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Aspiration in the physical

Manifold, simple and joyful

   

Ixora coccinea L. (Rubiaceae)

Scarlet jungleflame

Deep red

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Aspiration in the physical

Have you never watched a forest with all its countless trees and plants simply struggling to catch the light twisting and trying in a hundred possible ways just to be in the sun? That is precisely the feeling of aspiration in the physical the urge, the movement, the push towards the light. Plants have more of it in their physical being than men. Their whole life is a worship of light. Light is of course the material symbol of the Divine, and the sun represents, under material conditions, the Supreme Consciousness. The plants have felt it quite distinctly in their own simple, blind way. Their aspiration is intense, if you know how to become aware of it.

The Mother

The Mother. Collected Works of the Mother.- Volume 3. - Questions and Answers (1929)

This "Aspiration in the physical" with our blessings and all my love.

Do not let the doctor's words disturb you. Illnesses are never serious unless we accept them as such. Besides, I expect to hear very soon that you are better.

The Mother

The Mother. Collected Works of the Mother.- Volume 17. - More answers from the Mother

The urge, the movement, the push towards the light.

The Mother

The Mother. Collected Works of the Mother.- Volume 3. - Questions and Answers (1929)

When the psychic imposes its aspiration on the mind, vital and body, then they too aspire.

Sri Aurobindo

Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library in 30 Volumes. - Volume 22. - Letters on Yoga.-P.1

Aspiration

[Aspiration] is the call of the being for higher things - for the Divine, for all that belongs to the higher or Divine Consciousness.

Sri Aurobindo

Sri Aurobindo. Guidance from Sri Aurobindo.- I.- Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Society, 1974, P.106.

This taste for supreme adventure is aspiration - an aspiration which takes hold of you completely and flings you, without calculation and without reserve and without a possibility of withdrawal, into the great adventure of the divine discovery, the great adventure of the divine meeting, the yet greater adventure of the divine Realisation.

The Mother

The Mother. Collected Works of the Mother.- Volume 8. - Questions And Answers (1956)

Aspiration is like an arrow, like this (gesture). So you aspire, want very earnestly to understand, know, enter into the truth. Yes? And then with that aspiration you do this (gesture). Your aspiration rises, rises, rises, rises straight up, very strong and then it strikes against a kind of... how to put it? ... lid which is there, hard like iron and extremely thick, and it does not pass through. And then you say, "See, what's the use of aspiring? It brings nothing at all. I meet with something hard and cannot pass!" But you know about the drop of water which falls on the rock, it ends up by making a chasm: it cuts the rock from top to bottom. Your aspiration is a drop of water which, instead of falling, rises. So, by dint of rising, it beats, beats, beats, and one day it makes a hole, by dint of rising; and when it makes the hole suddenly it springs out from this lid and enters an immensity of light, and you say, "Ah, now I understand."

It's like that.

The Mother

The Mother. Collected Works of the Mother.- Volume 7. - Questions And Answers (1955)

Aspiration is needed but there can be a sunlit aspiration full of light and faith and confidence and joy.

Sri Aurobindo

Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library in 30 Volumes. - Volume 24. - Letters on Yoga.-P.4

Well, today there is something special. And these two flowers are just fine: Concentration in the Aspiration... But do you know how to aspire? Do you aspire a little?

Do you know where the aspiration comes from?

 

Yes, Mother, from the heart and from the psychic.

 

Yes, my little one, rather from the psychic, the true aspiration comes from there; but one first starts from the heart.

As long as you are not in contact with it, in the beginning you can aspire from the mind, saying: Ma, Ma, Ma, Ma, and asking precisely what you want, as, for example, Peace, or let Peace be established within me. Then you silently concentrate and you remain open. You will see that you will be flooded with Peace.

Then you concentrate in the heart, and you aspire to come into contact with the flame, the psychic flame, the flame of purification and go there, very deeply, and remain silent and open like this (Mother opens Her hands like a flower above Her head).

Once there - but you must sincerely make a great effort to find it, - you are in contact with the central being; everything else becomes silent, and one has the feeling that the Divine is doing everything for oneself. An immutable joy and peace and freedom then seize you. And nothing in the world is interesting any more, but the aspiration that unites with the Divine.

When I speak of the physical consciousness, I mean the physical mind and the physical vital as well as the body consciousness proper.

Sri Aurobindo

Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library in 30 Volumes. - Volume 24. - Letters on Yoga.-P.4

In my view the body as well as the mind and life has to be spiritualised or, one may say, divinised so as to be a fit instrument and receptacle for the realisation of the Divine. It has its part in the Divine Lila, even, according to the Vaishnava Sadhana, in the joy and beauty of Divine Love. That does not mean that the body has to be valued for its own separate sake or that the creation of a divine body in a future evolution of the whole being has to be contemplated as an end and not a means - that would be a serious error which would not be admissible. In any case, my speculations about an extreme form of divinisation are something in a far distance and are no part of the preoccupations of the spiritual life in the near future.

Sri Aurobindo

Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library in 30 Volumes. - Volume 26. - On Himself

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