CHAPTER VII THE INTEGRAL SURRENDER PART I THE BACKGROUND THE essential truth which informs the concept of the Integral surrender is a triple postulate: That the Divine is the omnipresent Reality, the sole all-constituting and all-transcending Being, whose progressive self-manifestation in Matter is the goal of evolutionary terrestrial Nature; that it is the supreme Consciousness- Force of this Being, or rather the Being Himself as Consciousness-Force or Shakti, the Magna Mater, or the Megale Dunamis of the Gnostics, that has woven out of Himself this immense and intricate web of the worlds; and that it is the omniscient Will of the Shakti, and not

CHAPTER XXIII KNOWLEDGE—THE LIGHT THAT FULFILS PART II MEANS OF KNOWLEDGE WE have said that a turning of the mind's eye inwards is the first indispensable means of attaining knowledge but it is not a mere introspection or a superficial introversion as practised by the modern psychologist that we mean—it is a plunge into the very depths of our being. The mind, the heart, the will, all must seek to know and unite with the Divine who dwells within us and to whom we eternally belong. It is not a mere intellectual curiosity that should be the motive power behind our seeking for knowledge, but the irrepressible urge, the spontaneous élan of our con

CHAPTER II THE VARIETIES OF YOGA BEFORE we enter upon a detailed consideration of the nature, process and aim of the Integral Yoga as evolved by Sri Aurobindo, let us take a bird's eye view of the general Yogic background in India against which this new, dynamic synthesis of spiritual culture rises in massive grandeur, embodying the essentials of the past, and claiming to fulfil the more complex and manifold aspirations of the present. Man is a progressive being. He emerges from the past only to march towards the future, which is an ever- extending line of light leading him to greater and greater conquests. His greatest achievements of yesterday are but

CHAPTER XX LOVE—ITS PLACE AND POWER PART I The general conception about Bhaktiyoga or the yoga of love and devotion is that it is an exclusive turning of the emotions of the human heart towards God, or a particular aspect or form of His. It is a culture of spiritual emotions. Love is its motive force—love of the Divine, not as an impersonal existence or an incommunicable Absolute, but as the supreme Being, who is the author and friend and guide of all creatures. This love may take one of the five principal forms: śānta, dāsya, sakhya, vātsalya and madhura. The bhakta or devotee of the śānta type may have a deep and intense love for the Divine, but t

CHAPTER XIV MIND AND ITS PURIFICATION PART III PURIFICATION OF THE CHITTA As we have already said, the citta is the basic stuff of our consciousness, teeming with all sorts of impressions of our immediate and remote past. These chaotic impressions go to nourish our desires and give them different, sometimes even contrary, directions, form most of our physical and vital habits and tendencies, and affect even our thoughts and judgements. Their action is so subtle and often so swift and sudden that, unless one has acquired a yogic detachment, one may not even be aware of it. Much of it is subconscient and unpredictably automatic. Let us take a

CHAPTER XXIV KNOWLEDGE—THE LIGHT THAT FULFILS CATEGORIES OF KNOWLEDGE PART III ACCORDING to ancient Indian tradition there are three principal grades or categories of spiritual knowledge: ātmajñāna or knowledge of one's individual soul or self; brahmajñāna or knowledge of the universal and transcendent Self or Spirit, and bhagavatjñāna or knowledge of the Divine, the sole and supreme Being. It is essential to keep this distinction well in mind lest we confound the ultimate values of the spiritual life and fail to appreciate the comprehensive greatness of the aim of the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo. Ordinarily—and this is a fairly

CHAPTER VIII THE EGO—THE DESIRE-SOUL PART I WE have seen that the integral surrender of the human being is an essential pre-requisite of his complete union with the Divine and the total transformation of his nature. We have also seen that, paradoxical as it may appear, it is the ego that at once initiates and impedes this surrender. In order that our surrender may be sincere and integral, we must now try to understand what this ego is,—its origin, purpose, characteristic function, growth and end—and how we can proceed to deal with it in the light of a true knowledge, instead of rushing to grapple with it in the dimness of our half- baked ethical or

CHAPTER I WHAT IS YOGA? "GREATER than the doers of askesis (tapasya), greater even than the men of knowledge and greater than the men of works is the Yogi. Therefore, O Aujuna, become a Yogi." (The Gita, Chap. 6.46). Such being the view of the Gita, which is itself a massive teaching of a synthetic Yoga, and a part of the highest canonical triad of ancient Hinduism, it would not be unjustifiable to conclude that Yoga was regarded in ancient India as the very heart of spirituality. The other spiritual ways and methods are but approaches, preparations, subsidiary aids to purification and progress, but the way of Yoga is the royal way, the most rapidly eff

CHAPTER XXXI "THE HOUR OF GOD" THE modem age is an age of singular paradoxes and unprecedented promises. On the one hand, man is ardently yearning for unity and harmony, and, on the other, he is frantically tearing himself and his society with divisions and discords. He is athirst for peace and the cessation of all that threatens the progressive tenor of his life, and yet he is driven to create and multiply a myriad causes of conflict, within him and without. He longs so much for a harmonious advance of the collectivity and a general well-being of his species, and yet he is so helplessly dominated by aggressive, individualistic tendencies and an exclusive self-assertion.

CHAPTER XXVI THE INTEGRAL LIBERATION PART II "A DIVINE unity of supreme Spirit and its supreme nature is the integral liberation."¹ In these words Sri Aurobindo indicates the essence of the liberation we aim at in the Integral Yoga. It is not only liberation from the lower nature of the three gunas into the peace and silence of the immutable Self that we seek, but liberation in the Divine, the supreme Spirit, and it cannot be rally achieved so long as our nature is not also liberated from its inferior modes into the luminous Consciousness-Force of the Supemature, para prakrti. For, in the Divine there is an eternal harmony between Light and Force, sile