Sri Aurobindo Or The Yogi Of The Life Divine 7th Part Sri Aurobindo's Yoga: An Integral Path

Aju Mukhopadhyay

10 July 2008, 08:36

Continued From Part Six

Once consciousness was separated from the One Eternal consciousness, it invariably fell into ignorance, which was called inconscience in its last stage by Sri Aurobindo. From this dark inconscience arises the material world. Attracted by the hidden light it ascends blindly towards its lost divinity, its source. Sri Aurobindo explained the subject in one of his letters.

“Out of this apparent inconscience its potentiality is revealed in each turn, first organised matter concealing indwelling spirit, then life emerging in the plant and associated in animal with a growing Mind, then Mind itself evolved and organised in Man…. there comes at a certain point the certitude that there is a far greater consciousness than what we call Mind, and that by ascending the ladder still farther we can find a point at which the hold of the Material inconscience, the vital and mental ignorance ceases: a principle of consciousness becomes capable of manifestation which liberates not partially, not imperfectly, but radically and wholly this imprisoned Divine.” 1

The divine itself pervades the manifestation, supporting it, upholding the burden of the fall and its dark consequence; misery, division, pain and all kinds of suffering. But Sri Aurobindo added that there is no apparent justification for this fall and division communicable to the human intelligence, for it belongs to the original supra-human intelligence, to the cosmic consciousness. He does not explain these things from any religious point of view but from out of his own experience of Truth, as it was revealed to him. In The Life Divine he wrote, “We do not create God as a myth of our consciousness but are instruments for a progressive manifestation of the Divine in the material being. We do not create Gods, his powers…. We do not create the higher planes, but are intermediaries by which they reveal their light, power, beauty in whatever form and scope can be given to them by Nature force on the material plane.” 2

Pressure of the life-world creates and develops life here, so the mind-world creates mind and pressure of the spiritual and supramental worlds are preparing to break the prison walls of human mind so that it may awaken itself to the plane of infinite spirit of the superconscient divinity. Sri Aurobindo has given immense importance to human consciousness. He said that man is the instrument of light and power out of the inconscience, at which the liberation becomes possible. “As he grows more and more inward, his boundaries- mental, vital, spiritual, begin to broaden, the bonds that held Life, Mind, Soul to their first limitations loosen or snap, and man the mental being begins to have a glimpse of the larger kingdom of self and worlds closed to the first earth-life.” 3

In his book The Mother and elsewhere Sri Aurobindo explains that an action from above and below, an action from within in their conjunction can put an end to the hold of inconscience and man can grow to his full stature. Creation of the world and the evolution of consciousness are complimentary phenomenon to Sri Aurobindo and in that order rebirth becomes an indispensable machinery. He said, “Once admitted that the spirit has involved itself in the Inconscience and is manifesting itself in the individual being by an evolutionary gradation, then the whole process assumes meaning and consistence…. The rebirth of the soul in the body becomes a natural and unavoidable consequence of the truth of Becoming and its inherent law.” 4

Development of the self and the play of relations between the individual and universal and among the individuals can take place in the body only wherein takes place the progressive development of our conscious being towards a supreme unity with God. In each stage of its development Nature takes up its past and transforms it into stuff of its new development. So in the human nature all the earth past is there in it.

Sri Aurobindo has further explained the two elements of human being, his spiritual person and soul of personality. As a spiritual person he is the unborn self, one with Satchidananda, the immanent Godhead, who has willed his involution in the Nescience for a certain round of soul experience. The psychic entity within, representative of the secret spirit, the soul of personality, is the real person that we are. It is the cosmic mutable being. It goes on evolving and progressing in every birth. But the I of this moment, this life, is only a temporary personality of this inner person. The inner person survives death as it pre-exists before birth. This temporary I is what Sri Ramakrishna called the unripe I and our inner being is the ripe I. Apart from the body, soul and spirit, there are mental and vital beings in man. And there are gross and subtle sheaths of these beings. After death of the body, the soul gradually discards the mental and vital elements and psychic, after rest and consolidation of essential experiences, returns in a new body, the process, which we may call rebirth.

But the mental and vital beings of man, by sadhana or otherwise, may so develop that they remain eternally without being discarded by the evolving psychic being. Only body has to be changed for effective evolution. If by some means the cause of decay and disruption be removed from the body, it can also endure but even then if it cannot keep pace with the inner growth, the soul may find some way to abandon it and pass on to a new incarnation. The actual possibility of immortality of the body was considered by Sri Aurobindo and Mother as possible only through supramental transformation of the body so that it would be a fit instrument of the soul but a body radically different from the present one. The consummation of a triple immortality- of nature, of spirit and of the psychic was considered by Sri Aurobindo as the crown of rebirth, a conquest over material inconscience and ignorance. But the true immortality would still be the eternity of the spirit; the physical survival could only be relative, terminable at will, a temporal sign of spirit’s victory here over Death and matter. 5

The philosophy and ideals of spiritual life and the possibilities through a human birth, as visioned by Sri Aurobindo, could be translated into action by individual efforts called Yoga. To establish divine consciousness in man’s life on earth through transformation of the different parts of his being was his method, which was integral in its approach. He took up both worlds in his purview; spiritual as well as material. Knowledge, Bhakti or devotion, Works, Knowledge and Meditation, all aspects of yoga was assimilated in his system of yoga. His method was not a repetition of the old, not a retreading of old walks but a spiritual adventure called Integral Yoga or Purna Yoga, which he sometimes called Supramental Yoga. Published in two volumes, The Synthesis of Yoga contains the entire method of Sri Aurbindo’s yoga-path. Accepting Swami Vivekananda’s ideas, he thought that yoga may be regarded as a means of compressing one’s evolution in a single life or a few years or months in a man’s life through his conscious efforts. Otherwise Nature carries on the evolution in its own way throughout the ages. Fact is, all our actions in life may be a God-ward journey.

“All Life is Yoga”, Sri Aurobindo said but the aim of his Integral Yoga is “First to enter into divine consciousness by merging into it the separative ego… and secondly to bring down the Supramental consciousness on earth to transform the mind, life and body. All else can be only a result of these two aims, not the primary object of the yoga.“6

Spirituality is the essence of Sri Aurobindo’s thoughts, ideas and his system of yoga.

“Spirituality is in its essence an awakening to the inner reality of our being, to a spirit, self, soul which is other than our mind, life, body, as inner aspiration to know, to feel, to be that, to enter into contact with the greater Reality beyond and pervading the universe which inhabits also our own being, to be in communion with it and union with it and a turning, a conversion, a transformation of our whole being as a result of our aspiration, the contact, the union, a growth or waking into a new becoming or new being, a new self, a new nature.” 7

Sri Aurobindo felt that none of the ills of life can really be cured by non-spiritual methods like social, political or other mechanical remedies. Such attempts have always failed and will continue to fail because by such attempts outward changes come but man remains basically the same, moved by ego, vital desires, passions and needs of the body. “To discover a spiritual being in himself is the main business of the spiritual man and to help others towards the same evolution is his real service to the race; till that is done, an outward help can succour and alleviate, but nothing or very little is possible.” 8

Spirituality should be clearly distinguished from religion. Never was it in the scheme of Sri Aurobindo or the Mother to follow a religion or create a new one. “I may say that it is far from my purpose to propagate any religion, new or old, for humanity in the future.” 9

In the first chapter of Essays On The Gita Sri Aurobindo wrote, “Only those scriptures, religions, philosophies which can be thus constantly renewed, relived, their stuff of permanent truth constantly reshaped and developed in the inner thought and spiritual experience of a developing humanity, continue to be of living importance to mankind. The rest remains as monuments of the past.”

Sri Aurobindo had profound reverence for Hindu religion or Sanatana Dharma, as he called it, and for its scriptures. He realised the real value of ancient Indian culture and heritage and he always upheld their greatness and glory to the world. After Dayananda Saraswati and Swami Vivekananda he took up his pen, in a more systematic and vigorous way, in defence of Indian religion and culture. The Foundation of Indian Culture, Essays On The Gita and Secrets Of Veda are landmarks in the history of such serious and scholarly writings.

Out of them, out of many other religious cults like Tantrik and Vaishnav rites and out of his knowledge and experience he hewed the path of integral yoga, without copying any of their rites and rigorous systems. He regretted that due to our giving excessive value to the Shastras and customs, the outer form of Hinduism, Indian intellect has been impoverished. On 23.10.1929 he wrote to one of his disciples who was much bent upon maintaining the truth of his religion, “All fanaticism is false, because it is contradiction of the very nature of God and of Truth. Truth cannot be shut up in a single book, Bible or Veda or Koran or in a single religion…. If the truth I bring is too great for you to understand or to bear, you are free to go and live in a half-truth or in your own ignorance. I am not here to convert anyone: I do not preach to the world to come to me and I call no one. I am here to establish the divine life and the divine consciousness in those who of themselves feel the call to come to me and cleave to it and in no others.”

About his path he wrote long ago to Motilal Roy, “All difficulties can be conquered but only on condition of fidelity to the way that you have taken. There is no obligation on any one to take it- it is a difficult and trying one, a way for the heroes, not for the weaklings… but once taken, it must be followed, or you will not arrive.” 10

For attainment of the goal- getting purified and getting rid of obstacles- we have to inevitably come to the point of sadhana, the path unique, hewed by him. Divinisation of the earth-consciousness is the aim but it is to be established through individuals and ultimately it is the individual who does the sadhana, though it may be done collectively.

“The supramental can only make the best condition for anybody who can open up to it then or thereafter attaining to the supramental consciousness and its consequences. But it could not dispense with the necessity of sadhana. If it did, the logical consequence would be that the whole earth, man, dog and worms would suddenly wake up to find themselves supramental.” 11 Sri Aurobindo said.

The Mother, a small book by Sri Aurobindo, may be said to be the quintessence of his sadhana and philosophy. Every line of it is replete with the need for sadhana at the deeper and yet deeper level of one’s consciousness. Just as truth and falsehood cannot be indulged at the same time, it warns, the path of integral yoga and worship of all and sundries cannot go hand in hand. One of the great advices given in the book is to surrender to the Mother force with all trust and faith for ultimately she is the sadhak and she is the sadhana. She does it easier for the one who clings to her.

Excerpts from a letter written to his disciple on 11 September 1934 on the practical aspect of the Integral Yoga will shed light on his path and his guidance.

“In this yoga we insist always on an “opening”- an opening inwards of the inner mind, vital, physical to the inmost part of us, the psyche, and an opening upwards to what is above the mind- as indispensable for the fruits of the sadhana.”

“The underlying reason for this is that this little mind, vital and body which we call ourselves is only a surface movement and not our “self” at all. It is an external bit of personality put forward for one brief life, for the play of the ignorance. It is equipped with an ignorant mind stumbling about in search of fragments of truth, an ignorant vital rushing about in search of fragments of pleasure, an obscure and mostly subconscious physical receiving the impacts of things and suffering rather than possessing a resultant pain or pleasure. . . .”

“The real Self is not anywhere on the surface but deep within and above. Within is the soul supporting an inner mind, inner vital, inner physical in which there is a capacity for universal wideness and with it for the things now asked for- direct contact with the truth of self and things, taste of a universal bliss, liberation from the imprisoned smallness and sufferings of the gross physical body. . . .”

“For the highest spiritual Self is not even behind our personality and bodily existence but is above it and altogether exceeds it. The highest of the inner centres is in the head, just as the deepest is the heart; but the centre which opens directly to the Self is above the head, altogether outside the physical body, in what is called the subtle body, sukshma sarira. This Self has two aspects and the results of realizing it correspond to these two aspects. One is static, a condition of the wide peace, freedom, silence: the silent self is unaffected by any action or experience; it impartially supports them but does not seem to originate them at all, rather to stand back detached or unconcerned as a cosmic Self or Spirit which not only supports but originates and contains the whole cosmic action- not only that part of it which concerns our physical selves but also all that is beyond it- this world and all other worlds, the supraphysical as well as the physical ranges of the universe. . . .”

“The psychic opening through the heart puts us primarily into connection with the individual Divine, the Divine in his inner relation with us; it is especially the source of love and hhakti. This upward opening puts us into direct relation with the whole Divine and can create in us the divine consciousness and a new birth or births of the spirit. . . .”

“The two most important things here are the opening of the heart centre and the opening of the mind centres to all that is behind and above them. For the heart opens to the psychic being and the mind centres open to the higher consciousness and the nexus between the psychic being and the higher consciousness is the principle means of siddhi. The first opening is effected by a concentration in the heart, a call to the divine to manifest within us and through the psychic to take up and lead the whole nature. Aspiration, prayer, bhakti, love, surrender are the main supports of this part of the sadhana- accompanied by a rejection of all that stands in the way of what we aspire for.”

“The second opening is effected by a concentration of the consciousness in the head (afterwards, above it) and as aspiration and call and a sustained will for the descent of the divine Peace, Power, Light, Knowledge, Ananda into the being- the Peace first or the Peace and Force together. Some indeed receive Light first or Ananda first or some sudden pouring down of Knowledge. With some there is first an opening which reveals to them a vast infinite Silence, Force, Light or Bliss above them and afterwards either they ascend to that or these things begin to descend into the lower nature. With others there is either the descent, first into the head, then down to the heart level, then to the navel and below and through the whole body, or else an inexplicable opening- without any sense of descent- of peace, light, wideness or power, or else a horizontal opening into the cosmic consciousness or in a suddenly widened mind an outburst of knowledge.”

“Whatever comes has to be welcomed- for there is no absolute rule for all- but if the peace has not come first, care must be taken not to swell oneself in exultation or lose the balance. The capital movement however is when the Divine Force or Shakti, the power of the Mother comes down and takes hold, for then the organization for the consciousness begins and the larger foundation of the Yoga. . . .”

“In this process of the descent from above and the working it is most important not to rely entirely on oneself. . . . For it often happens that the forces of the lower nature are stimulated and excited by the descent and want to mix with it and turn it to their profit. If there is the assent of the sadhak to the Divine working alone and the submission or surrender to the guidance, then all can go smoothly. This assent and a rejection of all egoistic forces or forces that appeal to the ego are the safeguard throughout the sadhana. This is the reason why in this yoga we insist so much on what we call Samarpana- rather inadequately rendered by the English word surrender. If the heart centre is fully opened and the psychic is in control, then there is no question; all is safe. But the psychic can at any moment be veiled by a lower upsurge. It is only a few who are exempt from these dangers and it is precisely those to whom surrender is easily possible. The guidance of one who himself is by identity or represents the divine is in this difficult endeavour imperative and indispensable.” 12

If we choose the path and proceed with determination, success to the extent possible in this life according to the individual growth and intensity of tapasya, is assured. On 19.8.1954 Mother assured, “When the path is known it is easy to tread upon it.”

References:
1 Sri Aurobindo.The Riddle of this World. Calcutta; Arya Publishing House.1933.pp.96-97
2 Sri Aurobindo. The Life Divine. Pondicherry; SABCL, Sri Aurobindo Ashram. 1972. V- 19. p.780
3 ibid. p.791
4 ibid. p.754
5 ibid. p.823
6 Sri Aurobindo. Letters on Yoga. Pondicherry; SABCL, Sri Aurobindo Ashram.1972. V-23. p.503
7 Sri Aurobindo. Op. cit. V-19. p.857
8 ibid. pp. 884-85
9 Sri Aurobindo. On Himself. Pondicherry; SABCL, 1972. V-26. p.125
10 Sri Aurobindo. Supplement. Pondicherry; SABCL, 1972. V-27. p.478
11 Sri Aurobindo. Op. cit. V-24. p.1233.
12 Sri Aurobindo to Dilip. Pune; Hari Krishna Mandir Trust.Vol-2 pp.111-116

Continued In Part Eight

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