Colours Compilation

Read Summary of Colours

A revel of colour and of ecstasy,

Importance of Colours

It is quite well known that each colour has its significance, but the meanings attached to the various colours by different interpreters vary and are often conflicting. There does not seem to exist any universally accepted classification of these significances. This is because these colours are considered from a mental standpoint, or at least because the vision is influenced by the mind of the interpreter. But if one rises above the mind to the truly occult regions beyond, the real meaning of each colour is the same for all those who can read it directly. This is true not only in this particular case but for all occult and spiritual experience. There is a remarkable similarity in the experiences of mystics of all times and places.

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The education in colours is tremendous—in both detail and complexity. If you learn how to distinguish all the colours, to know to what family of colours each belongs, what kind of harmony it can bring about—you can know, it is the same thing. You can keep the memory of the colour as you keep the memory of the form. You want to match all your things... for example, you want to match two things: you want to match a cloak with a skirt or a... well, anything at all... or maybe one kind of cloth with another. Usually you are obliged to take one and then go and compare it with the others; and finally, after many trials, if you are not too clumsy, you finish by finding it. But if you have the training in colour, you look at the colour once and go straight to what matches with it, without any hesitation, because you remember exactly the nature of this colour and go to a colour that can harmonise with it.

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Take just the relations of colours—there are many other things, there is the relation of forms which is more complicated still—but the relation of colours: you take a colour and put it beside another; and it happen that these groups of colours don't go together. Then, if you have no training, sometimes you are not even aware of it. Sometimes you say, "Oh, it is not very pretty." But you don't know why, you are not at all conscious of the reason. But when you are trained, when you have trained your eye, first of all you never make a mistake like this, you never bring together two things which don't go together; and if by chance, on someone else you see things which are not at all made to go together, you don't have that vague kind of feeling which says, "Oh, it is not pretty, oh, it is not good", a kind of vague thing... you don't know why it isn't pretty, it isn't pleasant. And it is precisely because one colour belongs to one class and the other to another class of colours, and if you bring together these two different classes without some intermediary colours to harmonise them, they shriek. You can immediately find the remedy because you know where the fault lies.

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If we compare the essential truth to a sphere of immaculate, dazzling white light, we can say that in the mental medium, in the mental atmosphere, this integral white light is transformed into thousands and thousands of shades, each of which has its own distinct colour, because they are all separated from one another. The medium distorts the white light and makes it appear as innumerable different colours: red, green, yellow, blue, etc., which are sometimes very discordant. And the mind seizes, not a little fragment of the white light of the white sphere, but a larger or smaller number of little lights of various colours, with which it cannot even reconstitute the white light. Therefore it cannot reach the truth. It does not possess fragments of truth, but a truth that is broken up. It is a state of decomposition.

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In interpreting these [visions] phenomena you must remember that all depends on the order of things which the colours indicate in any particular case. There is an order of significances in which they indicate various psychological dynamisms, e.g., faith, love, protection, etc. There is another order of significances in which they indicate the aura or the activity of divine beings, Krishna, Mahakali, Radha or else of other superhuman beings; there is another in which they indicate the aura around objects or living persons—and that does not exhaust the list of possibilities. A certain knowledge, experiences, growing intuition are necessary to perceive in each case the true significance. Observation and exact description are also very necessary; for sometimes people say, for instance, yellow when they mean gold or vice versa; there are besides different possible meanings for different shades of the same colour. Again, if you see colour near or round a person or by looking at him or her, it does not necessarily indicate that person's aura; it may be something else near him or around him. In some cases it may have nothing to do with the person or object you look at, which may serve merely the purpose of a background or a point of concentration—as when you see colours on a wall or by looking at a bright object.

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There are no separate colours of the beings. There is a characteristic colour of mind, yellow, of the psychic, pink or pale rose, of the vital, purple; but these are colours corresponding to the forces of mind, psychic, vital—they are not the colours of the beings. Also other colours can play, e.g. in the vital, green and deep red as well as purple and there are other colours for the hostile vital forces.

Use of Colours in Ancient Indian Art

There is in all the art an inspired harmony of conception, method and expression. Colour too is used as a means for the spiritual and psychic intention...

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Indian culture was able to arrive at a well developed and an understanding aesthetic use of colour and line from very early times and, allowing for the successive fluctuations, periods of decline and fresh outbursts of originality and vigour, which the collective human mind undergoes in all countries, used this form of self-expression very persistently through the long centuries of its growth and greatness. And especially it is apparent now that there was a persistent tradition, a fundamental spirit and turn of the aesthetic sense native to the mind of India which links even the latest Rajput art to the earliest surviving work still preserved at its highest summit of achievement in the rock-cut retreats of Ajanta.

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The painter on the contrary lavishes his soul in colour and there is a liquidity in the form, a fluent grace of subtlety in the line he uses which imposes on him a more mobile and emotional way of self-expression. The more he gives us of the colour and changing form and emotion of the life of the soul, the more his work glows with beauty, masters the inner aesthetic sense and opens it to the thing his art better gives us than any other, the delight of the motion of the self out into a spiritually sensuous joy of beautiful shapes and the coloured radiances of existence.

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He [Indian artist] begins from within, sees in his soul the thing he wishes to express or interpret and tries to discover the right line, colour and design of his intuition which, when it appears on the physical ground, is not a just and reminding reproduction of the line, colour and design of physical nature, but much rather what seems to us a psychical transmutation of the natural figure. In reality the shapes he paints are the forms of things as he has seen them in the psychical plane of experience: these are the soul-figures of which physical things are a gross representation and their purity and subtlety reveals at once what the physical masks by the thickness of its casings. The lines and colours sought here are the psychic lines and the psychic hues proper to the vision which the artist has gone into himself to discover.

Significance of some the colours

I never heard of two lotuses in the heart centre; but it is the seat of two powers, in front the higher vital or emotional being, behind and concealed the soul or psychic being. The colours of the lotuses and the numbers of petals are respectively, from bottom to top:—(1) the Muladhara or physical consciousness centre, four petals, red; (2) the abdominal centre, six petals, deeper purple red; (3) the navel centre, ten petals, violet; (4) the heart centre, twelve petals, golden pink; (5) the throat centre, sixteen petals, grey; (6) the forehead centre between the eyebrows, two petals, white; (7) the thousand-petalled lotus above the head, blue with gold light around. The functions are, according to our Yoga,—(1) commanding the physical consciousness and the subconscient; (2) commanding the small vital movements, the little greeds, lusts, desires, the small sense-movements; (3) commanding the larger life-forces and the passions and larger desire-movements; (4) commanding the higher emotional being with the psychic deep behind it; (5) commanding expression and all externalisation of the mind movements and mental forces; (6) commanding thought, will, vision; (7) commanding the higher thinking mind and the illumined mind and opening upwards to the intuition and overmind.

Yellow

Significance of Yellow

...yellow is the most glorious colour of all. It is the golden colour of Light—the Light which comes from the Source and Origin of all things and which, with its helping hand, will lead evolving humanity back to its divine Origin.

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Q. Can one tell when the colour yellow indicates the mind and when it indicates light?

A. Greenish yellow is mental.

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Orange yellow is the symbol of light.

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There is a characteristic colour of mind,yellow...

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Yellow is the colour of the light of the thinking mind... The shades indicate different intensities of mental light.

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A certain kind of yellow, for instance, is supposed by many occultists to indicate the buddhi, the intellect, and it often has that sense, but occurring among a play of vital forces it could not always be so interpreted—that would be too rigid.

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Yellow is the light of mind growing brighter as one goes higher till it meets the golden light of the Divine Truth.

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Q. In the picture which I received today from Thee, I see someone offering with two hands a full-bloomed red lotus, a lotus bud and a garland. The background of the picture is yellow in colour . What do all these signify?

A. The red lotus is the symbol of the Avatar and the offering of the red lotus is meant to suggest the full consecration to the Avatar; the yellow background represents the supramental manifestation.

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Sunlight is the direct light of the Truth; when it gets fused into the vital, it takes the mixed colour—here gold and green—just as in the physical it becomes golden red or in the mental golden yellow.

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It depends on the shade of the yellow. If it is golden white it comes from above the mind and the combination suggests the Maheshwari-Mahakali power.

Flowers in Yellow

Copper pod

..the great yellow flame tree called "Service," which spreads its foliage above Sri Aurobindo's tomb.

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...little M. was meditating next to the Samadhi when suddenly she had a vision: she saw all the flowers of the tree next to the Samadhi (those yellow flowers I have called 'Service') gathering themselves together to form a big bouquet, and rising, rising straight up.

Significance - Service

To be at the service of the Divine is the surest way to attain realisation.

Rose

Significance - Mental Love for the Divine

The nature offers its love in a fragrant blossoming.

Marigold

Significance - Mental Plasticity

Indispensable for true knowledge.

Blue

Significance of Various Shades of Blue

Blue is the normal colour of the spiritual planes; ...Moonlight indicates spirituality—the blue light may be that of the higher or illumined mind.

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Blue the spiritual consciousness of the divine Truth, the gold its knowledge.

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Blue indicates a young continent with its whole future before it and great possibilities, but still new and growing.

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A whitish blue like moonlight. It is known as Krishna's light or Sri Aurobindo's light.

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The golden and blue lights are both of them lights of Krishna. It was intimated to you by your seeing them once that they are there within you waiting to manifest. But it is by a psychic and spiritual, not a physical pressure that it must be done. If the mind can become silent and not interfere and if the nature can become more pure and both open to what is above the mind, these lights descend into the body and with them the divine influence.

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The blue and the violet, were another kind of seeing more important for your Yoga; both are closely associated with Krishna. Blue is his especial and significant colour, the colour of his aura when he manifests,—that is why he is called Nil Krishna; the adjective does not mean that he was blue or dark in his physical body whether in Brindavan or Mathura or Dwarka! Violet is the radiance of Krishna's protection,—that was why, very naturally, it brought to you a sense of peace. The Mother says that she always saw it when she was in communion with Krishna and now too constantly sees it enveloping the Asram. That this should be the first thing shown when the power of vision broke through its state of latency is very significant; it proves that you are in contact, the touch already there in your inner being and this force of presence and protection is already around you or over you as an environing influence.

Light blue

It is often that of the Illumined Mind.

Deeper Blue

It is of the Higher Mind.

Close to purple

It is the light of a power in the vital.

Diamond blue

It is Krishna's light in the overmind—lavender blue in intuitive mind.

Lavender blue of devotion.

Deep blue of the physical mind.

Sapphire blue of the higher mind.

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It depends on the plane in which it manifests.

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Blue and gold together indicated the combined presence of Krishna and Durga-Mahakali...

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Blue is also the Radha colour.

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The pale blue light is Sri Aurobindo’s light—the white light is the Mother's. The world you saw above the head was the plane of the illumined Mind which is a level of consciousness much higher than the human intelligence. It is there that the Divine Light and Power come down to be transmitted to the human consciousness and from there they work and prepare the transformation of the human consciousness and even the physical nature.

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The red lotus is the flower of Sri Aurobindo, but specially for his centenary we shallchoose the blue lotus, which is the colour of his physical aura, to symbolise the centenary of the manifestation of the Supreme upon earth...

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(About "the Mother's flag", which contains her symbol in gold centred on a silver-bluebackground).

Manifestation of Blue in Dreams and Nature

The blue elephant is the strength of the Higher Consciousness fulfilling itself and removing obstacles.

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The Blue Bird is always a symbol of aspiration towards something Beyond.

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The blue bird is the symbol of aspiration to the heights.

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It [the blue lotus] can be taken as the (Avatar) incarnation on the mental plane.

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The sky is always some mental plane. The stars indicate beginnings or promises of Light—the various lights indicating various powers of the consciousness: gold = Truth, blue = higher spiritualised mind, violet = sympathy, unity or universal compassion.

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The blue sky is that of the Higher Mind—the nearest of the planes between human mentality and the Supermind. The moon here [in a vision] is the symbol of spirituality in the mental planes. The world of the Higher Mind is above those directly connected with the body consciousness.

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The blue fire is the fire of spirituality and spiritual knowledge which purifies and dispels the Ignorance.

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The blue ocean is often a symbol of the spiritual consciousness in higher Mind one and indivisible.

Blue in Different Parts of Being

The Blue Light coming below the level of the Muladhara means that it has entered into the physical (physical mental, physical vital, material) consciousness. The two main obstacles here are the mechanical mind with its memories and desires of the past and the most outward sex movements; these have to be overcome (especially the mechanical mind, for the other may be easily overcome if not supported by the vital proper) for the Light to possess all the physical consciousness. It is probably why it rose so strongly when the Light came to these parts.

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...Blue the higher consciousness in the vital. So it must be peace casting its influence from above on the vital.

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The thousand-petalled lotus above the head, blue with gold light around. Commanding the higher thinking mind and the illumined mind and opening upwards to the intuition and overmind.

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The plane with the blue light is the Higher Mind which is just above the ordinary human intelligence, the first of several planes of higher consciousness through which one has to pass in order to reach the Divine Truth . Something from your mind (thinking willing mind) is trying to rise up into the blue light of the Higher Mind so as to join and become one with it.

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You probably went up into the illumined Mind which has a pale blue light and were receiving there lights from the higher planes and occasionally seeing the flash of the full orb of the Divine Truth.

Flowers in Blue

Blue trumpet vine

Significance -Krishna’s Light in the Mind

A charming way of becoming intelligent.

Blue pea

Significance - Krishna’s Light in the Senses

A first step towards transformation.

Evolvus alsinoides

Significance - First Sign of Krishna’s Light in Matter

It is the indication of the coming transformation.

Cape leadwort

Significance - Krishna’s Ananda

Manifold, abundant and so full of charm.

Pink

Significance of Pink

Pink or Rose Light

The rosy light is that of love—so probably you entered the psychic worlds…

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The colour of the psychic light is according to what it manifests—e.g., psychic love is pink or rose, the psychic purity is white etc.

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...the light of pink colour might be that of some influence or godhead of love or bhakti in contact with the mental being.

Flowers in Pink

Pink Hibiscus

Significance - Individual Power

Limited in its capacity and action.

Significance - Enlightened Individual Power

Limited in its action, but of a very high capacity.

Significance -Psychic Power in Existence

Manifold, imperious, irresistible in its understanding sweetness.

Psychic Roses

Significance - Love for the Divine

The vegetal kingdom gathers together its most beautiful possibilities to offer them to the Divine

Significance - Psychic Love

Strong and faithful, it has a beauty that does not belie.

Significance - Mental Love under the Psychic Influence

The mind influenced by the psychic knows how to express its love for the Divine in magnificent terms.

Green

Significance of Green

Green is the higher light in the vital, especially the emotional vital.

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A green leaf means vital strength or energy or vitality.

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The green light is a vital force, a dynamic force of the emotional vital which has the power to purify, harmonise or cure.

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Green is a vital energy of work and action.

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Greenish yellow is mental.

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Green denotes a vast peaceful feeling with a direct contact and a very harmonious relationship with Nature. It could represent a continent with vast open spaces and an unspoiled population living close to the soil and Nature.

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Green light can signify various things according to the context—in the emotional vital it is the colour of a certain form of emotional generosity, in the vital proper an activity with vital abundance or vital generosity behind it—in the vital physical it signifies a force of health.

Green in the Stages of Flowering

Have you ever seen a tree growing, a palm tree? There is one in the Ashram courtyard, in the Samadhi courtyard, quite close to the door by which you come up every day, have you never seen how it grows? This tree, you know, is some forty, forty-five or fifty years old perhaps. You see how small it is. These trees can become even much taller than the building. They can live several hundred years, easily, in their natural state, if there is no accident. Have you never seen what it does? I see it from above. It is quite pretty. It happens once a year. At first, you see a kind of small brown ball. Then this small brown ball begins to grow and becomes slightly lighter in colour, less deep. Little by little, you see that it is made of a mass of somewhat complex small lines, with their tips bent inward, as though turned back upon themselves; and that begins to grow, it comes out, becomes more and more limpid, until it begins to turn green, a little pale yellowish green and it takes the form of the bishop's cross. Then you see it multiplying and separating; it is yet a little brown, a little queer (almost like you), something like a caterpillar. And suddenly, it is as though it sprang out, it leaps forth. It is pale green; it is frail. It has a delightful colour. It lengthens out. This lasts for a day or two; and then on the following day there are leaves. These leaves I have never counted, I do not know how many they are. Every time there is a new range of leaves. They remain very pale; they are exquisite. They are like a little child, with that something tender, pretty and graceful a child has. And you have still the feeling that it is fragile; and indeed, if it receives a blow, it is spoilt for life. It is very frail, but it is delightfully tender. It has its charm and you say: "But why does not Nature remain like that?" The following morning... pluff! they are separated, they are bright green, they look wonderful with all the strength and force of youth, a magnificent brilliant green. It should stop there—not at all. It continues. Then comes the dust, the deterioration from people who pass by. So it begins to fall, to become yellowish, another kind of yellow, the yellow of dryness until it is completely withered and falls away. It is replaced by the trunk. Every year the trunk increases a little. And it will take several hundred years to reach the end. But every year, it repeats the same thing, passes through all the stages of beauty, charm, attractiveness and you say: "But why does it not stop there?" And the next minute, it is something else. You cannot say it is better, but it is different. And so it passes from one thing to another through all the stages of flowering.

Green : An energizing force

When you are very tired and in need of rest and if you know how to exteriorise yourself, if you go out of your body and enter consciously into the vital world, there are regions there, in the vital world, which are like a marvellous virgin forest, with all the splendour of a rich and harmonious vegetation, and beautiful, mirror-like pools. And the atmosphere is filled with the living vitality of plants, with every shade of green reflected in the water... And there you feel so much life, so much beauty, so much richness and plenitude that you wake up full of energy. And all this is so objective! I have been able to take people there, without telling them anything at all about how it would be, and they were able to describe the place exactly as I can myself, and they had exactly the same experience. They were absolutely exhausted before going to sleep and they woke up with an absolutely marvellous feeling of plenitude, of force and energy. They had stayed there only a few minutes.

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Mother, keep us always green, so that we may advance without stop on the road Thou hast with such labour prepared for us.

Flowers in Green

Coleus

Significance - Spiritual Awakening of the Vital

It soars towards the heights in the hope of reaching them.

Cowslip creeper

Significance - Vital Plenitude

Can only be obtained through conversion.

Tassel flower

Significance - Illumined Strength in the Vital

Love-lies-bleeding, Velvet flower, Tassel flower

Purple

Significance of Purple

Purple is the colour of vital power.

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It [purple light] is a light of vital power.

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Purple is the colour of the vital force—crimson is usually physical.

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Both [purple and crimson] are vital lights, but when seen above they represent the original forces of which the vital are the derivations.

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There are no separate colours of the beings. There is a characteristic colour of mind, yellow, of the psychic, pink or pale rose, of the vital, purple; but these are colours corresponding to the forces of mind, psychic, vital—they are not the colours of the beings. Also other colours can play, e.g. in the vital, green and deep red as well as purple and there are other colours for the hostile vital forces.

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...very dark purple which is the color of protection.

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There are different Krishna lights—pale diamond blue, lavender blue, deep blue etc. It depends on the plane in which it manifests.

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Diamond blue is Krishna's light in the overmind—lavender blue in intuitive mind.

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There is the whitish moonlight blue of Krishna's light—lavender blue of devotion, deep blue of the physical mind, sapphire blue of the higher mind and many others.

Related Colours

LAVENDER. The vital, especially the higher vital or emotional vital.

MAUVE. The vital. Mauve is a colour of the vital, light mauve tending to indicate the higher vital or emotional vital, deep mauve the vital proper.

VIOLET. The vital; vital power; protection; Divine Compassion; Divine Grace. Violet is a colour of the vital plane, dark violet indicating vital power. Violet is also the colour of protection and of benevolence or compassion, but more vividly of the Divine Grace; it is the light of the Divine Grace and Compassion.

PURPLE RED. The vital consciousness; the vital life-force.

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Violet is indeed the colour or light of Divine Compassion, so also of Krishna's grace.

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The crimson colour is the light of Love in the vital and physical.

Based on Mother’s Experiences

Often while I was rising up in this way, I used to see at my left an old man, silent and still, who looked at me with kindly affection and encouraged me by his presence. This old man, dressed in a long dark purple robe, was the personification—as I came to know later—of him who is called the Man of Sorrows.

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Mirra’s [Mother] experience is that the protection must take the form of a white light constantly kept round the circle. But even this is not enough as the forces will attack constantly and try to find a gap in the protection; there must therefore be round the white light a covering of dense purple light sufficiently opaque for these beings not to be able to see through it. It is not sufficient to have this light in the mental or psychic levels. It must be brought down into the vital and fill it, because it is in the vital that there is the attack.

From Savitri

A glory is his dream of purple sky.

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Oceans and rivers of the mirth of God

And griefless countries under purple suns.

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Day came, priest of a sacrifice of joy

Into the worshipping silence of her world;

He carried immortal lustre as his robe,

Trailed heaven like a purple scarf and wore

As his vermilion castemark a red sun.

Flowers in Purple

Rose of Sharon

Significance - Power in the Higher Vital

Power that wants to be at the service of the Divine.

Meadow-weed

Significance - Krishna’s Light in the Vital

The light that turns the vital towards the Truth.

Water hyacinth

Significance - Krishna’s Play in the Vital

In His midst it has all its charm.

Blue pea

Significance - Radha’s Consciousness in the Vital

Perfect attachment to the Divine replaces all vital attractions and passions.

Flossflower

Significance - Vital Patience

Indispensable for all progress.

Heliotrope, Cherry-pie

Significance - Vital Consecration

Delightfully modest and fragrant, it smiles at life without wanting to draw attention to itself.

Jacaranda

Significance - Attempt at Vital Goodwill

An attempt is a small thing but it can be a promise for the future.

Crape myrtle

Significance -Intimacy with the Divine in the Vital

Only a pure calm and desire less vital can hope to enter this marvelous state.

Gold

Significance of Gold

Gold is always the symbol of the higher Truth.

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Gold is the colour of the Truth that comes from above.

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Gold: wealth of the world and supramental knowledge.

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Gold the hue of the supramental knowledge or of knowledge from the intermediate planes.

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Gold indicates at its most intense something from the supramental, otherwise overmind truth or intuitive truth deriving ultimately from the supramental Truth consciousness.

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Gold should not be used except in the service of the Divine.

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One can put it in this way (but this is very imprecise, more than diminished—deformed): it is as if our entire spiritual life were made of silver whereas the supramental is made of gold, as if the whole spiritual life here below were a vibration of silver, not lustreless, but merely a light, a light that goes up tothe summit, a light quite pure, pure and intense; but in the other life, the supramental life, there is a richness and a power that makes all the difference. This whole spiritual life of our psychic being and our present consciousness, which appears so warm, so full, so wonderful, so sparkling to the ordinary consciousness, well, all this splendour appears poor in relation to the splendour of the new world.

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They [gold stars in the sky] are simply indications of divine Truth in the mind—the sky is a symbol of mind very often.

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In the Mother's flag blue is the blue of the spirit and the gold is the colour of the Supreme Mother. The red of the cover surrounding the flag signifies the illumined physical consciousness.

Significance of Different Shades of Gold

Blue and gold

The combined presence of Krishna and Durga Mahakali...

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The thousand-petalled lotus above the head, blue with gold light around commanding the higher thinking mind and the illumined mind and opening upwards to the intuition and overmind.

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The uniting of the Ishwara Shakti sides of the manifestation—as in the Hara-Gauri figure—with the result of a universalisation of the individual consciousness indicated by the shooting out towards infinite distances. The currents are of course the currents of the double force working to make this liberation. The blue and gold must be the blue of Krishna and the gold of the Mother (Durga-Mahakali).

Red gold

...is rather the light of the Truth in the physical.

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Red and gold mean truth and power joined together.

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Orange or red gold is supposed by the way to be the light of the supramental in the physical.

Orange-gold

It is like these symbols of Sri Aurobindo.... When I am speaking of the Centre I still see these four symbols of Sri Aurobindo, which support each other at the corners, like that, and this colour... a strange colour... I don't know where we could find that. It is an orange-gold, very warm. And it is the only colour in the place; all the rest is white, and the translucent globe.

Sunlight is the direct light of the Truth; when it gets fused into the vital, it takes the mixed colour—here gold and green—just as in the physical it becomes golden-red or in the mental golden yellow.

Sunlight Path

All was gold and gold and gold, a torrent of golden light pouring down in an uninterrupted flow and bringing with it the consciousness that the path of the gods is a sunlit path in which difficulties lose all reality..

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And perhaps it would be enough if some individuals became pure gold, for this would be enough to change the course of events.... We are faced with this necessity in a very urgent way.

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This evening the Divine Presence, concrete and material, was there present amongst you. I had a form of living gold, bigger than the universe, and I was facing a huge and massive golden door which separated the world from the Divine.

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There was in fact this entire impression of power, of warmth and of gold. It was not fluid, but like a powdery mist. And each one of these things (they cannot be called particles or fragments or even points, unless point is taken in the mathematical sense, a point that does not occupy any place in space) was like living gold, a powdery mist of warm gold—one cannot call it bright, nor can one call it dark; neither was it light: a multitude of small points of gold, nothing but that. One could say that they touched my eyes, my face... and with a tremendous force! At the same time, there was the feeling of a plenitude, of an all-powerful peace—it was rich, it was full. It was movement at its maximum, infinitely more swift than anything that one can imagine, and at the same time it was absolute peace, perfect stillness.

Flowers in Gold

St. Thomas tree

Significance - Gold

Should only be used in the service of the Divine.

Dwarf white bauhinia

Significance - Purified Gold

It is purified by being placed at the service of the Divine.

Hibiscus rosa-sinensis

Significance - Sweetness of Power Surrendered to the Divine (Sweetness of Auroville)

Sweetness itself becomes powerful when it is at the service of the Divine.

Significance - Power of Harmony

Simple, noble, dignified, powerful and charming.

"Rukmini"

Significance - Power of the Supramental Consciousness

Organising and active, irresistible in its influence.

White

Significance of White

...the white light is the light of the Mother (the Divine Consciousness) in which all others are contained and from which they can be manifested.

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...white the purity and power of the divine Truth.

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...white may very well be the symbolic hue of Sachchidananda.

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The forces that come with white light are usually those of purity and peace.

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The white light is that of the Pure Conscious Force from which all the rest come.

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The colour of the psychic light is according to what it manifests—e.g., psychic love is pink or rose, the psychic purity is white etc.

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Psychic love can have a warmth and a flame as intense and more intense than the vital, only it is a pure fire, not dependent on the satisfaction of ego-desire or on the eating up of the fuel it embraces. It is a white flame, not a red one; but white heat is not inferior to the red variety in its ardour. It is true that the psychic love does not usually get its full play in human relations and human nature, it finds the fullness of its fire and ecstasy more easily when it is lifted towards the Divine.

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In its essence, in its origin, love is like a flame, a white flame which overcomes all resistances.

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But my whole life I've had that sort of white light—not transparent white, white like... like WHITENESS, you understand. That light, which is extremely intense.

~

...the Mother's light is of a white and at its most intense of a diamond radiance. The light is a sign of the Mother's presence in your heart and that is what you saw once and felt for a moment.

~

The white light is the Mother's light and it is always around her.

~

By calling the Mother her white light comes upon the dark consciousness and begins to change the darkness into lustre.

~

Before you go to sleep, when you lie down, you must summon the white Light, my white light, and then I will be listening. Wrapped like that: a cocoon, a nice little cocoon, all white. That way you can sleep peacefully.

~

The Mother's special colour is white, but all the other colours are hers also.

~

Fire can manifest all the colours and the pure white fire is that which contains in itself all the colours.

~

Saraswati is white.

~

If we compare the essential truth to a sphere of immaculate, dazzling white light, we can say that in the mental medium, in the mental atmosphere, this integral white light is transformed into thousands and thousands of shades, each of which has its own distinct colour, because they are all separated from one another. The medium distorts the white light and makes it appear as innumerable different colours: red, green, yellow, blue, etc., which are sometimes very discordant. And the mind seizes, not a little fragment of the white light of the white sphere, but a larger or smaller number of little lights of various colours, with which it cannot even reconstitute the white light. Therefore it cannot reach the truth. It does not possess fragments of truth, but a truth that is broken up. It is a state of decomposition.

~

...we then have all the golds of the Supermind, with its three layers. And then, after that, there is one layer of golden white—it is white, but a golden white. After this golden white, there is silver white—silver white: how can I explain that? (H. has sent me some ridiculous pictures of a sun shining on water—it has nothing to do with that.) If you put silver, silver gray (Mother shows a silver box nearby shining brilliantly in the sun), silver gray together with white... that is, it is white, but if you put the four whites together you see the difference. There is a white white, then there is a white with a touch of pink, then a silvery white and a golden white. It makes four worlds.

From Savitri

Her mind, a sea of white sincerity,

~

Against the white purity of heaven's cleansing flame.

~

A Bliss, a Light, a Power, a flame-white Love

~

Above him was the white immobile Ray,

~

The white-fire dragon-bird of endless bliss,

Flowers in White

Sacred Lotus

Significance - Aditi-the Divine Consciousness

Pure, immaculate, gloriously powerful.

Rose

Significance - Pure Spiritual Surrender

Candid, simple, spontaneous and complete in its multiplicity.

Jasmine

Significance - Purity

True purity has a lovely fragrance.

Water lily

Significance - Integral Wealth of Mahalakshmi

Wealth in all domains and all activities, intellectual, psychological, material, in feeling and action.

Orange

Significance of Orange

Orange or red gold is supposed by the way to be the light of the supramental in the physical.

~

Orange is the true light manifested in the physical consciousness and being.

~

Orange is the colour of occult knowledge or occult experience.

~

Orange yellow is the symbol of light.

Supramental Substance

This substance was of the most material supramental, the supramental substance which is closest to the physical world, the first to manifest. The light was a mixture of gold and red, forming a uniform substance of a luminous orange. Everything was like that—the light was like that, the people were like that—everything had that colour, although with various shades which made it possible to distinguish things from each other. The general impression was of a world without shadows; there were shades but no shadows. The atmosphere was full of joy, calm, order; everything went on regularly and in silence. And at the same time one could see all the details of an education, a training in all fields, by which the people on board were being prepared.

Supramental Body

...it was clearly a being that was neither male nor female, that had features of both combined. And it was taller than her, it exceeded her on every side by about this much (gesture extending beyond the physical being by about eight inches). She was here, and it was like this (gesture). Its color was... this color that, if it became very material, would be Auroville's color [orange]. It was softer, as if behind a veil, it wasn't absolutely precise, but it was this color. And there washair, but... it was something else.

Matrimandir

When I am speaking of the Centre I still see these four symbols of Sri Aurobindo, which support each other at the corners, like that, and this colour... a strange colour... I don't know where we could find that. It is an orange-gold, very warm. And it is the only colour in the place; all the rest is white, and the translucent globe.

Flowers in Orange

Hibiscus

Significance - Beauty of Supramental love (Flower of Auroville)

It invites us to live at its height

Amaryllis

Significance - Conversion of the Physical Mind

Ready to understand everything and to grow continually.

Flame vine

Significance - Supramental Rain

Happy are those who receive it.

Red

Significance of Various Shades of Red

Red is the colour of the physical,—touched by the higher Light it becomes golden red.

~

Red is the colour of the physical and material world. The red ring could therefore be allotted to a people that has achieved a great mastery over the physical world. This colour would also indicate that material success has given it predominance over the others. In any case, it represents a people that stresses physical and material things.

~

The red Purusha may be the power of the true physical—red being the colour of the physical.

~

The red colour was the sign of Power.

~

It depends on the nature of the red. Red (when it does not mean the light of the physical consciousness) indicates always some kind of Force or Power, but what power it is depends on the shade.

~

The deep red is the light of the Power...for the transformation of the physical.

~

Deep red is the Divine Love—rosy is the psychic love.

~

Orange or red gold is supposed by the way to be the light of the supramental in the physical.

~

...the golden red is the touch of the Truth in the physical.

~

For example, if you have a control over this [money]force—it is a force which, in the vital world, has a colour varying between red, a dark, extremely strong red and a deep gold that's neither bright nor very pale. Well, this force—when it is made to move, to circulate, its strength increases.

Red Lotus: Flower of Sri Aurobindo

The red lotus is the flower of Sri Aurobindo, but specially for his centenary we shall choose the blue lotus, which is the colour of his physical aura, to symbolise the centenary of the manifestation of the Supreme upon earth.

~

A lotus usually indicates an opening into the spiritual. The white and red are symbols of the Mother and the incarnating Divine.

~

The red lotus is the flower of the Divine Presence.

~

Red lotus—symbol of the manifestation of the Supreme upon earth.

~

Q. In the picture which I received today from Thee, I see someone offering with two hands a full-bloomed red lotus, a lotus bud and a garland. The background of the picture is yellow in colour. What do all these signify?

A.The red lotus is the symbol of the Avatar and the offering of the red lotus is meant to suggest the full consecration to the Avatar; the yellow background represents the supramental manifestation.

Red flowers and Their Significance

Red flowers would ordinarily indicate an opening of the consciousness either in the physical or some part of the vital according to the shade.

~

The red rose is the flower of love and surrender, the white is the purity of psychic love.

~

The java [red hibiscus] is the flower of the Divine Power.

Manifestation of Red in Nature

The red sun is a symbol of the true, illumined physical consciousness which is to replace the obscure and ignorant physical consciousness in which men now live. Red is the colour of the physical; the red diamond is the Mother's consciousness in the physical.

~

Sunlight is the direct light of the Truth; when it gets fused into the vital, it takes the mixed colour—here gold and green—just as in the physical it becomes golden red or in the mental golden yellow.

~

...the red fire is the fire of renunciation and tapasya.

~

The fire is always the fire of purification—it is very red when it is acting on the vital; when the vital no longer covers the psychic, then the rose colour of the psychic comes out more and more.

~

And there's a red in them... Oh, the most beautiful reds that Nature has been able to produce in flowers or sunsets—this is still more beautiful. But how he has done it I don't know. There is brown, there is green, there is yellow, there are all kinds of things. Some are more pretty, some less pretty, there are mixtures more or less happy; some photographs seem to have been taken with the help of a microscope: infinitely small things which, becoming large, look extraordinary; things like that. And we can see very clearly that there are superimpositions, but there are exceptional colour effects. There we are.

Flowers in Red

Mexican sunflower

Significance - Physical Consciousness Entirely Turned Towards the Divine

It thirsts for the Divine and wants nothing but Him.

Russelia sarmentosa

Amaryllis

Significance - Conversion of the Physical

Compact and stable, without any fluctuations.

Hollyhock

Significance - Offering of the Physical

The proof of the resolution to liberate oneself from the ego. Let the physical offer itself sincerely to the Divine and it will be transformed.

Inspiration from Savitri - Colours and Gems

Content curated by Archana

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