The English of Savitri Volume 8

The English of Savitri
volume 8

This is the Eighth Volume of the English of Savitri series, based on transcripts of classes led by the author at Savitri Bhavan, in this case from 29 March to 3 May 2012 and from 12 September 2019 to 27 February 2020. The transcripts have been carefully revised and edited for conciseness and clarity, while aiming to preserve the informal atmosphere of the courses. This volume contains detailed explanations of the texts of three cantos of Book Two of Sri Aurobindo’s epic, namely Canto Seven, The Descent into Night, Canto Eight, The World of Falsehood, the Mother of Evil and the Sons of Darkness, and Canto Nine, The Paradise of the Life-Gods. Each sentence is examined closely and explanations are given about vocabulary, sentence- structure and imagery. The aim is to assist a deeper understanding and appreciation 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 7

The English of Savitri
volume 7

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 August 2011 to March 2012. The transcripts have been carefully revised and edited for conciseness and clarity, while aiming to preserve the informal atmosphere of the course. This Seventh Volume covers Cantos Five and Six 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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Poetizing Spirit by Rod Hemsell

Poetizing Spirit

In poetry of the highest inspiration we may hear resonances of ideas that inspire in us the memory and vision of truths innate to our souls and minds, that make us think and see, beyond the normal range of intellectual knowledge. Both Sri Aurobindo, known as the great synthesizer of “eastern” and “western” thought, and Martin Heidegger, one of the most influential “postmodern” thinkers, heard those streams that flow from the great rivers of ancient myth, philosophy, mysticism and poetry. And both foresaw the advent of a new consciousness and a new type of human being. Written during the first COVID year, this booklet of reflections on some of their most inspired thoughts may open the reader to that subtle realm of intuitive vision where the spirit of poetry echoes in the riverbed of Time.

Book Details

Author: Rod Hemsell
Print Length: 88
Publisher: Auro e-Books
Contributor: Edith Stadig
Book format: Pdf
Language: English
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走进黎明之城 – The Spirit of Auroville

走进黎明之城

The Spirit of Auroville

你说黎明之城是一个梦想。是的，它是“神”的一个“梦想”。通常这些“梦想”都会成真，比人类所谓的现实更加真实得多！

本书内容选自室利·阿罗频多和母亲的作品。您可以在参观“走进黎明之城图文展”时对应展板底部标注的序号阅读这些文字。展览所在地：黎明之城访客中心咨询处旁。

如果您想要更全面深入地认识黎明之城，阅读室利·阿罗频多和母亲的简介与作品，请看本书最后一页的参考资料。

英文内容和图片、小标题、排版：Olivier Barot

中文翻译：清宁 校对：倪慧

You say that Auroville is a dream. Yes, it is a “dream” of the Lord and generally, these “dreams” turn out to be true, much more true than the human so-called realities!

Texts in this book are selected from the works of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother. You can read the book while visiting the exhibition “The Spirit of Auroville” by following the serial numbers marked at the bottom of the exhibition panels. Exhibition Venue: Auroville Visitor’s Centre, next to the Information office.

Book Details

Author: the Mother

English text and picture selection: Olivier Barot

Chinese translation: Anandi Zhang

Proofreading: Ni Hui

Print Length: 64 pages

Book format: PDF

Language: English & Chinese

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On Chinese Wisdom

On Chinese Wisdom

This compilation is inspired by and offered to Sri Aurobindo and The Mother who guide us by their Presence and example. It serves as a reference material for people who find it useful to learn and apply the wisdom in life. This is an age where each individual has a unique role to play, and each culture has an opportunity to radiate its full potential, beauty and fragrance in the world garden. May each one blossom like a flower, each in its own time, own way. May humanity aspire for and realise Unity in Diversity by unending education, constant progress and a youth that never ages.

Book Details

Author: Sri Aurobindo, the Mother

Compiler: Anandi Zhang

Print Length: 48 pages

Book format: PDF, ePub, Kindle

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Lotus Mountain by Rod Hemsell

Lotus Mountain

While assembling this “next” collection of poems, written during the past ten years, it was gratifying to realize that there has been a development in both the forms and the meanings that are expressed in these poems. Some of the heights that were aspired to or glimpsed in the earlier poems and under other circumstances, have actually been grasped, experienced, perhaps even adequately transmitted through these later efforts. Of course it is still “me” and my experience, my language, my energies; and everything I experience is conditioned by my particular range of exposures, my limitations, my aspirations, my receptivity or lack, and so on. But, as I have said before, these poems are the product of an effort to allow nature and consciousness to come into resonance and to express the product of their interaction through an inspired flow of words, as far as it is possible. As we have been taught by the Master, the less we impose our personal mental predispositions on the process the better the product will be. This is a method that I have practiced for 50 years, and at least I can say that I have kept the faith, and this modest product is the outcome. It is also the product of the natural environments in which I have found myself and which have often inspired me; the qualities of nature seem to sometimes  reveal themselves to me in ways that stimulate a flow of words that captures and embodies her beauty and power, her wickedness and weakness, her infinity of creativity and meaning that I find irresistible. For that I am deeply grateful, and I consider it a blessing of the Mother of all forms and meanings who has enriched my life from time to time with a particle of her Infinite Grace.

Rod Hemsell
February, 2020

Book Details

Author: Rod Hemsell
Print Length: 104
Publisher: Auro e-Books
Contributor: Edith Stadig, Krishna
Book format: Pdf
Language: English
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Poems of Devotion and Stillness by Rod Hemsell

Poems of Devotion and Stillness

In reviving these earlier poems and images of mine, composed between the age of 25 and 65, I recognize an implicit belief in the ability of poetic speech and consciousness to convey in a vivid way our inner connection with “nature” – in and around us – and to express the ‘reality’ of both nature and our experience. At best it may also express other realities that transcend both nature and experience, such as the idea that stones have eyes and ears, and our lives are influenced by celestial beings. This belief in poetry implies as well that language and consciousness are more than mere ‘representations’ of reality: they are faculties that resonate with nature and experience in a way that reveals a deeper symbolic identity or close kinship between the two poles of reality. This may be a naive belief, no doubt, but it also has its roots in the much earlier Vedic notions about language and truth. Being inspired by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, my hope is that something of the truth of those notions will be seen, heard, and felt by the reader. It is this same consciousness applied to contemporary environmental issues that has also informed the fantasy-essay on climate change, Cloning the Earth, written ten years ago but more relevant than ever and likely to be better understood, today.

And yet, while these may be universal truths of ‘poetry’ and ‘consciousness’, or at least reasonable theories, I also realize that these poems are the record of unique moments of my life and my experience. As such, they are a very personal effort to express what I have seen, felt, and understood to be their true nature and quality (swabhava). It may be said that the unstated theme is the unification of self and nature through symbolic speech. The drive to write in this way has made both self and nature more real.

Rod Hemsell
February, 2020

Book Details

Author: Rod Hemsell
Print Length: 109
Publisher: Auro e-Books
Contributor: Edith Stadig, Krishna
Book format: Pdf
Language: English
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The English of Savitri Volume 6

The English of Savitri
volume 6

This is the sixth volume of the English of Savitri series, based on transcripts of classes led by the author at Savitri Bhavan, in this case from 23 June to 29 December 2016. The transcripts have been carefully revised and edited for conciseness and clarity, while aiming to preserve the informal atmosphere of the course. This volume contains detailed explanations of the texts of the two closing Books of Sri Aurobindo’s epic: Book Eleven – The Book of Everlasting Day and Book Twelve – Epilogue: The Return to Earth. Each sentence is examined closely and explanations are given about vocabulary, sentence structure and imagery. The aim is to assist a deeper understanding and appreciation of the poem which the Mother has characterised as ‘the supreme revelation of Sri Au robin do’s vision’.

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Auroville: Sun-Word Rising by Savitra

Auroville: Sun-Word Rising

A Trust for the Earth

Few people today — even those who presently live in Auroville or serve on AVI Boards — know the actual history of Auroville’s emergence. And unfortunately, records of that unique era have largely been lost in time. Auroville: Sun-Word Rising, originally published by the Community of Auroville in 1980, was an honest attempt to chronicle that AV timeline when the Mother was still physically present as well as the period which followed Her passing. Based on extensive notes and documentation, the book strives to tell a truer story that needed to be told despite those who wished to silence it. For it fills in the missing links that can help us understand how Auroville arrived at where it is today. After all, if we don’t know our past, how can we understand our present, heal past wounds, cocreate a truer future?

The opening passages of this 3-Part work begin in America, tracking the author’s personal quest through the 1960s that eventually led him to the works of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother… Which in turn led him to London where he began his odyssey, hitchhiking to India to meet the Mother. That meeting led him to stay on in India. And soon after, the Mother accepted him into the Ashram, then into Auroville where he joined that first wave of pioneers scattered like seeds on a barren red-clay plateau. Part 2 transitions through a tale of two Aurovilles: The Auroville rising forth under the Mother’s nurturing Presence. And the Auroville labouring to carry on its mission through the grief of Her passing and the unforeseen crises and conflicts that would follow Her passing.

For indeed, despite the obstacles and oppositions which that fledgling AV Community faced, it courageously laboured on, bringing new life to that arid plateau, establishing settlements, schools, farms and the beginning of a reforestation programme that would eventually transform a dying landscape into lush tropical forests. It would also evolve a home-grown decision-making process that would be severely challenged by outside forces following the Mother’s passing (as Parts 2 and 3 document). Those challenges would eventually lead to a Government intervention in 1980, followed by a Supreme Court Case and the eventual Auroville Foundation Act passed by Parliament in 1988. In this light, perhaps Auroville’s first decade reflects a microcosm of the pressing evolutionary challenges our species and planet face today.

Book Details

Author: Savitra
Print Length: 300 pages
Publisher: The Community of Auroville
Original source: Auroville Archives
Contributors: Gilles Guigan, Krishna V.
Book format: PDF, ePub, Kindle
Language: English

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Preparing for the Miraculous by Georges Van Vrekhem

Preparing for the Miraculous

Preparing for the Miraculous is a series of ten talks given by Georges Van Vrekhem in Auroville in 2010 covering a wide range of subjects, examined from the Aurobindonian viewpoint. The book explores timeless questions in the light of Sri Aurobindo’s evolutionary concept and casts a refreshing new look on issues that have been the lasting preoccupation of seekers throughout the ages. In these talks, Georges discusses such questions as:

  • What is the meaning of our existence in the cosmic scheme?
  • Is there a divine purpose in life or is it merely the mechanical playing-out of competing “greedy genes”?
  • Do we live in a blind universe aimlessly running its course from Big Bang to Big Crunch or is there a higher purpose in evolution?
  • If there is a conscious guiding intent, why does it allow evil to exist?
  • How do we transcend the limits of a blind “scientism” locking itself out of a vaster understanding by refusing to admit the existence of any factors outside of its self-imposed limits of “scientific” verifiability? Can these questions be tackled without landing in the other extreme of religious dogma?
  • Is our planet Earth special in the universe?
  • Do we human beings have a special role in evolution?

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