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This volume is a collection of talks given at the Hall of Harmony, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, in 2008. Consisting of only one canto, the longest single canto of the entire poem, the Book picks up the story after Savitri’s victory over Death. The “Eternal Night” that began in Book IX has ended, Death has been defeated and transformed, and that eternal night transformed into “The Eternal Day: The Soul’s Choice and the Supreme Consummation”, the title of this canto. Savitri remains adamant in her decision to work for the earth, declining all divine boons offered. That is her soul’s settled choice. The supreme consummation is the Divine’s declaration that She will descend upon earth in a physical body and secure the deliverance of humanity. “The incarnate dual Power shall open God’s door.” The author contends that this canto, a perfect poetic creation, reflects all the beauty, ecstasy, truth, and love of pure mantra.

Transcribed from Dr Reddy’s talks on The Synthesis of Yoga, Volume Eight completes his discourse on The Yoga of Integral Knowledge. The author traces Sri Aurobindo’s description of the different planes of consciousness defined by the relationship between Soul and Nature, Purusha and Prakriti. At the base of the ladder of ascension is the plane of the lower triple purusha—the vital, physical and mental aspects of existence. Transcending this plane of our ordinary consciousness, one ascends towards a hierarchy of worlds. Three chapters are devoted to Vijñana or Gnosis, where the mental man is changed into the gnostic soul, a truth-conscious godhead, the path to attaining that consciousness, and finally the highest level of consciousness, that of Gnosis and Ananda. From there the discourse turns to address the relationship between the higher and lower knowledge, the experience of Samadhi within the Integral Yoga, and the deeper aspects of Hathayoga and Rajayoga, whose practices are intended to serve a higher, more dynamic purpose in a spiritual transformation.

Volume Ten of this series commences with Part Four of The Synthesis of Yoga: “The Yoga of Self-Perfection” and covers the first seven chapters. In his talks that form the basis of these volumes, the author, employing simple language and contemporary contexts, strives to explain the philosophical arguments Sri Aurobindo articulates regarding his synthesis of the traditional paths of yoga with his own unique contribution to achieve the Integral Yoga. Initial chapters address the definition of integral perfection and its double movement of personal effort followed by the complete surrender to a higher power. The psychology of self-perfection deals with the instrumentation of the inner being, its purification through the emergence of the psychic being as the unifying principle. The last two chapters chart the purification of the mind, the intelligence, and the will to develop intuition, inspiration, and revelation as higher powers of ‘thought-sight and truth-seeing”.

The previous volume in this series showed how the psychology of self-perfection applies to the instrumentation of the being, its purification in preparation for the liberation of the Spirit and the Nature, which is where Volume Eleven begins. The liberation of the soul into the limitless Spirit demands freedom from the first two “master-knots of the lower nature”: desire and ego. The liberation of the Nature exacts freedom from the second two: the dual action of Nature and the rule of the three gunas. Subsequent chapters delineate the elements of perfection starting from a basic equality of the soul mounting to an ideal action of the Divine through the perfected being. Along with an integral equality comes the requisite raising of the capacities of the actions of the mind, life, and body to a divine level. In the final chapters the author speaks of the Divine Shakti and how faith in the action of the Shakti is the most essential element in helping to perfect the instrumental being.

In this, the final volume of his commentary on The Synthesis of Yoga, the author attempts to help readers understand the last, gloriously complex six chapters of the book. He begins with some characteristics of the supermind: it is a knowledge by identity and oneness; it is total, encompassing the transcendent, the universal, and the individual simultaneously; there is no division between truth and will or between the idea and its execution, because it is both the knower and the known. When the powers of the supermind descend, they begin to operate with different capacities, retaining their essence and character but diluted from their supramental fullness. Chapters on the gradations of the supermind, the supramental thought and knowledge, its instruments, the supramental sense and time vision seek to characterise a greater perfection that comes by the gradual descent of more and more of the supramental light and energy into the whole mental being, lifting the intuition and its powers towards their source in the supramental nature.

Contemporary scholars compare Sri Aurobindo’s perspective on a range of concepts and ideas with noted philosophical and contemplative thinkers from both India and the West. The leadoff essay by Nolini Kanta Gupta sets the high tone of this collection by setting out the ideal of Sri Aurobindo “to divinise the human, immortalise the mortal, spiritualise the material.” Five essays compare Sri Aurobindo’s ideas with other Indian thinkers on subjects such as spiritual awakening and enlightenment and interpretations of Advaita. The remaining essays examine comparisons with Western philosophers including Heraclitus, Gebser, Hegel, and Chalmers; psychologists Freud and Csikszentmihaly; revolutionaries Marx and Gramsci; and educationists and linguists Steiner, Montessori and Bakhtin. In the wideness and depth of these reflections one recognises Sri Aurobindo’s power to reveal, “to the eye of vision and the heart of faith”, the promise of this highest ideal for our future.

Originally serialised in the quarterly journal Śraddha in 2017–18, this account of Sri Aurobindo’s political philosophy and strategy for gaining complete independence from Britain covers familiar territory. It does, however, include some lesser known details recovered from the archives of documents relative to the time period Sri Aurobindo was intimately involved in the movement. The section on the newspaper Bande Mataram, for example, reveals how deeply he was associated with all aspects of its publication, including directives on the responsibilities of its officers and a review of its budgetary issues; his plans to reorganise the Nationalist Party in another chapter are presented in comparable detail. The final chapter, “Sri Aurobindo on Religious Nationalism and Communal Harmony”, was first presented as a research paper at a national seminar in 2022.

The author has woven a detailed history of the early days of the Ashram with charming accounts of how the Mother guided her disciples in their work and spiritual growth through her daily loving touch. Much of the material here is well known, drawn from Sri Aurobindo’s letters and from reminiscences written by older members of the Ashram, but the author has skillfully gathered the diverse source material into a narrative that describes how life was organised by the Mother. We see how people were drawn into a particular work that eventually developed into a regular service. Creative avenues of expression receive a special emphasis – dance, music, photography, art, skilled handiwork – the Mother encouraged all such avenues for the spiritual development of the sadhaks.

The first in a series of monographs titled Mankind on the March dedicated to personalities who have made significant contributions to human evolution, this book looks at the life of Bankim Chandra Chatterji. The monographs seek to present research based on the insights and observations of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother on each of the featured personalities. The author first situates Bankim Chandra Chatterji in the context of the Bengal Renaissance and then examines his life and works as a patriot, a humanist, a novelist and a poet—in full, as a Rishi who stood for a religion of humanity.

The second in a series of monographs titled Mankind on the March dedicated to personalities who have made significant contributions to the evolution of consciousness, this book looks at the life of Leonardo da Vinci. Taking as its premise that these personalities are representatives of the five distinct psychological stages of social evolution as described by Sri Aurobindo in The Human Cycle, the author studies the life of da Vinci. A man of the Renaissance, da Vinci used his remarkable intelligence to serve the higher faculties of the human being. A polymath, a seeker of beauty and delight, a genius of the individual age, he exemplified a universality of spirit.

The first in a series of monographs, The Spiritual Foundations of Indian Culture presents the fundamental spiritual truths and enduring principles on which Indian culture is founded. The book seeks to revive the glorious revelations from the Vedic scriptures in the light of Sri Aurobindo’s and the Mother’s teaching. The monograph inspires a deeper introspection into how this spiritual heritage has shaped Indian culture through the ages. The author examines the concept of Brahman as the eternal goal of life, Yoga as the means of self-perfection, and Dharma as the law that governs and conditions our actions; together they can effect a complete change of consciousness. In the second part of the book, the author suggests how Indian culture can impact the future of humanity as the world progresses towards the manifestation of the Divine in all aspects of life.

The first article in this booklet explains the basis for the study circle talks on The Life Divine conducted at Savitri Bhavan. Subtitled “Some Highlights of a Pilgrimage”, the text signals eight highlights of The Life Divine, including among others the foundation of Sri Aurobindo’s world view, the ascent of the soul, the divinisation of matter, and spiritual evolution—the keynote of earthly existence.

The second article, “Reading Savitri for Progress and Delight”, describes the many ways that people approach the reading of this epic poem. But the author warns that without the deeper response of our souls a continuous reading becomes a ritual, an aesthetic appreciation hardly feasible, an intellectual study at risk of engendering a stereotyped understanding. The poem should be read as a means of progress and for the delight of the soul.

Based on a true incident that took place in a small village in Hungary, Erika found a friend and a Grandma is a delightful story about a seven-year-old girl named Erika and her friendship with an elderly woman named Hanna. Written by Sajjyoti Priya and illustrated by Mahua, this tale celebrates the bond of love and friendship that develops between these two strangers, who decide to spread a message of joy and goodwill in the world.

Gujarati translation of Words of Long Ago

        This book contains the early writings and talks of the Mother from the period before 1920, the year she finally settled in Pondicherry. It includes stories, talks, and reflections written between 1893 and 1913 in Paris, nine essays written for a small group of spiritual seekers there, talks entitled "On Thought", "Charity", and "The Divinity Within", and several letters and essays written in Japan.

Gujarati translation of On Thoughts and Aphorisms

        The Mother's commentaries on the aphorisms of Sri Aurobindo on works, knowledge, and devotion, explaining their meaning and showing among other things how Sri Aurobindo's apparent startling disregard for conventional morality is a means to emphasise how spiritual matters cannot be judged with the ethical mind.

Gujarati translation of Notes on the Way

        Between 1957 and 1973 the Mother spoke frequently with one of her disciples about the experiences she was having at the time. Selected portions of these tape-recorded conversations were published with the Mother's approval between 1965 and 1973 in the Bulletin of the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education. They appeared under the titles "Notes on the Way" and "À Propos" in their original French and in English translation, and were subsequently published in one volume Notes on the Way. They are a record of her observations on the progress of the yoga of transformation.

Gujarati translation of On Education

        This book is a collection of articles, messages, letters, and conversations of the Mother that touches on subjects like an educational discipline aimed at developing all the principal faculties of the individual, the various aspects of the teaching method known as the free progress system followed at the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, and the fundamentals of physical education, including the disciplines and attitudes helpful to developing a strong, healthy, and conscious body. Also included are three dramas written for the annual dramatic performance day.