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1 INTEGRAL YOGA OF SRI AUROBINDO AND THE MOTHER (A Brief Introduction)

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1

INTEGRAL YOGA

OF

SRI AUROBINDO AND

THE MOTHER

(A Brief Introduction)

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INTEGRAL YOGA

OF

SRI AUROBINDO AND

THE MOTHER

(A Brief Introduction)

KIREET JOSHI

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The Mother’s Institute of Research© Authorwww.kireetjoshi.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be re-produced or transmitted in any form or by any means,electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recordingor any other information storage and retrieval system,without prior permission from the author or the publisher.

First Edition, 2012

ISBN: 978-93-82085-03-4

Published by:

Popular MediaJhilmil Industrial Area, [email protected]

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Contents

Sri Aurobindo: His Life and Work 7(A Brief Outline)

The Mother: Her Life and Work 13(A Brief Outline)

Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother 21

Notes 56

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Sri Aurobindo: His Life and Work(A Brief Outline)

Sri Aurobindo was born on the 15th August1872 at Calcutta. At an early age of seven, hewas taken along with his elder brothers toEngland for education, since his father wantedhim to have no Indian influence in the shapingof his outlook and personality. And yet, eventhough Sri Aurobindo assimilated in himselfrichly the best of the European culture, hereturned to India in 1893 with a burningaspiration to work for the liberation of Indiafrom foreign rule. While in England, SriAurobindo passed the I.C.S. Examination, andyet he felt no call for it; so he got himselfdisqualified by remaining absent from theriding test. The Gaekwar of Baroda happenedto be there at that time, and Sri Aurobindoaccepted the proposal to be his PersonalSecretary, and returned to India.

Soon thereafter, however, Sri Aurobindoswitched over to the Baroda College as

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Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother

Professor of French and then of English, andwhen in 1906, he left for Bengal, he was theacting Principal of the College. It was duringthe Baroda period that Sri Aurobindoassimilated in himself the spirit and culture ofIndia and prepared himself for his futurepolitical and spiritual work. Indeed, hispolitical work had already begun in Baroda, butit was behind the scenes, largely of the natureof a preparation for an armed revolution for theliberation of India.

Sri Aurobindo was the first among theIndian leaders to declare and work for the aimof complete Independence of India. In 1905,Bengal was divided, and Sri Aurobindo leftBaroda and, invited by the nationalistic leaders,he joined at Calcutta the newly started NationalCollege as its first Principal. It was here that SriAurobindo, while working secretly for therevolution, chalked out also a plan of outeraction. This plan consisted of the programmeof passive Resistance, Boycott and Swadeshi,which was later adopted as the policy of thestruggle for freedom. It was here again that SriAurobindo wrote powerfully and boldly forBande Mataram, and later for Karma Yogin;through his writings, he electrified the nation

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and surcharged the people with a new energywhich ultimately led the nation to her freedom.It was, therefore, significant that when Indiaattained her liberation in 1947, it was on the 15th

August, the birthday of Sri Aurobindo.

The pioneering work that Sri Aurobindodid for the liberation of India was evidently apart of his larger work for the entire humanityand for the whole earth. For him, the liberationof India was an indispensable part of the newworld-order. Moreover, the practice of Yoga,which he had started in 1902, led him, evenwhile in the thick of intense political andliterary activity, to major realisations of theBrahmic Silence, Nirvana, and also of theuniversal dynamic Presence of the Divine.And, in 1908, when he was in Alipore jailduring his trial under the charge of sedition,he received through numerous experiencesand realisations the assurance of the liberationof the country and also the knowledge of theinitial lines on which his own future work wasto proceed. For he saw that even in the field ofYoga something was still lacking, somethingradical that alone would help resolve theproblems of the world and would leadmankind to its next evolutionary stage. And so,

Sri Aurobindo: His Life and Work

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Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother

in 1910, soon after his acquittal from the jail, hewithdrew to Pondicherry to concentrate uponthis new research work, to hew a new path. Ithas been a most dynamic work with the entireearth as its central field. It was in the course ofthis work that Sri Aurobindo declared that theSupramental is the Truth and that its adventon the earth is inevitable. To bring down thesupramental consciousness and power on theearth has been the central work of SriAurobindo.

Sri Aurobindo has explained the nature ofthis work, the nature of the Supermind, thenecessity of its descent, the process of thisdescent and the dynamic consequences of thisdescent for the solutions of the problems ofmankind, in his voluminous writings most ofwhich were written serially in the philoso-phical monthly, Arya, which was started in1914, immediately after the first arrival of TheMother from France to Pondicherry. Some ofthe most important of these and other writingsare: The Life Divine, The Synthesis of Yoga, TheIdeal of Human Unity, The Human Cycle, TheFoundations of Indian Culture, Essays on the Gita,On the Veda, The Upanishads, The Future Poetry,

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The Supramental Manifestation upon Earth, andthe epic Savitri.

When Sri Aurobindo withdrew in 1926 intohis room for concentrating in the required wayon the ‘Supramental Yoga’, Mother organisedand developed his Ashram. In 1943, a schoolfor the education of children was founded, andafter the passing of Sri Aurobindo in 1950,Mother developed that school into an Inter-national University Centre, where numerousoriginal and bold experiments of educationwere carried out under her guidance. Thiseducational work was a part of SupramentalYoga, and we have rare insights into educationand yoga in the volumes entitled Questions andAnswers, which contain conversations of theMother that took place in her classes. In 1958,Mother withdrew to her room in order to cometo terms with the research in the problemsrelated to the supramental transformation ofthe physical consciousness at the cellular level.In 1968, Mother founded Auroville, anInternational city as a collective field for thematerial and spiritual researches required forrealising human unity as a part of thesupramental action on the earth.

Sri Aurobindo: His Life and Work

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Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother

Mother’s exploration into the body-cons-ciousness and her discovery of a ‘cellular mind’capable of restructuring the nature of the bodyis contained in a document of more than 6000pages, published in 13 volumes. This is L’Agendade Mère (Mother’s Agenda), an account of herextraordinary exploration narrated by theMother to Satprem1 covering a period of morethan twenty years, during which Mother slowlyuncovered the ‘Great Passage’ to the nextspecies by the supramental transformation ofthe physical consciousness and fulfilled thework that Sri Aurobindo had given to her.

1 Satprem was born in Paris in 1923. After intenseexperiences in concentration camps and adventuresin Guyana, Brazil and Africa, he came to India in1953, became a Sanyasi and practised Tantrism. Thenhe left these paths to serve Mother and embarkedupon the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo. For 19 years,he lived near the Mother and became her confidantand her witness. He recorded innumerable personalconversations that form Mother’s Agenda. He haswritten a biography of Sri Aurobindo under the title,Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness. Hehas also written a biography of the Mother in threevolumes, under the titles: Mother or the DivineMaterialism; Mother or the New Species; and, Mother orthe Mutation of Death.

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The Mother: Her Life and Work(A Brief Outline)

The Mother (Mirra Alfassa) was born inParis on the 21st February, 1878. Her motherwas Egyptian and her father was Turkish – bothof them were perfect materialists. As a result,although she had inner experiences, includingthat of the divine presence, right from herchildhood, she was in her external life anatheist until she entered into adulthood. In herearly years, she had a good grounding in music(piano), painting and higher mathematics.

By the age of eighteen, she had begun to feelan intense need to KNOW, but all that shelearnt and studied would explain nothing. Herneed to know led here into two directions. Thefirst was the world of painting. She mingledwith the artists and widened her horizons. Shemarried a pupil of Gustave Moreau, HenriMorisset, and she came to know Rodin and thegreat impressionists of that era. The seconddirection in which she turned was opened up

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Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother

when she heard of Max Theon and histeachings.

At this stage, she had a series of visions, andin several of these visions she saw SriAurobindo just as he looked physically, butglorified. She was to meet Sri Aurobindo tenyears later in 1914 when she came to India fromFrance, and it was then that she came toidentify Sri Aurobindo of the vision with SriAurobindo as she saw him then.

Around this time, she came into contactwith Bhagavad Gita through an Indian whohad come to Europe. He had told her, “Read itwith THAT knowledge – with the knowledgethat Lord Krishna represents the immanentGod, the God within you.” She not only studiedthe Gita, but within a month, she attained to therealization of the immanent Supreme.

Soon thereafter, she went to Tlemcen inAlgeria to work with Max Theon and his wifeMadame Theon. Theon was well versed in theRigveda and he was the first to talk to theMother of the idea that the earth is symbolicwhere universal action is concentrated allowingdivine forces to incarnate and work concretely.

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Madame Theon was an extraordinary occultist,having incredible faculties. She could leave onebody and enter the consciousness of the nextplane, fully experiencing the surroundings andall that was there, describe it… twelve times.The Mother learned to do the same thing and,with great dexterity. In one of her experiences,while entering into the last stage before theFormless, she experienced total Unity. And shefound herself in the presence of the “Principle”of the human form. It did not resemble man aswe are used to seeing him, but it was an uprightform, standing just on the border between theworld of forms and the Formless, like a kind ofstandard or archetype. Afterwards, when Mothermet Sri Aurobindo and talked to him about it,he said, “It is surely the prototype of thesupramental form.”

Soon after her return from Tlemcen inAlgeria, there was in 1908 divorce from HenriMorisset. From 1910 to 1920 – these ten yearswere a period of intensive mental study for theMother. This mental development in all itscomprehensiveness led her to the conclusionthat while all ideas are true, a synthesis has tobe made, and that there is something luminousand true beyond the synthesis. In her philosophic

The Mother: Her Life and Work

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Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother

studies, she was accompanied by Paul Richardwho, in his visit to Pondicherry in 1910, hadmet Sri Aurobindo. In 1914, Mother accom-panied Paul Richard to Pondicherry and metSri Aurobindo on 29th March. In her very firstmeeting, both Sri Aurobindo and Mother, felt,at exactly the same moment, “now theRealisation will be accomplished.” In one ofhis letters Sri Aurobindo wrote on the Motheras follows:

“Mother was doing Yoga before she knewor met Sri Aurobindo, but their lines of Sadhanaindependently followed the same course.When they met, they helped each other inperfecting the sadhana. What is known as SriAurobindo and the Mother?”1

After the outbreak of the World War I inAugust, 1914, the Mother had to return toFrance along with Paul Richard and then shespent four years in Japan; but she returned forgood to Pondicherry in 1920 in order to workwith Sri Aurobindo.

On 24th November 1926, Sri Aurobindoattained to a decisive stage and the Overmindwas brought down into Matter, and an

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overmental creation came into view. But theaim was to bring about the supramentalcreation. As Sri Aurobindo became toooccupied with the descent of the supermind, hedid not have the time to deal with people, andhe put The Mother in charge of all the disciplesand external activities of the Sri AurobindoAshram. This was in 1926.

Sri Aurobindo has spoken of the fourpersonalities of the Mother, namely, those ofWisdom (Maheshwari), Power (Mahakali),Harmony (Mahalakshmi) and Perfection inworks (Mahasaraswati). In all her activities,these four personalities of the Mother could beseen at work. The work was microscopic; it wascomplex; it was both external and internal. Itbecame clearer that the task of fixing theSupermind in the physical had to be done byopening up the physical cells. Just when thedescent of the supermind reached a criticalpoint, the Second World War broke out. Thiswar was perceived by Sri Aurobindo and theMother as a fierce resistance to the task of theSupramental descent. Hence, they put all theiryogic force against Nazism and the war endedin 1945, with the victory for the Allies as SriAurobindo had willed. In early 1950, Sri

The Mother: Her Life and Work

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Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother

Aurobindo told the Mother: “One of us mustgo. We cannot both remain upon earth.” Andwhen Mother said, “If one of us must go, I wantthat it should be me.” “It cannot be you,” hereplied, “because you alone can do the materialthing.” He forbade the Mother to leave herbody. “It is absolutely forbidden,” he said, “youcannot, you must remain.”

After Sri Aurobindo left his body on 5th

December 1950, the Mother continued SriAurobindo’s work. In 1951, she established theSri Aurobindo International University Centre,which conducted extraordinary educationalexperiments to invent a new method of educatingchildren from early childhood upwards so asto prepare them for the supramental work. On29th February 1956, the Mother declared that theSupramental Light and Force and Conscious-ness rushed down upon earth in an uninter-rupted flow. She wrote: “The manifestation ofthe Supramental upon earth is no more apromise but a living fact, a reality.”

In 1958, the Mother entered into a newphase of Yoga, which aimed at fixing thesupramental consciousness in the cells of thebody so as to establish in the world, the

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conditions of the emergence of the next species,the supramental species that would manifestthe Supermind in the supramental body.

It was in the course of this “Yoga of theCells” that the Mother discovered the “Mind ofthe Cells” which has the necessary capacity toreconstitute the physical body. This great yogicprocess has been described in thirteen volumesentitled “The Mother’s Agenda”, which consistsof Mother’s conversations with Satprem, one ofher disciples, who had become her confidant.

In 1968, Mother founded “Auroville”, aninternational township, a few kilometers awayfrom Pondicherry, as a “laboratory of newevolution.”

On 14th March, 1970, Mother declared thatthe work that Sri Aurobindo had given to herwas accomplished. She said, “The physical iscapable of receiving the Superior Light, theTruth, the True Consciousness and to manifestit.”

Thereafter, she continued to accelerate theevolution of the new species, a task which isstill continuing, even though she left her

physical body on 17th November, 1973.

The Mother: Her Life and Work

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Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother

Notes :

1 Sri Aurobindo, On Himself, Centenary Library,

Volume 26, p. 459

Bibliography:

Sri Aurobindo, The Mother, volume 25, Centenaryedition, Pondicherry.

The Mother, Collected Works of the Mother, 15volumes (Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry).

Mother’s Agenda, 13 volumes (in French andEnglish, by Institut de Rescherches Evolutives,Paris).

Satprem, Mother or the Divine Materialism (1980)

Mother or the New Species (1982)

Mother or the Mutation of Death (1987)

Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure ofConsciousness (1984).

On the Way to Supermanhood (1986)

Sujata Nahar, Mother’s Chronicles, 7 volumes(by MIRA Aditi Centre, Mysore).

Kireet Joshi, Sri Aurobindo and The Mother(by Mother’s Institute of Research.)

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Yoga of Sri Aurobindoand The Mother

I

Sri Aurobindo has significantly beendescribed as adventure of consciousness. Evenin his quest of India’s freedom, during the firstdecade of the last century, he departedcourageously from the orthodox and con-servative path of the Moderates and infused inthe country a new electric force of Nationalism.He chalked out a new path of Swadeshi,boycott, passive resistance, and nationaleducation, _ the path that ultimately came tobe adopted as the national programme duringthe subsequent period of the struggle. He evenventured to search for a spiritual force thatcould be applied to the political struggle so asto liberate the country from slavery to theBritish rule and attain freedom in its totality. Inhis search for this force, he turned to Yoga andinitiated momentous experiments, as a result ofwhich he arrived at the conclusion that Yoga

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Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother

was itself in need of breaking its boundaries sothat whatever power it was capable of deliveringto humanity would become irresistible in itsimpact and in the production of results whichwould secure, not only for India, but also forthe entire earth, unshakeable foundations for anew world of freedom and unity.

The life and work of Sri Aurobindo are aliving testimony of his victorious opening ofthe gates of a new power, and by means ofsummarising in himself the luminous results ofall the best of the past systems of Yoga as alsoby developing a new Yoga, he came to buildup new knowledge that humanity needs for itsfuture development and fulfilment. It has,therefore, been rightly said that Sri Aurobindodoes not belong to the past nor to history but tothe future that is realising itself.

If we make a serious study of Sri Aurobindo,we shall find ourselves to be a participant ofthat adventure of consciousness which invitesus to collaborate with that wide-ranging Yogathat can liberate us from the fetters of dogmasand preconceptions and inspire us to realise thehighest and the best not only for ourselves butalso for the entire humanity.

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In 1908-9, Sri Aurobindo wrote a poementitled ‘Invitation’, and it seems appropriateto read this poem and ask ourselves if we areready to respond to it:

Invitation

With wind and the weather beating round me

Up to the hill and the moorland I go.

Who will come with me? Who will climb with me?

Wade through the brook and tramp through the snow?

Not in the petty circle of cities

Cramped by your doors and your walls I dwell;

Over me God is blue in the welkin,

Against me the wind and the storm rebel.

I sport with solitude here in my regions,

Of misadventure have made me a friend.

Who would live largely? Who would live freely?

Here to the wind-swept uplands ascend.

I am the lord of tempest and mountain,

I am the Spirit of freedom and pride.

Stark must he be and a kinsman to danger

Who shares my kingdom and walks at my side.1

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Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother

II

There are many ways of approaching SriAurobindo, but the light that we can gain fromhim will depend upon the height and breadthof our own quest. It is only when we cease to beoccupied with our egoistic interests, whichoblige us to keep ourselves in the centre of theworld, and ask most comprehensive questionsin their profundity relating to the world and itsfuture possibilities and the role that we arerequired to play as also how we should prepareourselves to fulfil that role that we shall findthe relevance of Sri Aurobindo. It is only thenthat we shall find ourselves truly equipped tostudy Sri Aurobindo and the supramentalconsciousness that he has discovered andbrought down on the earth.

The journey to which Sri Aurobindo invitesus involves a most difficult endeavour. Evenwhen the goal becomes clearer, the paths willstill require to be traversed which will impelrevolutionary processes of progression; thiseffort will turn us increasingly and decisivelyinto a process of Yoga that is as comprehensiveas life and as integral as the totality of existence.This Yoga rises to the highest but also brings

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down the power of the highest into the lowestterms of consciousness. This Yoga aims at theconquest of the higher and higher pinnacles ofconsciousness and, crossing beyond mind andovermind, it lifts us to the supermind. But thisYoga is not merely of the ascent but also of thedescent, and it aims at the manifestation of thesupramental light and power right into matterand even in the inconscient so as to transformthem for purposes of the creation of divine lifeon the earth.

This Yoga has rightly been called thesupamental Yoga; it rests on the discovery ofthe supermind and of special methods bywhich th supermind can be made to permeateMatter and the human body so as to awakenand tansform the cells of the body, which mightresult in the volutionary mutation and in thegeneration of the new supramental species thatwould change the mode of life of strugglinghumanity and mould it into new forms ofincreasing luminosity and unity. This Yoga isnew as compared to the old systems of Yogaand Sri Aurobindo has brought out this noveltyin the following words:

It is new as compared with the old yogas:

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Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother

1. Because it aims not at a departure out ofworld and life into Heaven or Nirvana, butat a change of life and existence, not assomething subordinate or incidental, but asa distinct and central object. If there is adescent in other yogas, yet it is only anincident on the way or resulting from theascent – the ascent is the real thing. Herethe ascent is the first step, but it is a meansfor the descent. It is the descent of the newconsciousness attained by the ascent that isthe stamp and seal of the sadhana. Even theTantra and Vaishnavism end in the releasefrom life; here the object is the divinefulfilment of life.

2. Because the object sought after is not anindividual achievement of divine realisa-tion for the sake of the individual, butsomething to be gained for the earth-consciousness here, a cosmic, not solely asupracosmic achievement. The thing to begained also is the bringing in of a Power ofConsciousness (the supramental) not yetorganised or active directly in earth-nature,even in the spiritual life, but yet to beorganised and made directly active.

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3. Because a method has been precognised forachieving this purpose which is as total andintegral as the aim set before it, viz., the totaland integral change of the consciousnessand nature, taking up old methods but onlyas a part action and present aid to othersthat are distinctive. I have not found thismethod (as a whole) or anything like itprofessed or realised in the old yogas. If Ihad, I should not have wasted my time inhewing out a road and in thirty years ofsearch and inner creation when I could havehastened home safely to my goal in an easycanter over paths already blazed out, laiddown, perfectly mapped, macadamised,made secure and public. Our yoga is not aretreating of old walks, but a spiritualadventure.2

We must note, however, the contributionsof the past systems of Yoga which have beenassimilated in this new supramental or integralYoga. The discovery of the supermind wasalready made by the Vedic Rishis, and eventhough Sri Aurobindo discovered the super-mind without any previous knowledge of it,since he was at that time unacquainted with theVeda, he later found the confirmation of his

Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother

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Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother

discovery in the hymns of the Rigveda. Thisconfirmation has thrown a new light on theVeda, and the Yoga of the Veda, as we nowdiscover it, can be regarded as a mostmomentous system of the loftiest realisationswhich were attained by our ancient forefathers.It is for this reason that Sri Aurobindo wrotetwo volumes entitled The Secret of the Veda andHymns to the Mystic Fire, and he declared thatthe recovery of the knowledge contained in theVeda is indispensable if the world has to findthe solution to its present problems and arriveat the next step of its progress.

Sri Aurobindo points out that the Veda isnot a closed book; for the Veda itself speaks ofcontinuous development and declares that asone climbs from one peak to a higher peak,new fields of knowledge open before us. Inelucidating this undogmatic and open attitudetowards fresh experience and experimentation,Sri Aurobindo has provided us illuminatinginsights as to how Vedic Yoga has developedthrough the long history of India a number ofsystems of Yoga, as also how there have beenperiods of specialisation and also periods ofsynthesis. And his own synthesis of Yoga is an

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integration of the past systems and the newmethods that he himself has discovered andperfected.

This new synthesis embraces within itswide embrace the truth of the Vedic synthesisof the psychological being of man in its highestflights and widest ranging of divine know-ledge, power, joy and glory which had itscrowning experience of the transcendental andblissful reality in whose unity the increasingsoul of man and the eternal divine fullness ofthe cosmic can be made perfect and fulfilthemselves. It includes also the high andprofound synthesis of the Upanishadic spiritualknowledge. It places the Bhagavad Gita’ssynthesis of the triple path of love, knowledgeand works as something central in itsprocesses. It also acknowledges the synthesisof the Tantra and utilises the methods of tantricYoga for purposes of its new aims. It alsoacknowledges the Tantric idea of the divineperfectibility of man, which was possessed bythe Vedic Rishis but was thrown into thebackground by the intermediate ages. It alsoincludes the aims of the Hatha Yoga and theRaja Yoga although not their detailed

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processes. But the Supramental Yoga does notlimit itself within the limits of specialisedsystems of Yoga or even the previous systemsof synthesis. Explaining the need to go beyondand to develop a new synthesis of Yoga, SriAurobindo states:

“We of the coming day stand at the head ofa new age of development which must lead tosuch a new and larger synthesis. We are notcalled upon to be orthodox Vedantins of any ofthe three schools or Tantrics or to adhere to oneof the theistic religions of the past or toentrench ourselves within the four corners ofthe teaching of the Gita. That would be to limitourselves and to attempt to create our spirituallife out of the being, knowledge and nature ofothers, of the men of the past, instead ofbuilding it out of our own being and potent-ialities. We do not belong to the past dawns,but to the noons of the future.”3

In developing the new synthesis, SriAurobindo had also in his view the challengesof the contemporary times and the insuperabledifficulties which they present to the humanmind at its present critical stage. Sri Aurobindohad made a detailed study of human history as

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also of the evolutionary processes, and not onlyas we find them in the light of modern theoriesof Darwin, Bergson, Samuel Alexander,Whitehead, Teilhard de Chardin and others butmore importantly in the light of Indianknowledge of spiritual forces working behindthe external developments of forms that emergethrough the evolutionary movement; and hehad come to the conclusion that the presentcrisis of humanity is not an ordinary crisis,which can be explained in terms of social,political, economic or ideological developments.He pointed out that the present crisis is anevolutionary crisis and the human speciescannot expect to be delivered except throughradical means which can transmute the Mind,which is today the leader of human evolution,into the supermind which can thenceforth leadthe future and develop divine life on the earthand can also solve the problems that humanityis struggling to solve but which it is incapableto do. The supramental Yoga has, therefore,been presented by Sri Aurobindo as a practicalmeans by which humanity can be helped andlifted up on the path not only of its survivalbut also of its arrival and its fulfillment.

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III

The central theme in Sri Aurobindo is thatof the contemporary evolutionary crisis ofhumanity, of the perception that man is atransitional being and that he is a “thinking andliving laboratory in whom and with whoseconscious co-operation she (Nature) wills towork out the superman, the god.”4 His magnumopus, The Life Divine, which has been regardedas the greatest philosophical work of our times,is not a mere intellectual building of an edificeof thought, actuated by intellectual curiosity orintellectual grappling with epistemological,cosmological, ontological, or axiological quest-ions. Although it is entirely philosophical inrigour and method, it is an unprecedentedpresentation to the contemporary intellect-uality of all the essential psychological andphysical facts of existence and their relations toa discovered ultimate reality in order to arriveat the profoundest solution that can be success-fully applied to heal the maladies of thecontemporary crisis. Philosophy, according toSri Aurobindo, “can be conclusive only if theperception of things on which it rests is both atrue and whole seeing.”5 And the true and

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whole seeing that we find in Sri Aurobindo’sphilosophy was a result of his attainment of theintegral supramental knowledge which, inturn, was inspired by deepest concern to findremedy of the quintessential problems thathave been arising in the course of humanhistory and which have now reached thecritical point of their acme.

The philosophy of The Life Divine is thephilosophy of complete affirmation; it percei-ves the truth behind each system of philosophybut rejects its exclusiveness; it is thus a denialof all denials. It denies the materialist denial ofthe Spirit, even while it affirms the reality ofMatter; it denies the denial of the ascetic evenwhile it affirms the reality of the Spirit; itreconciles the insistent demands of Matter, Life,Mind and Supermind in an integral harmony.In the affirmation of the Reality of the Onewithout a second, it finds the origin of the manyand all. In the One Existent, sat, it finds thesound basis for Conscious-Force (chit) and alsoin their union the inalienable delight (ananda).If it finds the rational assurance that God existsnot only on the basis of essential truths that liebehind the rationalistic, ontological, cosmo-logical and teleological arguments, but also on

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other grounds that explain even such difficultphenomena as those of the ignorance, error,falsehood and evil, it also provides rationalassurance that “Life is neither an inexplicabledream nor an impossible evil that has yetbecome a dolorous fact, but a mighty pulsationof the divine All-Existence.”6 And these assur-ances are again confirmed in direct spiritual andsupramental experiences.

All comprehensive integrality is the basiccharacteristic of the philosophy of Sri Aurobindo.It is the philosophy of integral Monism thatreconciles the supra-cosmic, supra-terrestrialand cosmic views of existence. In the history ofIndian philosophy, the one system that comesclosest to it is that of the Gita as expounded bySri Aurobindo in his Essays on the Gita; and wemust remember that the Gita is the digest of theUpanishads, which are themselves theculmination of the synthesis of knowledgecontained in the Veda. The integral Monism ofSri Aurobindo is not pure Monism, although itsees in one unchanging, pure, eternal Self thefoundation of all cosmic existence; nor is itqualified Monism although it places in the Onehis eternal supreme Prakriti manifested in theform of the Jiva and lays a great stress on

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dwelling in God rather than dissolution as thesupreme state of spiritual consciousness. Itavoids every rigid determinism as would injureits universal comprehensiveness.7

Sri Aurobindo, in a brief summary state-ment, describes the ultimate Reality as follows:

“There is then a supreme Reality eternal,absolute and infinite. Because it is absolute andinfinite, it is in its essence indeterminable. It isindefinable and inconceivable by finite anddefining Mind; it is ineffable by a mind-createdspeech; it is describable neither by ournegations, neti neti, _ for we cannot limit it bysaying it is not this, it is not that, _ nor by ouraffirmations, for we cannot fix it by saying it isthis, it is that, iti iti. And yet, though in this wayunknowable to us, it is not altogether and inevery way unknowable; it is self-evident toitself and, although inexpressible, yet self-evident to a knowledge by identity of whichthe spiritual being in us must be capable; forthat spiritual being is in its essence and itsoriginal and intimate reality not other than thisSupreme Existence.”8

Sri Aurobindo’s philosophy has beenrightly described as a philosophy of the Real-

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Idea. It is idealism that is realistic, and it isrealism that is idealistic. As Sri Aurobindoexplains, the creative force that generates theworld and its forms is not the fictional Idea,having no essential relation in real Truth ofexistence. This philosophy “sees the creativeIdea as Real-Idea, that is to say, a power ofConscious-Force expressive of real being, bornout of real being and partaking of its nature andneither a child of the Void nor a weaver offictions. It is conscious Reality throwing itselfinto mutable forms of its own imperishable andimmutable substance. The world is thereforenot a figment of conception in the universalMind, but a conscious birth of that which isbeyond Mind into forms of itself.”9

That which is beyond Mind is, according toSri Aurobindo, Supermind, _ a supreme Truth-Consciousness, an expressive term, which SriAurobindo has taken from the Rigveda, whichdescribes the Supermind as .rta-chit, theconsciousness of essential truth of being(satyam), of ordered truth of active being (.rtam)and the vast self-awareness (b.rhad) in whichalone this consciousness is possible. Accordingto Sri Aurobindo, because the supermind is thebasis of the manifestation of the world, we have

r

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rational assurance that supermind can manifestin the world and that the supramental wholeseeing can come into the forefront and resolvethe problems that the mind, the faculty ofdiscursive reasoning and dividing conscious-ness, creates in the course of its development.For the world is not an illusion and ameaningless unreality but evolving mani-festation of the self-existent and consciousbeing through the comprehensive determiningsupramental consciousness. This is the argu-ment which Sri Aurobindo presents in the veryfirst chapter of The Life Divine. Let us refer tothis argument that he presents, since the rest ofthe book can, in a certain sense, be consideredas an elucidation of this argument and itsconsequences for our life in the world at thepresent stage of evolution:

“For all problems of existence are essen-tially problems of harmony. They arise from theperception of an unsolved discord and theinstinct of an undiscovered agreement or unity.To rest content with an unsolved discord ispossible for the practical and more animal partof man, but impossible for his fully awakenedmind, and usually even his practical parts onlyescape from the general necessity either by

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shutting out the problem or by accepting arough, utilitarian and unillumined compromise.For essentially, all Nature seeks a harmony, lifeand matter in their own sphere as much asmind in the arrangement of its perceptions. Thegreater the apparent disorder of the materialsoffered or the apparent disparateness, even toirreconcilable opposition, of the elements thathave to be utilised, the stronger is the spur, andit drives towards a more subtle and puissantorder than can normally be the result of a lessdifficult endeavour. The accordance of activeLife with a material of form in which thecondition of activity itself seems to be inertia,is one problem of opposites that Nature hassolved and seeks always to solve better withgreater complexities; for its perfect solutionwould be the material immortality of a fullyorganised mind-supporting animal body. Theaccordance of conscious mind and consciouswill with a form and a life in themselves notovertly self-conscious and capable at best of amechanical or subconscious will is anotherproblem of opposites in which she hasproduced astonishing results and aims alwaysat higher marvels; for there her ultimate miraclewould be an animal consciousness no longer

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seeking but possessed of Truth and Light, withthe practical omnipotence which would resultfrom the possession of a direct and perfectedknowledge. Not only, then, is the upwardimpulse of man towards the accordance of yethigher opposites rational in itself, but it is theonly logical completion of a rule and an effortthat seem to be a fundamental method ofNature and the very sense of her universalstrivings.”10

Sri Aurobindo’s magnum opus, The LifeDivine is companioned by another magnumopus, The Synthesis of Yoga. If The Life Divine isprimarily philosophical, The Synthesis of Yoga isprimarily scientific. What is established in TheLife Divine as philosophically conclusive isproposed to be realised in actual experienceand realisation through the scientific meth-odology which is described in The Synthesis ofYoga. If the concern of The Life Divine is to proveto the intellect of modern humanity thepossibility and inevitability of the supramentalmanifestation on the earth, The Synthesis of Yogashows to the mind, heart and spirit of humanitythose methods by which the individual andcollectivity can arrive at that manifestation.

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A significant message of The Synthesis ofYoga is that Yoga should be distinguishedclearly from philosophy and religion withwhich it is likely to be confused. According toSri Aurobindo, the age of philosophy andreligion is over, and the new age will insist onthe deepest, widest and highest realisationsthat can be attained by the methods of Yoga.For although philosophy aims at discoveringthe highest reality, its methods are those ofcritical rational thought, which can onlyconceive but not realise; and although religionaims at connecting the individual with thehighest reality, its methods are predominantlythose of credal belief, rituals, ceremonies andprescribed acts embodied in various routines oflife and social institutions, _ the methods thatconflict with the modern insistence onundogmatic experiential demands of the searchand realisation of realities. Both these, _

philosophy and religion, _ have now been foundto be inadequate as means to the goal thatcontemporary humanity needs to arrive at. Incontrast to these, Sri Aurobindo explains themeaning of Yoga in the following words:

“[Yoga is] a methodised effort towards self-perfection by the expression of the poten-

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tialities latent in the being and a union of thehuman individual with the universal andtranscendent Existence we see partiallyexpressed in man and in the Cosmos.”11

According to Sri Aurobindo, what we needtoday is the practice of meticulous methods thatcan bring about radical change of conscious-ness by means of psychological transmutationof faculties and powers of our being.

The word Yoga is often confined merely toHatha Yoga or Raja Yoga, but these are onlytwo specialised systems, and what is proposedby Sri Aurobindo is to bring about synthesis notonly of these two but all the other systems ofYoga. Since the crisis through which we arepassing today is many-sided, the solutionshould be many-sided and nothing short of asynthesis of different systems of Yoga wouldgive the needed remedy. As Sri Aurobindoexplains, an undiscriminating combination enbloc would not be a synthesis, but a confusion;nor would successive practice of each of themin turn be easy in the short span of our humanlife. Sri Aurobindo, therefore, effects synthesisby neglecting the forms and outsides of theYogic disciplines and seizes rather on some

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central principle common to all which wouldinclude and utilise in the right place andproportion their particular principles. It alsoseizes on some central dynamic force, which isthe common secret of their divergent methodsand capable, therefore, of organising a naturalselection and combination of their variedenergies and different utilities. That one commonprinciple and force is the principle and force ofconcentration, and Sri Aurobindo’s The Synthesisof Yoga is based upon integral concentration ofour entire conscious being on concentratedrelation and contact with the Divine so that theDivine may transform our entire being into His.In psychological terms, this method translatesitself into the progressive surrender of the egowith its whole field and all its apparatus to theBeyond-ego with its vast and incalculable butalways inevitable workings.

Sri Aurobindo points out that there arethree outstanding features of the action of thehighest when it works integrally on the lowernature. In the first place, it does not actaccording to a fixed system and succession asin the specialised methods of Yoga, but with asort of free, scattered and yet graduallyintensive and purposeful working determined

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in such a way that, in a sense, each individualin this path has his or her own method of Yoga.And yet, there are certain broad lines ofworking common to all which can be used toconstruct, not indeed a routine system, but yetsome kind of scientific method of the syntheticYoga. Secondly, the process being integral, itaccepts all life in order that all life istransformed. In this process, our nature suchas it stands organised by our past evolution andwithout rejecting anything essential is broughtunder the force of tapasya so that all undergoesa divine change. Thirdly, the divine Power inus uses all life as the means of this integralYoga. In this process, all life is perceived asYoga of Nature, seeking to manifest God withinitself, but the distinguishing mark of theintegral Yoga is the self-awareness with whichthe movements which are loosely combined inour ordinary nature are gathered up and con-centrated for purposes of integral transformation.

The integral method of the synthesis ofYoga produces integral results. There is, first,an integral realisation of Divine Being; andthere is also an integral liberation, mukti, notonly sayujya mukti in which the individualbeing attains unbroken contact in all its parts

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with the Divine, not only salokya mukti bywhich the whole conscious existence dwells inthe state of Sachchidananda, but also sadharmyamukti, in which the divine nature is acquiredby the transformation of the lower being.

Transformation is the keyword of theIntegral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindoexplains this as follows:

“By transformation I do not mean somechange of the nature _ I do not mean, for instance,sainthood or ethical perfection or yogic siddhis(like the Tantric’s) or a transcendental (cinmaya)body. I use transformation in a special sense, achange of consciousness radical and completeand of a certain specific kind which is soconceived as to bring about a strong andassured step forward in the spiritual evolutionof the being of a greater and higher kind and ofa larger sweep and completeness than whattook place when a mentalised being firstappeared in a vital and material animal world.If anything short of that takes place or at leastif a real beginning is not made on that basis, afundamental progress towards this fulfilment,then my object is not accomplished. A partialrealisation, something mixed and inconclusive,

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does not meet the demand I make on life andYoga.”12

The complete process of transformation isdescribed by Sri Aurobindo as triple, _ psychictransformation, spiritual transformation, andsupramental transformation. In the words of SriAurobindo:

“… there must first be the psychic change,the conversion of our whole present nature intoa soul-instrumentation; on that or along withthat there must be the spiritual change, thedescent of a higher Light, Knowledge, Power,Force, Bliss, Purity into the whole being, eveninto the lowest recesses of life and body, eveninto the darkness of our subconscience; last,there must supervene the supramentaltransmutation, _ there must take place as acrowning movement the ascent into theSupermind and the transforming descent of theSupramental Consciousness into our entirebeing and nature.”13

For a fuller understanding of the synthesisof Yoga, we need to study three big volumescontaining Sri Aurobindo’s letters on Yoga,which throw illumining light not only on theprinciples of the Integral Yoga but also on

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multitudes of difficulties that are encounteredduring the process of Yoga, as also onexperiences and realisations. But, above all, weneed to study Savitri, that great epic of theadventure of the Spirit, which accomplishesgreat conquest of death by the power of thelight of the supermind. For it is through Savitrithat one gains a ready access to the concrete-ness of psychic, spiritual and supramentalexperiences as also their impact on all parts andplanes of the being through the magic of therhythmic word and vision in their highestintensities. To study Savitri is to enter into therealm of experiences and into a veritableprocess of Yogic transformation.

IV

It is not expected that this great and difficulttask of supramental transformation can beeffected by the whole of humanity, although,according to Sri Aurobindo, the time has comefor the generalisation of Yoga in humanity. Thenecessity of spiritual change is imperative, andthe future of humanity will depend, accordingto Sri Aurobindo, upon the response thathumanity will give to this necessity. In his book

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The Human Cycle, Sri Aurobindo has expoundedthe psychology of social development andshown how human society has not only crossedover the infra-rational age of human develop-ment but has also traversed a long path on thecurve of the rational age and stands today atthe end of the curve of the Reason. Speaking ofthe modern society, Sri Aurobindo points outthat it has discovered a new principle ofsurvival, the principle of progress, which aimsat more knowledge, more equipment, con-venience and comfort, more enjoyment, agreater complexity of the social economy, moreand more cumbersomely opulent life. Hefurther points out that these things must,however, lead in the end to the increasingfailure to find the secret of constant self-renewal. He, therefore, concludes: “Only in itsnew turn inwards, towards a greatersubjectivity now only beginning, is there abetter hope; for by that turning it may discoverthat the real truth of man is to be found in hissoul.”14

Whether humanity will respond to the needof this new turn will depend upon itsincreasing perception of the necessity ofspiritual transformation. Sri Aurobindo points

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out that a change from the vital and mental tothe spiritual order of life must necessarily beaccomplished in the individual and in a greaternumber of individuals before it can come tohave an effective hold upon community. Whatis necessary is that the common human mindbegins to admit the ideas proper to the higherorder that is in the end to be, and the heart ofman begins to be stirred by aspirations born ofthese ideas. Sri Aurobindo concludes that if thiscondition is fulfilled then there is hope of someadvance in the not distant future.

In his book The Ideal of Human Unity, SriAurobindo refers to two important develop-ments which indicate a prospect of the comingchange in humanity. The first of these isinternationalism, the idea of humanity as asingle race of beings with a common life and acommon general interest. Sri Aurobindo identi-fies those tendencies in human life at presentwhich are favourable to the progress of theinternational idea. In his own words:

“The strongest of these favourable forces isthe constant drawing closer of the knots ofinternational life, the multiplication of pointsof contact and threads of communication and

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an increasing community in thought, in scienceand in knowledge. Science especially has beena great force in its direction; for science is athing common to all men in its conclusions,open to all in its methods, available to all in itsresults: it is international in its very nature; …Science also has created that closer contact ofevery part of the world with every other part,out of which some sort of international mind isgrowing… The growth of knowledge is interest-ing the peoples in each other’s art, culture,religion, ideas and is breaking down at manypoints the prejudice, arrogance and exclusivenessof the old nationalistic sentiment… Religion… isbeginning to realise, a little dimly and ineffec-tively as yet, that spirituality is after all its ownchief business and true aim and that it is alsothe common element and the common bond ofall religions. As these influences grow andcome more and more consciously to cooperatewith each other, it might be hoped that thenecessary psychological modification willquietly, gradually, but still irresistibly and atlast with an increasing force of rapidity, takeplace which can prepare a real and funda-mental change in the life of humanity.”15

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But internationalism, according to SriAurobindo, is not enough; there is a need of areligion of humanity or an equivalent sentimentwhich recognises a single soul in humanity ofwhich each human being and each people is anincarnation and soul form. This religion hasalready expressed itself in the philosophy ofhumanitarianism, which itself is a mostprominent emotional result of the Age ofReason. Philanthropy, social service and otherkindred activities have been its outwardexpressions; and democracy, socialism andpacifism are to a great extent its by-products orat least owe much of their vigour to its innerpresence. But Sri Aurobindo points out that thepurely intellectual and sentimental religion ofhumanity is not sufficient to bring about theneeded great change in human psychology. Forat its highest, it can only erect three great idealsof progress, _ liberty, equality and fraternity,but in application of these ideals, it would stillbe obliged to resort to the external machineryof society, and ego would act as the centre ofthis machinery. As a result, as Sri Aurobindopoints out, when the ego attains liberty, itarrives at competitive individualism; when itasserts equality, it arrives first at strife and then

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at an attempt to ignore the variations of nature,and it constructs an artificial and machine-made society; when the ego asserts fraternity,it speaks of something contrary to its nature;all that the ego knows is association for thepursuit of common egoistic ends and the utmostthat it can arrive at is a closer organisation for theequal distribution of labour, production, cons-umption and enjoyment. If, therefore, the gospelof the idea of humanism is to be fulfilled, we haveto realise that brotherhood is the real key andthat the brotherhood exists only in the soul andby the soul. Therefore, Sri Aurobindoconcludes, the religion of humanity must be aspiritual religion of humanity, not aninstitutional religion, not an intellectualreligion, not a sentimental religion. Thathumanity is pressing forward towards thisspiritual religion of humanity is of greatsignificance for all of us who are keen to findthe solution to the contemporary crisis. And itis here that Sri Aurobindo’s perception of thesignificance of the contemporary crisis and hisphilosophy and yoga of supramental trans-formation come to us as the needed light andguidance.

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At the same time, we may note what SriAurobindo has stated about the first steptowards the supramental manifestation. In thiscontext, we may cite the following remarks thatSri Aurobindo had made in his Letters on Yoga:

“The whole of humanity cannot be changedat once. What has to be done is to bring theHigher Consciousness down into the earth-consciousness and establish it there as aconstant realised force. Just as mind and lifehave been established and embodied in Matter,so to establish and embody the supramentalForce.

It would not be possible to change all thatin a moment – we have always said that thewhole of humanity will not change the momentthere is the Descent. But what can be done is toestablish the higher principle in the earth-consciousness in such a way that it will remainand go on strengthening and spreading itselfin the earth-life. That is how a new principle inthe evolution must necessarily work.

It is first through the individuals that it [thesupramental consciousness] becomes part ofthe earth-consciousness and afterwards it

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spreads from the first centres and takes upmore and more of the global consciousness tillit becomes an established force there.”16

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Notes

1 Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, SABCL, Vol. 5,p.39

2 Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga, SABCL, Vol. 22,pp.100-101

3 Sri Aurobindo, Essays on the Gita, SABCL, Vol.13, p.8

4 Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, SABCL, Vol. 18,p.4

5 Ibid., p.4936 Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, SABCL, Vol. 18,

p.2317 See Essays on the Gita, SABCL, Vol. 13, p.68 Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, SABCL, Vol. 18,

p.3229 Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, SABCL, Vol. 18,

p.11710 Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, SABCL, Vol. 18,

pp.2-311 Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga (1970), p.212 Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga, SABCL, Vol. 22,

p.9813 Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, SABCL, Vol. 19,

p.891

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Notes

14 Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, SABCL, Vol.15, p.210

15 Sri Aurobindo, The Ideal of Human Unity,SABCL, Vol. 15, pp.527-28

16 Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga, SABCL, Vol. 22,pp.13, 14, 15.

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Kireet Joshi

Kireet Joshi (b.1931) studied philosophy andlaw at the Bombay University. He was selectedfor I.A.S. in 1955 but in 1956 he resigned in orderto devote himself to the study and practice of theIntegral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the Motherat Pondicherry. He taught Philosophy andPsychology at the Sri Aurobindo InternationalCentre of Education at Pondicherry andparticipated in numerous educational experi-ments under the direct guidance of the Mother.

In 1976, Government of India invited him to beEducational Advisor in the Ministry ofEducation. In 1983, he was appointed SpecialSecretary to the Government of India, and heldthis post until 1988. He was Member-Secretaryof Indian Council of Philosophical Research from1981 to 1990. He was also Member-Secretary ofRashtriya Veda Vidya Pratishthan from 1987 to1993. He was the Vice-Chairman of the UNESCOInstitute of Education, Hamburg, from 1987 to1989.

From 1999 to 2004, he was the Chairman ofAuroville Foundation. From 2000 to 2006, he wasChairman of Indian Council of PhilosophicalResearch. From 2006 to 2008, he was Editorial

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Fellow of the Project of History of Indian Science,Philosophy and Culture (PHISPC).

He was also formally Educational Advisor to theChief Minister of Gujarat (2008-2010). Currentlyhe is at Sri Aurobindo Ashram at Pondicherry,engaged in the tasks of research and guidancein themes related to ‘Science and Spirituality’and ‘Spiritual Education’.

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Also by Kireet JoshiVisit www.kireetjoshiarchives.com

Books on Synthesis of Yoga and Allied Themes

• Sri Aurobindo and The Mother

• The New Synthesis of Yoga _ An Introduction

• Varieties of Yogic Experience and Integral

Realisation

• Significance of Indian Yoga _ An Overview

• A Pilgrim’s Quest for the Highest and the Best

• Synthesis of Yoga in the Veda

• Synthesis of Yoga in the Upanishads

• The Gita and its Synthesis of Yoga

• Integral Yoga _ An Outline of Major Aims,

Processes, Methods and Results

• Integral Yoga of Transformation _ Psychic,

Spiritual and Supramental

• Supermind in Integral Yoga _ Problem of

Ignorance, Bondage, Liberation and Perfection

• Integral Yoga and Evolutionary Mutation _ Its Aid

to Humanity and Human Species

• Integral Yoga, Evolution and The Next Species

• Sri Aurobindo and Integral Yoga

Books on Philosophy

• A Philosophy of the Role of the Contemporary

Teacher

• A Philosophy of Education for the Contemporary

Youth

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• A Philosophy of Evolution for the Contemporary

Man

• Philosophy and Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and other

Essays

• Philosophy of Value-Oriented Education (Theory

and Practice)

• Philosophy of Indian Art

• Philosophy of Indian Pedagogy

• Towards a New Social Order

On Indian Culture

• Glimpses of Vedic Literature

• Stories for Youth In Search of a Higher Life

• Arguments of Arjuna at Kurukshetra and Sri

Krishna’s Answer

• Indian Identity and Cultural Continuity

Education

• Education at Crossroads

• A National Agenda for Education

• Education for Tomorrow

• Education for Character Development

• Child, Teacher and Teacher Education

• Innovations in Education

Booklet Series

1. Towards Universal Fraternity

2. Sri Aurobindo’s Philosophy of Nationalism and

Internationalism

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3. Sri Aurobindo’s Philosophy of Human

Development and Contemporary Crisis

4. Schopenhauer and Indian Philosophy

5. Sri Aurobindo’s Philosophy of Evolution

6. Educational Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo

7. Introduction to Sri Aurobindo’s Philosophy of the

Ideal of Human Unity

8. Problem of Knowledge and Time

9. On Hinduism

10. Party System and Values of Honesty and Efficiency

11. Vedic Ideals of Education

12. Importance of Sanskrit

13. Beyond Religion: Towards Synthesis, Harmony and

Integral Spirituality

14. Philosophical Notes on Ibn Rushd

15. Contemporary Crisis of Humanity and Search for

its Solutions

Edited by Kireet Joshi

Teaching Learning Material for TeacherTraining

• The Aim of Life

• The Good Teacher and the Good Pupil

• Mystery and Excellence of the Human Body

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Monographs Related to the theme ofIllumination, Heroism and Harmony

• Parvati’s Tapasya

• Nachiketas

• Taittiriya Upanishad

• Sri Rama

• Sri Krishna in Brindavan

• Nala and Damayanti

• Svapna Vasavadattam

• Episodes from Raghuvamsham

• The Crucifixion

• The Siege of Troy

• Gods and the World

• Homer and The Iliad _ Sri Aurobindo and Ilion

• Socrates

• Alexander the Great

• Joan of Arc

• Catherine the Great

• Leonardo da Vinci

• Danton and the French Revolution

• Marie Sklodowska Curie

• Uniting Men - Jean Monnet

• Proofs of the Existence of God

• Science and Spirituality

• Napoleon