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Their Spiritual significance

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Purified mind

mind ready to surrender to the Divine.

   

Thevetia peruviana (Pers.) K. Schum. (Apocynaceae)

Luckynut

White

var alba

Additional information

The "Mind" in the ordinary use of the word covers indiscriminately the whole consciousness, for man is a mental being and mentalises everything; but in the language of this yoga the words "mind" and "mental" are used to connote specially the part of the nature which has to do with cognition and intelligence, with ideas, with mental or thought perceptions, the reactions of thought to things, with the truly mental movements and formations, mental vision and will, etc., that are part of his intelligence.

Sri Aurobindo

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

The mind proper is divided into three parts - thinking Mind, dynamic Mind, externalising Mind - the former concerned with ideas and knowledge in their own right, the second with the putting out of mental forces for realisation of the idea, the third with the expression of them in life (not only by speech, but by any form it can give).

Sri Aurobindo

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

Mental capacity is developed in silent meditation.

The Mother

The Mother. Collected Works of the Mother.- Volume 12. - On Education

The mind is not an instrument of knowledge; it is incapable of finding knowledge. The mind has to be silent and attentive to receive knowledge from above and manifest it.

The Mother

The Mother. Collected Works of the Mother.- Volume 15. - Words of the Mother

Purity is to accept no other influence but only the influence of the Divine.

Sri Aurobindo

Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library in 30 Volumes. - Volume 23. - Letters on Yoga.-P.2-3

One is truly perfectly pure only when the whole being, in all its elements and all its movements, adheres fully, exclusively, to the divine Will. This indeed is total purity. It does not depend on any moral or social law, any mental convention of any kind. It depends exclusively on this: when all the elements and all the movements of the being adhere exclusively and totally to the divine Will.

The Mother

The Mother. Collected Works of the Mother.- Volume 6. - Questions And Answers (1954)

What I call purity, the true purity, is not all those things morality teaches: it is non-ego.

There must be nothing but Him.

Him, not only because we have given Him everything and consecrated ourselves totally to Him (that is not enough), but Him because He has taken total possession of the human instrument.

The Mother

The Mother. Agenda. - Volume 1. - 1951-1960

There is a force of purity, not the purity of the moralist, but an essential purity of spirit, in the very substance of the being.

Sri Aurobindo

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

Look what I've received (Mother hands a garland of jasmine), you'll give it to Sujata - it smells nice!

The Mother

The Mother. Agenda. - Volume 4. - 1963

This is purity, to accept no other influence but only the influence of the Divine.

The Mother

The Mother. Collected Works of the Mother.- Volume 14. - Words of the Mother

get the higher consciousness, its light and the workings of its power down into the obscurer parts of the nature

Sri Aurobindo

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

Sweet Mother, how can we empty the consciousness of its mixed contents?

"Keep the quietude and do not mind if it is for a time an empty quietude; the consciousness is often like a vessel which has to be emptied of its mixed or undesirable contents; it has to be kept vacant for a while till it can be filled with things new and true, right and pure." (Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library in 30 Volumes. - Volume 23. - Letters on Yoga.-P.2-3)

By aspiration, the rejection of the lower movements, a call to a higher force. If you do not accept certain movements, then naturally, when they find that they can't manifest, gradually they diminish in force and stop occurring. If you refuse to express everything that is of a lower kind, little by little the very thing disappears, and the consciousness is emptied of lower things. It is by refusing to give expression – I mean not only in action but also in thought, in feeling. When impulses, thoughts, emotion come, if you refuse to express them, if you push them aside and remain in a state of inner aspiration and calm, then gradually they lose their force and stop coming. So the consciousness is emptied of its lower movements.

But for instance, when undesirable thoughts come, if you look at them, observe them, if you take pleasure in following them in their movements, they will never stop coming. It is the same thing when you have undesirable feelings or sensation: if you pay attention to them, concentrate on them or even look at them with a certain indulgence, they will never stop. But if you absolutely refuse to receive and express them, after some time they stop. You must be patient and very persistent.

In a great aspiration, if you can put yourself into contact with something higher, some influence of your psychic being or some light from above, and if you can manage to put this in touch with these lower movements, naturally they stop more quickly. But before even being able to draw these things by aspiration, you can already stop those movements from finding expression in you by a very persistent and patient refusal. When thoughts which you do not like come, if you just brush them away and do not pay them any attention at all, after some time they won't come any longer. But you must do this very persistently and regularly.

The Mother

The Mother. Collected Works of the Mother.- Volume 6. - Questions And Answers (1954)

the rejection of the lower movements, a call to a higher force.

The Mother

The Mother. Collected Works of the Mother.- Volume 6. - Questions And Answers (1954)

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