All Life Is Yoga: New Birth

New Birth

Selections from the Works of

Sri Aurobindo and The Mother

Sri Aurobindo Digital Edition

All

Life

Is

Yoga

„All life is Yoga.” – Sri Aurobindo

Contents

Imprint

Publisher's Note

Our New Birth from the Mother

New Birth into the Spirit

Before Us Lies the Possibility of a New Birth

Spring Up Out of Half-Consciousness

New Birth into the Psychic Consciousness: A Must!

Start on Your Way Towards the New Birth

Replace Ego by Divine Consciousness

Burst Out from One‘s Prison

The Way to a New Birth

All Yoga Is in its Nature a New Birth

Births of the Spirit

Two Stages of New Birth

Take This as a New Birth Today

The Supreme Spiritual Rebirth

Sri Aurobindo‘s Blessings

Bibliography

Sri Aurobindo Digital Edition

Imprint

ALL LIFE IS YOGA

New Birth

Selections from the Works of

Sri Aurobindo and The Mother

First edition 2018

ISBN 978-3-937701-94-3

© 2018 AURO MEDIA

Verlag und Fachbuchhandel Wilfried Schuh

Berchtesgaden, Germany

www.auro.media

verlag@auro.media

© Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust

Puducherry, India

***

Flower on the cover:

Origanum majorana. White

Spiritual significance and explanation given by the Mother:

New birth: birth of the true consciousness, that of the Divine Presence in us.

Publisher's Note

This is one in a series of some eBooks published by Sri Aurobindo Digital Edition under the title "ALL LIFE IS YOGA". Our effort is to bring together, from Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, simple passages with a practical orientation on specific subjects, so that everyone may feel free to choose a book according to his inner need. The topics cover the whole field of human activity, because true spirituality is not the rejection of life but the art of perfecting life.

While the passages from Sri Aurobindo are in the original Eng­lish, most of the passages from the Mother (selections from her talks and writings) are translations from the original French. We must also bear in mind that the excerpts have been taken out of their original context and that a compilation, in its very nature, is likely to have a personal and subjective approach. A sincere attempt, however, has been made to be faithful to the vision of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.

The excerpts from the writings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother carry titles and captions chosen by the editor, highlighting the theme of the excerpts and, whenever possible, borrowing a phrase from the text itself. The sources of the excerpts are given at the end of each issue.

We hope these eBooks will inspire the readers to go to the complete works and will help them to mould their lives and their environments towards an ever greater perfection.

From the non-being to true being,

from the darkness to the Light,

from death to Immortality.

OM Peace! Peace! Peace!

(Brihadaranyaka Upanishad)

[So be it. – Sri Aurobindo]

New birth: birth of the true consciousness, that of the Divine Presence in us. – The Mother

Our New Birth from the Mother

Sri Aurobindo‘s reply to a sadhak

The letter you wrote to me shows a surprising inability to understand the plainest distinctions and the simplest truths. The one who was an instrument for giving birth to the physical body of X was no doubt in her lifetime his material mother. But the relation which exists between the Mother here and X (and between the Mother and all who accept her), is a psychic and spiritual motherhood. It is a far greater relation than that of the physical mother to her child; it gives all that human motherhood can give, but in a much higher way, and it contains in itself infinitely more. It can therefore, because it is greater and more complete, take altogether the room of the physical relation and replace it both in the inward and the outward life. There is nothing here that can confuse anyone who has common sense and a straightforward intelligence. The physical fact cannot in the least stand in the way of the greater psychic and spiritual truth or prevent it from being true. X is perfectly right when he says that this is his true mother; for she has given him a new birth in an inner life and is creating him anew for a diviner existence.

***

New Birth into the Spirit

Words of the Mother

What is called “new birth” is the birth into the spiritual life, the spiritual consciousness; it is to carry in oneself something of the spirit which, individually, through the soul, can begin to rule the life and be the master of existence....

In the individual existence, that is what makes all the difference; so long as one just speaks of the spirit and it is something one has read about, whose existence one vaguely knows about, but not a very concrete reality for the consciousness, this means that one is not born into the spirit. And when one is born into the spirit, it becomes something much more concrete, much more living, much more real, much more tangible than the whole material world. And this is what makes the essential difference between beings. When that becomes spontaneously real – the true, concrete existence, the atmosphere one can freely breathe – then one knows one has crossed over to the other side. But so long as it is something rather vague and hazy – you have heard about it, you know that it exists, but... it has no concrete reality – well, this means that the new birth has not yet taken place. As long as you tell yourself, “Yes, this I can see, this I can touch, the pain I suffer from, the hunger that torments me, the sleep that makes me feel heavy, this is real, this is concrete...” (Mother laughs), that means that you have not yet crossed over to the other side, you are not born into the spirit.

(Silence)

Before Us Lies the Possibility of a New Birth

Words of Sri Aurobindo

Life, not a remote silent or high-uplifted ecstatic Beyond-Life alone, is the field of our Yoga. The transformation of our superficial, narrow and fragmentary human way of thinking, seeing, feeling and being into a deep and wide spiritual consciousness and an integrated inner and outer existence and of our ordinary human living into the divine way of life must be its central purpose. The means towards this supreme end is a self-giving of all our nature to the Divine. Everything must be given to the Divine within us, to the universal All and to the transcendent Supreme. An absolute concentration of our will, our heart and our thought on that one and manifold Divine, an unreserved self-consecration of our whole being to the Divine alone – this is the decisive movement, the turning of the ego to That which is infinitely greater than itself, its self-giving and indispensable surrender....

Spring Up Out of Half-Consciousness

Words of the Mother

Well, to find out what one truly is, to find out why one is on earth, what is the purpose of physical existence, of this presence on earth, of this formation, this existence... the vast majority of people live without asking themselves this even once! Only a small ´elite ask themselves this question with interest, and fewer still start working to get the answer. For, unless one is fortunate enough to come across someone who knows it, it is not such an easy thing to find. Suppose, for instance, that there had never come to your hands a book of Sri Aurobindo’s or of any of the writers or philosophers or sages who have dedicated their lives to this quest; if you were in the ordinary world, as millions of people are in the ordinary world, who have never heard of anything, except at times – and not always nowadays, even quite rarely – of some gods and a certain form of religion which is more a habit than a faith and, which, besides, rarely tells you why you are on earth.... Then, one doesn’t even think of thinking about it. One lives from day to day the events of each day. When one is very young, one thinks of playing, eating, and a little later of learning, and after that one thinks of all the circumstances of life. But to put this problem to oneself, to confront this problem and ask oneself: “But after all, why am I here?” How many do that? There are people to whom this idea comes only when they are facing a catastrophe. When they see someone whom they love die or when they find themselves in particularly painful and difficult circumstances, they turn back upon themselves, if they are sufficiently intelligent, and ask themselves: “But really, what is this tragedy we are living, and what’s the use of it and what is its purpose?”...

New Birth into the Psychic Consciousness: A Must!

Words of Sri Aurobindo

The soul, the psychic being, is in direct touch with the divine Truth, ...

***

Start on Your Way Towards the New Birth

Words of the Mother

In fact, so long as there is any doubt or hesitation, so long as one asks oneself the question of whether one has or hasn’t realised this eternal soul in oneself, it proves that the true contact has not taken place. For, when the phenomenon occurs, it brings with it an inexpressible something, so new and so definitive, that doubt and questioning are no longer possible. It is truly, in the absolute sense of the phrase, a new birth....

Replace Ego by Divine Consciousness

Words of the Mother

For centuries and centuries humanity has waited for this time. It is come. But it is difficult.

I don’t simply tell you we are here upon earth to rest and enjoy ourselves, now is not the time for that. We are here... to prepare the way for the new creation....

Burst Out from One‘s Prison

Words of the Mother

Judging people is one of the first things which must be totally swept away from the consciousness before you can take even a step on the supramental path, because that is not a material progress or a bodily progress, it is only a very little progress of thought, mental progress. And unless you have swept your mind clean of all its ignorance, you cannot hope to take a step on the supramental path.

In fact, you have said something terrible. When you said, “I cannot speak to his soul if he is a brute”, well, you have given yourself away... you have stuck a label on yourself. There you are.

All those who have truly and sincerely had the experience of the divine Presence, all those who have truly been in contact with the Divine, have always said the same thing: that sometimes, even often, it is in what is most decried by men, most despised by men, most condemned by human “wisdom”, that one can see the divine light shining....

The Way to a New Birth

Words of Sri Aurobindo

Our purpose in Yoga is to exile the limited outward-looking ego and to enthrone God in its place as the ruling Inhabitant of the nature. And this means, first, to disinherit desire and no longer accept the enjoyment of desire as the ruling human motive. The spiritual life will draw its sustenance not from desire but from a pure and selfless spiritual delight of essential existence. And not only the vital nature in us whose stamp is desire, but the mental being too must undergo a new birth and a transfiguring change. Our divided, egoistic, limited and ignorant thought and intelligence must disappear; in its place there must stream in the catholic and faultless play of a shadowless divine illumination which shall culminate in the end in a natural self-existent Truth-consciousness free from groping half-truth and stumbling error. Our confused and embarrassed ego-centred small-motived will and action must cease and make room for the total working of a swiftly powerful, lucidly automatic, divinely moved and guided unfallen Force. There must be implanted and activised in all our doings a supreme, impersonal, unfaltering and unstumbling will in spontaneous and untroubled unison with the will of the Divine. The unsatisfying surface play of our feeble egoistic emotions must be ousted and there must be revealed instead a secret deep and vast psychic heart within that waits behind them for its hour; all our feelings, impelled by this inner heart in which dwells the Divine, will be transmuted into calm and intense movements of a twin passion of divine Love and manifold Ananda. This is the definition of a divine humanity or a supramental race. This, not an exaggerated or even a sublimated energy of human intellect and action, is the type of the superman whom we are called to evolve by our Yoga....

All Yoga Is in its Nature a New Birth

Words of Sri Aurobindo

All Yoga is in its nature a new birth; it is a birth out of the ordinary, the mentalised material life of man into a higher spiritual consciousness and a greater and diviner being. No Yoga can be successfully undertaken and followed unless there is a strong awakening to the necessity of that larger spiritual existence. The soul that is called to this deep and vast inward change, may arrive in different ways to the initial departure. It may come to it by its own natural development which has been leading it unconsciously towards the awakening; it may reach it through the influence of a religion or the attraction of a philosophy; it may approach it by a slow illumination or leap to it by a sudden touch or shock; it may be pushed or led to it by the pressure of outward circumstances or by an inward necessity, by a single word that breaks the seals of the mind or by long reflection, by the distant example of one who has trod the path or by contact and daily influence. According to the nature and the circumstances the call will come....

Births of the Spirit

Words of Sri Aurobindo

It must be noted however that the opening upward does not necessarily lead to peace, silence and Nirvana only....

Two Stages of New Birth

Words of Sri Aurobindo

Such a passage from the human to the divine, from the divided and discordant to the One, from the phenomenon to the eternal Truth, such an entire rebirth or new birth of the soul must necessarily involve two stages, one of preparation in which the soul and its instruments must become fit and another of actual illumination and realisation in the prepared soul through its fit instruments....

Take This as a New Birth Today

Mother‘s advice to a sadhak

You see, in the present condition of the world, circumstances are always difficult. The whole world is in a condition of strife, conflict, between the forces of truth and light wanting to manifest and the opposition of all that does not want to change, which represents in the past what is fixed, hardened and refuses to go. Naturally, each individual feels his own difficulties and is faced by the same obstacles....

The Supreme Spiritual Rebirth

Words of the Mother

One of the greatest victories of this ineffable humility of God will be the transformation of Matter which is apparently the most undivine. Supramental plasticity is an attribute of finally transformed Matter. The supramental body which has to be brought into being here has four main attributes: lightness, adaptability, plasticity and luminosity. When the physical body is thoroughly divinised, it will feel as if it were always walking on air, there will be no heaviness or tamas or unconsciousness in it. There will also be no end to its power of adaptability: in whatever conditions it is placed it will immediately be equal to the demands made upon it because its full consciousness will drive out all that inertia and incapacity which usually make Matter a drag on the Spirit. Supramental plasticity will enable it to stand the attack of every hostile force which strives to pierce it: it will present no dull resistance to the attack but will be, on the contrary, so pliant as to nullify the force by giving way to it to pass off. Thus it will suffer no harmful consequences and the most deadly attacks will leave it unscathed. Lastly, it will be turned into the stuff of light, each cell will radiate the supramental glory. Not only those who are developed enough to have their subtle sight open but the ordinary man too will be able to perceive this luminosity. It will be an evident fact to each and all, a permanent proof of the transformation which will convince even the most sceptical....

Sri Aurobindo‘s Blessings

Words of Sri Aurobindo

Let the new birth become manifest in your heart and radiate in calm and joy and take up all the parts of your being, mind and vision and will and feeling and life and body. Let each date in your life be a date of its growth and greater completeness till all in you is the child of the Mother. Let the Light and Power and Presence envelop you and protect and cherish and foster, till all in your inner and outer existence is one movement and an expression of its peace and strength and Ananda.

***

Bibliography

Quote

CWM Vol 15, p. 224

Our New Birth from the Mother

CWSA Vol 32, p. 108

New Birth into the Spirit

MCW Vol 9, p. 430-31

Before Us Lies the Possibility of a New Birth

CWSA Vol 23, p. 89-90

Spring Up Out of Half-Consciousness

MCW Vol 9, p. 15-19

New Birth into the Psychic Consciousness: A Must!

CWSA Vol 30, p. 337-38

Start on Your Way Towards the New Birth

CWM Vol 9, p. 336-38

Replace Ego by Divine Consciousness

CWM Vol 11, p. 307

CWM Vol 16, p. 434

Burst Out from One‘s Prison

CWM Vol 9, p. 135-37

The Way to a New Birth

CWSA Vol 23, p. 90-92

All Yoga Is in its Nature a New Birth

CWSA Vol 23, p. 69-71

Births of the Spirit

CWSA Vol 30, p. 326-27

Two Stages of New Birth

CWSA Vol 23, p. 308-09

Take This as a New Birth Today

CWM Vol 15, p. 398-402

The Supreme Spiritual Rebirth

CWM Vol 3, p. 175-77

Sri Aurobindo‘s Blessings

CWSA Vol 35, p. 838

***

CWM: Collected Works of the Mother, 2nd ed., Volp. 1-17

CWSA: Collected Works of Sri Aurobindo 2012 Volp. 1-37

Sri Aurobindo Digital Edition

All Life Is Yoga

Compilations of the works of

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother

1. What is Yoga

ISBN 978-3-937701-56-1 / € 5,99 (EPUB)

2. New Birth

ISBN 978-3-937701-94-3 / € 5,99 (EPUB)

3. Depression – Its Cause and Cure

ISBN 978-3-937701-95-0 / € 5,99 (EPUB)

4. The Soul and How to find It

ISBN 978-3-937701-96-7 / € 5,99 (EPUB)

5. The Four Aids in Integral Yoga

ISBN 978-3-937701-97-4 / € 5,99 (EPUB)

6. Numbers and Astrology

ISBN 978-3-937701-98-1 / € 5,99 (EPUB)

7. True Leadership

ISBN 978-3-937701-99-8 152103.07 / € 5,99 (EPUB)

8. Fear and Its Overcoming

ISBN 978-3-937701-74-5 152103.08 / € 5,99 (EPUB)

***

AURO MEDIA

Sektion Sri Aurobindo Digital Edition

Verlag und Fachbuchhandel

Wilfried Schuh

Email verlag@auro.media

www.auro.media

***