The Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo

CHAPTER V

The Triple Foundation

THE triple aim of the Integral Yoga demands a revolutionary start from a basis wider and deeper than that of the traditional Yogas, and with a sanction and equipment unknown, because unnecessary, to them. Since it seeks neither merely the personal salvation of the human soul, nor its self-extinction in the transcendent Absolute, nor any rapt and rapturous union with the Supreme in some Heaven beyond, but a constant, total and dynamic union with the Divine in life, it takes care to lay a triple foundation consisting of (1) the call and the response, ((2) calm and 'equality, and (3) surrender, each of which bears a special import and significance, and is indispensable to the effectiveness of the composite beginning; but none by itself s able to achieve any abiding and considerable result. It is only a harmonious combination of these three primary factors that can ensure a more or less unimpeded progress on this long and difficult path of the Integral Yoga.

THE CALL AND THE RESPONSE

The most important initial element of the synthetic advance is the call and the response. By the call we do not mean merely an aspiration for the Divine, or a yearning for

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the bliss of the unitive life, but a definite call of our whole- being, its unceasing and unflagging invocation to the Supreme to descend into us and manifest His supernal- splendour in our life and nature. It is a call for the closest and completest union, but a constantly creative and revelatory union, in our waking state—God's unimpeded self-expression and the perfect fulfilment of His Will in- and through our transformed consciousness and being». steeped in the invariable peace and bliss of the essential. identity, emergent even on the surface. This call springs. from a mystic faith and perception of our inmost being. that the extinction of the individual soul in the- unthinkable Eternal is not the end of our birth in terrestrial existence, and that there must be a definite purpose,, a deeper intention behind the drag and drift of its ambiguous appearances : a reproduction of the luminous existence, consciousness and bliss of the Supreme in terms of man's mind, soul, life and body. This faith, this irresistible belief in the eventual Apocalypse in Matter, informs. the call with its steadfast intensity, and no other spiritual- achievement, however high it may be, can fully satisfy those who have once had a glimpse of the unimaginable- glory of this consummation. The aspiration of the individuals who have been inspired by this vision must needs,. therefore, be different from the aspiration of those who. have been following the traditional spiritual urge;—it must be an original, pioneer aspiration lit with a new meaning: of creation, and winging towards new, unexplored horizons of an all-unifying Knowledge. The rejection of Nature:

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for the realisation of the Spirit, and the recoil from life for the wooing of Light seems to this comprehensive aspiration something too narrow and drastic; it insists rather on the reconciliation of Spirit and Nature, Light and life on the highest plane of creative unity. There is something revolutionary in the very grain of this call and aspiration, .a bold departure from the beaten track, and the germinal idea of an unprecedented spiritual fulfilment. Born of an assimilation of the highest spiritual aspirations of the past, this call embodies the Time-Spirit of the present, and heralds the great Advent of which the seers have seen visions, and the poets sung in strains of inspired delight.

But it must be "a fixed and unfailing aspiration that calls from below," "an aspiration vigilant, constant, un- ceasing—the mind's will, the heart's seeking, the assent of the vital being, the will to open and make plastic the physical consciousness and nature."¹ Nothing like it has ever been conceived or attempted before in the past, for at no period of the spiritual history of the world was .humanity so athirst and ripe in its elite for being a manifesting channel of Sachchidânanda in the material world, as it is today, in spite of the deepening gloom that envelops it. The call that rises from the earth is a call of the widest and profoundest love, offering itself as a ransom and holocaust for the great Advent.

The call from below is an earnest or, rather, to be more psychologically accurate, a reflex of the call from above.

¹ The Mother by Sri Aurobindo

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The truth of the matter is, that it is the divine will that first flashes down into the dark and dumb secrecies of Matter and awakens there a memory of right and an aspiration for it. This Will of the Divine is the Will of Love, and the aspiration that rises from below is a resultant of its action. But the first re- action of the awakening soul to the touch of love takes the form of a flight of the alone to the Alone,—an intense, precipitate and all-excluding aspiration for a naked re- treat to the Absolute. The soul, turning from what it regards as the "insoluble mystery of birth and the tardy process of mortality," impatient of the stranglehold of Matter, and tired of the tossings of life, longs to reach its eternal Home of Love and Bliss. But, however intense and insistent this longing may be, it does not exhaust all the potentialities of the soul's aspiration. The mature soul, unveiling the mystery of life, regards this flight as a defeat and a frustration, and determines to fulfil the divine mission for which it has come down. Its call upon the Supreme is, therefore, a reflex of the call of the Supreme upon it to remember its mission and invoke His descent and manifestation in Matter. The normal spiritual aspiration of the awakened soul for the exclusive enjoyment of the peace and bliss of the Beyond turns in the mature soul, by an absolute renunciation of all personal enjoyment, into an aspiration for the service of the Divine and the perfect fulfilment of His Will to manifestation. A sincere and constant call of the whole being of man is a Grantee of the response of the Divine—a response which

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is the seal and sanction of the accomplishment of the soul's, mission in its terrestrial existence. In the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo this response of the Supreme is the most momentous element, and without it no amount of human. endeavour can achieve the great objective of supramental manifestation.

CALM AND EQUALITY

The second strand of the foundation is calm and equality. No Yoga can be based on the quicksand of a restless nature, subject to the assaults of blind desires and emotions and impulses; least of all this Yoga, which demands an immense and immutable foundation for its complex dynamic action. Calm, a state of wide tranquillity, is indispensable to the initial Yogic movement of concentration and introspection. In the other Yogas, calm is established by means of a fixed preparatory discipline of the nature, by śama, dama, uparati, etc. or by a progressive renunciation of life and its normal activities, and a detachment of the witness soul from the movements of Nature, so that by an intensive concentration the central consciousness may pass into its own depths or rise to its own heights to realise its divine purity and freedom. For the Integral Yoga this basis of negative calm, acquired by a suppression or a lulling of the lower unrest, is not enough; for, its aim being the transformation and perfection of the whole nature of man, it needs an untrembling foundation of a positive and permanent calm. A negative calm may

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well serve as a vaulting board for a leap into the Self or Spirit, but fails as a platform or pedestal for a radical conversion and a new-modelling of nature. Therefore, the initial movement of quiet detachment from the turmoil of nature has to be supplemented by a conscious opening and invocation to the spiritual calm, so that it may descend into us and fill our being with its invulnerable tranquillity. In the beginning of the Yoga, one feels the calm growing in that part of one's being which is most turned to the Light, while the other parts may still be weltering in the habitual disorder and disquiet. One can learn—it comes by a steady will and practice—to live in that island of calm and feel secure against the winds and waves of the encircling ocean. But gradually this calm spreads out and infuses itself into the parts of the nature which have lent themselves to the general work of purification. It is at this stage that a descent from above is most essential, for it not only fortifies the existing calm, but widens it be- yond measure, and imparts to it its own spiritual quality of a positive and permanent concreteness. What was being gained and maintained by an unrelaxed labour of effort and vigilance, becomes now a settled and secure possession, capable of upbearing all the rush and swing of the contending forces of light and darkness.

Sri Aurobindo attaches a great importance to this calm, for, according to him, nothing definite and abiding can be achieved without it. He deprecates all impatience and over-eagerness and straining as positively disturbing and impeding, and teaches that "wideness and calmness are

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the foundation of the Yogic consciousness and the best condition for inner growth and experience. If a wide calm can be established in the physical consciousness, occupying and filling the very body and all its cells, that can become the basis for its transformation; in fact, without this wideness and calmness the transformation is hardly possible." If the foundation of calm is not there, the descending Light and Power and Ananda will withdraw leaving the nature to toss and tumble in its heaving obscurity. The long and uphill discipline of the Integral Yoga cannot be carried to its successful conclusion unless there has already been established a serene calm, at least in the central consciousness, as the first achievement of the aspirant. It is only in peace and calm that one can contemplate the object of one's quest with a steady gaze of devotion, and, at the same time, detect the imperfections and impurities of one's nature, and reject them with a firm decision. Calm in the mind, calm in the heart of emotions, calm in the parts of life in which the executive energies have their play, and calm in the very cells of the body—this is what Sri Aurobindo means by calm as an essential element of the foundation of his Yoga of supramental self-transformation.

It is true that in some devotional Yogas in India, as also in some types of devotional mysticism in the West, a considerable premium is put upon over-eagerness and impatience in the spiritual life. Excessive and sloppy emotionalism is made to do duty for a quiet and intense devotion, the steady, white flame of the psychic (soul) which mounts

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straight towards God. The inevitable result of this extravagant emotional straining is a loss of poise and balance, which opens the door to the forces of disorder and confusion, on the one hand, and clouds, if it does not altogether destroy, the faculty of inner perception and discrimination,. on the other. Much of the criticism and suspicion to which religious or spiritual life is often exposed derives its justification from this want of calm and collected poise in its followers. A calm and confident strength, entirely reliant" upon the divine Grace, is the best condition for progress. in the spiritual life.

Equality and calm go hand in hand, helping each other., The Gitâ, following the spirit of the Upanishads, insists upon equality as the most essential base of the spiritual life. It even goes to the extent of asserting that equality- is Yoga itself, so great is the importance it attaches to this" bedrock quality of the soul. Describing equality Sri. Aurobindo says, "Equality means a quiet and unmoved mind and vital, it means not to be touched or disturbed by things that happen or things said or done to you, but to look at them with a straight look, free from the distortions created by personal feeling, and to try to understand what is behind them, why they happen, what is to be learnt; from them, what is it in oneself which they are cast against and what inner profit or progress one can make out of them, it means self-mastery over the vital movements,—- anger and sensitiveness and pride as well as desire and the rest,—not to let them get hold of the emotional being- and disturb the inner peace, not to speak and act in the

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rush and impulsion of these things, always to act and speak out of a calm inner poise of the Spirit.

"Equality means another thing—to have an equal view of men and their nature and acts and the forces that move them; it helps one to see the truth about them by pushing away from the mind all personal feeling in one's seeing and judgment and even all the mental bias. Personal feeling always distorts and makes one see in men's actions, not only the actions themselves, but things behind them which, more often than not, are not there. Misunderstanding, misjudgment which could have been avoided are the result; things of small consequence assume larger proportions. I have seen that more than half of the untoward happenings of this kind in life are due to this -cause....For a sâdhaka, to surmount them and live rather in the calm strength of the Spirit is an essential part of .his progress."¹

Equality in the second sense, as explained by Sri Aurobindo, comes of a clear and constant perception, which deepens into experience, of the one Self or the one Divine everywhere, in all beings and all things. In its perfect state, it is "a calm, impartial and equal self-identification" with all beings and things. One comes to see and feel the one Being gleaming from behind the mask of every form, be it the form of a sage or a sinner,

¹ Letters of Sri Aurobindo, 1st Series or On Yoga II

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of a king or a pauper, of a man, an animal or a plant. It is this state of equality, which the Upanishads describe ,when they say, "He in whom it is the Self-Being that has become all existences that are Becomings, for he has AC perfect knowledge, how shall he be deluded, whence shall be have grief who sees everywhere oneness?" It is a state of being infinite and universal, liberated from the shackles of the ego. It is to put on Brahmanhood, and con- front the world with the calm regard of the Eternal.

But it is not easy to have equality all at once in the beginning of one's Yoga. The whole play of the human nature is based on an inveterate and manifold inequality. The prâna or vital is a whirlpool of desires and passions, it hungers and strains after objects that attract and turn away from those that repel it, exposing itself to the transient reactions of pleasure and pain, joy and grief. In order to establish equality in the prâna, one must cast all desires out of it and train it to be calm and equal to all objects. Since the prâna is essentially an instrument of enjoyment and not of craving, its final perfection will be an equal delight in all objects, and an equal enjoyment of all its contacts with the world. The heart must likewise be rid of the inequalities of attachments and affections, hatred and fear and exultation and wrath and grief, and become wide and sweet and serene, a tranquil ocean of deep and happy spiritual feeling. The mind too must shed all its attachment to its own preferences and prepossessions, Ks habitual subjection to its own ideas and thoughts and °pinions, and see in ignorance "a knowledge which is

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imprisoned and seeks and waits for delivery, in error a truth at work which has lost itself or got thrown by the groping mind into misleading forms... .It will not hold itself bound and limited by its knowledge or forbidden by to proceed to fresh illumination, nor lay too fierce a grasp on truth, even when using it to the full, or tyrannously chain it to its present formulations".¹ It must learn to be large and luminously equal to the infiltration and expansion of the Light in it through the intricate and often inscrutable play of darkness and twilight. Since the demand of the Integral Yoga on us is to be equal not only in the soul, but also in the whole of our nature, this preparatory purification will goon progressing till the equality, thus acquired, passes into the spiritual equality, the eternal, unshakable equality of Sachchidânanda Himself, that bases the boundless, multitudinous movement of the universe.

What we have considered so far is the passive or negative equality, which acquiesces in and receives all impacts of the world without betraying the slightest tremor of unquiet or disturbance. There are three ways of developing and establishing it in the nature. The first is the way of endurance, titiksha, which is the way of the heroic or stoical will bearing down and crushing all reactions of dualities, and remaining firm and unmoved in the face of all opposition. The second is the way of indifference, udāsīnatā, which is the way of the philosophic intellect,

¹ The Synthesis of Yoga by Sri Aurobindo or On Yoga I

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detaching itself from the whirl of the lower energies and regarding them, with the eye of knowledge, as born of the ignorance or illusion of nature. The impartial indifference remains equal and impervious to all the shocks and surprises of life—a calm witness, silent and impassive, and unassailable in its impassiveness. The third way is that of the Christian or Vaishnavic submission, namas .or nati, a devoted resignation to the will of God, and a quiet acceptance of all that comes,—happiness or suffering, honour or obloquy, victory or defeat, success or failure, —as the just dispensation of divine Providence.

But this passive equality, though an indispensable preliminary, is not enough for the basic perfection of the Integral Yoga; for, it is not a mere inhibition of the natural movements that is aimed at in it, but a conquest and conversion of them, a radical transformation. Therefore, to the still peace of the passive equality has to be added the thrilled delight, the boundless Ananda of the positive and active equality which, armed with the power of Spirit, returns upon the nature and its movements to subject and attune them to the divine Will, and transmute them into a limpid and docile channel of its self-expression in the material world. The final perfection of equality will be an imperturbable vastness in the being, sustaining the rapturous dynamism of a harmonised and integrated nature for the outpouring of the splendours of the Divine in human life.

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SURRENDER

The third element of the foundation of the Integral Yoga is surrender. Usually all Yogas are practised by one of the three means: (1) personal effort and tapasya,¹ (2) personal tapasya aided and fortified by the divine Grace, and (3) the direct working of the divine Grace and Force. The last means is that which Sri Aurobindo advises the followers of the Integral Yoga to avail themselves of,, because it is the only means by which the great objective of the supramental transformation can be achieved. In. this Yoga personal effort is used only at the initial stages, and that, too, not for any pre-planned purification or progress, but solely with a view to making the surrender complete and constant, which, of course, involves a considerable purification. The tapasyâ of the egoistic individual lies simply in resolutely willing and compassing its own abdication, its utter effacement, in favour of the true individual, the soul, and its eternal Master, the Divine. Each part of the complex human nature, each movement of its thought and feeling and emotion and sensation. and action, has to be surrendered and offered at every moment of life, so that disinherited and dispossessed the ego may disappear altogether, and the Divine take up the charge of the whole being and lead it to the perfect fulfilment of its destiny. It must be clearly understood here that the Integral Yoga, whose only aim is the transformation

¹Askesis or austerities

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of the entire nature of man, and the unflawed manifestation of Sachchidânanda in his life, cannot be practised by the normal or supernormal powers of his mind and heart. The path is so steep and long, it winds through so many virgin valleys and rugged rocks, and is beset with so many banded forces of darkness that, except for the direct divine leading at every step, which a sincere call and an integral surrender cannot fail to ensure, the goal could hardly be realised. Besides, the goal itself is something not only beyond the highest conception of the human intelligence, but beyond the highest reach of human powers; it can be attained only if the supreme divine Light consents to descend and lift man into its own domain. In the integral Yoga, it is the Divine who is the Sâdhaka and the Siddha, the Guide and the Goal; but in order that His constant guidance may be available, it is imperative that the surrender of the aspirant should be ungrudging, unreserved, integral and absolute; and it must be a surrender to the supreme Consciousness-Force of the Divine, the eternal Mahashakti, the supreme Mother.

We have now to proceed to consider who this Mother, the sole Pilot of the Integral Yoga, is, and how best we can surrender all ourself to Her transforming Love.

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