Progress is one of the twelve attributes of the Mother.
Progress: to be ready, at every minute, to give up all one is and all one has in order to advance on the way.
Perfection is not a summit, it is not an extreme. There is no extreme: whatsoever you do, there is always the possibility of something better and exactly this possibility of something better is the very meaning of progress.
The purpose of earthly life is progress. If you stop progressing you will die. Every moment that you spend without progressing is one step closer to your grave.
The Mother – Words of the Mother: CWM, Vol. 15, p75
For a happy and effective life, the essentials are sincerity, humility, perseverance and an insatiable thirst for progress. Above all, one must be convinced of a limitless possibility of progress. Progress is youth; at a hundred years of age one can be young.
The Mother – On Education: CWM, Vol. 12, p123
…YET what patience is needed! How imperceptible are the stages of progress! . . . Oh! how I call Thee from the very depths of my heart, True Light, Sublime Love, Divine Master who art the source of our light and of our living, our guide and our protector, the Soul of our soul and the Life of our life, the Reason of our being, the supreme Knowledge, the immutable Peace!
The Mother – Prayers and Meditations: CWM, Vol. 1, p24
So must the dim being grow in light and force
And rise to his higher destiny at last,
Look up to God and round at the universe,
And learn by failure and progress by fall
And battle with environment and doom,
By suffering discover his deep soul
And by possession grow to his own vasts.
Sri Aurobindo – Savitri: CWSA, Vol. 33, Book Two, p146
Do not think of what you have been, think only of what you want to be and you are sure to progress.
The Mother – Words of the Mother: CWM, Vol. 15, p76
Try to enjoy doing everything you do.
When you are interested in what you do, you enjoy doing it.
To be interested in what you do, you must try to do it better and better.
In progress lies true joy.
The Mother – Words of the Mother: CWM, Vol. 14, p303
The first condition of inner progress is to recognise whatever is or has been a wrong movement in any part of the nature,—wrong idea, wrong feeling, wrong speech, wrong action,—and by wrong is meant what departs from the Truth, from the higher consciousness and higher self, from the way of the Divine. Once recognised it is admitted,—not glossed over or defended,—and it is offered to the Divine for the Light and Grace to descend and substitute for it the right movement of the true consciousness.
Sri Aurobindo – Letters on Yoga: CWSA, Vol. 29, p131
A year spent uselessly is a year during which no progress has been accomplished, no growth in consciousness has been achieved, no further step has been taken towards perfection.
The Mother – On Education: CWM, Vol. 12, p122
From the moment you are satisfied and aspire no longer, you begin to die. Life is movement, life is effort; it is marching forward, climbing towards future revelations and realisations. Nothing is more dangerous than wanting to rest.
The Mother – Words of the Mother: CWM, Vol. 15, p75
For those who want always to progress, there are three major ways of progressing:
(1) To widen the field of one’s consciousness.
(2) To understand ever better and more completely what one knows.
(3) To find the Divine and surrender more and more to his Will.
In other words, this means:
(1) To constantly enrich the possibilities of the instrument.
(2) To ceaselessly perfect the functioning of this instrument.
(3) To make this instrument increasingly receptive and obedient to the Divine.
To learn to understand and do more and more things. To purify oneself of all that prevents one from being totally surrendered to the Divine. To make one’s consciousness more and more receptive to the Divine Influence.
One could say: to widen oneself more and more, to deepen oneself more and more, to surrender oneself more and more completely.
The Mother – Some Answers from the Mother: CWM, Vol. 16, p435-36
…. Your rapidity of progress depends upon your keeping yourself open to it and rejecting calmly, quietly and steadily all suggestions and invasions of other forces. Especially the nervous excitement of the vital has to be rejected; a calm and quiet strength in the nervous being and the body is the only sound basis. It is there for you to receive, if you open yourself to it always.
Sri Aurobindo – The Mother with Letters on The Mother: CWSA, Vol. 32, p194
One has always something to learn and a progress to make, and in each circumstance we can find the occasion of learning the lesson and making the progress.
The Mother – Words of the Mother: CWM, Vol. 15, p75
ls blaming oneself a good method of progressing?
Blaming oneself? No, not necessarily. It may be useful, it is indeed useful from time to time in order to get out of the illusion of one’s own perfection. But one wastes much energy in self-criticism. It is much better to use this same energy in making progress, a concrete progress, something more useful…. What is necessary is to use all one’s energy in order to build up the qualities one wants to have and do what one wants to do. This is much more important.
The Mother – Questions and Answers: CWM, Vol.6, p350
Besides, all these experiences are very good and useful for the ordinary man who follows the normal way of Nature in her stumbling march towards the future unity. But they cannot satisfy those who want to hasten the movement, or rather, who aspire to belong to another line of more direct and rapid movement, to an exceptional movement that will liberate them from ordinary mankind and its interminable march, so that they may take part in the spiritual advance which will lead them along the swiftest paths towards the creation of the new race, the race that will express the supramental truth upon earth. These rare souls must reject all forms of love between human beings, for however beautiful and pure they may be, they cause a kind of short-circuit and cut off the direct connection with the Divine.
The Mother – On Education: CWM, Vol. 12, pp 68-69
Progress
This is why we are on earth.
Catharanthus roseus
Madagascar periwinkle, Old maid, Cayenne jasmine, Rose periwinkle
Small to medium-sized salverform flowers with a narrow green corolla tube and limb divided into five separated spatulate lobes; in white and shades of pink and red, often with a contrasting eye; borne singly in the leaf axils. A long-blooming perennial herb.
The Mother – Spiritual significance of flowers
