CHAPTER XIX KARMAYOGA AND ITS INDISPENSABILITY PART III THE PERFECTION OF KARMAYOGA We have seen that man being essentially a composite organism and not a mere sum-total of heterogeneous parts and powers,—which is only a superficial aspect of him —neither Karmayoga, nor Bhaktiyoga, nor Jnânayoga can become perfect in itself without the others also becoming perfect and complete at the same time. A certain insular perfection can be attained, as we have already conceded, by Bhaktiyoga, without much direct help from Jnânayoga and Karmayoga, or by Jnânayoga without bringing in much of the elements of karma and bhakti; but the perfection, th

CHAPTER XXVIII THE INTEGRAL TRANSFORMATION PART II THE RATIONALE OF TRANSFORMATION WE have already learnt that an integral and dynamic union with the Divine is the goal of the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo. What does this integral union mean? It means that we have to be united with the Divine in all the states, poises and modes of His being and our being. The Divine is not only the Transcendent Absolute; He is not only the infinite, impassive Impersonal; He is all that exists, here as well as there above. He is both Spirit and Nature, Time and the Timeless, Space and the Spaceless, all these names and forms that we see and those that

CHAPTER XVIII KARMA YOGA AND ITS INDISPENSABILITY PART II THE PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE OF KARMAYOGA KARMAYOGA consists in offering all the movements of our physical being, particularly the works done by our body, to the omnipresent Master of our being. Its primary rule, as the Gitâ insists, is the renunciation of all desire for the fruit of our action, and all preference even. in the choice of action. Action has to be done in the beginning as a sacrifice to the Lord of the universal sacrifice, yajñeśwara, as an individual contribution to the sum total of the collective evolutionary effort. "The essential of the sacrifice of work

At The Feet of The Mother PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION A substantial demand for this book from America has made it necessary to bring out a second edition. But as the demand is urgent, there is no time to prepare an index and make certain additions and alterations, which I should have very much liked to do. I have, however, revised the whole book, made some slight changes and corrections, and elaborated the contents. Translations of some Sanskrit words and phrases have been appended in the footnotes. The demand for this book is one of the minor indications of the growing interest the elite of the West are taking in Sri Aurobindo and the Moth

CHAPTER XXI LOVE—ITS PLACE AND POWER PART II THE love we ordinarily offer to the Divine when we turn towards Him is not always of the purest kind in the beginning. Its nature depends upon the part of our being from which it proceeds. It may be our physical being turning unintelligently, mechanically, inertly, under the dull drive of a secret impulsion, towards the Divine. Our love then takes a physical form—merely external, ritualistic or ceremonial—and partakes somewhat of the nature of our outer human relations. Or it may be our vital-emotional being turning towards the Divine. Our love is then characterised by some strength and intensity of t

CHAPTER XVII KARMA YOGA AND ITS INDISPENSABILITY PART I THE BASIS OF KARMA YOGA KARMA YOGA or the yoga of divine works starts from the foundation of a faith or inner perception that the Divine is not only the incommunicable, featureless Absolute with whom one can be united by the abolition of one's individuality and temporal existence, but the omnipresent Reality, the all-creating, all-constituting and all-exceeding eternal Person, at once transcendent, universal and individual, who has to be realised in all His statuses and aspects in a union simultaneously static and dynamic. To be united with Him only in His ineffable tra

CHAPTER XII MIND AND ITS PURIFICATION PART I MANY things are meant by the general term mind. It is indiscriminately used for the intellect, intelligence, reason, thought, understanding etc., and is even stretched to cover feeling and emotion. It is, therefore, essential that it should be properly defined and classified, its various functions described with precision, and their hierarchical order clearly indicated, if we are to embark upon the work of its Yogic as distinguished from ethical purification. A certain amount of detailed knowledge of the psychology of our nature is a great help in the beginning of the spiritual life, and saves us many a st

CHAPTER XI THE PURIFICATION OF NATURE PURIFICATION has a special sense in the Integral Yoga. In the other Yoga's except the Tantra, it means the simplification or stilling of most of the functions of antaḥkaraṇa, which comprises citta or the basic consciousness, manas or the sense-mind, buddhi or the intelligence, and ahankāra or the ego. There are different processes in the different Yogas for the purpose of this stilling and simplification, but the common, ultimate objective is a release of the central being from the complex working of nature, and its union either with the immutable Brahman or with God or with its own unconditioned Self or Status, as the

CHAPTER VI THE MOTHER IN HER TRIPLE POISE SRI Râmakrishna expressed one of the cardinal truths of the integral spiritual realisation when he said that it is the Mother who holds the key to the abode of Brahman, and unless She delivered it as a Grace, none could see Brahman face to face. Sri Râmakrishna's own self-consecration to the Mother was unimpeachable and inviolate to the last day of his life, in spite of his Vedantic initiation and the definitive Vedântic experience of the supreme status of the undifferentiated Absolute. Vaishnava, Tântrie, Vedântic, Christian, Moslem, all in one, he remained. the Mother's child, divinely free in his unques

CHAPTER XVI THE PHYSICAL NATURE AND ITS PURIFICATION PART II No purification of the physical being can be complete unless it deals effectively and radically with the subconscient and the inconscient; for, as I have already said, the roots of our physical being lie in them, and most of the habits, tendencies and impulses of our nature derive from them, and are fed and fortified by their force of inertia. If our physical being is irresponsive to any higher light or any supersensory truth, it is due to the grossness and denseness of its texture, which is mostly a product of the subconscient and the inconscient. If it is mec