On Nightmares, Dreams and Guru’s Protection
Holding a perfect quietude and faith within oneself and also calling for the Guru’s help protects one from nightmares and other attacks during sleep.
Holding a perfect quietude and faith within oneself and also calling for the Guru’s help protects one from nightmares and other attacks during sleep.
Sri Aurobindo and the Mother say that an ideal sadhaka must neither turn with an ascetic shrinking from the money power nor hold a rajasic attachment to it.
These selected passages from Sri Aurobindo and the Mother give us practical guidance on how to handle the sources of disharmony in human relations in daily life. These sources include narrowmindedness, dislike and fault-finding in others.
These selections from Sri Aurobindo’s letters highlight the necessity of work in Integral Yoga and guide us on how to open to the Mother’s force.
A senior member of Sri Aurobindo Ashram recounts the time when he was trapped for thirty hours under a leaking hangar at Mumbai airport in July 2005.
Equality is one of the twelve qualities that the Mother says we must cultivate within ourselves and progressively deepen as we walk the Sunlit Path. Through our varied offerings we have delved into various dimensions of equality. We also attempt to highlight relevant passages which throw much-necessary light on how to grow in equality, a state of inner samatā.
Sri Aurobindo explains the true meaning of equality. His letter dealing with samatā and loyalty to truth is especially relevant for our present times.
“A divine action or even a perfect human action is impossible if we have not equality of spirit and an equality in the motive-forces of our nature,” writes Sri Aurobindo.
The first obvious step to equality in the nature, according to Sri Aurobindo, will be the conquest of our emotional and vital being, for here are the sources of greatest trouble, the most rampant forces of inequality and subjection, the most insistent claim of our imperfection.
All this equalisation of the nature – in vital, mind and will – is a preparation for the highest spiritual equality to take possession of the whole being and make a pervading atmosphere in which the light, power and joy of the Divine can manifest itself in man amid an increasing fullness, writes Sri Aurobindo.
The Mother explains two of Sri Aurobindo’s phrases – namely, “strong immobility of an immortal spirit” and “the equality of soul”.
Sri Aurobindo gives practical advice on cultivating equality with regard to a sadhak’s interactions and relations with others.
This prayer from the Mother’s Prayers and Meditations instills an aspiration to give oneself to the Divine in peace, serenity and equanimity for Divine’s work to be done.
Sri Aurobindo gives us a profound understanding of one of the most popularly quoted phrases from the Bhagavad Gita – योगः कर्मसु कौशलम् or “Yoga is skill in works.” A special offering on International Day of Yoga.
The Mother speaks of the necessity of equanimity in the body to receive the divine forces. She explains how to practice bodily equality at the cellular level.
In these passages the Mother speaks of Equality as the most essential condition for Supramental realisation on the earth. Her words on the significance of equality as a quality to be cultivated for living in Auroville are worth deep reflection.
How to look at misfortune with a true attitude of equality? We share the Mother’s comment on one of the aphorisms of Sri Aurobindo about this. We also feature a few of Sri Aurobindo’s letters about the significance of equality when confronted with suggestions or attacks by hostile forces.
The Mother traces the differentiation between masculine and feminine genders to the way the primordial cause of creation of the universe has been explained in many ancient traditions. She adds that both men and women are in several ways enslaved to each other. And to deal with the problem of superiority and inferiority, one must must free oneself from all the inner enslavement and treat both the genders with perfect equality.
The author writes – If you are wondering what made the Mother choose candytuft flower for equanimity, maybe the flower itself has an answer for you. Could it be that when seen from a distance the cluster of flowers looks like one flower but when we get closer we can see the individual small white flowers having their own sepals, petals and a centre? Read on.