Integral Bhakti Yoga
 

The Injunction issued to the Seekers of integral Yoga of Devotion:

                                   

“Wherever love and light and largeness lack,

These crooked fashioners take up their task.” Savitri-153

“Wrong could not come where all was light and love.” Savitri-314

“In the kingdom of the lotus of the heart

Love chanting its pure hymeneal hymn

Made life and body mirrors of sacred joy

And all the emotions gave themselves to God.” Savitri-529

“Love’s golden wings have power to fan thy void:

The eyes of love gaze starlike through death’s night,

The feet of love tread naked hardest worlds.

He labours in the depths, exults on the heights;

He shall remake thy universe, O Death.” Savitri-592

“One who came love and lover and beloved

Eternal, built himself a wondrous field

And wove the measures of a marvellous dance.” Savitri-613

“Disguised the Lover seeks and draws our souls.

He named himself for me, grew Satyavan.

For we were man and woman from the first,

The twin souls born from one undying fire.” Savitri-614

“When unity is won, when strife is lost

And all is known and all is clasped by Love

Who would turn back to ignorance and pain?” Savitri-633

“If our souls could see and love and clasp God’s Truth,

Its infinite radiance would seize our hearts,

Our being in God’s image be remade

And earthly life become the life divine.” Savitri-663

 

            “Three are the words that sum up the first state of the Yoga of devotion, faith, worship, obedience.

Three are the words that sum up the second state of the Yoga of devotion, adoration, delight, self-giving.

Three are the words that sum up the supreme state of the Yoga of devotion, love, ecstasy, surrender.”⁵⁸

Sri Aurobindo

 

            The integral Bhakti Yoga is the extensive extension of the Gita’s teachings of traditional Bhakti Yoga. It points out that a developing Soul’s adoration of personal Divine will deform the catholicity of Spirituality into narrow religion.³⁶ So, as a corrective measure, a developing Soul must give more importance to Divine’s impersonal Form³⁵ than the adoration of His personal manifestation. As the Soul develops and he becomes the adult Soul, then he can adore and enter contact with the Divine’s seven-fold personal relation, which is for him more important³⁷ than the relation with the Divine’s impersonal Form. Thus, the Spiritual value of integral Yoga is secured from entry into Religion’s clutch, which makes the evolution slow and tardy.

 

1)        All Life is Yoga of Nature through Love. ‘All life turned into this cult of love, all actions done in the love of the Divine and in the love of the world and its creatures seen and felt as the Divine manifested in many disguises become by that very fact part of an integral Yoga.’²⁷ The three stages through which all life is transformed are; firstly, the Integral Bhakti Yoga turns all transient worldly normal emotional relation of human life into the joy of the All-Loving, the All-Beautiful and the All-Blissful. Worship, prayer and meditation are used only for the preparation and increase of intensity of the divine relationship. Integral Bhakti Yoga is catholic in its use of all emotional relations, so that even enmity and opposition to God, considered as an intense, impatient and perverse form of Love, is conceived as a possible means of realisation and salvation. ‘It is for this reason that the worship of god, the worship of idol, the human magnet or ideal are not to be despised; for these are steps through which the human race moves towards that blissful passion and ecstasy of the Infinite which, even in limiting it, they yet represent for our imperfect vision when we have still to use the inferior steps Nature has hewn for our feet and admit the stages of our progress. Certain idolatries are even indispensable for development of our emotional being; the man who knows be hasty at any time to shatter the images unless he can replace it in the heart of the worshipper by the Reality it figures.’²⁸ Secondly, Integral Bhakti Yoga recommends development of seven fold Divine personalities during its contact and active personal relation with the Divine as All Friend and All Master of Integral Karma Yoga, All Guru of Integral Jnana Yoga, All Father or Paramatma or Prajapati Brahma of Integral Vedantic teaching, All Mother or Para-Shakti of Integral Tantric Yoga, All Playmate and All Lover of Integral Bhakti Yoga. Thirdly, All Love, Human and Divine have Spiritual force veiled and revealed respectively. It is an adoration offered initially to limited and ignorant object and form and culminates in all-inclusive and all-embracing Integral Divine. Human love is defined as the entry into exclusive enjoyment by entire separation from World, Self and God. This love begins with the craving of the flesh and when it tries to become Divine through complete self-giving culminates with the realisation of one Soul in two bodies (Spiritual realisation) and rapturous fusing of two Souls into one body (Psychic realisation). The Divine love is defined as entry into same exclusive enjoyment without separation from World, Self and God. It begins with the realisation where human love ends and culminates with the realisation of all Souls in one body and realisation of all bodies in one Soul. The former is realised through Vedic sacrifice of adoration and consecration of all as the becoming of the Divine and the latter is realised through Vedantic sacrifice of adoration and consecration of all as the Being of the Divine. In Supramental Consciousness, the object of all emotion would be fully satisfied by embracing all contact of human relations in a purified flame force.  

 

2)        Bhaktya mamvijanati jaban jaschasmi tatwatah, (The Gita-18.55) by devotion he comes to know Me, who and how much I am in all reality and principles of My being. Bhakti is that which regards, adores, loves the Divine alone in all things, by that Bhakti He can be known, seen, and ever entered into. The Gita further confirms that of all Yogin, he who with all his inner self given up to Me, for Me has love and faith, him I hold to be the most united with Me in Yoga. Integral Bhakti is considered as the greatest power of Integral Yoga, which is the crown of Integral Karma Yoga and the flowering of the Integral Jnana Yoga.

 

3)        The traditional Bhakti Yoga leads away from world-existence to an absorption in the Transcendent and Supra-cosmic. The path of Integral Bhakti Yoga aims at the enjoyment of the supreme Love and Bliss and utilises normally the conception of the supreme Lord in His personality as the divine Lover and enjoyer of the universe. The world is then realised as a play of the Lord, with our human life as its final stage, pursued through the different phases of self-concealment and self-revelation. This larger application of Yoga of Devotion may be so used as to lead to the elevation of the whole range of human emotion, sensation and aesthetic perception to the Divine level, its Spiritualisation and the justification of the cosmic labour towards love and joy in our humanity. As in the other Yogas, so in integral Yoga, one comes to see the Divine everywhere and in all and to pour out the realisation of the Divine in all one’s inner activities and outward actions. But all is supported by the primary force of emotional union: for it is by love that the entire self-consecration and the entire possession is accomplished, and thought and action become shapes and figures of the divine love which possesses the Spirit and its members.

 

4)        So, the method with which Bhakti Yoga can begin is simple and straight which is always a seeking after the Divine, a longing after some kind of touch, closeness or possession. When this comes on us, the adoration becomes always primarily an inner worship; we begin to make ourselves a temple of the Divine, our thoughts and feelings a constant prayer of aspiration and a seeking, our whole life an external service and inner worship. It is with this change, this new soul tendency grows, ‘that the religion of the devotee becomes Yoga, a growing contact and union. It does not follow that out ward worship will necessarily be dispensed with, but it will increasingly become only a physical expression or outflowing of the inner devotion and adoration, the wave of the Soul throwing itself out in speech and symbolic act.’⁴² ‘Therefore that there may be at all any possibility of a Yoga of devotion, we must assume first (first method of Yoga of Integral Bhakti) that the supreme Existence is not an abstraction or a state of existence, but a conscious Being; secondly, that he meets us in the universe and is in some way immanent in it as well as its source,--otherwise, we should have to go out of cosmic life to meet him; thirdly, he is capable of personal relations with us and must therefore be not incapable of personality; finally, that when we approach him by our human emotions, we receive a response in kind.’²⁹ ‘The more intimate yoga of Bhakti resolves itself simply into these four movements, (first) the desire of the Soul when it turns towards God and the straining of its emotion towards him, (second) the pain of love and the divine return of love, (third) the delight of love possessed and the play of that delight, (fourth) and the eternal enjoyment of the divine Lover which is the heart of celestial bliss.’³⁰ ‘There are supposed by those who systematise to be three stages of seeking through the devotion of the mind, first, the constant hearing of the Divine name, qualities and all that has been attached to them, secondly, the constant thinking on them or on the divine being or personality, thirdly, the settling and fixing of the mind on the object; and by this comes the full realisation.’³¹

 

5)        ‘The way of the integral Yoga of Bhakti will be to universalise this conception of the Deity, to personalise him intimately by a multiple and an all-embracing relation, to make Him constantly present to all the being and to devote, give up, surrender the whole being to Him, so that He shall dwell near to us and in us and we with Him and in Him. Manana and darsana, a constant thinking of Him in all things and seeing of Him always and everywhere is essential to this way of devotion.’³² ‘On the contrary, the sadhaka of the integral Yoga will not be satisfied until he has included all other names and forms of Deity in his own conception, seen his own Ishta Devata in all others, unified all Avatars in the unity of Him who descends in the Avatara, welded the truth in all teachings into the harmony of the Eternal Wisdom.’²⁶ ‘We may keep even our relation with the personal Deity in His forms and names; if for instance, our work is predominantly a work of Love it is as the Lord of Love that we can seek to serve and express Him, but we shall have at the same time an integral realisation of Him in all His names and forms and qualities and not mistake the front of Him which is prominent in our attitude to the world for all the infinite Godhead.’³³

OM TAT SAT​

References:

1: CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita-375,

2: “Among the virtuous ones who turn towards Me (the Divine) with devotion, O Arjuna, there are four kinds of bhaktas, the suffering, the seeker for good in the world, the seeker for knowledge, and those who adore Me with knowledge, O Lord of the Bharatas. Of those the knower, who is ever in constant union with the Divine, whose bhakti is all concentrated on Him, is the best, he loves Me perfectly and is My beloved.” The Gita-7.16, 17, “The Gita distinguishes between three initial kinds of Bhakti, that which seeks refuge in the Divine from the sorrows of the world, arta, that which, desiring, approaches the Divine as the giver of its good, artharthı, and that which attracted by what it already loves, but does not yet know, yearns to know this divine Unknown, jijnasu; but it gives the palm to the Bhakti that knows. Evidently the intensity of passion which says, “I do not understand, I love,” and, loving, cares not to understand, is not love’s last self-expression, but its first, nor is it its highest intensity.” CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-550,

3: The Gita-2.4,

4: The Gita-2.45,

5: The Gita-7.20,

6: The Gita-7.20 to 7.25,

7: “Even those who sacrifice to other godheads with devotion and faith, they also sacrifice to Me, O son of Kunti, though not according to the true law, avidhipurbakam.” The Gita-9.23, “Men are led away by various outer desires which take from them the working of the inner knowledge, they resort to other godheads and they set up this or that rule, which satisfies the need of their nature.” The Gita-7.20, “The sacrifice not performed according to the right rule of the Shastra, vidhi-hina, without giving of food, without the mantra, without gifts, empty of faith, is said to be tamasic.” The Gita-17.13,

8: The Gita-4.34,

9: The Gita-13.8,

10: The Gita-17.24,

11: The Gita-8.13,

12: The Gita-17.14,

13: “For the seeker of the integral Yoga… will meet him (the Divine) in the faces of the Gods, his cosmic personalities supporting the World-Play, detect him behind the mask of the Vibhutis, embodied World-Forces or human Leaders, reverence and obey him in the Guru, worship him in the Avatar.” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-130,

14: “When I knew nothing, then I abhorred the criminal, sinful and impure, being myself full of crime, sin and impurity; but when I was cleansed and my eyes unsealed, then I bowed down in my spirit before the thief and murderer and adored the feet of the harlot; for I saw that these souls had accepted the terrible burden of evil and drained for all of us the greater portion of the churned poison of the world-ocean.” Sir Aurobindo, SABCL/17/The Hour of God-94-95. This statement of Sri Aurobindo is a restatement from the following words of the Gita and Essays on the Gita, “Those who take refuge in Me, O Partha, be they out-castes, born from the womb of sin (even a man of very evil conduct, The Gita-9.30), women, Vaisysas, even Shudras, they also attain to the highest Goal.” The Gita-9.32. “A divine compassion for the ignorance of the struggling mind, a divine will to pour forth on it all light and power and happiness there will be, indeed, for the apparent man; but for the divine Soul within him there will be more, there will be adoration and love. For from all, from the thief and the harlot and the outcaste as from the saint and the sage, the Beloved looks forth and cries to us, “This is I.” “He who loves Me in all beings,” — what greater word of power for the utmost intensities and profundities of divine and universal love, has been uttered by any philosophy or any religion?” CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-208. “If Narayana is without difficulty visible in the sage and the saint, how shall he be easily visible to us in the sinner, the criminal, the harlot and the outcaste?” CWSA/19/Essays on the Gita-359, (Thus equal adoration of all, is the condition of becoming the greatest Yogi.)

15: CWSA/22/The Life Divine/1022,

16: The Gita-8.7,

17: The Gita-17.4,

18: The Gita-9.29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34,

19: The Gita-11.48, 53, 54,

20: The Gita-8.28,

21: The Gita-14.26,

22: The Gita-18.54, 55,

23: The Gita-4.11, 7.21, 22, 23,

24: The Gita-6.32,

25: “Outwardly also, the nation or community or race which shrinks too long from destroying and replacing its past forms of life, is itself destroyed, rots and perishes and out of its debris other nations, communities and races are formed. By destruction of the old giant occupants man made himself a place upon earth. By destruction of the Titans the gods maintain the continuity of the divine Law in the cosmos. Whoever prematurely attempts to get rid of this law of battle and destruction, strives vainly against the greater will of the World-Spirit. Whoever turns from it in the weakness of his lower members, as did Arjuna in the beginning, — therefore was his shrinking condemned as a small and false pity, an inglorious, an un-Aryan and unheavenly feebleness of heart and impotence of spirit, klaibyam, ksudram hridaya-daurbalyam, — is showing not true virtue, but a want of spiritual courage to face the sterner truths of Nature and of action and existence. Man can only exceed the law of battle by discovering the greater law of his immortality.” CSWA/19/Essays on the Gita/p-384-85,

26: “On the contrary, the sadhaka of integral Yoga will not be satisfied until he has included all other names and forms of Deity in his own conception, seen his own Ishta Devata in all others, unified all Avatars in the unity of Him who descends in the Avatar, welded the truth in all teachings into the harmony of the Eternal Wisdom.” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-66,

27: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-165,

28: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-159,

29: CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-557,

30: CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-571,

31: CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-574,

32: CWSA/24/The Synthesis of Yoga-601,

33: CWSA/23/The Synthesis of Yoga-382,

34: The Gita-3.3,

35: “The Divinity mentioned by Sri Aurobindo is NOT A PERSON, but a condition to be shared and lived by all those who prepare themselves for it.” The Mother’s Agenda-4th May-1967, “Petty minds think of Me, the unmanifest, as being limited by manifestation, because they know not my supreme nature of being, imperishable, most perfect.” The Gita-7.24,

36: “Buddhism only became a popular religion when Buddha had taken the place of the supreme Deity as an object of worship.” CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga-556, “I don’t want to put a photo of Sri Aurobindo or books (in Auroville) because it will look as if we want to start a new religion—I don’t want religions, an end to religions!” The Mother’ Agenda-9/110, “I am told that you (in Auroville) intend to distribute a reproduction of the portrait you did of me. It would be better not to introduce in this gathering anything personal that might suggest the atmosphere of nascent religion.” The Mother’s Agenda-11/353

37: “The Blessed Lord said those who are constantly most united, nityayukta, with Me and adore My manifest form, Saguna Brahman, emotional mind settled in Me and possessed of supreme faith of Bhakti Yoga, I consider them to be the greatest Yogi. And those Jnana Yogis, who seek after the Immutable, the Infinite, the Unmanifest, Nirguna Brahman, the Omnipresent, the Unthinkable, the high-seated Self, the Immobile, the Permanent, all their senses under control, equal visioned everywhere, intent on welfare of all beings, they also attain to My Purushottama state.” The Gita-12.2, 3, 4, “Discipleship to God the Teacher, sonship to God the Father, tenderness of God the Mother, clasp of the hand of the divine Friend, laughter and sport with our comrade and boy-Play-fellow, blissful servitude to God the Master, rapturous love of our divine Paramour, these are seven beatitudes of life in the human body. Canst thou unite all these in a single supreme and rainbow-hued relation? Then hast thou no need of any heaven and thou exceedest the emancipation of the Adwaitin.” SABCL/17/The Hour of God-137. (Above line indicates that seven-fold personal relation with the Divine in Supramental plane is more valuable than the realisation of impersonal Divine in Spiritual plane of the Adwaitin.)

38: The Gita-3.15,

39: ““Of those the knower, who is ever in constant union with the Divine, nitya Yukta, whose bhakti is all concentrated on Him, is the best, he loves Me perfectly and is My beloved.” The Gita-7.17, “He who continually remembers Me, thinking of none else, the Yogin, O Partha, who is in constant union with Me, finds Me easy to attain.” The Gita-8.14, “Always adoring Me, steadfast in spiritual endeavour, bowing down to Me with devotion, they worship Me ever in Yoga.” The Gita-9.14, “To those men who worship Me making Me alone the whole object of their thought, to those constantly in Yoga with Me, I spontaneously bring all types of inner and outer opulence.” The Gita-9.22, “The Lord said: Those who found their mind in Me and by constant union, possessed of a supreme faith, seek after Me, I hold to be the most perfectly in union of Yoga.” The Gita-12.2, “Let the Yogin practice continually union with the Self (so that that may become his normal consciousness) sitting apart and alone, with all desire and idea of possession banished from his mind, self-controlled in his whole being and consciousness.” The Gita-6.10, “Ultimately, nothing but omnipotence could convert the world, convince the world. The world isn't ready to experience supreme Love. Supreme Love eliminates all problems, even the problem of creation: there are no more problems, I know it since that experience [of April 13, 1962]. But the world isn't ready yet, it may take a few thousand years. Although it is beginning to be ready for the manifestation of supreme Power (which seems to indicate that this will manifest first). And this supreme Power would result from a CONSTANT identification…But this "constancy" isn't yet established: one is identified and then one isn't, is and then isn't, so things get delayed indefinitely. You wind up doing exactly what you tell others not to do – one foot here and one foot there! It just won't do.” The Mother/The Mother’s Agenda-04.07.1962,

40: “But you need not be distressed when the pramada comes and the state of fall or clouded condition seems to persist, for there is no fear for you of a permanent fall since God himself has taken entire charge of you and if you stumble, it is because it is best for you to stumble, as a child by frequent stumbling and falling learns to walk. The necessity of apramattata disappears when you can replace the memory of the yoga and its objects by the continual remembrance of God in all things and happenings, the nitya anusmaran.a of the Gita. For those who can make the full surrender from the beginning there is no question; their path is utterly swift and easy.” Sri Aurobindo/CWSA-13/Essays in Philosophy and Yoga-p-86-87, “There fore at all times remember me and fight; for if thy mind and thy understanding are always fixed on and given up to Me, to Me thou shalt surely come.” The Gita-8.7, “All the doors of the senses closed, the mind shut in into the heart, the life-force taken up out of its diffused movement into the head, the intelligence concentrated in the utterance of the sacred syllable OM and its conceptive thought in the remembrance of the supreme Godhead, he who goes forth, abandoning the body, he attains to the highest status.” The Gita-8.12, 13, “He who continually remembers Me, nitya smarati, thinking of none else, the Yogin, O Partha, who is in constant union with Me, finds Me easy to attain.” The Gita-8.14, “Repeat my name whenever you have little time to spare…” The Mother, “It is by the constant remembrance that the being is prepared for the full opening. By the opening of the heart the Mother’s presence begins to be felt and by the opening to her Power above the Force of the higher consciousness comes down into the body and works there to change the whole nature.” CWSA-32/The Mother with Letters on the Mother/p-167

41: “On peaks where Silence listens with still heart

To the rhythmic metres of the rolling worlds,

He served the sessions of the triple Fire.” Savitri-299,

42: CWSA/24/The Synthesis of Yoga-572,

43: “We see in the teaching of the Gita how subtle a thing is the freedom from egoism which is demanded. Arjuna is driven to fight by the egoism of strength, the egoism of the Kshatriya; he is turned from the battle by the contrary egoism of weakness, the shrinking, the spirit of disgust, the false pity that overcomes the mind, the nervous being and the senses, — not that divine compassion which strengthens the arm and clarifies the knowledge. But this weakness comes garbed as renunciation, as virtue: “Better the life of the beggar than to taste these blood-stained enjoyments; I desire not the rule of all the earth, no, nor the kingdom of the gods.” How foolish of the Teacher, we might say, not to confirm this mood, to lose this sublime chance of adding one more great soul to the army of Sannyasins, one more shining example before the world of a holy renunciation. But the Guide sees otherwise, the Guide who is not to be deceived by words; “This is weakness and delusion and egoism that speak in thee. Behold the Self, open thy eyes to the knowledge, purify thy soul of egoism.” And afterwards? “Fight, conquer, enjoy a wealthy kingdom.”” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga-331-332, “As a result he turns towards renunciation. Better the life of the mendicant living upon alms than this dharma of the Kshatriya, this battle and action culminating in undiscriminating massacre, this principle of mastery and glory and power which can only be won by destruction and bloodshed, this conquest of blood-stained enjoyments, this vindication of justice and right by a means which contradicts all righteousness and this affirmation of the social law by a war which destroys in its process and result all that constitutes society.” CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita-55, “Better to live in this world even on alms than to slay these high-souled Gurus. Slaying these Gurus, I should taste of blood-stained enjoyments even in this world.” The Gita-2.5,

44: “...that is the Japa I do now—I do it all the time, while sleeping, while walking, while eating, while working, all the time.’ The Mother/The Mother’s Agenda-4/131, “He who continually remembers Me, thinking of none else, the Yogin. O Partha, who is in constant union with Me, finds Me easy to attain.” The Gita-8.14,

45: The Gita-5.3,

46: The Gita-2.45,

47: “There is not an entity, either on the earth or again in heaven among the gods, that is not subject to the workings of these three qualities (Gunas), born of nature.” The Gita-18.40, (This statement is not applicable to Avataras, janma karama cha me divyam.),

48: “The psychic and the spiritual opening with their experiences and consequences can lead away from life or to a Nirvana; but they are here being considered solely as steps in a transformation of the nature.” The Life Divine-943,

49: “A dual Power at being’s occult poles

Still acted, nameless and invisible:

Her divine emptiness was their instrument.” Savitri-553

“He (Divine) dwells in me (Savitri), the mover of my acts,

Turning the great wheel of his cosmic work.

I am the living body of his light,

I am the thinking instrument of his power,

I incarnate Wisdom in an earthly breast,

I am his conquering and unslayable will.

The formless Spirit drew in me its shape;

In me are the Nameless and the secret Name.” Savitri-634,

“One man who earnestly pursues the Yoga is of more value than a thousand well-known men.” Sri Aurobindo/CWSA-35/Letters on Himself And The Ashram-691,

"Therefore, besides the great solitaries who have sought and attained their self-liberation, we have the great spiritual teachers who have also liberated others and, supreme of all, the great dynamic souls who, feeling themselves stronger in the might of the Spirit than all the forces of the material life banded together, have thrown themselves upon the world, grappled with it in a loving wrestle and striven to compel its consent to its own transfiguration." CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-27

50: CWSA-22/ The Life Divine-940-941,

51: CWSA/19/Essays on the Gita-116,

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