Anything good is of value.  Some people are uniformly charming and others are not.  When a new chief takes over, his manners will be decided upon mostly in the first few days.  Manners are of the surface and matter little when issues of importance arise.  Still, real good manners have great value for one's career.  Speaking about the stale customs of the society, someone said, "On birthdays everyone wishes ‘Happy birthday to you'. It is insipid and stale, but on my own birthday I have found it valuable and inspiring, knowing full well it is just a custom.

Work needs energy.  When a work is completed, we feel tired.  Mother says that at the end of a work, one should not feel tired if we have the right attitude to work.  As usual Mother is different here also. Concentration means dwelling on oneself.

Beauty in one generates love in another, as beauty expresses the form of perfection.  Those who have described creation as lila saw it as an expression of ananda.  Sri Aurobindo explains that God seeks to create the perfect FORM in the world so that the objectless ananda will express in objects.  He further explains that when ananda descends into our mortal human world, it does so as a flash.  It is fleeting.  It has no permanence.  It is Matter that gives that flash of ananda permanence.  When Matter acquires perfection i

In World War II Hitler had more than a thousand bombers while Britain had only a few hundred. The British won the war not on the strength of their army or armaments, but on the strength of their courage, will and determination all of which are Spiritual expressions in the mind and nerves.  Espionage news reached them about the production factories of Hitler.  One piece of information is Hitler produced all the ball bearings for various equipments in one single factory.

The heart longs for love.  Few of us are endowed with a heart that can go on with its love without a receptivity from the other side.  The passionate youthful sensation man has come to call love is incapable of seeing anything other than the charm in the other person.  When knowledgeable people point out the veritable defects of the other one, the longing refuses to see it.  Or it imagines it has the capacity to overlook such defects in the other.   In such a mental context Romance is sustained, even grows in intensity.  The longing is for

The visible resources of coal, oil etc are shrinking.  The invisible resources are infinite.  Agriculture, industry, trade, education, commerce, politics, Spirituality etc are the many sectors of the society.  One historical Truth is if any ONE of these sectors are fully developed, it can make the nation rise to the top of the world.  Oil has made many a nation rich.  It is trade that led Britain to a pre-eminent position for two centuries.  Japan is devoted to its Emperor and has known for its code of honour.  That is exp

‘United we stand, divided we fall', ‘Truth alone is important',  ‘Without values the world cannot sustain itself for a moment', ‘Honesty is the best policy' and innumerable other such truths are obvious to all of us.  We also know that it is an inescapable fact.  But the world needs a Buddha or a Jesus to show the way of Love, a Harichandra to demonstrate the significance of Truth before the entire population could accept it as a way of life.  Historians, British judges, educationists, travellers had testified to the utter truthfulness of the Indians a couple of hundred

After the world war, the world has not thrown up a leader of world stature.  After the procession of intellectuals who wanted to shape the world according to their ideas - Marx, Voltaire, Roussean, Russell, Sartre - in the last 25 years no single intellectual has attained their stature.  The leadership in war and thought has passed away from the collective.  This is a phase of social evolution where the INDIVIDUAL emerges.  There was a time when local chieftains gave place to a national monarch.  It was he who decided on wider national issues as wel

Speaking in Rio-de-Genero at an international conference on pollution, Indira Gandhi said the conference should recognise that the greatest pollution comes from poverty.  It is neither wise, nor rational for us in India to feel poverty is a problem when half the world has become prosperous 100 years ago.  How different is Malayasia from us?  When did she become free?  Her income today is 30 times greater than ours.  Poverty is eradicable and it must be eradicated.   Resources are not wanting.  The govt can certainly do it.  The p

When there is food shortage in the country, there are no two opinions.  Buy, import, grow, food must be made available to all.  There is no point in saying "well, we have to learn to live with the famine".  Atleast NOW no govt can afford to say that and still hope to be in power.  When food is available, and the man has no money that FOOD is meaningless.  Abolition of famine means abolition of unemployment.  So far in no country outside USSR, there is full employment.  Govts offer sympathies and plead helplessness.  T