Sri Aurobindo Quotes & Sayings

The principle of Yoga is the turning of one or of all powers of our human existence into a means of reaching divine Being. — Sri Aurobindo

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

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. — Sri Aurobindo

Each religion has helped mankind. Paganism increased in man the light of beauty, the largeness and height of his life, his aim at a many-sided perfection; Christianity gave him some vision of divine love and charity; Buddhism has shown him a noble way to be wiser, gentler, purer, Judaism and Islam how to be religiously faithful in action and zealously devoted to God; Hinduism has opened to him the largest and profoundest spiritual possibilities. — Sri Aurobindo

This universe an old enchantment guards; Its objects are carved cups of World-Delight Whose charmed wine is some deep soul's rapture-drink: The All-Wonderful has packed heaven with his dreams, He has made blank ancient Space his marvel-house; He spilled his spirit into Matter's signs: His fires of grandeur burn in the great sun, He glides through heaven shimmering in the moon; He is beauty carolling in the fields of sound; He chants the stanzas of the odes of Wind; He is silence watching in the stars at night; He wakes at dawn and calls from every bough, Lies stunned in the stone and dreams in flower and tree. — Sri Aurobindo

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. — Sri Aurobindo

There is a veil between the Supermind above and the lower Prakriti below - the veil of ingrained formations. This veil may completely withdraw or be partially withdrawn. Thus even if there is some little opening, with the contact of Light from above the lower nature will get slowly changed. — Sri Aurobindo

Not complete inaction, which is an error, a confusion, a self-delusion, an impossibility, but action full and
free done without subjection to sense and passion, desireless and unattached works, are the first secret of perfection. — Sri Aurobindo

For all problems of existence are essentially problems of harmony. — Sri Aurobindo

Can everybody contact the higher forces? No, not indeed; but they submit themselves to a discipline and this brings them success. — Sri Aurobindo

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

One has to do sadhana for the total manifestation of the Divine in oneself. — Sri Aurobindo

It will not do to depend on the mind alone. — Sri Aurobindo

Delight is the secret. Learn of pure delight and thou shalt learn of God. What then was the commencement of the whole matter? Existence that multiplied itself for sheer delight of being and plunged into numberless trillions of forms so that it might find itself innumerably. — Sri Aurobindo

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

Rather hang thyself than belong to the horde of successful imitators. — Sri Aurobindo

All desires and egoism will have to be banished from the being. — Sri Aurobindo

Propaganda is necessary only for the sake of money! — Sri Aurobindo

The language of the Veda itself is sruti, a rhythm not composed by the intellect but heard, a divine Word that same vibrating out of the Infinite to the inner audience of the man who had previously made himself fit fot the impersonal knowledge. — Sri Aurobindo

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

He who chooses the infinite has been chosen by the infinite. — Sri Aurobindo

As in all infant sciences, the universal habit of the human mind - to take a partial or local truth, generalise it unduly and try to explain a whole field of nature in its narrow terms - runs riot here (in psychoanalysis). Moreover, the exaggeration of the importance of suppressed sexual complexes is a dangerous falsehood. — Sri Aurobindo

A woman has the greatest opportunity to provide the best outcome for a baby and its potentialities. Not only by having a conscious and definite will to form the child accordingly to the highest ideal she can conceive, but first and foremost having the aspiration to work on herself. — Sri Aurobindo

Our lives are God's messengers beneath the stars. — Sri Aurobindo

Thy goal, the road thou choosest are thy fate. — Sri Aurobindo

We have to create strength where it did not exist before; we have to change our natures, and become new men with new hearts, to be born again ... We need a nucleus of men in whom the Shakti is developed to its uttermost extent, in whom it fills every corner of the personality and overflows to fertilise the earth. These, having the fire of Bhawani in their hearts and brains, will go forth and carry the flame to every nook and cranny of our land. — Sri Aurobindo

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

Peace is the first condition, without which nothing else can be stable. — Sri Aurobindo

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

For the powers of our mind, life, and body are bound to their own limitations, and however high they may rise or however widely expand, they cannot rise beyond them. But still, mental man can open to what is beyond him and call down a Supramental Light, Truth, and Power to work in him and do what the mind cannot do. If mind cannot by effort become what is beyond mind, Supermind can descend and transform mind into its own substance. — Sri Aurobindo

India saw from the beginning, and, even in her ages of reason and her age of increasing ignorance, she never lost hold of the insight, that life cannot be rightly seen in the sole light, cannot be perfectly lived in the sole power of its externalities. — Sri Aurobindo

A fugitive paradise smiles at him from her eyes: He dreams of her beauty made for ever his, He dreams of his mastery her limbs shall bear, He dreams of the magic of her breasts of bliss. — Sri Aurobindo

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. — Sri Aurobindo

There is a knowledge in the heart of sleep. — Sri Aurobindo

The consciousness of the supreme Purusha remains above, but in the mind there may be a Purusha consciousness which they call the cosmic consciousness - it is wide, all-pervading, one. Outside this goes on the play of Prakriti. — Sri Aurobindo

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

Still the invisible Magnet drew his soul — Sri Aurobindo

The Bhagavad-Gita is a true scripture of the human race a living creation rather than a book, with a new message for every age and a new meaning for every civilization. — Sri Aurobindo

An active mind needs an outlet. If it stops by itself from within, well and good; otherwise one should not try to stop this by force. — Sri Aurobindo

Your mind has some clearness and capacity for right thinking; it opens towards the heights, but for its own sake, - to receive light from above for its own activity. — Sri Aurobindo

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. — Sri Aurobindo

A great thing would be done if all these God-visions could embrace and cast themselves into each other; but intellectual dogma and cult egoism stand in the way. — Sri Aurobindo

To attempt social reform, educational reform, industrial expansion, the moral improvement of the race without aiming, first and foremost, at political freedom is the very height of ignorance and futility. — Sri Aurobindo

Spirituality is indeed the master key of the Indian mind; the sense of the infinitive is native to it. — Sri Aurobindo

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

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

Each victory gained over oneself means new strength to gain more victories. — Sri Aurobindo

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. — Sri Aurobindo

Live within; be not shaken by outward happenings. — Sri Aurobindo

Only the soul that is naked and unashamed, can be pure and innocent , even as Adam was in the primal garden of humanity . — Sri Aurobindo

What comes from outside, one mistakes it as coming from inside. So many thoughts etc. move about outside in the universal - these manifest inside you. All these you must push away as foreign to you and the inside must be made peaceful, calm and quiet; then it will start descending from above. — Sri Aurobindo

When Reason died, then Wisdom was born. — Sri Aurobindo

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

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

The mind of an ordinary man is truly near the heart. — Sri Aurobindo

To have a developed intellect is always helpful if one can enlighten it from above and turn it to a divine use. — Sri Aurobindo

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. — Sri Aurobindo

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

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

The inside must be made entirely calm and quiet and there should reign an upward aspiration - a state of awaiting. — Sri Aurobindo

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

But difficulties were made to be overcome and if the Supreme Will is there, they will be overcome. — Sri Aurobindo

All fanaticism is false, because it is a contradiction of the very nature of God and of Truth. Truth cannot be shut up in a single book, Bible or Veda or Koran, or in a single religion. The Divine Being is eternal and universal and infinite and cannot be the sole property of the Mussulmans or of the Semitic religions only, - those that happened to be in a line from the Bible and to have Jewish or Arabian prophets for their founders. — Sri Aurobindo

After having stopped the lower activities of the mind, it must be made receptive; and, instead of weaving all kinds of empty and idle thoughts, the mind should receive intuitions from above. — Sri Aurobindo

What you call the psychic being is the mind of the vital. The heart is the seat of this mind. And this mind is the essence of the senses. It receives things from outside, acts upon things that are outside - knows, gives consent, takes interest in them. But this mind cannot be the Ishwara, but it is the knower, the giver of the consent. — Sri Aurobindo

Many of us, utterly overcome by Tamas, the dark and heavy demon of inertia, are saying nowadays that it is impossible, that India is decayed, bloodless and lifeless, too weak ever to recover; that our race is doomed to extinction. It is a foolish and idle saying. No man or nation need be weak unless he chooses, no man or nation need perish unless he deliberately chooses extinction. — Sri Aurobindo

The mind is running on all sides to think about many things, - what we call thoughts coming from outside. We must withdraw the mind from these distractions and make it abide in the self. Thus guarding the peace within we shall have to do the work without. — Sri Aurobindo

Do not allow things to intrude from outside. — Sri Aurobindo

Man in the world's life works out the dreams of God. — Sri Aurobindo

... for we perceive that this miraculous development is not the result of our own efforts: an eternal Perfection is moulding us into its own image. — Sri Aurobindo

The mind has these four levels: physical, vital, buddhi, higher mind. The Supermind is far above these. — Sri Aurobindo

rend the lid and tear the covering and shape the — Sri Aurobindo

The expression "from above" is for us only a way of speaking. Many receive from above the command for action - we call it intuition. — Sri Aurobindo

Life was a sorrowful throb of this Matter teaching it anguish, Teaching it hope and desire trod out too soon in the mire, Life the frail joy that regrets its briefness, life the long sorrow. — Sri Aurobindo

While doing work if the mind continues to be active let it be so, but there must be at the same time a capacity for silence. — Sri Aurobindo

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

India of the ages is not dead nor has she spoken her last creative word; she lives and has still something to do for herself and the human peoples. — Sri Aurobindo

My God is love and sweetly suffers all. — Sri Aurobindo

The meeting of man and God must always mean a penetration and entry of the divine into the human and a self-immergence of man in the Divinity. — Sri Aurobindo

The cup has to be left clean and empty for the divine liquor to be poured into it. — Sri Aurobindo

Our human knowledge is a candle burnt On a dim altar to a sun-vast Truth. — Sri Aurobindo

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 — Sri Aurobindo

Not only a truer knowledge, but a greater power comes to one in the quietude and silence of a mind that, instead of bubbling on the surface, can go to its own depths and listen. — Sri Aurobindo

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

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. — Sri Aurobindo

Sin and virtue are a game of resistance we play with God in His efforts to draw us towards perfection. — Sri Aurobindo

Late, I learned that when reason died, then Wisdom was born; before that liberation, I had only knowledge. — Sri Aurobindo

When I approached God at that time, I hardly had a living faith in Him. The agnostic was in me, the atheist was in me, the sceptic was in me and I was not absolutely sure that there was a God at all. I did not feel His presence. Yet something drew me to the truth of the Vedas, the truth of the Gita, the truth of the Hindu religion. — Sri Aurobindo

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. — Sri Aurobindo

All can be done if the god-touch is there — Sri Aurobindo

What is God after all? An eternal child playing an eternal game in an eternal garden. — Sri Aurobindo

Inspiration is a slender river of brightness leaping from a vast and Eternal Knowledge, it exceeds reason more perfectly than reason exceeds the knowledge of the senses. — Sri Aurobindo

All existence is a manifestation of God. — Sri Aurobindo

The Hindu religion appears ... as a cathedral temple, half in ruins, noble in the mass, often fantastic in detail but always fantastic with a significance crumbling or badly outworn in places, but a cathedral temple in which service is still done to the Unseen and its real presence can be felt by those who enter with the right spirit. — Sri Aurobindo

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

Vain indeed is all overweening pride in the conquest even of the entire universe if one has not conquered one's own passions. — Sri Aurobindo

Transform reason into ordered intuition; let all thyself be light. This is thy goal. — Sri Aurobindo

What have I to forgive and whom? — Sri Aurobindo

To hope for a true change of human life without a change of human nature is an irrational and unspiritual proposition. — Sri Aurobindo

The human mind moves always forward, alters its viewpoint and enlarges its thought substance, and the effect of these changes is to render past systems of thinking obsolete or, when they are preserved, to extend, to modify and subtly or visibly to alter their value. — Sri Aurobindo