Looking from Within - Sri Aurobindo and Mother

 I picked up this slim book in Pondicherry at the Aurobindo ashram. It made a lot of sense. As usual I picked up the lines that resonated with me.

'Happy indeed are we who own nothing. We shall feed upon delight like the radiant gods' - Dhammapada

In the presence of circumstances that are about to take place you can take the highest attitude possible - put your consciousness in contact with the highest consciousness within reach. You can be absolutely sure that in that case it is the best that can happen to you.

The right attitude not only has the power to turn every circumstance to advantage but can change the very circumstance itself. We can move from a place of fear to a place of seeking divine help t a place where we have the consciousness of divine presence everywhere around.

What we have within us creates the circumstances outside us.

Always circumstances come to reveal the hidden weakness that have to be overcome.

We should seek the company of the sage who shows our faults as if he were showing us a hidden treasure. - Dhammapada

To recognise one's weakness and false moments and draw back from them is the way towards liberation.  

 Learn to act always from within - from your inner being.

Its the spirit and consciousness from which it is done that makes an action yogic - not the action itself.

It is a mistake to over strain as there is a reaction afterwards.

Think of your work only when it is being done, not before or after.

If you want to get rid of something say that it is outside.

Concentrate exclusively on what you want to be, forget as entirely as possible what you do not want to be.

To keep steady one's aspirations and to look at oneself with an absolute sincerity are the sure means to overcome all obstacles. 

The more pointed the aspiration the swifter the progress.

Pain and discomfort come from a physical consciousness not forceful enough to determine it as a reaction to things.

You only have to remain quiet and firm in your following of the path and your will to go to the end. If you do that, circumstances will in the end be obliged to shape themselves to your will because it will be the divine will in you.

Cheerfulness is the salt of sadhana. It is a 1000 times better than gloominess.

There is nothing spiritually wrong in being glad and cheerful, on the contrary it is the right thing.

If you keep cheerfulness within you, you fight much better, resist much better.

A smile acts upon difficulties as the sun upon clouds - it disperses them.

There is a stage in sadhana in which the inner being begins to awake. The process goes like 1) a sort of witness attitude observing things but taking no active interest or pleasure in them 2) a state of neutral equanimity in which there is neither joy nor sorrow, only quietude 3) a sense of being separate from all that happens, observing it but not part of it

Detachment is the beginning of mastery, but for complete mastery there should be no reaction at all.

...

And many such wonderful gems. I loved the stuff about attitude and how it can change circs.