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Integral Jnana Yoga

             The Path of Knowledge aims at the realisation of the unique and supreme Self. It proceeds by the method of intellectual reflection, vicara, to right discrimination, viveka. It observes and distinguishes the different elements of our apparent or phenomenal being and rejecting identification with each of them arrives at their exclusion and separation in one common term as constituents of Prakriti, of phenomenal Nature, creations of Maya, the phenomenal consciousness. So it is able to arrive at its right identification with the pure and unique Self which is not mutable or perishable, not determinable by any phenomenon or combination of phenomena. From this point the path, as ordinarily followed, leads to the rejection of the phenomenal worlds from the consciousness as an illusion and the final immergence without return of the individual soul in the Supreme... But this exclusive consummation is not the sole or inevitable result of the Path of Knowledge. For, followed more largely and with a less individual aim, the method of Knowledge may lead to an active conquest of the cosmic existence for the Divine no less than to a transcendence. The point of this departure is the realisation of the supreme Self not only in one’s own being but in all beings and, finally, the realisation of even the phenomenal aspects of the world as a play of the divine consciousness and not something entirely alien to its true nature. And on the basis of this realisation a yet further enlargement is possible, the conversion of all forms of knowledge, however mundane, into activities of the divine consciousness utilisable for the perception of the one and unique Object of knowledge both in itself and through the play of its forms and symbols. Such a method might well lead to the elevation of the whole range of human intellect and perception to the divine level, to its spiritualisation and to the justification of the cosmic travail of knowledge in humanity.

Sri Aurobindo
CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-38-39

 

 

 

The Injunction issued to the Seekers of integral Jnana Yoga:
           “The knowledge comes from above like the light and peace and everything else. As the consciousness progresses, it comes from a higher and higher level. First it is the higher or illumined mind that predominates, then the intuition, next the overmind, lastly the supermind; but the whole consciousness has to be sufficiently transformed before the supramental knowledge can begin to come.”²⁸
Sri Aurobindo
 
 
Psychic Knowledge:                                  
“An inspired Knowledge sat enthroned within
Whose seconds illumined more than reason’s years:” Savitri-37
“A wide God-knowledge poured down from above,
A new world-knowledge broadened from within:
His daily thoughts looked up to the True and One,
His commonest doings welled from an inner Light.” Savitri-44
“In moments when the inner lamps are lit
And the life’s cherished guests are left outside,
 Our spirit sits alone and speaks to its gulfs.
A wider consciousness opens then its doors;
Invading from spiritual silences
A ray of the timeless Glory stoops awhile
To commune with our seized illumined clay
And leaves its huge white stamp upon our lives.” Savitri-47-48
“An inmost self looked up to a heavenlier height,
An inmost thought kindled a hidden flame
And the inner sight adored an unseen sun.” Savitri-351
“All this she saw and inly felt and knew
Not by some thought of mind but by the self.
A light not born of sun or moon or fire,
A light that dwelt within and saw within
Shedding an intimate visibility
Made secrecy more revealing than the word:” Savitri-525
“As knowledge grows Light flames up from within:” Savitri-626
“The soul that into the world-adventure came,
A scout and voyager from Eternity?” Savitri-717
Spiritual Knowledge:
“As so he grew into his larger self,
Humanity framed his movements less and less;
A greater being saw a greater world.
A fearless will for knowledge dared to erase
The lines of safety Reason draws that bar
Mind’s soar, soul’s dive into the Infinite.” Savitri-26
“His being lay down in bright immobile peace
And bathed in wells of pure spiritual light;
It wandered in wide fields of wisdom-self
Lit by the rays of an everlasting sun.” Savitri-43
“Even now great thoughts are here that walk alone:
Armed they have come with the infallible word
In an investiture of intuitive light
That is a sanction from the eyes of God;
Announcers of a distant Truth they flame
Arriving from the rim of eternity.” Savitri-258
“The labour to know seemed a vain strife of Mind;
All knowledge ended in the Unknowable:” Savitri-305
“At hide-and-seek on a Mother-Wisdom’s breast,
An artist teeming with her world-idea,
She never could exhaust its numberless thoughts
And vast adventure into thinking shapes
And trial and lure of a new living’s dreams.” Savitri-328
“A lightning from the heights that think and plan,” Savitri-336
“Assent to thy high self, create, endure.
Cease not from knowledge, let thy toil be vast.” Savitri-340
“Holding her forehead’s candid stainless space
Behind the student arch a noble power
Of wisdom looked from light on transient things.” Savitri-357-58
“Cast from thee sense that veils thy spirit’s sight:
In the enormous emptiness of thy mind
Thou shalt see the Eternal’s body in the world,
Know him in every voice heard by thy soul,
In the world’s contacts meet his single touch;
All things shall fold thee into his embrace.” Savitri-476
“All knowledge failed and the Idea’s forms
And Wisdom screened in awe her lowly head
Feeling a Truth too great for thought or speech,
Formless, ineffable, for ever the same.” Savitri-522
“The immortal’s thoughts displaced our bounded view,
The immortal’s thoughts earth’s drab idea and sense;
All things now bore a deeper heavenlier sense.
A glad clear harmony marked their truth’s outline,
Reset the balance and measures of the world.” Savitri-529
“Consent to be nothing and none, dissolve Time’s work,
Cast off thy mind, step back from form and name.
Annul thyself that only God may be.” Savitri-538
“Thoughts leaped down from a superconscient field
 Like eagles swooping from a viewless peak,
Thoughts gleamed up from the screened subliminal depths
Like golden fishes from a hidden sea.” Savitri-541
“Only sometimes small thoughts arose and fell
Like quiet waves upon a silent sea
Or ripples passing over a lonely pool
When a stray stone disturbs its dreaming rest.
Yet the mind’s factory had ceased to work,
There was no sound of the dynamo’s throb,
There came no call from the still fields of life.” Savitri-543
“This seeing was identical with the seen;
It knew without knowledge all that could be known,
It saw impartially the world go by,
But in the same supine unmoving glance
Saw too its abysmal unreality.” Savitri-546
“Something unknown, unreached, inscrutable
Sent down the messages of its bodiless Light,
Cast lightning flashes of a thought not ours
Crossing the immobile silence of her mind:
In its might of irresponsible sovereignty
It seized on speech to give those flamings shape,
Made beat the heart of wisdom in a word
And spoke immortal things through mortal lips.” Savitri-553
“The voice of life is tuned to infinite sounds,
The moments on great wings of lightning come
And godlike thoughts surprise the mind of earth.” Savitri-571-72
Supramental Knowledge:
“Or a revealing Force sweeps blazing in;
Out of some vast superior continent
Knowledge breaks through trailing its radiant seas,
And Nature trembles with the power, the flame.” Savitri-47
“A reconciling wisdom looked on life;
It took the striving undertones of mind
And took the confused refrain of human hopes
And made of them a sweet and happy call;
It lifted from an underground of pain
The inarticulate murmur of our lives
And found for it a sense illimitable.” Savitri-90
“Out of the ineffable hush it hears them come
Trembling with the beauty of a wordless speech,
And thoughts too great and deep to find a voice,
Thoughts whose desire new-makes the universe.” Savitri-236
“But thought nor word can seize eternal Truth:
The whole world lives in a lonely ray of her sun.” Savitri-276
“Awakened by the touch of the Unseen,
Deserting the boundary of things achieved,
Aspired the strong discoverer, tireless Thought,
Revealing at each step a luminous world.” Savitri-277
“Of wisdom looked from light on transient things.
A scout of victory in a vigil tower,
Her aspiration called high destiny down;
A silent warrior paced in her city of strength
Inviolate, guarding Truth’s diamond throne.” Savitri-358
“The knowledge of the thinker and the seer
Saw the unseen and thought the unthinkable,
Opened the enormous doors of the unknown,
Rent man’s horizons into infinity.” Savitri-359
“I sat with the forest sages in their trance:
There poured awakening streams of diamond light,
I glimpsed the presence of the One in all.” Savitri-405
“Our greater self of knowledge waits for us,
A supreme light in the truth-conscious Vast:
It sees from summits beyond thinking mind,
It moves in a splendid air transcending life.
It shall descend and make earth’s life divine.” Savitri-484
“A voice comes down from mystic unseen peaks:
A cry of splendour from a mouth of storm,
It is the voice that speaks to night’s profound,
 It is the thunder and the flaming call.” Savitri-627
“He (Supermind) is the Wisdom that comes not by thought,
His wordless silence brings the immortal word.” Savitri-681
“For knowledge shall pour down in radiant streams
And even darkened mind quiver with new life
And kindle and burn with the Ideal’s fire
And turn to escape from mortal ignorance.” Savitri-710
 
            Integral Yoga of Knowledge is the extensive extension of the Gita’s teaching of traditional Sankhya and Vedanta. Through this Yoga the higher Nature of Sachchidananda and the lower nature of mind, life and body are reconciled to such extent that the Matter becomes the manifesting field of the Light, Force and Joy of Sachchidananda; life becomes all-blissful conscious force of Sachchidananda; sensational mind and emotional mind become play field of Divine Love and universal Delight and intellect transforms into Divine Knowledge-Will.
1)        All Life is Yoga of Nature through Knowledge, which is something self-existent, everlasting and infinite. All life includes a higher, truly conscious existence which our half-conscious humanity does not yet possess and can only arrive at by a self-exceeding spiritual ascension. All life is extended towards the pursuit of this knowledge in three stages. Firstly, the ‘endless difficulties that arise from the environing world are dismissed by erecting firmly against them a defence of outer physical and inner spiritual solitude; safe behind a wall of inner silence, he remains impassive and untouched by the discords of world and others.’³ The Sadhak of the integral Knowledge must be absolutely free from attachment to action and equally free from attachment to inaction and must be capable of pursuing ceaseless action. Any ‘tendency to mere inertia of mind or vitality or body must be surmounted, and if that habit is found growing on the nature, the will of the Purusha must be used to dismiss it.’³⁵ Secondly, the difficulty of realisation of the divine life with human living, of being in God and yet living in man is the very difficulty that he is set here to solve and not to shun. If there is an opposition between the Spiritual life and that of the world, it is that gulf which he is here to bridge, that opposition which he is here to change into a harmony. The example of great Avataras is there to show that not only by rejecting the life of the world as it is can help, but also and more by accepting and uplifting it. Thirdly, all knowledge is ultimately the knowledge of the One, through himself, through Nature, through her works. Mankind has first to seek the knowledge through the external life; for until its mentality, buddhi, is sufficiently purified and developed, Spiritual knowledge is not really possible, and in proportion as it is developed, the possibilities of Spiritual knowledge become richer and fuller. 
 
2)        Sarvam karmakhilam Partha jnane parisamapyate, (The Gita-4.33) Knowledge is that in which all action culminates, O Arjuna! Due to the defect in work, sacrifice through knowledge is considered greater than sacrifice through action. And Bhakti is recognised as the highest sacrifice of Yoga. Integral Yoga accepts this hierarchy of traditional Yoga and further defines Divine Will as the foundation and is fit to occupy the Driver’s seat, whereas Divine Knowledge and Love are its willing subordinates. From this, we understand Karma Yoga is the greatest Yoga, the starting point and foundation of all Yoga; Bhakti Yoga is considered as ‘the crown of Works and flowering of Knowledge.’³⁶  
 
3)        Traditional Jnana Yoga leads to the rejection of phenomenal worlds from consciousness as an illusion and the final immergence without return of the individual soul in the Supreme Self. The point of departure of Integral Jnana Yoga from the traditional path of knowledge is the realisation of the supreme Self not only in one’s own being but in all beings and, finally, the realisation of even the phenomenal aspects of the world as a play of the Divine consciousness and not something entirely alien to its true nature. The unique object of Integral Jnana Yoga is that it seeks the truth of existence in its completeness and converts all forms of mundane knowledge into activities of the Divine Consciousness utilised for both in itself and through the play of its forms and symbols.
 
4)            “The criterion is within, as the Gita insists. It is to have the soul free from craving and attachment, but free from the attachment to inaction as well as from the egoistic impulse to action, free from attachment to the forms of virtue as well as from the attraction to sin. It is to be rid of “I-ness” and “my- ness” so as to live in the one Self and act in the one Self; to reject the egoism of refusing to work through the individual centre of the universal Being as well as the egoism of serving the individual mind and life and body to the exclusion of others. To live in the Self is not to dwell for oneself alone in the Infinite immersed and oblivious of all things in that ocean of impersonal self-delight; but it is to live as the Self and in the Self equal in this embodiment and all embodiments and beyond all embodiments. This is the integral knowledge.”²³ “The seeker of the integral knowledge will not stop either at half-way and attractive or high-pinnacled and exclusive end. He will not limit himself within any religious creed and philosophical dogma. He must soar to the utmost height, circle and spread to the most all-embracing wideness, free to admit and combine all the soul’s highest and greatest and fullest and most numerous experiences. If the highest height of Spiritual experience, the sheer summit of all realisation is the absolute union of the Soul with the Transcendent who exceeds the individual and the universe, the widest scope of that union is the discovery of that very Transcendent as the source, support, continent, informing and constituent spirit and substance of both these manifesting powers of the divine Essence and the divine Nature.”¹⁵ “We must be prepared to leave behind on the path not only that which we stigmatise as evil, but that which seems to us to be good, yet is not the one good. There are things which were beneficial, helpful, which seemed perhaps at one time the one thing desirable, and yet once their work is done, once they are attained, they become obstacles and even hostile forces when we are called to advance beyond them. There are desirable states of the soul which it is dangerous to rest in after they have been mastered, because then we do not march on to the wider kingdoms of God beyond. Even divine realisations must not be clung to, if they are not the divine realisation in its utter essentiality and completeness. We must rest at nothing less than the All, nothing short of the utter transcendence.”²⁰
 
5)        The method of Integral Knowledge is initiated through the mind’s method of abstraction, which is the most effective means of enlightening the ignorance by the practice of gathering and reflection, sravana, meditation and fixed contemplation, manana, absorbed dwelling of mind in its object, nidhidhyasa. The whole preparatory method of Yoga is psychological and it does not exclude the forms of lower knowledge, so that the outward-going sensuous, pragmatic preoccupation of the lower knowledge with phenomena and forms is replaced by the one Divine preoccupation. ‘Contemplation of God in Nature, contemplation and service of God in man and in the life of man and of the world in its past, present and future, are equally elements of which the Yoga of knowledge can make use to complete the realisation of God in all things.’¹⁷ ‘The highest truth, the integral self-knowledge is not to be gained by this self-blinded leap into the Absolute but by a patient transit beyond the mind into the Truth-consciousness where the Infinite can be known, felt, seen, experienced in all the fullness of its unending riches.’¹⁸ ‘The status of knowledge, is a “realisation”, in the full sense of the word;... it consists of three successive movements, (1) internal Vision, (2) complete internal Experience and (3) Identity.’¹⁹
 
6)        Our mind gives a false report, an imperfect construction, an attenuated and erroneous figure in its relation with the Existence until they are enlightened by the faculty of higher Spiritual, Supramental and supra-sensuous Knowledge. The Supreme has the right relation with our individual being and with the universe and it transcends both the Soul and the Universe. The object of a Yoga of Spiritual knowledge is this eternal Reality, this Self, this Brahman, this Transcendent, this All that dwells over all and in all and is manifest and yet concealed in the individual and disguised in the universe. Ordinary objects, the external appearances of life and matter, the psychology of our thoughts and actions, the perceptions of forces of the apparent world are part of this knowledge and are the part of the manifestation of the One. Intellectual analysis can only lead to a clear conception, intellectual deliberations and right discriminations are meant to remove the difficulty of the path; all concentration, purification of understanding, psychological self-knowledge, all seeking by the heart through love, by the senses through beauty, by the will through power and works and by the Soul through peace and joy are only keys, avenues, first approaches and beginnings of the ascent which we have to use and to follow till the wide and infinite levels are attained and the Divine doors swing open into the infinite Light.
 
7)        The comprehensive Yoga of Knowledge includes all the mass of graded experience existing behind the closed doors to which the consciousness of a seeker may find. It need not confine to the seeking after the Absolute alone but the hidden truth of material world and occult powers of great natural forces through the cultivation of Science and higher Spiritual planes and worlds and possibilities of our being through Yoga which are aimed at and cultivated by great Religions. The consciousness of the Absolute is the highest reach of the Yoga of Knowledge and the first, foremost, greatest and ardent object is the possession of this highest Divine and to neglect it for any inferior knowledge is to afflict our Yoga, Life and Evolution with inferiority and fall away from its true characteristic object. So, the integral Yoga of Knowledge takes account of all things, unifies their diverse truth and embraces all the Divine in its relations with ourselves and the world on the different planes of Existence.
 
8)        The first object of integral Yoga of Knowledge¹³ is realisation of pure Self, pure Existence, jyotirmaya Brahman, above the terms of mind, life and body which is achieved after long persistent concentration or by other means the veil of mind is rent or swept aside. In this experience, Self is realised as present, real and concrete to physical sensation. After this realisation whatever darkness and fading of the light may afflict the Soul, the experience is inevitably renewed and must become frequent and constant depending on our sincere effort and persistence. The first result of the aim of Jnana Yoga¹⁶ is an absolute quietude; for unless the old action of Nature in us be entirely quieted, it is difficult if not impossible to find either any true soul-status or any divine activity. Our first object on the path of knowledge is rather the liberation that comes by detachment from the desire-mind and by the renunciation of its passions. Therefore, to get back to this eternal fact of complete Oneness is our essential act of self-knowledge and whole aim of our Yoga of knowledge; to live in it must be the effective principle of our inner possession of our being and of our right and ideal relations with the world. For integral self-possession, we must be one not only with the Self, with God, but with all existences; this realisation of oneness of Sachchidananda in himself and this practice of oneness in difference or oneness in all His manifestation is the whole basis of Yoga. The second object of integral Yoga of Knowledge¹⁴ is that we begin to realise that the first Spiritual experience is not sufficient and we must realise the Self or Brahman in its essential mode of triune reality of static Sachchidananda. Thus, Existence, Consciousness and Delight are experienced as silent, passive, quietistic, self-absorbed, self-sufficient, impersonal, without play of qualities and turned away from the universe with indifference and without participation. The third object of integral Yoga of Knowledge¹⁴ is the realisation of dynamic Sachchidananda which is sovereign, free, lord of things, acting out of an inalienable calm, pouring itself out in infinite action, infinite quality acting out of integral self-concentration, all possible play of personality of the one Person, possession of the infinite phenomenon of the universe, without attachment, without aloofness and without indifference. Thus, the Divine Manifestation takes place with Freedom, Divine Mastery and luminous Self-delight without any bondage. The fourth object of integral Yoga of Knowledge¹⁴ is the holding together of the static and dynamic aspects of the Sachchidananda in a Transcendent Consciousness which is not the personal God of the Religions or the qualified Brahman of the philosophers, but that in which personal and impersonal, quality and non-quality are reconciled. The fifth aim of integral Yoga of Knowledge¹² is to possess the Divine and be possessed by the Divine either through movement of Consciousness or through identification or through reflection of the Divine Reality. This possession of the Divine in himself is extended to the Divine in the world and the Divine in all things and all beings. This possession of the Divine is to be realised either in the oneness or in the infinite diversity, in his personality and impersonality, in his purity free from qualities and in his infinite qualities, in time and beyond time, in his action and in his silence, in the finite and in the infinite in this life and in all life. The sixth aim of integral Yoga of Knowledge¹² is to put on in our surface life the Divine being and Divine nature. And since Divine is Sachchidananda, it is our responsibility to raise our being into the Divine being, our consciousness into the Divine consciousness, our energy into the Divine energy, our delight of existence into Divine delight of being. This highest consciousness is to be found on all the planes of our existence and in all our members, so that our mental, vital, and physical existence shall become full of the Divine nature. Our intelligent mentality is to become a play of the Divine knowledge-will, our mental soul-life a play of the Divine love and delight, our vitality a play of the Divine life, our physical being a new-mould of the Divine substance. The seventh aim of integral Yoga of knowledge¹² is realised by an opening of oneself to the Divine gnosis and Divine Ananda and, in its fullness, by an ascent into and a permanent dwelling in the Vijnanamaya Purusha and the Anandamaya Purusha. One earth-bound Soul lives within the binding limitation of the material plane and in normal outward-going surface experience; the Mind and Life are preoccupied only with the externality of material existence. He can raise the internal consciousness from the lower plane to the higher planes through true and right relations of Purusha with Prakriti, and subsequently Ishwara with Shakti, Brahman with Maya and Sat with Chit. Thus, the mental being ascends to the Gnostic being and the Bliss-self and assumes the Gnostic and the Bliss nature. By upliftment of this inner life, one can experience the positive transformation of the whole outward-going existence. Thus, the Material life will be dominated and possessed by the absolute Spirit with all its circumstances moulded and determined by the purity of Being, by the infinite Consciousness possessing the finite limiting consciousness of Mind, Vital and Physical, by the invasion of Divine energy, joy and bliss of the Spirit.
 
9)        Samadhi or trance is given great importance in the Yoga of traditional knowledge, because there it is the very principle of its method and its object to raise the mental consciousness into a clarity of and concentrated power by which it can become entirely aware of, lost in, and identified with true being. In integral Yoga, Yogic trance is not accepted as an aim but only a means utilised not as an escape from waking existence by cessation of life, but includes the possession of the Divine in life through waking trance.
 
10)      The limitation of traditional Jnana Yoga is that when one enters higher or highest state of Consciousness of inner Samadhi, absolute state of Turiya, either through concentration on single object, or through contemplation, meditation or through silencing of the mind either through rejection of thought-suggestion or through witness state of standing back from the mental action; one loses hold of the inward Samadhi when he is awake or ‘descend into the contacts of the world.’ This truncated possession of the perfect Consciousness may be accepted as the initial Spiritual experience of the beginners of integral Yoga but this higher/highest Consciousness must be finally called down to the waking state ‘to take possession of the lower being, to shed its light, power and bliss on our ordinary consciousness.’ “Therefore not only must the mind be able to rise in abnormal states out of itself into a higher consciousness, but its waking mentality also must be entirely spiritualised.”²⁹ Thus, Purusha can exercise its full conscious control over Prakriti. This repeated and prolonged calling down of the dynamic Divine Shakti to the nether untransformed Nature is identified as ‘not of a pilgrim following the highroad to his destination, but, to that extent at least, of a path finder hewing his way through a virgin forest’¹⁰ and there will not be merely negative quiescence of waking trance but effective dynamisation of positive transformation of Nature. Yogic trance is not the aim of integral Jnana Yoga but an important means to ‘enlarge and raise the whole seeing, living and active consciousness.’¹¹ Thus, one becomes established in waking trance in which he experiences all the four planes of Waking, Dream, Sleep and Turiya Consciousness or Divine union of multiple (ten) Selves with the respective Sheaths, koshas, in a dynamic waking state. The Divine life is possible with self-identification with all four planes and a right relation with Purusha and Prakriti is restored. Thus, through movement of the highest Consciousness to the lowest Matter, the Spirit’s Face is revealed.
OM TAT SAT

References:

1: CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-109,
2: The Gita-4.10, 4.19, 20, 21, 22,
3: The Gita-4.33, 34, 35,
4: The Gita-4.36, 37, 38, 39,
5: The Gita-5.16, 17, 18, 19, 20,
6: The Gita-18.49, 50, 51, 52, 53,
7: The Gita-18.57,
8: The Gita-7.30,
9: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-323-325,
10: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-56-57,
11: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-519,
12: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-511-12,
13: “It is only when after long and persistent concentration or by other means the veil of the mind is rent or swept aside, only when a flood of light breaks over the awakened mentality, jyotirmaya brahman, and conception gives place to a knowledge-vision in which the Self is as present, real, concrete as a physical object to the physical eye, that we possess in knowledge; for we have seen. After that revelation, whatever fadings of the light, whatever periods of darkness may afflict the soul, it can never irretrievably lose what it has once held. The experience is inevitably renewed and must become more frequent till it is constant; when and how soon depends on the devotion and persistence with which we insist on the path and besiege by our will or our love the hidden Deity.” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-305,
14: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-390,
15: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-361,
16: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-420,
17: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-517,
18: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-296
19: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-296,
20: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-334,
21: The Mother’s Centenary Works (second edition)/10/p-15,
22: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-103, “You will find that the Gita speaks of this rejection of all mental thought as one of the methods of Yoga and even the method it seems to prefer. This may be called the dhyana of liberation, as it frees the mind from slavery to the mechanical process of thinking and allows it to think or not think as it pleases and when it pleases, or to choose its own thoughts or else to go beyond thought to the pure perception of Truth called in our philosophy Vijnana.” CWSA-36/Autobiographical Notes/p-294
23: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-332-33,
24: CWSA/24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-631,
25: “Nothing is wholly dead that once had lived;
In dim tunnels of the world’s being and in ours
 The old rejected nature still survives;
The corpses of its slain thoughts raise their heads
And visit mind’s nocturnal walks in sleep,
Its stifled impulses breathe and move and rise;
All keeps a phantom immortality.” Savitri-483-84
“So a whole slice of my life came back, but it didn’t stop there! It keeps extending back further and further, and memories keep on coming, things that go back sixty years now, even beyond, seventy, seventy-five years – they are  all coming back. And so it all has to be put in order.” The Mother’s Agenda/November 5/1960
26: CWSA/22/The Life Divine/p-1054,
27: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-303,
28: CWSA-30/Letters on Yoga-III/p-461,
29: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga-396,
30: TMCW-8/The Questions and Answers-1956/p-299-300,
31: Sri Aurobindo/CWSA-/23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-230,
32: CWSA/23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-59-60,
33: “It is only in the parts where the little ego is usually too strong for us, it is only in our emotional or physical joy and suffering, our pleasure and pain of life, before which the desire-soul in us is utterly weak and cowardly, that the application of the divine principle becomes supreme difficult and seems to many impossible or even monstrous and repellent. Here the ignorance of ego shrinks from the principle of impersonality which it yet applies without too much difficulty in Science, in Art and even in a certain kind of imperfect spiritual living because there the rule of impersonality does not attack those desire cherished by the surface soul and those values of desire fixed by the surface mind in which our outward life is most vitally interested. In the freer and higher movements there is demanded of us only a limited and specialized equality and impersonality proper to a particular field of consciousness and activity while the egoistic basis of our practical life remains to us; in the lower movements the whole foundation of our life has to be changed in order to make room for impersonality, and this the desire soul finds impossible.” CWSA-21/The Life Divine/p-237-38,
34: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-77,
35: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-348,
36: CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-551

 

            “The ordinary man who wishes to reach God through knowledge, must undergo an elaborate training. He must begin by becoming absolutely pure, he must cleanse thoroughly his body, his heart and his intellect, he must get himself a new heart and be born again; for only the twice born can understand or teach the Vedas. When he has done  this he needs yet four things before he can succeed, (1) the Sruti or recorded revelation, (2) the Sacred Teacher, (3) the practice of Yoga and   (4) the Grace of God.”

Sri Aurobindo

CWSA-18/Kena and other Upanishads/p-169

            “In the Vijnana the right relation and action of Purusha and Prakriti are found, because there they become unified and the Divine is no longer veiled in Maya. All is his action. The Jiva no longer says “I think, I act, I desire, I feel”; he does not even say like the sadhaka striving after unity but before he has reached it, “As appointed by Thee seated in my heart, I act.” For the heart, the centre of the mental consciousness is no longer the centre of origination but only a blissful channel. He is rather aware of the Divine seated above, lord of all, adhisthita, as well as acting within him. And seated himself in that higher being, parardhe, (Katha Upanishad-1.3.1)  paramasyam  paravati,  (the highest summit) he  can  say  truly  and  boldly, “God himself by his Prakriti knows, acts, loves, takes delight through my individuality and its figures and fulfils there in its higher and divine measures the multiple lıla which the Infinite for ever plays in the universality which is himself for ever.”"

Sri Aurobindo

CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-496-497

            "I can see I am still (and God knows how long it will last!) in that transitional period Sri Aurobindo describes in "The Yoga of Self-Perfection." A period when the true thing is getting established but the tail of the old thing trails behind, mixes in and colors things. Well, it's an old habit, and it takes SUCH a long time to go away... The habit of not understanding something unless it can be mentally explained is disastrous, for instance. This feeling we have that we don't understand something unless we can explain it  – that's really disastrous. That half-hour's experience was something absolute, you see, not for one second was there any concern to know what was going on (naturally!); it was absolute. And only when the time was up and I had to come out of it did I start wondering, "What happened? What does it mean?" It wasn't even that pronounced. It's simply an old habit, what we call "understanding." A bad habit... To live THAT spontaneously, all the time – how wonderful it would be! (silence)... And the Power! The Power was tremendous. And I could see in detail everything it was doing, but in another way. I can say it was a certainty (I knew exactly what it was doing), but I couldn't have described it with the words we use here."

The Mother

The Mother's Agenda/November 27, 1962

 

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