The Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo

CHAPTER III

An Epochal Synthesis

PART I

AGES ago, when the natural unity of the spiritual vision and culture of the Vedas and the Upanishads began to give way before the developing complexity and individualistic self-affirmation of the parts of the being of man, each of which sought its own separate spiritual satisfaction and characteristic fulfilment to the neglect : and exclusion of the others, the Gitâ propounded a magnificent synthesis, and paved the way for a harmonious growth of the whole human personality into the fullness and perfection of the Divine. All the important strands of spiritual culture, current at the time or regarded as essential, were woven together into that comprehensive synthesis, which aimed at raising man into the light and freedom of the dynamic divine consciousness. Nowhere, at no period of the spiritual history of mankind, has there ever been such a vast and powerful attempt at a synthesis, at a mighty gathering up of the distinct and divergent elements of human nature into a living and fruitful unity. Sânkhyayoga, Karmayoga, Jnânayoga, Bhaktiyoga, Hathayoga, Râjayoga, Mantrayoga, each was given a place and a definite function in that manifold synthesis, and an

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integrated system of spiritual culture, not indeed apparent on the surface, but implicit in the grain of its thought and active in the unfolding rhythm of its movement," was evolved for the purification and sublimation of the human nature and its transference from the floundering ignorance of the ego into the luminous freedom and bliss of the Divine. Works, knowledge and love, cured of their trenchant, separative tendencies, were blended and fused into a single movement of self-offering to the 'Supreme. The impersonality of the Brahman and the divine Personality, the silence of the omnipresent Immutable and the ceaseless flux of the cosmic movement, the beatific state of liberation and the continued performance of all mundane action,—these were some of the most outstanding reconciliations effected by the Gita at a crucial stage of the spiritual culture of India. And this synthesis was achieved, not by any religious or philosophical eclecticism, but by an embracing and unifying spiritual vision, and it stands unparalleled in its comprehensive- ness in the annals of ancient mystical achievements.

Indian spirituality, however, described a downward curve soon after this gigantic synthesis had lost its hold upon the people's mind. The lower parts of the nature of man, released from the central control of the light of intuition and the coordinating force of the illumined intelligence, sought again, each in its distinctive way, its individual self-affirmation and self-satisfaction. Even when they turned towards spirituality, they pursued individual fulfilment, and cared little for a

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total consummation. The Gitâ's synthesis had registered a magnificent success even in the midst of an apparent failure—it had outlined an ideal, the shining ideal of a harmonious perfection and a divine fulfilment of man, and left it as a seed, in the terrestrial atmosphere, to germinate and grow and prepare its future efflorescence in the evolving life of humanity; and if it failed at all, it was because man was not evolved enough for such a global spiritual endeavour: his mind, life and body needed a long individual preparation and development, an intense churning and psychic conversion and correlation, before they could consent to enter into the harmony of the integral orientation.

And thus passed century after eventful century, witnessing signal individual conquests and achievements, triumphs of new trends, enrichment of past gains, and an opening up of unforeseen possibilities, in the midst of a general spiritual decadence in India. When the Gitâ's synthesis, which had pivoted upon the illumined intelligence, disintegrated, the ethical mind of man rose to attain its absolute in a dual negation of all that was mystically and occultly spiritual, on the one hand, and all that was formal and ceremonial, on the other. But an ethical extremism usually harbours in itself two disquieting elements—an abstractionism tending to nihilism or agnosticism, and a progressive anti-pragmatism—which break up its original norm and reduce it to a pious, unproductive creed, if not to a tissue of compromises. Of the two elements, abstractionism is a denial of the ultimate Reality

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in the experience of man, and anti-pragmatism a denial of the truth of material life; and both lead to a deep and rankling discontent in the popular mind, whatever may be heir effect upon exceptional individuals. Nihilism or agnosticism cuts away the peaks of the being, and anti- pragmatism undermines its base, leaving man suspended in the shimmering haze of an impracticable ethical abstraction.

Therefore, the succeeding age saw the death of nihilism and agnosticism in the intense blaze of a resurgent spirituality, which drove straight towards the ultimate Reality, making knowledge the sole means of its realisation. But the anti-pragmatic tendency continued as ever. The very fervour of the precipitate drive and the intoxication of the supreme discovery engendered a greater indifference, even an aversion to the world and life. But life and Nature cannot long be ignored or spurned with impunity. A stream from the inalienable harmony of the supreme Light, life protests against all inequality or unbalance in the steps of the soul's ascent, and insists, with sharp pain, if need be, on the harmonious development of all the powers and potentialities of the human being, through whom it seeks its divine fulfilment.

The unilateral drive of the thought-mind culminated in the discovery or recovery of the apex of the ultimate Reality, but its mass, its infinite, living body and face of light remained undiscovered. The seeking of the thought- mind was, therefore, supplemented by the seeking of the awakened heart, and there seemed to be for a time—a

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very short time indeed—a growing rapprochement between knowledge and love. The intellect of man can remain satisfied with abstractions, and even merge itself in the impalpable absolute of its overmastering conception; but the heart and life of man insist on concreteness. They demand that the object of their aspiration and ado- ration must become a living and tangible reality to them, real to human feeling and sight and sensation. This demand is the justification of their creation and action, and furnishes a clue to the mystery of the divine immanence in the world. And it is a law of Nature that when ever there is an insistent and legitimate demand for a particular experience and realisation in the being of man, there is always found a means to fulfil it. The human' mind is content with knowing, but the heart and life of man yearn to contact and feel in the closeness of an in- creasing intimacy, and to become, what they love and; adore. The total fulfilment of the human being is, there- fore, a dynamic union and identification with the Supreme,—a union not only in His transcendence, but also! in His universal immanence, not only in the abstractions of thought, but in the concreteness of feeling and sensation, will and action. That was why the experience of monism had to be enlarged and enriched by the experience of qualified monism, and even of dualism; and what seemed to be—and, in fact, was—a decline, was pregnant with great possibilities of expansion and enrichment for the individual parts of the human being and the ultimate unity and synthesis of them all. Alongside of this

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development of the mind and heart of man, ran the development of his life—the conquest of its desires and the union of its will with the divine Will, which formed the kernel principle of the Tântric and the Karma yogas. If we take a synoptic view of this progressive spiritual decline in India, we shall see that it was not really a decline, but a divinely-ordained descent of spirituality from the higher to the lower parts of the human being for their exploration, purification and sublimation into the eventual glory of the integral union with the Divine.

The age of the intellectual seeking was followed by the age of the steadily developing yearning of the human heart of love and delight. If the bare altitudes of the omnipresent Reality seemed to suffer a slight eclipse, its massive ranges and shining uplands, its colourful plateaus and smiling table-lands swam into human sight and the thrilled intimacy of human feeling. The distant, inconceivable, relationless Brahman of the Advaitin assumed the majesty and sublimity of the Nârayân, or the beauty and bliss of the Krishna of the Bhakta.¹ The response of the heart was more passionate, more transporting, more dynamically purifying and exalting than that of the head, though it was beset with greater dangers from the contiguous sea of the unruly life-forces. Vishishtadwaita, Dwaita, Dwaitâdwaita, Shuddhâdwaita emerged, not as conflicting truths of the Supreme, but as complementary

¹The immutable Impersonal was swallowed up in the. infinite personality of the Supreme Being, the Purusha of the Upanishads, the Purushottama of the Gita.

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envisagings of the various aspects of the One, who is bound neither by His diversity nor by His unity. In the last phase of the cult of love and delight as embodied in Sri Chaitanya, one of the supreme mysteries of the relation. between the Divine and the human soul was seized and revealed—the unimaginable, inexpressible mystery of the deepest rapture of union-in-difference between the Divine and the human soul. This rapture is implied but not felt in the Sâyujya of the Adwaitin, in which the individual consciousness is abolished in the supreme Consciousness, and there is no persistence of the relation of the knower and the object of knowledge to admit of a human enjoyment of the bliss of the perfect union. But this bliss is the highest experience of the embodied soul, the acme of its spiritual freedom and perfection. In Sâyujya, there is, in fact, no union as such, but an extinction of the individual soul (an illusory soul at that according to the Vedantin!) in the differentiated absoluteness of the One. It is to the credit of the Yoga of love and delight that it has made the highest union a feasible realisation, and its ineffable ecstasy of joy the crest of divine fulfilment.

Another line of Yoga, the mighty Tantra, concerned itself with the spiritual purification and preparation of life and its will. It was a very daring adventure, which necessitated a descent into the dark, subconscious regions of the being and a grappling with the most powerful forces of human nature, desire and lust and passion, in their own field; but it had to be undertaken, if the whole being and nature

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of man were to be transmuted into the being and nature of the Divine to ensure the integrality and permanence of the dynamic divine union, which is the goal of human life. The task to which Tantra addressed itself was immense and infinitely difficult, and its failure far outweighed its slender success, but it evoked into activity a possibility of perfection which, since the days of the Vedas, had lain latent and overlooked in the human consciousness. This was the great contribution of Tantra. Its ideal was, not the self-annihilating merger in the Brahman, sāyujya, nor an eternal proximity to the luminous presence of the Beloved, sāmipya and sālokya, but a union through the remoulding of human nature into the divine nature, a growing into the likeness of the Divine, sādrśya, sādharmya.

The next part to feel the pressure of the descending spirit-force was the physical being of man. Two immediate outstanding consequences of this descent were, first, a growing obsession of the national mind with material things and, second, an uprush of the subconscient scum and obscurity. But that is an eventuality which has to be faced in any work of radical purification.

At this juncture of Indian spiritual culture, when the higher light seemed to hide behind the veil, and the material life pressed forward with its clamorous demands and irresistible claims, came the impact of the materialistic West, at once disruptive and galvanizing. It disrupted the spiritual values which had been the sustenance of Indian culture, and galvanised the material and intellectual life

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of the people. The fatigue and the flagging of vitality which had marked the close of a long epoch of inner exploration and outer creation, and the incrustation that had J begun in time-worn traditions and dead formalism, seemed to disappear under this powerful and fateful impact. The material life which is the foundation of Spirit's.! self-manifestation on earth, and which had been sedulously neglected and discouraged by the followers of Jnânayoga in their overmastering mental absorption, or by the Bhaktas, in their emotional fervours, and blighted under the mist of Illusionism (Māyāvāda) and the chill of apotheosised asceticism, revived, widened and throbbed with new, creative impulses. A general awakening, a pervasive renaissance was the result of the absorption of the influence of the West, which came to India as the priest and champion of the life-spirit, and the interpreter of its evolutionary values.

The last stage had been reached. With the long past of her unparallelled spirituality, rich with signal achievements and varied conquests, not dead, but living and vibrant behind her back, India accepted the quickening message of Western Materialism and the gift of life it brought to her. But India cannot live without God. To follow in the steps of the West would have been to advance towards spiritual suicide. A life of material welfare and intellectual advancement in front other, and a life of light and immortality and spiritual fulfilment behind her, India stood uncertain and wavering for a brief moment, as if poised on the brink of a crucial decision. But her soul

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repeated once more what it had declared throughout the history of its evolution, "yenāham nāmrtāsyām kimaham tena kuryām?”—"What shall I do with that which will not make me immortal?" India accepted the gift of life, but reverted to the fount of Light to link the two together, so that her future may be great again, and glorious and immortal with the unprecedented triumphs of a dynamic spirituality. At that passing moment of the crucial decision, she seemed to glimpse, as if in a flash, the meaning other soul's long travail through the eventful centuries of a declining curve, and the saviour Hand that was guiding her destiny. She clasped the Hand and decided in favour of the life in Light, the Life Divine.

The first reaction of the soul of India to the impact of Western Materialism was a reaffirmation of the bare truth of the transcendent Absolute, and an uncompromising rejection of almost all that constitutes the richness and diversity of Indian spirituality. It was, as if, at that moment of eager return, the soul of India was trying to clutch at the roots of spirituality, which was its main- stay, and hack at the branches and leaves and flowers that had developed out of those very roots during the long centuries of its evolution. But the ardours of the first return soon shed their narrow intensity and began to assume the large catholicity of the ancient spiritual tradition, for the decision taken by the soul of India at the fateful turning of its life was not for any narrow and one-sided achievement, however high it might be, but for the widest synthesis: for the reconciliation of Spirit

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and Matter, Heaven and Earth, Light and Life, the One and the Many.

As the most perfect embodiment of that decision of the national soul, an epitome of its past manifold achievements and a harbinger of the great synthesis that was preparing in the womb of the approaching future, came Sri Ramakrishna. Four things in his illustrious life stand out with a remarkable significance. First, his coming to live very near the most modernised, that is to say, westernised, metropolis of the country. He built his spiritual citadel in close vicinity to Calcutta from where he could w aim infallible shots at the monster of Materialism and bring to birth a robust and opulent spirituality in India. Second, he practised most of the great Yogas of the world j (not only of India), and attained the highest realisation possible in each. Third, he conquered and converted ; the most representative Indian of the times, a brilliant product of Western culture, Vivekananda—Narendranath Dutt as he was then named—and moulded him into his; chief instrument for the accomplishment of his mission. Fourth, he heralded the coming synthesis in spirituality and foreshadowed something of its outline in his life and teachings.

In Sri Râmakrishna Indian spirituality came to close! grips with the materialistic culture of the West. And what was the result of the combat? Vivekânanda and resurgent India. Vivekânanda, the "cyclonic Hindu", as he was described in America, the preacher of the gospel of the Vedanta, shook the whole world with his message of the

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unity of all life and the divinity of all men. Perhaps he did not bring out the full significance of the central truth of his Master's vision: the synthesis of all religions. This synthesis was interpreted as meaning simply that all religions lead to the same goal, but it seems hardly likely that Sri Râmakrishna underwent the superhuman labour of practising the principal Yogas of the world only to arrive at and vindicate the truth of this time-worn truism. There was a great teleological intention behind. Though he practised the Yogas separately, yet he assimilated the highest achievements of them all, which combined and crystallised into a sort of synthesis in the depths of his being. He retained the distilled essence of each in himself till the last day of his life. He was at once a man of knowledge, a man of unfahtomable love and devotion, a man of undeviating will and power, and, as the world knows only too well, a creator of probably the greatest paradoxical personality—a Jnânayogi-cum-Karmayogi— of modern times. He was an Adwaitin, a Vishishtâ dwaitin, even a Dwaitin, a Christian of Christians, and a devout Moslem—all these and many things more rolled into one. His successive practice of the different Yogas was an experiment, a bold breaking of the ground; but the result was an incipient synthesis, unavoidably somewhat vague and uncertain in the then state of spiritual possibilities, but an unmistakable prelude to its coming perfection. A synthesis of Yogas means an integration of all the parts of the human being, including even the physical, which has as much claim to perfection and divine fulfilment as

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any other, and their global turning to the Divine.

Our rapid survey of the spiritual curve of India since the Upanishadic age has shown us that when the synthesis of the Gitâ broke up, it was the intellect of man that turned towards the supreme Reality and underwent, in consequence, a great purification and heightening; the heart had then its turn, and the life, and, last, the physical consciousness. The downward curve seems to be complete now, and there are indications that the upward; has already begun. The synthesis that Sri Ramakrishna foresaw, foreshadowed and foretold, a mightier synthesis than even that of the Gitâ , seems to be the destined means of the integral perfection aspired after by the progressive mind of modern man. A totality in aspiration betokens a totality in realisation. The entire being of man yearning for the Divine shall attain the most perfect union with the entire being of the Divine.

Sri Aurobindo stands for this entire turning, this completest synthesis and integral spiritual fulfilment of man. Having realised it in himself, he calls upon humanity to proceed towards the Divine by the way of this synthesis. His call is the call of God, the call of the earth-soul, the call of the Time-Spirit, the call of the East and the West, and the call of the awaking soul of man himself. The world moves forward to a multi-dimensional synthesis.

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PART II

THE SYNTHESIS OF THE STATES OF BRAHMAN

THERE are three basic postulates of the synthesis which: forms the heart of Sri Aurobindo's Integral or Purna Yoga. The first is that no union with the Supreme can be called. perfect unless it is a union in all His states, poises, and modes of being. The supreme Purusha or the omni- present Reality has four poises or statuses, according to the Upanishads—"soyāmātmā catuspāt”. The first poise is that of the waking state (jāgaritasthāna), which is. extroverted or externally cognitive (yahihprajña and enjoyer of the gross (sthūlabhuk). This is the vaiśvānara: or virāt state of Brahman. The second poise is that of the- dream state (svapnasthāna) introverted, or internally conscious and enjoyer of the subtle {praviviktabhuk). This is the Taijas state of Brahman. The third is that of the deep-sleep state (susuptisthāna), unified, a massed- consciousness (prajñānaghana), made of bliss (ānanda- mayo) and enjoyer of bliss (ānandabhuk). This is the. Lord of all (sarvesvara), the all-knowing (sarvajnd),. the inner control (antaryāmin), the source and dissolution- of all beings (prabhavāpyayau). This is the status of the- creative Godhead, the sovereign majesty and glory of the self-deploying Brahman. The fourth poise is that state of Brahman which is neither extroverted nor introverted,, neither massed consciousness nor unconsciousness, unseen, relationless, featureless, inconceivable, ineffable,

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the supreme Peace (śāntom), the supreme Good (śivam) and the supreme, inalienable Oneness without a second (advaitam). This is the absolute state of Brahman.¹

This illuminating description of the integral Brahman is preceded by a categoric affirmation, interspersed in many representative Upanishads, that verily everything here is Brahman—sarvam hyetad Brahma. There is nothing like illusion or hallucination; the world and all its names and forms—idam sarvam—all are, indeed, the indivisible and all-pervading Brahman... "Brahmaivedam viśvamidam varistam”—the supreme Brahman and no other is all this world. And yet it is no panthesim that the Upanishads preach; for though Brahman is viśvātmā, the Soul of the cosmos, and viśvarūpah. He who has assumed the form of the cosmos. He is yet the womb of; the cosmos, viśvayonih, and beyond all cosmos and cosmic differentiations, bahiśca.

It is, then, evident that the integrality of Brahman includes all the above four statuses, and that to realise them all, not successively, but simultaneously, is to realise the integral Brahman, the supreme Divine or Purushottama, who is a Person, superior to the Immutable (aksarādapi cottamah) and higher than the Unmanifest (abyāktāt parah). Beyond this Person, this supreme Purush, there is nothing whatsoever (Purusānna param kiñcit). The ideal of the nirbeeja or nirvikalpa samadhi, a coplete self-loss by absorption in the immutable Absolute

¹Por a fuller description see Mandukya Upanishad.

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is not the highest ideal, for it takes cognisance of only the peak state, and not of all the four constituent states of Brahman; and as the head of a man is not his whole body, so the turīya or transcendent Absolute is not the integral Brahman. Sri Aurobindo's Yoga aims at the realisation of the integral union with the integral Divine, which means a union in all the four Brâhmic poises together. This is his synthesis of the poises and states of Reality, and it is on the basis of this synthesis that he has reared his immense structure of the Life Divine for man upon this earth. For, this synthesis does not exclude anything, it includes all, the world and all its multiform relations and activities as the waking state (waking from our stand- point, for really speaking. Brahman is ever awake— sa jāgarti—) of Brahman, as well as His turīya or absolute status. This synthesis is an epoch-making contribution to Yoga and Philosophy. Since the synthesis of the Gitâ, which, by the way, has hardly ever been practised in the mediaeval and modem times except in a fragmentary way, either by the exclusive pursuit of knowledge or love or works, no spiritual culture has based itself with any steady vision and firm faith upon the fourfold integrality of Brahman. Most of them—I might say, all, including even Tantra—have been more or less swayed by the ascetic and renunciatory tendency, initiated in the Upanishadic times and fostered and developed by later extremist spirituality, and envisaged the turīya or the transcendent Unthinkable as the ultimate goal of the being of man. Jnânayoga, Bhakti yoga, Karmayoga, Râjayoga,.

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Hathayoga, Tantra, all have fixed upon the supracosmic consummation, whether it is Moksha or Nirvana, or a permanent proximity to the Supreme Beloved in a world of eternal Light and Love, Goloka or Vaikuntha. It is Sri Aurobindo's synthesis alone that recovers the unifying vision of the Vedic and Upanishadic seers and reinstates the catuspat, fourfold, Brahman in the heart of man as the sole object of aspiration and realisation; and it is again :his synthesis alone that bids fair to make that object of .human aspiration and realisation a manifest Reality, a .self-revealed Splendour here in this dim world of Matter.

THE SYNTHESIS OF THE PARTS OF MAN

The second postulate is that this union with catuspāt Brahman can and is to be realised not only by the soul, but by the whole being—the soul and nature—of man. The mind, the life and even the body of man are to participate, as well as the soul, in the blissful experience of identity, union and communion with the Supreme Being. How can that be possible? How can the twilit mind, the restless, desire-driven life, and the dense, obtuse and inert body of man house the ineffable Presence, or even enter into the ecstasy of some kind of union with it? Is it not the human intelligence that detaches itself from the rest of the nature and, by the final act of self-extinction, leaves the soul in the unutterable peace and silence of the Impersonal? or the ardours of the human heart in their fiery intensity that plunge the soul into the

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bliss of the divine embrace? In either case, there is an abstraction of the most developed part of the being from the rest, which remains sunk in its habitual obscurity, or is at best distantly irradiated by the reflected light of the abstracted part. The union is enjoyed by the soul in the depths of the human consciousness or on its serene summits, but not in the whole being. The Vedic seers knew the secret of making the divine light, the divine bliss and force accessible to the entire human nature, and some of them tried individually to realise it, but there was no conception of making that realisation an imperative collective ideal and aspiration. And yet that is the very purpose of the creation of man, and his ultimate and inevitable destiny in the material world.

Sri Aurobindo says that each part of the being of man is derived from the Supreme, is permeated and sustained by the Supreme, and is developed and led towards a conscious union and communion with Him, which is its birth-right. Each part is a living and indispensable member of the evolving organism, and the eventual harmonious perfection and divine fulfiment, which is the goal of human existence, can be possible only through the perfection and fulfiment of each part, each faculty and each function of the human being. This was the knowledge upon which the ancient Vedic culture was founded, though it was not fully worked out in that age, and this was the knowledge which continued, if grown somewhat remote and pale, down to the closing period of the Upanishads, investing the whole of human

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existence with a sacramental significance. Matter, of which the body is made, is Brahman (annam brahman), life is Brahman and mind is Brahman—so declare the Upanishads. This being the essential truth of the parts of human nature, it would not be irrational to hold that, however debased or darkened they may have become by reason of their evolution from Inconscience, their con- version to their spiritual equivalents is not only possible, but well within the ambit of a strong probability. But what are their spiritual equivalents? From what principles of Brahman are they severally derived? From Sat, the self-existent eternal substance of Sachchidânanda, comes Matter, turned gross and dense by the Inconscience out of which it emerges in evolution; from Chit or the Consciousness of Sachchidânanda comes life, from Ananda comes the soul, and from Vijnâna or what Sri Aurobindo calls the Supermind, comes mind. If, therefore, the human mind could be united with its original term and source, the Supermind, the life with Chit-tapas, the body with the infinite, immortal substance, and the soul with the plenary Ananda, there would then be an automatic union between Sachchidânanda and the entire being of man.

There is another point to consider in this connection. Each of the three primal principles. Sat, Chit and Ananda, contains in itself the other two, so that Sat can never be without Chit and Ananda, nor Chit without Sat and Ananda, nor Ananda without Sat and Chit; which inversely means that each of the parts of our being has all the potentiality of Sachchidânanda in it, and a perfect

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development of any implies a perfect development of all. But such is the complex interrelation and inter- action of the parts of our being that without a radical .illumination and transformation, and a harmonious unification of them, they cannot be united with Sachchidânanda. It is not so difficult to have a little light in the mind or a little joy and peace in the heart or an intermittent play of a higher force in our life-parts; but in order to be united with the Divine in an undeviating closeness and constancy of God-possessed thought and feeling and emotion and will and sensation and action, in order, that is to say, to belong entirely and irrevocably to the Master of our existence in all the ways of our being, two things are essential, two that form a distinctive feature of Sri Aurobindo's Integral Yoga: integration and transformation. Integration means the harmonising and welding of the different parts of the being into an organic whole, so that they can move in perfect unison in the steps of the divine Will; and transformation means a radical change and conversion of the natural parts into their spiritual equivalents, so that the whole of human nature may be sublimated and transfigured into the divine Supernature. This transformation, as we have already seen above, is not mere purification or quiescence of the nature parts; it is nothing less than a turning of the lead of man's normal humanity into the pure gold of divinity. And the crux of the labour of transformation is the illumination and conquest of the subconscient and inconscient layers of our being, which teem with the

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aboriginal impressions and impulses of our unregenerate nature. They have to be illuminated and emancipated from the hold of ignorance and inertia, if the integration and transformation of our nature are to be complete. The Gitâ's way of the renunciation of all desire and attachment is the right way, and a very effective method of purification, so far as the surface nature is concerned and the regions just below the surface, but it hardly touches the murky depths where the animal appetites and passions, and the inertia and falsehood and obscurity of our material heritage he simmering or slumbering in a promiscuous mass. These depths too are part of ourself, they too have a voice, probably often an imperious voice, in the complex business of our life. No synthesis can be complete and enduring that neglects to deal radically with these dark recesses of our being. And for a radical and effective dealing with them, the light and force we command in our mental consciousness are all too feeble and inadequate. The dismal failure of the great Tantric experiment is a standing warning to those who would venture to raise up the blind forces of these regions in order to purify and transmute them, without taking previous care to arm themselves with the authentic light of the Divine. The light of the human mind can be no guide in these arcane depths; even the light of the spiritualised mind has no imperative power here. The Subconscient and the Inconscient submit only to the supernal Light of the vijnāna, the supreme creative Light, and to no other.

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No post-Vedic Yoga except Tantra has ever had this ideal of the integration and transformation of human nature in view. The adventure of the Tantric Yoga was large and amazingly bold, but less profound,—its union with Light was not so sure as its polarity to Force. The other Yogas did not bother about this ideal. Their object being to help the soul pass out of the meshes of Nature, they took hold of any one part or principle of human nature, and used it as a gate of exit. Either knowledge or love or will to action, carried to its consummation, was deemed potent enough to release the soul into the infinity and immortality of the Absolute, or the love and delight of the transcendent Godhead. A synthesis was either not conceived at all or thought redundant, even impracticable.

But if the object is to enrich and expand the being of man till it unites with the Supreme and manifests Him in a splendour of Light and Power and Bliss, then integration and transformation impose themselves. The Gitâ's triple path of knowledge, love and works, followed with an utter sincerity of aspiration and self-giving, resolves many anomalies and discords of the human nature, and forges its divergent parts into a more or less harmonious unity; but that is not enough, so long as the synthesis, thus attained, is confined to the mental plane, however high and wide it may be; the synthetic sacrifice has to ascend beyond mind and, invoking a descent of the supernal Light, achieve, first, a reproduction of itself and then a reproduction of the divine glory in the summerged parts of the human being.

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THE SUPRAMENTALISED SYNTHESIS

Therefore, the third postulate is that the synthesis of knowledge, love and works, or of man's mental, vital and physical parts, organised round the soul or the psychic being as the quickening and co-ordinating centre, has to climb to the Supermind or the. supreme Truth-Consciousness (ṛta-cit), in order to be remade into its inviolable harmony, and then descend, led by the Light and Force of the Supermind, to instal itself in the chaos and obscurity of the Subconscient and the Inconscient. Synthesis on the expressive planes of our being, synthesis on its creative summits, and synthesis at its nether base—this is the triple formula of the synthesis envisaged by the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo.

THE SYNTHESIS OF THE TERMS OF THE SOUL

There are two more aspects of the synthesis aimed at by the Integral Yoga. In most of the Yogas, the individuality of the human soul, widened and impersonalised, is wafted straight to the Transcendent. Universality, which is the middle term of the soul, is almost left undeveloped, or is developed, more or less imperfectly, only on its static side, and hardly, except in the sāmrājyasiddhi¹ of Tantra, on the dynamic. In some Yogas the dynamic universality is studiously eschewed. But

¹ The double spiritual empire over self and the world.

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the destiny of the embodied soul is to possess simultaneously and with a plenary perfection, both in status and dynamis, its triple term of existence—individuality, universality and transcendence. Its union with the Supreme cannot be complete unless it is a union with Him in His universal immanence as well as in His featureless transcendence. The three terms of the embodied souls have their corresponding terms in the Supreme and a constant and complete union between them is the peak of human attainment. The Divine has to be realised as the One, but also as the many, as each being, each filing and each happening, and the liberated soul, liberated also in its nature, must rise into an identification, at once static and dynamic, with the cosmic Divine, and feel itself in all and all in itself. God in all and all in God, even while enjoying the indescribable bliss of the supracosmic union. And it is important to note that this universality of the soul is not meant to be a passing phase or a transitional passage, in the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo,— a passage through which the soul is to escape into the silence of the Incommunicable; it is to be firmly held and permanently possessed as the middle term of its spiritual existence. Its self-realisation and divine realisation will be incomplete without its secure participation in the universality of Brahman, and it is this universality that justifies its continued co-operation, even after its individual liberation, in the upward labour of all beings towards the freedom and bliss of the Divine: sambhutyām- ṛtamaśnute, "by the Birth he enjoys immortality."

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"Immortality beyond the universe is not die object of manifestation in the universe, for that the Self always possessed. Man exists in order that through him the Self may enjoy Immortality in the birth as well as in the non-becoming".¹ Individual liberation is not the end. of man's life, his glory lies in striving through countless births, if need be, for the liberation of his fellow-mortals. who are equally his own self, and without whose liberation. his own personal freedom remains an imperfect attainment. And the object of liberation is not an ultimate retreat from all individual and universal play of God's delight in creation into His immutable transcendence, but a perfect manifestation of His Love and Light and Power and Bliss in this suffering and inharmonious world. His unimpeded self-expression in humanity.

THE SYNTHESIS OF THE THREE VEDANTIC REALISATIONS

Another synthesis effected by the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo is between the visions and experiences of the three great schools of Vedantic spiritual culture, Advaita, Vishistadvaita and Dvaita. It is not a philosophical synthesis, though it has a momentous bearing on philosophy, but a spiritual, rather a supramental, synthesis,' which validates and explains the realisation of each of the three Vedantic schools, and fuses them all into its manifold comprehensiveness. According to Sri Aurobindo, there,

¹"Isha" Upanishad by Sri Aurobindo.

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are three poises of the creative Supermind. "The first founds the inalienable unity of things, the second modifies that unity so as to support the manifestation of the Many in the One and the One in the Many; the third further modifies it so as to support the evolution of a diversified individuality which, by the action of Ignorance, becomes in us, at a lower level, the illusion of the separate ego."¹ In the first poise there is no individualisation, all is held and developed in the unitarian consciousness as one, and not as many. When the reflection of this primary poise of the Supermind falls upon our purified and tranquillised mental consciousness, we lose all sense of individuality and are immersed in the illimitable ocean of unity. This is the basic truth and rationale of pure Advaitism. In the second poise of the Supermind, "the Divine Consciousness stands back in the idea from the movement which it contains, realising it by a sort of apprehending consciousness, following it, occupying and inhabiting its works, seeming to distribute itself in. its forms." ² There is here a multiple concentration and a creation of countless soul-forms, but all within the fundamental unity and harmony of the One. The original unity is manifestly and effectively modified, but there is yet no division or essential difference. When the reflection of this secondary poise of the Supermind falls upon our calm mind, we realise our soul-individuality

¹ The Life Divine by Sri Aurobindo.

² ibid.

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as distinct from and at the same time united with the One. This is the truth and justification of the experience of Qualified Monism. In the third poise the stress of consciousness falls on multiplicity, though well within the infinite play of unity. The soul-forms develop an increasing network of relations among themselves as well as with the One, and seem to be tending towards the diversified delight of the One in the Many and of the Many in the One. This poise is "a sort of fundamental blissful dualism in unity—no longer unity qualified by a subordinate dualism—between the individual Divine and its universal source."¹ This is the truth of Dualism or Dvaitavâda.

Now, all these three experiences are genuine and perfectly valid, and an integral supramental realisation would regard them as indispensable strains of its developing harmonies. It is only the human mind with its inveterate habit of exclusive emphasis, trenchant divisions, and rigid definitions that insulates the complementaries and posits them as contradictories. It is the human mind with its separative perception and analytical reasoning that cuts up the unity of existence into innumerable bits, and goes blundering through them in a vain attempt to arrive at their original unity and fundamental truth.

Sri Aurobindo's epochal synthesis, embracing and manifold in its nature, is at once a repudiation and a

¹ The Life Divine by Sri Aurobindo.

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fulfilment of the reasoning mind of man. It is destined to lead mankind to the full realisation and enjoyment of the unity in diversity, which is the secret of creation and the goal of evolution. After the intuitive synthesis of the Upanishads, there was the illumined intellectual ¹ synthesis of the Gitâ, and then, on a slightly lower scale, but with a greater fire and vigour of the will, the psycho-vital synthesis of Tantra. Today, standing on the threshold of the new era, and in full possession of the living essentials of the spiritual-cultural past, not only of India but of the whole world, Sri Aurobindo announces another synthesis, a vast supramental synthesis—the Supermind or vijnāna is the eternal home of all harmonies—for the ascent of man into the truth and unity of the One and the descent of the One into the whole being and life of man. The divine manifestation is the key-note of this synthesis, and universal humanity is the field of its perfection.

¹ All these syntheses were spiritual, but their characterisation made here is from the standpoint of the distinctive means employed by each of them.

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