Quotes by
Sri Aurobindo |
1872-1950 , Indian nationalist, yogi & philosopher
An Indian philosopher, yogi, seer, poet, and Indian nationalist who propounded a philosophy of divine life on earth through spiritual evolution. He joined the Indian movement for independence and for a while was one of its influential leaders. Later he became a spiritual reformer, introducing his visions on human progress and spiritual evolution.In 1926, with the help of his spiritual collaborator, Mirra Alfassa (referred to as "The Mother"), he founded the Sri Aurobindo Ashram.
His main literary works are The Life Divine, dealing with theoretical aspects of Integral Yoga; Synthesis of Yoga, a practical guide on Integral Yoga; and Savitri: A Legend and a Symbol, an epic poem.
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Quotations
| • | What is God after all? An eternal child playing an eternal game in an eternal garden. 7 |
| • | A God who cannot smile, could not have created this humorous universe. 6 |
| • | Each victory gained over oneself means new strength to gain more victories. 5 |
| • | A thought is an arrow shot at the truth; it can hit a point, but not cover the whole target. But the archer is too well satisfied with his success to ask anything farther. 4 |
| • | Faith is the soul’s witness to something not yet manifested, achieved or realised, but which yet the Knower within us, even in the absence of all indications, feels to be true or supremely worth following or achieving. 4 |
| • | My love is not a hunger of the heart, My love is not a craving of the flesh; It came to me from God, to God returns. 3 |
| • | An aimless life is always a troubled life. Every individual should have an aim. But do not forget that the quality of your aim will depend the quality of your life. Your aim should be high and wide, generous and disinterested; this will make your life precious to yourself and to others. 3 |
| • | Genius discovers a system; average talent stereotypes it till it is shattered by fresh genius. 3 |
| • | That which we call the Hindu religion is really the Eternal religion because it embraces all others. 3 |
| • | Forgiveness is praised by the Christian and the Vaishnava, but for me, I ask, “What have I to forgive and whom?” 3 |
| • | Life is life –whether in a cat, or dog or man. There is no difference there between a cat or a man. The idea of difference is a human conception for man's own advantage. |
| • | What the soul sees and has experienced, that it knows; the rest is appearance, prejudice and opinion. |
| • | Pain is the hammer of the Gods to break a dead resistance in the mortal’s heart. |
| • | A quiet mind does not mean that there will be no thoughts or mental movements at all, but that these will be on the surface, and you will feel your true being within, separate from them, observing but not carried away. |
| • | Sin and virtue are a game of resistance we play with God in His efforts to draw us towards perfection. The sense of virtue helps us to cherish our sins in secret. |
| • | Very usually, altruism is only the sublimest form of selfishness. |
| • | There is nothing small in God’s eyes; let there be nothing small in thine. |
| • | If Hell were possible, it would be the shortest cut to the highest heaven. For verily God loveth. |
| • | The supreme state of human love is the unity of one soul in two bodies. |
| • | The soul in man is greater than his fate. |
| • | One mighty deed can change the course of things; a lonely thought becomes omnipotent. |
| • | Our actual enemy is not any force exterior to ourselves, but our own crying weaknesses, our cowardice, our selfishness, our hypocrisy, our purblind sentimentalism. |
| • | Man’s freedom is relative and it cannot be held solely responsible for the imperfection of his nature. |
| • | If a religion is not universal, it cannot be eternal. A narrow religion, a sectarian religion, an exclusive religion can live only for a limited time and a limited purpose. |
| • | Turn all things to honey; this is the law of divine living. |
| • | By your stumbling, the world is perfected. |
| • | Evolution is not finished; reason is not the last word nor the reasoning animal the supreme figure of Nature. As man emerged out of the animal, so out of man the superman emerges. |
| • | True knowledge is not attained by thinking. It is what you are; it is what you become. |
| • | My God is love and sweetly suffers all. |
| • | Do not belong to the past dawns, but to the noons of future. |
| • | When mind is still, then truth gets her chance to be heard in the purity of the silence. |
| • | The whole world yearns after freedom, yet each creature is in love with his chains; this is the first paradox and inextricable knot of our nature. |
| • | In order to see, you have to stop being in the middle of the picture. |
| • | Peace is the first condition, without which nothing else can be stable. |
| • | When Reason died, then Wisdom was born. |
| • | Evolution of consciousness is the central motive of terrestrial existence. |
| • | The first and the most important thing is to know that life is one and immortal. Only the forms, countless in number, are transient and brittle. The life everlasting is independent of any form but manifests itself in all forms. Life then does not die... but the forms are dissolved. |
| • | Detachment is the beginning of mastery. |
| • | Sit in meditation ! But do not think ! Look only at your mind ! You will see thoughts coming into it ! Before they can enter, throw these away from your mind till your mind is capable of entire silence. |
| • | The only work that spiritually purifies us is that which is done without personal motives. |
| • | The consciousness of the seer, is a greater power for knowledge than the consciousness of the thinker. The perceptual power of the inner sight is greater and more direct than the perceptual power of thought. |
| • | The practice of Yoga brings us face to face with the extraordinary complexity of our own being. |
| • | That within us which seeks to know and to progress is not the mind but something behind it which makes use of it. |
| • | Knowledge gropes but meets not Wisdom’s face. |
| • | The mind has these four levels: physical, vital, buddhi, higher mind. The Supermind is far above these. |
| • | The cup has to be left clean and empty for the divine liquor to be poured into it. |
| • | To listen to some devout people, one would imagine that God never laughs. |
| • | Care not for time and success. Act out thy part, whether it be to fail or to prosper. |
| • | To doubt the experience is to discourage it. Let it be developed, see what is in it. |
| • | Yoga is a generic name for any discipline by which one attempts to pass out of the limits of one’s ordinary mental consciousness into a greater spiritual consciousness. |
| • | To hope for a true change of human life without a change of human nature is an irrational and unspiritual proposition. |
| • | But difficulties were made to be overcome and if the Supreme Will is there, they will be overcome. |
| • | The Atheist is God playing at hide and seek with Himself; but is the Theist any other? Well, perhaps; for he has seen the shadow of God and clutched at it. |
| • | Live according to Nature, runs the maxim of the West; but according to what nature, the nature of the body or the nature which exceeds the body? This first we ought to determine. |
| • | What men call knowledge, is the reasoned acceptance of false appearances. Wisdom looks behind the veil and sees. |
| • | Rather hang thyself than belong to the horde of successful imitators. |
| • | The inside must be made entirely calm and quiet and there should reign an upward aspiration – a state of awaiting. |
| • | And, in order to possess the Truth, the plays of the lower nature must be stopped. |
| • | There is a knowledge in the heart of sleep. |
| • | War is a dangerous teacher and physical victory leads often to a moral defeat. |
| • | Turkey, Japan do great work because they can keep under control their little personal selfishness, egoism, jealousy, etc. when they get down to work. |
Quotes in Verse
| • | Only when Eternity takes Time by the hand, Only when infinity weds the finite's thought, Can man be free from himself and live with God. |
| • | The great are strongest when they stand alone, A God-given might of being is their force. |
| • | But few are those who tread the sunlit path; Only the pure in soul can walk in light. |
