Keys to Achieving in Life, Achievement, Growth, Personal Growth,Accomplishment, Success, Values,One's Potential To Achieve , General Determinants of Achievement, Individual's Capacities that Enable Achievement, Spiritual Capacities (& Methods) for Achievement, The Character of Life and Forces that Enable One to Achieve, Negatives Expressions that Block Achievement, The Process of Creation, Growth, and Accomplishment,The Token Act,Miscellaneous

Reaching the Next Highest Positive Level
The positive cannot accomplish at a higher level without overcoming the threat of the negative. E.g. a man was meant for higher accomplishment. As the opportunity emerged, his own dark past rose and confronted him. His ability to handle it successfully was essential for his further progress. (Paraphrase of MSS)

Achievement & the Negative
Individuals as well as society achieve only when the strength is Organised to contain the mischief of the negative. (MSS)

Untitled
Giving up the past not only is protection in the present but brings further openings [for the future]. (MSS)

Other
(topic)

Your Choice of Temperament, Attitudes to Exercise that Enables Success or Failure
-Those who prosper will look at the world from their highest responsibilities. Those who refuse to prosper will always attribute their failure to external circumstances.
-The capacity to complain against everyone and everything keeps the other where he was forty years ago.
-Choose the RIGHT, the GOOD, the PLEASANT, the VALUABLE and that is the ladder for progress.
-If you complain, whine, bark, are lazy, compete or ascribe your failure to others, you constantly slide down.
-Evil, meanness, deceit, violence, cruelty, tyranny, falsehood, MONEY VALUE, mercenary attitude, short temper, greed, demand, desire, craving, suspicious nature, doubt, sloth, etc. have never paid social dividends.
-In the end, these are aspects of your temperament that you choose to exercise.
(MSS, modified)

On Humility
-Humility is the inner knowledge that MAN is a trifle before the world, Nature or God.
-As we invoke the Spirit, so we can acquire humility.
-Humility must be acquired as inner character for it to be of value in Spirit. It is not enough it is exhibited as outer behaviour. The moment one becomes truly humble inside, life with its abundance rushes towards him. (MSS)

Token Effort Attracts Positive Life Response
Sometimes life presents situations which may not be perfect or seem limited, but if one takes an initiative to see them through, life will respond positively from other fields in one's life.

LIFE RESPONSE EXAMPLES
-A temporary type employee had been out of work for awhile. She was finally offered a temp position in a far out of the way location requiring a difficult commute. Rather than turn the temp job down, she accepted. At the end of the day she found out that the job would only last a one day or two. The next day, however, her temp agency called her for a new temp job, which turned out to be not only nearby but lasted for over six months.

SPIRITUAL CAPACITIES (& METHODS) FOR ACHIEVEMENT & GROWTH
(main)

Introduction to Spirit-Based Accomplishment & Growth

Spiritually-Oriented Works

Goodness

Self-Givingness key!

Soft/Reduced Speech

Silent Will

Taking Another's Point of View

Silence (Mental, Vital, Physical)

Peace (inner spiritual)

Opening to the Spiritual Force (Consecration) key!

Living Within (in the Depths)

Being in the Now/the Ever-Present

Seeing Beyond the Positive & Negative

Seeing the Outer as a Reflection of the Inner

Attracting Luck

Awareness of the Subtle Forces

OTHER

Spiritual Sincerity

Surrender

Mind's Movement out of Ignorance

Power of Mind and Spiritual Mind

Process of Accomplishment

Other

ALSO SEE:

Essential Human Capacities that Enable Achievement

Spirituality for the Individual

Italicized items are on other pages

Introduction to Spirit-Based Accomplishment
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Spiritually-Oriented Works
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Goodness
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Self-Givingness
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Self-Givingness, One's Accomplishment, and Life Response

Our Level of Culture (of Behavior & Values)

Goodwill
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Generosity
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Humility
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Gratitude
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(Soft, Reduced) Speech
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Silent Will
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Taking Another's Point of View
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Silence: Mental, Vital, Physical
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Silence Expressing at Various Planes (Mental, Vital, Physical)

The Spiritual Nature of Silence

Mental Silence

The Nature of Mental Silence

The Benefits of Mental Silence

How to Establish Mental Silence

Vital Silence

Physical Silence

Silence and Energy

Silence and Accomplishment

Patience
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Equality of Being
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Inner Detachment
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Non-Initiating
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Peace (inner spiritual)
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Living Within (in the Depths; Concentration)
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Being in the Now/The Ever- Present
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KEY ITEM

Opening to the Spiritual Force (Consecration)
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Surrender
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Attracting Luck
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Inner Awareness of Subtle Forces
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Subconscious Forces at Work in Accomplishment
The final outcome to whether or not one accomplishes is also reflected in the operations and undercurrent of forces that are subconscious to most humans. These include "life responses" and other hidden patterns and processes that seem to circumvent time and space and all sense of normal logic. Like the attempt to understand the mechanics of quantum physics if understood these secret patterns of life could reveal the ultimate mystery to endless accomplishment in life.

Understand Inner-Outer Correspondence to Attract Positive Life Response

(1) View whatever is happening around you, whether it be positive or negative, as a reflection of what is inside you or what you are doing. If you reverse the negative or limiting quality within, you reverse the negative without. (Likewise you can increase the positive by increasing the positive association within you.)

LIFE RESPONSE EXAMPLES
-A man's computer system is suddenly not working properly. He takes the approach that he is going to associate the outer problem, with some inner attitude on his part. He notices that he has been irritable in the last few minutes dues to fatigues, etc. He decides to stop that behaviour. He even mildly consecrates the situation. Thereafter the computer starts functioning properly, even better than it normally should at that point in its daily use.

-A woman's child is acting irritable. She associates the behaviour with her own attitude toward the child at that moment. The child's behaviour reverses, and becomes subdued.

___________________________

(2) Learn to live in the depths of your being, and from that inner poise you can will something to come about, which the inner spiritual power will manifest in the world. Thus, from the inner you are creating a life response in the outer.

LIFE RESPONSE EXAMPLES
-At the height of an energy crisis a man went deep within to his inner being, and thought, willed, called, and prayed from there that the crisis should end. There seemed little possibility of it; all of society was up in arms about this emerging tragedy. The problem looked dire for years to come. Within two weeks the entire crisis evaporated, and there was not a single day of energy loss resulting from the problem. The inner had moved the outer.

Developing Integral Knowledge
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Seeing Beyond the Positive & Negative (and the Good and the Evil)
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Seeing the Outer as a Reflection of the Inner
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Power of Mind and Spiritual Mind
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Process of Accomplishment
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Other
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Shift from the Outer to the Inner

We achieve in life when we move from the outer consciousness to an inner poise. Here are several aspects of moving from the outer to the inner:

Occupation from outside becomes conditioning from inside.

2. Social discipline changing into values of self-discipline.

3. School education -- Self-education.

4. Social culture -- Family tradition.

5. From vital and mind to Spirit.

6. Intellect -- Intuition.

7. Speech --Silence.

8. Selfishness -- self-giving.

9. Organisation -- Ideal.

10. Instruction -- Inspiration.

11. Money -- Capacity.

12. Gross plane, work in the gross plane -- Subtle thought.

13. Expectation -- Silence will.

14. Objectivity -- Subjectivity.

15. Getting -- Giving.

16. Skill -- Capacity.

17. Prejudice -- Values.

18. Personal -- Impersonal.

19. Finite -- Infinite.

20. Form -- Formlessness.

21. Time -- Simultaneous integrality.

22. Contradictions -- Compliments.

23. Union -- Unity.

24. The Many -- The One.

reconciliation -- harmony.

conflict -- complement.

Contradictions -- unity.

25. Profit -- customer satisfaction.

26. Change -- transformation.

27. Surrender for Moksha -- Surrender for transformation.

28. From below one moves from the desire soul to the psychic while from above the same goal is reached by moving from Purusha to the psychic.

Crossing the Other Side of the Line that Makes Life Respond
Serious attention is very good. It is still on this side of the line. The ten fold or hundred fold expansion is on the other side of the LINE. Expansiveness will help you cross the line, not great interest. Once you cross the line, the opportunity will at once present itself. From opportunity to accomplishment, there is again a distance. Expansiveness of the consciousness brings the opportunity. Organisation of that expansive energy -- consciousness -- allows the opportunity to acquire further concrete shapes. Gratitude -- Truth, Sincerity -- opens the substance. Thrill is the sensation of gratitude. Ecstasy is thrill steadied. Ecstasy accomplishes in the outer life. Attention rising to expansiveness helps cross the line. Attention is vital, one aspect of the vital.

Attention / Expansiveness

Understanding / Clarity

Decision / Determination

Self-interest / Selfless-interest

Taking / Giving

Personal understanding / Impersonal understanding

Remembering by memory / Remembering by understanding

Calculation // Spontaneity

Efficient Planning / Unplanned efficiency

Productive / Creative

Self-importance / Self-respect

Selfish individuality / Individuality of independence.

As work is concrete, ALL the opinions, attitudes, motives will be on the surface. You cannot miss even one detail. Work out what the executive has to acquire to cross the line. He crosses the line surely when on all scores he is right. Life responds the moment one crosses the line. (MSS)

The Infinite Emerging from the Finite

The finite is on the surface; the Infinite is in the subliminal.
The Infinite is made finite on the surface by Mind, Time, ego.
One emerges out of the Mind by Silence, by refusing to think.
The finite expands limitlessly into the Infinite by moving from the gross, physical, material plane to the SUBTLE plane.
Without entering the subtle plane, no expansiveness will be there.
One has to enter into the subtle plane on all points of Mind, Time and Ego.
Mind exercises itself as thought. Silent will goes to the subtle plane. Mind's urge is in the physical. In the subtle plane, urge becomes an impulse.
Time is on the surface. Timeless plane is entirely in the subtle. Though Time is in the subtle plane, it is not enough to release the expansion. Not to think of the past or future moves one to the Ever-Present. That intensity is necessary for vast expansion. Usually it is done by the Force acting in an unknown area.
What we ask for is in the GROSS mind. What comes of itself is in the subtle plane.
Ego is there in the surface as well as inner mind. Only in the subliminal ego is blunted, begins to dissolve, because the subliminal expands into the universe. Ego cannot survive expansiveness.
Selfishness is of the ego. Unselfishness is NOT enough to move into the subtle plane. Self-giving is essential. It is spiritual.
No attribute of ego -- the thirty items in The Mother -- will permit the real expansiveness we aim at.
Silence of the Mind, losing oneself in the Ever-Present, Non-egoistic Self-giving moves one into the subtle plane making expansion possible.
It is made possible by EXHAUSTING one's effort in all physical material details.
Organising what we do, instead of handling it independently, i.e. changing the personal work into impersonal organisation takes one into the subtle plane. That ORGANISATION is inclusive of all the efforts mentioned above. It includes the other man's point of view, Silent will, maximum effort. To be able to see each level of organisation includes all the previous levels is an effective strategy. To SEE any level includes every other level is the most effective strategy. Rising above strategies is SPIRITUAL EFFICIENCY.

Harmony
-Harmony is productive and disharmony is destructive. Harmony is desirable on any showing.

-Harmony is a principle of higher consciousness where all is in each and each is in all. (MSS)

Untitled

If we want to be great accomplishers in life, very successful people, bright stars and geniuses in our field, then we must be objective, live deep within, and have our insights coagulate into illumined and intuitive descents of ultimate truths.

Invocation of Luck though Spirit Made Permanent through One's Character
Luck is the protective Spiritual energy enveloping one's character and personality to ensure miraculous results life has in store. Invocation of Spirit ensures Luck at once, but slowly helps build character and personality in anyone. Spirit makes one see the existence of luck and shows it is not beyond his reach. But what comes in, comes in to consummate the current work on hand. Thus, it cannot stay. For luck to stay forever, there must be a fabric of personality that retains it. That is character, which is an organisation of inner energies into that fabric. (MSS, slightly rewritten)

Luck, which is miraculous good fortune that comes from invocation of Spirit, can be made permanent when Spirit becomes embedded in one's character. (Paraphrase of MSS)

The Benefits of Living in the Timeless in the Becoming of Time (Simultaneous Time)
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.

There is a further dimension of time, first mentioned by Sri Aurobindo. It is the Timeless functioning in Time. Let us call it the third dimension for our purposes. He calls it Simultaneous Time. This is Supramental Time. To put these philosophical ideas in the common man's phrase, one needs to resort to analogies. We live a domestic life which is in Time. The Rishi lives in the Timeless Eternity during his trance. If the Rishi chooses to live a domestic life according to his exalted standards of Timeless stillness, he enters the Simultaneous Time, the Supramental Time. Life at home lived according to the pristine purity of yogic trance raises human life to that of divine life. Then man rises to the level of the Supramental being.

The work done by such a one will be completed in a fraction of time. Whatever we have so far sought after will gravitate towards us, often unsolicited. This is the semblance of the Spirit moving Matter. All problems in life will vanish. Opportunities will rush from all sides. A Joy which no success can give, a Peace unavailable even in death will saturate us. (MSS)

[We can begin to rise to this state by moving from the surface of life to the depths within, to the silence within, and further still to the personal evolving soul where the Third Dimension and Simultaneous Time is enabled. All of this can occur within the context of an active life -Growth Online]

Perfection Required of a Token Work
Work, especially work taken as a token experiment of discovering the Infinite out of the finite, MUST be perfect, flawlessly perfect. (MSS)

MSS Articles on Accomplishment, Success and Luck in Terms of Spirit [to be parsed out]

History of Human Accomplishment
The Significance of Passion -- Napoleon
The Hour of God
Limiting the Limitless
Human Choice During Times of Transition
Making the Unreal Real
The Process of Decision-Making
Organising the Higher Consciousness in Us
Everlasting Freshness
The Moment
The Secret of Values
Swabhava and Prosperity
What is the Key?
Abundant Prosperity
A Wonderful Beginning, Steady Expansion
Prosperity -- Spiritual & Material
Potentials are Infinite

NEGATIVE EXPRESSIONS THAT BLOCK ACHIEVEMENT & GROWTH
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THE PROCESS OF CREATION, GROWTH, AND ACCOMPLISHMENT
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Overview of the Process

The Process Expressed as Energy Conversion

The Process and Life Response

True Desire, Aspiration for the Result

Decision and Conscious Choice

Organization in Process

The Subprocesses (of Self-Conception, Self-Limitation, and Self-Absorption) Involved

Delight of Being, Joy

Using Spirit in the Process

Individual Growth Process Mirrors Process of Universal Creation

Article References

Other Points about Process

THE CHARACTER OF LIFE
& FORCES THAT ENABLE ONE TO ACHIEVE & GROW
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AN EXPERIMENT IN MULTIPLYING SUCCESS: THE TOKEN ACT/WORK
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MISCELLANEOUS
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Atmosphere to Accomplish
An individual's ability to accomplish is affected by the social environment and atmosphere -- which includes the capacities, energies, character, and circumstance of the social environment and social institutions he is involved in. When that environment, atmosphere is positive one is more likely to accomplish; when negative, it is less likely.

Untitled

An experience is very useful to have, though ephemeral; a realization is an embodiment. An embodiment is the full conversion of energy to matter.

ARTICLE on the How One's Givingness to Others Determines One's Happiness

True Conversation

We can at least start with a many sided-understanding and insight. Instead we see but one side of an issue. This is obvious when we watch two pundits argue their sides in a discussion. It is generally a fruitless, non-useful battle; no matter how right or wrong one side appears to be over the other. If one side reverses and focuses on that which the other side knows as true, even a small thing, the other side will do the same. This is the beginning of dialogue. Initiating such a movement is creative spiritual capacity; it is beyond normal human capacity.

Life Response to Implementing Avoided Details
When an individual becomes aware of the fact that he has not paid attention to the details in a work, and then makes the effort to correct it, the result is that acts related to that detail unfold in life with miraculous precision and perfection; e.g. in their timing and right unfolding down to the millisecond!

Efficiency in Life
One's efficiency is one's capacities to create the greatest results in the shortest period of time with the least effort.

Secrecy & Accomplishment
Secrecy is an essential capacity for accomplishment, yet uncalled for secrecy cancels work. (MSS)

Organizing One's Personality
What is it to organise one's personality? We have several faculties. They can be centralised when they are unrelated. Faculties functioning independently produce the minimum. One faculty uniting with another brings in extraordinary results. A faculty integrating with another faculty brings out the maximum result from both. Coordinating ALL one's faculties so that each faculty produces its maximum result is to organise one's personality. (MSS)

Our Divine Power of Creation
The Divine created the universe so that we can create our own universes (i.e. our own reality) in the manner He created His.

MSS Articles on Unfailing Success, Luck

Unfailing Success
Unfailing Conscious Efficiency that is the Formula for Luck
Formula for Universal Luck

A Result, the Process, and the Essence
It is easier to produce the result than to know the process by which it is brought about. The Process is not final. Beyond the process lies the essence. To know the Process is to permanently possess the capacity to produce the result. (MSS)

Untitled
One truth about MAN is that when a man rises in life very fast, he takes it for granted. After some time he even forgets it. So also when a man loses a great opportunity - especially when it is invisible - he is not likely to know what he has lost. (MSS)

Perfection Required of a Token Work
Work, especially work taken as a token experiment of discovering the Infinite out of the finite, MUST be perfect, flawlessly perfect. (MSS)

(FOR BACKWARD COMPATIBILITY)
ONE'S POTENTIAL TO ACHIEVE, GROW

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You Become as You Believe

Infinite Potential of Life

Levels at Which We Can Accomplish

What, to What Level do We Want to Accomplish?

General Determinants of Accomplishments

Important Articles

Miscellaneous

To Be Categorized

Loving the Work and Having the Integral Knowledge to Accomplish It

In The Life Divine Sri Aurobindo speaks of Integral Knowledge and a dynamic Will fused together in Supermind. That is the capacity we can develop that enables ultimate success in life. Ordinarily we have the Knowledge, but not the Will. Or the Will to do something, but not the knowledge. We need both. Great success is the result of the fusion of these two.

For many the issue is do I really want to be doing what I am doing; e.g. working where I am now working? If so, our energies will attract success. While hard work itself is certainly an important element, -- particularly in a lazy environment -- what will motivate one to work hard in the first place is feeling Love and a Passion for the work itself. Intense love of work creates intense Will that releases the energy for great success. Most great achievers have experienced this.

If you do not love, feel passion for, and therefore enjoy the work, your success will tend to plateau. And yet even if you do not love the work, but are still able to embrace it as service to the world (or to the Spirit), you can still generate the necessary inner positive energy to garner success. Or if one also sees the work as useful to one's personal growth -- i.e. the best thing to be doing at this time in one's life, whether or not one loves it -- it can evoke commensurate will and energy for achievement, though that individual is not likely to be taken to the heights.

As for the Knowledge (and Skills) side, that is quite obviously necessary for generating success. One needs to strive to develop a many-sided, integral knowledge of the subject matter, as well as the necessary mental capacities to succeed in work. A passion for learning and improvement are critical. Also taking the other person's point of view, developing intuitive capacity, perceiving the subtle signs, being aware of life principles in action, and opening to the divine Mother's Power will give the many sided knowledge and skills necessary of any work. Life itself will also indicate one's Knowledge shortcomings along the way. Skills of course are not just of that particular field, but should also include communication, psychological, and social skills. Integral comprehension also demands an understanding of and commitment to one's Personal Values, which is often the bridge between Knowledge and Will, thereby releasing a tidal wave of mental, vital, and physical energy that evokes great accomplishment.

The Supramental Being will have Knowledge and Will fused; so anything he initiates from without or within will garner infinite-like achievement; often through instantaneous miraculousness.

The Divine Mother's Power is Knowledge and Will fused; all together in one thing. It is the integral knowledge of a matter and its tendency to manifest as real in the world. Only our limited capacities and nature can block its perfect fulfillment when we invoke Her Power in our lives.

I	Achieve, Progress	Progress, Time, and Space Progress means abridgement of time and abridgement of space. (MSS)
I	Achieve, Spirit	Surrendering to Force Enables One to Become the Very Best One who never speaks or who cannot explain himself decided to avail of this Force of Transformation. He did so by surrendering himself to that Force, putting himself gladly in its hands. The evaluation of his work revealed that he was the BEST performer, the very BEST in his whole organisation. What we cannot secure, this Force secures for us. In doing so, it does it abundantly, as it can act only thus. (MSS)
I	Achieve, Spirit, Misc.	Gaining by Being in Presence of Collective Utilizing Spirit One gain by just being in the presence of a household or other collective organization in which there is Spirit, even if one does not know that spirit directly. Even the lowliest of staff or members can rise rapidly and suddenly in life.
I V	Sri Aurobindo	Assent vs. Dissent in Communications; Utilizing Sri Aurobindo's Thought The question of another and our answer are in the plane either as assent or dissent (assent is not different from dissent). When we want to please him and be pleasant to him, his dissent changes into assent. Any thought of Sri Aurobindo taken into a context and allowed to express itself in the context has that quality. (MSS)
I	Achieve, Spiritual, Freedom	Accomplishing By Giving Others Utter Freedom To function in utter FREEDOM means not to be bound by social laws, moral codes, ethical behaviour, not to submit to any laws made by MAN. No one has found it easy; still, many have taken to it. Such people ended as sages, Rishis and yogis. It is one thing NOT to follow any rules, but it is another thing to relate to another person on that basis. If one wants to try a little of it, there is a method. Freedom is a sacred rule for us to follow. It is more sacred when extended to another. It is difficult to see such an establishment based on the laws of Freedom. If you are one who loves adventure and enjoys courting danger, let me give you a tiny experiment. If you have a naughty child of four who raises a storm every morning to go to school or a profligate husband or an imperious wife, you can make a one-time experiment. The only condition is NOT to react to whatever the child does. Prepare your heart to be patient and calm. If you succeed in a few days or many years, try it on one day, for a little while. Do not ask the child to go to school. If you are successful, the child, contrary to custom, will go to school happily. One who can make this an attitude of life can run an establishment and if it becomes a success, he is qualified to become God. To accomplish in utter freedom is godly. (MSS, extracted and edited)
I	Achieving, Overview Negative, Expectation Fails	People Who Accomplish Act from the Mind Man hopes and expects, translates his expectation into reality. It most fails when it most promises, says the greatest poet. The Reality of the situation can be assessed by the Mind, not the nerves - the vital. People who accomplish act from the Mind and not from their nerves or from the imagined reality of intense expectation. (MSS)
I	Achieving, Reliability	Reliable vs. Unreliable Men Reliable men are fair. Unreliable men cheat.
I	Achieving, Values, Punctuality	Valuing Time of Others through One's Punctuality Punctuality is called the manners of Princes. One is punctual because he values the time of others who wait for the work. (MSS)

Personal Value of Trust

How Money Trust Creates Greater Wealth in Society
How is greater wealth in society produced?

Money is goods. So also, money is TRUST. Today values of life are deteriorating on one side. On the other side, banks recover over 90%, perhaps 93% of consumer loans.

Money was created as a medium of exchange. It has always represented Man's Trust in currency and the government. That trust is, on the balance, more today. Hence there is more money in circulation. This answer is vague.

Individually, one can see that NOW he who is optimistic is better off. He who avails of confidence-raising schemes is better off, as he rises with the rising confidence of the nation. All those who have risen meteorically are people whose work is trusted. One way of becoming prosperous is to raise that level of trust in our lives. (MSS, slightly modified)

Achieving, Positive from Negative

Success is for Those Who Dare and Act in An Aggressive (Seemingly Oppressive) Market
Work goes to China from USA in pursuit of low cost. Jobs are lost in the USA. The small US manufacturer goes out of business.

The nation faces this crisis. The national association of tool manufacturers is called NTMA, National Tool Manufacturing Association. They are of all sizes, from $2 million to $20 million. A few of the companies are worth between 70 and 100 million dollars.

In the view of the NTMA members, this crisis is a disaster and a misfortune. We see it as the greatest opportunity for the members. How can that be told to them?

Even if we manage to speak it out to them, of what use is this sterile philosophy? Can we make them see that this is an opportunity and inspire them to act on that basis? The facts are on our side. We addressed their conference five years ago and earlier seventeen years ago. Out of the 2000 members, we have interviewed 40 or 50 of them. Several of them who were doing 2 or 3 million five years ago are now at 7 or 10 million dollars. That is a fact. But there is another side to that fact.

Several others have closed shop. Many others are frightened of the prospect of closing. The interviews clearly show that the MARKET is aggressive, but expanding. Those who rise to the occasion of aggressiveness are caught by the wave of expansion and move from two million to ten or twenty.

Those who are timid, and cling to their old ways are wiped out by the aggressively changing market. Success is for those who dare and act. (MSS, edited)

Achieving, Positive and Negative

Knowledge, Ignorance

The Profound Relationship Between Love and Pain
Pain itself is the reverse form of Love. In ordinary words, Life permits Arjuna [in the Gita] to express his intense love for Bhishma [who is on the other side and must be killed for Arjuna's side to prevail] by shooting arrows at him.

What kind of philosophy is it? It is practical philosophy seen in life more than once. When we meet it, we are baffled. As long as we do not understand it, Love comes to us as Pain. The moment right understanding dawns on us, Love comes to us as Love. The pain is in our lack of understanding, called Ignorance. Ignorance is Pain, knowledge is Love. (MSS)

Achieving, Power, Strength, Power of thought

Argument/Thought vs. Strength
-What does not yield to argument yields to strength.
-Thought is more powerful than strength and it is known to bring strength around in time. (MSS)

Achieving, Reliability

Reliable vs. Unreliable Men
Reliable men are fair. Unreliable men cheat.

Achieving in Life, Truth

Truth Alone Accomplishes
TRUTH accomplishes, TRUTH alone accomplishes. (MSS)

Achieving, Work

The High Consciousness Required of Doing the Menial, Wearisome Work
Any work profits someone. Man is interested only in the work that profits himself. He likes work that gives satisfaction, in which he is directly interested. Beyond this known phenomenon lies a vast, dark ocean of life's reality. There are unproductive works.

They are wearisome. They are done in offices where form is maintained for form's sake. Such a work is given to a man as a punishment. Even such work has a meaning, 1) for very meaningful people, and 2) people who are below the meaningless majority. That is the zone of rituals. We call them thankless jobs.

Man has two levels of personality, surface and depth. The surface progresses by doing work in which one is interested, the depth progresses by doing unproductive, thankless labour.

If we divide men into three categories, 1) cream, 2) average, 3) below average, the average progresses by doing the work that is interesting. The unproductive wearisome thankless labour comes as an opportunity to the cream as well as the below average man.

What we call surface and depth is called in philosophy as consciousness and substance. Even in the substance there is a consciousness. This wearisome work awakens the consciousness in the substance, thus making a greater, wider progress possible.

There is divinity in drudgery. The variations of this rule apply to a very intelligent man working for an idiot, a cultured, sophisticated wife submitting to a boor of a husband, an honest resourceful manager working for a crook of an employer or a leader of a party.

By extension, the cream of the population of nations is often under unprincipled, self-seeking leaders of the society or government. To us, to our ordinary human vision, one is an angel, the other is a devil. In the eyes of God, there is no Devil, there is devilish work to do.

The average man will not come forward to do it happily. Hence, it comes to the top layers of the society. They can have the sensitivity to appreciate the subtle truth behind. For the same reason in the reverse, it goes to the insensitive who is not aware of what he is doing. (MSS, extracted)

I III	Achieve, Human Choice Solving Problems	Man's Choice on the Border of Light and Darkness Man is on the border where Light and Darkness meet. So, his CHOICE at each moment is of significance to creation and to his life. ''Set the man right, the world will right itself," is a maxim. (MSS)
I	Achieve, Process	Mind, Knowledge, and Will Mind has knowledge and will. Will executes what knowledge knows.
I	Achieve, Process	Accomplishment, Knowledge, and Determination The extent of accomplishment depends on the level of knowledge one has and the seriousness of its determination. (MSS)
I	Achieve, Spiritual	Good Will Attracts Rain Good will attracts grace and consequently rain. (MSS)

Achieve, Spiritual

Flowers

Rain

Invoking Rain through Grace that Emanates from Utilizing Flowers
Rain responds to the flower 'water' (Porana). It also responds to Grace (Cotton Rose Hibiscus), as rain is the material expression of God's Grace. The best method of attracting God's Grace is to develop higher consciousness. Good will is one important strand of the higher consciousness.

Therefore, good will attracts grace and consequently rain. Beyond knowledge lies decision and determination. Grace flowers offered to the Mother bringing rain are a common experience. Someone pointed out the relationship between the last Grace plant dying and the drought in a certain year. Grace flowers being brought is different from Grace flowers brought with a decision behind it.

Decision backing the act converts rainfall that falls short of the mark into excess rainfall. Twenty inches of rain in May is unusual. The department of meteorology classifies rainfall of more than two inches as heavy rainfall. Grace brought with decision and determination on various occasions has yielded rainfall in 24 hours of four inches, eight inches and on one occasion even 11 inches. (MSS)

III

Achieve, Spiritual

Governance

Valuing Spirit Takes One To Fame in Certain Domains
Whether one is in politics or administration or public life, one rises to the acme of true fame he does not seek if his values are spiritual. (MSS)

III

Achievement, Affect of the Society

Individual Achievement and Achievement of Society
Man can achieve anything on which he sets his Mind, provided it is already an achievement of the society. It is unthinkable for us to conceive of hundreds of geniuses in the future. It will be real when the society fixes its mind on it. (MSS)

How to Be Outside Mind to Understand What It Is
Mind is not defined by Man as he is NOT outside it. He is inside Mind, part of it. He is a function of Mind. He is really identified with his Mind. To understand Mind, one needs to be outside of it, having given up his identification with it. The first step is to know he is identified with Mind.

[Here is how to be outside mind. -Growth Online] Evolution is to let knowledge evolve out of Ignorance. That is a moment of evolutionary awakening, a moment that tastes the JOY Brahman has set out seeking. It is a MOMENT of TRUTH. One steps into the Hour of God. It may be a fleeting second but a precious second. With that moment being there, every further argument becomes live, full and rich. Without that, they reduce to intellectuality, dry and insipid. Quickly we see we do not follow the argument.

Assuming that moment is there or at least we are seeking that moment, every argument will be in place. Non-egoistic understanding gives us that opening. (MSS)

Evolution, Freedom of the Mind

There are ideas mind is sensitive about which it cannot allow for a moment.
Imagine the freedom of the Mind and see how we are encased psychologically.
One who can do so can see what RATIONALITY is, how frightening it is even in contemplation.
So far such an individual has not emerged in the world among human beings.
Imagine the same freedom in the descent.
It means the spiritual emergence in the mind.
It is called the psychic being. ...
The integration must be done in the individual SOUL [in the True Self, the Psychic Being].
After such integration, it has to ascend to the Eternal.
This is done by shedding the 7 ignorances one by one.
The Spirit begins to evolve only when all the 7 ignorances are shed.
At that point the Mental Psychic emerges. (MSS, extracted)

Other

Individual Trying to Avail of Opportunities of Society
The individual in his growth tries to avail of the opportunities created by society. The opportunities for individual accomplishment are determined by what the society permits. The maximum is determined by what society sanctions. The minimum is determined by individual capacity. Individuals who fall below the social minimum socially perish. In rare instances, individuals try to outreach the society and the society puts up resistance.

Individual capacity is determined by the skills, attitudes, beliefs, values, character and aspirations of each individual.

The availability of social opportunities and the ability of the individual to avail of them combine to determine the ultimate outcome. (MSS)

That Which Enables Good Results from a Work
Whatever the work, it requires an energy, interest, skill, attention, concentration, experience and perfection. If all of them are there, the work gives good results. (MSS)

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The power to achieve lies in the knowledge of the facts and principles on one side, and the values and strategies on the other. If you add the power of the Force (or better still center yourself in this power), and a movement to the inner being, away from ego, time, and surface mind, then accomplishment moves from the finite to the infinite. (Paraphrase of MSS)

How to Become Conscious; Make Progress
1. Know where you are. 2. Move in that plane (mental, vital, physical. etc.) to the positive side. 3. Acquire perfect skill and make it into a talent. (MSS, slightly modified)

Practical Concept of Infinity
This principle essentially means that you can accomplish and succeed in life to literally an infinite degree if you make contact with and then open yourself to the spiritual powers of the Divine Reality.

Going within in essence enables you to begin to really realize the principle of the ''practical concept of infinity;" that all of the infinite potentials of life can be made real, can be embodied by you in your life as a practical reality. Infinite abundance and success and joy can really happen. By going to the depths, we begin to move from what we perceived as a finite life to the real experience of an infinite life, as infinite abundance, prosperity, achievement, success, and joy.

Results and Consciousness
Results are the litmus test of whether we are conscious. (Paraphrase of MSS)

Ordinary Life vs. Aspiring Life

How many of us are serious about breaking the shackles of ordinary human life to enable our true potential to shine through, to bringing the infinite into the finite, to bring Delight to our souls, instead of living lives of ego, ignorance, and unhappiness. Most of us just want to live ordinarily, compelled to live a bit more extraordinarily only when the chips are down. That's a negative approach to consciousness. We can do better. We can enable our personal growth through intense positive aspiration.

An Idea is Accomplished in the Body, in the Emotions
What accomplishes the most is through the body, in the measure that it receives ideas [and incorporating them as a give of understanding or skill]. Next to the body what accomplishes is the emotions endorsing the ideas. What accomplishes the least is just the ideas of themselves in Mind. (Paraphrase of MSS)

A Passionate Man's Passion in Equilibrium Succeeds
A passionate man achieves when his passions are at rest, i.e. in equilibrium, as when the passionate Napoleon had the equilibrium with Josephine. When they parted, Napoleon began on a road to failure.

Process or Accomplishment
Aspiration releases energy, Will directs energy to become force, Organisation changes force into usable power, and skills create results out of power. (MSS)

Opinions, Attitudes, Motives, and Spirit
-Opinions are negative, and are quite difficult to get rid of despite sincere efforts.

-Attitudes are more powerful than opinions, and have a significant positive or negative effect on one's ability to accomplish.

-Motives, which are of the whole being and include attitudes and opinions, are still more powerful in determining one's accomplishment. The highest motive is the spiritual motive. (Paraphrase of MSS)

Develop Our Capacities to Create Luck
When we develop our capacities and gain the external cooperation of life we create the conditions for luck; i.e. the propulsion to the next level of achievement, success, and fortune.

On Work
To convert an opportunity into accomplishment is work. (MSS)

Life Presenting Moments of Truth
In anyone's life, a Moment arrives, when his own innate goodness surfaces, and life offers all the circumstances he needs to flower into a full-blown Personality. ... Those who invoke the Spirit have witnessed that such moments often occur in their lives. (MSS)

The Will that Enables Success Beyond a Government Bill
Though a legislative or other government or institutional bill that is of great benefit to the community may pass, it may fail in the course of time because it was undertaken reluctantly. The collective's will is the determinant and guarantees, where bills only indicate a potential. Beyond bills there is the power of the Will that has a life of its own.

Maximum Utilization of Work in Terms of Energy and Consciousness
Maximum utilization of a work can be viewed in terms of Energy and Consciousness. The full use of our energies in a work enables it to be organized into a skill. The maximum utilization of consciousness in a work occurs through perfect perfection of values.

When the individual strives to fully realize the capacities of his energy and consciousness positively in work, at the point he exhausts himself, the hidden potentials of his being come to the surface and begin to act. (MSS, extracted)

Achieve in Lower Planes to Secure Upper Planes
Achievements in the higher planes of Mind or Spirit, necessarily requires a solid foundation in the vital, physical planes. Accomplish at the base; your accomplishment at the top is secure. (MSS)

Accomplishment from Levels of Manners, Character, and Spirit
Manners are of the surface. It means nothing to us, except a pleasant exterior for the social occasion. Behaviour is to believe in the valid truth of manners. Behaviour is to believe in the truth of external behaviour. Still, behaviour is on the surface of one's being.

Character is in the depths, swabhava. Whatever you are in your character, life rewards accordingly. What a man of good manners accomplishes in a lifetime, a man of character accomplishes in the beginning of his career. One who wants to receive now the rewards of life that would normally come at the end of his career can shift his work from good manners to good character. In our human life, shifting our work from manners to character will bring the results that would come at retirement.

Beyond this lies a spiritual reward for seekers of the Spirit. Spiritual realisation available at the end of ten or twenty births is available NOW if one shifts his work from character to its origin, consciousness. Character, however noble it is, is still human character. Consciousness is always divine consciousness. Instead of seeking good character, one should seek consciousness that is above character, neither good character nor bad character. Character is a structure. Consciousness has no structure. It is. It has no past, no future. It is in the Ever-Present. (MSS, abridged)

Power of Actions
Actions have more power than thoughts. (MSS)

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The more conscious you are, the more you realize your imperfections, even down to the very smallest details.

Our Weaknesses Are Greater Than Our Strengths

Each individual has strengths and weaknesses, i.e. our defects. However, we can say that our weaknesses are greater than our strengths because once these weaknesses are transformed, then they become greater strengths than our current strengths.

Keys to Personal Growth

The keys to our personal growth is overcoming our limiting attitudes, our harsh judgments and opinions, our wonton emotions and passions, and our fixed, rigid physical aspects.

Mental Man Enables Capacities of Individuality, Self-development, Spirituality

As man develops greater capacities of mind he gains a greater power of individuality, a freedom to develop his individual law of being, and ability to perceive that he can be more than his body, emotions, and mind, i.e. develop his spiritual capacities.

Talent is Revealed When One Touches the Spirit
In an organisation conceived as a family, a member from another state joined willingly. He could not acquit himself in any work given to him. Nor did he find himself comfortable in any situation. He was shifted several times. He was asked to choose. He chose the very simple job of procuring supplies from the shop. Nothing he bought worked. The scissors he bought would not cut! Whatever could be done with him, if he could not be relieved? Suddenly there was news that he was interested in watch repairing. A watch repair shop was bought and he left them for good. He was happy. Yet that too became a failure. He came back, on his own, to an earlier trade and founded by himself an independent establishment. It has been alive for the last 25 years.

Thus there is a spiritual rule that there lies dormant in anyone a talent which others may not see. Maybe he himself is not aware of it. When the Spirit awakens, such a talent comes to the surface. It enables him to excel in his career.

[There is a further principle.] Sri Aurobindo says that one who takes to yoga is capable of turning to any field of his choice and the Spirit will stand him in good stead. (MSS, slightly modified)

Obey the Immediate Master
To obey the immediate MASTER, whoever he is and whatever the consequence is a spiritual value that hastens the best final result. (MSS) [As POW British Colonel Nicholson did to Japanese Colonel Seito in the film 'Bridge On the River Kwai.' When Seito treated him with honor instead of punishing him, Nicholson obediently built a magnificent bridge which could harm his own side, but which he and his men constructed nevertheless, and was ironically in the end eventually blown up. Perhaps Siddhartha should have done the same for his father, which would have avoided later difficult consequences . It also relates to the idea of accepting and doing the current work life offers, rather than only thinking abut what one wishes to do. -Editor]

Concentration on the Work Itself Energizes; On Our Self-Interest in the Work Tires
Work needs energy. When a work is completed, we feel tired. The 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. When a work comes to us, we do not identify ourselves with it. We see it as coming from outside. That way we concentrate on ourselves and the work becomes a burden. The more we concentrate on ourselves - our self-interest - the more frustrating the work is. Instead, when we concentrate on the work, work moves on smoothly, time flies and we do not feel tired at the end of it. (MSS)

Accepting, Not Complaining about Difficulties, Injustices Enables Aware Individuals to Succeed Greatly
Man's life has a potentiality and a reality that is actual, called actuality. Not all men are aware of great inner potentialities. Those who are aware of rich potentialities acutely feel the injustice done to them by their parents, boss or by life. The fruits of these talented men go to other undeserving careerists, either by chance or unjust design.

The rare few among them learn to obey their circumstances uncomplainingly with infinite Patience. In the beginning, it is a chain of injustices but in the end a glorious award, their desert, is handsomely presented to them by Life. We see this phenomenon in the lives of those who rise meteorically to very high positions in life. Most of them will fit this description. Vice-chancellorship came unsought to a talented academician three times. The talents in such people have an urge. The energy of that urge cannot easily be contained or brushed aside. (MSS)

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