{"id":2144,"date":"2013-07-13T01:39:44","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:39:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2144"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:39:44","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:39:44","slug":"52-chapter-vi-the-delight-of-the-divine-vol-23-24-the-synthesis-of-yoga","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/03-cwsa\/23-24-the-synthesis-of-yoga\/52-chapter-vi-the-delight-of-the-divine-vol-23-24-the-synthesis-of-yoga","title":{"rendered":"-52_Chapter VI The Delight of the Divine.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n\t\t\tChapter VI
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\n\t\t\tThe Delight of the Divine
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\n\t\t\tT<\/font>HIS THEN<\/b> is the way of devotion and this its justification
\nto the highest and the widest, the most integral knowledge, and we can now perceive what form and place it
\nwill take in an integral Yoga. Yoga is in essence the union of the soul with the immortal being and consciousness and delight of
\nthe Divine, effected through the human nature with a result of development into the divine nature of being, whatever that may
\nbe, so far as we can conceive it in mind and realise it in spiritual activity. Whatever we see of this Divine and fix our concentrated
\neffort upon it, that we can become or grow into some kind of unity with it or at the lowest into tune and harmony with it. The
\nold Upanishad put it trenchantly in its highest terms, “Whoever envisages it as the Existence becomes that existence and whoever
\nenvisages it as the Non-existence, becomes that non-existence;” so too it is with all else that we see of the Divine,
\n\u2014 that, we
\nmay say, is at once the essential and the pragmatic truth of the Godhead. It is something beyond us which is indeed already
\nwithin us, but which we as yet are not or are only initially in our human existence; but whatever of it we see, we can create or
\nreveal in our conscious nature and being and can grow into it, and so to create or reveal in ourselves individually the Godhead
\nand grow into its universality and transcendence is our spiritual destiny. Or if this seem too high for the weakness of our nature,
\nthen at least to approach, reflect and be in secure communion with it is a near and possible consummation. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe aim of this synthetic or integral Yoga which we are considering, is union with the being, consciousness and delight of
\nthe Divine through every part of our human nature separately or simultaneously, but all in the long end harmonised and unified,
\nso that the whole may be transformed into a divine nature of being. Nothing less than this can satisfy the integral seer, because
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\n\t\t\twhat he sees must be that which he strives to possess spiritually
\nand, so far as may be, become. Not with the knower in him alone, nor with the will alone, nor with the heart alone, but
\nwith all these equally and also with the whole mental and vital being in him he aspires to the Godhead and labours to convert
\ntheir nature into its divine equivalents. And since God meets us in many ways of his being and in all tempts us to him even
\nwhile he seems to elude us, \u2014 and to see divine possibility and overcome its play of obstacles constitutes the whole mystery and
\ngreatness of human existence, \u2014 therefore in each of these ways at its highest or in the union of all, if we can find the key of
\ntheir oneness, we shall aspire to track out and find and possess him. Since he withdraws into impersonality, we follow after his
\nimpersonal being and delight, but since he meets us also in our personality and through personal relations of the Divine with
\nthe human, that too we shall not deny ourselves; we shall admit both the play of the love and the delight and its ineffable union. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBy knowledge we seek unity with the Divine in his conscious being: by works we seek also unity with the Divine in his conscious being, not statically, but dynamically, through conscious union with the divine Will; but by love we seek unity with him
\nin all the delight of his being. For that reason the way of love, however narrow it may seem in some of its first movements, is in
\nthe end more imperatively all-embracing than any other motive of Yoga. The way of knowledge tends easily towards the impersonal and the absolute, may very soon become exclusive. It is true that it need not do so; since the conscious being of the Divine
\nis universal and individual as well as transcendent and absolute, here too there may be and should be a tendency to integral
\nrealisation of unity and we can arrive by it at a spiritual oneness with God in man and God in the universe not less complete than
\nany transcendent union. But still this is not quite imperative. For we may plead that there is a higher and a lower knowledge, a
\nhigher self-awareness and a lower self-awareness, and that here the apex of knowledge is to be pursued to the exclusion of
\nthe mass of knowledge, the way of exclusion preferred to the integral way. Or we may discover a theory of illusion to justify
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\n\t\t\tour rejection of all connection with our fellow-men and with the
\ncosmic action. The way of works leads us to the Transcendent whose power of being manifests itself as a will in the world one
\nin us and all, by identity with which we come, owing to the conditions of that identity, into union with him as the one self
\nin all and as the universal self and Lord in the cosmos. And this might seem to impose a certain comprehensiveness in our
\nrealisation of the unity. But still this too is not quite imperative. For this motive also may lean towards an entire impersonality
\nand, even if it leads to a continued participation in the activities of the universal Godhead, may be entirely detached and passive
\nin its principle. It is only when delight intervenes that the motive of integral union becomes quite imperative. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThis delight which is so entirely imperative, is the delight in the Divine for his own sake and for nothing else, for no cause or
\ngain whatever beyond itself. It does not seek God for anything that he can give us or for any particular quality in him, but
\nsimply and purely because he is our self and our whole being and our all. It embraces the delight of the transcendence, not for
\nthe sake of transcendence, but because he is the transcendent; the delight of the universal, not for the sake of universality,
\nbut because he is the universal; the delight of the individual not for the sake of individual satisfaction, but because he is the
\nindividual. It goes behind all distinctions and appearances and makes no calculations of more or less in his being, but embraces
\nhim wherever he is and therefore everywhere, embraces him utterly in the seeming less as in the seeming more, in the apparent limitation as in the revelation of the illimitable; it has the intuition and the experience of his oneness and completeness
\neverywhere. To seek after him for the sake of his absolute being alone is really to drive at our own individual gain, the gain of
\nabsolute peace. To possess him absolutely indeed is necessarily the aim of this delight in his being, but this comes when we
\npossess him utterly and are utterly possessed by him and need be limited to no particular status or condition. To seek after him
\nin some heaven of bliss is to seek him not for himself, but for the bliss of heaven; when we have all the true delight of his being,
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\n\t\t\tthen heaven is within ourselves, and wherever he is and we are,
\nthere we have the joy of his kingdom. So too to seek him only in ourselves and for ourselves, is to limit both ourselves and our joy
\nin him. The integral delight embraces him not only within our own individual being, but equally in all men and in all beings.
\nAnd because in him we are one with all, it seeks him not only for ourselves, but for all our fellows. A perfect and complete delight
\nin the Divine, perfect because pure and self-existent, complete because all-embracing as well as all-absorbing, is the meaning
\nof the way of Bhakti for the seeker of the integral Yoga. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOnce it is active in us, all other ways of Yoga convert themselves, as it were, to its law and find by it their own richest significance. This integral devotion of our being to God does
\nnot turn away from knowledge; the bhakta of this path is the God-lover who is also the God-knower, because by knowledge
\nof his being comes the whole delight of his being; but it is in delight that knowledge fulfils itself, the knowledge of the
\ntranscendent in the delight of the Transcendent, the knowledge of the universal in the delight of the universal Godhead, the
\nknowledge of the individual manifestation in the delight of God in the individual, the knowledge of the impersonal in the pure
\ndelight of his impersonal being, the knowledge of the personal in the full delight of his personality, the knowledge of his qualities
\nand their play in the delight of the manifestation, the knowledge of the quality-less in the delight of his colourless existence and
\nnon-manifestation. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSo too this God-lover will be the divine worker, not for the
\nsake of works or for a self-regarding pleasure in action, but because in this way God expends the power of his being and in
\nhis powers and their signs we find him, because the divine Will in works is the out-flowing of the Godhead in the delight of its
\npower, of divine Being in the delight of divine Force. He will feel perfect joy in the works and acts of the Beloved, because in them
\ntoo he finds the Beloved; he will himself do all works because through those works too the Lord of his being expresses his
\ndivine joy in him: when he works, he feels that he is expressing in act and power his oneness with that which he loves and adores;
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\n\t\t\the feels the rapture of the will which he obeys and with which
\nall the force of his being is blissfully identified. So too, again, this God-lover will seek after perfection, because perfection is
\nthe nature of the Divine and the more he grows into perfection, the more he feels the Beloved manifest in his natural being. Or
\nhe will simply grow in perfection like the blossoming of a flower because the Divine is in him and the joy of the Divine, and as
\nthat joy expands in him, soul and mind and life too expand naturally into their godhead. At the same time, because he feels
\nthe Divine in all, perfect within every limiting appearance, he will not have the sorrow of his imperfection. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tNor will the seeking of the Divine through life and the meeting of him in all the activities of his being and of the
\nuniversal being be absent from the scope of his worship. All Nature and all life will be to him at once a revelation and a fine
\ntrysting-place. Intellectual and aesthetic and dynamic activities, science and philosophy and life, thought and art and action will
\nassume for him a diviner sanction and a greater meaning. He will seek them because of his clear sight of the Divine through
\nthem and because of the delight of the Divine in them. He will not be indeed attached to their appearances, for attachment is
\nan obstacle to the Ananda; but because he possesses that pure, powerful and perfect Ananda which obtains everything but is
\ndependent on nothing, and because he finds in them the ways and acts and signs, the becomings and the symbols and images
\nof the Beloved, he draws from them a rapture which the normal mind that pursues them for themselves cannot attain or even
\ndream. All this and more becomes part of the integral way and its consummation. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe general power of Delight is love and the special mould which the joy of love takes is the vision of beauty. The God-lover is the universal lover and he embraces the All-blissful and All-beautiful. When universal love has seized on his heart, it is
\nthe decisive sign that the Divine has taken possession of him; and when he has the vision of the All-beautiful everywhere and
\ncan feel at all times the bliss of his embrace, that is the decisive sign that he has taken possession of the Divine. Union is the <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\tconsummation of love, but it is this mutual possession that gives
\nit at once the acme and the largest reach of its intensity. It is the foundation of oneness in ecstasy.
\n   <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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