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Many Aurovilians, certainly
those who have specifically come for Auroville's spiritual vision
and call, are practicing the 'Integral Yoga' as described by Sri
Aurobindo, and naturally refer to it in their communications in
daily life as well as on this site. We add here below some introductory
definitions relating to the yoga in the words of Sri Aurobindo himself:
Central purpose of the Integral Yoga
Transformation of our
superficial, narrow and fragmentary human way of thinking, seeing,
feeling and being into a deep and wide spiritual consciousness and
an integrated inner and outer existence and of our ordinary human
living into the divine way of life.
Integral yoga
This yoga accepts the
value of cosmic existence and holds it to be a reality; its object
is to enter into a higher Truth-Consciousness or Divine Supramental
Consciousness in which action and creation are the expression not
of ignorance and imperfection, but of the Truth, the Light, the
Divine Ananda (Bliss). But for that, the surrender of the
mortal mind, life and body to the Higher Consciousness is indispensable,
since it is too difficult for the mortal human being to pass by
its own effort beyond mind to a Supramental Consciousness in which
the dynamism is no longer mental but of quite another power. Only
those who can accept the call to such a change should enter into
this yoga.
Sâdhanâ of the Integral Yoga
The Sâdhanâ [practice]
of the Integral Yoga does not proceed through any set mental teaching
or prescribed forms of meditation, mantras or others, but by aspiration,
by a self-concentration inwards or upwards, by a self-opening to
an Influence, to the Divine Power above us and its workings, to
the Divine Presence in the heart and by the rejection of all that
is foreign to these things. It is only by faith, aspiration and
surrender that this self-opening can come.
Integral method
The method we have to
pursue is to put our whole conscious being into relation and contact
with the Divine and to call Him in to transform our entire being
into His, so that in a sense God Himself, the real Person in us,
becomes the sâdhaka of the sâdhana* as well as
the Master of the Yoga by whom the lower personality is used as
the centre of a divine transfiguration and the instrument of its
own perfection. In effect, the pressure of the Tapas, the
force of consciousness in us dwelling in the Idea of the divine
Nature upon that which we are in our entirety, produces its own
realisation. The divine and all-knowing and all-effecting descends
upon the limited and obscure, progressively illumines and energises
the whole lower nature and substitutes its own action for all the
terms of the inferior human light and mortal activity.
* Sâdhana, the practice
by which perfection, siddhi, is attained;
Sâdhaka, the Yogin who seeks by that practice the siddhi.
Aim of the Integral Yoga
It is not merely to rise
out of the ordinary ignorant world-consciousness into the divine
consciousness, but to bring the supramental power of that divine
consciousness down into the ignorance of mind, life and body, to
transform them, to manifest the Divine here and create a divine
life in Matter.
Conditions of the Integral Yoga
This yoga can only be
done to the end by those who are in total earnest about it and ready
to abolish their little human ego and its demands in order to find
themselves in the Divine. It cannot be done in a spirit of levity
or laxity; the work is too high and difficult, the adverse powers
in the lower Nature too ready to take advantage of the least sanction
or the smallest opening, the aspiration and tapasyâ (concentration
of the will) needed too constant and intense.
Method in the Integral Yoga
To concentrate, preferably
in the heart and call the presence and power of the Mother to take
up the being and by the workings of her force transform the consciousness.
One can concentrate also in the head or between the eye-brows, but
for many this is a too difficult opening. When the mind falls quiet
and the concentration becomes strong and the aspiration intense,
then there is the beginning of experience. The more the faith, the
more rapid the result is likely to be. For the rest one must not
depend on one's own efforts only, but succeed in establishing a
contact with the Divine and a receptivity to the Mother's Power
and Presence.
Key-methods
The way to devotion and surrender.
It is the psychic movement
that brings the constant and pure devotion and the removal of the
ego that makes it possible to surrender.
The way to knowledge
Meditation in the head
by which there comes the opening above, the quietude or silence
of the mind and the descent of peace etc. of the higher consciousness
generally till it envelops the being and fills the body and begins
to take up all the movements.
Yoga by works
Separation of the
Purusha from the Prakriti, the inner silent being from
the outer active one, so that one has two consciousness or a double
consciousness, one behind watching and observing and finally controlling
and changing the other which is active in front. The other way of
beginning the yoga of works is by doing them for the Divine, for
the Mother, and not for oneself, consecrating and dedicating them
till one concretely feels the Divine Force taking up the activities
and doing them for one.
Object of the Integral Yoga
The object of the Integral
Yoga is to enter into and be possessed by the Divine Presence and
Consciousness, to love the Divine for the Divine's sake alone, to
be tuned in our nature into the nature of the Divine, and in our
will and works and life to be the instrument of the Divine.
Principle of the Integral Yoga
The whole principle of
Integral Yoga is to give oneself entirely to the Divine alone and
to nobody else, and to bring down into ourselves by union with the
Divine Mother all the transcendent light, power, wideness, peace,
purity, truth-consciousness and Ananda of the Supramental Divine.
Fundamental realisations of the Integral Yoga
The psychic change so
that a complete devotion can be the main motive of the heart and
the ruler of thought, life and action in constant union with the
Mother and in her Presence. The descent of the Peace, Power, Light
etc. of the Higher Consciousness through the head and heart into
the whole being, occupying the very cells of the body. The perception
of the One and Divine infinitely everywhere, the Mother everywhere
and living in that infinite consciousness.
From 'Dictionary of Sri Aurobindo's Yoga', compiled
from the writings of Sri Aurobindo by M.P. Pandit, published by
Dipti Publications,
Sri Aurobindo Ashram.
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