{"id":2175,"date":"2013-07-13T01:39:55","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:39:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2175"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:39:55","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:39:55","slug":"04-chapter-iv-the-systems-of-yoga-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\/04-chapter-iv-the-systems-of-yoga-vol-23-24-the-synthesis-of-yoga","title":{"rendered":"-04_Chapter IV The Systems of Yoga.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\n\n\n
\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\tChapter IV <\/font> <\/b><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\tThe Systems of Yoga <\/font> <\/b><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\tT<\/font>HESE<\/b> relations between the different psychological divisions of the human being and these various utilities and objects of effort founded on them, such as we have seen
\nthem in our brief survey of the natural evolution, we shall find repeated in the fundamental principles and methods of the different schools of Yoga. And if we seek to combine and harmonise their central practices and their predominant aims, we shall find
\nthat the basis provided by Nature is still our natural basis and the condition of their synthesis. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn one respect Yoga exceeds the normal operation of cosmic Nature and climbs beyond her. For the aim of the Universal
\nMother is to embrace the Divine in her own play and creations and there to realise It. But in the highest flights of Yoga she
\nreaches beyond herself and realises the Divine in Itself exceeding the universe and even standing apart from the cosmic play.
\nTherefore by some it is supposed that this is not only the highest but also the one true or exclusively preferable object of Yoga. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tYet it is always through something which she has formed in her evolution that Nature thus overpasses her evolution. It is the
\nindividual heart that by sublimating its highest and purest emotions attains to the transcendent Bliss or the ineffable Nirvana,
\nthe individual mind that by converting its ordinary functionings into a knowledge beyond mentality knows its oneness with the
\nIneffable and merges its separate existence in that transcendent unity. And always it is the individual, the Self conditioned in its
\nexperience by Nature and working through her formations, that attains to the Self unconditioned, free and transcendent. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn practice three conceptions are necessary before there can be any possibility of Yoga; there must be, as it were, three consenting parties to the effort, \u2014 God, Nature and the human soul or, in more abstract language, the Transcendental, the Universal
\n  
\n  <\/p>\n

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\n

\n\t\t\tand the Individual. If the individual and Nature are left to
\nthemselves, the one is bound to the other and unable to exceed appreciably her lingering march. Something transcendent
\nis needed, free from her and greater, which will act upon us and her, attracting us upward to Itself and securing from her by good
\ngrace or by force her consent to the individual ascension. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt is this truth which makes necessary to every philosophy
\nof Yoga the conception of the Ishwara, Lord, supreme Soul or supreme Self, towards whom the effort is directed and who gives
\nthe illuminating touch and the strength to attain. Equally true is the complementary idea so often enforced by the Yoga of
\ndevotion that as the Transcendent is necessary to the individual and sought after by him, so also the individual is necessary
\nin a sense to the Transcendent and sought after by It. If the Bhakta seeks and yearns after Bhagavan, Bhagavan also seeks
\nand yearns after the Bhakta.1<\/font><\/sup> There can be no Yoga of knowledge without a human seeker of the knowledge, the supreme
\nsubject of knowledge and the divine use by the individual of the universal faculties of knowledge; no Yoga of devotion without
\nthe human God-lover, the supreme object of love and delight and the divine use by the individual of the universal faculties of
\nspiritual, emotional and aesthetic enjoyment; no Yoga of works without the human worker, the supreme Will, Master of all
\nworks and sacrifices, and the divine use by the individual of the universal faculties of power and action. However Monistic may
\nbe our intellectual conception of the highest truth of things, in practice we are compelled to accept this omnipresent Trinity. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFor the contact of the human and individual consciousness with the divine is the very essence of Yoga. Yoga is the union
\nof that which has become separated in the play of the universe with its own true self, origin and universality. The contact may
\ntake place at any point of the complex and intricately organised consciousness which we call our personality. It may be effected in
\nthe physical through the body; in the vital through the action of <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t1
\nBhakta, the devotee or lover of God; Bhagavan, God, the Lord of Love and Delight. The third term of the trinity is Bhagavat, the divine revelation of Love.
\n  
\n  <\/font> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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\n

\n\t\t\tthose functionings which determine the state and the experiences
\nof our nervous being; through the mentality, whether by means of the emotional heart, the active will or the understanding mind,
\nor more largely by a general conversion of the mental consciousness in all its activities. It may equally be accomplished through
\na direct awakening to the universal or transcendent Truth and Bliss by the conversion of the central ego in the mind. And
\naccording to the point of contact that we choose will be the type of the Yoga that we practise. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFor if, leaving aside the complexities of their particular processes, we fix our regard on the central principle of the chief
\nschools of Yoga still prevalent in India, we find that they arrange themselves in an ascending order which starts from the lowest
\nrung of the ladder, the body, and ascends to the direct contact between the individual soul and the transcendent and universal
\nSelf. Hathayoga selects the body and the vital functionings as its instruments of perfection and realisation; its concern is with
\nthe gross body. Rajayoga selects the mental being in its different parts as its lever-power; it concentrates on the subtle body. The
\ntriple Path of Works, of Love and of Knowledge uses some part of the mental being, will, heart or intellect as a starting-point
\nand seeks by its conversion to arrive at the liberating Truth, Beatitude and Infinity which are the nature of the spiritual life.
\nIts method is a direct commerce between the human Purusha in the individual body and the divine Purusha who dwells in every
\nbody and yet transcends all form and name. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHathayoga aims at the conquest of the life and the body
\nwhose combination in the food sheath and the vital vehicle constitutes, as we have seen, the gross body and whose equilibrium is
\nthe foundation of all Nature’s workings in the human being. The equilibrium established by Nature is sufficient for the normal
\negoistic life; it is insufficient for the purpose of the Hathayogin. For it is calculated on the amount of vital or dynamic force
\nnecessary to drive the physical engine during the normal span of human life and to perform more or less adequately the various
\nworkings demanded of it by the individual life inhabiting this frame and the world-environment by which it is conditioned.
\n  
\n  <\/p>\n

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\n

\n\t\t\tHathayoga therefore seeks to rectify Nature and establish another equilibrium by which the physical frame will be able to sustain the inrush of an increasing vital or dynamic force of
\nPrana indefinite, almost infinite in its quantity or intensity. In Nature the equilibrium is based upon the individualisation of
\na limited quantity and force of the Prana; more than that the individual is by personal and hereditary habit unable to bear,
\nuse or control. In Hathayoga, the equilibrium opens a door to the universalisation of the individual vitality by admitting into
\nthe body, containing, using and controlling a much less fixed and limited action of the universal energy.
\n <\/i>The chief processes of Hathayoga are asana <\/i>and prānāyāma<\/i>.  <\/i>
\nBy its numerous āsanas <\/i>or fixed postures it first cures the body of that restlessness which is a sign of its inability to contain
\nwithout working them off in action and movement the vital forces poured into it from the universal Life-Ocean, gives to it an
\nextraordinary health, force and suppleness and seeks to liberate it from the habits by which it is subjected to ordinary physical
\nNature and kept within the narrow bounds of her normal operations. In the ancient tradition of Hathayoga it has always been
\nsupposed that this conquest could be pushed so far even as to conquer to a great extent the force of gravitation. By various
\nsubsidiary but elaborate processes the Hathayogin next contrives to keep the body free from all impurities and the nervous
\nsystem unclogged for those exercises of respiration which are  .   <\/i>
\n his most important instruments. These are called prānāyāma<\/i>, the control of the breath or vital power; for breathing is the
\nchief physical functioning of the vital forces. Prānāyāma, for the Hathayogin, serves a double purpose. First, it completes
\nthe perfection of the body. The vitality is liberated from many of the ordinary necessities of physical Nature; robust health,
\nprolonged youth, often an extraordinary longevity are attained. On the other hand,
\n\t\t\tPrānāyāma awakens the coiled-up serpent of
\nthe Pranic dynamism in the vital sheath and opens to the Yogin fields of consciousness, ranges of experience, abnormal faculties
\ndenied to the ordinary human life while it puissantly intensifies such normal powers and faculties as he already possesses.
\n  
\n  <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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\n

\n\t\t\tThese advantages can be farther secured and emphasised by
\nother subsidiary processes open to the Hathayogin. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe results of Hathayoga are thus striking to the eye and
\nimpose easily on the vulgar or physical mind. And yet at the end we may ask what we have gained at the end of all this
\nstupendous labour. The object of physical Nature, the preservation of the mere physical life, its highest perfection, even in
\na certain sense the capacity of a greater enjoyment of physical living have been carried out on an abnormal scale. But the weakness of Hathayoga is that its laborious and difficult processes make so great a demand on the time and energy and impose
\nso complete a severance from the ordinary life of men that the utilisation of its results for the life of the world becomes either
\nimpracticable or is extraordinarily restricted. If in return for this loss we gain another life in another world within, the mental,
\nthe dynamic, these results could have been acquired through other systems, through Rajayoga, through Tantra, by much less
\nlaborious methods and held on much less exacting terms. On the other hand the physical results, increased vitality, prolonged
\nyouth, health, longevity are of small avail if they must be held by us as misers of ourselves, apart from the common life, for
\ntheir own sake, not utilised, not thrown into the common sum of the world’s activities. Hathayoga attains large results, but at
\nan exorbitant price and to very little purpose. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tRajayoga takes a higher flight. It aims at the liberation and
\nperfection not of the bodily, but of the mental being, the control of the emotional and sensational life, the mastery of the whole
\napparatus of thought and consciousness. It fixes its eyes on the citta<\/i>, that stuff of mental consciousness in which all these activities arise, and it seeks, even as Hathayoga with its physical material, first to purify and to tranquillise. The normal state of
\nman is a condition of trouble and disorder, a kingdom either at war with itself or badly governed; for the lord, the Purusha,
\nis subjected to his ministers, the faculties, subjected even to his subjects, the instruments of sensation, emotion, action, enjoyment. Swarajya, self-rule, must be substituted for this subjection. First, therefore, the powers of order must be helped to overcome
\n  
\n  <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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\n

\n\t\t\tthe powers of disorder. The preliminary movement of Rajayoga
\nis a careful self-discipline by which good habits of mind are substituted for the lawless movements that indulge the lower
\nnervous being. By the practice of truth, by renunciation of all forms of egoistic seeking, by abstention from injury to others,
\nby purity, by constant meditation and inclination to the divine Purusha who is the true lord of the mental kingdom, a pure,
\nglad, clear state of mind and heart is established. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThis is the first step only. Afterwards, the ordinary activities
\nof the mind and sense must be entirely quieted in order that the soul may be free to ascend to higher states of consciousness and
\nacquire the foundation for a perfect freedom and self-mastery. But Rajayoga does not forget that the disabilities of the ordinary mind proceed largely from its subjection to the reactions of the nervous system and the body. It adopts therefore from
\nthe Hathayogic system its devices of asana <\/i>and prānāyāma<\/i>, but reduces their multiple and elaborate forms in each case to
\none simplest and most directly effective process sufficient for its own immediate object. Thus it gets rid of the Hathayogic
\ncomplexity and cumbrousness while it utilises the swift and powerful efficacy of its methods for the control of the body
\nand the vital functions and for the awakening of that internal dynamism, full of a latent supernormal faculty, typified in Yogic
\n <\/i> terminology by the kundalinī<\/i>, the coiled and sleeping serpent
\n\t\t\t of Energy within. This done, the system proceeds to the perfect
\nquieting of the restless mind and its elevation to a higher plane through concentration of mental force by the successive stages
\nwhich lead to the utmost inner concentration or ingathered state of the consciousness which is called Samadhi. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBy Samadhi, in which the mind acquires the capacity of withdrawing from its limited waking activities into freer and
\nhigher states of consciousness, Rajayoga serves a double purpose. It compasses a pure mental action liberated from the
\nconfusions of the outer consciousness and passes thence to the higher supra-mental planes on which the individual soul enters
\ninto its true spiritual existence. But also it acquires the capacity of that free and concentrated energising of consciousness on <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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\n

\nits object which our philosophy asserts as the primary cosmic
\nenergy and the method of divine action upon the world. By this capacity the Yogin, already possessed of the highest supracosmic knowledge and experience in the state of trance, is able in the waking state to acquire directly whatever knowledge
\nand exercise whatever mastery may be useful or necessary to his activities in the objective world. For the ancient system of
\nRajayoga aimed not only at Swarajya, self-rule or subjective empire, the entire control by the subjective consciousness of all
\nthe states and activities proper to its own domain, but included Samrajya as well, outward empire, the control by the subjective
\nconsciousness of its outer activities and environment. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWe perceive that as Hathayoga, dealing with the life and
\nbody, aims at the supernormal perfection of the physical life and its capacities and goes beyond it into the domain of the mental
\nlife, so Rajayoga, operating with the mind, aims at a supernormal perfection and enlargement of the capacities of the mental
\nlife and goes beyond it into the domain of the spiritual existence. But the weakness of the system lies in its excessive reliance on
\nabnormal states of trance. This limitation leads first to a certain aloofness from the physical life which is our foundation and the
\nsphere into which we have to bring our mental and spiritual gains. Especially is the spiritual life, in this system, too much
\nassociated with the state of Samadhi. Our object is to make the spiritual life and its experiences fully active and fully utilisable
\nin the waking state and even in the normal use of the functions. But in Rajayoga it tends to withdraw into a subliminal plane at
\nthe back of our normal experiences instead of descending and possessing our whole existence. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe triple Path of devotion, knowledge and works attempts the province which Rajayoga leaves unoccupied. It differs from
\nRajayoga in that it does not occupy itself with the elaborate training of the whole mental system as the condition of perfection, but seizes on certain central principles, the intellect, the heart, the will, and seeks to convert their normal operations by
\nturning them away from their ordinary and external preoccupations and activities and concentrating them on the Divine. It  <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>37<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tdiffers also in this, \u2014 and here from the point of view of an
\nintegral Yoga there seems to be a defect, \u2014 that it is indifferent to mental and bodily perfection and aims only at purity as a
\ncondition of the divine realisation. A second defect is that as actually practised it chooses one of the three parallel paths
\nexclusively and almost in antagonism to the others instead of effecting a synthetic harmony of the intellect, the heart and the
\nwill in an integral divine realisation. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe Path of Knowledge aims at the realisation of the unique
\nand supreme Self. It proceeds by the method of intellectual \u00af<\/i>
\nreflection, vicara<\/i>, to right discrimination, viveka<\/i>. It observes and distinguishes the different elements of our apparent or phenomenal being and rejecting identification with each of them arrives at their exclusion and separation in one common term
\nas constituents of Prakriti, of phenomenal Nature, creations of Maya, the phenomenal consciousness. So it is able to arrive at
\nits right identification with the pure and unique Self which is not mutable or perishable, not determinable by any phenomenon or
\ncombination of phenomena. From this point the path, as ordinarily followed, leads to the rejection of the phenomenal worlds
\nfrom the consciousness as an illusion and the final immergence without return of the individual soul in the Supreme. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut this exclusive consummation is not the sole or inevitable result of the Path of Knowledge. For, followed more largely and
\nwith a less individual aim, the method of Knowledge may lead to an active conquest of the cosmic existence for the Divine no
\nless than to a transcendence. The point of this departure is the realisation of the supreme Self not only in one’s own being but
\nin all beings and, finally, the realisation of even the phenomenal aspects of the world as a play of the divine consciousness
\nand not something entirely alien to its true nature. And on the basis of this realisation a yet further enlargement is possible, the
\nconversion of all forms of knowledge, however mundane, into activities of the divine consciousness utilisable for the perception
\nof the one and unique Object of knowledge both in itself and through the play of its forms and symbols. Such a method might
\nwell lead to the elevation of the whole range of human intellect<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>38<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tand perception to the divine level, to its spiritualisation and to
\nthe justification of the cosmic travail of knowledge in humanity. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe Path of Devotion aims at the enjoyment of the supreme
\nLove and Bliss and utilises normally the conception of the supreme Lord in His personality as the divine Lover and enjoyer
\nof the universe. The world is then realised as a play of the Lord, with our human life as its final stage, pursued through
\nthe different phases of self-concealment and self-revelation. The principle of Bhakti Yoga is to utilise all the normal relations of
\nhuman life into which emotion enters and apply them no longer to transient worldly relations, but to the joy of the All-Loving,
\nthe All-Beautiful and the All-Blissful. Worship and meditation are used only for the preparation and increase of intensity of
\nthe divine relationship. And this Yoga is catholic in its use of all emotional relations, so that even enmity and opposition to God,
\nconsidered as an intense, impatient and perverse form of Love, is conceived as a possible means of realisation and salvation.
\nThis path, too, as ordinarily practised, leads away from worldexistence to an absorption, of another kind than the Monist’s,
\nin the Transcendent and Supra-cosmic. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut, here too, the exclusive result is not inevitable. The Yoga
\nitself provides a first corrective by not confining the play of divine love to the relation between the supreme Soul and the individual, but extending it to a common feeling and mutual worship between the devotees themselves united in the same realisation
\nof the supreme Love and Bliss. It provides a yet more general corrective in the realisation of the divine object of Love in all
\nbeings not only human but animal, easily extended to all forms whatsoever. We can see how this larger application of the Yoga of
\nDevotion may be so used as to lead to the elevation of the whole range of human emotion, sensation and aesthetic perception to
\nthe divine level, its spiritualisation and the justification of the cosmic labour towards love and joy in our humanity. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe Path of Works aims at the dedication of every human activity to the supreme Will. It begins by the renunciation of all
\negoistic aim for our works, all pursuit of action for an interested aim or for the sake of a worldly result. By this renunciation it so <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>39<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tpurifies the mind and the will that we become easily conscious
\nof the great universal Energy as the true doer of all our actions and the Lord of that Energy as their ruler and director with
\nthe individual as only a mask, an excuse, an instrument or, more positively, a conscious centre of action and phenomenal
\nrelation. The choice and direction of the act is more and more consciously left to this supreme Will and this universal Energy.
\nTo That our works as well as the results of our works are finally abandoned. The object is the release of the soul from its bondage
\nto appearances and to the reaction of phenomenal activities. Karmayoga is used, like the other paths, to lead to liberation
\nfrom phenomenal existence and a departure into the Supreme. But here too the exclusive result is not inevitable. The end of the
\npath may be, equally, a perception of the Divine in all energies, in all happenings, in all activities, and a free and unegoistic
\nparticipation of the soul in the cosmic action. So followed it will lead to the elevation of all human will and activity to the
\ndivine level, its spiritualisation and the justification of the cosmic labour towards freedom, power and perfection in the human
\nbeing. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWe can see also that in the integral view of things these three
\npaths are one. Divine Love should normally lead to the perfect knowledge of the Beloved by perfect intimacy, thus becoming
\na path of Knowledge, and to divine service, thus becoming a path of Works. So also should perfect Knowledge lead to perfect
\nLove and Joy and a full acceptance of the works of That which is known; dedicated Works to the entire love of the Master of
\nthe Sacrifice and the deepest knowledge of His ways and His being. It is in this triple path that we come most readily to the
\nabsolute knowledge, love and service of the One in all beings and in the entire cosmic manifestation. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>40<\/font><\/p>\n

\t\t\t<\/span><\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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