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Two Steps to Spiritual Experience · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  Spiritual experience, takes knowing about something to
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  knowing it. What we learn from books.
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  What we learn in school, the facts, we memorize the
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  procedures we learn about are all based in the intellect and
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  while they may open the mind to new things, do not represent
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  actual experience. The famous proverb that one can
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  read all the books on swimming. My butt will not actually know
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  how to swim until one gets in the water and puts the theory
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  into practice is an appropriate one to keep in mind.
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  The practice of skills or methods used by the surface
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  being to maneuver through the external world is relatively
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  well-known. When it comes to spiritual
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  experience, we find it difficult to even understand how to
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  proceed. Some people say that it is
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  entirely a matter of Grace, and of course that is a primary
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  characteristic of how people gain spiritual experience Shri
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  Krishna tells Arjuna as much in the bhagavad-gita when Arjun
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  asked to see the universal form of the deity.
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  There is, however, a preparatory period, as the individual turns
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  his attention toward the spiritual basis of existence
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  away from the exclusive focus on external things.
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  The mother provides two practices that can Aid in this
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  preparation. For those who are sincere in
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  their aspiration, spiritual experience will come as SRI
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  aurobindo has noted elsewhere. You chose has the infinite has
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  been chosen by the infinite. Thus the very fact of the
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  aspiration implies that Grace is already operative whether
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  recognized overtly or not. The mother notes, quote, we
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  read, we try to understand. We explain, we try to know but a
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  single minute of true experience teaches us more than millions of
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  words and hundreds of explanations.
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  So the first question is how to have the experience to go within
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  yourself. That is the first step and then,
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  once you have succeeded in going within yourself, deeply enough
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  to feel the reality of that, which is within to widen
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  yourself, progressively systematically to become as vast
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  as the universe and lose the sense of limitation.
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  These are the first to prepare turning movements and these two
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  things must be done in the greatest possible.
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  Calm, peace, and Tranquility this peace.
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  This Tranquility, bring about silence in the mind and
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  Stillness in the vital. This effort, this attempt must
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  be renewed, very regularly persistently.
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  And after a certain lapse of time, which may be longer or
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  shorter, you begin to perceive a reality.
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  That is different from the reality perceived in the
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  ordinary external consciousness. Naturally by the action of
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  Grace, the veil May suddenly be rent from within and at, once
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  you can enter the true truth, but even when that happens, in
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  order to obtain the full value and full effect of the
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  experience, you must maintain yourself in a state of inner
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  receptivity. And to do that, it is
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  indispensable for you to go within each day and quote,
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  reference SRI aurobindo and the mother living within the yoga
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  approach to psychological health and growth.
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  Exercises for growth and Mastery.
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  Awakening the inner Consciousness Pages 134 to 138.