Building a ‘New Earth’

Building a ‘New Earth’

Every so often a story comes along that captures the spirit of Auroville in a unique way, bringing to light aspects of its deeper purpose of transforming the world we live in to create a spiritualized life on our planet. ‘New Earth’ is one such story, captured in a colourful coffee table book with hundreds of vivid flower mandala images accompanied by a few short texts. Conceived and photographed by Avigal Lemberger, the book is intended as a meditative opening to the language and significance of flowers and mandalas.

The New Earth story started on October 13, 1972 when Auroculture brought an all-flower compost to The Mother who “put her lovely hands on it and meditated on it.” This original batch has been constantly added to, and taken from, in a homeopathic manner, so that a direct link back to Mother’s first touch and concentration remains. Before her passing, Auroculture designated Avigal to follow in her footsteps with the work of creating this ‘New Earth’. Read more

Crossroad: A New Humanity

Crossroad: A New Humanity

Paulette has published an interesting new compilation in celebration of Sri Aurobindo’s 150th birth anniversary. ‘Crossroad: A New Humanity’ contains extracts from “The Human Cycle”, “The Ideal of Human Unity” and “War and Self Determination”.

After examining the transition from the infrarational to rational, subjective and, ultimately, the spiritual age, along with the corresponding societal changes, the focus shifts to Sri Aurobindo’s research on the nation and group-soul, and a World Union of all the people, concluding with what Sri Aurobindo called the need for a ‘Religion of Humanity’ and the dawning of the spiritual age. Read more

The English of Savitri Volume 11

The English of Savitri Volume 11

The English of Savitri
volume 11

Like the previous volumes in the English of Savitri series, this one too is based on transcripts of classes held by the author at Savitri Bhavan, in this case from June 2013 to January 2014. The transcripts have been carefully revised and edited for conciseness and clarity, while aiming to preserve the informal atmosphere of the course. This Eleventh Volume covers Book Four, The Book of Birth and Quest, and Book Five, The Book of Love, of Sri Aurobindo’s epic, Savitri – A Legend and a Symbol. Each sentence of these cantos is examined closely, and explanations are given about vocabulary, sentence-structure and imagery. The aim is to assist understanding of the poem which the Mother has characterised as ‘the supreme revelation of Sri Aurobindo’s vision.’

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The English of Savitri Volume 10

The English of Savitri
volume 10

Like the previous books in this series, this one too is based on transcripts of classes held by the author at Savitri Bhavan, in this case during 2012 and 2021. The transcripts have been carefully revised and edited for conciseness and clarity, while aiming to preserve the informal atmosphere of the course. This Tenth Volume covers Cantos Twelve to Fifteen of Book Two of Sri Aurobindo’s epic, Savitri – A Legend and a Symbol. Each sentence of these cantos is examined closely and explanations are given about vocabulary, sentence-structure and imagery. The aim is to assist understanding of the poem which the Mother has characterised as ‘the supreme revelation of Sri Aurobindo’s vision.’

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Prayers by T. V. Kapali Sastry

Prayers by T. V. Kapali Sastry

These seventeen prayers from the pen of Sri Kapali Sastrier were compiled by his famous student and disciple, Sri Madhav Pandit and published as a book in 1956. It has been reprinted several times. In this edition, the Roman transliterations of the verses are given and the translation of each line of each verse is given separately.

These prayers are meant for those who are interested in cultivating a direct relationship with the Divine. They are all dedicated to the Mother and Sri Aurobindo. These prayers make us become aware of the Masters, make our spirit of surrender deeper and increase our aspiration to attain all round perfection.

All the prayers except 4, 16 and 17 were originally in Samskrt, The prayers 16 and 17 are from The Mother’s book, “Prayers and Meditations”, originally in French; they were translated into English by Sri Aurobindo. Sri Kapali Sastry rendered them into rhythmic Samskrt verses bringing out their deeper meaning. TVK highly recommended these two prayers for his students. The prayer 4 is a popular saying of The Mother rendered into Samskrt.

Only scanty information regarding the dates of the composition of these prayers is available. There is a note at the end of Volume 2 of the Collected Works of TVK stating the prayer 7 was composed for a function in the Ashram School [now named as Sri Aurobindo International Centre for Education (SAlCE)) just before the Darshan day, November 24, 1950, a few days before the Master’s Mahasamadhi. TVK relates that among all the prayers for the Masters he has authored, it is the only one in which Sri Aurobindo is not explicitly mentioned by name. The prayer 13, Fulfilment (sampatti shatakam), was written on the 7th day after the Master’s Mahasamadhi. Prayer 14 was offered to The Mother and Sri Aurobindo on the author’s 55th birthday (Sept, 3, 1941).

There is repeated reference to the Light, highlighted in several Prayers. In the diary note of 2l.3.1936, he relates the words of The Mother spoken on that day regarding the Light of The Mother. “It is not all that see it. Those in whom the inner sense is developed see it; of course, many here (Ashram) see it, not all. When one is physically near, the physical sense is very active, the inner sense does not perceive the Light. But some, when close, even here, see only the Light, not the physical form at all.”

The prayers 5-7, 11-13 were translated into English by TVK. The rest were translated by Sri Madhav Pandit (MPP). The number 1 in the superscript of the translation indicates that the translation is due to TVK.

An audio tape and CD of all these prayers with an introduction is available from Auro Nada. Two audio tapes of some of these prayers, one done by MPP and the other by Vasanti are available from Dipti Trust.

Book Details

Author: T. V. Kapali Sastry
Compiler: M.P. Pandit
Print Length: 42
Publisher: Dipti Publishing
Submitted by: Sergei
Book format: Pdf
Language: English
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In Mother’s Land

This is a collection of poems that have been coming to be written down and shared in the years that I have been living in Auroville – the experimental ground for “human unity in diversity” which The Mother (Mirra Alfassa) created to welcome home Her children from India and across the world.

Book Details

Author: Anandi Zhang
Print Length: 142
Publisher: Our Home (OH), under Auroville Art Service
Book format: Pdf
Language: English
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The English of Savitri Volume 9

The English of Savitri
volume 9

This is the Ninth Volume of the English of Savitri series. Like the previous books in this series, this one too is based on transcripts of classes held by the author at Savitri Bhavan, in this case from March to September 2020. The transcripts have been carefully revised and edited for conciseness and clarity, while aiming to preserve the informal atmosphere of the course. This Ninth Volume covers Cantos Ten and Eleven of Book Two of Sri Aurobindo’s epic, Savitri – A Legend and a Symbol. Each sentence of these cantos is examined closely and explanations are given about vocabulary, sentence-structure and imagery. The aim is to assist understanding of the poem which the Mother has characterised as ‘the supreme revelation of Sri Aurobindo’s vision.’

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Poetic and…

The book “Poetic and…” is a collection of short poems that come from inspirations in daily life in and around Auroville. Readers in Auroville and beyond resonate with poems in the book, feeling that they describe their life experiences, inner journeys, and insights.

There are three sections in the book:
– Poetic and Playful
– Poetic and Pensive
– Poetic and Precious

A reader’s feedback:
I loved reading your book Poetic and… Each one of the thoughts resonates with me. Thank you for penning what I feel so frequently about such things.

Book Details

Author: Anandi Zhang
Print Length: 152
Publisher: Our Home (OH), under Auroville Art Service
Book format: Pdf
Language: English
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On Thoughts and Aphorisms (CWM Vol.10)

On Thoughts and Aphorisms

Collected Works of the Mother Volume 10

The Mother’s commentaries on Sri Aurobindo’s Thoughts and Aphorisms were given over the twelve-year period from 1958 to 1970. The commentaries may be divided into four periods according to date, character and form.

  1. Aphorisms 1–12 (1958). Oral replies to questions submitted beforehand in writing by the students, teachers and sadhaks of the Ashram during the Mother’s Wednesday classes at the Ashram Playground.
  2. Aphorisms 13–68 (1960–61). Replies, mostly written, a few oral, to questions written to the Mother by a young instructor of the Ashram’s physical education department.
  3. Aphorisms 69–124 (1962–66). Oral replies to a disciple. During this period the Mother digressed more and more from direct commentary on the aphorisms and used the occasions to explain the experiences she was having at the time.
  4. Aphorisms 125–541 (1969–70). Brief written replies to questions asked by the instructor mentioned above.

Sri Aurobindo wrote these aphorisms around 1913 during the early part of his stay in Pondicherry. Never revised or published during his lifetime, they were first brought out in 1958 under the three headings established by the author: Jnana (Knowledge), Karma (Works) and Bhakti (Devotion).

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Evolution and the Earthly Destiny by Nolini Kanta Gupta

Evolution and the Earthly Destiny

This selection of essays, drawn from the manifold writings of Nolini Kanta Gupta, is dedicated to the youth of India, to those among her children who cherish in some part of their being an aspiration, a living flame of light that yearns towards an ever-growing perfection, a truth of being and becoming as yet vaguely surmised or only partially revealed.

Throughout the many and varied domains of the human adventure, seen here in the light of Sri Aurobindo’s vision of the future, there emerges the one eternal question and dominant theme of our seeking: man past and present, man individual and collective, but always and above all, the ultimate flowering of his life upon earth.

The essays cover five broad topics: Man and the evolution, India and her Swadharma, Education, Science and Philosophy, and Poetry and Mysticism.

Book Details

Author: Nolini Kanta Gupta
Print Length: 354 pages
Publisher: Sri Aurobindo Ashram
Submitted by: Avinash Tiwari
Book format: PDF, ePub, Kindle
Language: English Read more