealed to Bankim Chandra, probably by a sannyasi under whose teaching he was

24.      This mantra was not an invention, but a revivification of the old mantra which became extinct

25.      The mantra of Bankim Chandra was not appreciated in his own day and he predicted that there would come a time when the whole of India would resound with the singing of the song, and the Word of the prophet was miraculously fulfilled

26.      When great people rise from the dust, there is a mantra which is the sanjivani mantra or the power of the mantra is the resurrecting force of its resurgence

27.      In India there are two great mantras

28.      The mantra of ‘Bande Mataram’ which is the public and universal cry of awakened love of Motherland

29.      And there is another more secret and mystic which is not yet revealed

30.      The mantra of ‘Bande Mataram’ is a mantra once before given to the world by the Sannyasins of the Vindhya hills

31.      It was lost by the treachery of our own countrymen because the nation was not then ripe for resurgence and a premature awakening would have brought about a speedy downfall

32.      But when in the great earthquake of 1897 there was a voice heard by the Sannyasins, and they were conscious of the decree of God that India should rise again, the mantra was again revealed to the world

33.      It was echoed in the hearts of the people, and when the cry had ripened in silence in a few great hearts, the whole nation became conscious of the revelation

34.      Who imagined when the people of Bengal rose in 1905 against the Partition that that was the beginning of a great upheaval?

35.      It is a passing tempest, said the wise men of England, let it go over our heads and we will wait. But the tempest did not pass, nor the thunders cease

36.      When Bankim discovered the mantra Bande Mataram and the song wrote itself out through his pen, he felt that he had been divinely inspired, but the people heard his song and felt nothing

37.      Bankim said wait for thirty years and all India will know the value of the song

38.      Then after thirty years Bengal heard the song, her ears have suddenly been opened to a voice to which she had been deaf and her heart filled with a light to which she had been blind

39.      The Mother of the hymn is no new goddess, but the same whom we have always worshipped

40.      Only she has put off the world-form in which she was familiar to us, she has assumed a human shape of less terrible aspect, less fierce and devastating power to attract her children back to her bosom

41.      Sri Aurobindo had found that with the ideal of Swaraj to uphold and the mantra of ‘Bande Mataram’ in the heart, there was nothing so very terrible in jail or deportation

42.      The 7th of August was the birthday of the boycott, the birthday of the new spirit in India

43.      Only once more to utter the sacred mantra of ‘Bande Mataram’, once more to declare that India was not lifeless, that Bengal was faithful to the vow she had made

44.      It was Bengal on which the burden of the struggle fell because she first had preached the Gospel and she first had had the courage to bear suffering for the Gospel

45.      Therefore God had given them the privilege to bear the greater part of the suffering

46.      By so doing He had shown a great love towards Bengal

47.      The fate of India was with the Bengalis

L—Reciting the book The Mother

1.      Reciting the book The Mother can be done if it helps

2.      It does not matter reciting the book The Mother or the Gita is mental for these things often help the mind to get into the psychic attitude

LI—Supermind or Gnosis is the Supreme Word

1.      Supermind or Gnosis is the supreme Truth, the supreme Thought, the supreme Word

LII—Repeating Mantra for Better Sleep

1.      To have better sleep first totaly relax and then make a self-giving of yourself

2.      Then you begin repeating your mantra or any Word which has a power for you, a Word leaping forth from the heart spontaneously, like a prayer, a Word which sums up your aspiration

3.      After repeating mantra a certain number of times, if you are accustomed to do so, you enter into trance

4.      And from that trance you pass into sleep

5.      When you come back from this sleep, you remember everything; the sleep was like a continuation of the trance

6.      The sole purpose of sleep is to enable the body to assimilate the effect of the trance so that the effect may

be received everywhere

7.      Even for those who have never been in trance, it is good to repeat a mantra, a Word, a prayer before going into sleep

8.      But there must be a life in the Words; that does not mean an intellectual significance, but a vibration

9.      Its effect on the body is extraordinary, it begins to vibrate, and quietly you let yourself go to go to sleep

LIII—Use of a Mantra in Special Circumstances

1.      This is not a case of ordinary madness, but, as your brother himself feels, an attack of evil forces

2.      When the light descended into him, there was something in his brain that was not prepared or able to bear the descent and this gave the opportunity for the attack and the overthrow of the equilibrium

3.      It may be possible to set matters right without any personal contact

4.      He should repeat as a mantram the words contained in the enclosed paper, which he should not reveal to others after concentrating on the sign above it

5.      He should repeat three times a day, the three Sandhyas, twelve times in all, and also whenever attacked

LIV—Each Verse of Sri Aurobindo’s Epic Savitri Is a Mantra

1.      Each Verse of Savitri Is like a Revealed Mantra

1. Each verse of Savitri is like a revealed Mantra which surpasses all that man possesses by way of knowledge

2. The words are expressed and arranged in such a manner that the sonority of the rhythm leads you to the origin of sound, which is OM

2.      Savitri is a mantra for the transformation of the world

3.      What is there in the Epic Savitri

1. Everything is there in Savitri: mysticism, occultism, philosophy, the history of evolution, the history of man, of the gods, of creation, of Nature; how the universe was created, why, for what purpose, what destiny, all is there

2. You can find there all the answers to all your questions, everything is explained, even the future of man and of the evolution, all that nobody yet knows

3. Sri Aurobindo has expressed them in beautiful and clear words so that spiritual adventurers who wish to solve the mysteries of the world may understand it more easily

4. But the mystery is well hidden behind the lines and one must rise to the required level of true consciousness to discover it

5. All the prophecies, all that is going to happen is presented with a precise and wonderful clarity

6. Sri Aurobindo gives you here the key to find the Truth, to discover the Consciousness, to solve the problem of what the universe is

7. He has also indicated how he has opened the door of the Inconscience so that the light may penetrate there to transform it

8. He has shown the path, how to liberate oneself from the Ignorance and to climb up to the  super conscience; each stage, each plane of consciousness, how one can scale them, how one can cross the very barrier of death and attain Immortality

9. You will find the entire route in detail, and as you go forward you can discover things altogether unknown to man

10. That is what Savitri is and yet much more. It is truly an experience, reading Savitri

11. All the secrets that man possesses, he has revealed them, as well as all that awaits him in the future; all this is found in the depths of Savitri; but one must have the knowledge to discover them, the experience of the planes of consciousness, the experience of the Supermind, even the experience of the conquest of Death

12. He has noted all the stages, marked each step needed in order to advance in an integral way in the integral Yoga

13. All this is Sri Aurobindo’s own experience, and what is most surprising is that it is also the Mother’s own experience

14. It is the Mother’s sadhana which is described

15. Each object, each event, each realisation, all the descriptions, even the colours are exactly what the Mother saw and the words, phrases are also exactly what she heard

16. Savitri is the picture of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother’s adventure together into the unknown or rather into the Supermind

17. Savitri is his whole Yoga of transformation, and this Yoga, it is for the first time that we see it appear in the earth-consciousness

18. Man is not yet ready to receive it, it is too high and too vast for him, he cannot understand it, grasp it, for it is not by the mind that one can understand Savitri

19. One needs spiritual experiences in order to understand and assimilate it

20. It is something which will be appreciated only in the future, it is the poetry of tomorrow of which Sri Aurobindo has spoken in The Future Poetry

21. It is too subtle, too refined, it is not in the mind or by the mind, it is in meditation that Savitri is revealed

22. It is only the new race with a new consciousness which will be able to understand Savitri

23. Savitri is the mystery of mysteries, it is the super-epic, it is super-literature, super-poetry, super-vision, it is a super-work

24. There are no proper adjectives to describe what Savitri is

25. Savitri is of immense value, spiritual value

26. The more you come in contact with Savitri, the higher will you be lifted up

27. Truly Savitri is most beautiful thing Sri Aurobindo has left for man, the highest possible

4.      How to Read Savitri

1. It does not matter if you do not understand Savitri, read it always

2. You will see that every time you read it, something new will be revealed to you

3. Each time you will get a new glimpse, each time a new experience; things which were not there, things you did not understand arise and suddenly become clear

4. Always an unexpected vision comes up through the words and lines

5. But you must not read it as you read other books or newspapers

6. You must read with an empty head, a blank and vacant mind, without there being any other thought; you must concentrate much, remain empty, calm and open

7. Then the words, rhythms, vibrations will penetrate directly to this white page, will put their stamp upon the brain, will explain themselves without your making any effort

8. Savitri alone is sufficient to make you climb to the highest peaks

9. If truly one knows how to meditate on Savitri, one will receive all the help one needs

10. For one who wishes to follow this path, it is a visible help, as though the Lord himself were taking you by the hand and leading you to the destined goal

11. And then, every question, however personal it may be, has its answer here, every difficulty finds here its solution, indeed there is everything that is necessary for doing the Yoga

12. He has crammed the whole universe in a single book

13. Savitri is a revelation, it is a meditation, it is a quest of the Infinite, of the Eternal

14. If it is read with this aspiration for Immortality, the reading itself will serve as a guide towards Immortality

15. To read Savitri is indeed to practise Yoga, spiritual concentration

16. One can find there all that is needed to realise the Divine

17. Each step of Yoga is noted here, including the secret of all other Yogas

18. Surely, if one follows sincerely what is revealed here in each verse one will finally reach the transformation of Supramental Yoga

19. It is truly the infallible guide who never abandons you; its support is always there for him who wants to follow the path

20. Everyday you are going to read Savitri; read properly, with the right attitude, concentrating a little before opening the pages and trying to keep the mind as empty as possible, absolutely without a thought

21. The direct road is through the heart

22. If you try to really concentrate with this aspiration you can light the flame, the psychic flame, the flame of purification in a very short time, perhaps in a few days

23. What you cannot do normally, you will do it with the help of Savitri

24. Try and you will see how very different it is, how new, if you read with this attitude, with this something at the back of your consciousness; as though it were an offering to Sri Aurobindo

25. Savitri is charged, fully charged with consciousness; as though Savitri were a being, a real Guide

26. Whoever wants to practice Yoga, if he tries sincerely and feels the necessity, he will be able to climb with the help of Savitri to the highest rung of the ladder of Yoga, will be able to find the secret that Savitri represents

27. And this without the help of a Guru, and he will be able to practise it anywhere

28. Savitri by itself will be his guide, for all that he needs he will find in Savitri

29. If he remains absolutely quiet when he is faced with a difficulty, he will have the necessary indications, and the necessary concrete help

30. If he has faith, the will to give himself and essential sincerity, he will reach the final goal

31. Indeed, Savitri is something concrete, living, it is all replete, packed with consciousness, it is the supreme knowledge above all human philosophies, all human religions

32. Savitri is the spiritual path, it is Yoga, Tapasya, Sadhana, everything, in its single body

33. Savitri has an extraordinary power, it sends out vibrations for him who can receive them, the true vibrations of each stage of consciousness

34. Savitri is incomparable, it is truth in its plenitude, the Truth Sri Aurobindo brought down on the earth

35. One must try to find the secret that Savitri represents, the prophetic message Sri Aurobindo reveals there for us

36. This is the work before you, it is hard but it is worth the trouble

5.      About the Conversations with Mona Sarkar on Savitri

i.      The Mother spoke to Mona Sarkar about how to kindle the psychic Flame and then in this connection started speaking about Sri Aurobindo's great epic Savitri and continued to speak at length

ii.      The disciple after nearly seven years, felt a strong urge to note down what the Mother had spoken

iii.      So in he wrote down from memory a report

iv.      The report was seen by the Mother and a few corrections were made by her

v.      To another disciple the Mother told that what Mona Sarkar had written about Savitri was correct on the whole

6.      The Verse about Mantra From Savitri

i.      The verse about mantra is on page 375 of Savitri

ii.      It starts with the line ‘As when the mantra sinks in Yoga's ear,’

iii.      And ends with the line ‘An equal greatness in her life was sown.’

7.      Savitri was in intention a sort of symbolic epic of the aim of supramental Yoga

8.      Savitri Has a General Overmind Influence

i.      The poem Savitri was originally written from a lower level, a mixture perhaps of the inner mind, psychic, poetic intelligence, sublimised vital

ii.      Afterwards Savitri was rewritten with the Higher Mind, often illumined and intuitivised, intervening

iii.      Most of the stuff of the first book is new or else the old so altered as to be no more what it was; the best of the old has sometimes been kept almost intact because it had already the higher inspiration

iv.      Moreover there have been made successive revisions each trying to lift the general level higher and higher towards a possible Overmind poetry

v.      As it now stands there is a general Overmind influence

vi.      Sri Aurobindo believes that Savitri sometimes comes fully through, sometimes colouring the poetry of the other higher planes fused together, sometimes lifting any one of these higher planes to its highest or the psychic, poetic intelligence or vital towards them

vii.      Sri Aurobindo made changes from earlier draft of Savitri as inspiration pointed out to him so that nothing shall fall below the minimum height which he had fixed for it

viii.      Sri Aurobindo used Savitri as a means of ascension

ix.      He began with it on a certain mental level, each time he could reach a higher level he rewrote from that level

x.      Sri Aurobindo was particular that if a part seemed to him to come from any lower level, he was not satisfied to leave it because it was good poetry

xi.      All had to be as far as possible of the same mint

xii.      In fact, Savitri has not been regarded by Sri Aurobindo as a poem to be written and finished

xiii.      But as a field of experimentation to see how far poetry could be written from one’s own Yogic consciousness and how that could be made creative

xiv.      Savitri is a sort of poetic philosophy of the Spirit and of Life much profounder in its substance and vaster in its scope than was intended in the original poem

xv.      Sri Aurobindo has kept Savitri at a very high level of inspiration

xvi.      But in so large a plan covering most subjects of philosophical thought and vision and many aspects of spiritual experience there is bound to be much variation of tone

xvii.      But that is necessary for the richness and completeness of the treatment

9.      Few Lines from Savitri Having Overmind Intuition

i.      The lines that are a snatch of the sheer Overmind starts with ‘All in her pointed to a nobler kind.’

ii.      And ends with the line ‘And moved in her as in his natural home.’

iii.      This passage is what Sri Aurobindo might call the Overmind Intuition at work expressing itself in something like its own rhythm and language

iv.      A sadhak had asked Sri Aurobindo to give lines from English poetry having inspiration of the pure Overmind

v.      Sri Aurobindo gave him the opening lines from Savitri having a poor substitute for the Overmental

vi.      The lines starting with

vii.      ‘It was the hour before the Gods awake.’ and ending with ‘A gate of dreams ajar on mystery’s verge.’

10.      Savitri is represented in the poem Savitri as an incarnation of the Divine Mother

LV— Other Quotations on Japa, Mantra and Word

In this Yoga obedience to the divine Will, not assertion of self-will, is the very first mantra

In Yoga keep the mantra of success

The chief mantra of Buddhism insists on śaraṇam to Buddha

It was the Yatudhani and the Rakshasi who sent their hoarse cry over France, adding to the luminous mantra, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, the stern and terrible addition ‘or Death’

Death to the Asura, death to all who oppose God’s evolution that was the meaning

Sri Aurobindo had always used the word freedom because it has been the mantra of his life to aspire towards the freedom of his nation

And when Sri Aurobindo was last in jail he clung to that mantra; and through the mouth of his counsel he used this word freedom persistently

What his counsel said was that if to aspire to independence and preach freedom is a crime you may cast him into jail and there bind him with chains

If to preach freedom is a crime then he is a criminal and let him be punished

But freedom does not mean the use of violence, it does not mean bombs; it is the fulfilment of our separate national existence

The Vedic Word is described as that which is supreme and the topmost height of speech, the best and the most faultless

The Vedic Word is something that is hidden in secrecy and from there comes out and is manifested

The Vedic Word has entered into the truth-seers, the Rishis, and it is found by following the track of their speech

But all cannot enter into its secret meaning

Those who do not know the inner sense are as men who seeing see not, hearing hear not

Those unable to drink steadily of the milk of the Word, the Vedic cow, move with it as with one that gives no milk

Those who do not know the inner sense to them the Word is a tree without flowers or fruits

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