Contents

Questions and Answers 1951

Transformation and reversal of consciousness

True vision and understanding of the world

Progress, equilibrium

Inner reality; the psychic

Animals and the psychic

11 January 1951

Modesty and vanity

13 January 1951

Aim of life; effort and joy

Science of living; becoming conscious

Forces and influences

15 January 1951

Sincerity; inner discernment; inner light

Evil and imbalance

Consciousness and instruments

20 January 1951

Developing the mind

Misfortunes, suffering; developed reason

Knowledge and pure ideas

25 January 1951

Needs and desires

Collaboration of the vital; mind an accomplice

Progress and sincerity; recognising faults

Organising the body; illness; new harmony; physical beauty

27 January 1951

Sleep; desires; repression; the subconscient

Dreams; the superconscient solving problems

Ladder of being; samādhi

Phases of sleep; silence, true rest

Vital body and illness

3 February 1951

What is Yoga? for what?

Aspiration; seeking the Divine

Process of yoga; renouncing the ego

5 February 1951

Surrender and tapasyā

Dealing with difficulties; sincerity; spiritual discipline

Narrating experiences

Vital impulse and will for progress

8 February 1951

Unifying the being; ideas of good and bad

Miracles; determinism; Supreme Will

Distinguishing the voice of the Divine

10 February 1951

Liberty and license; surrender makes you free

Men in authority as representatives of the divine Truth

Work as offering; total surrender needs time

Effort and inspiration; will and patience

12 February 1951

Receiving the divine force

Signs indicating readiness for the path

Weakness in mind and vital

Intense concentration for breaking through

Divine perception and human notion of good and bad

Conversion and consecration; progress

Signs of entering the spiritual path; meditation of different kinds

Mounting aspiration; concentration in the Playground

15 February 1951

Dreams, symbolic; true repose

Earth-memory and history

17 February 1951

Offering one’s will

Equilibrium; progress; maturity

Ardent self-giving: perfecting the instrument

Difficulties, a help in total realisation; paradoxes

Sincerity; spontaneous meditation

Ashram meditation and Playground concentration

19 February 1951

Exteriorisation: clairvoyance, fainting, etc.

Somnambulism; Tartini; children’s dreams

Nightmares; guru’s protection

Mind and vital roam during sleep

22 February 1951

Surrender, offering, consecration

Experiences and sincerity

Aspiration and desire; Vedic hymns

Concentration and time

24 February 1951

Psychic being and entity; dimensions

Psychic in the atom

Death; exteriorisation; unconsciousness

Past lives; psychic can progress only upon earth

Psychic’s choice of birth

Consecration to divine Work; psychic memories

Individualisation; psychic organises for progress

26 February 1951

On reading books; gossip

Discipline and realisation

Value of imaginary stories

Private lives of big men; relaxation

Understanding others; gnostic consciousness

Universe and the Divine

Freedom and determinism; Grace

Time and Creation: in the Supermind

Work and its results

The psychic being; beauty and love

Flowers: beauty and significance

Choice of reincarnating psychic being

Hostile forces; difficulties

Individuality and form; creation

Disasters: the forces of Nature

Story of the “Charity Bazaar”

Liberation and law

Dealing with the mind and vital: methods

Silencing the mind; changing the nature

Reincarnation: choice

Psychic, higher beings, gods incarnating

Incarnation of vital beings; the Lord of Falsehood; Hitler

Possession and madness

Fairy tales: serpent guarding treasure

Vital beings: their incarnations

The vital being after death

Nightmares: vital and mental

Mind and vital after death

The spirit of the form: Egyptian mummies

Mental forms; learning difficult subjects

Mental fortress; thought

Training the mind

Helping the vital being after death; ceremonies

Human stupidities

Conditions for knowing the Divine Will

Illness; microbes

Fear; body-reflexes

The best possible happens

Theories of Creation

True knowledge; a work to do

The universe: eternally new and same

Traditions about Pralaya

Light and thought; new consciousness and forces

The expanding universe; inexpressible experiences

Ashram surcharged with vibrations of Light; new force

Differently vibrating atmospheres

Mental worlds and their beings

Understanding in silence

Psychic world: its characteristics

True experiences and mental formations; twelve senses

Relativity: time

Consciousness; psychic Witness

The twelve senses; water-divining

Instinct in animals; story of Mother’s cat

Descent of divine Love, of Consciousness

Earth: a symbolic formation; the divine Presence

The psychic being and other worlds; divine Love and Grace

Becoming conscious of divine Love

Finding one’s psychic being

Losing all to gain all; psychic being

Transforming the vital

Changing physical habits; the subconscient

Overcoming difficulties; weakness, an insincerity

Changing oneself to change the world

Psychic source and flash of experience; preparation for yoga

The Great Vehicle and the Little Vehicle

Choosing one’s family, country

The vital being distorted; atavism

Sincerity; changing one’s character

Physical ailment and mental disorder

Curing an illness spiritually

Receptivity of the body

The subtle-physical: illness, accidents

Curing sunstroke and other disorders

Causes of accidents

Little entities, helpful or mischievous: incidents

Illusion and interest in action

The action of the divine Grace and the ego

Concentration, aspiration, will, inner silence

Value of a story or a “language”

Truth; diversity in the world

Misery: its cause

Trend of art in Europe in the twentieth century

Effect of the Wars; descent of vital worlds

Formation of character

If there is another war

Japan, its art, landscapes, life, etc.

Enchantment of Japan

Culture: its spiral movement

Indian and European: the spiritual life

Surrender and sacrifice

Idea of sacrifice; Bahaism; martyrdom

Sleep: forgetfulness, exteriorisation, etc

Dreams and visions: explanations

Exteriorisation: incidents about cats

Unity and diversity

Protective envelope; desires; consciousness, the true defence

Perfection of the physical instrument; the cinema

Choice, constant and conscious

The law of one’s being; the One and the infinite Multiplicity

Civilisation: preparing an instrument

Demands and needs; human nature

Abolishing the ego

Food: tamas, consecration

Changing the nature: the vital and the mind

The yoga of the body; cellular consciousness

Sri Aurobindo’s letter on conditions for doing yoga

Aspiration, tapasya, surrender

The lower vital; old habits; obsession

Sri Aurobindo on choice and the double life

The old fiasco; inner realisation and outer change

The goal and the way

Learning how to sleep; relaxation

Adverse forces: test of sincerity

Attitude to suffering and death

Irrevocable transformation

The divine Shakti; glad submission

Rejection, integral

Consecration; total self-forgetfulness; work

Personal effort; tamas, laziness

Static and dynamic power

Stupidity; psychic and intelligence

Philosophies: different “languages”

Theories of Creation

Surrender of one’s being and one’s work

Money and its use for the divine work; problems

Mastery over desire: individual and collective change

Needs and desires

Discernment; sincerity and true perception

Mantra and its effects

Object in action: to serve; relying only on the Divine

Transcendent, universal, individual Divine

The Supreme Shakti and Creation

Inadequacy of words, language

Mahakali and Kali

Avatar and Vibhuti

Sachchidananda behind all states of being

The power of will; receiving the divine Will

Mahalakshmi and beauty in life

Mahasaraswati; conscious hand

Riches and poverty

Chance; the play of forces

Peace, given and lost

Abolishing the ego

Note on the Text