The Bhagavad Gita and Integral Yoga
“Sri Aurobindo considers the message of the Gita to be the basis of the great spiritual movement which has led and will lead humanity more and more to its liberation, that is to say, to its escape from falsehood and ignorance, towards the truth.”
The Mother
29th June 1960
The Gita informs us that the all-pervading Brahman, Vasudeva is endless in His self-extension in the universe, nastyonto vistarasya me, and the highest power of Supreme manifestation is only a very partial revelation of the Infinite, an infinitesimal portion of His Spirit; even the whole universe is preoccupied by only one degree of His greatness, illumined by one ray of His splendour and it will still remain the perennial Source of ‘birth of all that shall come into the being.’
The Gita lays maximum stress on the development of highest goal of the Supra-cosmic faculties, which will preoccupy man with his real business of becoming God, Brahmabhutah; secondly it stresses on His universal Consciousness in which all moves and acts and through this He extends His faculty of universal Divine action, sarvabhuta-hite ratah; thirdly, it emphasizes on the acceptance of Godhead as the divine inhabitant in the human body, manusim tanumasritam; and fourthly, it insists on the manifestation of Divine Nature, madbhava, in all things through intervention of four fold Soul force, chaturvarnyam maya sristam, four-fold Divine Shaktis, chatvaro manovastatha, sevenfold Integral Knowledge, maharsaya saptapurbe, and thus the final object of this Yoga is then a self-completing union of Soul with the Purushottama through the formula ‘thou shalt first see all existences without exception in the Self, then in Me,’ atmani atho mayi, and of suffusion of Purushottama Consciousness into the manifested Divine nature, prakritim mamikam, svam prakritim, para prakriti.
An earth-bound Soul moves the consciousness (first phase) between three modes of nature that of tamas, principle of inertia, rajas, principle of desire and action and sattwa, principle of limited knowledge, harmony and happiness. A seeker of Spiritual life, jijnasu, has to (second phase) increase his sattwic Nature by practice of self-control. Sattwic Nature is identified as passage to higher Spiritual life beyond the gunas. When the Psychic being in the heart experiences partial opening or Spiritual being above the head experiences partial opening through partial Divine union, the Consciousness (third phase) undulates between three gunas and trigunatita state beyond the modes of Nature. Then in the fourth phase of sadhana of Spiritual man the consciousness moves ceaselessly between waking trance of Psychic being/Kshara Purusha and non-waking Samadhi state of Spiritual being/Akshara Purusha. After long movement in these planes, in the fifth phase of Sadhana, the gulf between them is bridged and the concentration power multiplies; in the last phase, the Consciousness moves between Supramental/Bliss Self and Subconscient/Inconscient Self. The ceaseless movement of Consciousness from highest plane to the lowest plane is the normal state of an integral Yogi and the beginning of his large universal action.
OM TAT SAT