Sri Aurobindo

"Very usually, altruism is only the sublimest form of selfishness."

"Revolutions hew the past to pieces and cast it into a cauldron, but what has emerged is the old Aeson with a new visage."

"Suffer yourself to be tempted within so that you may exhaust in the struggle your downward propensities."

"If thou think defeat is the end of thee, then go not forth to fight, even though thou be the stronger. For Fate is not purchased by any man nor is Power bound over to her possessors. But defeat is not the end, it is only a gate or a beginning."

"I have failed, thou sayest. Say rather that God is circling about towards His object."

"If thy aim be great and thy means small, still act; for by action alone these can increase to thee."

"Care not for time and success. Act out thy part, whether it be to fail or to prosper."

"He who would win high spiritual degrees, must pass endless tests and examinations. But most are anxious only to bribe the examiner."

"O soldier and hero of God, where for thee is sorrow or shame or suffering? For thy life is a glory, thy deeds a consecration, victory thy apotheosis, defeat thy triumph."

"O Death, our masked friend and maker of opportunities, when thou wouldst open the gate, hesitate not to tell us beforehand; for we are not of those who are shaken by its iron jarring."

"Watch the too indignantly righteous. Before long you will find them committing or condoning the very offence which they have so fiercely censured."

"When thou findest thyself scorning another, look then at thy own heart and laugh at thy folly."

"The meeting of man and God must always mean a penetration and entry of the divine into the human and a self-immergence of man in the Divinity."

"There are two ways of avoiding the snare of woman; one is to shun all women and the other to love all beings."

"There is nothing small in God's eyes; let there be nothing small in thine."

"Not result is the purpose of action, but God's eternal delight in becoming, seeing and doing."

"Rather hang thyself than belong to the horde of successful imitators."

"What is vice but an enslaving habit and virtue but a human opinion? See God and do His will; walk in whatever path He shall trace for thy goings."

"Only the soul that is naked and unashamed, can be pure and innocent, even as Adam was in the primal garden of humanity."

"It is easy to distinguish the evil worked by sin and vice, but the trained eye sees also the evil done by self-righteous or self-regarding virtue."

"What is the use of only knowing? I say to thee, Act and be, for therefore God sent thee into this human body."

"What is the use of only being? I say to thee, Become, for therefore wast thou established as a man in this world of matter."

"Mankind has used two powerful weapons to destroy its own powers and enjoyment, wrong indulgence and wrong abstinence."

"Others boast of their love for God. My boast is that I did not love God; it was He who loved me and sought me out and forced me to belong to Him."

"To commit adultery with God is the perfect experience for which the world was created."

"Even when one has climbed up into those levels of bliss where pain vanishes, it still survives disguised as intolerable ecstasy."

"When I was mounting upon ever higher crests of His joy, I asked myself whether there was no limit to the increase of bliss and almost I grew afraid of God's embraces."

"The whole world is my seraglio and every living being and inanimate existence in it is the instrument of my rapture."

"To thy lover, O Lord, the railing of the world is wild honey and the pelting of stones by the mob is summer rain on the body. For is it not Thou that railest and peltest, and is it not Thou in the stones that strikest and hurtest me?"

"They say, O my God, that I am mad because I see no fault in Thee; but if I am indeed mad with Thy love, I do not wish to recover my sanity."

"I was much plagued by Satan, until I found that it was God who was tempting me; then the anguish of him passed out of my soul for ever."

"I hated the devil and was sick with his temptations and tortures; and I could not tell why the voice in his departing words was so sweet that when he returned often and offered himself to me, it was with sorrow I refused him. Then I discovered it was Krishna at His tricks and my hate was changed into laughter."

"A God who cannot smile, could not have created this humorous universe."

"God took a child to fondle him in His bosom of delight; but the mother wept and would not be consoled because her child no longer existed."

"My lover took away my robe of sin and I let it fall, rejoicing; then he plucked at my robe of virtue, but I was ashamed and alarmed and prevented him. It was not till he wrested it from me by force that I saw how my soul had been hidden from me."

"Canst thou see God as the bodiless Infinite and yet love Him as a man loves his mistress? Then has the highest truth of the Infinite been revealed to thee. Canst thou also clothe the Infinite in one secret embraceable body and see Him seated in each and all of these bodies that are visible and sensible? Then has its widest and profoundest truth come also into thy possession."

"Suffering makes us capable of the full force of the Master of Delight; it makes us capable also to bear the utter play of the Master of Power. Pain is the key that opens the gates of strength; it is the high-road that leads to the city of beatitude."

"The strangest of the soul's experiences is this, that it finds, when it ceases to care for the image and threat of troubles, then the troubles themselves are nowhere to be found in one's neighbourhood. It is then that we hear from behind those unreal clouds God laughing at us."

"God's servant is something; God's slave is greater."

"If Hell were possible, it would be the shortest cut to the highest heaven. For verily God loveth."

"When we have passed beyond knowings, then we shall have Knowledge. Reason was the helper; Reason is the bar."

"When we have passed beyond willings, then we shall have Power. Effort was the helper; Effort is the bar."

"When we have passed beyond enjoyings, then we shall have Bliss. Desire was the helper; Desire is the bar."

"When we have passed beyond individualising, then we shall be real Persons. Ego was the helper; Ego is the bar."

"When we have passed beyond humanity, then we shall be the Man. The Animal was the helper; the Animal is the bar."

"Transform reason into ordered intuition; let all thyself be light. This is thy goal."

"Transform effort into an easy and sovereign overflowing of the soul-strength; let all thyself be conscious force. This is thy goal."

"Transform enjoying into an even and objectless ecstasy; let all thyself be bliss. This is thy goal."

"Transform the divided individual into the world-personality; let all thyself be the divine. This is thy goal."

"Evolution is not finished; reason is not the last word nor the reasoning animal the supreme figure of Nature. As man emerged out of the animal, so out of man the superman emerges."