They Wander In Many Disguises
Once, a God-intoxicated sadhu came to the Kali temple. One day he received no food, but, though feeling hungry, he did not ask for any. Seeing a dog eating the remnants of a feast thrown away in a corner, he...
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Articles, Mar 2021
Song Of The Sanyasin
Wake up the note! the song that had its birth Far off, where worldly taint could never reach, In mountain caves and glades of forest deep, Whose calm no sigh for lust or wealth or fame Could ever dare to...
Beyond Name
Parables from the Upanishads Rishi Sanatkumara was once approached by Narada (evidently not yet become a Rishi), who said, "Lord, I desire to be taught by you. Please teach me." The Rishi replied,"Very well, but first tell me how much...
A Consciousness-based Approach
The Tent-House of Matter The modern scientific view of the human body is taken so much for granted that we hardly ever pause to consider that the body could be viewed from so many other standpoints. There is little doubt...
A Dream
There should be somewhere on earth a place which no nation could claim as its own, where all human beings of goodwill who have a sincere aspiration could live freely as citizens of the world and obey one single authority,...
The Goal
(Excerpted from a talk delivered in San Francisco, March 1900. The format of this article has been slightly altered for convenience of reading — Ed.) Monism We find that man, as it were, is always surrounded by something greater than...
Gujarat Riots – The Facts and the Truth
How is it that the same players, with the same strategy, the same tactics, the same ploys, the same stories, and the same accomplices keep fooling us again and again…. and again? Thankfully, they chose to do this against the...
Articles, Feb 2021
The Real Miracle
Devdas was an ordinary man living an ordinary life in the city of Benares. He used to work as an accountant for a wealthy merchant. One day, while walking back from work, he decided to go the river bank and...
The Human Body: A Mystery’s Workshop
We are so used to seeing the body so much as organs, tissues, cells and their functions that we fail to observe any consciousness inherent in it. Is the body something unconscious, a machine driven by mechanical energy? It may...
The Coming and Going of All Things
(Addressed to government officers and published in the Yoga Vedanta Forest Weekly of Feb. 2, 1950.) "In the beginning, there was knowledge, but there was no knowledge of another. Then came the knowledge of another, but not the knowledge of...
Practical Vedanta
Continuing Excerpts from His Speech Delivered in London, 10th November 1896 To be able to use what we call Viveka (discrimination), to learn how in every moment of our lives, in every one of our actions, to discriminate between...
She Whom We Adore as the Mother
The Mother In Her Own Words I belong to no nation, no civilization, no society, no race, but to the Divine. I obey no master, no ruler, no law, no social convention, but the Divine. To Him I have surrendered...
February 21, The Mother’s Birthday
A Look Behind and Ahead On one 21st of February in the last 1950's, I repeated to the Mother the usual English formula for a birthday: “Many happy returns." Immediately, half-jocular, half-serious, she exclaimed: "What! You want me to return...
At the Feet of the Mother
There are two statements, which I hear from many of my friends in the ashram, around here and many places. “We are all doing the Mother’s work”, this one statement I hear very often. The second is, “The Mother will...
Pseudologia Fantastica
“It is true, O Rama, that the study of the scriptures is not the cause for the attainment of self-knowledge. Scriptures are composed of diverse expressions; the supreme being is indescribable” explained Rishi Vashisht to Shri Ram, as the 16-year-old seeker...
Invoking Sri Aurobindo’s Truth
There are moments when the Spirit moves among men and the breath of the Lord is abroad upon the waters of our being; there are others when it retires and men are left to act in the strength or the...
The Human Body – a Spiritual View
There is a scientist’s way of looking at the human body and there is a spiritual way to look at it. The two views, though different due to a difference in the angle of the vision, are nevertheless mutually complimentary...
The Hijacking Of Shivaji’s Legacy
Marathas should not only be proud that Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj was a Maratha, but they should also acknowledge that he has had a lasting influence on the Marathi psyche, which makes their people more nationalistic and self confident than those...
Kali Puja – Living the Moment
Achieving but a moment of awareness is a constant struggle. Think of a child who sits on the back of a moving wagon watching the cracks in the road recede into the distance. Moments in time, like those swiftly passing...
Articles, Jan 2021
Republic Day Violence
“We have to make it unequivocally clear that public ways and public spaces cannot be occupied in such a manner and that too indefinitely. Democracy and dissent go hand in hand, but then the demonstrations expressing dissent have to be...
Practical Vedanta
Continuing Excerpts from His Speech Delivered in London, 10th November 1896 Take the idea of sin. I was telling you just now the Vedantic idea of it, and the other idea is that man is a sinner. They are...
Khalsa and India
Identity establishes the attachment for survival. If you identify with something, anything for that matter, its loss will define your existence. In your mind. One, who is free and liberated has no time or need for that. Protection can never...
Food Offering to the Lord
The Legend of Gunderao There was once a Brahmin farmer. His name was Gunderao. He was completely illiterate. He never even moved out of his small village. He had accepted his lot and led a quiet life of contentment. There...
An Unreal Moment for Our Nation
Posted on January 27, 2021 In every nation’s history a moment comes suddenly when its people experience a moment that seems totally unreal, a moment of deja vu that people thought would never happen yet it does and does so with...
Self-Effort and Divine Grace
At one time or another in life, most people begin to reflect upon whether they truly have freedom to act or whether they are just pre-destined by the past. In Yoga Vasistha, Sage Vasistha tells Rama that self-effort will lead...
Health – The Spiritual Perspective
Introduction The recognition of a spiritual dimension of health by the World Health Organization (WHO) has indeed been a landmark event. It is doubtful, however, that the full import and significance of this fundamental aspect of human existence has been grasped...
Buddha’s Path is to Experience Reality
Condensed from a public talk given by S. N. Goenka in Bangkok, Thailand in September, 1989. Most Venerable Bhikkhu Sangha, friends, devotees of Lord Buddha: You have all assembled here to understand what Vipassana is and how it helps...
Maharana Hammir
The Obstinate Regainer of Chittor The story of this great Maharana again reinforces the observation that the saga of survival and ascendance of kings to the throne of Mewar in this Sisodia dynasty has been quite bizarre, and how fate...
Practical Vedanta
Excerpts from His Speech Delivered in London, 10th November 1896. I have been asked to say something about the practical position of the Vedanta philosophy. As I have told you, theory is very good indeed, but how are we to...
The Essence of Raja Yoga
Raja Yoga literally means “Royal Yoga,” because it presents a royal road to the integration of personality and attainment of Liberation. Being universal in nature, Raja Yoga gives a deep insight into the mind and its powers, and into the...
But I Had To Accept Her At Last!
How I used to hate Kali! And all Her ways! That was the ground of my six years’ fight — that I would not accept Her. But I had to accept Her at last! Ramakrishna Paramahamsa dedicated me to Her,...
The Chess Game
A young man who had a bitter disappointment in life went to a remote monastery and said to the abbot: "I am disillusioned with life and wish to attain enlightenment to be freed from these sufferings. But I have no...
The Hour of God
There are moments when the Spirit moves among men and the breath of the Lord is abroad upon the waters of our being; there are others when it retires and men are left to act in the strength or the...
The Unfinished Agenda of Spirituality
I wish to discuss here a new spirituality, a spirituality which has discarded its old limitations and inhibitions but still draws on its ancient roots and whose aim is the perfection of human life on earth. Sri Aurobindo and his...
Maharana Saanga
The King Who Rode His Misfortunes to Glory The third child of Maharana Raimall, Rana Saanga’s story of ascent to the throne of Mewar and the subsequent struggles and victories form the most intriguing saga ever to be found around...
Articles, Dec 2020
The Future of Religion
A growing number of people, millions worldwide, say they believe that life definitively ends at death – that there is no God, no afterlife and no divine plan. And it’s an outlook that could be gaining momentum – despite its...
The Boon of Boons
It was a dark rainy night. The King was riding through a narrow lane. He was in disguise. He was in the habit of dressing as a common man and seeing how his subjects lived. He got thoroughly drenched by...
An Old Chaldean Legend
Long, long ago, in the dry land which is now Arabia, a divine being incarnated upon earth to awaken in it the supreme love. As expected it was persecuted by men, misunderstood, suspected, pursued. Mortally wounded by its assailants, it wanted...
Sri Aurobindo, the True Father of Undivided India
If Gandhi is the Father of Divided India, then Sri Aurobindo is the Father of Akhanda Bharat or Undivided India. Or shall we call him our Rashtrapitamah? For Akhanda Bharat is truly the vision of Sri Aurobindo. He enunciated this...
Pratap’s Ascendance to Throne
The Fortification Of Mewar Rana Udai Singh died at the young age of forty-nine at Gogoonda, four years after the loss of Chittor. He left behind 25 sons, all from royal blood and thus laid a fertile ground for a...
Sthitaprajna
Only he who is thus established in the prajna will be able to make the final leap to the anamayam padam, the Sorrowless State, with any hope of success, and, in order to attain this union with the buddhi the...
Sri Ramakrishna
A Short Account of His Life and Teachings On February 18, 1836, was born in India a God-man, who has come to be known as Sri Ramakrishna — a name which spontaneously evokes in the minds of millions of Hindus heart-full adoration...
Yoga: The Union of Subject and Object
(Spoken on September 15, 1995) Our subject will be what is known as the System of Yoga. As you are all aware, the word ‘yoga’ has been exercising a kind of mesmerising effect on the minds of people; everyone seems...
Sankhya and Sri Aurobindo
Involution and Evolution of Consciousness The Sankhya system begins with consciousness and shows how it systematically fragments and becomes more dense until it is fully involved in Matter. Sri Aurobindo reminds us that there is an intense, concentrated involved intelligence which...
The Evolution of Sankhya
Sankhya darshana is a distinctive contribution of India to world philosophy. It is a pity that it is not studied globally since it impacts not only metaphysics, but psychology, cosmogony, epistemology and soteriology. And it is one of the singular...
A Pathway towards Immortality
November 24, 1926, was the day on which Sri Aurobindo went into seclusion for concentrated Yogic work towards the creation of a new humanity. In the forefront he put, as guru and guide to his disciples, one whom he regarded...
Growth of Consciousness
The body can change by the power of consciousness from within. In fact, we see this happening more often than we believe. A blind man performs the function of sight by the development of other organs. The consciousness involved in...
The Message of Sri Aurobindo
Sri Aurobindo was a political and social rebel and in the process of his transformation to a sage delineated highly inspiring supramental pathways to the future and Indian resurgence. Why is it that of all the great civilisations that arose on...
The Passing of Sri Aurobindo
5th December marks the day Sri Aurobindo, the Maharishi of Sanatan Dharma and the Guru of Integral Yoga, left his body in a supreme act of Yogic sacrifice. While it may take many years for the inner significance of his...
Yusuf and the Little Mouse
Once upon a time there was a Mahatma who was a great ascetic and a great pandit. He was honoured by all, full of years and wisdom. His name was Junun. Many young boys, many young men used to come...
My Yoga and Spirituality
Sri Aurobindo wrote a letter to his younger brother, Barin Ghosh in 1920, explaining, among other things, his Yoga and spiritual approach. We are publishing excerpts from his letter, with minor modifications in formatting, to mark his Mahasamadhi Day. (Editor)...
Sri Aurobindo’s Sublime Adventure
Perhaps if those who from the beginning have proclaimed that it would be, those very people say, “It is going to be...”, after all, perhaps they are the best informed. I am considering how from the beginning of the earth’s...
The Fear of Death and Conquering It
Generally speaking, perhaps the greatest obstacle in the way of man's progress is fear, a fear that is many-sided, multiform, self-contradictory, illogical, unreasoning and often unreasonable. Of all fears the most subtle and the most tenacious is the fear of...