{"id":2195,"date":"2013-07-13T01:40:03","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:40:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2195"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:40:03","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:40:03","slug":"24-chapter-vi-the-synthesis-of-the-disciplines-of-knowledge-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\/24-chapter-vi-the-synthesis-of-the-disciplines-of-knowledge-vol-23-24-the-synthesis-of-yoga","title":{"rendered":"-24_Chapter VI The Synthesis of the Disciplines of Knowledge.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

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

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

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe Synthesis of the Disciplines <\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tof Knowledge
\n<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI<\/font>N THE<\/b> last chapter we have spoken of
\n\t\t\trenunciation in its most general scope, even as we spoke of
\n\t\t\tconcentration in all its possibilities; what has been said, applies
\n\t\t\ttherefore equally to the path of Works and the path of Devotion as
\n\t\t\tto the path of Knowledge; for on all three concentration and
\n\t\t\trenunciation are needed, though the way and spirit in which they are
\n\t\t\tapplied may vary. But we must now turn more particularly to the
\n\t\t\tactual steps of the Path of Knowledge on which the double force of
\n\t\t\tconcentration and renunciation must aid us to advance. Practically,
\n\t\t\tthis path is a reascent up the great ladder of being down which the
\n\t\t\tsoul has descended into the material existence. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe central aim of Knowledge is the recovery of the Self, of our
\n\t\t\ttrue self-existence, and this aim presupposes the admission that our
\n\t\t\tpresent mode of being is not our true self-existence. No doubt, we
\n\t\t\thave rejected the trenchant solutions which cut the knot of the
\n\t\t\triddle of the universe; we recognise it neither as a fiction of
\n\t\t\tmaterial appearance created by Force, nor as an unreality set up by
\n\t\t\tthe Mind, nor as a bundle of sensations, ideas and results of idea
\n\t\t\tand sensation with a great Void or a great blissful Zero behind it
\n\t\t\tto strive towards as our true truth of eternal non-existence. We
\n\t\t\taccept the Self as a reality and the universe as a reality of the
\n\t\t\tSelf, a reality of its consciousness and not of mere material force
\n\t\t\tand formation, but none the less or rather all the more for that
\n\t\t\treason a reality. Still, though the universe is a fact and not a
\n\t\t\tfiction, a fact of the divine and universal and not a fiction of the
\n\t\t\tindividual self, our state of existence here is a state of
\n\t\t\tignorance, not the true truth of our being. We conceive of ourselves
\n\t\t\tfalsely, we see ourselves as we are not; we live in a false relation
\n\t\t\twith our environment, because we know neither   <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>335<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tthe universe nor ourselves for what they really are but with
\n\t\t\tan imperfect view founded on a temporary fiction which the Soul and
\n\t\t\tNature have established between themselves for the convenience of
\n\t\t\tthe evolving ego. And this falsity is the root of a general
\n\t\t\tperversion, confusion and suffering which besiege at every step both
\n\t\t\tour internal life and our relations with our environment. Our
\n\t\t\tpersonal life and our communal life, our commerce with ourselves and
\n\t\t\tour commerce with our fellows are founded on a falsity and are
\n\t\t\ttherefore false in their recognised principles and methods, although
\n\t\t\tthrough all this error a growing truth continually seeks to express
\n\t\t\titself. Hence the supreme importance to man of Knowledge, not what
\n\t\t\tis called the practical knowledge of life, but of the profoundest
\n\t\t\tknowledge of the Self and Nature\u00b9<\/font>
\n\t\t\ton which alone a true practice of life can be founded. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe error proceeds from a false identification. Nature has created
\n\t\t\twithin her material unity separate-seeming bodies which the Soul
\n\t\t\tmanifested in material Nature enfolds, inhabits, possesses, uses;
\n\t\t\tthe Soul forgetting itself experiences only this single knot in
\n\t\t\tMatter and says "I am this body." It thinks of itself as the body,
\n\t\t\tsuffers with the body, enjoys with the body, is born with the body,
\n\t\t\tis dissolved with the body; or so at least it views its
\n\t\t\tself-existence. Again, Nature has created within her unity of
\n\t\t\tuniversal life separate-seeming currents of life which form
\n\t\t\tthemselves into a whorl of vitality around and in each body, and the
\n\t\t\tSoul manifested in vital Nature seizes on and is seized by that
\n\t\t\tcurrent, is imprisoned momentarily in that little whirling vortex of
\n\t\t\tlife. The Soul, still forgetting itself, says "I am this life"; it
\n\t\t\tthinks of itself as the life, craves with its cravings or desires,
\n\t\t\twallows in its pleasures, bleeds with its wounds, rushes or stumbles
\n\t\t\twith its movements. If it is still mainly governed by the
\n\t\t\tbody-sense, it identifies its own existence with that of the whorl
\n\t\t\tand thinks "When this whorl is dissipated by the dissolution of the
\n\t\t\tbody round which it has formed itself, then I <\/i>shall be no
\n\t\t\tmore." If it has been able to sense the current of life which has
\n\t\t\tformed the vortex, it thinks of itself as that <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\u00b9<\/i><\/font> atmajnana <\/i>and
\n\t\t\ttattvajnana<\/i>. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>336<\/font>   \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tcurrent and says "I am this stream of life; I have entered upon the
\n\t\t\tpossession of this body, I shall leave it and enter upon the
\n\t\t\tpossession of other bodies: I am an immortal life revolving in a
\n\t\t\tcycle of constant rebirth." <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut again Nature has created within her mental unity, formed in the
\n\t\t\tuniversal Mind separate-seeming dynamos as it were of mentality,
\n\t\t\tconstant centres for the generation, distribution and reabsorption
\n\t\t\tof mental force and mental activities, stations as it were in a
\n\t\t\tsystem of mental telegraphy where messages are conceived, written,
\n\t\t\tsent, received, deciphered, and these messages and these activities
\n\t\t\tare of many kinds, sensational, emotional, perceptual, conceptual,
\n\t\t\tintuitional, all of which the Soul manifested in mental Nature
\n\t\t\taccepts, uses for its outlook on the world and seems to itself to
\n\t\t\tproject and to receive their shocks, to suffer or to master their
\n\t\t\tconsequences. Nature instals the base of these dynamos in the
\n\t\t\tmaterial bodies she has formed, makes these bodies the ground for
\n\t\t\ther stations and connects the mental with the material by a
\n\t\t\tnerve-system full of the movement of vital currents through which
\n\t\t\tthe mind becomes conscious of the material world and, so far as it
\n\t\t\tchooses, of the vital world of Nature. Otherwise the mind would be
\n\t\t\tconscious of the mental world first and chiefly and would only
\n\t\t\tindirectly glimpse the material. As it is, its attention is fixed on
\n\t\t\tthe body and the material world in which it has been installed and
\n\t\t\tit is aware of the rest of existence only dimly, indirectly or
\n\t\t\tsubconsciously in that vast remainder of itself with regard to which
\n\t\t\tsuperficially it has become irresponsive and oblivious. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe Soul identifies itself with this mental dynamo or station and
\n\t\t\tsays "I am this mind." And since the mind is absorbed in the bodily
\n\t\t\tlife, it thinks "I am a mind in a living body" or, still more
\n\t\t\tcommonly, "I am a body which lives and thinks." It identifies itself
\n\t\t\twith the thoughts, emotions, sensations of the embodied mind and
\n\t\t\timagines that because when the body is dissolved all this will
\n\t\t\tdissolve, itself also will cease to exist. Or if it becomes
\n\t\t\tconscious of the current of persistence of mental personality, it
\n\t\t\tthinks of itself as a mental soul occupying the body whether  <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>337<\/font>  \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tonce or repeatedly and returning from earthly living to mental
\n\t\t\tworlds beyond; the persistence of this mental being mentally
\n\t\t\tenjoying or suffering sometimes in the body, sometimes on the mental
\n\t\t\tor vital plane of Nature it calls its immortal existence. Or else,
\n\t\t\tbecause the mind is a principle of light and knowledge, however
\n\t\t\timperfect, and can have some notion of what is beyond it, it sees
\n\t\t\tthe possibility of a dissolution of the mental being into that which
\n\t\t\tis beyond, some Void or some eternal Existence, and it says, "There
\n\t\t\tI, the mental soul, cease to be." Such dissolution it dreads or
\n\t\t\tdesires, denies or affirms according to its measure of attachment to
\n\t\t\tor repulsion from this present play of embodied mind and vitality. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tNow, all this is a mixture of truth and falsehood. Mind, Life,
\n\t\t\tMatter exist and mental, vital, physical individualisation exists as
\n\t\t\tfacts in Nature, but the identification of the soul with these
\n\t\t\tthings is a false identification. Mind, Life and Matter are
\n\t\t\tourselves only in this sense that they are principles of being which
\n\t\t\tthe true self has evolved by the meeting and interaction of Soul and
\n\t\t\tNature in order to express a form of its one existence as the
\n\t\t\tCosmos. Individual mind, life and body are a play of these
\n\t\t\tprinciples which is set up in the commerce of Soul and Nature as a
\n\t\t\tmeans for the expression of that multiplicity of itself of which the
\n\t\t\tone Existence is eternally capable and which it holds eternally
\n\t\t\tinvolved in its unity. Individual mind, life and body are forms of
\n\t\t\tourselves in so far as we are centres of the multiplicity of the
\n\t\t\tOne; universal Mind, Life and Body are also forms of our self,
\n\t\t\tbecause we are that One in our being. But the self is more than
\n\t\t\tuniversal or individual mind, life and body and when we limit
\n\t\t\tourselves by identification with these things, we found our
\n\t\t\tknowledge on a falsehood, we falsify our determining view and our
\n\t\t\tpractical experience not only of our self-being but of our cosmic
\n\t\t\texistence and of our individual activities. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe Self is an eternal utter Being and pure existence of which all
\n\t\t\tthese things are becomings. From this knowledge we have to proceed;
\n\t\t\tthis knowledge we have to realise and make it the foundation of the
\n\t\t\tinner and the outer life of the individual. The Yoga of Knowledge,
\n\t\t\tstarting from this primary truth, has conceived     <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>338<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\ta negative and positive method of discipline by which we shall
\n\t\t\tget rid of these false identifications and recoil back from them
\n\t\t\tinto true self-knowledge. The negative method is to say always "I am
\n\t\t\tnot the body" so as to contradict and root out the false idea "I am
\n\t\t\tthe body", to concentrate on this knowledge and by renunciation of
\n\t\t\tthe attachment of the soul to the physical get rid of the
\n\t\t\tbody-sense. We say again "I am not the life" and by concentration on
\n\t\t\tthis knowledge and renunciation of attachment to the vital movements
\n\t\t\tand desires, get rid of the life-sense. We say, finally, "I am not
\n\t\t\tthe mind, the motion, the sense, the thought" and by concentration
\n\t\t\ton this knowledge and renunciation of the mental activities, get rid
\n\t\t\tof the mind-sense. When we thus constantly create a gulf between
\n\t\t\tourselves and the things with which we identified ourselves, their
\n\t\t\tveils progressively fall away from us and the Self begins to be
\n\t\t\tvisible to our experience. Of that then we say "I am That, the pure,
\n\t\t\tthe eternal, the self-blissful" and by concentrating our thought and
\n\t\t\tbeing upon it we become That and are able finally to renounce the
\n\t\t\tindividual existence and the Cosmos. Another positive method
\n\t\t\tbelonging rather to the Rajayoga is to concentrate on the thought of
\n\t\t\tthe Brahman and shut out from us all other ideas, so that this
\n\t\t\tdynamo of mind shall cease to work upon our external or varied
\n\t\t\tinternal existence; by mental cessation the vital and physical play
\n\t\t\talso shall fall to rest in an eternal samadhi, some inexpressible
\n\t\t\tdeepest trance of the being in which we shall pass into the absolute
\n\t\t\tExistence. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThis discipline is evidently a self-centred and exclusive inner
\n\t\t\tmovement which gets rid of the world by denying it in thought and
\n\t\t\tshutting the eyes of the soul to it in vision. But the universe is
\n\t\t\tthere as a truth in God even though the individual soul may have
\n\t\t\tshut its eyes to it and the Self is there in the universe really and
\n\t\t\tnot falsely, supporting all that we have rejected, truly immanent in
\n\t\t\tall things, really embracing the individual in the universal as well
\n\t\t\tas embracing the universe in that which exceeds and transcends it.
\n\t\t\tWhat shall we do with this eternal Self in this persistent universe
\n\t\t\twhich we see encompassing us every time we come out of the trance of
\n\t\t\tinner meditation? The ascetic Path of Knowledge has its solution and
\n\t\t\tits discipline for the soul that  <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>339<\/font>  \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tlooks out on the universe. It is to regard the immanent and
\n\t\t\tall-encompassing and all-constituting Self in the image of the ether
\n\t\t\tin which all forms are, which is in all forms, of which all forms
\n\t\t\tare made. In that ether cosmic Life and Mind move as the Breath of
\n\t\t\tthings, an atmospheric sea in the ethereal, and constitute from it
\n\t\t\tall these forms; but what they constitute are merely name and form
\n\t\t\tand not realities; the form of the pot we see is a form of earth
\n\t\t\tonly and goes back into the earth, earth a form resolvable into the
\n\t\t\tcosmic Life, the cosmic Life a movement that falls to rest in that
\n\t\t\tsilent immutable Ether. Concentrating on this knowledge, rejecting
\n\t\t\tall phenomenon and appearance, we come to see the whole as an
\n\t\t\tillusion of name and form in the ether that is Brahman; it becomes
\n\t\t\tunreal to us; and the universe becoming unreal the immanence becomes
\n\t\t\tunreal and there is only the Self upon which our mind has falsely
\n\t\t\timposed the name and form of the universe. Thus are we justified in
\n\t\t\tthe withdrawal of the individual self into the Absolute. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tStill, the Self goes on with its imperishable aspect of immanence,
\n\t\t\tits immutable aspect of divine envelopment, its endless trick of
\n\t\t\tbecoming each thing and all things; our detection of the cheat and
\n\t\t\tour withdrawal do not seem to affect one tittle either the Self or
\n\t\t\tthe universe. Must we not then know also what it is that thus
\n\t\t\tpersists superior to our acceptance and rejection and too great, too
\n\t\t\teternal to be affected by it? Here too there must be some invincible
\n\t\t\treality at work and the integrality of Knowledge demands that we
\n\t\t\tshall see and realise it; otherwise it may prove that our own
\n\t\t\tknowledge and not the Lord in the universe was the cheat and the
\n\t\t\tillusion. Therefore we must concentrate again and see and realise
\n\t\t\talso this which persists so sovereignly and must know the Self as no
\n\t\t\tother than the Supreme Soul which is the Lord of Nature, the
\n\t\t\tupholder of cosmic existence by whose sanction it proceeds, whose
\n\t\t\twill compels its multitudinous actions and determines its perpetual
\n\t\t\tcycles. And we must yet concentrate once again and see and realise
\n\t\t\tand must know the Self as the one Existence who is both the Soul of
\n\t\t\tall and the Nature of all, at once Purusha and Prakriti and so able
\n\t\t\tboth to express himself in all these forms of things and to be all
\n\t\t\tthese <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>340<\/font>   \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tformations. Otherwise we have excluded what the Self does not
\n\t\t\texclude and made a wilful choice in our knowledge. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe old ascetic Path of Knowledge admitted the unity of things and
\n\t\t\tthe concentration on all these aspects of the one Existence, but it
\n\t\t\tmade a distinction and a hierarchy. The Self that becomes all these
\n\t\t\tforms of things is the Virat or universal Soul; the Self that
\n\t\t\tcreates all these forms is Hiranyagarbha, the luminous or creatively
\n\t\t\tperceptive Soul; the Self that contains all these things involved in
\n\t\t\tit is Prajna, the conscious Cause or originally determining Soul;
\n\t\t\tbeyond all these is the Absolute who permits all this unreality, but
\n\t\t\thas no dealings with it. Into That we must withdraw and have no
\n\t\t\tfarther dealings with the universe, since Knowledge means the final
\n\t\t\tKnowledge, and therefore these lesser realisations must fall away
\n\t\t\tfrom us or be lost in That. But evidently from our point of view
\n\t\t\tthese are practical distinctions made by the mind which have a value
\n\t\t\tfor certain purposes, but no ultimate value. Our view of the world
\n\t\t\tinsists on unity; the universal Self is not different from the
\n\t\t\tperceptive and creative, nor the perceptive from the causal, nor the
\n\t\t\tcausal from the Absolute, but it is one "Self-being which has become
\n\t\t\tall becomings", and which is not any other than the Lord who
\n\t\t\tmanifests Himself as all these individual existences nor the Lord
\n\t\t\tany other than the sole-existing Brahman who verily is all this that
\n\t\t\twe can see, sense, live or mentalise. That Self, Lord, Brahman we
\n\t\t\twould know that we may realise our unity with it and with all that
\n\t\t\tit manifests and in that unity we would live. For we demand of
\n\t\t\tknowledge that it shall unite; the knowledge that divides must
\n\t\t\talways be a partial knowing good for certain practical purposes; the
\n\t\t\tknowledge that unites is
\nthe<\/i>
\n\t\t\tknowledge. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTherefore our integral Yoga will take up these various disciplines
\n\t\t\tand concentrations, but harmonise and if possible fuse them by a
\n\t\t\tsynthesis which removes their mutual exclusions. Not realising the
\n\t\t\tLord and the All only to reject them for silent Self or unknowable
\n\t\t\tAbsolute as would an exclusively transcendental, nor living for the
\n\t\t\tLord alone or in the All alone as would an exclusively theistic or
\n\t\t\tan exclusively pantheistic Yoga, the seeker <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>341<\/font>  \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tof integral knowledge will limit himself neither in his
\n\t\t\tthought nor in his practice nor in his realisation by any religious
\n\t\t\tcreed or philosophical dogma. He will seek the Truth of existence in
\n\t\t\tits completeness. The ancient disciplines he will not reject, for
\n\t\t\tthey rest upon eternal truths, but he will give them an orientation
\n\t\t\tin conformity with his aim. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWe must recognise that our primary aim in knowledge must be to
\n\t\t\trealise our own supreme Self more than that Self in others or as the
\n\t\t\tLord of Nature or as the All; for that is the pressing need of the
\n\t\t\tindividual, to arrive at the highest truth of his own being, to set
\n\t\t\tright its disorders, confusions, false identifications, to arrive at
\n\t\t\tits right concentration and purity and to know and mount to its
\n\t\t\tsource. But we do this not in order to disappear into its source,
\n\t\t\tbut so that our whole existence and all the members of this inner
\n\t\t\tkingdom may find their right basis, may live in our highest self,
\n\t\t\tlive for our highest self only and obey no other law than that which
\n\t\t\tproceeds from our highest self and is given to our purified being
\n\t\t\twithout any falsification in the transmitting mentality. And if we
\n\t\t\tdo this rightly we shall discover that in finding this supreme Self
\n\t\t\twe have found the one Self in all, the one Lord of our nature and of
\n\t\t\tall Nature, the All of ourselves who is the All of the universe. For
\n\t\t\tthis that we see in ourselves we must necessarily see everywhere,
\n\t\t\tsince that is the truth of His unity. By discovering and using
\n\t\t\trightly the Truth of our being the barrier between our individuality
\n\t\t\tand the universe will necessarily be forced open and cast away and
\n\t\t\tthe Truth that we realise in our own being cannot fail to realise
\n\t\t\titself to us in the universality which will then be our self.
\n\t\t\tRealising in ourselves the "I am He" of the Vedanta, we cannot but
\n\t\t\trealise in looking upon all around us the identical knowledge on its
\n\t\t\tother side, "Thou art That." We have only to see how practically the
\n\t\t\tdiscipline must be conducted in order that we may arrive
\n\t\t\tsuccessfully at this great unification.   <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>342<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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