4 Psychology of Integral Yoga ALL METHODS of Yoga are special psychological processes founded on a fixed truth of Nature and developing out of normal functions, powers and results which were always latent but which her ordinary movements do not easily or do not often manifest. Each specialised system of Yoga selects one or two or more faculties of human psychology and uses them as its instruments, develops them, purifies them and employs through them a certain special method of concentration on the object that is sought to be realised. In the Integral Yoga, all powers and faculties are combined, developed and purified, and there is a progressive integral co

3 Bondage, Liberation and Perfection ONE OF the greatest contributions of the Indian science of Yoga is that of the discovery of the state of bondage of the human soul, as also that of the fashioning of the various methods which would ensure liberation and its other consequences relating to perfection. Every human being is required to deal with a given environment and a certain set of circumstances, and at a certain stage, a conscious feeling begins to grow that there is something in the human personality which needs to be distinguished from the environment and circumstances in an effort either to escape from the burden of life and its respo

Foreword ONE OF the areas of research promoted by the Dharam Hinduja International Centre of Indic Research is to explore Yogic knowledge contained in the Indian tradition and to examine how that knowledge is relevant to the needs of the contemporary world which Sri Aurobindo had characterised as those of 'evolutionary crisis'. The centre has set up a Working Group for 'Yoga as Science', which has been engaged in the study of various aspects of Yogic efforts recorded from the Vedic times to the present day. The papers collected in this volume are related to Sri Aurobindo and his Integral Yoga and were presented at the meetings of the Working Group during 1997. The paper on 'Bon

1 Sri Aurobindo SRI AUROBINDO was born on 15 August 1872 at Calcutta. At an early age of seven, he was taken along with his elder brothers to England for education, since his father wanted him to have no Indian influence in the shaping of his outlook and personality. And yet, even though Sri Aurobindo assimilated in himself richly the best of the European culture, he returned to India in 1893 with a burning aspiration to work for the liberation of India from the foreign rule. While in England, Sri Aurobindo passed the ICS examination, and yet he felt no call for it, and so he got himself disqualified by remaining absent from the riding test. The Gaekwar of Baroda ha

Index ādeśa 12 Advaita 5 after-images 6 Alexander, Samuel 25 ānanda 23 aparā prakriti 15 Ārya 3 āsana 26 . Bhagavadgītā (Gitā) 9, 21, 45, 47, 48,90,91, 101 Bhagavad shakti 75; see also shakti bhakti 21 Bhakti Yoga 42 beatitude 27, 28 beauty 31 beyond-ego 88; see also ego Brahman or Ātman 11, 43, 45, 65, 97 Bramhic silence 2 Buddha 97 Buddhism 92; the Yoga of 43 Chinmaya 84 concentration 28; a certain special method of 52; the method of 26; a line of 42; specific process of 27 daivī prakriti 75; see also prakriti de Chardin, Teillhard 25 death 15

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2 Integral Yoga YOGA is not a closed book. It is not a body of revelations made once for all, unverifiable and unsurpassable. It is not a religion; it is an advancing science, with its fields of inquiry and search always enlarging; its methods are not only intuitive but include also bold experimentation and rigorous verification by means of abiding experience and, finally, even physical change and transformation. The Vedas and Upanishads have, in this sense, marked not a culmination, but a great beginning of the yogic endeavour. They are themselves records of subtle yogic processes, developing experiences, and enlargements of knowledge and power. They have be

APPENDIX Sri Aurobindo on Integral Yoga The way of yoga followed here has a different purpose from others, for its aim is not only to rise out of the ordinary ignorant world-consciousness into the divine consciousness, but to bring the supramental power of that divine consciousness down into the ignorance of mind, life and body, to transform them, to manifest the Divine here and create a divine life in Matter. This is an exceedingly difficult aim and difficult yoga; to many or most it will seem impossible. All the established forces of the ordinary ignorant world-consciousness are opposed to it and deny it and try to prevent it, and the sadhak will find his own mi