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flowers
Their Spiritual significance
Photo Collection
Lasting remembrance
The remembrance of that which has helped the being to progress.
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Myosotis sylvatica Spp. Ehrh. ex Hoffm. (Boraginaceae; Alt. Myosotis)
Woodland forget-me-not
Sky blue
It is by the constant remembrance that the being is prepared for opening. By the opening of the heart the Mother's presence begins to be felt and, by the opening to her Power above, the Force of the higher consciousness comes down into the body and works there to change the whole nature.
Sri Aurobindo
Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library in 30 Volumes. - Volume 25. - The Mother
The good condition of openness with the Force descending and the constant remembrance - or whatever other form the condition takes - is the beginning of the true consciousness and its duration is always short at the beginning because the ordinary consciousness is not accustomed to it, but to something else. But it always increases in duration and power until it is able to maintain itself even when the outer consciousness is occupied with other things.
Sri Aurobindo
Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library in 30 Volumes. - Volume 24. - Letters on Yoga.-P.4
All the difficulties you describe are quite natural things common to most people. It is easy for one, comparatively, to remember and be conscious when one sits quiet in meditation; it is difficult when one has to be busy with work. The remembrance and consciousness in work have to come by degrees, you must not expect to have it all at once; nobody can get it all at once. It comes in two ways, - first, if one practises remembering the Mother and offering the work to her each time one does something (not all the time one is doing, but at the beginning or whenever one can remember,) then that slowly becomes easy and habitual to the nature. Secondly, by the meditation an inner consciousness begins to develop which, after a time, not at once or suddenly, becomes more and more automatically permanent. One feels this as a separate consciousness from that outer which works. At first this separate consciousness is not felt when one is working, but as soon as the work stops one feels it was there all the time watching from behind; afterwards it begins to be felt during the work itself, as if there were two parts of oneself - one watching and supporting from behind and remembering Mother and offering to her and the other doing the work. When this happens, then to work with the true consciousness becomes more and more easy.
Sri Aurobindo
Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library in 30 Volumes. - Volume 23. - Letters on Yoga.-P.2-3
All the difficulties you describe are quite natural things common to most people. It is easy for one, comparatively, to remember and be conscious when one sits quiet in meditation; it is difficult when one has to be busy with work. The remembrance and consciousness in work have to come by degrees, you must not expect to have it all at once; nobody can get it all at once. It comes in two ways, – first, if one practises remembering the Mother and offering the work to her each time one does something (not all the time one is doing, but at the beginning or whenever one can remember,) then that slowly becomes easy and habitual to the nature. Secondly, by the meditation an inner consciousness begins to develop which, after a time, not at once or suddenly, becomes more and more automatically permanent. One feels this as a separate consciousness from that outer which works. At first this separate consciousness is not felt when one is working, but as soon as the work stops one feels it was there all the time watching from behind; afterwards it begins to be felt during the work itself, as if there were two parts of oneself – one watching and supporting from behind and remembering Mother and offering to her and the other doing the work. When this happens, then to work with the true consciousness becomes more and more easy.
Sri Aurobindo
Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library in 30 Volumes. - Volume 23. - Letters on Yoga.-P.2-3
The one need for you and for all is to be, even in the darkness of the powers of obscurity of the physical consciousness, stubbornly faithful to your soul and to the remembrance of the Divine Call. Be faithful and you will conquer.
Sri Aurobindo
Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library in 30 Volumes. - Volume 24. - Letters on Yoga.-P.4
Continuity
If you have the philosophic mind, you will ask yourself: "What do I call 'myself'? Is it my body? - it changes all the time, it is never the same thing. Is it my feelings? - they change so often. Is it my thoughts? - they are built and destroyed continuously. That is not myself. Where is the self? What is it that gives me this sense of continuity?" If you continue sincerely, you go back a few years. The problem becomes more and more perplexing. You continue to observe, you tell yourself: "It is my memory." But even if one loses one's memory, one would be oneself. If one sincerely continues this profound search, there comes a moment when everything disappears and one single thing exists, that is the Divine, the divine Presence.
The Mother
The Mother. Collected Works of the Mother.- Volume 5. - Questions And Answers (1953)
When we say myself what do we speak of? The body? The sensations? The feelings? The thoughts? All this has no stability. The appearance of continuity comes from a rigorous determinism obtaining in each of these realms of the being; and into this determinism there enter as many external as internal agents. Where then is the self, that is to say, something permanent, constant, ever the same? In order to find it, to find this absolute, we must proceed from depth to depth, from relativity to relativity - for all that is in form is relative - until we reach That which is Unthinkable to our reason, Unutterable to our language, but knowable by identification - for we carry That in ourselves, it is the very centre and life of our being.
The Mother
The Mother. Collected Works of the Mother.- Volume 2. - The Path of Later On
The psychic being materialises itself... and that gives continuity to evolution.
The Mother
The Mother. Collected Works of the Mother.- Volume 11. - Notes on the Way
The continuity of creation could not be assured without something which possessed that quality.
The Mother
The Mother. Collected Works of the Mother.- Volume 10. - The Thoughts and Aphorismes
It is because of the psychic that we have so clear a sense of continuity.
The Mother
The Mother. Collected Works of the Mother.- Volume 7. - Questions And Answers (1955)
So one can say that the psychic life is immortal life, endless time, limitless space, ever-progressive change, unbroken continuity in the universe of forms.
The Mother
The Mother. Collected Works of the Mother.- Volume 12. - On Education
At death, when the consciousness withdraws into the background, the different personalities in you fall apart, rushing hither and thither to seek their own suitable environments. One part may enter into another person who has an affinity for it, another may even enter an animal, while that which has been alive to the divine Presence may remain attached to the central psychic being. But if you are fully organised and converted into a single individual, bent on reaching the goal of evolution, then you will be conscious after death and preserve a continuity.
The Mother
The Mother. Collected Works of the Mother.- Volume 3. - Questions and Answers (1929)