Vol 3 comprises letters written by Sri Aurobindo on the experiences and realisations that may occur in the practice of the Integral Yoga.
Integral Yoga
Vol 3 comprises letters written by Sri Aurobindo on the experiences and realisations that may occur in the practice of the Integral Yoga. Four volumes of letters on the integral yoga, other spiritual paths, the problems of spiritual life, and related subjects. In these letters, Sri Aurobindo explains the foundations of his integral yoga, its fundamentals, its characteristic experiences and realisations, and its method of practice. He also discusses other spiritual paths and the difficulties of spiritual life. Related subjects include the place of human relationships in yoga; sadhana through meditation, work and devotion; reason, science, religion, morality, idealism and yoga; spiritual and occult knowledge; occult forces, beings and powers; destiny, karma, rebirth and survival. Sri Aurobindo wrote most of these letters in the 1930s to disciples living in his ashram. A considerable number of them are being published for the first time.
THEME/S
Water is the symbol of a state of consciousness or a plane.
The sea with the sun over it is a plane of consciousness lit by the Truth. To enter into the rays is to be no longer merely lit by it, but in one's own conscious being to begin to become part of the Truth.
A sea in tumult usually indicates a vital upheaval or a period of strain and stress and struggle.
The blue ocean is often a symbol of the spiritual consciousness in higher Mind one and indivisible.
Normally, the ocean of higher consciousness is above the head (mind) and all below is that of the lower consciousness. Your seeing of the two oceans rather means that in the descent the influence of the higher consciousness reaches down to the heart (emotional being with the psychic behind it), but does not yet reach below in the lower vital and physical—but it is dissolving the knot in the heart centre which prevents the descent into the lower vital and physical centres. The joy in the śānta svarūpa is indeed a sign of the release of the heart centre. But the phrase in the Upanishads refers more particularly to the breaking of the knots of desire, attachment, sanskara, ego in the heart, which stand in the way of spiritual liberation and ascension—not to
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the knot which prevents the descent.
When the water is symbolic [it is a plane of consciousness] and here it is a big expanse of water—but a river or a pond are not large enough to symbolise a plane. It may be an actual experience in another world—or it may be the symbol of a particular movement in the sadhana.
It is not from dreams that you can know what plane of consciousness you are living in; it is by an observation of your condition.
Sometimes a part of the consciousness is seen in the image of a pond, lake or sea. The fish must be the vital mind.
The lake is the being in its individual consciousness, the sea is the same being with a universalised consciousness which can hold the universe and its cosmic forces in itself—the one (individual) merges into the other (the universal). The boat is the formation of the Mother's consciousness in you in which you are preparing to sail on this sea.
The river represents some movement of the consciousness. All these are images of the vital plane.
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