Sri Aurobindo's diary of his yogic practice between 1909 and 1927.
Sri Aurobindo's diary of his yogic practice between 1909 and 1927. This two-volume record of sadhana contains fairly regular entries between 1912 and 1920 and a few entries in 1909, 1911 and 1927. It also contains related materials Sri Aurobindo wrote about his practice of yoga during this period, including descriptions of the seven 'chatusthayas' (groups of four elements), which are the basis of the yoga of the 'Record'.
1. Samata is either negative or positive Negative Titiksha, Udasinata, Nati. Positive Sama rasa, Sama bhoga, Sama Ananda.
Titiksha. The power to bear steadily & calmly all sparshas without any reaction in the centre of the being, whether they are pleasant or painful. The mind or body may desire or suffer, but the observing Purusha remains unattracted and unshaken, observing only as Sakshi and as Ishwara holding the system firmly together & calmly willing the passing of the dwandwas. It does not crave for or demand the pleasure. It does not reject the pain. Even when pleasure or pain are excessive, it wills that the mind and body should not shrink from or repel them, but bear firmly. It deals in the same way with all dwandwas, hunger & thirst, heat & cold, health & disease, failure & success, honour and obloquy etc. It neither welcomes & rejoices, nor grieves & avoids. It gets rid of all jugupsa, fear, shrinking, recoil, sorrow, depression etc, ie all the means by which Nature (bhutaprakriti) warns us [against]1 & tries to protect from all that is hostile. It does not encourage them, nor does it necessarily interfere with such means as may be necessary to get rid of the adverse touches; nor does it reject physically, except as a temporary discipline, the pleasant touches; but inwardly it presents an equal front of endurance to all.
The result is udasinata or indifference.
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Udasinata—
Indifference may be of four kinds, tamasic, rajasic, sattwic & trigunatita. Tamasic indifference is associated with vairagya, disgust, disappointment, weariness of effort, unwillingness to make an effort. It is not really true udasinata, for it tries to avoid all as equally a cause of suffering, directly or indirectly; it is a generalisation of jugupsa and does not come from titiksha, but from its opposite. It is sometimes called rajasic, because although its nature is tamasic, its cause is rajasic, the disappointment of desire. Tamasic udasinata is useful to the Vairagi who wishes to get rid of the world by any means, but to the striver after perfection it is a stumbling-block. Its only use is to discourage the persistent rajoguna, and when it comes, it has to be admitted for that purpose. But it does almost as much harm as good, & so long as we cannot do without it, our progress is likely to be slow, a series of oscillations between rajasic eagerness and tamasic weariness born of disappointment, with tamasic udasinata as an occasional release from the wear & tear of these opposites. To rest finally in tamasic udasinata is fatal to perfection.
Rajasic udasinata is indifference enforced by effort, sustained by resolution, habitualised by long self-discipline. It is the indifference of the moral hero, of the stoic. This is more helpful than the tamasic, but if persisted in, has a hardening and narrowing effect on the soul which diminishes in flexibility & in capacity for delight. Rajasic udasinata if used, must always be surmounted. It is an instrument which may easily become an obstacle.
Sattwic udasinata is indifference born of knowledge. It comes with the perception of the world either as an illusion or a play and of all things as being equal in the Brahman. It is calm, luminous, free from effort, tolerant of all things, smilingly indifferent to all happenings, careful to reject rajasic & tamasic reactions. Sattwic indifference is a great help and a stage which is almost unavoidable. But it has its limitations. It stands apart from the world and is a preparation for moksha, for the withdrawal from the Lila. It is unsuitable as a final resting place for the sadhak of perfection.
Trigunatita udasinata is that which takes all things alike, making no difference between sattwic, rajasic & tamasic reactions,
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holding in soul aloof from all these movements & all the dwandwas, observing them first with an absolute impartiality & by constant refusal to participate in them getting rid of them out of the mind & the prana. It neither rejoices nor grieves at their coming & going, na sochati, na nandate. It regards all these things as the workings of Prakriti & their causes as the will of the Ishwara. This udasinata is the preparation for the third element of [samata],2 nati.
Nati.
Nati is an equal submission to the will of the Ishwara. It regards all things as that will expressing itself and refuses to grieve or revolt inwardly at anything because it is hurt in its egoistic desires, opinions, preferences etc. Its whole attitude is based on the perception of God in all things & happenings. It accepts pleasure & pain, health & disease, bad fortune & good fortune, honour & disgrace, praise & blame, action & inaction, failure & victory; but attaches itself to none of them. Nati is not a tamasic acquiescence in inaction, a subjection to failure, an indifference to life. That is tamasic udasinata. Nati is active; it accepts life & effort as part of God's will & His being, but it is prepared equally for all results. It has no longing for fruits, but works for the results pointed out to it as kartavya karma without rajasic straining or tamasic indifference.
Shanti
The fullness of negative samata is measured by the firm fixity of Shanti in the whole being. If there is an absolute calm or serenity in the heart & prana, no reactions of trouble, disturbance, yearning, grief, depression etc, then we may be sure that negative samata is complete. If there is any such disturbance, then it is a sign that there is some imperfection of titiksha, of udasinata or of nati. This imperfection may not be in the centre of the being, but only in its outer parts. There will then be a fixed calm in the centre, but some disturbance on the surface. These superficial disturbances may even be violent & veil the inner established shanti, but it always reemerges. Afterwards the disturbance becomes more & more thin
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in its density & feeble in its force. It ends in an occasional depression of the force & courage & faith & joy in the soul, negative & often without apparent cause, & then disappears entirely.
Negative samata & shanti are the necessary preparation of positive samata and ananda. Without this foundation ananda is always liable to be uncertain in its duration & imperfect in its even fullness. Therefore all these things endurance of all contacts, indifference to all dualities, submission to all movements of the divine Will, perfect inner peace and tranquillity are the first step in perfection.
Negative samata & shanti are the result of shuddhi & the condition of mukti—
On the basis of Nati we proceed to the positive Samata, ie to say, to Sama Ananda. Its foundation is the Atmajnana or Brahma jnana by which we perceive the whole universe as a perception of one Being that manifests itself in multitudinous forms and activities. This One is therefore the one Self of all beings, my Self as well as the self of all others, friend and enemy, saint and sinner, man, bird and beast, tree & stone,—and all things in the manifestation are the forms and activities of my Self. Moreover, this Self is again the Lord of the Cosmos, the Purushottama, the divine Vishnu, Shiva or Krishna, of whom every individual soul is a conscious centre, aware of its unity with Him in being and also of its difference in the universe; and the manifestation is a Lila or play of the Lord who is in His being all delight; the play, too, therefore, is not only a play of Existence and Consciousness, but also a play of delight. It is the dualities born of ego-sense in the heart, mind & body which creates grief and pain. We have to unite ourselves with this Self, Lord & One & with all things in Him, viewing them as our self, in order to get rid of pain & enjoy the divine Ananda. But, first, it is necessary that we should accept without revolt the Lila equally in all its details & happenings. This comes by Nati. Titiksha is the attitude of equal acceptance by the sense-mind & body, udasinata the attitude of equal acceptance by mind & heart, Nati the attitude
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of equal acceptance by the soul. The soul accepts all things as the play of the all-Blissful Lord, the Will of the supreme self and Ishwara. It accepts action also & the results of action, without being attached to them. But, though not attached, it must learn to take delight in all things even as the Lord takes delight in them.
The first delight is that of the Sakshi or Witness, who looking upon the whole action of the universe & even his own action like one who is watching a play or a drama, takes the rasa or taste of the whole thing by the intellect, the sense and the aesthetic faculties. All things, all events are the manifestation of certain gunas or qualities in universal Being; God is Ananta guna, Infinite Qualities. The rose is a manifestation of form, colour, odour & other less obvious qualities, each stamped with a particular form of the rasa, divine Delight.
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