Some excerpts:

http://www.tamilnation.org/aurobindo/Satprem.htm

Is humanity poised at a great leap into a new stage of evolution where "consciousness itself is power?"

The author: (Bernard Enginger)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satprem

His inspiration:

http://www.answers.com/topic/the-agenda

Satprem, who survived Hitler's hospitality, has written sixteen volumes on the Mother in addition
to this survey of Aurobindo's thoughts, which I found in an old hippie bookstore. Many hippies wound up in Pondicherry in search of the divine after the drugs failed to produce the Next Wave in Evolution. The Mother actually believed that human
DNA is about to be transformed. Who knows...?

Ken Wilber and David Hawkins rate Aurobindo as the greatest philosopher since Plato and Plotinus.

This may be a good preliminary before launching into the deep sea of Integral Yoga.

quote:

For the mind does not seek to know truly, though it seems to - it seeks to grind. Its need of knowledge is primarily a need of something to grind. And if perchance the machine were to come to a stop because the knowledge was found, it would quickly rise in revolt and find something new to grind, to have the pleasure of grinding and grinding: This is its function. That within us which seeks to know and to progress is not the mind but something behind it which makes use of it:

I thought that was very well said on one of the links you recommended, MM. Thanks.

quote:

"The capital period of my intellectual development," confided Sri Aurobindo to a disciple, "was when I could see clearly that what the intellect said might be correct and not correct, that what the intellect justified was true and its opposite also was true. I never admitted a truth in the mind without simultaneously keeping it open to the contrary of it.... And the first result was that the prestige of the intellect was gone!"

Here is the path of yoga as described by Aurobindo in the liberation of a human in becoming an instrument of the Divine.

http://www.gita-society.com/section4/4_aurobindo.htm

quote:

In other words, an individual who has developed impersonality, or attained spiritual personality, becomes an instrument of the Divine and loses all sense of doership.
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Many individuals claim this state of being, by their assertion of having become enlightened. Who has the ability to question and/or prove their claims?. It comes down to judge them by their fruits, and many do fail this test.

Many individuals claim this state of being, by their assertion of having become enlightened. Who has the ability to question and/or prove their claims?. It comes down to judge them by their fruits, and many do fail this test.

It was always my understanding that those who are truly enlightened didn�t go around claiming enlightenment. To do so would be a sign of not being enlightened.

Were that the case Brad, spiritual gurus roster of students would be nil, or close to it.

Mental telepathy, I just took a break from the forum and thought about the exact same thing that you just wrote about. A true Master and truly enlightened being does not proclaim enlightenment. My good friend Rabbi Ginsberg was telling me the other day that these truly enlightened beings, who never see themselves as such, live very ordinary lives among us drawing no attention to themselves. The spend their lives in prayers, solitude, silence and in helping others without any profit in return.

My good friend Rabbi Ginsberg was telling me the other day that these truly enlightened beings, who never see themselves as such, live very ordinary lives among us drawing no attention to themselves.

That certainly sounds very sensible to me, Freebird. I surely feel myself being pulled and moved on the overall scale of life from "scumbagdom" to sanctity, and as this happens I find there is less need to be right. Less need to toot my own horn. Less need to feed the ego. Less need to be admired. And as one becomes more enlightened, I don�t think it is modesty at all that has anyone keeping quiet about their possible state of enlightenment. I think it�s more a case of "the more we know, the more we know we don�t know." Becoming "enlightened" then is hardly something to brag about.

The spend their lives in prayers, solitude, silence and in helping others without any profit in

Yes, if one is truly enlightened then, analogous to learning a language such as English, one doesn�t go around shouting "I can speak English! I can speak English!" One simply begins talking. So I say, beware of those who are using their supposed "enlightenment" to make big bucks for themselves.

"A good man brings good things from his storehouse of goodness." -somewhere in the bible, loose mm paraphrase

Satprem relates that Aurobindo had a photographic memory, and spent some years voraciously reading.

Then, it seems, he spent many years observing the subtle movements of his mind, as it interacted with
"subconscient, superconscient and supraconscient" mind, as he refered to them.

It seems to me that he went to where Merton and de
Mello were headed, and beyond. This makes him a challenge, and I've been cowering before him for
almost a year now like a frightened rabbit.

This book by Satprem is an ideal introduction, and may launch me out of the shallow lagoon into the deep Indian Ocean. I have the Essays on the Gita,
Life Divine and Integral Yoga, as well as his love
poem, Savitri.

Satprem is an interesting Yogi in his own right.
I'm great-full you all are seeing something here.

It's a rare group of individuals who would even be interested. Luv U guys!

Thanks Michael for the introduction of Aurobindo's poem named: "Savitri". It is stunning, and I can relate to same from some of my own experiences. He uses the title God in his presentation which I have found lacking in its use by many other Eastern yogis and teachers. Instead, Brahma, is used for the Eastern name of God. Savitri is the name of Brahhma's wife. I see her associated with a swan.

I shall look into the book by Satprem.

The poem reminds me of an experience I had several years ago with a stranger who politely asked to converse with me. He said that while watching me sit on a bench in a meditative state, a memory was recalled by him during a visit to India. He stated that my appearance recalled in him a sight of the full moon rising out of the black Indian ocean. Furthermore, he recommended a trip to India and was very explicit for me to go to the south and not the north of India. He spoke of a race of people there that I was unfamiliar with called the Dravidians, and repeatedly stressed that would I be seen by the Dravidians, that they would immediately love me. From this encounter with a stranger, I returned home and made an effort to learn what I could about the Dravidians, a very interesting race of people.

Anyone interested in knowing more about the Dravidians:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dravidian_race

Savitri:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/produ...ks&v=glance&n=283155

This may make mystic transport for a poet like you Brad. You could place it next to your Rabindrinath Tagore and Khalil Gibran. He spent decades writing this and continually revising it up 'till the end.

Author's Note

"The tale of Satyavan and Savitri is recited in the Mahabarata as a story of conjugal love conquering death. But this, legend is, as shown by many features of the human tale, one of the many symbolic myths of the Vedic cycle. Satyavan is the soul carrying the divine truth of being within itself but descended into the grip of death and ignorance; Savitri is the Divine Word, daughter of the Sun, goddess of the supreme Truth who comes down and is born to save.; Aswapati, the Lord of the Horse, her human father, is the Lord of Tapasya, the concentrated energy of spiritual endeavour that helps us to rise from the mortal to the immortal planes; Dyumatsena, Lord of the Shining Hosts, father of Satyavan, is the Divine Mind here fallen blind, losing its celestial kingdom of vision, and through that loss its kingdom of glory. Still, this is not a mere allegory, the characters are not personified qualities, but incarnations or emanations of living and conscious Forces with whom we can enter into concrete touch and they take human bodies in order to help man and show him the way from his mortal state to a divine consciousness and immortal life." -Sri Aurobindo

Films are now being made of the Ramayana and the Mahabarata and they should be fun, since Hollywood
seems to be running out of story lines. Bollywood!