We are currently looking for an Official SelfGrowth.com Guide to "Self Knowledge". If you have expertise in Self Knowledge and your own website and/or product for this topic, please review this form for complete details. The Official Guide Position is part of our Premium Placement Package
Many people believe that realisation comes from reading specific texts, or practicing specific techniques of posture, breathing, prayer, mantra etc. The Mother provides a counterpoint to this belief by showing how the practice should take up all the actions and movements of life and transform ... Views: 316
You have posed a very nice question!
The last death in this world is termed as Nirvana. After achieving Nirvana, there is no rebirth. This state is considered as Moksha, wherein the Soul is free from the cycle of birth and death. Until the person does not achieve Nirvana, he continues to ... Views: 316
Creating a detailed imagination is the first step in a future realisation. The formation so devised will attempt to achieve its actualisation in the world. Yet, it must contend with the readiness of the ground upon which it alights, the preparation of the ‘soil’, the proper support along the ... Views: 315
The supramental consciousness, as the next evolutionary stage, will eventually resolve the difficulties of the transitional period and establish itself on earth. The question then arises, what is the relationship between the gnostic beings and the existing organisation of beings rooted in body, ... Views: 315
The question of possession by vital beings has been sensationalized to such an extent in modern society, with an entire genre of motion pictures depicting such things in an extreme way, that it is difficult to have a serious discussion and review of whatever reality underlies these sensational ... Views: 315
There are quite a few anecdotes and statements by individuals about remembering past lives, and there is an entire field of study dealing with what is called ‘past life regression therapy’. Some of the more intriguing incidents involve young people who can describe a village in some distant ... Views: 315
The Rishis of the Rig Veda focused, first and foremost, on kindling the mystic fire as the key to the reception and utilization of higher powers of consciousness. The altar for this flame is in the secret heart of the being, deep within, behind the physical organ, where the psychic being is ... Views: 314
The primary standpoint for most people is that they are a physical body endowed with Life, Mind and (potentially in their minds) a Soul. Everything starts from the primacy of the body and its centrality in their view of their lives. This makes the purpose of life one of survival and procreation, ... Views: 314
There are those who treat astrology as a science, those who believe that our fate is determined by the “stars” and also those who believe that astrology is a pseudo-science with no real basis in anything that can meaningfully either control our destiny or even signify events in our lives. How ... Views: 313
A yogic discipline focused on the abandonment of life does not take pains to develop the inherent powers and capacities of the body, life-force and the mind. In fact, the powers of these elements of the human instrument are instead considered to be lures, obstacles and impediments to the ... Views: 313
Rare are those individuals who can take up a practice and not see any result whatsoever, yet continue on with endless patience and persistence. We look at the example of Milarepa, the great yogi of Tibet who spent a number of years doing hard labor at the behest of his guru, Marpa, and who was ... Views: 313
In Paradise Lost, John Milton describes at great length the intentions and motivations of the fallen angels as described by the Christian tradition, and their attempt and need to influence and control the human world and thereby to defeat God’s intention and plan for humanity. This story is in ... Views: 313
During the evolutionary development of the ascending powers of consciousness, the action of the soul is to provide an influence from behind, while the primary attention is fixated on the needed development of the powers of the external being, body, life and mind. This severely limits the direct ... Views: 313
There is a serious rationale behind the many spiritual paths that counsel the true seeker to abandon his family, his friends, his social life, and live secluded in a cave, in the forest, in the desert, to practice his spiritual discipline. All of these connections and social interactions bring ... Views: 313
It is common for spiritual aspirants to be advised to isolate themselves or at least limit their contact with others in a social setting, with the ostensible reason to aid the seeker in focusing on the spiritual effort and avoid distraction and the possibility of being diverted or diluted in the ... Views: 313
In his play Hamlet, William Shakespeare comments on the limitations of the objective mind and its ability to understand existence: ““There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy”. Our mind’s view of the existence of the universe and its significance ... Views: 312
Most people tend to respond to life circumstances and opportunities based on past experience, training, education and any guidelines or rules they have imbibed from their past, all combined with their basic outlook on their lives, their desires, their needs and their circumstances. We can say ... Views: 312
Our understanding of existence is very much rooted in our own anthropocentric view of things. We generally recognise the awareness we hold within ourselves, and, viewing other beings and forms in our visible environs, we either attribute to them no consciousness, or, at best, lower forms or ... Views: 312
One of the greatest difficulties we face in trying to understand the operation of hidden or occult forces in life is the limitations on our ability to perceive and to know what is actually taking place. Each aspect of our being has its own way of “knowing”. For our lives in the external world we ... Views: 312
We have the tendency to get caught up in trying to capture a line of thought or to verbalize a perception or idea. When we have an experience of the spiritual realms, the first thing we want to do is to create a thought-form to explain it, to organise it, and to be able to describe it. The very ... Views: 312
The vital nature gets excited by things that seem to be “occult” or that promise some kind of interaction with the “dearly departed” loved ones who have passed away. An entire industry has arisen to cater to people who are seeking solace, contact or information from the deceased. Some of this, ... Views: 311
Our normal human view of things is based in the framing of the mental process which relies on distinguishing differences between one thing and another, between one being and another, between one event and another. This “fragmentation” leads us to focus primarily on the separation we have rather ... Views: 311
Worlds and Beings Exist Beyond What We Can Perceive With Our Physical Senses
Posted on June 4, 2024
Explorers of the world came across situations and beings with whom they had no prior contact and found some of them to be extremely dangerous while others seemed to be neutral or even positive. ... Views: 311
Most people are rooted in the vital consciousness, and thus respond to the vibrations that occur within the vital realm. Unless they have contact with their soul or at least clear influence by the psychic being on the external parts of the being, they are virtually unable to recognise the action ... Views: 310
Everywhere we turn we see mounting crises. The news reports are dire. Climate disasters are increasing, we are poisoned daily by toxic substances in our food, water and the very air we breathe. On a day-to-day level, we are struggling in a world that seems to be impossible to understand, with ... Views: 310
When we examine the question of thought-forms, we recognise that people usually want to imply that a thought is able to turn into some kind of physical reality, purely through the power of thought. This, however, is one element of the question, but not the only element. Thought-forms have a ... Views: 310
Scientists and medical practitioners have studied hypnotism and even applied it in various situations. They raise some doubts due to studies that did not completely follow the highest double-blind standards used in medical research; nevertheless, hypnotism has been found to have some very clear ... Views: 309
Possibly it is a result of our relatively short span of life during which we are active and capable of conscious observation, insight and action. The period of childhood is mostly involved with development of the body, the vital force and the mind to the point where they can become functional ... Views: 309
With our normal human viewpoint based in the standpoint of the ego we react as if the entire world revolves around us. This ego-centric, anthropocentric viewpoint creates its own formidable limitations in terms of recognising, perceiving, knowing and addressing the larger forces at work. If we ... Views: 309
Many spiritual practitioners have realized that the external life we customarily lead is a life of ‘illusion’, and that it is based in a flawed view of reality. This does not mean that our life, existence and action has no real significance; rather, that the way we define our lives, based on the ... Views: 309
Another type of deception may either be conscious fraud, or may be another instance of the process of self-deception manifesting also as deception in relation to others. If the individual is purposely trying to take advantage of people, and knows that to be the case, it is an instance of ... Views: 308
The human mind likes to have nice, neat categories. “Either/Or”, “Black/White”. It has a hard time dealing with mixed actions or anything that partakes of various allegedly competing or conflicting principles. Thus, the debate over free will and determinism rages on, and eventually comes down to ... Views: 308
Under the influence of the gnostic consciousness, the entire framework of the mental organisation of life, which we accept as assumed and given, would necessarily be modified. The very basis of viewing and understanding things would have to shift from one of division and separation to one of ... Views: 308
There has been a long-standing debate between religion and science, centered around the question of faith versus the search for truth through the use of the mind and its powers. This raises several questions, however, about the type and nature of the faith, and the type and nature of the mental ... Views: 307
There are forces in the universal creation that can obstruct, delay or harm the development of consciousness. They try to maintain a form of status quo, or they try to protect a vested interest or desire that they maintain. These forces, sometimes called ‘hostile forces’ are a frequent topic of ... Views: 307
Dealing with the heat radiation that comes from the sun is a matter of gaining the ability to absorb and utilize the energy without being overwhelmed by its force. Turning then to the issue of how to deal with cold, we have an entirely different scenario, in that we have a reduction in the ... Views: 307
As we begin to experience realms of awareness other than that of our current primary body-life-mind complex, we can begin to appreciate that there are further, higher states of conscious awareness that can be experienced, and which have powers of insight, and ways of working that are far ... Views: 307
There are hidden forces, vibrational patterns that move between people that remain unseen, but have their effect, similar to the way that we do not observe electricity, but we do observe its effects. These vibrational patterns operate without any overt, external medium, simply through ... Views: 307
Sri Aurobindo continues to explore the various proposed methods for effecting positive change in human life and society so as to confront the evolutionary crisis we see before us. Some have proposed that the solution can be found in developing a more perfect economic system, and much effort has ... Views: 306
In order to know something, we need to utilize the tools and methods appropriate to whatever form or energetic action we are trying to know. Those things which rely on emotion, for instance, cannot be fully understood by the logical intellect. Similarly, the strict step by step process of ... Views: 306
We spend little time or thought on the place we occupy in the universal creation. The larger forces at work, the consciousness that creates, builds, shapes and directs this massive and complex undertaking remain hidden from us. The power we can consciously receive and utilize is a minute amount ... Views: 306
Enthusiasm and gratitude. They represent the powers of aspiration and receptivity in the being, along with the impulse to surrender of the ego and widen to embrace the Divine. For those interested in the transformation of life in the world, it is not sufficient to simply have a direct connection ... Views: 306
A story was related by an individual in business which. at the time, seemed somewhat unusual, but now, in context, makes a lot of sense. He indicated that he had a customer who would think about him when she needed to place an order for goods for her store. They seemed to have a very tight ... Views: 306
People are not generally consciously aware of the energy interchanges that take place to fuel their bodies and drive their live energies. They understand that they need to eat food as a form of ‘fuel’ for their energy, and they count ‘calories’ that are produced by various food sources. Clearly, ... Views: 305
Jules Verne, a writer who was not himself a scientist, nevertheless inspired generations of scientists. He did not invent the idea of the submarine, but in his book Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, he worked out a number of conceptual issues so that submarine use could become widespread, ... Views: 305
The human lifetime is extremely short in the context of Nature’s evolutionary development. This leads us to several possible explanations or conclusions. We can posit that life is just random chance and there is no real significance or meaning to our lives, or the fact that we have developed ... Views: 305
When Life evolved out of Matter, substantial transformations occurred. What was not possible in a purely material world suddenly became not only possible, but a key principle. Matter itself, to accommodate the life force, had to become more fluid, more flexible and responsive to changes that ... Views: 305
There are many functions of our existence that take place without the conscious awareness or intervention of the mind. All of the complex functions of the body and its organs, for instance, are very much independent of control by our conscious mind and will, although some of these functions may, ... Views: 305
In his book The Mother, Sri Aurobindo defines the conditions and qualities of faith needed to overcome all obstructions or disasters: “To walk through life armoured against all fear, peril and disaster, only two things are needed, two that go always together — the Grace of the Divine Mother and ... Views: 304
A yogic discipline focused on the abandonment of life does not take pains to develop the inherent powers and capacities of the body, life-force and the mind. In fact, the powers of these elements of the human instrument are instead considered to be lures, obstacles and impediments to the ... Views: 303