Handbook of The Synthesis of Yoga

           

                                                                    Editor's Note

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           "I am continuing my reading of the Veda. I had to stop for some days because of a sore throat. But anyway, I’m starting again...The Vedas, after all, were written by people who remembered a radical experience, which must have taken place on earth at a given moment, as an example of what was to come. (This always happens in the yoga: a first radical experience comes like a herald of the future realization.) So in the terrestrial yoga – in the yoga of the earth, of the planet earth – there was a moment when it came; they who are called the forefathers must have created, through their effort and their yoga, at least an image of the supramental realization. And those who wrote the Vedas, who composed all these hymns, remembered or kept the tradition of that experience. And oh, mon petit, it had the same effect on me as when I read the ‘Yoga of Self-Perfection’ in The Synthesis of Yoga (the Mother catches her breath): there is such a gulf between what we are, what life on earth and human consciousness now are, even among the most enlightened, the most advanced, and THAT! ..."

The  Mother

The Mother's Agenda/April 7, 1961

            "One day ... (I’m translating the last section of The Synthesis of Yoga, ‘The Yoga of Self-Perfection’ – it plunges you into bottomless gulfs ... ) and one day (I think I’ve told you this), I had a vision of the gap between ... not even what ought to be, because we probably haven’t the slightest idea of that, but between our concept of what we would like to be and what is. And it was so dreadful that the body was thrown into, oh ... an anguish, a horror; and along with it an intensity of aspiration, a prayer. The gap seemed so tremendous: ‘Is it possible?’....‘This body thirsts for perfection, not this human perfection which is the perfection of the ego...’ (it was so clear to me that everything human beings conceive of as perfection is simply the ego wanting to magnify itself for its own greater glory) ‘... not this human perfection which is the perfection of the ego and bars the way to the divine Perfection, but that one perfection .. (these repeated ‘perfections’ are deliberate: it’s like a litany) ... but that one perfection which has the POWER to manifest upon earth the eternal Truth.’"

The  Mother

The Mother's Agenda/December 16, 1961

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            Here, the Mother confirms that The Synthesis of Yoga is a book whose wisdom has descended from the Supramental world, and by concentrating on this book, one will be drawn towards a brief experience of that Supreme plane.

 

            This book is the principal Shastra of Integral Yoga and is the outcome of Sri Aurobindo’s concentrated Sadhana extending over four decades at Pondicherry in complete seclusion.
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            The Synthesis of Yoga is basically a book that culminates with Yoga of Self-perfection, which is activated after the synthesis of the central truth of all the traditional schools of Yoga or after one is thoroughly established in Karma, Jnana and Bhakti Yoga. Or the Yoga of Self-Perfection is regarded as the extension of three paths of Works, Knowledge and Love, and here thirty-six exclusive siddhis and forty-six sub-siddhis are concentrated, followed by all-inclusive siddhis in the Supramental plane. Thus, the transformation of Nature wide opens in Cosmic consciousness and Sri Aurobindo has foreseen that an isolated individual transformation of Nature is not practicable. As Yoga of Self-Perfection is an incomplete account of Sri Aurobindo's sadhana, so more experience in these lines are explored in The Life Divine, The Mother, Savitri,and the Mother’s Agenda.

              The highest secret, hinted in The Synthesis of Yoga, is identified as the basis of its self-exceeding. First, it declared that the synthesis is possible not by including all the methods of traditional Yoga schools but by discovering their central secrets, central faith, central dynamic process and directing them to move toward the Source, the Sachchidananda. So an evolution of the integral method is recommended in which all the faculties related with integral perfection is included. The integral method itself is a progressive and evolving method which are initially dynamised with the three Purushas, that of Psychic, Spiritual and Supramental Being and finally a more comprehensive approach of entering all the planes of Consciousness through the ten Purushas that of Inconscient, Subconscient, true Physical, true Vital, true Mental, Psychic, Higher Mental or Spiritual, Universal, Supramental and Bliss Self. The uncovering of the ten Purushas and the perfection of their encircling ten koshas, sheaths, subtle bodies are the subject of our final concern. The Synthesis of Yoga has hinted that we are surrounded with many subtle bodies but never get the opportunity to develop them elaborately. It also hinted about the absolute trance into which few can enter but all cannot return to earthly existence.  The other criteria and utility of absolute trance in Integral Yoga was vividly narrated elsewhere. It spoke elaborately about exclusive concentration to which all traditional schools of Yoga lean but developed little about Integral Concentration in which Integral Yoga must proceed and still less developed about the intermediate stairs between exclusive and Integral Concentration. Similarly, it maintains silence or hinted little about intermediate planes of Consciousness like Higher Mind, Illumined Mind and Overmind and proposes to leap from ordinary mind to Intuition and from Intuitive mind to Supermind. So the study and practice of It hinted little about seven-fold self-concentration and seven-fold integral Knowledge and also hinted little about four-fold Psychic and Spiritual Mother powers. An entry into The Synthesis of Yoga will be considered incomplete without similar study and practice of its three complementary books, The Life Divine, The Mother and Savitri in which many of the uncovered realms of Consciousness are restated, systematized, extensively developed and made available for further exploration to the human race.

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             The Yoga of Self-perfection concentrates on multiple perfections in the Overmental plane. The thirty-six siddhis are: samata, shanti, sukha, hasya, viryam, shaktih, chandibhavah, sraddha, Jnanam, trikaladristih, samadhi, vyapti, prakamya, aisvarya, isita, vasita, mahima, laghima, anima, garima, arogyam, utthapana, saundaryam, vividhanandah, krishnah, kali, kamah, karma, sarvam brahma, anantam brahmah, jnanam brahmah, anandam brahmah, suddhi, mukti, bhukti and siddhi.

           The forty-six sub-siddhis are: titiksa, udasinata, nati, rasah, pritih, anandah, jnanalipsa, jnanaprakasho, brahmovarcasyam, sthairyam, abhayam, sahasam, yasolipsa, atmaslagha, danam, vyayah, kausalam, bhogalipsa, kamah, prema, dasyalipsa, atmasamarpanam, mahattva-bodhah, balaslagha, laghuta, dharanasamarthyam, purnata, prasannata, samata, bhogasamarthya, snigdhata, tejahslagha, kalyanasraddha, premasamarthyam, visuddhata, prakasah, vichitrabodhah, jnana dharanasamarthya, saktyam, bhagavati, dristih, srutih, smritih, pratibodha, vrutte tu karmani, satyadharma.

OM TAT SAT