The Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo

CHAPTER XXIV

KNOWLEDGE—THE LIGHT THAT FULFILS

CATEGORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

PART III

ACCORDING to ancient Indian tradition there are three principal grades or categories of spiritual knowledge: ātmajñāna or knowledge of one's individual soul or self; brahmajñāna or knowledge of the universal and transcendent Self or Spirit, and bhagavatjñāna or knowledge of the Divine, the sole and supreme Being. It is essential to keep this distinction well in mind lest we confound the ultimate values of the spiritual life and fail to appreciate the comprehensive greatness of the aim of the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo.

Ordinarily—and this is a fairly general acceptation— by knowledge one understands the knowledge of the individual soul or self, ātmajñāna . "Know thyself" is considered the highest counsel of wisdom. In Sânkhya, knowledge of the purusa or the individual self is regarded as the ultimate knowledge. Jainism, taking the Sânkhya, standpoint, preaches as the highest knowledge kevlajñāna or knowledge of the naked soul, divested of all kârmic covering and resplendent with its own light. There have been many teachers who have taught nothing

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but the knowledge of the soul as the end and summit of all spiritual attainment. If a man has had an experience of his soul as an immortal entity, independent of mind and life and body, and blissfully free in its immaculate purity, we look upon him as a perfect jñānī or one who has attained to the supreme knowledge. We hardly pause to think that there can be a knowledge higher and fuller that that of the individual soul. It is true that "our primary aim in knowledge must be to realise our own supreme Self more than that self in others or as the Lord of Nature or as the All; for that is the pressing need of the individual, to arrive at the highest truth of his own being.... "It is also true that when a man has realised his soul, he can very well know what Nature is in her phenomenal working. The knowledge of prakrti or karma follows as a natural corollary to the knowledge of the inner purusa. But there still remains the possibility of a higher knowledge, and a yet higher. Atmajñāna effects our liberation from the trammels of Nature, but does not necessarily impart a knowledge of the essential unity of all existence, and of the divine origin of this fettering and deluding Nature. The human soul has to transcend its individuality and realise the oneness of all existence; for, an indivisible oneness is the ultimate and fundamental truth of existence. And beyond this unity, it has to widen into That which is at once one and multiple and yet transcendent of both its unity and its multiplicity, and in which we perceive the transcendental divine aspect and original term of what we here know as prakrti. The knowledge

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of that highest Ground of all existence and the omni- present Reality of our being is, therefore, the completest knowledge to which we have to aspire and attain.

Beyond the knowledge of the soul there is the knowledge of the universal and transcendent Self or Spirit, brahmajñāna. The individual soul, emancipated from the meshes of Nature, and cured of all self-identification with her passing modes, may, if it will, enter into the infinite unity and immutability of the Brahman. This is a realisation which is higher and wider than the final goal of the Sânkhya and Jainism. One realises in it the unity of the universal Self, and may even rise from it into an experience of the utter Transcendence—calm, still and ineffably profound. In the beginning, this Self may appear as static, inactive and impersonal, sustaining but not participating in the world movement; and in the intense absorption of our concentration on it, we may come to look upon the world as unsubstantial and shadowy, a mere procession of phantasmal forms. We may even come to regard it as illusory and false, māyā, mithyā. But if we do not stop short at this realisation of the immobile immanence of the Brahman, we shall see that it constitutes all things and beings and "dwells within all of them, governing all their motion." "As the ether both contains and is, as it were, contained in the jar, so this Self both contains and inhabits all existences, not in a physical but in a spiritual sense, and is their reality."¹

¹ The Synthesis of Yoga by Sri Aurobindo.

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This Brahman we have to become and experience in the triple way referred to in the Upanishad: we have to see all existences in the Self, the Self in all existences, and the Self as having become all existences. All names and forms, all forces and energies and their tangled movements in the world have to be seen and embraced as the one Brahman in Its multiple self-representation, and not ignored or spurned as phantasmal or false. This is, indeed, a high and profound experience, which may seem to most of us to be the very crown of all spiritual realisation—the experience of the Brahman everywhere, in all things and at all times, sarvam khalvidam brahma. It gives a knowledge which is essentially perfect and definitive, a knowledge which does not divide existence into two. Spirit and Matter, or Reality and Illusion, but reconciles and fuses all apparent contraries and antinomies into an integral unity. "The knowledge that leaves a yawning gulf between the two can be no ultimate knowledge however logical it may seem to the analytical intellect or however satisfactory to a self-dividing experience. True knowledge must arrive at a oneness which embraces even though it exceeds the totality of things, not at a oneness which is incapable of it and rejects it. For there can be no such original unbridgeable chasm of duality either in the All-existence itself or between any transcendent Oneness and the All-existent. And as in knowledge, so in experience and self-fulfilment. The experience which finds at the summit of things such :

original unbridgeable chasm between two contra

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principles and can at most succeed in overleaping it so that it has to live in one or the other, but cannot embrace and unify, is not the ultimate experience."¹

But though this knowledge of the omnipresent Brahman is essentially and fundamentally comprehensive and complete, yet it is not integrally and dynamically perfect.. It is jñāna, but not vijñāna; and the fusion of the two is the supreme knowledge: the general and essential know- ledge, and the particular and specific knowledge, the knowledge of the One and the knowledge of the All,, the Many; the knowledge of the eternal silence and that of the eternal dynamism—an all-embracing, all-explaining knowledge of Truth, satyam, rtam. The knowledge of the Brahman liberates, exalts and illumines, but it does not fulfil the manifold aspiration of the human soul. For the knowledge that fulfils we have then to ascend to the Supreme, the Divine, the Being of our being, the Para. Purusa of the Upanishad or the Purusottama of the Gitâ. The deepest mystery of existence, the ultimate truth of our soul's individuality, the teleological significance of its descent into the material world, the secret of our heart's love for the Divine, and its yearning for His infinite joy and love and beauty, the hidden sense of our aspiration for perfection and fulfilment—all these are: resolved and revealed in the all-illumining Light of the supreme knowledge, the knowledge of the Parama

¹ The Synthesis of Yoga by Sri Aurobindo.

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Purusa. What is felt as somewhat vague and imprecise specifically incomplete and incomprehensible, in the knowledge of the Brahman, acquires definiteness, clarity and completeness in the light of this highest knowledge. It explains how and why the Absolute Brahman, needing nothing, desiring nothing, has assumed all these myriad names and forms and consented to be limited and divided —even though apparently or phenomenally—and pass through pain and suffering and death. It reveals the Divine, not only in the unchanging essence of His existence, but also in all the principles of His being, tattwatah. It reveals Him as the supreme Person, the original truth and Archetype of our phenomenal personality, and yet also the eternal Impersonal, bound neither by His personality nor by His impersonality. It reveals Him as at once nirguna or transcendent of all qualities, and anantaguna, possessor of infinite qualities. It reveals Him as the silent and passive Brahman, and at the same time the transcendent Creator and Master of the universe.

There is a general conception that the Unmanifest is the most transcendental term of the supreme Reality and that aksara or the Immutable is the ultimate truth of existence. But the Upanishad is categoric on the point— and the Gitâ fully concurs with it—that the supreme Purusa is beyond the Unmanifest (avyaktāttu parah Purusa)., and superior to the aksara (aksarādapicottamah). There is nothing higher than the Purusā— Purusānna param kiñcit; He is the ultimate and highest goal, the sole Refuge of all. This is a truth that has to be

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kept constantly in view in the Integral Yoga, if we are to conquer the strong, traditional penchant of the Indian mind for the unmoving peace and passivity of the aksara. The knowledge of the aksara is called vidyā (sā vidyā yayā tadaksaramadhigamyate), and the knowledge of the ksara purusa or the phenomenal universal being is called avidyā; but the integral knowledge of the Paramātman comprehends both vidyā and avidyā and yet transcends them, as the Upanishad rightly holds.

The integral knowledge is the knowledge of Saccidānanda; not only of His sat or existence, or of His cit or Consciousness-Force, or of His ānanda or bliss, each taken separately, but of the inalienable unity of the three, the ineffable trinity. By this knowledge we know Saccidānanda as an infinite and eternal self-conscious Existence, which the orthodox Vedântin envisages as the final object of his spiritual endeavour; we know Him as an infinite and eternal Consciousness-Force, which is the goal of Tantra and the Yoga of divine works; and we know Him as an infinite and eternal Self-Bliss, ānanda, which is the supreme status, param pada or param dhama of the yoga of love and devotion. The integral knowledge includes all these aspects and attributes of the Divine, even while it exceeds them all in its giant embrace of the unthinkable and relationless Absolute. It is an all-reconciling, all- harmonising knowledge which reveals to us saccidānanda in all His statuses and on all the planes of existence. Possessed of it, we can live simultaneously in the consciousness of the Absolute Transcendent and of the

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Absolute manifested in all universal relations; in the Impersonal and in Him who has revealed Himself as all these personalities; in That which is beyond all qualities and in the complex play of infinite qualities; in the fathomless silence beyond, where nothing stirs, and in the ceaseless hum and whirl of the cosmic energies. We realise the Divine as the Supreme Person, the sempiternal Being, who knows all, sanctions all, governs all, contains, up-holds and informs all as the Parama Purusa, and at the same time executes all knowledge, will and formation as prakrti. We see Him as "one Existence, Being gathered in Itself and Being displayed in all existences; as one Consciousness concentrated in the unity of its existence, extended in universal Nature and many-centred in innumerable beings, one Force static in its repose of self-gathered consciousness and dynamic in its activity of extended consciousness; one Delight blissfully aware of its featureless infinity and blissfully aware of all feature and force and forms as Itself; one creative Knowledge and governing Will, supramental, originative and determinative of all minds, lives and bodies; one Mind containing all mental beings and constituting all their mental activities; one Life active in all living beings and generative of their vital activities; one substance constituting all forms and objects as the visible and sensible mould in which mind and life manifest and act just as one pure existence is that ether in which all Consciousness, Force and Delight exist unified and find themselves variously. For these are the seven principles of the manifest

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being of Sachchidananda."¹ It is only the integral knowledge that can make us know and identify ourselves both statically and dynamically with all these multiple ways of being, bhāvas, of the Divine.

This integral knowledge is, according to Sri Aurobindo, the supramental gnosis, which unites in itself not only the knowledge of the timeless and featureless Absolute and the knowledge of its manifestation in Time and Space, but also includes a full and perfect knowledge of the basic principles and processes of that manifestation. It is at once the plenary self-vision and the world-vision of the Divine; and since it is a knowledge by identity— as all true spiritual knowledge must needs be—it gives us a dynamic union with the Divine and with all existence. This integral knowledge arms us with the supreme Will and Force of the Divine, not only for our release from ignorance and suffering, but for the transformation of our whole nature into the divine Nature. All other spiritual knowledge, if practised with a sustained sincerity, can lead to the liberation of the soul from the lower nature, but cannot transform that nature. It is only the supramental knowledge, the knowledge of the creative Truth-Consciousness, that can radically transform and divinise it. It liberates the soul, and it liberates the nature, and, by leading this double liberation into the infinite perfection of the Divine, bestows upon man the highest, the widest and the most harmonious

¹The Synthesis of Yoga by Sri Aurobindo.

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fulfilment of his whole being. It makes him live in the infinite Truth-Consciousness of the Parama Purusa and yet work in the world as an unfettered instrument of His Light and Force and Bliss.

THE OBJECT OF KNOWLEDGE

The above consideration will have made it abundantly clear that in the Integral Yoga the object of knowledge is the Divine Himself, the supreme Being, the Purusottama or the catuspāda brahman, and not only the aksara or the avyakta, or the personal God of certain religions. We aspire to realise the sole and sovereign Reality that is at once transcendent and immanent, static and dynamic, timeless and self-deployed in Time, One and self-figured as many, as described by the Upanishad:

"He, the Divine, the formless Spirit, even He is the outward and the inward and He the Unborn; He is beyond life, beyond mind, luminous. Supreme beyond the Immutable.

"Life and mind and the senses are born from Him and the sky, and the wind, and light, and the waters and earth upholding all that is."¹

The utmost transcendence, the most comprehensive universality, and the, all-directing individuality of the

¹ Mundaka Upanishad.

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Divine Presence in the hearts of beings, are all summed up in the Paramātman or Para Purusa whom we seek and adore with the integrality of our being. He delivers us from the darkness of the Ignorance, lifts us into the infinite plenitude of His Truth-Consciousness, and, transforming us into His own divinity, fulfils the deepest aspiration of our whole being. He is our Master and Lover and Friend and Helper and Guide, who holds us in His embrace of beatific Love even when He uses us as manifesting channels of His supernal glory upon earth. He unites us with Himself in the closest union of rapt ecstasy in which we become completely identified with Him in all the ways of His being, and yet lets us keep up a certain unimaginable, mysterious difference- in-identity which permits of the sweetest relations of a termless, fathomless, unutterable love. He is at once the Lord of our being and the Architect of our becoming.

This is the knowledge at which we aim in the Integral Yoga—a knowledge which not only purifies and illumines and liberates, but transfigures and fulfils our whole being, and accomplishes the object of our soul's birth into the material world.

In the Integral Yoga the sacrifice of knowledge (jñānayajña) mounts from experience to experience, from plane to plane of the spiritual consciousness, passing now through the thrilled love and light of the psychic being, now through the calm and silence of the Self, and now through the stupendous surge and heave of the universal dynamism, arrested by nothing, attached to

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no realisation, however exalting or alluring, however reposeful or transporting, but piercing all veils, shattering all obstacles and triumphing over all oppositions and resistances, it mounts with an ever-increasing intensity of aspiration towards what the Rigveda describes as "Vishnu's step supreme", or as :

"A Permanent, a Truth hidden by a Truth where the Sun unyokes His horses. The ten hundreds (of His rays) come together...That One."

An unfathomable love is the glowing heart of this integral knowledge, a fiery rapture its inexhaustible life- force, and a tireless, manifestational work of the Divine its objective expression in the material world.

The object of knowledge in the Integral Yoga is a double achievement: a constant and integral union with the Para Purusa on all the planes of consciousness, and, as a dynamic result of that union, a perfect fulfilment of His Will to self-revelation in matter.

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