“The Spirit is a higher infinite of verities; life is a lower infinite of possibilities which seek to grow and find their own truth and fulfilment in the light of these verities. Our intellect, our will, our ethical and our aesthetic being are the reflectors and the mediators. The method of the West is to exaggerate life and to call down as much — or as little — as may be of the higher powers to stimulate and embellish life.
But the method of India is on the contrary to discover the spirit within and the higher hidden intensities of the superior powers and to dominate life in one way or another so as to make it responsive to and expressive of the spirit and in that way increase the power of life. Its tendency with the intellect, will, ethical, aesthetic and emotional being is to sound indeed their normal mental possibilities, but also to upraise them towards the greater light and power of their own highest intuitions.”

— Sri Aurobindo

The Renaissance in India (1918)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Sri Aurobindo 224

Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, gur… 1872–1950

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Context: The frontier of the higher life is everywhere contiguous to the common life, and we can cross the border at any moment. The higher life is as real as the grosser things in which we put our trust. But our eyes must be anointed so that we may see it.
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“Adieu, the city's ceaseless hum,
The haunts of sensual life, adieu!
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With beauty, is for us to choose;
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And higher feeling, higher thought,
And glimpses of a higher state.Through change of time, on sea and shore,
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With youthful life each circling year;
And flowers that Ceres' daughter loved
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O friends, my friends! what joy to feel
That He our loving Father is!”

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Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) English mathematician and philosopher

Source: Attributed from posthumous publications, Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead (1954), Ch. 21, June 28, 1941.

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