CWTVKS Volume 3

SRI AUROBINDO’S ’LIGHTS ON YOGA’

For those who have an attraction for the deeper currents of spiritual thought in India, Sri Aurobindo is a name to conjure with. For, from the beginning, not only now in his seclusion, his has been the life of a Yogin and his activities, creative expressions of a high order of spiritual power whether they are in the subtle and mystic realm of the Spirit training and helping the disciple in the path of yoga, or in the field of thought and culture, poetry, philosophy, scholarship, or in any sphere not excluding his contribution to the making of India’s history in the twentieth century. The weight that is attached to his writings lies in the fact that here you get first-hand information of subtle and ultra-mundane truths from one who bases his teachings not on speculative thought and reasoning, but wields the powers of reasoning for translating into intelligible language of the mind truths of a higher vision that are confirmed facts of living spiritual experience.

Indeed the teachings of Sri Aurobindo can be understood in the right spirit only if one bears in mind the fundamental principle of philosophic thought in ancient India, that each philosophic founder (as also those who continued his work) was a metaphysician doubled with a Yogi’. Or, in his own words," those who were only philosophic intellectuals were respected for their learning, but never took rank as truth discoverers. And the philosophies that lacked a sufficiently powerful means of spiritual experience died out and became things of the past, because they were not dynamic for spiritual discovery and realisation.”

Apart from the bulk of his writings in the past on philosophical and spiritual subjects, embedded in the articles published seriatum in the Arya, there are a few books, published of late, affording an opportunity for the enquiring mind to get more and more acquainted with the object, the means and the distinctive features of the Yoga that he has adopted and undertaken to communicate to those who are drawn to the discipline of this line of spiritual life.

The latest book is Lights on Yoga comprising as it does extracts from his letters to disciples in answer to their queries and the matter is given in four sections, arranged so as to be of some help to aspirants for the understanding and practice of the Yoga.

Many extracts describing in detail the goal of the Yoga form the first section, followed in the second by a descriptive classification of principles of the being, a sort of analysis, for purposes of the Yoga, of the human being into its component elements and of the planes of which they are the derived parts, together with illuminating references to the cakras, inner centres, their significance, functioning and fixed psychological use in the Yoga. The rest of the book deals with a practical description of the method of the Sadhana in some of its phases notably the use of concentration for opening to the peace and all that it carries with it as well as of the way of worship by works dedicated to the Divine.

The reader will find in the book sufficient explanation of terms, such as Supermind, Overmind, Psychic Being, Mind, Life, Lower Vital, Higher Vital and many more that are used in this Yoga with definite connotations; and this is bound to be of great value to those who seek to understand the principles of the Yoga. The book, as the title implies, is a series of lights on the method of practice of the Yoga and may well take the place of a companion volume to the Riddle of this world where most of the matter, especially the last section, treats of what may be called the theory side of the Yoga which indeed is indispensable for an understanding appreciation of the truths upon which the Yoga is founded for the releasing of the Divine potentialities imprisoned in the mind, life and body of the Earth in her travail.

Though these writings have a special importance to the disciples who are already on the path, they are bound to be of great help to the aspirant in his preparation and also of immense interest to the seeker of spiritual truths, strengthening the faith in the powers and possibilities of Yoga. We shall here quote a few passages from Sri Aurobindo’s published letters where we find interesting reference to instances of the development of a higher consciousness and its powers.

“ As for Divine rapture,” he writes in the course of a letter to Dilip Roy, “ a knock on head or foot or elsewhere can be received with the physical Ananda of pain or pain plus Ananda or pure physical Ananda for I have often, quite involuntarily, made the experiment myself and passed with honours. It began by the way, as far back as in Alipore jail when I got bitten in my cell by some very red and ferocious-looking warrior ants and found to my surprise that pain and pleasure were conventions of our senses. But I do not expect that unusual reaction from others. And I suppose there are limits.

If in Yoga all works are to be done as sacrifice to the Divine, can one remember the Divine all the time he is working? It can be done, he says; and making some practical suggestions on the point he proceeds to give an instance of personal experience. “There is also another way which was mine for a long time, a condition in which the work takes place automatically and without intervention of personal thought or mental action, while the consciousness remains silent in the Divine."

One may ask — such a consciousness is indeed a spiritual gain, but how does it affect others? Is it not valid only as a subjective experience? If not, does it make its influence felt in the objective world? Can anyone in need of help who is not a yogin be affected by it?

Here is the answer:

“ Consciousness in its very nature could not be limited by the ordinary physical animal consciousness, it must have other ranges ... It is certainly possible to have consciousness of things going on at a distance and intervene."

Then how is it that the use of yogic powers is forbidden and what is the rationale of these powers ?

“ All yogins who have these powers do use whenever they are called on from within to do so. They may refrain if they think the use in a particular case is contrary to the Divine Will or see that preventing one evil may be opening the door to worse or for any valid reason but not from any general prohibitory rule. What is forbidden to any one with a strong spiritual sense is to be a miracle-monger, performing extraordinary things for show, for gain, for fame, out of vanity or pride.

“ As for those who can live in the true Divine consciousness, certain powers are not powers at all in that sense, not, that is to say, supernatural or abnormal, but rather their normal way of seeing and acting, part of the consciousness — and how can they be forbidden or refuse to act according to their consciousness and its nature ?"

And this explains how or why the Master helps and extends himself to the disciples seeking him; for “the master is one who has risen to a higher consciousness and being and he is often regarded as its manifestation or representative. He not only helps by his teaching and still more by his influence and example but by a power to communicate his own experience to others.”

We shall close this with a passage from Anami that strikes the keynote of Sri Aurobindo’s teachings in regard to the Divine Grace and the Divine Will constituting the light and life of this Yogic endeavour. When he speaks of the Divine Will, he does not mean an arbitrary monarch who has created’ and governs the world that is the crude, childish, inadequate popular notion. He means "something different something that has descended here into an evolutionary world of Ignorance, standing at the back of things, pressing on the darkness with its light, leading things presently towards the best possible in the conditions of a world of Ignorance and leading it eventually towards a descent of a greater power of the Divine — which will be not an omnipotence held back and conditioned by the law of the world as it is, but in full action and therefore bringing the reign of light, peace, harmony, joy, love, beauty and Ananda — for these are the Divine Nature. The Divine Grace is there ready to act at every moment, but it manifests as one grows out of the Law of Ignorance into the Law of Light, and it is meant, not an arbitrary caprice, however miraculous often its intervention, but as a help in that growth and a Light that leads and eventually delivers.”