The Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo

CHAPTER XIX

KARMAYOGA AND ITS INDISPENSABILITY

PART III

THE PERFECTION OF KARMAYOGA

We have seen that man being essentially a composite organism and not a mere sum-total of heterogeneous parts and powers,—which is only a superficial aspect of him —neither Karmayoga, nor Bhaktiyoga, nor Jnânayoga can become perfect in itself without the others also becoming perfect and complete at the same time. A certain insular perfection can be attained, as we have already conceded, by Bhaktiyoga, without much direct help from Jnânayoga and Karmayoga, or by Jnânayoga without bringing in much of the elements of karma and bhakti; but the perfection, thus attained, would always betray its imperfection to the discerning eye of knowledge, and need for its fullness the incorporation and fusion of all the three. It is said that by knowledge alone one can realise the Absolute and merge in It; but if one analyses the in- most nature of the knowledge that carries one to the Absolute, one will see that the very force which wings its upward flight is the force of love for the Absolute, a sort of irresistible urge which stimulates and impels one's aspiring thought. And, besides, the knowledge that is gained by

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this exclusive movement of thought, is only of the transcendence of the Absolute, but not of its dynamic immanence here in the universe. It is not the complete, integral knowledge which the Veda, the Upanishads and the Gita point to as the crowning fulfilment of our spiritual aspiration. Similarly, the contention that by bhakti alone one can unite with the Divine and commune with Him, is only a half-truth; the fiery intensity of Godward love veils the light that secretly illumines the path of love. Love leads to knowledge, and knowledge illumines and electrifies love. The more we love the Divine the more we come to' know of His existence and nature; and the more we know of Him, the more passionately we love and adore Him. Therefore, any division of the three indivisible powers of our being—thought and feeling and will—can only cripple our capacity for realisation, and render the divine union incomplete and imperfect.¹ But Karmayoga has a special advantage in that it naturally unifies love and knowledge with itself and becomes an expression of the triune power of our being. It is the most potent means of an active integration of all the parts of the being, and the sole external vehicle of divine manifestation in the material world. Therefore, the perfection of Karmayoga would seem to

¹It is interesting to note in this connection the words of Pfleiderer who shared many of the views of Krause:

"Man's whole vocation is likeness to God in this life, or the unfolding of his godlike essence in his own distinctive way as an independent active being, according to his three faculties, true knowing, blessed feeling, and holy willing and doing."

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imply a perfection of the triune power of our being. That is, indeed, the general conception of a synthesis of jñāna, bhakti and karma. But in the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo, it means something more. A mental perfection resulting from a mental synthesis of the three powers can be good enough for a sāttwic work in the world— almost selfless and impersonal; but it cannot be the authentic work of the Divine in man. A gulf still yawns between the spiritual experiences in the depths of the being, and its natural action on the surface: the former are irradiated with the native Light of the Spirit, and the latter only with the pale limpidities of the mind, intermittently shot with flashes of intuition. That is perhaps about the utmost we have had, barring a very few exceptions, in the spiritual lives of those who accepted the reality of the world and the teleological utility of consecrated action. But the Integral Yoga raises this synthesis from the mind to the Supermind, and endeavours to achieve, not a mental or even a spiritualmental, but a supramental or divine perfection. If the mind, even the enlightened mind, remains the dominant and directing agent of life's activities, the perfection we aim at cannot be realised. The perfection of Karmayoga, as Sri Aurobindo understands it, must be a total perfection, in the fulfilment of the divine Will in the life of the human individual. And the divine Will can fulfil itself only in a divinised individual.

The perfection of Karmayoga is attained when the sâdhaka of the Integral Yoga has been liberated and

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transformed in all the parts of his being including his body and when his separative ego has disappeared for ever leaving his consciousness in full and constant possession of the unity of universal existence. Perfect Karmayoga is a radiant blossom of a dynamic union with the Divine. Sri Aurobindo gives an outline of it in his poem, Jīvan-mukta. It is to be remarked that the ideal of the jīvan-mukta, as envisaged by the Vedânta, is not the same as that portrayed here in Sri Aurobindo's poem. Sri Aurobindo has given it a more dynamic and comprehensive content. It represents his ideal of the perfect Karmayogi, who is also at once a perfect Jnânayogi and a Bhaktiyogi.

There is a silence greater than any known

To earth's dumb spirit, motionless in the soul

That has become Eternity's foothold,

Touched by the infinitudes for ever.

A Splendour is here, refused to the earthward sight,

That floods some deep flame-covered all seeing eye;

Revealed it wakens when God's stillness

Heavens the ocean of move less Nature.

A Power descends no Fate can perturb or vanquish,

Calmer than mountains, wider than marching waters,

A single might of luminous quiet

Tirelessly bearing the worlds and ages.

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A Bliss surrounds with ecstasy everlasting,

An absolute high-seated immortal rapture

Possesses, sealing love to oneness

In the grasp of the All-beautiful, All-beloved.

He who from Time's dull motion escapes and thrills

Rapt thoughtless, wordless into the Eternal's breast,

Unrolls the form and sign of being,

Seated above in the omniscient Silence.

Although consenting here to a mortal body,

He is the Undying; limit and bond he knows not,

For him the aeons are a playground,

Life and its deeds are his splendid shadow.

Only to bring God's forces to waiting Nature,

To help with wide-winged Peace her tormented labour

And heal with joy her ancient sorrow,

Casting down light on the inconscient darkness,

He acts and lives. Vain things are mind's smaller motives

To one whose soul enjoys for its high possession

Infinity and the sempiternal

All is his guide and beloved and refuge.¹

The base and fount of an authentic yogic action is, as the poem states, "a silence greater than any known

¹ Collected Poems and Plays of Sri Aurobindo Vol II.

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to earth's dumb spirit." It is out of an abysmal silence that the divine Will blazes forth to fulfil itself in the world. The soul of the liberated Karmayogi becomes a foothold of Eternity, that is to say. Eternity takes its stand upon this soul for an undisguised self-manifestation, and all that the Karmayogi does is done by Eternity itself in Its all achieving omniscience.

The perfected Karmayogi commands a light of knowledge which is "refused to the earthward sight" of mortal men. His all-seeing eyes are flooded with that light, which reveals itself in his actions, but under conditions of absolute stillness—God's stillness above, and Nature's stillness below like a calm ocean receiving in its mirror the overhead heaven itself.

The supreme Power which, "calmer than mountains," bears the worlds and ages, descends into the jīvan-mukta for conquering the evil and falsehood and suffering of the world. The jīvan-mukta is not only a dove of peace, but also a "red icon of might". He unifies in himself both the gentle and the violent aspects of the Creator, and is as ruthless in destruction as generous and com- passionate in protection and deliverance. He has transcended for ever the egoistic leaping and shrinkings of human emotions.

"An absolute high-seated immortal rapture" claims the jīvan-mukta for its own. He lives immersed in the infinite, divine Ananda, and every movement of his nature is a thrill of bliss. And this everlasting ecstasy seals his love to oneness, making him feel the embrace of the

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All- beautiful, the All-beloved in every being and thing in the world. He loves all, for he loves the One who has become all. In all that he contacts he contacts nothing but the Divine, the All beloved. He can heal the suffering of the world and free himself from the same suffering, by a transcendence of all suffering, and a pouring down from above of his infinite and inviolable ānanda upon it.

The perfect Karmayogi has left below him the interminable flux of Time where we mortals float or flounder, and found his permanent abode in "the Eternal's breast", and, poised in that omniscient silence, he unfolds and reveals the mysteries of the Eternal. He has become a prism and channel of the Light, the Force, the Bliss and the Beauty of the Divine—a radiating centre of His unthinkable splendours.

Though living in a mortal, material body, he is a child of immortality, amrtasya putrah. His unwalled consciousness knows no limit, no death, and no bondage to anything in the world. Deathless and free, he is a playmate of God in His universal līlā. Life after life, unwearied and unworn, he plays his part, not for any personal profit or for the realisation of any merely mental ideal, but only "to bring God's forces to waiting Nature", to help "her tormented labour" with his "wide-winged peace", and to "heal with joy her ancient sorrow", by flooding the dark inconscient bases of life with the Super conscient's Light. He works only to further God's manifestation in the material world, by dispelling the

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darkness of inconscience and ignorance, and healing all division and discord resulting from them.

Vast, God-possessing, embraced by the Wonderful,

Lifted by the All-Beautiful into his infinite beauty,¹

he works in the world "with his being beyond it". He does not care whether he is praised or blamed; whether he is on the righteous path or the unrighteous, as men judge it by their petty mental standards; whether he succeeds or fails in his work. He concerns himself only with the fulfilment of the Will of the "sempiternal All", who "is his guide and beloved and refuge".

The action of the Karmayogi is not decided by his mind and .its ideas; nor does it follow the demands of the society or community to which he belongs. Nothing pertaining to Time and Space can determine his movements. His actions well straight out of his swabhāva, his essential self-nature, which is in perfect union with the Will of the Divine. His life is a spontaneous flowering of his self-nature, revealing a distinctive individual aspect of the Divine. His swabhāva and swadharma furnish the force, the form, and the right rhythm to his outgoing energies.

"The work (of the perfected Karmayogi) cannot be fixed by any mind-made rule or human standard; for his

¹ Collected Poems and Plays Vol. II— of Sri Aurobindo.

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consciousness has moved away from human law and limits and passed into the divine liberty; away from government by the external and the transient into the self-rule of the inner and the eternal; away from the binding forms of the finite into the free self-determination of the Infinite. 'Howsoever he lives and acts,' says the Gitâ, 'he lives and acts in Me'.... It is immaterial whether he spends his days in what men call holy works or in the many- sided activities of the world; whether he devotes himself to the direct leading of men to the Light, like Buddha, Christ or Shankara, or governs kingdoms like Janaka or stands before men like Sri Krishna as a politician or a leader of armies; what he eats or drinks; what are his habits or pursuits; whether he fails or succeeds; whether his work be one of construction or of destruction; whether he supports or restores an old order or labours to replace it by a new; whether his associates are those whom men delight to honour or those whom their sense of superior righteousness outcasts and reprobates; whether his life and deeds are approved by his contemporaries or he is condemned as a misleader of men or a fomenter of religious, moral or social heresies. He is not governed by the judgements of men or the laws laid down by the ignorant; he obeys an inner voice and is moved by an unseen power. His real life is within and this is its description that he lives, moves and acts in God, in the Divine, in the Infinite."¹

¹ On Yoga—I by Sri Aurobindo.

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The perfection of Karmayoga implies a perfection in our union with the Divine. All the three kinds of union, Sāyujya, sālokya and sādharmya have to be perfected in the individual. Sāyujya or an absorbed union or identity will obliterate all separation between the Divine and the individual soul; sālokya will keep up, even in the midst of this identity, a mysterious, ineffable difference without division, which will permit of a relation of love and devotion and a free transmission of the divine Will, and sādharmya will ensure a likeness or sameness between the nature of the Divine and that of the individual being, enabling an unhindered and unflawed expression of the Divine Will and a perfect manifestation of the Divine glories upon earth.

Then, perfection in Karmayoga demands as an indispensable pre-requisite our union with the Divine simultaneously in His three poises of transcendence, universality and individuality. The Will of the Transcendent will marshal the integrated forces of our being, the Universal will supply the necessary field and condition, and the Individual Divine in our heart will give the immediate drive and direction, the proper setting and frame, and the distinctive colour and rhythm to our activities. Without this simultaneity of the triple union, bur work can be great and powerful, even universal in its scope and effectivity, but it will not be the authentic work of the Supreme in us, the very work for which we are created, the destined work of God's evolutionary manifestation.

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A complete transformation of our whole being must precede any perfection in Karmayoga. If there is any part in us, or any single element or energy, which resists or refuses this supramental transformation and this utter submission to the transcendent Will, our work will remain tainted with imperfection. The whole organism of our nature must undergo a total transmutation, a supramental conversion, before it can become a perfect instrument of divine manifestation. And it is not enough that the conscious nature is transformed, even the subconscient and the inconscient ranges, too, must become conscious and luminous. There must be nothing left anywhere in the nature which can respond even in the slightest degree to the forces of ignorance and falsehood and suffering, which sway the life of humanity and impede its spiritual evolution. From the cells of the physical body to the summits of our mental being, all, without exception, must be divinely converted and rendered perfectly plastic to the supramental Force of the divine Mother.

"So long as one element of the being, one movement of the thought is still subjected to outside influences, not solely under Thine, it cannot be said that the true Union is realised, there is still the horrible mixture without order and light, for that element, that movement is a world, a world of disorder and darkness, as is the entire earth in the material world, as is the material world in the entire universe."¹

¹ On Yoga—I by Sri Aurobindo.

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When the whole being is thus weaned from all outside influences, transformed in all its fibres, and united with the Divine Consciousness and Will, the Karmayogi, freed from all personal duties and responsibilities, lives in the absolute equality and oneness of the divine Being, and works in the world out of His inexhaustible power and plenitude. This equality is the supreme equality of the Infinite and Eternal, which nothing in the universe can shake or ruffle. The Karmayogi has now become a divine child, liberated in his being and nature, immersed in an ineffable peace and bliss, and moved by the Divine Mother for the furtherance of her evolutionary ends in the world. Because he embraces the Divine in all beings and things, and clearly sees His Hand in every event, he knows that all in the universe are knit together by an invisible spiritual bond, and that there is a developing harmony everywhere in spite of the apparent chaos and confusion on the surface of existence. Catastrophes, cataclysms, revolutions, disasters leave him "not only unshaken but untouched, free in the emotions, free in the nervous reactions, free in the mental view, responding with the least disturbance or vibration in any spot of the nature". Not that he is hard-hearted or callous, or indifferent with the impersonal indifference of the immutable Brahman. He overflows with love for all creatures, for he overflows with love for the Divine whom he meets in all creatures. He understands the sufferings of the world, for he sees beyond them their triumphant culmination in God's everlasting ecstasy,

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and below and behind them their evolutionary source and utility and significance. An illimitable love, a high- seated, delivering compassion, a fathomless empathy, born of the essential identity, characterise his dealings with the world. And all that blissful movement of love and compassion proceed on the untrembling foundation of an absolute peace and equality.

The perfection of Karmayoga, as a correlate of the total perfection envisaged in the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo, is an extremely long and difficult work, but it is the only work for which the divine soul has descended into human birth, and without which no perfection it attains can really be perfect. It has come down to fulfil "a Will that stirs in a divine peace, a Knowledge that moves from the transcendent Light, a glad Impulse that is a force from the supreme Ananda."¹

¹ The Synthesis of Yoga by Sri Aurobindo.

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