Study of The Bhagavad Gita
The Editor’s Note
“I may say that the way of the Gita is itself a part of the Yoga here and those who have followed it, to begin with or as a first stage, have a stronger basis than others for this Yoga. To look down on it therefore as something separate and inferior is not a right standpoint… I suggested the Gita method for you because the opening which is necessary for the Yoga here seems to be too difficult for you. If you made a less strenuous demand upon yourself, there might be a greater chance.”
Sri Aurobindo
CWSA-29/Letters on Yoga-II/p-445-446,
The Lord of the Gita hints about His past incarnations before the beginning of creation or as hinted in Savitri, He was ‘older than the birth of Time’⁹ and during this period He gave the imperishable, highest, royal synthetic Yoga to Sun God, Vivasvan. Vivasvan gave it to Manu, the father of men or as hinted in Savitri, ‘first man’¹⁰ of creation. Manu gave it to Ikshvaku, the head of the Solar line and the first King of the solar race. Thus, it came down from royal Sage to royal Sage till it was lost in the great lapse of Time. This same, ancient and original reconciling Yogic path was declared again to Arjuna by Lord Sri Krishna in the war field of Kurukshetra. Now this truth of ‘the largest development in shortest possible path’¹⁶ or the highest secret of Purushottama Consciousness, its dynamic state, Para-prakriti, and a supreme relation between dual Godhead, Paramatma and Para-prakriti is again revealed⁵ to Sri Aurobindo in the book ‘Essays on the Gita’ and subsequently in the book ‘The Synthesis of Yoga.’
Essays on the Gita gives the message of rending²⁷ the veil between mind and preliminary stairs of Supermind by the long movement of Cosmic Consciousness through realisation of this existence as the body of the Divine, Vasudevah sarvamiti¹¹ and to live in the world with the sense of oneness with all existence, ekatvamasthitah,⁵ oneness in every separate being, ekatvena prithaktvena,²⁶ and without separation from the transcendent Divine, mayi nivasisyasi.⁸ Thus, a Spiritual man pauses at the border of Overmind or preliminary Supramental Consciousness; he has three qualities of oneness, harmony and order that predominate his frontal surface Nature. This was Sri Aurobindo’s state of Consciousness at Alipore Jail and the beginning of His decisive Spiritual life.
Ordering of creation through largescale destruction²⁵ of all that are Soul slaying truth, nasana atmanah,¹⁷ transitory, anityam,¹⁸ unproductive, klaibyam,¹⁹ unrighteousness, adharmam,²⁰ corrupt, produsyanti,²¹ evil, anistam,²² unjust, asatyam,²³ divisible, vibhaktam,²⁴ and narrow, khudram,¹⁹ is identified as extension of Supramental action.¹² Thus, existence moves ahead towards the manifestation of new Consciousness and the Divine is a hierarchy of affirmative energies by whose activation mankind can move towards a superior existence and Divine life. On this occasion, the Lord has manifested here as the Time, the Destroyer for creation, ceaseless action and preservation of His existence. The Spiritual significance of the Gita is immense as its Divine is both manifest, saguna and unmanifest, nirguna, and beyond both, THAT, Tat, thus leading the creation towards the complete Divine union.
The Gita is a synthesis of six mutually antagonist schools of ancient teachings that of Mimamsa, Vedanta, Vaisesika, Nyaya, Sankhya and Yoga. Mimamsa is specialised and narrow form of Yoga in which Vedic sacrifice offered with desire, ritualised work and knowledge of gods are accepted as means of salvation. It also accepts fruits of enjoyment and lordship in earth, heaven and the world in between them. In the Vedanta, the above approach is accepted as a preliminary state of ignorance and they are in the end either transcended or renounced as an obstacle to the seeker of liberation; the Vedic worship of gods are accepted by Vedantists as material and mental powers, who do not desire man to be free and oppose the principles of liberation; thus, the Vedanta perceived Divine as Immutable Self, Paramatma, who has to be attained not by sacrificial work and adoration but by knowledge. Vaisesika, gives importance to the Vedantic liberation in addition to the exploration of nature of the nine eternal substances that of air, fire, water, earth, mind, ether, time, space and soul, of which the first five including mind are recognised as atomic. Nyaya, the Science of logic, is an extension of the Vaisesika, in which the multiple subtle worlds beyond the material world are identified, which are the source and creator of the material principles. Sankhya accepts the Divine as inactive and immutable Purusha and makes an opposition between the static state of Purusha, akarta and the dynamic state of Prakriti, kartri, and hence Sankya liberation culminates with the cessation of all works. This Sankhya doctrine created the world by double principles of (many) Purusha and (single) Prakriti, which is a valid and indispensable practical knowledge in the lower hemisphere but ‘not all the true truth… and the highest truth’³⁰ of existence. Yoga accepts the notion of the Divine as Ishwara, who is the Lord of Shakti and active Prakriti; hence its liberation is not the cessation of work and freedom of Soul is realised even though involved in all works. Thus, liberation of the Soul is compatible with ceaseless world action; sarvabhuta- hite ratah, ‘is not inconsistent with living in Brahman’¹⁴ and it is through desireless sacrificial action, the Kshara Purusha in the heart (which is all existence, sarva bhutani) is united with Akshara Purusha above the head (which sees Divine everywhere, mam pasyati sarvatra) and it introduces the best standard of Karma Yoga ‘laid down for all time’²⁹ for the whole of humanity of doing all works from a glad, unattached, free and liberated Soul state with the knowledge of Wheel of Works.
The Vedanta and Sankhya give the message of absolute calm, seclusion and cessation of work as indispensable to attain Knowledge and state of Samadhi. They suffer the disadvantage that universalisation of their teachings of saintly inactivity will lead towards world dissolution and destructions, upahanyam.¹ A physical abstention of work is identified as a dangerous proposition, ‘for it exerts a misleading influence on ordinary men.’⁴ The Gita does not synthesise the teaching of the Hatha and Raja Yoga like the synthetic teachings of the more powerful Tantra, but a passing reference is made to their systemised method and concentration on physical, vital and mental perfection. Buddhism and Illusionist Mayavada are the later developments of Religious Schools in which the former rejected the World, the Self and the Divine as illusions and accepted a Divine discipline of action and devotion in the form of universal love and fathomless compassion and the latter developed intolerance towards action, accepted Divine as Real by the exclusion of the illusory world. The Mahayanist Buddhism is largely influenced by the message of the Gita and transformed its original school of quietistic and illuminated ascetic trend into a ‘religion of meditative devotion and compassionate action.’⁶ It bridged the gulf between a high Nirvanic state of absolute impersonality and dynamic possibilities of life and action. The later school of the Vaishnava Bhakti movement is an exclusive absorption in some Divine Personality and Divine value of His manifestation to the exclusion of Divine Impersonality. These ancient and later Vedantic Teachings either lead to the impersonal form of Brahman, nirguna Brahman or the personal form of Deity, saguna Brahman or to the liberation in actionless knowledge of deep Samadhi or the liberation absorbed in highest Delight of Turiya. The Gita claims its teachings superior to all other forms of ancient Yoga by raising the Consciousness to a plane called an all-inclusive Purushottama state where the limitation, rigidity and partial truth of all other exclusive Yogic paths are corrected, broadened and united; all the powers of Being are directed Godward, reconciled Divine Knowledge, Action and Ecstasy, and widened by complete self-absorption in the Eternal and perfect Divine union by identity.
The Gita has attempted to preserve the balance of the six ancient doctrines, and maintains the essential foundation of original synthesis but the form, combinations and terminologies have changed and restated in the light of the developed new Spiritual experiences. Thus, through firm subtlety and high courage, it opens the gate of unexplored planes and powers of Nature and Soul in universalised Consciousness and knowledge of the Eternal Source from whom one comes and by whom he lives. It has the high role of liberating humanity. In a Spiritualised World, the sense-enjoyment is changed into Soul-enjoyment. This is extended in integral Yoga in transforming humanity, prakritijairmuktam,³ where the Soul’s ecstatic oneness with the Divine extended towards the race is complemented by Subliminal, Psychic, Spiritual and Supramental sense enjoyments leading the creation towards permanent descent and the full possession of Sachchidananda Consciousness.
The difference between ancient Shastras and the integral Shastra is that truth, vision and Spiritual experiences hinted³¹ in the former are vividly experienced in the latter. The integral Yoga gives this message that the supreme mystery hinted in the Gita, the Upanishad and the Veda but never developed is its one of the principal motives to uncover which is the quest for double immortality of Soul and Nature and quadruple perfection of Soul, Nature, Life and Consciousness that will come in stages and as hinted by the Mother, which ‘will stretch over thousands of years.’²
A traditional Sadhaka, after realisation of Kshara, Akshara and Purushottama consciousness feels that this realisation cannot be reconciled⁷ with the untransformed nature of the three Gunas. So, he has no unfinished task left and hence enjoys the Spirit’s ecstatic state, concentrates on the issue of freedom from rebirth and escapes into the supreme abode of param dham through the passage of Purushottama state. Or he will prefer to live in the Supramental Centre above the head and utilises this Centre as a passage of escape into the final destination of Param Dham. In integral Yoga, after realisation of Kshara, Akshara and Purushottama consciousness or after realisation of Psychic, Spiritual and Supramental Being, a Sadhaka’s difficult task begins of reconciling static Matter with dynamic Spirit and thus Divine Shakti consciously pours into the material vessel. He will not settle back to enjoy the delight and fruit of his Spiritual achievement rather he identifies himself with world problems and world suffering through the activation of the universal Self. His Psychic, Spiritual and Supramental purification, transformation and perfection resume action from a firmly established Psychic heart centre and from firmly established Karma Yoga where Divine Will, Knowledge and Love are perfectly reconciled. He will initially learn the lesson to move the consciousness ceaselessly between Psychic and Spiritual Being superseding his earlier movement limiting to three modes of Nature, gunas, and finally learns the lesson to move the Consciousness between Bliss Self and Inconscient Self.²⁸ He will call down the Supreme Mother and Supreme Purusha into his Psychic heart centre and utilises this centre as meeting point of dual Godhead and activation of the corresponding Supramental energy. The double sincerity, dvibidha nistha,¹⁵ with which the Gita proposes to begin Yoga of Works and Knowledge simultaneously is transformed in integral Yoga into multiple sincerity or integral sincerity where Yoga proceeds ahead with the triple wheel of Karma, Jnana and Bhakti Yoga and culminates with the aid and movement of the fourth wheel, known as Yoga of Self-perfection.
This book The Bhagavad Gita and Integral Yoga is a preparation to glimpse a far greater Light, a means to begin the eternal unfolding of the Truth and an offering of love, service and gratitude to the Divine by desiring nothing from Him and His creation in return, anapekhyah.¹³
OM TAT SAT
References of above Editor's Note are available in the manuscript of 'The Bhagavad Gita and Integral Yoga' (page-13).
Summary or A Brief Restatement:
The first verse of the Gita is:
Dhritarashtra said: On the field of Kurukshetra (symbol of outer war), the field of the working
out of the Dharma (symbol of inner war), gathered together, eager for battle, what did
they, O Sanjaya, my people and the Pandavas?
ଧୃତରାଷ୍ଟ୍ର କହିଲେ: “ହେ ସଞ୍ଜୟ ଯୁଧ୍ୟ କରିବା ପାଇଁ ବ୍ୟାକୁଳ ଭାବରେ ସମବେତ ହୋଇଥିବା ମୋ ପୁତ୍ର ଏବଂ ପାଣ୍ଡୁ ପୁତ୍ରମାନେ ଅନ୍ତର ଯୁଧ୍ୟର ପ୍ରତୀକ ଧର୍ମକ୍ଷେତ୍ର ଓ ବାହ୍ୟ ଯୁଧ୍ୟର ପ୍ରତୀକ କୁରୁକ୍ଷେତ୍ରରେ କଣ କରୁଛନ୍ତି?”
Supporting Material to Pursue Integral Yoga:
(1) Integral Yoga proposes to utilize nine-tenths of time to wage inner war extending over nine inner planes, and one-tenths of time is devoted to pursuing outer war to manifest truth and wisdom in the material world.
(King Aswapati’s experience) “Assaults of Hell endured and Titan strokes
And bore the fierce inner wounds that are slow to heal.” Savitri-230
“Or must fire always test the great of soul?” Savitri-423
“A million wounds gape in his (Avatar’s) secret heart.” Savitri-446,
2: “Are there not still million fights to wage?” Savitri-687, “A line from Savitri constantly haunts or assails me—it is when the Lord proposes that she come live a blissful life above, and she replies, “No, there are still too many battles to wage on earth.” That went deep into me, and it returns each time difficulties arise, as if to say, “Don’t complain.” And there are plenty!...” The Mother/The Mother’s Agenda-3/85, 17th February, 1962,
3: Integral Yoga is the synthesis of all the wide and supple methods of All Nature pursued by (1) the exclusive Spirituality of later Vedantic ascetics, the exclusive worshipper of the Being, the Brahman, the Ishwara; (2) the synthetic Spirituality of Tantrics, the exclusive worshipper of the Energy, the Consciousness, the Divine Mother, the Ishwari and (3) the comprehensive Spirituality of the ancient Vedantic Seers who work out passive and active relation between the Purusha and Prakriti in Ignorance, Ishwara and Shakti relation in Spiritual plane, Jnana, and Brahman and Maya relation in Supramental plane, Vijnana, resulting in Ananda.
4: “The Avatar comes to reveal the divine nature in man above this lower nature and to show what are the divine works, free, unegoistic, disinterested, impersonal, universal, full of the divine light, the divine power and the divine love. He comes as the divine personality which shall fill the consciousness of the human being and replace the limited egoistic personality, so that it shall be liberated out of ego into infinity and universality, out of birth into immortality. He comes as the divine power and love which calls men to itself, so that they may take refuge in that and no longer in the insufficiency of their human wills and the strife of their human fear, wrath and passion, and liberated from all this unquiet and suffering may live in the calm and bliss of the Divine.” CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-175-176
OM TAT SAT
Summary or A Brief Restatement:
The Self-disciplines of sattwic renunciation, tyaga, of sattwic faith, sraddha, of sattwic sincerity, Nistha, and of sattwic surrender, Yajna, are not the main methods of the Gita but its main method is self-control by ‘the strong immobility of an immortal spirit’ or ‘having fixed the mind, life and body in the higher Spiritual Self one should not think anything at all.’ The former sattwic methods are accepted as substitute self-disciplines of integral Yoga, pursued till the Spiritual method evolves. So, spontaneous renunciation, faith, sincerity and surrender born out of Psychic (Kshara Purusha) and Spiritual (Akshara Purusha) opening are identified as the method or self-disciplines of integral Yoga and through the evolution of this higher method, the consciousness is moved consciously between Psychic and Spiritual planes. In integral Yoga and the Gita, the substitute method of movement of consciousness between three gunas will be initially replaced by intermittent movements of consciousness between gunas and gunatita state and finally be replaced by movement consciousness between Psychic (Kshara) and Spiritual (Akshara) planes. And after a long period of this movement, the Consciousness will ascend to the Supramental plane (Purushottama) and then there is the conscious movement of consciousness between the Psychic, Spiritual and Supramental planes. Through this prolonged movement, the Psychic being is Spiritualised and Supramentalised or the Spiritual Mother and Supramental Mother consent to live permanently in the Psychic heart centre.
OM TAT SAT
A Brief Restatement:
1: “Arjuna said: How, O Madhusudana shall I strike Bhisma and Drona with weapons in battle, both being worthy of worship, O slayer of enemies?” The Gita-2.4
2: “Arjuna said: It is the poorness of Spirit that has smitten away from me my true heroic higher Nature, my whole consciousness is bewildered by three gunas and cannot discern truth and falsehood, right and wrong. I ask Thee how can I discern truth, right and good? —That tell me decisively. I am thy disciple and seek refuge in Thee; enlighten me.” The Gita-2.7
3: “Arjuna said: How can I be liberated from sorrow that dries up the senses, even if I attain the riches and unrivalled kingdom on earth and even all the sovereignty of the kingdom of Gods?” The Gita-2.8
4: “Arjuna said: What is the sign of the man in Samadhi, man of stable intelligence, Sthitaprajna? How does, O Keshava, the sage of settled understanding speak, how sit, how walk?” The Gita-2.54
5: “Arjuna said: If thou holdest the intelligence to be greater than works, O Janardana, why then dost thou, O Keshava, appoint me to this terrible work? Thou bewilderest my intelligence with a mixed and tangled speech; tell me decisively the one thing by which I may attain to the supreme good.” The Gita-3.1, 2
6: “Arjuna said: But what is this in us that drive a man to sin, as if by force, even against his own struggling will?” The Gita-3.36
7: “Arjuna said: Recent is Thy birth, far ancient was the birth of Sun God, how then I am to comprehend that Thou declaredst it to him in the beginning of creation?” The Gita-4.4
8: “Arjuna said: Thou Declarest to me the renunciation of works (Sankhya/Jnana Yoga), O Krishna; and again, thou declare to me (Karma) Yoga; which one of these is a better way, that tell me with clear decisiveness.” The Gita-5.1
9: “Arjuna said: This Yoga which has been declared by Thee of the nature of equality, O Madhusudana, I see no stable foundation for it owing to restlessness. Restless indeed is the mind, O Krishna; it is vehement, strong and difficult to bend; I deem it as hard to control as the wind.” The Gita-6.33, 34
10: “Arjuna said: He who takes up Yoga with faith, but cannot control himself with the mind wandering away from Yoga, failing to attain perfection in Yoga, what is his end, O Krishna? Does he not, O Mighty-armed, lose both this life and the Brahmic consciousness to which he aspires and falling from both perish like a dissolving cloud? Please dispel the doubt of mine completely, O Krishna; for there is none other than Thyself who can destroy this doubt.” The Gita-6.37, 38, 39
11: “Seven Questions raised by Arjuna: (1) What is tad brahma, (2) what is adhyatma and (3) what is karma, O Purushottama? (4) What is declared to be adhibhuta, (5) what is called adhidaiva? (6) What is adhiyajna in this body? O Madhusudana? (7) And how in the critical moment of departure from physical existence, art Thou to be known by the self-controlled?” The Gita-8.1, 2
12: “Arjuna said: Thou shouldest tell me of Thy Divine Self-manifestations, all without exception, Thy Vibhutis by which Thou standest pervading these worlds. How shall I know Thee, O Yogin, by thinking of Thee everywhere at all moments and in what pre-eminent becomings should I think of Thee, O Blessed Lord? In detail tell me of Thy Yoga and Vibhuti O Janardana; tell me ever more of it; it is nectar of immortality to me, and however much of it I hear, I am not satiated.” The Gita-10.16, 17, 18
13: “Arjuna said: This word concerning the highest spiritual secret of existence which Thou hast spoken out of compassion for me; by this my delusion is dispelled. The birth and passing away of existences have been heard by me in detail from Thee, O Lotus-eyed, and also Thy imperishable greatness. As Thou hast declared Thyself to be, O Supreme Lord even so it is, (still) I desire to see Thy Divine form and body of Purushottama. If Thou thinkest that it can be seen by me, O Lord, show me then, O Master of Yoga, Thy imperishable Self.” The Gita-11.1, 2, 3, 4
14: “Arjuna said: Those seekers of Bhakti Yajna who thus by a constant union seek after Thy personal Form and those seekers of Jnana Yajna who seek after Thy unmanifest Immutable impersonal Form, which of them are greater Yajna?” The Gita-12.1
15: “Six Questions raised by Arjuna: (1) The Field, Kshetra, and (2) the Knower of the Field, Kshetrajna, (3) Knowledge, Jnana, and (4) the object of Knowledge, Jneya, (5) Nature, Prakriti and (6) Self, Purusha, these I would like to learn, O Keshava.” The Gita-13.1
16: “Arjuna said: By what signs is he marked, O Lord, who has risen above the three Gunas? How he acts and behaves and how does he go beyond the three Gunas?” The Gita-14.21 Or this question may be put in contemporary language as how can one break the golden chain of three gunas?
17: “Arjuna said: Those who offer sacrifice full of faith (sraddha) but abandoning the rule of the Shastra, what is that concentrated will of devotion, nistha, in them, O Krishna? Is it Sattwa, Rajas or Tamas?” The Gita-17.1 Or this question may be put in the following language, “Lord, You have insisted of rising above the three gunas, while yet one remains in the action of all type, sarva karmani, and You have not explained me sufficiently the diversities in which the gunas work, and unless I know that, it will be difficult for me to discern with sincerity and rise beyond them.” Or this question may be put in the language of The Synthesis of Yoga, ‘Lord, You have insisted to trace out ‘the full account’ of my imperfection before striving to attend perfection. How can I know those imperfections fully in terms of triple divisible consciousness of tamas, rajas and sattwa that have strongly possessed this mind, life and body?’
18: “Arjuna said: I desire to know, O Mighty-armed, the essence of asceticism, Sannyasa and renunciation, Tyaga, O Hrishikesha, and their difference, O Keshinisudana.” The Gita-18.1 Or this question may be put in the following language, “How, while absorbed and continually forced outward by the engrossing call of its active nature, is it to get back to its real self and spiritual existence?”
The above eighteen questions raised by Arjuna must be established in the mind of the truth Seekers, and this awareness will assist them to begin Yoga with a definite and firm objective.
OM TAT SAT
A Brief Restatement:
The Gita identifies the most ignorant developing Souls as mudha, perform all action without true order, avidhi-purbakam, without sacrifice, giving and askesis and they live in a divisible consciousness of three gunas. It identifies ignorant developing Souls as child Souls, bala, who perform all action without the reconciling it with the knowledge of the higher worlds. It identifies developed Souls as ripened Souls, Punditah, who live in the indivisible Consciousness beyond the gunas and they do all action as sacrifice without attachment to fruits of work with right order, vidhi-purbakam, and from higher planes of consciousness. The Gita insists the inclusion of all works, sarva karmani, in the conception of Spiritual activity and does not intend to confine it to Vedic religious activities of sacrifice and ceremony only. Integral Yoga divides all work into two parts, work that is closer to the sacrificial fire, the Psychic being and the work that is farther from this sacrificial fire and proposes that ‘none ought necessarily to be excluded from the wide framework of the divine life.’
The Gita issues injunction on earth-bound Soul who acts by three gunas, that let Shastra or written truth be the authority to determine what ought to be done and what ought not to be done. One should work here as per the four-fold law declared in the Shastra. He who disregards the rules of Shastra acts under the impulsion of desire and ego neither attains perfection, nor happiness, nor highest Soul status. Those who practice violent austerities not ordained by Shastra with vanity, egoism, impelled by force of desire, passions, tormenting the aggregates of the body where the Divine is stationed, know those insensible seekers as asuric in their resolves. The Souls that fail to get faith in this Dharma, O, Parantapa, not attaining to Me, return into the path of ordinary mortal living.
OM TAT SAT
A Brief Restatement:
The traditional Yoga of the Gita proposes that a developed Soul is free from seven deformations, vicaras, that of liking and disliking, iccha, dvesah, pleasure and pain, sukham, dukham, subjection to lower consciousness, chetana, place together truth and falsehood, sanghatah, tamasic and rajasic persistence, dhriti. Integral Yoga proposes51 that a developed Soul or adult Soul is free from seven deformations, vicaras that of (1) hatred, (2) disliking, (3) scorn, (4) repulsion, (5) clinging, (6) attachment and (7) preference.
Mind is restless and very difficult to pacify. But O Arjuna, it can be controlled by constant practice and non-attachment.4 Without self-control, this Yoga is difficult to attain. Yoga is attainable by self-controlled seeker.5 “Sense hunger does not cease with the mental self-control, samyama, it ceases when the Supreme is seen. So even the mind of the wise man, yatatah, who labours for self-perfection is carried away by vehement insistences of senses. Having brought all the senses under control, samyama, he must sit firm in Yoga, wholly given up to Me; for whose senses are mastered, of him the intelligence is firmly established (in its proper seat), sthitaprajna. The enjoyments born of external touches of things are the causes of sorrow, the sage, the man of awakened understanding, buddhah, does not place his delight in these senses.” 6 “Abandoning without exception all the desires born of the desire-will and holding in control all the senses by the mind so that they shall not run to all sides, one should gradually withdraw into tranquillity by a buddhi controlled by steadiness, and having fixed the mind in the Self one should not think of anything at all.”7 “This Yoga must be continually practiced with a heart free from despondent sinking.”14 The Gita’s injunctions issued to the developed Souls are that “All the doors of senses must be closed, the mind must be shut in into the heart, the life-force taken up out of its diffused movement into the head, the intelligence must be concentrated on the single syllable OM and its conceptive thought must remember the supreme Godhead...”23 and this self-discipline is extended in integral Yoga for dynamic Divine union and transformation of Nature instead of escape into param dham by abandoning the body.
OM TAT SAT
A Brief Restatement:
A traditional Karma Yogi is considered great if in him Kshara Purusha is dynamised and all initiation of works are activated from within. In a greater Karma Yogi, Kshara and Akshara are both simultaneously dynamised and his consciousness undulates between Kshara and Akshara or waking trance and non-waking trance and preoccupies himself in both objective manifesting action and subjective subtle and Superconscient action by a pressure and direction from within and above respectively. In the greatest Karma Yogi, Uttama Purusha is dynamised along with Kshara and Akshara Purusha. This Purushottama Consciousness is settled in the body where the Jiva holds together the triple Purusha. In this state of Consciousness intense waking trance is stabilised and one moves freely in his multiple subtle bodies without losing waking consciousness. In integral Yoga he will direct the Supramental energy dynamised due to his relatively stronger part of Divine Will towards relatively weaker parts of his untransformed emotional and intellectual Nature.
Six signs of Divine Worker: A Divine Worker can be known from six signs. Those who want to serve the Divine must develop these six qualities:
First sign of the Divine Worker: “The Divine is the lord of his works, he is only their channel through the instrumentality of his nature conscious of and subject to her Lord. By the flaming intensity and purity of this knowledge all his works are burned up as in a fire and his mind remains without any stain or disfiguring mark from them, calm, silent, unperturbed, white and clean and pure. To do all in this liberating knowledge, without the personal egoism of the doer, is the first sign of the divine worker.” CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-179-181
Second sign of the Divine Worker: “The second sign is freedom from desire; for where there is not the personal egoism of the doer, desire becomes impossible; it is starved out, sinks for want of a support, dies of inanition. Outwardly the liberated man seems to undertake works of all kinds like other men, on a larger scale perhaps with a more powerful will and driving-force, for the might of the divine will works in his active nature; but from all his inceptions and under- takings the inferior concept and nether will of desire is entirely banished, sarve samarambhah kamasankalpavarjitah. (The Gita-4.19) He has abandoned all attachment to the fruits of his works, and where one does not work for the fruit, but solely as an impersonal instrument of the Master of works, desire can find no place, — not even the desire to serve successfully, for the fruit is the Lord’s and determined by him and not by the personal will and effort, or to serve with credit and to the Master’s satisfaction, for the real doer is the Lord himself and all glory belongs to a form of his Shakti missioned in the nature and not to the limited human personality. The human mind and soul of the liberated man does nothing, na kinchit karoti; (The Gita-4.20) even though through his nature he engages in action, it is the Nature, the executive Shakti, it is the conscious Goddess governed by the divine Inhabitant who does the work.” CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-179-181
Third sign of the Divine Worker: “For sin consists not at all in the outward deed, but in an impure reaction of the personal will, mind and heart which accompanies it or causes it; the impersonal, the spiritual is always pure, apapaviddham, (Isha Upanishad-8) and gives to all that it does its own inalienable purity. This spiritual impersonality is a third sign of the divine worker. All human souls, indeed, who have attained to a certain greatness and largeness are conscious of an impersonal Force or Love or Will and Knowledge working through them, but they are not free from egoistic reactions, sometimes violent enough, of their human personality. But this freedom the liberated soul has attained; for he has cast his personality into the impersonal, where it is no longer his, but is taken up by the divine Person, the Purushottama, who uses all finite qualities infinitely and freely and is bound by none. He has become a soul and ceased to be a sum of natural qualities; and such appearance of personality as remains for the operations of Nature, is something unbound, large, flexible, universal; it is a free mould for the Infinite, it is a living mask of the Purushottama.” CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-179-181
Fourth sign of the Divine Worker: “The result of this knowledge, this desirelessness and this impersonality is a perfect equality in the soul and the nature. Equality is the fourth sign of the divine worker. He has, says the Gita, passed beyond the dualities; he is dvandvatıta. (The Gita-4.22) We have seen that he regards with equal eyes, without any disturbance of feeling, failure and success, victory and defeat; but not only these, all dualities are in him surpassed and reconciled. The outward distinctions by which men determine their psychological attitude towards the happenings of the world, have for him only a subordinate and instrumental meaning. He does not ignore them, but he is above them. Good happening and evil happening, so all-important to the human soul subject to desire, are to the desireless divine soul equally welcome since by their mingled strand are worked out the developing forms of the eternal good.” CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-179-181
Fifth sign of the Divine Worker: “Again, the sign of the divine worker is that which is central to the divine consciousness itself, a perfect inner joy and peace which depends upon nothing in the world for its source or its continuance; it is innate, it is the very stuff of the soul’s consciousness, it is the very nature of divine being. The ordinary man depends upon outward things for his happiness; therefore he has desire; therefore he has anger and passion, pleasure and pain, joy and grief; therefore he measures all things in the balance of good fortune and evil fortune. None of these things can affect the divine soul; it is ever satisfied without any kind of dependence, nitya-trupto nirasrayah; (The Gita-4.20) for its delight, its divine ease, its happiness, its glad light are eternal within, ingrained in itself, atma-ratih, antah sukhontararamas tathantarjyotir eva yah. (The Gita-5.24)” CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-184
Sixth sign of the Divine Worker: “He (a Sadhak) himself, safe in the immutable, unmodified soul, is beyond the grip of the three gunas, trigunatita; he is neither sattwic, rajasic nor tamasic; he sees with a clear untroubled spirit the alternations of the natural modes and qualities in his action, their rhythmic play of light and happiness, activity and force, rest and inertia. This superiority of the calm soul observing its action but not involved in it, this trigunatitya, is also a high sign of the divine worker. By itself the idea might lead to a doctrine of the mechanical determinism of Nature and the perfect aloofness and irresponsibility of the soul; but the Gita effectively avoids this fault of an insufficient thought by its illumining supertheistic idea of the Purushottama. It makes it clear that it is not in the end Nature which mechanically determines its own action; it is the will of the Supreme which inspires her; he who has already slain the Dhritarashtrians, he of whom Arjuna is only the hu- man instrument, a universal Soul, a transcendent Godhead is the master of her labour. The reposing of works in the Impersonal is a means of getting rid of the personal egoism of the doer, but the end is to give up all our actions to that great Lord of all, sarva-loka-mahesvara.” CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-186
OM TAT SAT
A Brief Restatement:
A traditional Jnana Yogi is considered great if in him Akshara Purusha or Spiritual Being is first dynamised through renunciation, tyaga, vairagya, effort, practice of Yoga, abhyasa, concentration, samyama and askesis, tapasya. In a greater Jnana Yogi, by the pressure of this Spiritual being or descent of Divine Force from above the head, Kshara Purusha or Psychic being in the heart is dynamised. His Yoga becomes easier as he actively participates in the world action through activation of Kshara Purusha. In the greatest Jnana Yogi, Uttama Purusha is dynamised along with Kshara and Akshara Purusha. This Purushottama Consciousness is settled in the body where the Jiva holds together the triple Purusha. In this state of Consciousness, intense waking trance is stabilised and one moves freely in his multiple subtle bodies without losing waking consciousness. In integral Yoga he will direct the Supramental energy dynamised due to his relatively stronger part of Divine Knowledge towards relatively weaker parts of his untransformed emotional and volitional Nature.
OM TAT SAT
A Brief Restatement:
A traditional Bhakti Yogi is considered great when he reconciles his devotion with sacrificial action and realises the Kshara Purusha or Psychic being in the heart. A Greater Bhakti Yogi reconciles his devotion of personal Godhead with the Impersonal Godhead of Jnana Yoga and realises Akshara Purusha or Spiritual Being in addition to the earlier realisation of Kshara Purusha. The greatest Bhakti Yogi realises Kshara and Akshara Purushas’ union with the Purushottama, who finally consents to live in the heart, which is also the dual meeting ground of Uttama Purusha and Para Prakriti. The realisation of this dual Godhead in the heart is the beginning of realisation of Bliss Self which is beyond the Supramental action on earth. An integral Bhakti Yogi will direct the Supramental energy dynamised due to his relatively stronger part of Divine Love, Beauty and Delight towards relatively weaker parts of his untransformed volitional and intellectual Nature. His consciousness will move between triple fire of Kshara, Akshara and Purushottama Consciousness and the heart will be the centre of these triple action.
OM TAT SAT
A Brief Restatement:
Of all the Yogins the greatest Yogi, yoginam api sarvesam29…yogi paramo,30 as indicated in the Gita, is a state in which he lives, acts in perfect union with the Divine, mayi nivasisyasi,33 in all possible human condition, in all possible world action his Consciousness does not fall from the oneness and constant communion with the Divine. The largest formulation of this Spiritual change is a total liberation of Soul, mind, heart and action, a casting of them all into the sense of the cosmic Self and the Divine Reality. A certain change of Nature is experienced by this Spiritual illumination but this is not complete and integral transformation of Nature which establishes a secured and established new principles and permanent new order of being in the field of terrestrial Nature. A Sadhaka becomes consecrated Child when this constant union with the Divine is dynamised to become one with the Divine Mother.
In this established state a traditional Yogi can pursue integral Yoga by inverting the gained Supreme Divine Consciousness earthward. An integral Yogi lives in the great totality of Truth of Universal Consciousness, a totality, which is capable of infinite enlargements as there is no end to the extension of Divine Will, Knowledge, Love and Delight, nastyanto vistarasya me,31 and there is still much of the height to be reached and a wideness to be covered by the eye of vision, bhuri aspasta kartvam.32 Through intensification of Psychic and Spiritual contacts, he becomes able to enter the Cosmic Self and subsequently the lower realms of Supermind and inverts this gained Divine State towards lower sheaths of individual and universal Mind, Vital and Physical sheaths and transforms them.
The great Integral Yogi, due to his integral surrender of Soul and Nature and particularly consecration of the most of the dark domains of Inconscient and Subconscient sheaths, and integral Sraddha of pouring down of Divine Supramental attributes of Light, Love, Ananda, Force, Wisdom and Truth and direct them to the yet untouched realm of Subconscient and Inconscient sheaths and continue transformation action there.
The greater Integral Yogi can put forth many states of Consciousness at a time and is able to trace the Supermind concealed in the Inconscient and Subconscient sheath and activates the Inconscient and Subconscient Self; as a result, the source of Supramental Force and Delight can burst open and spread from Inconscient and Subconscient Self towards the untransformed Inconscient, Subconscient, Physical, Vital and Mental sheaths for large and mighty transformation action.
The greatest Integral Yogi is he, who is able to activate the Supermind concealed in all the sheaths, identified as ten koshas, builds, purifies, transforms and perfects them and there is penetration of Supramental force from all the multiple sources of ten Selves; first intermittently, then constantly becomes a normal issue. Thus ten-fold personality is superimposed and combined to enrich his single new personality and his strong central being holds all together and works towards harmonisation and integration of multiple Selves and Nature.
OM TAT SAT
A Brief Restatement:
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A Brief Restatement:
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A Brief Restatement:
To be updated
A Brief Restatement:
The fixed fate or doom of an individual is the outcome of Karma; Karma is the outcome of sin; sin is the outcome of evil; evil is the outcome of wrong action; wrong action is the outcome of wrong will or activation of physical and vital mind; wrong will is the outcome of wrong consciousness; wrong consciousness is the outcome of falsehood; and falsehood is the outcome of Ignorance or part knowledge. So, all doom can be transformed into high Spiritual destiny by emergence of integral Knowledge... So, man first has to work in Ignorance and learn the lesson within its limitation. He has to know it up to its farthest point so that he may be able to arrive at the border of Ignorance and Knowledge, where he meets the Truth, touch the final lid of its obscuration and develop faculties which enable him to overstep the powerful but really unsubstantial barrier of Ignorance. An integral Knowledge is a knowledge of truth of all planes of existence both separately followed by relation of each to all and relation of all to the truth of Spirit.
A Brief Restatement:
"The four exclusive Teachings of the Gita are related with ascension of static consciousness to supreme Soul whereas the five all-inclusive teachings of integral Yoga are related with the descent of Supreme Nature of dynamic consciousness to earth and men. But there are certain Supramental experiences in which ‘a consciously felt descent is not indispensable’3 and there is still unknown higher source of Supramental where ‘actual feeling of a descent is not there.’3 The similar experience is also observed in The Mother’s experience of ‘Divine Love’ on the night of 12-13th April, 1962. Since in the Gita, the particular experience of the descent of Divine consciousness to Apara prakriti is ‘nowhere entirely spoken,’45 so in our discussion, we can rest satisfied with that Supramental action without having an actual feeling of the descent. Here the concept will be that since the presence of Sachchidananda is everywhere, so ‘if the inner doors are flung sufficiently open, the light from the sanctuary can suffuse the nearest and farthest chambers of the outer being.’3 The highest secret, rahasyam uttamam, is the Supramental revealed as Purushottama, the integral Divine, who is Nameless, Formless, all-embracing and all-exceeding Sachchidananda, ‘A touch that needs not hands to feel, to clasp,’4 ‘Acts at a distance without hands or feet’5 and is capable of assuming all Name and Form. ‘His hands and feet are on every side...and we live in His universal embrace.’29 In Supramental all things find their secret truth and their perfect reconciliation and the sense of individual identity is lost in the sole ecstasy of the Divine Beloved...
The five gradations of Supermind represent the action of same Supreme Nature of Purushottama Consciousness in varying intensity, while capturing all the (ten) worlds, sarvaloka. The literal meaning of Madbhava, Sva Prakriti, Sadharmyam and Param Bhava are same that of becoming the nature of the Supreme, Para Prakriti, but here in this essay they have been used for different gradations or hierarchies of Divine Nature. This Divine Nature is identified as the Gita’s ‘supreme mystery which it does not work out at all, but leaves to be lived out, as later ages of Indian spirituality tried to live it out in great waves of love, of surrender, of ecstasy.’17 ‘It must not however be supposed that these (five) superimposed stages are shut off in experience from each other. I have placed them in what might be a regular order of ascending development for the better possibility of understanding in an intellectual statement.’30
15/ The Hierarchies Of Divine Living
A Brief Restatement:
Ashram³⁷ is an ancient Indian terminology used for collective Divine living and if one individual at its centre is having direct contact with the Divine, then this collective living around this Soul Centre is identified as the Divine Centre. Ashram's living evolves through the slow and swift evolution of Consciousness; thus, a hierarchy of ascending Consciousness is built which completes its action through a hierarchy of descent of Divine Consciousness...
The collaborators of The Mother’s work in Consciousness are Sadhakas, Children and Integral Yogis, who are an indispensable part of collective Divine Living called the Ashram, the Divine Centre, while Visitors, Devotees and Ashramites¹ are its dispensable organ; the former represents the indivisible Spiritual Consciousness of developed Soul and the latter stands for the divisible mental consciousness of developing Soul. Visitors, Devotees, Ashramites, Sadhakas, Children and Integral Yogis are the beginners, expanders, stabilisers, intensifiers, identifiers and integrators of Consciousness respectively. Here they do not represent an individual or a person but a symbol of a transitional formative state in the hierarchy of ascending Consciousness. Each formative Consciousness has some limitation that inhibits our growth and Spiritual possibility that augments our progress, to which we are most concerned now.
A Brief Restatement:
The Bhagavad Gita is the root knowledge and the foundation on which comprehensive vision of Sri Aurobindo’s Teachings or integral Yoga rests. A thorough knowledge on the highest developed truth and highest hinted truth of the Gita is to ‘distinguish its essential and living message’ (CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-11) which is also an indispensable necessity to penetrate into vast wisdom of integral Yoga. The perfection foreseen in the Gita and the integral Yoga are here restricted to multiple siddhis so that we can concentrate, contemplate, meditate, verify and enlarge our existing vessel through direct Spiritual experience.
The Gita confirms that if the ripened Souls, Punditah, (The Gita-5.4) rightly and integrally perform either of the Karma, Jnana and Bhakti Yoga, in higher planes of consciousness, then they will arrive at the perfection of all the three Yogas. Integral Yoga proposes that ‘a more difficult, complex, wholly powerful process would be to start’ (CWSA/24/The Synthesis of Yoga-615) the Yoga ‘on three lines together, on a triple wheel of soul-power’ (CWSA/24/The Synthesis of Yoga-615) and this preparation will pave the passage clear for pursuance of a fourth Yoga named as ‘Yoga of Self-Perfection’ whose perfections are as hinted below.
“Our (integral) Yoga is not identical with the Yoga of 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 lower nature, deliver our consciousness from it, deliver the self involved in the lower nature by the self rising to freedom in the higher nature...”
Sri Aurobindo
SABCL-26/On Himself/p126-127,
“You will find that the Gita speaks of this rejection of all mental thought as one of the methods of Yoga and even the method it seems to prefer. This may be called the dhyana of liberation, as it frees the mind from slavery to the mechanical process of thinking and allows it to think or not think as it pleases and when it pleases, or to choose its own thoughts or else to go beyond thought to the pure perception of Truth called in our philosophy Vijnana.”
Sri Aurobindo
CWSA-36/Autobiographical Notes/p-294
"For the sadhaka of the integral Yoga it is necessary to remember that... His Yoga may be governed for a long time by one Scripture or by several successively, — if it is in the line of the great Hindu tradition, by the Gita, for example, the Upanishads, the Veda. Or it may be a good part of his development to include in its material a richly varied experience of the truths of many Scriptures and make the future opulent with all that is best in the past... The Gita itself thus declares that the Yogin in his progress must pass beyond the written Truth, — sabdabrahmativartate — beyond all that he has heard and all that he has yet to hear, — srotavyasya srutasya ca."
Sri Aurobindo
CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-55
"Then as (1) we get beyond the limitation of the three gunas, so also do (2) we get beyond the division of the fourfold law and (3) beyond the limitation of all distinctive dharmas, sarvadharman parityajya. (The Gita-18.66) (1) The Spirit takes up the individual into the universal Swabhava, (2) perfects and unifies the fourfold soul of nature in us and (3) does its self-determined works according to the divine will and the accomplished power of the godhead in the creature."
Sri Aurobindo
CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-524