Thoughts & Aphorisms

by Sri Aurobindo

Over five hundred aphorisms on works, knowledge and devotion, written with startling disregard for conventional morality to emphasise how spiritual matters cannot be judged with the ethical mind.

These aphorisms were formulated, said the Mother, "in order to break up the usual conception, to bring one in touch with a deeper truth".

Contents: 

Jnana, Karma, Bhakti (Knowledge, Works, Devotion)

Extract:

"There is very little real hypocrisy among men". True, but there is a great deal of diplomacy and still more of self-deceit. The last is of the three varieties, :

• conscious
• sub-conscious
• half-conscious

But the third is the most dangerous.

Extract:

The Brahmin first ruled by the book and the ritual, the Kshatriya next by the sword and the buckler; now the Vaishya governs us by machinery and the dollar, and the Sudra, the liberated serf, presses in with his doctrine of the kingdom of associated labour. But neither priest, king, merchant nor labourer is the true governor of humanity; the despotism of the tool and the mattock will fail like all the preceding despotisms.

Only when egoism dies and God in men governs his own human universality, can this earth support a happy and contented race of beings.

- Sri Aurobindo

About the Author:

Sri Aurobindo was an Indian/Hindu nationalist, scholar, poet, mystic, evolutionary philosopher, yogi and guru. After a short political career in which he became one of leaders of the early movement for the freedom of India from British rule, Sri Aurobindo turned to the development and practice of a new spiritual path which he called the "integral yoga," the aim of which was to further the evolution of life on earth by establishing a high level of spiritual consciousness which he called the Supermind that would represent a divine life.

Sri Aurobindo wrote prolifically in English on his spiritual philosophy and practice, on social and political development, on Indian culture including extensive commentaries and translations of ancient Indian scriptures, on literature and poetry including the writing of much spiritual poetry.