Synthesis of Yoga in the Upanishads 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 me

Select Bibliography Balasubramanian, R. (ed.), The Enworlded Subjectivity: Its Three Worlds and Beyond, PHISPC, Centre For Studies in Civilizations, New Delhi, 2006 Ballentine, J.R., and Govinda Shastri Dev (Trs.), Patanjali's Yoga Sutra with Bhoja's Rāja Mārtanda, Indological Book House, 1971, Delhi, Varanasi, V Edition. Bedekar, V.M. and Palsule, G.B. (translations), Sixty Upanishads by Paul Deussen, Vols. I and II, Brunton Paul and Venkataramaiah, Conscious Immortality, Sri Ramanāśramam, 1984, Tiruvallamalayi. Chattopadhayaya, D.P, and Ravinder Kumar (eds.), Science, Philosophy and Culture; Multidisciplinary Explorations, PHISPC, New Delhi, Vols, I

PART THREE General Remarks There is profuse richness in the records of yoga that we find in the Vedic Samhitas and Upanishads, and also in the Brahmanas and Aranyakas to some extent. The exposition that is presented is somewhat detailed, and it is likely to appear much too repetitive. But considering the immense richness of the original material, what has been presented, may appear to some, too scanty and too selective. Our object is to present sufficient material that might bring out not only the richness of the yogic experiences that we find in "humanity's earliest records of yoga but also to show the patterns and systems of yogic methods which had come to be developed.

Notes and References 1 Vide., Grant Alien, Evolution of the Idea of God, New York 1897; Breasted, Jas H., Ancient Times, Boston, 1916; Jean Capart, Thebes, London, 1926; Miles Dawson, Ethics of Confucious, New York1915; G. Maspero, The Dawn of Civilization: Egypt and Chaldea,London, 1897; S. Reinach, Orpheus: A History of Religions, New York,1909 and 1930; Lynn Thorndike, Short History of Civilization, New York, 1926. 2 Homer, Iliad, translation by W. C. Bryant, Boston, I898' Homer, Odyssey, text and translation by A. T. Murray, Loeb Library. 3 Murray, G., Five stages of Greek Religion, Oxford, I930. 4 Harrison, G. E., Prolegomena to the Study of Gr

Introduction The yoga that we see in the Vedas and the principal Upanishads belongs to pre-historic times, and it is only because we have available to us the relevant texts connected with the yoga of these times that we are in a position to ascertain the knowledge related to this yoga and its . development. It cannot be supposed, however, that yoga developed only in the Vedas and the Upanishads. There was, indeed, yoga and yogic knowledge in ancient Egypt,¹ ancient Greece, ancient Chaldea, ancient China and ancient Persia as also elsewhere as in ancient Mayan civilization. In ancient Greece, there was a religion of which we have glimpses through the Homeric poems² where the Olymp

PART ONE Vedas and Upanishads If the Veda gave us the first types and figures of man, Nature and God and of the powers of the universe as seen and formed by an imaged spiritual intuition and psychological and yogic experience, the Upanishads broke through the Vedic forms, symbols and images, without entirely 'abandoning them and revealed in unique kind of poetry the ultimate and unsurpassable truths of self and God and man and the world and its principles and powers in their most essential, their profoundest and most intimate and their most ample reality. Between the Vedas and the Upanishads was a period 6 of development of Brahamanas and Aranyakas, which have value for the c

-03_A most Difficult Dilemma of Human Life and Gita^s Solution.htm A Most Difficult Dilemma of Human Life and Gita's Solution The greatest significance of the Gita lies in the fact that it proposes a solution to a central typical problem of human life that presents itself at a certain critical stage of development. We may say that Arjuna to whom the teaching is addressed is a representative man, and the problem that he faced arose at a certain height of ethical concern in the midst of an actual and symbolic battlefield (Kurukshetra, which is also Dharmakshetra). He had come to the battlefield motivated by the ideal of a fight for justice. But as he gazed at the armies and looked in the face of the

Gita's Karma Yoga: Elimination of Desire from Action The secret of Karma Yoga lies in the right dealing with the relationship between desire and action, and in eliminating from the psychological complex by pursuing a sustained method the operation of desire so that one can discover the real origin of all dynamism of action in that supreme will which is omni potently free, and which is not only free to act or not to act but which at its origin remains permanently poised in the Inactive Brahman, even when, if it so wills, can constantly be engaged in full manifestation of action. Moreover, the seeker is enabled to discover and apply t

Relationship between Knowledge, Action and Devotion At the root of the synthesis of the yoga of the Gita is a clear and indispensable relationship that exists between cognition, conation and affection. Knowledge, which is the fruit of cognition is always superior to mere action, since knowledge aims at the discovery of the ultimate foundation of all that is and all that becomes, and the attainment of knowledge is always foundational and nothing that vibrates in cognition, conation and affection can attain to perfection without the attainment of the foundation that can be seized by the processes of knowledge, Jnana. One of the basi

Introduction The Age of the Vedas and the principal Upanishads was the Age of Intuition, but this Age was followed by the Age of Reason. Inspired texts of the Veda and the Upanishads made room for metaphysical philosophy, even as afterwards metaphysical philosophy had to give place to experimental Science. The study of the history of the metaphysical philosophy of India demonstrates the great heights to which the pure reason developed, and the study of the experimental Science that developed in India demonstrates multisided development of the mixed action of the reason in minute subtlety and complexity; this mixed action of the reason explored the domains of experimental and