... dialogue that we find a great reconciliation between Sankhya and Yoga by means of the Vedanta. And it is this reconciliation which we find as a philosophical support of the great synthesis of the yoga of the Gita. Our primary aim here is to study records of yogic experiences and to avoid scholastic debates of interpretation of these records. This is not to deny the importance of philosophical enquiry and... action. In our ordinary psychological operation, all action appears to be tied up with desire, and if desire is eliminated, Page 19 action also ceases to operate. According to the yoga of the Gita, there is no such inevitable connection between desire and action, and action can be united with that omnipotent will which has in it no want or lacuna to fulfill which the machinery of desire... laid down in this text with an incomparable mastery and the infallible eye of an assured experience. It is true that at its close, we do find the possibilities of further development. The yoga of the Gita is a synthesis of yoga, and although it aims at utilizing action as a constant method, and even though it leads to highest status of consciousness in which the perfection of action and fullness ...
... also to act in the power, Shakti, Para Prakriti, the true and high force of the Spirit. 6. Conclusion: Three Secrets of the Yoga of the Gita We may, in conclusion, state three secrets which determine the methods and goal of the Synthesis of Yoga of the Gita. There is, first, the secret of the constant relations between Soul and Nature. The guhyam rahasyam, the profound secret is that... Supreme with supreme faith in Me, — they are exceedingly dear to Me." 137 Against this vast background, we can now enter into the last six chapters. 3. A New Standpoint for the Yoga of the Gita: Relationship between Purusha and Prakriti, Pnrushottama and Para Prakriti, State of Trigundtita and Sddharmya Mukti The central problem of yoga is to discover how... the one hand, and by Prakriti concentrated upon buddhi, on the other, to uplift the soul from its bondage to Prakriti. But the Gita goes farther in its inquiry and its discoveries. The yoga of the Gita discovers that the soul is Jiva, which is a self-representation, an individuation or portion, am śā , an eternal portion, of the Supreme Being, Purushottama, and that this jiva is constituted ...
... will discover the Self, realise the Self, fulfil himself in the Self. That is the finest boon and the noblest victory offered by the Yoga of the Gita to the human soul, the Aryan spirit living and acting in the nobility of life. That is the merit of the Yoga of the Gita which holds spiritual transformation as its most desirable siddhi or attainment. Rising well above the tamasic or inert mechanical... a sacrifice to the Master of Works, does the karmayogin really come to the state of perfect felicity of taking refuge completely in the Divine. Here is for him the crowning achievement of the Yoga of the Gita. In the words of Sri Aurobindo this is what the Teacher of the Gita tells Arjuna: All this personal effort and self-discipline will not in the end be needed, all following and limitation ...
... the Gita, He asked me to practise the Yoga of the Gita. He also gave me the power to do so." "How did He give you the Gita?" "Why? Doesn't the Mother give you fruits and flowers in your dreams? They do not have to be material objects, do they? In the same way, Sri Krishna's gift to me was on the subtle plane." Page 169 "What is the Yoga of the Gita?" "To work for the Lord, without... thought about the fruits of the action. It is the same thing that you are expected to do here: at all times, in all ways, in your studies and in your actions." "The Mother too has practised the Yoga of the Gita, has she not?" "Of course. The same Force which used me guided her." One of the children asked: "What was the work God had reserved for you? Was it Yoga and Sadhana?" "Those are the means ...
... Arjuna's Argument At Kurukshetra And Sri Krishna's Answers Relationship between Knowledge, Action and Devotion At the root of the synthesis of the yoga of the Gita is a clear and indispensable relationship that exists between cognition, conation and affection. Knowledge, which is the fruit of cognition is always superior to mere action, since knowledge aims... that urge is the unfailing and perennially fresh motive force of yoga as also its crown, the sovereignty of which is immortal in its constant flow. This is the reason why in the synthesis of the yoga of the Gita, the motive force of self-surrender and love has been assigned that indispensable place with such an emphasis that the yoga of divine love and the yoga of self-surrender is woven in the synthesis... and the state of transcendence of the three gunas of lower nature, — the state of trigunātita, and the state of sādharmyam. In the last six chapters (XIII—XVIII), the entire synthesis of yoga of the Gita is reviewed from a special standpoint," the standpoint of the relationship between Purusha and Prakriti, and the precise relations between the supreme Page 24 Purusha (Purushottama) ...
... Good for which men fight and die" beginning with this line up to:— "These powers I am and at my call they come" —Bock VII, Canto 4. Compare: This passage with the "Vibhuti Yoga" of the Gita. "My great philosophies are a reasoned guess, Page 389 "All is a speculation or a dream: In the end the world itself becomes a doubt:" —Book VII, Canto 4. ... and "Now through Mind's windows stares the dead-god" —Book X, Canto 3 "A blaze of his sovereign glory is the sun, A glory is the gold and glimmering moon." Compare: Vibhuti Yoga of the Gita. "A hidden Bliss is at die root of things. A mute Delight regards Time's countless works: "This universe an old enchantment guards; Its objects are carved cups of Worl... to Delight they return." Taittiriya III 6 Lines beginning with "The All-Wonderful has packed heaven with his dreams", have something of the suggestion of the Vibhuti Yoga of the Gita. "In me are the Nameless and the secret Name" —Book X, Canto 3 Compare: "Passion-flower of the Nameless, bud of the mystical Name". Rose ...
... heart and mind in Me by My grace thou shalt Page 135 pass safe through all difficulties and dangers." We believe that the Yoga of the Gita will play a large part in the uplifting of the nation, and this attitude is the first condition of the Yoga of the Gita. When anybody tries to discourage our people in this attitude, we are bound to enter the lists against him. We recognise that to argue ...
... for your forthcoming tasks." "No, I do not want to discuss for the moment questions of my state affairs or of politics or of statesmanship. My immediate questions, all, pertain to Yoga, Yoga of the Gita. This book, the Gita, is extraordinary. The more you do not understand it, the more you feel you should go up to the end of it. I do not know how to express. But because it is difficult, I cannot... Love fulfilled includes knowledge. And this unity also includes all the perfection of will and its work in the world. Because the Gita unites these three powers of our psychological being, the Yoga of the Gita is called the integral and synthetic Yoga." The Princess asked: "Can you just outline very briefly the main thread of the argument of the Gita?" I replied : "The argument ...
... an integral knowledge." (Sri Aurobindo, SABCL, Vol. 18, pp. 324-5) The integrality of the Ultimate Reality that we find in the Veda and the Upanishads is reiterated in the philosophy and yoga of the Gita. The Ultimate Reality, according to the Gita, is One but complex and integral and this integrality is the highest object of knowledge and manifestation which we can attain by transcendence of... from the Sankhyan metaphysical position and its yogic experience. In the Sankhyan analysis, Purusha and Prakriti in their dualism are the cause of the cosmos; but in the integral philosophy and yoga of the Gita, Purusha or rather Purushottama by His Para Prakriti is the cause of the cosmos. The Gita affirms the one self immutable, immobile, and eternally free. But these epithets, — immutability ...
... answer my question, and he began the answer there and then itself. "He said: 'Since you raised the question of the Gita, let us understand that the central interest of the philosophy and the Yoga of the Gita is its attempt to reconcile and even effect a kind of unity between the integral realisation of the Spirit and the outer actualities of man's life and action. Gita shows the way as to how to unite... my first five years of stay with Brahmadevji, we both left Mount Girnar and migrated to Tiger Hills near Darjeeling. And it was before I went to Darjeeling that I made a detailed study of the Yoga of the Gita. It was through this study that I came to understand what Brahmadevji had told me earlier about the highest state of realisation as the state of sadharmya. Let me explain. "It is well known ...
... in a position to build on the ground of personal experience and take his readers through the unconscious Yoga of Nature, and the various conscious Yogas: Hatha, Raja, Jnana, Karma, Bhakti, the Yoga of the Gita, his own integral Yoga and the revolutionary world-transforming Supramental Yoga. With this unique wealth of variegated spiritual experience, it was not unnatural that Sri Aurobindo should weave... into the one Force, our will and works surrendered into the one Will and Power, assume the dynamic perfection of the Divine Nature. 25 Sri Aurobindo's Yoga is also integral like the Yoga of the Gita, but a new dimension - the bringing down of the Supramental Light and Force - is added, and this makes all the difference. As in individual life, in collective life also there are ascending ...
... Spirit. He is the Godhead in the universe; this world in Space and Time is his phenomenal self-extension. In the unrolling of this comprehensive vision of existence and super-existence the Yoga of the Gita finds its unified significance and unexampled amplitude. This supreme Godhead is the one unchanging imperishable Self in all that is; therefore to the spiritual sense of this unchanging imperishable ...
... itself all the Yogic paths as the highest being of the Divine reconciles and makes one in itself all the different and even contrary powers and principles of its manifested being. Therefore this Yoga of the Gita is not, as some contend, only the Karmayoga, one and the lowest, according to them, of the three paths, but a highest Yoga synthetic and integral directing Godward all the powers of our being ...
... Samadhi so that we may gain the temporal and eternal results of this self-exceeding, the temporal in a great expansion of the soul's knowledge and powers, the eternal in the divine union. But the Yoga of the Gita is a large, flexible and many-sided system with various elements, which are all successfully harmonised by a sort of natural and living assimilation, and of these elements Rajayoga is only one ...
... the Mayavadins is silent, immutable and inactive; so too is the Purusha of the Sankhya; therefore for both ascetic renunciation of life and works is a necessary means of liberation. But for the Yoga of the Gita, as for the Vedantic Yoga of works, action is not only a preparation but itself the means of liberation; and it is the justice of this view which the Gita seeks to bring out with such an unceasing ...
... the complete surrender to the Divine, abandoning all other dharmas, living only by the divine Consciousness, the divine Will and Force, the divine Ananda. Our Yoga is not identical with the Yoga of the Gita although it contains all that is essential in the Gita's Yoga. In our Yoga we begin with the idea, the will, the aspiration of the complete surrender; but at the same time we have to reject the ...
... reason, it is seen to be your proper dharma. These are the three tests and apart from that I do not know if there is any fixed line of conduct or way of work or life that can be laid down for the yoga of the Gita. It is the spirit or consciousness in which the work is done that matters most; the outer form can vary greatly for different natures. This, so long as one does not get the settled experience ...
... used to see a long time ago. That she should come here and work with me for a common goal was, as it were, a divine dispensation. "The Mother was an adept in the Buddhist yoga and the yoga of the Gita even before she came to India. Her yoga was moving towards a grand synthesis. After this, it was natural that she should come here. She has helped and is helping to give a concrete form to ...
... tendency towards exclusive path of jnana became more and more prominent, and by the time we come to the Gita, we witness a great conflict between the path of knowledge and the path of works. The yoga of the Gita confronted this conflict and recovered the Upanishadic and even Vedic synthesis, and it built upon the basis of the essential ideas of that synthesis another harmony and synthesis of three great ...
... The Gita and its Synthesis of Yoga Preface In his immortal book 'Essays on the Gita’, Sri Aurobindo has explained the fundamental value of the yoga of the Gita and the contribution it can make to the new age of development in the following words: "We of the coming day stand at the head of a new age of development which must lead to such a new and larger synthesis ...
... with its one Purusha and strong Vedantic coloring to the non-theistic or "atheistic" Sankhya that has come down to us bringing with it its scheme of many Purushas and one Prakriti, nor of the Yoga of the Gita, many-sided, subtle, rich and flexible to the theistic doctrine and the fixed, scientific, rigorously defined and graded system of the Yoga of Patanjali. In the Gita the Sankhya and Yoga are evidently ...
... whom she used to see a long time ago. That she should come here and work with me for a common goal was, as it were, a divine dispensation. "The Mother was an adept in the Buddhist yoga and the yoga of the Gita even before she came to India. Her yoga was moving towards a grand synthesis. After this, it was natural that she should come here. She has helped and is helping to give a concrete form to my ...
... Meditations, at the similarity of the ideas of Mother and Sri Aurobindo about yoga, transformation of nature, the subconscience, etc. There is so much parallelism in Mother's practising the yoga of the Gita in Paris! The two were widely separated by space, custom, culture, and yet they had the same spiritual destiny. 321 'Siddhi' means perfection, completion. In yoga, it means attainment ...
... truth, in his mind and in his heart the truth of Hinduism. And, unexpectedly, he was helped in his yoga by Vivekananda. "In the jail I had the Gita and the Upanishads with me, practised the Yoga of the Gita and meditated with the help of the Upanishads; these were the only books from which I found guidance." Then during his meditation Vivekananda came. "It is a fact that I was hearing constantly ...
... with its one Purusha and strong Vedantic colouring to the non-theistic or "atheistic" Sankhya that has come down to us bringing with it its scheme of many Purushas and one Prakriti, nor of the Yoga of the Gita, many-sided, subtle, rich and flexible to the theistic doctrine and the fixed, scientific, rigorously defined and graded system of the Yoga of Patanjali. In the Gita the Sankhya and Yoga are evidently ...
... the light of the knowledge already given by the Teacher are a brief, but still a comprehensive indication of the whole essential idea, the entire central method, all the kernel of the complete Yoga of the Gita. Page 539 ...
... sadhana before and afterwards was not founded upon books but upon personal experiences that crowded on me from within. But in the jail I had the Gita and the Upanishads with me, practised the yoga of the Gita and meditated with the help of the Upanishads; these were the only books from which I found guidance; the Veda which I first began to read long afterwards in Pondicherry rather confirmed what ...
... reason, it is seen to be your proper dharma . These are the three tests and apart from that I do not think there is any fixed line of conduct or way of work or life that can be laid down for the Yoga of the Gita. It is the spirit or consciousness in which the work is done that matters most; the outer form can vary greatly for different natures. Thus, so long as one does not get the settled experience ...
... whom she used to see a long time ago. That she should come here and work with me for a common goal was, as it were, a divine dispensation. The Mother was an adept in the Buddhist yoga and the yoga of the Gita even before she came to India. Her yoga was moving towards a grand synthesis. After this, it was natural that she should come here. She has helped and is helping to give a concrete form to my ...
... Mother The Cosmic Divine and the Mother What is the difference between the cosmic Divine and the Mother? It is a matter of realisation. In the yoga of the Gita the cosmic Divine is realised as Vasudeva (Krishna). The Vaishnavas realise it as Vishnu, the Shaivas as Shiva. The Tantrics (Shaktas) realise the Devi (Goddess) as the Cosmic and even as the ...
... in freedom from action. In our ordinary psychological operation, all action appears to be tied up with desire, and if desire is eliminated, action also ceases to operate. According to the yoga of the Gita, there is no such inevitable connection between desire and action, and action can be united with that omnipotent will which has in it no want or lacuna to fulfill which the machinery of desire ...
... laid down in this text with an incomparable mastery and the infallible eye of an assured experience. It is true that at its close, we do find the possibilities of further development. The yoga of the Gita is a synthesis of yoga, and although it aims at utilizing action as a constant method, and even though it leads to highest status of consciousness in which the perfection of action and fullness ...
... sacrifice as a companion, the all-Father created these peoples" .9 The law of sacrifice, which is the law of every act of thought, will and love, is the law of self-giving; the integral Karma Yoga of the Gita which is also a synthesis of the yoga of knowledge, of will and of love, is based on the recognition that the ego is neither alone in the world nor chief in the world, and that even in our fragmented ...
... above Nature, the other evolves a psychic being in Nature. What is the difference between the cosmic Divine and the Mother? It is a matter of realisation. In the Yoga of the Gita the Cosmic Divine is realised as Vasudeva (Krishna). The Vaishnavas realise it as Vishnu, the Shaivas as Shiva, the Tantrics (Shaktas) realise the Devi (Goddess) as the Cosmic and even as the ...
... manifestation, but even in respect of actual operations of activities in the human instrument. This great principle of self-surrender, which has been so clearly enunciated in the synthesis of yoga of the Gita, is explicitly acknowledged in the new synthesis of yoga. But, as Sri Aurobindo points out, the Gita works out fully the path as the ancients saw it, but the highest secret of the method of s ...
... mastered the Gita so thoroughly that he undertook a formidable task of formulating a comprehensive science of Yoga, Yoga shastra, in which the yoga of the Veda, Yoga of the Upanishads and the yoga of the Gita could be viewed as a vast and comprehensive system of verifiable and repeatable experiences. To begin with, my father had reservation about Vaishnavism and did not share my mother's adoration ...
... Sadhana before and afterwards was not founded upon books but upon personal experiences that crowded on me from within. But in the jail I had the Gita and the Upanishads with me, practised the Yoga of the Gita and meditated with the help of the Upanishads; these were the only books from which I found guidance; the Veda which I first began to read long afterwards in Pondicherry rather confirmed what ...
... love and the high emphasis of the Veda upon divine works." 56 The Synthesis of Yoga in the Gita There came to be developed, in the later history of Indian yoga, the great synthesis of yoga in the Gita, which is the greatest gospel of divine works. The quintessential aims and methods of Karma yoga that were greatly emphasized in the Veda and also in the earlier Upanishads were reiterated... bolder and larger than the Vedantic schools of yoga. The vast fund of the knowledge of the Tantric yoga is assimilated in Sri Aurobindo's and the Mother's synthesis of yoga. But even though it includes the aims of the Tantra, its initial stress falls upon the methods of the Veda, the Upanishads and the Gita. As a result, in Sri Aurobindo's synthesis of yoga, raising of the powers of the human ... more readily accessible to philosophy in the Upanishadic concepts of Brahman, Purusha, Ishawara, got reiterated and were given in the Gita the foundational position in regard to the methods and aims of its synthetic yoga. The Gita also brought into the forefront the yoga of divine love and discovered the principle of self-surrender which is essential Page 73 for the right relationship between ...
... a thirteenth Upanishad. 59 The Gita is a continuation of the basic teaching of the Upanishads, although its Vedantic ideas are throughout coloured by the ideas of the Samkhya and Yoga. It must also be stated that the Samkhya in the Gita is not the system of Samkhya Karika of Ishwara Krishna, and Yoga referred to in the Gita is not the Yoga of the Yoga aphorisms of Patanjali. The traditional... is atheistic, while the Samkhya of the Gita admits and subtly reconciles the theistic, pantheistic and monistic views of the universe. Similarly, the term "Yoga" in the Gita, even while admitting Rajayoga as a part connotes a large, flexible and many-sided system incorporating Karma Yoga and Bhakti Yoga. Action to Patanjali is only a preliminary, in the Gita it is a permanent foundation, and it is... synthesis of Yoga, after the age of the Upanishads is to be found in the Bhagawad Gita. Opulent and multi-sided intellectuality burst out as the demands of Reason began to assert themselves at the close of the age of Intuition that marked the Upanishads. This intellectuality is evident in the Mahabharata of which the Gita constitutes an important or even a crucial episode. As a result, the Gita is largely ...
... on the Gita, Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library (SABCL), 1971, Pondicherry, Vol.13. Sri Aurobindo, The Foundations of Indian Culture and the Renaissance in India, Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library (SABCL), 1971, Pondicherry, Vol.14. Sri Aurobindo, Hymns to the Mystic Fire, Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library (SABCL), 1971, Pondicherry, Vol. 11. Sri Aurobindo, Le Yoga de la... la Bhagwad Gita, 1969, Tehou (France). Sri Aurobindo, The Secret of the Veda, Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library (SABCL), 1971, Pondicherry, Vol.10. Sri Aurobindo, The Upanishads, Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library (SABCL), 1971, Pondicherry, Vol.12. Varnekar, S.B., Ed., Sanskrit Vangmaya Kosha, Bharatiya Bhasha Parishad, 1988, Calcutta, 2 Vols. Page 75 ... Indian Philosophy, Motilal Banarasi dass, 1988, Delhi, 5 Vols. Das Gupta, S.N., Yoga as Philosophy and Religion, Motilal Banarasi dass, 1987, Delhi. Das Gupta, S.N., Yoga Philosophy in Relation to other Systems of Indian Thought. Motilal Banarasidass, 1974, Delhi. Dayanand Saraswati (Swami), Satyartha Prakash, tr. Durga Prasad. Hiriyanna, M., Outline of Indian Philosophy, Alien ...
... which the Gita says the yoga gives, the freedom which we ordinarily mean by mukti . This is the freedom which the Gita promises. He says if you act in yoga , you rise above grief and pain, even above all things. You are free from fear or sin, because you do not act for yourself. You do not act because you will get pleasure, but for the sake of God; that is how you are to reach yoga . If you wish... effected in the material world. Whatever happens, it happens for the best. I now give you my knowledge, the key to yoga . I remove the veil of ignorance from you. I give you the meaning of yoga ." In the Gita Srikrishna gives certain rules by which a man may hold communion with God. The Gita says that man is not a bundle of outward cares and griefs, of things that do not last. Man is a garment which... for the race and others, for mankind. It is not God's work when you follow after your selfishness. The Gita says: "Your welfare is God's business." If you work for Him you have no fear, because God stretches out His hand of mercy to you. It is to that which the yoga leads. The teaching of the Gita, if it is followed, delivers you from all possibility of sin, of sorrow. He says: "Take refuge in me. ...
... where he lived for the next 40 years until he passed away in 1950. During those 40 years he produced his great classics including The Life Divine, The Human Cycle, The Synthesis of Yoga, Essays on the Gita and the extraordinary epic poem Savitri. The Mother joined him as his spiritual collaborator in 1920 and the number of disciples grew substantially. In 1926 he ceased meeting ...
... expressive of soul's deity, A Strength not forced to stumble by its speed, A Joy that drags not sorrow as its shade. Yes, one must strive always to write at one's highest and, with the Yoga which the Gita describes as "skill in works", all the workers involved must see that they do not fail the conviction the Mother expressed in the last letter she wrote to the Editor about the periodical at a... Ashram, she replied: "I did not want anybody to create obstacles in your way. If your office, your work are here, you have every reason to say that you should be in Pondicherry. I have made your path of Yoga clear," From February 1954 the Editor was helped to get fixed where his office had been moved. Now the Mother could be consulted directly at all times, and she presided most generously over the... varied, but there should be consonance, however subtle and implicit, with the great ideal of refining no less than sharpening all of man's faculties. And, of course, topics concerned with the Integral Yoga were to hold the centre of the stage. At the end of twenty-five years Mother India cannot do better than turn in deep gratitude to the Mother and Sri Aurobindo and so comport itself as to be ...
... had been great yogis in India. The Bhagavad Gita itself, which is as old as the Mahabharata, is a great manual of yoga; and many would say that the Raja Yoga of Patanjali, which tries to mobilise psycho-vital, psycho-mental and physico-mental processes on the issue of a rise to a higher consciousness, is the yoga. The Jnana, Karma and Bhakti yogas too have masses of adherents. What, then, is... Aurobindonian yoga, as given in The Mother, are Aspiration, Rejection, Surrender. The Isha Upanishad, as interpreted by Sri Aurobindo, lays stress on the right Knowledge of the Lord and total submission (or surrender) to Him. In the Gita, too, the stress is on aspiration, abandonment (or rejection) and complete surrender. Sri Aurobindo thus traces the seeds of his yoga to the Gita, the Isha... would then have the Yoga of Works (Karma Yoga), the Yoga of Knowledge (Jnana Yoga) and the Yoga of Love or Devotion (Bhakti Yoga). There are other yogas too like Raja, Hatha, and Tantra, etc. These are really so many 'paths' leading to God or the Life Divine. Aurobindo took these and other ideas from the older yogas and evolved a dynamic and truly multiform yoga of his own, which ...
... (1914-1921) On Ideals and Progress Essays in Philosophy and Yoga Yoga and Skill in Works Yoga is skill in works. Gita Yoga, says the Gita, is skill in works, and by this phrase the ancient Scripture meant that the transformation of mind and being to which it gave the name of Yoga brought with it a perfect inner state and faculty out of... of man, even when it is most vehement and powerful or Olympian and victorious, must eternally be subject. It is the utility of Yoga that it opens to us a gate of escape out of the vicious circle of our ordinary human existence. The idea of works, in the thought of the Gita, is the widest possible. All action of Nature in man is included, whether it be internal or external, operate in the mind or use... to universalise himself and then to transcend the cosmic formula. And this transformation acts not only on his status of being but on his active consciousness in works. The Gita tells us that equality of soul and mind is Yoga and that this equality is the foundation of the Brahman-state, that high infinite consciousness to which the Yogin aspires. Now equality of mind means universality; for without ...
... proneness to discouragement and a consequent despondency is one of the weaknesses of your vital nature and to get rid of it would be a great help. One must learn to go forward on the path of Yoga, as the Gita insists, with a consciousness free from despondency— anirviṇṇacetasā . Even if one slips, one must rectify the posture; even if one falls, one has to rise and go undiscouraged on the divine way... Method of the Integral Yoga The Synthetic Method of the Integral Yoga A Yoga of Knowledge, Works, Bhakti and Self-Perfection Letters on Yoga - II Chapter I The Central Processes of the Sadhana Four Necessary Processes As regards X 's question—this is not a Yoga of Bhakti alone; it is or at least it claims to be an integral Yoga, that is, a turning of... the heart that has to turn to the Divine and change, but the mind also—so knowledge is necessary, and the will and power of action and creation also—so works too are necessary. In this Yoga the methods of other Yogas are taken up—like this of Purusha-Prakriti, but with a difference in the final object. Purusha separates from Prakriti, not in order to abandon her, but in order to know himself and her ...
... Synthesis of Yoga, Essays on the Gita, Letters on Yoga, The Mother's Entretiens (in 13 Volumes), Mother's Commentaries on Sri Aurobindo' s Thoughts. and Aphorisms, etc. The students have studied these books with great love and concentration. They have approached these seminal works, not with some intellectual academic interest, but mainly for comprehending the basics of the Integral Yoga as ushered... of many of the works of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother dealing with the Puma Yoga, they somehow lack in their comprehension that precision and clarity which are very much needed for putting the principles into actual practice. They find themselves at a loss to know for certain how to begin the Sadhana of the Integral Yoga and from which point and how to proceed methodically thereafter. Now,... The Practice of the Integral Yoga By Way of Explanation The author owes a preliminary explanation to his readers; for, at first glance the title of the book may appear to some rather odd andutlandish, if not smacking of downright self-conceit. Like a few of the author's earlier books, this book too owes its origin to the loving request of some of ...
... adaptation of means to ends: on the contrary a perfect working is easier to action done tranquilly in Yoga than to action done in the blindness of hopes and fears, lamed by the judgments of the stumbling reason, running about amidst the eager trepidations of the hasty human will: Yoga, says the Gita elsewhere, is the true skill in works, yogaḥ karmasu kauśalam . But all this is done impersonally by... Series First Series Essays on the Gita XVIII The Divine Worker To attain to the divine birth,—a divinising new birth of the soul into a higher consciousness,—and to do divine works both as a means towards that before it is attained and as an expression of it after it is attained, is then all the Karmayoga of the Gita. The Gita does not try to define works... free from its works, is not the doer, not bound by what is done, and he who lives in the freedom of the soul, not in the bondage of the modes of Nature, alone has release from works. This is what the Gita clearly means when it says that he who in action can see inaction and can see action still continuing in cessation from works, is the man of true reason and discernment among men. This saying hinges ...
... acquainted with the Eastern religions and spirituality, Hess, significantly born in the Egyptian city of Alexandria, an occult crossroads between East and West, and Himmler, with his interest in yoga and the Bhagavad Gita. This short list of names which have become familiar to us in the course of our story and which represent various groups of the German population, could be extended endlessly when following ...
... That is the One: I have seen the supreme godhead of the embodied gods." The Synthesis of Yoga in the Gita Sri Aurobindo observes that the synthesis that we find in the Veda and the Upanishads continues in the Gita. The synthesis in the Gita as Sri Aurobindo explains in his "Essays on the Gita", starts from the Upanishadic synthesis, and it builds up harmony of the three great means and... The Tantrik Synthesis of Yoga Sri Aurobindo speaks of another synthesis, the Tantric, and acknowledges how the aims of the Tantra are synthesized in the integral aims of his synthesis of yoga. According to Sri Aurobindo, the Tantric synthesis is less subtle and spiritually profound, but it is even more bold and forceful than the synthesis of the Gita, — "for it seizes even upon the obstacles... into the foreground along with divine knowledge, divine works and an enriched devotion of divine Love, the secrets also of the Hatha and Raja Yogas, the use of the body and of mental askesis for the opening up of the divine life on all its planes, to which the Gita gives only a passing and perfunctory attention." 65 Divinization of Life on the Earth According to Sri Aurobindo, the Tantra ...
... several lines, and this strain, which we had to impose on ourselves, we are obliged to impose also on our readers. 201 (italics mine) The Life Divine, The Synthesis of Yoga, Essays on the Gita, The Secret of the Veda, The Ideal of Human Unity, The Psychology of Social Development (now known as The Human Cycle) and The Future Poetry were the major products of such "continuous... strangeness and invites rewarding intimacy. It is truly and triumphantly "a new poetry with a new law of expression and technique." When, after the first four or five years of 'silent Yoga', Sri Aurobindo decided to launch from Pondicherry the monthly philosophical journal, Arya, devoted to "a systematic study of the highest problems of existence", the burden of editorial labours ...
... proneness to discouragement and a consequent despondency is one of the weaknesses of your vital nature and to get rid of it would be a great help. One must learn to go forward on the path of Yoga, as the Gita insists, with a consciousness free from despondency – anirvinnacetasa. Even if one slips, one must rectify the posture; even if one falls, one has to rise and go undiscouraged on the divine... is all that is necessary to make him a Vibhuti: the power may be very great, but the consciousness is not that of an inborn or indwelling Divinity. This is the distinction we can gather from the Gita which is the main authority on this subject. If we follow this distinction, we can confidently say from what is related of them that Rama and Krishna can be accepted as Avatars; Buddha figures as... two great spiritual personalities; both exercised an extraordinary influence and did something supreme in their own sphere. * Dilipda’s note: Sri Aurobindo writes in his Essays on the Gita in the Chapter entitled, “The Process of Avatarhood “: “But also the higher divine consciousness of the Purushottama may itself descend into the humanity and that of the Jiva disappear ...
... transportation for life, some of these accused persons without as much as glancing at what was happening around them, were absorbed in reading the novels of Bankim Chandra, Vivekananda's Raja Yoga, or the Gita, the Puranas, or European Philosophy.' At last the trial drew to a close. Had it not been for Sri Aurobindo, the case would have been over long ago, for he was the one person, more than any... every morning and afternoon in the open space in front of his cell. He was also permitted to obtain clothes and books from home and accordingly asked his uncle, Krishna Kumar Mitra, to send him the Gita and the Upanishads. We come now to the overwhelming spiritual experience Sri Aurobindo had in jail. He spoke of it in his Uttarpara Speech, to which I have referred earlier, and I shall be quoting... should continue. I have had another thing for you to do and it is for that I have brought you here, to teach you what you could not learn for yourself and to train you for my work." Then he placed the Gita in my hands. His strength entered into me and I was not only to understand intellectually but to realise what Sri Krishna demanded of Arjuna and what He demands of those who aspire to do His work.' ...
... "² What the Gitâ calls self-knowledge Sri Aurobindo calls consciousness. But what does it really mean? In Sri ¹ Sânkhya Yoga precedes Karma Yoga in the Gita. ² Bases of Yoga by Sri Aurobindo. Page 146 Aurobindo's Yoga, to be conscious means to be aware of one's essential reality as distinct from one's phenomenal appearance. Our essential reality is a spiritual... substantial in the Integral Yoga, is a constant and exclusive opening to the Mother's Force. This cannot be too much insisted upon. The very basic principle of this Yoga is an entire reliance upon the Mother's Force, and an ungrudging surrender to her guidance. Only those who know how to open to her and make her do the sadhana in them, know the secret of progress in .this Yoga; for the tremendous difficulty... unlike most spiritual teachers, Sri Aurobindo affirms the possibility ¹On Yoga II by Sri Aurobindo. Page 137 of a complete elimination of the ego from our whole being, including even its active parts and its subterranean bases. It is absolutely incompatible with the aim and principle of his Yoga that the inner being of man should be free from the ego and able to unite with the ...
... attention, or surrendered action, says Eckhart, is the same as what the Gita teaches— performing action not as a means for something else but as an end in itself. (The Gita's celebrated doctrine of "desireless action" teaches the performance of action without the desire for the fruit of action.) In Sri Aurobindo's yoga, attention is part of the state of remaining conscious and vigilant. As... to the will of God. In Sri Aurobindo's yoga, and in the Gita, surrender includes both the passive resignation and the active self-offering to the will of the Divine. As Sri Aurobindo states: Resignation is the basis of a kind of religious equality, submission to the divine will, a patient bearing of the cross, a submissive forbearance. In the Gita this element takes the more ample form of... whole world depended only upon your work. 68 Page 108 In Sri Aurobindo's yoga, the essential meaning of surrender is self-giving, the Hindu concept of samarpana, (inadequately rendered in English by "surrender"), which Sri Aurobindo describes as "the central secret" of the Gita. It means the consecration of everything in oneself to the Divine, not insisting on one's ideas ...
... Ashram, the old Arya numbers were the quarry of an increasing number of thinkers and sadhaks. While the many pored over books like The Mother, The Riddle of this World, Lights on Yoga, Bases of Yoga, Essays on the Gita, The Ideal of Human Unity, or read copies of Sri Aurobindo's innumerable letters to his disciples or the Mother's Conversations, life in the Ashram was marked calm, orderliness... with an ardent young disciple, on 18 January 1960 15 Page 389 To read Savitri is indeed to practise Yoga, spiritual concentration; one can find there all that is needed to realise the Divine. Each step of Yoga is noted here, including the secret of all other Yogas. 16 Further she is reported to have stated to a professor of English: For the opening of the psychic, for... succinctly put it, Savitri is: 1) The daily record of the spiritual experiences of the individual who has written. 2) A complete system of yoga which can serve as a guide for those who want to follow the integral sadhana. 3) The yoga of the Earth in its ascension towards the Divine. 4) The experiences of the Divine Mother in her effort to adapt herself to the body she has ...
... that, Yoga by works is indispensable. It seems to me that there is no mystery about that or anything to perplex anybody—it is rational and inevitable. Only you say that the thing is impossible; but that is what is said about everything before it is done. I may point out that Karmayoga is not a new but a very old Yoga: the Gita was not written yesterday and Karmayoga existed before the Gita. Your... Your idea that the only justification in the Gita for works is that it is an unavoidable nuisance, so better make the best of it, is rather summary and crude. If that were all, the Gita would be the production of an imbecile and I would Page 219 hardly have been justified in writing two volumes on it or the world in admiring it as one of the greatest scriptures, especially for its treatment... The Synthetic Method of the Integral Yoga The Synthetic Method of the Integral Yoga A Yoga of Knowledge, Works, Bhakti and Self-Perfection Letters on Yoga - II Chapter II Combining Work, Meditation and Bhakti The Place of Work in Sadhana There is no stage of the sadhana in which works are impossible, no passage in the path where there is no foothold ...
... not merely this has to be related to our consciousness in the same way - the way basically of what the Gita calls Karma Yoga, which in the Gita's synthe-sizing sweep merges in its core with the fundamental movements of the Yoga of Knowledge, Jnana Yoga, as well as the Yoga of Devotion, Bhakti Yoga. The directed skill of the deed, the inner detachment, the surrender of the deed and of the object involved... receiving the Divine is what Sri Aurobindo and the Mother term the Psychic Being, the Soul of us which is stationed in the inmost recesses of the heart-centre, the centre which the Gita seeks to activate through its Yoga of Devotion. The Lord Himself or the Divine Mother or rather the two together as a single Reality are secretly present most luminously with the amalgam of Child and Seer that constitutes... involved in the doing, to a supreme Being with the aspiration that this Being may make us the channel of his Truth-Consciousness - such is the full mode of the Gita tending towards the Aurobindonian sadhana. What would turn that mode into the latter is the further ideal of total transformation - the Lord not only acting through us but Page 309 descending into us and remoulding all our ...
... But how to get this siddhi, acquire the true merit that comes by doing yogic action alone? The Gita in just a few verses, as usual brief and terse in their character, expounds the Science of the Yoga of Meditation, Dhyan Yoga, as follows: Page 67 (The Gita: 6.10-19) Let the Yogin practise continually union with the Self sitting apart and alone, with... into his house. Likewise are bestowed upon him the gifts of the spirit when with full determination and steadfastness he pursues the path of Yoga. He becomes a Siddha. Jnaneshwar has well utilised the opportunity of the Gita’s brief mention of the Yoga of Meditation to elaborate in considerable detail the process of awakening the Kundalini Shakti lying otherwise asleep at the base of the sub... lower nature and subduing the ego-sense does he prepare himself to make progress on the spiritual path. By action does the Yogin climb the difficult Hill of Yoga and acquire self-mastery. “By the self thou shouldst deliver the self,”—says the Gita. All that is gross and crude and degrading has to be rejected and replaced by what is subtle and fine, noble and elevating. When the Yogin has self-mastery ...
... Ibid., p. 222. 4. Letters on Yoga (SABCL, Vol. 24), p. 1111. 5. Essays on the Gita (SABCL, Vol. 13), p. 49 6. Ibid., p. 358. 7. Ibid. Page 143 8. Letters on Yoga (SABCL, Vol. 23), p. 1006. 9. Ibid., p. 673. 10. Essays on the Gita (SABCL, Vol. 13), pp. 93-94. 11. Ibid., p. 202. 12. Letters on Yoga (SABCL, Vol. 23), pp. 1020-21. 13... discipline, whereas in the West such a foundation is absent. The purpose of this essay is to bring out the deeper implications of the concept of mastery from the viewpoint of the Gita and Sri Aurobindo's yoga. The Gita regards the ordinary human condition as a state of bondage. Purusha, the Soul, is bound by Prakriti or Nature. As Sri Aurobindo puts it: "The soul is the witness, upholder,... used to delineate the positive state of mental health, describes a quality of being which in the language of the Gita, would be called sattwic. Most human beings fall short of such an ideal state because they are governed primarily by Tamas and Rajas. However, from the viewpoint of yoga, the mastery conferred by Sattwa is only a relative one, since Sattwa too is a quality of Prakriti, the outer nature ...
... Divine (its final expanded version, recently published, was recommended by Sir Francis Young-husband for the Nobel Prize and called by him the greatest book of our times), The Synthesis of Yoga, Essays on the Gita, The Secret of the Veda, A Defence of Indian Culture, The Psychology of Social Development, The Ideal of Human Unity, The Future Poetry. Page 75 And the vast mental... spaciousness above the brain-clamped mind. A year's detention in Alipore Jail gave him the Page 80 precious opportunity to dive single-pointedly into the synthetic Yoga taught in the Bhagwad Gita: the figure of Sri Krishna became an omnipresent reality to him, which he beheld even in the court where his trial took place-behind judge and prosecutor and counsel for defence and... surroundings." But these and other experiences like them were unexpected unlinked outbreaks: there was no constant Yoga behind them for methodically dynamising life with spirituality. In 1905, at the age of thirty-one Sri Aurobindo took to Yogic discipline. One of his helpers in Yoga, the Mahratta Lele, relates that three days of meditation in Baroda in 1908 brought Sri Aurobindo the complete ...
... find in the Gita broke down again in due course of time. There have arisen a number of specialised systems of yoga, such as Hatha Yoga, Raja Yoga, Jnana Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, Karma Yoga, Mantra Yoga, Laya Yoga, Kriya Yoga, and many others. Buddhistic yoga and the yoga of Jainism are also specialized systems of yoga. Page 24 Synthesis of Yoga in the Systems of Vedanta, Purana and... rayim yaśasam dhehi navyasīm. (RV. VI.8.5) Synthesis of Yoga in the Gita The synthesis of yoga that we find in the Vedas and the Upanishads broke down in course of time, and there arose a period of the development of specialized systems of yoga. That there was a sharp conflict between the Jnana Yoga and Karma Yoga at the time of the Mahabharata can be clearly seen in the colloquy... synthesis of yoga that we find in the Gita can be properly understood only if we can relate it to the Upanishads and the Veda. Moreover, the Upanishads and the Gita form the entire basis of different schools of Vedanta, and the synthesis of yoga that we find in each school of Vedanta and Puranas and Tantra can be understood only if the Vedic knowledge, as developed through the Upanishads and the Gita, gets ...
... the spiritual revolution and the terrestrial transformation. IX In the meantime, Sri Aurobindo was turning out his monumental prose sequences - The Life Divine, The Synthesis of Yoga, Essays on the Gita, The Ideal of Human Unity, The Psychology of Social Development, The Future Poetry, A Defence of Indian Culture - and, all by himself, publishing them serially, and more or less simultaneously... the body - to be overcome? "A veritable yoga is necessary ... the control of a conscious will is necessary." 6 Some months earlier, on 13 February, the question had come up in a wider perspective, the whole evil complex of illness and pain and suffering. Yoga of course was the cure-all, the infallible panacea. But what was the innermost secret of this yoga? How was it to be done? What might one hope... was born and brought up in France; she completed her occult education in Algeria; she grew to high intellectual maturity in Paris; she sought the true Light in the scriptures of the Orient, the Gita, the Dhammapada, the Upanishads, the Yogasutras; she found a master of spiritual illumination in Pondicherry. And now, in Japan, she sought the clues to an orderly and artistic way of life, the ...
... The Gita, holding as it does a pivotal place in India's scriptural literature, has been stretched on many a doctrinal Procrustes' bed, and trimmed or extended to fit its exacting dimensions. In modern times, Lokamanya Tilak has expounded the Gita as a Gospel of Karma Yoga, and Mahatma Gandhi has been able to read into it his own Ahimsa Yoga. Sri Aurobindo's aim in his Essays on the Gita was not... instead of the anaemic, it not also flawed, English or Bengali renderings. He had found corroboration (or road-signs) for his integral Yoga in the Gita and in the Upanishads, and he now wondered whether he might not find similar corroboration (or clues) for his supramental Yoga in the still earlier Vedas. Seeking light from this most ancient scripture of humanity, he found that his intuitions and deeper ... purpose altogether; it was meant to explore and locate the remotest origins of this Yoga, the roots of the aswatha-like magnificence of the spiritual philosophy of The Life Divine, the ancient corroborations (or, rather, seminal anticipations) of this Supramental Manifesto. Other sequences - notably Essays on the Gita, The Psychology of Social Development, The Ideal of Human Unity, A Defence of Indian ...
... their youth; their first contact with yoga took place in 1905, the year Sri Aurobindo started practising pranayama and the Mother discovered La Revue cosmique ; both began their real yoga in 1908; both were instructed in an occult way by invisible teachers; the Bhagavad Gita played an important role in the development of both; Sri Aurobindo’s Record of Yoga and the Mother’s Prayers and Meditations... Sri Aurobindo: Letters on Yoga, p. 401. × Bhagavad Gita , IV. 7 (Sri Aurobindo’s translation). × Sri Aurobindo: Letters on Yoga , p. 406. ... matters straight is better known than the fact that he also comes when a special work of evolutionary development is to be done. The reason is Sri Krishna’s well-known pronouncement in the Bhagavad Gita: “Whensoever there is the fading of the Dharma and the uprising of unrighteousness, then I loose myself forth into birth.” 2 Of course, both reasons for the Avatar’s embodiment upon Earth are not ...
... The Gita and its Synthesis of Yoga Part Two 1. Four Major Experiences and Realisations of the Gita's Yoga The Gita expounds the working of the synthetic method of its yoga and provides us authentic descriptions of the relevant experiences and realizations in great detail. The peaks of these experiences include: (i) the knowledge of divine birth, (divyam... of the Brahman. The idea of the brahma-yoga and of the nirvana or self-extinction in the Brahman is expounded in the Gita in the following verses: "When the soul is no longer attached to the touches of outward things, one finds happiness that exists in the self; such a one enjoys an imperishable happiness, because his self is in yoga, yukta, united by yoga with the Brahman. The enjoyments obtained... operation of the law of harmony of universal unity (lokasangraha)”. Divine Worker Following the example of the divine avatar, the Gita provides in the third, fourth and fifth chapters the signs of the human worker, who has attained by Karma Yoga the highest status of the divine worker. First of all, the divine worker is a liberated man; he is a large and universal doer of all works, krtsna ...
... Lord, Aditi and the jiva who is in the evolving human being described as angusta mātram, one not bigger than the thumb. This integrality is once again to be found in the synthesis of yoga of the Bhagavad Gita, where the mutable and the immutable {akshara purusha and kshara purusha) are transcended in the Supreme Purusha (Purushottama). Again, here, parā prakriti, corresponding to Vedic and... n brought forth by Aditi, the eternal imperishable power of the Purusha. This individual soul is described in the Bhagavad Gita as an eternal portion of the Purushottama, the highest Purusha than whom nothing is greater. The individual jiva is described in the Bhagavad Gita in two different ways, from the point of view of the Purushottama and from the point of view of Aditi. From the point of view... Purushottama, the individual soul is described as mama eva amśah sanātanah, My own eternal portion. From the point of view of Aditi, the Bhagavad Gita describes it as a manifestation of parāprakriti, who is the same as Aditi of the Veda. The Bhagavad Gita describes it in the following words: parā prakritir jīva bhūtā, Para Prakriti that constitutes jiva or the individual soul. According to the ...
... months and carried the knowledge and the power of realisation by which the lower could reach the higher, in as much as the higher manifest in the lower. The Life Divine, the Synthesis of Yoga, Essays on the Gita, Vedic and Upanishadic revelations, the nature of future Poetry, Social, Political and National themes—all these writings which he received in a silent mind brought a new vision and a possible... chronicle of his yoga." 25 We have similarly the record of his later yogic realisations in his poetic compositions of the 30s. But what stands out as the double autobiography, his and the Mother's spiritual realisations in the transformative Yoga of the earth-consciousness, is his supreme creation—in the Mother's phrase, supreme revelation— Savitri. That indeed marks Divya Yoga of the Supreme... to become inconscient, if he did the occult Yoga of Self-Sacrifice triumphantly chanted in the Veda as the Holocaust of the Supreme, then by another force of action he has to emerge out of this state of utter forgetfulness and establish the dynamic delight of existence everywhere. For this to happen the Supreme has to do the evolutionary Yoga, the Yoga of progressive divine manifestation in the ...
... Sri Aurobindo's works "a sound antidote to the pseudoscientific psychology, psychiatry and educational art of the West". Sri Aurobindo's five major works - The Life Divine, The Synthesis of Yoga, Essays on the Gita, The Human Cycle and The Ideal of Human Unity had appeared in a popular American edition in 1950, and interest in his thought and his life-work was being stimulated in circles that counted... was checked by Sastry with a twitching of his eyebrows: Passing, passing... who passed away and where?.... The Master of Integral Yoga is here, as intensely and concretely as ever.... Yes, those that have been looking up to him for guidance and aid in Yoga have not felt him gone, have not felt themselves orphaned, have not felt a void, though, of course, the physical pangs of separation are... mind as the twin horses of the race. Sri Aurobindo has defined Yoga as "a methodised effort towards self-perfection by the expression of the potentialities latent in the being, and a union of the human individual with the universal and transcendent Existence". In its far aims as also in its essential processes, education coalesces with Yoga, and it is thus no mystery at all that the Centre of Education ...
... being maintained, but too much in one groove. As soon as the October work is finished, a freer movement must be allowed, including Veda (Vamadeva), Poetry, Philology and a prose volume on Yoga. Essays on the Gita will also be begun. There is no advance, only the struggle which shows continually that they cannot eventually prevail, but can obstruct & limit, to a certain extent cloud, to a less... Tapas — followed by fresh & stronger activity of the chit-tapas; but this is not luminous. It is however, powerfully active & there is knowledge, though not jyotirmaya knowledge. 5) Gita —Commentary on the Gita to be written Karma Life Divine II—Veda. Nirukta & Hymns to the Ribhus, the latter commenced today, the former yesterday. Lipi. 6) Tapas —ie it will continue, in answer to... Record of Yoga 1912-1920 Record of Yoga 1912-1920 Record of Yoga 10 June - 29 September 1914 10 June 1914 Sortilege इन्द्राकुत्सा वहमाना रथेन आ वामत्या अपि कर्णे वहंतु । निः षीमदृभ्यो धमथो निः षधस्थान् मघोनो हृदो वरथस्तमांसि The Pure Mind & the Sense-Pleasure borne up together by the Ananda are to be full of the sense-delight & so carried ...
... that. Yoga by works indispensable- II seems to me that there is no mystery about that or anything to perplex anybody—it is rational and inevitable- Only you say that the thing is impossible; but that is what is said about everything before it is done- 1 may point out that Karmayoga is not a new but a very old Yoga: the Gita was not written yesterday and Karmayoga existed before the Gita. Your... these were illuminations, not the settled and permanent realisation that is the goal of Yoga—but they could be slops on the way or at least lights on the way. I have had in former times many Page 190 illuminations, even initial realisations while pondering verses "of the Upanishads or the Gita. 73 Many of Harin's poems have been of immense help to persons here who were floundering... supplier of pleas and excuses. There is also the sheer force 01 Desire in man which is the vital's principal support and strong enough to sweep off the reason, as the Gita says, " like boat on stormy waters," nāvamivāmbhasi [Gita, 2.67]. Page 70 Finally the body obeys the mind automatically in those things in which it is formed or trained to obey it, but the relation of the body ...
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