Aurobindo Ghosh

When we have passed beyond enjoyings, then we shall have Bliss. Desire was the helper; Desire is the bar.

When we have passed beyond willings, then we shall have Power. Effort was the helper; Effort is the bar.

When we have passed beyond knowings, then we shall have Knowledge. Reason was the helper; Reason is the bar.

If Hell were possible, it would be the shortest cut to the highest heaven. For verily God loveth.

God's servant is something; God's slave is greater.

The strangest of the soul's experiences is this, that it finds, when it ceases to care for the image and threat of troubles, then the troubles themselves are nowhere to be found in one's neighbourhood. It is then that we hear from behind …

Suffering makes us capable of the full force of the Master of Delight; it makes us capable also to bear the utter play of the Master of Power. Pain is the key that opens the gates of strength; it is the high-road that leads to the city of …

Canst thou see God as the bodiless Infinite and yet love Him as a man loves his mistress? Then has the highest truth of the Infinite been revealed to thee. Canst thou also clothe the Infinite in one secret embraceable body and see Him …

My lover took away my robe of sin and I let it fall, rejoicing; then he plucked at my robe of virtue, but I was ashamed and alarmed and prevented him. It was not till he wrested it from me by force that I saw how my soul had been hidden …

God took a child to fondle him in His bosom of delight; but the mother wept and would not be consoled because her child no longer existed.

A God who cannot smile, could not have created this humorous universe.

I hated the devil and was sick with his temptations and tortures; and I could not tell why the voice in his departing words was so sweet that when he returned often and offered himself to me, it was with sorrow I refused him. Then I …

I was much plagued by Satan, until I found that it was God who was tempting me; then the anguish of him passed out of my soul for ever.

They say, O my God, that I am mad because I see no fault in Thee; but if I am indeed mad with Thy love, I do not wish to recover my sanity.

To thy lover, O Lord, the railing of the world is wild honey and the pelting of stones by the mob is summer rain on the body. For is it not Thou that railest and peltest, and is it not Thou in the stones that strikest and hurtest me?

The whole world is my seraglio and every living being and inanimate existence in it is the instrument of my rapture.

When I was mounting upon ever higher crests of His joy, I asked myself whether there was no limit to the increase of bliss and almost I grew afraid of God's embraces.

Even when one has climbed up into those levels of bliss where pain vanishes, it still survives disguised as intolerable ecstasy.

To commit adultery with God is the perfect experience for which the world was created.

Others boast of their love for God. My boast is that I did not love God; it was He who loved me and sought me out and forced me to belong to Him.

Mankind has used two powerful weapons to destroy its own powers and enjoyment, wrong indulgence and wrong abstinence.

What is the use of only being? I say to thee, Become, for therefore wast thou established as a man in this world of matter.

What is the use of only knowing? I say to thee, Act and be, for therefore God sent thee into this human body.

It is easy to distinguish the evil worked by sin and vice, but the trained eye sees also the evil done by self-righteous or self-regarding virtue.