When a company is at a loss, it will have two halves -- one avoidable loss, another unavoidable loss. Avoidable loss must be avoided. By doing that, the company will NOT be a losing concern anymore. Coming to the other, it is common knowledge that what is considered unavoidable in one company is not so in several other successful companies in the same town. Unorganised people will be known as clumsy by others. To them, what they do not want to do is described as unavoidable.

Often we feel a new emotion which we are unable to express. We try our best and fail saying, "Well, one has to experience it for oneself. It is inexpressible." How can you explain the taste of an Indian sweet to a foreigner? Those who realised Brahman said it is ineffable. They added that one who had realised it could not express it. If one explains Brahman, we can be sure he had not experienced it. Life is full of such experiences that are not communicable.

In our ardent fervour to be rational, we refuse to accept things without sufficient proof. It is a welcome attitude that outgrows the superstition that readily swallows any statement. There was a belief among the sailors of Europe that the world ended at The Cape of Good Hope and the ship that crossed that point would tumble into the abyss. Before Science came to be accepted widely, it was believed that God created the world in seven days. To those who believe in the existence of hell and heaven, Dr. S.

A retired I.A.S. officer in Andhra was struck by paralysis. He was an ardent devotee of Sri Aurobindo and he knew the mantric power of His writings. He asked his son to read out from The Life Divine for an hour every day. On the 20th day, he was cured of his ailment. This book is Sri Aurobindo's magnum opus, though the other four books He wrote simultaneously are of great significance. A French writer said that no writer had ever attempted to write five serious books simultaneously.

Failure and success are one of the many twins or dualities in life. No one can claim that he would never fail. Nor can a man report that he has always faced only failure. The proportion of failure and success varies, but it is a law of life that both will be invariably present. Of course, we appreciate a greater measure of success. A proverb speaks of two successes in five attempts.

When the ancient authority of the Upanishads had refused us the right to question the ONE which Sri Aurobindo endorses, a question arises in our minds about how He answers that question. The highest instrument of Man is mind whose vision is partial. Mind can see the ONE. It can also see the Many. Mind has no faculty to see both simultaneously. He rose above the Mind, reached Supermind, which is capable of a total vision.

God is the ONE, creation is the Many. The Rishis know the One and all of us know the Many. How did the One become the Many or how did the One create the Many is a question that is not answered. The Upanishads ask us, 'Who can ask the One that question?' Yes, Sri Aurobindo says, no one has the right to question the One. In His book Upanishads where HE explains the Absolute, Maya, Parabrahman as the Upanishads laid down, he raised the above question and answered that we do not have the right to ask that question.

In the realm of Spirit - the Divine Mother - whatever you KNOW well, as a well-formulated idea is Power. That is why when you DECIDE to do a thing you know very well, it happens immediately. An American devotee used to smile unbelievingly when this idea was spoken. He was laughing at the superstitions of the Indians, though before his very eyes it was happening. He returned to the USA for six months. On his return, he reported several incidents in his own experience that it was so.

Selfishness is universal. It often goes with meanness. We witness Selflessness often in action. It leaves its expansive touch on the onlooker. To be selfless is good, but to practise self-giving is to be SPIRITUAL. It is said that after creation, LOVE was thrown into the scheme to bridge the gap between heaven and earth. Self-giving expresses love receiving it as grace from above. We are what our parents and ancestors were and what our soul was in the previous birth.

A governor is governed by protocol. He is not a free individual. A Zen Master said to his disciple "When I eat, I eat; when I write I write, whereas when you eat, you think about writing; when you write, you think about food." To live fully in the present without the mind wandering to the past or future is the discipline of Zen. We live in time, i.e. the past holds us in its grip and the future peeps into the mind. One who lives in the Timeless dimension lives in the ever present. He is a Rishi in tapas.