Excerpts from Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness – 5

Consciousness is the means, consciousness is the key, and
consciousness is the goal.Through the very process of our evolution, the consciousness,
submerged in Matter, has grown accustomed to depending upon outer organs and antennas to perceive the world; and since we have seen the
antennas appear before the master of the antennas, we have childishly concluded that the antennas have created the master, and that without
antennas there is no master, no perception of the world. But this is an illusion. Our dependence upon the senses is merely a habit – true, a millenary one, but no more inescapable than the flintstone implements of the Chellean man: It is possible for the mind – and it would be
natural for it, if it could be persuaded to liberate itself from its consent to the domination of matter, – to take direct cognizance of the objects
of sense without the aid of the sense-organs.

Sri Aurobindo lived in great poverty during his first years in
Pondicherry. and would finally be left in peace the day the French police superintendent came to search his room and discovered in his desk drawers the works of Homer. After inquiring whether these writings were “really Greek,” the superintendent became so filled with awe and respect for this gentleman-yogi, who read scholarly books and spoke French, that he
simply left, never to return.

,.The significance of the
lotus is not to be found by analyzing the secrets of the mud from which
it grows here; its secret is to be found in the heavenly archetype of the
lotus that blooms for ever in the Light above.
We appear to progress from below upward,

As long as we move with the common herd, life is relatively easy, with its
moderate ups and downs; but the moment we want to get out of the
rut, a thousand forces rise up, suddenly very interested that we should behave “like everyone else,” then we realize how well organized the
imprisonment is. We even realize that we can go as far downward as
we can ascend, that our downward movements are in exact proportion
to our capacity of ascent; many scales fall from our eyes.
Only those who have never gone beyond the frontal personality can
still harbor any illusion about themselves.
In reality, as experience shows, these
disturbing forces have their place in the universe; they are disturbing
only at the scale of our constricted momentary consciousness, and for
a specific purpose. Firstly, they always catch us with our defenses
down – yet were we firm and one-pointed, they could not shake us for
a second. To the growing soul, to the spirit within us, may not difficulties,
obstacles, attacks be a means of growth, added strength, enlarged
experience, training for spiritual victory?
The method for dealing with these adverse forces is the same as
for the other vibrations: silence, inner stillness that lets the storm blow
over. We may not succeed the first time in dissolving these attacks,
but more and more they will seem to take place on the surface of our
being; we may be shaken, upset, yet deep down we will feel the
“Witness” in us, unscathed and unaffected – he is never affected. We
fall and get back up again, each time becoming stronger.