Top 200 Sri Aurobindo Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “Life is life – whether in a cat, or dog or man. There is no difference there between a cat or a man. The idea of difference is a human conception for man’s own advantage.”

— Sri Aurobindo

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2. “Love is the keynote, Joy is the music, Knowledge is the performer, the Infinite All is the composer and audience.”

— Sri Aurobindo

3. “The first principle of true teaching is that nothing can be taught.”

— Sri Aurobindo

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4. “By your stumbling, the world is perfected.”

— Sri Aurobindo

5. “The whole world yearns after freedom, yet each creature is in love with his chains; this is the first paradox and inextricable knot of our nature.”

— Sri Aurobindo

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6. “The soul in man is greater than his fate...”

— Sri Aurobindo

7. “Peace is the first condition, without which nothing else can be stable.”

— Sri Aurobindo

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8. “There is no greater pride and glory than to be a perfect instrument of the Master.”

— Sri Aurobindo

9. “Detachment is the beginning of mastery.”

— Sri Aurobindo

10. “When Reason died, then Wisdom was born.”

— Sri Aurobindo

11. “Care not for time and success. Act out thy part, whether it be to fail or to prosper.”

— Sri Aurobindo

12. “The principle of Yoga is the turning of one or of all powers of our human existence into a means of reaching divine Being.”

— Sri Aurobindo

13. “The supreme end is the freedom of the spirit.”

— Sri Aurobindo

14. “All existence is a manifestation of God.”

— Sri Aurobindo

15. “Live within; be not shaken by outward happenings.”

— Sri Aurobindo

16. “True knowledge is not attained by thinking. It is what you are; it is what you become.”

— Sri Aurobindo

17. “The consciousness of the supreme Purusha remains above, but in the mind there may be a Purusha consciousness which they call the cosmic consciousness – it is wide, all-pervading, one. Outside this goes on the play of Prakriti.”

— Sri Aurobindo

18. “He who chooses the infinite has been chosen by the infinite.”

— Sri Aurobindo

19. “In order to see, you have to stop being in the middle of the picture.”

— Sri Aurobindo

20. “A quiet mind does not mean that there will be no thoughts or mental movements at all, but that these will be on the surface, and you will feel your true being within, separate from them, observing but not carried away.”

— Sri Aurobindo

21. “The experiences of your past life which are stored within come up to the surface to be rejected. By rejecting all these by and by the inside will have to be cleansed.”

— Sri Aurobindo

22. “The mind has these four levels: physical, vital, buddhi, higher mind. The Supermind is far above these.”

— Sri Aurobindo

23. “The Atheist is God playing at hide and seek with Himself.”

— Sri Aurobindo

24. “There are two powers that alone can effect in their conjunction the great and dificult thing which is the aim of our endeavour, a fixed and unfailing aspiration that calls from below and a supreme Grace from above that answers.”

— Sri Aurobindo

25. “The inside must be made entirely calm and quiet and there should reign an upward aspiration – a state of awaiting.”

— Sri Aurobindo

26. “Be conscious first of thyself within, then think and act. All living thought is a world in preparation; all real act is a thought manifested. The material world exists because an idea began to play in divine self–consciousness.”

— Sri Aurobindo

27. “Do not be eager for things above.”

— Sri Aurobindo

28. “The highest aim of the aesthetic being is to find the Divine through beauty; the highest Art is that which by an inspired use of significant and interpretative form unseals the door of the spirit.”

— Sri Aurobindo

29. “Sit in meditation ! But do not think ! Look only at your mind ! You will see thoughts coming into it ! Before they can enter, throw these away from your mind till your mind is capable of entire silence.”

— Sri Aurobindo

30. “One can see light above the head; that indicates a consciousness outside the body. But that itself is not the Truth-Consciousness or Vijnana. But much light descending from there illumines this consciousness.”

— Sri Aurobindo

31. “The business of both parent and teacher is to enable and to help the child to educate himself, to develop his own intellectual, moral, aesthetic and practical capacities and to grow freely as an organic being, not to be kneaded and pressured into form like an inert plastic material.”

— Sri Aurobindo

32. “The great are strongest when they stand alone, A God-given might of being is their force.”

— Sri Aurobindo

33. “Inspiration is a slender river of brightness leaping from a vast and Eternal Knowledge, it exceeds reason more perfectly than reason exceeds the knowledge of the senses.”

— Sri Aurobindo

34. “Man is a transitional being. He is not final. The step from man to superman is the next approaching achievement in the earth evolution. It is inevitable because it is at once the intention of the inner spirit and the logic of nature’s process.”

— Sri Aurobindo

35. “One must have first of all a solid foundation.”

— Sri Aurobindo

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36. “Trust the divine power, and she will free the godlike elements in you and shape all into an expression of divine nature.”

— Sri Aurobindo

37. “Perfect health, sincerity, honesty, straightforwardness, courage, disinterestedness, unselfishness, patience, endurance, perseverance, peace, calm, self control are all things that are taught infinitely better by example than by beautiful speeches.”

— Sri Aurobindo

38. “Hidden nature is secret God.”

— Sri Aurobindo

39. “Only the soul that is naked and unashamed, can be pure and innocent, even as Adam was in the primal garden of humanity .”

— Sri Aurobindo

40. “The cup has to be left clean and empty for the divine liquor to be poured into it.”

— Sri Aurobindo

41. “There is nothing mind can do that cannot be better done in the mind’s immobility and thought-free stillness. When mind is still, then truth gets her chance to be heard in the purity of the silence.”

— Sri Aurobindo

42. “To hope for a true change of human life without a change of human nature is an irrational and unspiritual proposition.”

— Sri Aurobindo

43. “Evolution of consciousness is the central motive of terrestrial existence.”

— Sri Aurobindo

44. “If it be true that spirit is involved in Matter and apparent Nature is secret God, then the manifestation in the divine in himself and the realization of God within and without are the highest and most legitimate aim possible to man on earth.”

— Sri Aurobindo

45. “If India is to survive, she must be made young again. Rushing and billowing streams of energy must be poured into her; her soul must become, as it was in the old times, like the surges, vast, puissant, calm or turbulent at will, an ocean of action or of force.”

— Sri Aurobindo

46. “The expression “from above” is for us only a way of speaking. Many receive from above the command for action – we call it intuition.”

— Sri Aurobindo

47. “After having stopped the lower activities of the mind, it must be made receptive; and, instead of weaving all kinds of empty and idle thoughts, the mind should receive intuitions from above.”

— Sri Aurobindo

48. “With which part do you watch? Surely with the mind? That won’t do. It is the silent Purusha within who must watch all.”

— Sri Aurobindo

49. “The practice of Yoga brings us face to face with the extraordinary complexity of our own being.”

— Sri Aurobindo

50. “The Bhagavad-Gita is a true scripture of the human race a living creation rather than a book, with a new message for every age and a new meaning for every civilization.”

— Sri Aurobindo