All Life Is Yoga: Depression ebook

Depression

Selections from the Works ofSri Aurobindo and The Mother

All

Life

Is

Yoga

„All life is Yoga.” – Sri Aurobindo

Contents

Imprint

Publisher‘s Note

The Mother‘s Advice

Listen to the Voice of a Friend

Perseverance Breaks down All Obstacles

Cause of Depression – I

Cause of Depression – II

Cause of Depression – III

The Vital Being in Us

Cure of Depression – I

Cure of Depression – II

Cure of Depression – III

Cure of Depression – IV

Cure of Depression – V

The Right Attitude

Depression and Enthusiasm – Two Extremes

Failures and Defeats in Life

The Extraordinary Power of Savitri

Guidance to a Confused Disciple

Let Not Depression Depress You

Gospel of Sorrow

He who would bring the heavens here, must descend himself into clay

The Burden of Love

Sri Aurobindo‘s Life: a Battle From Its Early Years

Difficulty gives its help

Storms and the sunlit way

Faithfulness to the Light of the Soul and the Divine Call

References

Sri Aurobindo Digital Edition

Imprint

ALL LIFE IS YOGA

Depression

Selections from the Works ofSri Aurobindo and The Mother

First edition 2018

ISBN 978-3-937701-95-0

© 2018 AURO MEDIAVerlag und Fachbuchhandel Wilfried Schuh

www.auro.media verlag@auro.media

© Sri Aurobindo Ashram TrustPuducherry, India

***

Flower on the cover:

Prunus serrulata. White to rosa

Spiritual significance and explanation given by the Mother:Smile of beauty. Nature is happy to be beautiful.

Publisher‘s Note

This is one in a series of some e-books published by Sri Aurobindo Digital Edition under the title ”ALL LIFE IS YOGA”. Our effort is to bring together, from Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, simple passages with a practical orientation on specific subjects, so that everyone may feel free to choose a book according to his inner need. The topics cover the whole field of human activity, because true spirituality is not the rejection of life but the art of perfecting life.

While the passages from Sri Aurobindo are in the original English, most of the passages from the Mother (selections from her talks and writings) are translations from the original French. We must also bear in mind that the excerpts have been taken out of their original context and that a compilation, in its very nature, is likely to have a personal and subjective approach. A sincere attempt, however, has been made to be faithful to the vision of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.

The excerpts from the writings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother carry titles and captions chosen by the editor, highlighting the theme of the excerpts and, whenever possible, borrowing a phrase from the text itself. The sources of the excerpts are given at the end of each issue.

We hope these e-books will inspire the readers to go to the complete works and will help them to mould their lives and their environments towards an ever greater perfection.

I. Excerpts from the Mother

The Mother‘s Advice

No, all is not sad and gloomy, neither the trees nor the sky nor the sea; everything is full of the divine Presence and is only too glad to speak of it to you. Shake off this childish depression and contemplate the Sun that is rising in your heart!

*

I always look upward. Beauty, Peace, Light are there, they are ready to come down. So, always aspire and look up, in order to manifest them upon this earth.

Do not look down at the ugly things of the world. Look always upward with me, whenever you feel sad.

***

Listen to the Voice of a Friend

Words of the Mother

You who are weary, downcast and bruised, you who fall, who think perhaps that you are defeated, hear the voice of a friend. He knows your sorrows, he has shared them, he has suffered like you from the ills of the earth; like you he has crossed many deserts under the burden of the day, he has known thirst and hunger, solitude and abandonment, and the cruellest of all wants, the destitution of the heart. Alas! he has known too the hours of doubt, the errors, the faults, the failings, every weakness.

But he tells you: Courage! Hearken to the lesson that the rising sun brings to the earth with its first rays each morning. It is a lesson of hope, a message of solace.

You who weep,who suffer and tremble, who dare not expect an end to your ills, an issue to your pangs, behold: there is no night without dawn and the day is about to break when darkness is thickest; there is no mist that the sun does not dispel, no cloud that it does not gild, no tear that it will not dry one day, no storm that is not followed by its shining triumphant bow; there is no snow that it does not melt, nor winter that it does not change into radiant spring.

And for you too, there is no affliction which does not bring its measure of glory, no distress which cannot be transformed into joy, nor defeat into victory, nor downfall into higher ascension, nor solitude into radiating centre of life, nor discord into harmony – sometimes it is a misunderstanding between two minds that compels two hearts to open to mutual communion; lastly, there is no infinite weakness that cannot be changed into strength. And it is even in supreme weakness that almightiness chooses to reveal itself!

Listen, my little child, you who today feel so broken, so fallen perhaps, who have nothing left, nothing to cover your misery and foster your pride: never before have you been so great! How close to the summits is he who awakens in the depths, for the deeper the abyss, the more the heights reveal themselves!

Do you not know this, that the most sublime forces of the vasts seek to array themselves in the most opaque veils of Matter? Oh, the sublime nuptials of sovereign love with the obscurest plasticities, of the shadow’s yearning with the most royal light!

If ordeal or fault has cast you down, if you have sunk into the nether depths of suffering, do not grieve – for there indeed the divine love and the supreme blessing can reach you! Because you have passed through the crucible of purifying sorrows, the glorious ascents are yours.

You are in the wilderness: then listen to the voices of the silence. The clamour of flattering words and outer applause has gladdened your ears, but the voices of the silence will gladden your soul and awaken within you the echo of the depths, the chant of divine harmonies!

You are walking in the depths of night: then gather the priceless treasures of the night. In bright sunshine, the ways of intelligence are lit, but in the white luminosities of the night lie the hidden paths of perfection, the secret of spiritual riches.

You are being stripped of everything: that is the way towards plenitude. When you have nothing left, everything will be given to you. Because for those who are sincere and true, from the worst always comes the best.

Every grain that is sown in the earth produces a thousand. Every wing-beat of sorrow can be a soaring towards glory.

And when the adversary pursues man relentlessly, everything he does to destroy him only makes him greater.