The Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo

At The Feet

of

The Mother

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

A substantial demand for this book from America has made it necessary to bring out a second edition. But as the demand is urgent, there is no time to prepare an index and make certain additions and alterations, which I should have very much liked to do. I have, however, revised the whole book, made some slight changes and corrections, and elaborated the contents. Translations of some Sanskrit words and phrases have been appended in the footnotes.

The demand for this book is one of the minor indications of the growing interest the elite of the West are taking in Sri Aurobindo and the Mother's Integral Yoga and philosophy. It is heartening to find that many eminent thinkers of Europe and America are turning to Sri Aurobindo as the only hope and refuge in the dismal bankruptcy of the modem rationalistic, scientific and technocratic culture, and discovering in his teachings the synthetic spiritual vision, the all-reconciling comprehensive outlook, the happy fusion of the ideals of the East and the West, and, above all, the authentic, divine dynamism, capable of transforming human nature and creating a new world order, which alone can lift mankind from the morass of degeneracy into which it has sunk.

May humanity turn more and more to the delivering Light!

3rd December, 1959

RISHABHCHAND

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

An attempt has been made in this book to present the fundamentals of the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo against the background of the spiritual heritage of India and the incipient, but insistent and irresistible urge in humanity towards a harmonious perfection and fulfilment in life.

To any mind, undistracted by the general ferment of the present, it must he apparent that, in spite of ail confusion and conflicts, or probably because of them, humanity is slowly, almost imperceptively, moving towards a conquest of the supraphysical and spiritual truths of existence and a new social order of unity and harmony. What is indispensable, in order to accelerate this evolutionary advance and lead if victoriously to its goal, is the spread-of a synthetic, spiritual culture, which aims at reconciling Spirit and Matter, Light and Life, and Heaven and Earth by an integration and transformation of all the parts of the being of man, and their perfect attunement to the supreme Divine Will.

The Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo promises to realise this aim in individual and collective humanity. Its method is an integral surrender to the Mother, the Consciousness- Force of the Divine, and the crown of its achievement the

manifestation of God in a transfigured humanity. But because if proceeds in the inscrutable steps of the divine Light, and not by any fixed and rigidly graded way of practice, its processes and stages are characterised by a large flexibility and free variation, which defy all mental formulas and clear-cui systematisation. It works according to the inner needs and potentialities of each individual, and pro- poses to bring about a full outflowering of his svabhava w essential self-law in his life.

In the first nine chapters of this book, I have dwelt with the bases and preliminaries of the Yoga—the initial way the aspirant has to tread, his personal effort and the intervention of Grace helping each other. An elaborate treatment of the triple aim of this Yoga and its triple foundation, the triple poise of the Mother to whom the aspirant has to surrender, and the nature and dynamic of the Integra! surrender required will, it is hoped, be found useful. A full chapter has been devoted to the chief obstacle of the spiritual life, the Ego and the desires. Another chapter deals with the soul or fhe psychic being, which is the mainspring of ail spiritual endeavour. Then I have described the two natures, the higher and the lower, and gone into a detailed analysis of the different parts of human nature, and the means prescribed by Sri Aurobindo for their radical purification and transformation. The main difficulties of the practice of this Yoga

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have been thoroughly laid bare, awl the besetting snags spotlighted, and it has been shown how they can be most effectively overcome by a constant and conscientious pursuit of the Integral Yoga. The distinctive elements of Karmayoga, Bhaktiyoga and Jnanayoga, as woven into the composite texture of the Integral Yoga, and constituting the basis of its synthetic philosophy, have been elaborately explained. The double liberation, the triple transformation, and the fourfold perfection are the special features of Sri Aurobindo's Yoga, and I have tried, as best I could within the limited scope of the present book, to give a clear and comprehensive idea of what is meant by them, and how they can be realised in the aspirant's life. Particularly, the three chapters on Liberation, Transformation, and Perfection contain revolutionary departures from the traditional paths of Yoga and the original contribution of Sri Aurobindo to the spiritual achievements of humanity. They are meant to bring into focus the essential elements of the Divine Life which, according to Sri Aurobindo, is the ultimate destiny of the evolving being of man.

All these essays appeared serially in the Mother India) to the editor of which I am much indebted.

April, 1955

RISHABHCHAND

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