A Practical Guide To Integral Yoga

APPENDIX I

THE PASSING OF SRI AUROBINDO AND HIS RETURN

The Mother :

To Thee who hast been the material envelop of our Master, to Thee our infinite gratitude. Before Thee who hast done so much for us, who hast worked, struggled, suffered, hoped, endured so much, before Thee who hast willed all, attempted all, prepared, achieved all for us, before Thee we bow down and implore that we may never forget, even for a moment, all we owe to Thee.

9-12-1950

The lack of receptivity of the earth and men is mostly responsible for the decision Sri Aurobindo has taken regarding his body. But one thing is certain; what has happened on the physical plane affects in no way the truth of his teaching. All that he has said is perfectly true and remains so. Time and the course of events will prove it abundantly.

8-12-1950

Our Lord has sacrificed himself*totally for us....He was not compelled to leave his body, he chose to do so for

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reasons so sublime that they are beyond the reach of human mentality. And when one cannot understand, the only thing to do is to keep a respectful silence.

26-12-1950

We stand in the Presence of Him who has sacrificed his physical life in order to help more fully his work of transformation.

He is always with us, aware of what we are doing, of all our thoughts, of all our feelings and all our actions.

18-1-1951

To grieve is an insult to Sri Aurobindo who is here with us, conscious and alive.

14-12-1950

Sri Aurobindo has given up his body in an act of supreme unselfishness, renouncing the realisation in his body to hasten the hour of the collective realisation. Surely if the earth were more responsive, this would not have been necessary.

12-6-1953

When I asked him to resuscitate he clearly answered : "I have left this body purposely. I will not take it back. I shall manifest again in the first supramental body built in the supramental way".

8-12-1950

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From an article, "A Call from Pondicherry" by Dr. Sanyal

The Mother came with us into the ante-room and then for the first time declared : "He is fully conscious within but is losing interest in Himself". Dr. Satya Sen was restless as energetic treatment could not be instituted. She simply said : "It all depends on Him".

The Mother whispered, "As long as the supramental Light does not pass away, the body will not show any signs of decomposition and it may be a day or it may take more days". I whispered to her, "Where is the light you speak of—can I not see it ?" She smiled at me and with infinite compassion put her hand on my head. There he was—with a luminous mantle of bluish golden hue around Him.

The Mother said to me, "People do not know what a tremendous sacrifice He has made for the world. About a year ago, while I was discussing things, I remarked that I felt like leaving this body of mine. He spoke out in a very firm tone, "No, this can never be. If necessary for this transformation I might go, you will have to fulfil our Yoga of supramental descent and transformation."

In my own foolish way I voiced my apprehension for

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Her health and the strain she put on her fragile frame. She smiled at me and asked, "Do you think I get all this energy from my frugal meals ? Of course not, one can draw infinite energy from the universe when needed". She also added, "No, I have no intention of leaving my body for the present. I have yet a lot of things to do. So far as I am concerned, it is nothing to me. I am in constant contact with Sri Aurobindo."

I naively asked the Mother, why I was not allowed to treat the Lord as I would have done in the routine way, and I was called in. The Mother consoled me by saying, "We wanted you to be here, not so much for treatment."

Extract from a record of talks with Sri Aurobindo on 25-9-1924

We must conserve the energy and use it in rising up to higher life. I have faith in the truth of transformation of life. I have complete faith that it will be achieved. The truth of sexual life can be seen after the complete transformation of the body also. I for one have put the sexual side completely aside so that I may make this daring attempt....I may not be able to do it completely and a part may be left. But I shall be born again to complete it. The way of reproduction may not be the same as in ordinary life.

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From an article by Sri Aurobindo—'Divine Body' in the year 1949

But yet there may be circumstances in which from another standpoint, a voluntary creation of bodies for souls that seek to enter the earth-life to help in the creation and extension of the divine life on earth might be found to be desirable. Then the necessity of a physical procreation for this purpose could only be avoided if new means of a supra-physical kind were evolved and made available.......

It should be possible and it is believed to be possible for an object formed in this subtle physical to make a transit from its subtlety into the state of gross Matter directly by the intervention of an occult force and process whether with or even without the assistance or intervention of some gross material procedure. A soul wishing to enter into a body or form for itself a body and take part in a divine life upon earth might be assisted to do so or even provided with such a form by this method of direct transmutation without passing through birth by the sex-process or undergoing any degradation.

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APPENDIX II

AN OUTLINE OF INTEGRAL YOGA

We are human beings, the highest kind of creatures in this world, and we think that nothing can be higher than man. Modern Science is the seal of man's capacity. He can even destroy himself and this world, but cannot create a new world. He has developed instruments of immense possibility but only with the development of the consciousness such instruments can be used with advantage. To be free from constant dangers of conflict and destruction the man of today has to grow inwardly as well as outwardly.

In his present condition man lives in ignorance. He does not know how he thinks and how he acts. He has no true goal but wastes his whole life driven by passions and endless desires. His life is full of miseries, sufferings, disharmony, discords, disease and death. In fact, man is an animal, a thinking and speaking animal but still an animal in his instincts and habits. The creature of water cannot dream of the creation on land. The animal kingdom though on land cannot get the least idea of man's capacities. So with man also. Man is a creature of this world and he cannot know much of things other than this world. However, he has a capacity in himself to develop to the next stage of evolution because Nature

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cannot stop with imperfect results and the present humanity must evolve further till the final perfection is obtained. With the final perfection, man's life will be one of knowledge, love, beauty, harmony and joy ; quite free from sufferings, miseries, disease and death.

Because we are creatures of this world, our consciousness is always externalised and we look at things and happenings from the outer surface, having no knowledge whatsoever of the real causes and effects of the different forces and influences of the subtle worlds working behind them. We can see and feel only the results on the material plane and nothing more. Our senses have a very limited scope and they can give us the knowledge of the things which are only materialised. But, in fact, that is not all that we are. We have another part in ourselves which is veiled by the external consciousness, and we call that our Soul—the part of the Divinity within, which is ONE everywhere—the True Self.

As our senses give us the knowledge of external things by directing our consciousness outwardly, in the same way if we can direct our consciousness inwardly and rise into the inner consciousness, we can know the things of the higher worlds. We have to take an entire turn in our consciousness and go beyond the limitations of our physical senses, then only can we have the true knowledge of this world and the world's beyond and that practice is called 'YOGA'.

All the systems of Yoga practised up to now had almost

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the same goal and purpose. That is to raise the consciousness to a stage of Bliss and fix it there. They had not much to do with the life here and with this world. They considered this world as an illusion and not worth living in. Yoga was practised for personal salvation and the world at large had no gain out of it. People in the past could not achieve the highest summits of realisation and did not know the purpose of this creation : hence they declared the world to be an illusion. The Divine, though ONE, has two aspects—one is static and the other dynamic. The dynamic side of the Divine is the energy or the creative side and the Maha Shakti or the Divine Mother stands for it. People in the past realised only the static aspect of the Divine and did not know much of the dynamic side as it is much more difficult to realise it. For this reason, the purpose of the creation was not understood by them and they declared the world to be futile and deceptive. That means either the Divine was unable to make a perfect world and he had no purpose in the creation or man has not been able to understand the same. Sri Aurobindo's Yoga gives the full experience of both the aspects of the Divine, that is why he calls his Yoga the Integral Yoga or the Perfect Yoga. Sri Aurobindo says the Divine is real and His creation is bound to be real. It is only Sri Aurobindo who has shown to the world the purpose of the creation and has declared that the world is still in an imperfect condition and passing through the transitory period towards its perfection. His Yoga teaches one

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not only to rise in consciousness but also to bring down the lights and powers of the higher worlds into the lower spheres of consciousness and join both the higher and the lower; then only the Life Divine can be created and the kingdom of God established on earth.

The meaning of the word 'Yoga', in its true sense is to 'join'—join our external consciousness with our true self—the Divine within ourselves—which is ONE everywhere. By the practice of Yoga, our consciousness expands as wide as the universe and far beyond.

To practise Yoga it is indispensable to have a Guru or a Master, who has a thorough knowledge of the path and a capacity to guide and protect his disciples from all the dangers of the unknown spheres arising either from too powerful lights or from adverse beings of different worlds. The Mother once said :—"Be faithful to your Guru whoever he is, he will lead you as far as you can go. But if you are lucky enough to have the Divine as your Guru then there will be no limit to your realisation".

At the juncture of some new evolution on earth, the Divine takes the lead. He manifests in a form necessary for the purpose and brings a new light with him that will help the evolution and bring about a change in the course of time. Hindus in India believe in such manifestations and also believe that there have been ten manifestations since the beginning of the creation on earth —the first being the Matsya Avatara (the Fish), then Kurma (the Tortoise), then Varaha (the Boar), then Nri-simha (the Man-Lion) and so on. These manifestations

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show the gradations of evolution on earth. The Fish Manifestation brought a creation in water, the Tortoise brought the first creation on land, the Boar Manifestation brought a creation of developed land animals and the Man-Lion brought a further evolution from animal towards man and so on.

We need, today, a new manifestation which can put the present humanity under a new cosmic power and bring about a new evolution of the present man and the world. Sri Aurobindo once said that the coming evolution will be the final stage for this world. It will be a world of perfect harmony, love, beauty, knowledge and Ananda. The consciousness and the life of the present man will be transformed and a new race will be created.

To effectuate the above result, a new higher power is required to be established upon earth and made native to this world. That power Sri Aurobindo calls the Supramental Power or the Truth-Consciousness. That Supramental power alone has the capacity to transform the life of man and change the world conditions. Both the Divine Mother and Sri Aurobindo have manifested upon earth to bring about this new evolution and prepare the necessary conditions on earth for the establishment of the Supramental Light. Unless the conditions are created the new Light cannot stay here permanently.

When divine manifestations take place, they have also to pass through great difficulties and sufferings as a result of oppositions of dark and anti-divine forces which have

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had a hold upon earth since the creation. Those dark powers always oppose the new Lights because they do not want to give up their grip on the earth and sometimes their hostility even takes the form of war on earth, but in spite of all obstructions the Divine Will succeeds at last. For these reasons, to bring about a radical and collective change, Sri Aurobindo had to take a voluntary decision to leave his body in December 1950, and fight out certain forces in the subtle world. When that conquest on the subtle plane is made and the necessary conditions also are prepared by the Mother in the world atmosphere, Sri Aurobindo, with the help of the Mother, will manifest in a physical form in a divine body without taking a normal human birth. That will be the first supramental body in this world built in the supramental way. Side by side with the first effect of that new Light the Mother's physical body will be transformed and perfected. It will be a fully divinised and immortal body free from disease and death, free from inertia, plastic and luminous with an all-pervading consciousness, perfect knowledge and un-limited powers. The influence of that Divine Manifestation will grow increasingly in the world and change the world conditions and the present earthly fife of man. Those who will be ready to receive the new Light will be profited greatly. This is the perfect Yoga for the new evolution which transforms mind, life and body of man.

People in ignorance fall into discussions and say that the Divine is everywhere and ask what the necessity is for the manifestations. In reply it can be said that electricity

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is everywhere in the atmosphere, as all the scientists declare, and it does work also in the world atmosphere according to the cosmic law; yet, to make the electric power effective for our material use, some conditions are required to be created on the material plane such as dynamos and generators etc. In the same way the Divine also acts in the world atmosphere according to the cosmic law. The Divine is still in a veiled form in this world and has not yet manifested Himself in his full Glory. To establish new Powers and Lights in the world for the evolutionary principles, the Divine has to take a physical form from time to time till the final evolution is effected. Such manifestations serve the purpose of generators and dynamos on the material plane. The Mother herself has said : "Since the beginning of the earth wherever and whenever there was the possibility of manifesting a ray of the Consciousness, I was there" It is the Overmind that governs the earth at present and the higher gods and goddesses belong to that plane of consciousness. Supermind is much higher than Overmind. Sri Aurobindo and the Mother have manifested from the Supramental Plane : that is why their powers are much more creative and effective on earth than any god or goddess known to this world.

For the final stage of evolution the Divine will manifest ] in His full Power in an unveiled form. We may hope that the time is not very far now when Sri Aurobindo will manifest in a divine body with his full Glory, remove all tensions from the world-atmosphere and save the earth.

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To begin their Yoga, the first necessities for man are aspiration, faith, devotion, sincerity and rejection of falsehood with a crowning goal of complete and unreserved surrender of the whole being in all its parts—mental, vital and physical, to the Divine alone and to no other influence of the lower Nature.

The more the surrender progresses the more concretely the dynamic and conscious Force of the Divine Mother works for and in the sadhaka and carries out the purification and transformation of the whole being.

As the divine influence of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother is well established in the whole world atmosphere, the aspirant from any corner of the world can receive the help and protection from them according to the intensity and sincerity of his aspiration and can progress gradually in spirituality.

By sincere aspiration, faith and devotion one can progress in consciousness even at a distance, but for a complete transformation down to the physical it is inevitable to come physically in direct contact with the Masters of this Integral Yoga.

Spirituality is not morality but much higher. Morality is based on human mental standards of good and evil while spirituality is based on the Spirit or the Divine Consciousness. To be one with the Divine Consciousness and Bliss and to act on the physical plane as an outflow of the Divine's Will—to surcharge the whole being with the Supreme and possess all Knowledge, Anandi, Beauty,

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Power, Love Harmony and Immortality on the earth itself,—this is the goal of the Integral Yoga.

For a sincere sadhaka, it is necessary to be exceedingly careful about his company and environments. You can lose in a few minutes what it has taken you months to gain. Contacts with hostile and undesirable persons and even people of spiritual influence foreign to the Integral Yoga, Holy Places, Temples and Churches have an influence adverse to the working of this Yoga and are a hindrance to progress.

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Extracts taken from the following books

particularly and from other works of

the Master and the Mother.

1.The Mother

2.Lights on Yoga

3.More Lights on Yoga

4.Bases of Yoga

5.The Yoga and Its Objects

6.The Riddle of this World

7.Elements of Yoga

8.Sri Aurobindo on Himself and on The Mother

9.Letters of Sri Aurobindo

10.The Synthesis of Yoga

11.The Words of the Mother

12.On Education

13.Prayers and Meditations of the Mother

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