Wisdom sayings collected by The Mother

(short version) THE LESSON OF LIFE 178 SAYINGS IN THE HANDWRITING OF THE MOTHER

  

It is the lesson of life that always in this world everything fails a man – only the Divine does not fail him, if he turns entirely to the Divine. It is not because there is something bad in you that blows fall on you,– blows fall on all human beings because they are full of desire for things that cannot last and they lose them or, even if they get, it brings disappointment and cannot satisfy them. To turn to the Divine is the only truth in life.

Sri Aurobindo 1933.04.21

2 November 1934  ■  1 The Buddha has said: "There is more joy in one desire conquered than in a thousand desires satisfied.”

3 November 1934  ■  2  Saadi, the Persian poet, has said: "Contemplate the mirror of your heart and thou shalt taste litle by litle a pure joy and unmixed peace.”

7 November 1934  ■  5 The Mahayana teaches thus:“When the disciple considering an idea sees rise in him bad or inhealthy thoughts, thoughts of covetousness, hatred or error, he should either turn his mind away from that idea, or concentrate it upon a healthy thought, or else examine the fatal nature of the idea, or analise it and decompose it into its different elements, or, making appeal to all his strength and applying the greatest energy, suppress it from his mind; these are removed and disappear these bad and unhealthy ideas and the mind becomes firm, calm unified full of vigour.”

10 November 1934  ■  8 Ramakrishna very nicely said:“Whenever thinks himself an imperfect and worldly soul, is really an imperfect and worldly soul; whenever seems himself divine, becomes divine. What a man thinks he is, he becomes.”

 18 November 1934  ■  16 Confucius has sais:“It is impossible to arrive at the summit of the mountain without passing through rough and difficult paths.”

 

29 November 1934  ■  25 Baha Ullah has said:“The seeker ought to avoid any preference of himself to another; he should efface pride and arrogance from his heart, arm himself with patience and endurance and follow the law of silence to that he may keep himself from vain words.”

  

1 December 1934  ■  27 Emerson has said:“It is god within who hushes the tongue of prayer by a sublimer thought. A voice speaks to us in the depths of the heart, ‘I am, my child, and by me are and subsist thy body and the luminous world. I am, all things are in me and all that is mine is thine. ’ ”

2 December 1934  ■  28 Here is what Carlyle says about silence:“When one considers the clamorous emptiness of the world, words of so little sense, actions of so little merit, one loves to reflect on the great reign of silence. The noble silent men scattered here and there each in his province silently thinking and silently acting, of whom no morning paper makes mention, these are the salt of the earth."

3 December 1934  ■  29 and this is from Emerson:“Real action is done in moments of silence.” Spiritual Laws/Essays: First series: 1842

 4 December 1934  ■  30 In the Book of Golden Precepts we read this:“Before the soul can understand and remember it must be united to Him who speaks by His silence, as to the mind of the potter the form on which the clay is modelled.”

 

7 December 1934  ■  33 Ramakrishna has said:“If you live one sixteenth part of what I teach you, you will attain the goal.”

8 December 1934  ■  34 Confucius has said:“There is as much virtue in the humblest things as in the most sublime.”

10 December 1934  ■  36 Demophilus has said:“Do what thou knowest to be good without expecting from it any glory. Forget not that the Vulgar are bad judge of good actions.”

12 December 1934  ■  38 We read in the Sutra in 42 articles:“The important thing is to practise what is taught. It is no use being with the Master if one does not oneself practise or cannot profit by it.”

16 December 1934: 42 The Book of Golden Precepts teaches: “one must learn to dissipate the shadow and live in that which is eternal. For that you must live and breathe in all as all you perceive lives in you; you must feel that you are in all thigns and all things in yourself.” 

19 December 1934  ■  45 The buddhist scripture Fo-sho-hing-Tsan-king tells us: “When you have learned the teaching, let your purified hearts find their joy in doing actions that are in harmony with it.”

20 December 1934  ■  46 Schopenhauer has said:“It is one and the same Being who manifests in all that lives.”

21 December 1934  ■  47 Sri Aurobindo sais:“There is no greater pride and glory than to be a perfect instrument of the Master.”

[Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library in 30 Volumes. – Volume 16. – The Supramental Manifestation]

22 December 1934  ■  48 Sri Aurobindo sais: “Be conscious first of thyself within, then think and act.”

[Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library in 30 Volumes. – Volume 16. – The Supramental Manifestation]

25 December 1934  ■  51 Sri Aurobindo sais: “Love is the keynote, Joy is the music, Power is the strain, Knowledge is the performer, the infinite All is the composer and audience. We know only the preliminary discords which are as fierce as the harmony shall be great; but we shall arrive surely at the fugue of the divine Beatitudes.”  [Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library in 30 Volumes. – Volume 16. – The Supramental Manifestation]

26 December 1934  ■  52  Sri Aurobindo sais: “What I cannot do now is the sign of what I shall do hereafter. The sense of impossibility is the beginning of all possibilities.”[Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library in 30 Volumes. – Volume 16. – The Supramental Manifestation]

28 December 1934  ■  54 Sri Aurobindo sais:“Patience is our first great necessary lesson, but not the dull slowness to move of the timid, the sceptical, the weary, the slothful, the unambitious or the weakling; a patience full of a calm and gathering strength which watches and prepares itself for the hour of swift great strokes, few but enough to change destiny.”[Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library in 30 Volumes. – Volume 16. – The Supramental Manifestation]

29 December 1934  ■  55 Sri Aurobindo sais:“God has all time before him and does not need to be always in a hurry.”

[Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library in 30 Volumes. – Volume 16. – The Supramental Manifestation]

6 January 1935  ■  63 Sri Aurobindo sais:“The Spirit is the truth of our being; mind and life and body in their imperfection are its masks, but in their perfection should be its moulds.” [Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library in 30 Volumes. – Volume 16. – The Supramental Manifestation]

11 January 1935  ■  68 Lao Tse has said:“The spiritual man thinks more of what is within him than of outer things.”

  in the Book of Golden Precepts:“Be master of thy thoughts O thou who strivest after perfection.”

18 January 1935  ■  75 In the Initiation of Christ is said:“How can a man remain at peace who is busy with alien cares, tries to spread himself outside and withdraws within very little or rarely.”[Thomas a Kempis. The Imitation of Christ]

21 January 1935  ■  78 Ramakrishna has said:“Let not thoughts and anxieties trouble your mind. Do all that is necessary at its proper time, but let your mind be always fixed on the Divine.”

22 January 1935  ■  79 Sri Aurobindo sais:“The Divine gives itself to those who give themselves without reserve and in all their parts to the Divine. For them the calm, the light, the power, the bliss, the freedom, the wideness, the heights of knowledge, the seas of Ananda.”[Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library in 30 Volumes. – Volume 23. – Letters on Yoga.– P.2-3]

23 January 1935  ■  80 Ramakrishna has said:“The greater the aspiration and concentration, the more one finds the Eternal.”

(81)24 January 1935  ■  81 “If we go a little way within ourselves, we shall discover that there is in each of us a consciousness that has been living throughout the ages and manifesting in a multitude of forms.”[The Mother. Collected Works of the Mother.– Volume 3. – Questions and Answers (1929)]

25 January 1935  ■  82 Ramakrishna has said:“When a man is able to concentrate his mind, then wherever he may be he can always rise above his surroundings and rest in the Eternal.”

26 January 1935  ■  83 “When you sit in meditation you must be as candid and simple as a child, not interfering by your external mind, expecting nothing, insisting on nothing. Once this condition is there, all the rest depends upon the aspiration deep within you." ...."And if you call upon the Divine, then too .... you will have the answer.”[The Mother. Collected Works of the Mother.– Volume 3. – Questions and Answers (1929)]

27 January 1935  ■  84 Ramakrishna has said:“It is an old saying ‘Whoever is perfect in meditation is near to liberation’. Do you know when a man is perfect in meditation? When as soon as he sits to meditate the atmosphere of the Divine is around him and his soul is in touch with the Ineffable.”

 

6 February 1935  ■  93 “See how outer circumstances are of little importance... Be more supple, more trusting.... It is in the calm of the deep waters that is found the only possibility of True Service.”“Torment thyself not, child, silence, peace, peace.”(August 1913)[The Mother. Collected Works of the Mother.– Volume 1.– Prayers And Meditations]

8 February 1935  ■  95 a prayer  “May all escape from the ordinary consciousness and be delivered from the attachment for material things; may they awake to the knowledge of Thy divine Presence, unite themselves with Thy supreme Consciousness and taste the plenitude of Peace that springs from it.”(February, 1914) [The Mother. Collected Works of the Mother.– Volume 1.– Prayers And Meditations]

11 February 1935  ■  98 “In the calm contemplation that precedes the down, better than any other moment, my thought rises to Thee, O Lord of our being, in an ardent prayer: May this day which is about to begin bring to the earth a little more pure light and true peace.”

 

20 February 1935  ■  109 a prayer:“Let me live constantly in Thy divine Love, so that it may live in me and through me.”

21 February 1935  ■  110 a prayer:“O Lord, our heart is light, our thought at rest. We turn to Thee with full trust and say peacefully:

May Thy will be done, in it is realised true harmony.”

 

5 March 1935  ■  122 (a prayer)“O sweet Master of love, grant that my whole consciousness be concentrated in Thee so that I may live only by love and light, and that love and light may radiate through me and awaken in all upon the way.”

  

12 March 1935  ■  129 Here Sri Aurobindo answers to your question:  “The same Force that works in your consciousness in meditation and clears away the cloud and confusion whenever you open to it, can also take up your action and not only make you aware of the defects in it but keep you conscious of what is to be done and guide your mind and hands to do it. If you open to it in your work, you will begin to feel this guidance more and more until behind all your activities you will be aware of the Force of the Mother.”[Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library in 30 Volumes. – Volume 23. – Letters on Yoga.– P.2-3]

24 March 1935  ■  141 Sri Aurobindo sais:“Sincerity means to lift all the movements of the being to the level of the highest consciousness and realisation already attained. Sincerity exacts the unification and harmonisation of the whole being in all its parts and movements around the central Divine Will.” [The Mother. Collected Works of the Mother.– Volume 14. – Words of the Mother]

25 March 1935  ■  142 Seneca has said:“We must choose a virtuous man to be always present to our spirit and must live as if we were continually under his eyes and he were scrutinising all that we do.”

23 April, 1935: 171   Chwang-Tse has said:“When water is still, it reflects objects like a mirror. This stillness, this reflect level is the model of the sage. The heart of the sage in perfect repose is the mirror of earth and heaven and all existences.”

24 April, 1935: 172 Ramakrishna has said: “The Eternal is seen when the mind is at rest. When the sea of the mind is troubled by the winds of desires, it cannot reflect the Eternal and all divine vision is impossible.”

25 April 1935  ■  173 Ramakrishna has said also:“So long as a man cries aloud, O Allah, O Allah, be sure he has not yet found his Allah; for whoever has found Him becomes calm and full of peace.”

26 April 1935  ■  174 Carlyle says....“Silence, the great empire of silence, loftier than the stars, profounder than the kingdom of death! It alone is great! All the rest is petty.”

28 April 1935  ■  176 (meditation)“In the depths of all that is, of all that shall be, is Thy divine and unvarying smile.”

[The Mother. Collected Works of the Mother.– Volume 15. – Words of the Mother]

30 April 1935  ■  178 This book closes with the end of the month. Let it be also the end of all your difficulties and troubles, and the beginning of an always happy life.  With love and blessings.