PART TWO Concept of the Synthesis of Yoga The synthesis of yoga presupposes the existence of partial or specialised systems of yoga, each leading to partial or specialised results or accomplishments. A synthesis can be a combination, and there have been in the history of yoga several ways of combination. An indiscriminating combination en bloc would not be a synthesis, but confusion. A successive practice of different systems of yoga may result in some kind of synthesis. Sometimes, for example, the practice of Hatha Yoga is followed by the practice of Raja Yoga. Or, as in the life of Sri Ramakrishna Paramhamsa, we find a powerful example, even a unique example, of a colossal

Preface Yoga is a science, since it relies upon experiences and verification of experiences by strict methods of application and rediscovery. The knowledge acquired by yoga can thus be regarded as verifiable and repeatable authentic knowledge, which is always open to the possibility of expansion of knowledge, — confirmation of knowledge gained in the past and discovery of new knowledge. This book aims at showing that the new synthesis of yoga that has been developed by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother is not a culmination of the past yogic effort and aim and, that it is based upon new yogic knowledge of the meaning and aim of life. The past yogic effort is, indeed,

This book is addressed to all young people who, I urge will study and respond to the following message of Sri Aurobindo: "It is the young who must be the builders of the new world, — not those who accept the competitive individualism, the capitalism or the materialistic communism of the West as India’s future ideal, nor those who are enslaved to old religious formulas and cannot believe in the acceptance and transformation of life by the spirit, but all those who are free in mind and heart to accept a completer truth and labour for a greater ideal. They must be men who will dedicate themselves not to the past

PART ONE Two tendencies of development of Yoga . The history of yoga as developed in India brings out two tendencies in the development of yoga through the ages: (i) Complex effort of yoga, after arriving at a synthesis, seems to break up in the development of specialised systems of yoga; (ii) These specialised systems tend towards the development of a new synthesis. The Vedic Samhitas Historical documents suggest that the earliest synthesis of yoga can be found in the Vedic Samhitas. The very first hymn in the Rig Veda speaks of the old and the new, pūrvebhih nūtanaih, and this suggest that there was an earlier tradition to

Notes and References 1. Sri Aurobindo, The Secret of the Veda, SABCL, 1971, Vol. 10, p.16 2. Ibid., pp.30-31 3.Ibid., Vide., p64 4., p.439-440. 5. Ibid., The Life Divine, Vol. 18, p.68. 6 Ibid., Hymns to the Mystic Fire, Vol.11. p.23. 7 Ibid., The Secret of the Veda, Vol.190. pp.191-2. 8 Ibid., The foundations of Indian Culture, Vol.14,pp. 280-81. 9 Ibid., The Synthesis of Yoga, Vol.20, pp.3-4. 10 Ibid., The Life Divine, Vol.19, pp.889-90. 11 Ibid., Vol. 18, p.10. 12 Ibid.,pp.3-4. 13 Ibid., Vol. 19, pp.1067-68. 14 Ibid., p.823. Page - 57 Kireet Joshi (b. 1931) studied philosophy and law at the Bombay Universit