{"id":962,"date":"2013-07-13T01:31:36","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:31:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=962"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:31:36","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:31:36","slug":"09-self-consecration-vol-20-the-synthesis-of-yoga-volume-20","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/20-the-synthesis-of-yoga-volume-20\/09-self-consecration-vol-20-the-synthesis-of-yoga-volume-20","title":{"rendered":"-09_Self-Consecration.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n


\nChapter II<\/span><\/font><\/b> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/font><\/span>Self-Consecration<\/font><\/span><\/b> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>A<\/font><\/span>LL<\/span><\/font> Yoga is in its nature a
\nnew birth; it is a birth out of the ordinary, the mentalised material life of
\nman into a higher spiritual consciousness and a greater and diviner being. No Yoga
\ncan be successfully undertaken and followed unless there is a strong awakening
\nto the necessity of that larger spiritual existence. The soul that is called to
\nthis deep and vast inward change, may arrive in different ways to the initial
\ndeparture. It may come to it by its own natural development which has been
\nleading it unconsciously towards the awakening; it may reach it through the
\ninfluence of a religion or the attraction of a philosophy; it may approach it
\nby a slow illumination or leap to it by a sudden touch or shock; it may be
\npushed or led to it by the pressure of outward circumstances or by an inward
\nnecessity, by a single word that breaks the seals of the mind or by long
\nreflection, by the distant example of one who has trod the path or by contact
\nand daily influence. According to the nature and the circumstances the call
\nwill come.<\/span><\/p>\n

But in whatever way it
\ncomes, there must be a decision of the mind and the will and, as its result, a
\ncomplete and effective self-consecration. The acceptance of a new spiritual
\nidea-force and upward orientation in the being, an illumination, a turning or
\nconversion seized on by the will and the heart’s aspiration, \u2013 this is the
\nmomentous act which contains as in a seed all the results that the Yoga has to
\ngive. The mere idea or intellectual seeking of something higher beyond, however
\nstrongly grasped by the mind’s interest, is ineffective unless it is seized on
\nby the heart as the one thing desirable and by the will as the one thing to be
\ndone. For truth of the Spirit has not to be merely thought but to be lived, and
\nto live it demands a unified single-mindedness of the being; so great a change
\nas is contemplated by the Yoga is not to be effected by a divided will or by a
\nsmall portion of the <\/span>
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 63<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

energy or by a hesitating mind. He who seeks the
\nDivine must consecrate himself to God and to God only.<\/span><\/p>\n

If the change comes
\nsuddenly and decisively by an overpowering influence, there is no further
\nessential or lasting difficulty. The choice follows upon the thought, or is
\nsimultaneous with it, and the self-consecration follows upon the choice. The
\nfeet are already set upon the path, even if they seem at first to wander
\nuncertainly and even though the path itself may be only obscurely seen and the
\nknowledge of the goal may be imperfect. The secret Teacher, the inner Guide is
\nalready at work, though he may not yet manifest himself or may not yet appear
\nin the person of his human representative. Whatever difficulties and
\nhesitations may ensue, they cannot eventually prevail against the power of the
\nexperience that has turned the current of the life. The call, once decisive,
\nstands; the thing that has been born cannot eventually be stifled. Even if the
\nforce of circumstances prevents a regular pursuit or a full practical self-consecration
\nfrom the first, still the mind has taken its bent and persists and returns with
\nan ever-increasing effect upon its leading preoccupation. There is an
\nineluctable persistence of the inner being, and against it circumstances are in
\nthe end powerless, and no weakness in the nature can for long be an obstacle.<\/span><\/p>\n

But this is not always
\nthe manner of the commencement. The sadhaka is often led gradually and there is
\na long space between the first turning of the mind and the full assent of the
\nnature to the thing towards which it turns. There may at first be only a vivid
\nintellectual interest, a forcible attraction towards the idea and some
\nimperfect form of practice. Or perhaps there is an effort not favoured by the
\nwhole nature, a decision or a turn imposed by an intellectual influence or
\ndictated by personal affection and admiration for someone who is himself
\nconsecrated and devoted to the Highest. In such cases, a long period of
\npreparation may be necessary before there comes the irrevocable consecration;
\nand in some instances it may not come. There may be some advance, there may be
\na strong effort, even much purification and many experiences other than those
\nthat are central or supreme; but the life will either be spent in preparation
\nor, a certain stage having been reached, the mind pushed by <\/span>
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 64<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

an insufficient driving-force may rest content
\nat the limit of the effort possible to it. Or there may even be a recoil to the
\nlower life, \u2013 what is called in the ordinary parlance of Yoga a fall from the
\npath. This lapse happens because there is a defect at the very centre. The
\nintellect has been interested, the heart attracted, the will has strung itself
\nto the effort, but the whole nature has not been taken captive by the Divine.
\nIt has only acquiesced in the interest, the attraction or the endeavour. There
\nhas been an experiment, perhaps even an eager experiment, but not a total
\nself-giving to an imperative need of the soul or to an unforsakable ideal. Even
\nsuch imperfect Yoga has not been wasted; for no upward effort is made in vain.
\nEven if it fails in the present or arrives only at some preparatory stage or
\npreliminary realisation, it has yet determined the soul’s future.<\/span><\/p>\n

But if we desire to make
\nthe most of the opportunity that this life gives us, if we wish to respond
\nadequately to the call we have received and to attain to the goal we have
\nglimpsed, not merely advance a little towards it, it is essential that there
\nshould be an entire self-giving. The secret of success in Yoga is to regard it
\nnot as one of the aims to be pursued in life, but as the one and only aim, not
\nas an important part of life, but as the whole of life.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

*\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>*<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

And since Yoga is in its
\nessence a turning away from the ordinary material and animal life led by most
\nmen or from the more mental but still limited way of living followed by the few
\nto a greater spiritual life, to the way divine, every part of our energies that
\nis given to the lower existence in the spirit of that existence is a
\ncontradiction of our aim and our self-dedication. On the other hand, every
\nenergy or activity that we can convert from its allegiance to the lower and
\ndedicate to the service of the higher is so much gained on our road, so much
\ntaken from the powers that oppose our progress. It is the difficulty of this
\nwholesale conversion that is the source of all the stumblings in the path of
\nYoga. For our entire nature and its environment, all our personal and all our
\nuniversal self, are full of habits and of influences that are opposed to our
\nspiritual rebirth and work against the whole-heartedness of our endeavour. In a
\ncertain<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 65<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

sense we are nothing but a complex mass of
\nmental, nervous and physical habits held together by a few ruling ideas, desires
\nand associations, \u2013 an amalgam of many small self-repeating forces with a few
\nmajor vibrations. What we propose in our Yoga is nothing less than to break up
\nthe whole formation of our past and present which makes up the ordinary
\nmaterial and mental man and to create a new centre of vision and a new universe
\nof activities in ourselves which shall constitute a divine humanity or a
\nsuperhuman nature.<\/span><\/p>\n

The first necessity is
\nto dissolve that central faith and vision in the mind which concentrate it on
\nits development and satisfaction and interests in the old externalised order of
\nthings. It is imperative to exchange this surface orientation for the deeper
\nfaith and vision which see only the Divine and seek only after the Divine. The
\nnext need is to compel all our lower being to pay homage to this new faith and
\ngreater vision. All our nature must make an integral surrender; it must offer
\nitself in every part and every movement to that which seems to the
\nunregenerated sense-mind so much less real than the material world and its
\nobjects. Our whole being \u2013 soul, mind, sense, heart, will, life, body \u2013 must
\nconsecrate all its energies so entirely and in such a way that it shall become
\na fit vehicle for the Divine. This is no easy task; for everything in the world
\nfollows the fixed habit which is to it a law and resists a radical change. And
\nno change can be more radical than the revolution attempted in the integral
\nYoga. Everything in us has constantly to be called back to the central faith
\nand will and vision. Every thought and impulse has to be reminded in the
\nlanguage of the Upanishad that \u201cThat is the divine Brahman and not this which
\nmen here adore.\u201d Every vital fibre has to be persuaded to accept an entire
\nrenunciation of all that hitherto represented to it its own existence. Mind has
\nto cease to be mind and become brilliant with something beyond it. Life has to
\nchange into a thing vast and calm and intense and powerful that can no longer
\nrecognise its old blind eager narrow self of petty impulse and desire. Even the
\nbody has to submit to a mutation and be no longer the clamorous animal or the
\nimpeding clod it now is, but become instead a conscious servant and radiant
\ninstrument and living form of the spirit.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 66<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

The difficulty of the
\ntask has led naturally to the pursuit of easy and trenchant solutions; it has
\ngenerated and fixed deeply the tendency of religions and of schools of Yoga to
\nseparate the life of the world from the inner life. The powers of this world
\nand their actual activities, it is felt, either do not belong to God at all or
\nare for some obscure and puzzling cause, Maya or another, a dark contradiction
\nof the divine Truth. And on their own opposite side the powers of the Truth and
\ntheir ideal activities are seen to belong to quite another plane of
\nconsciousness than that, obscure, ignorant and perverse in its impulses and
\nforces, on which the life of the earth is founded. There appears at once the
\nantinomy of a bright and pure <\/span>kingdom<\/span> of <\/span>
\nGod<\/span> and a dark and impure
\nkingdom of the devil; we feel the opposition of our crawling earthly birth and
\nlife to an exalted spiritual God-consciousness; we become readily convinced of
\nthe incompatibility of life’s subjection to Maya with the soul’s concentration
\nin pure Brahman existence. The easiest way is to turn away from all that
\nbelongs to the one and to retreat by a naked and precipitous ascent into the
\nother. Thus arises the attraction and, it would seem, the necessity of the
\nprinciple of exclusive concentration which plays so prominent a part in the
\nspecialised schools of Yoga; for by that concentration we can arrive through an
\nuncompromising renunciation of the world at an entire self-consecration to the
\nOne on whom we concentrate. It is no longer incumbent on us to compel all the
\nlower activities to the difficult recognition of a new and higher spiritualised
\nlife and train them to be its agents or executive powers. It is enough to kill
\nor quiet them and keep at most the few energies necessary, on one side, for the
\nmaintenance of the body and, on the other, for communion with the Divine.<\/span><\/p>\n

The very aim and
\nconception of an integral Yoga debar us from adopting this simple and strenuous
\nhigh-pitched process. The hope of an integral transformation forbids us to take
\na short cut or to make ourselves light for the race by throwing away our
\nimpedimenta. For we have set out to conquer all ourselves and the world for
\nGod; we are determined to give him our becoming as well as our being and not
\nmerely to bring the pure and naked spirit as a bare offering to a remote and
\nsecret Divinity in a dis<\/span>–<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 67<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

tant<\/span><\/span> heaven or abolish all
\nwe are in a holocaust to an immobile Absolute. The Divine that we adore is not
\nonly a remote extra-cosmic Reality, but a half-veiled Manifestation present and
\nnear to us here in the universe. Life is the field of a divine manifestation
\nnot yet complete: here, in life, on earth, in the body, \u2013 ihaiva, as the
\nUpanishads insist, \u2013 we have to unveil the Godhead; here we must make its
\ntranscendent greatness, light and sweetness real to our consciousness, here
\npossess and, as far as may be, express it. Life then we must accept in our Yoga
\nin order utterly to transmute it; we are forbidden to shrink from the
\ndifficulties that this acceptance may add to our struggle. Our compensation is
\nthat even if the path is more rugged, the effort more complex and bafflingly
\narduous, yet after a certain point we gain an immense advantage. For once our
\nminds are reasonably fixed in the central vision and our wills are on the whole
\nconverted to the single pursuit, Life becomes our helper. Intent, vigilant,
\nintegrally conscious, we can take every detail of its forms and every incident
\nof its movements as food for the sacrificial Fire within us. Victorious in the
\nstruggle, we can compel Earth herself to be an aid towards our perfection and
\ncan enrich our realisation with the booty torn from the Powers that oppose us.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

*\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>*<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

There is another
\ndirection in which the ordinary practice of Yoga arrives at a helpful but
\nnarrowing simplification which is denied to the sadhaka of the integral aim.
\nThe practice of Yoga brings us face to face with the extraordinary complexity
\nof our own being, the stimulating but also embarrassing multiplicity of our
\npersonality, the rich endless confusion of Nature. To the ordinary man who
\nlives upon his own waking surface, ignorant of the self’s depths and vastnesses
\nbehind the veil, his psychological existence is fairly simple. A small but
\nclamorous company of desires, some imperative intellectual and aesthetic
\ncravings, some tastes, a few ruling or prominent ideas amid a great current of
\nunconnected or ill-connected and mostly trivial thoughts, a number of more or
\nless imperative vital needs, alternations of physical health and disease, a
\nscattered and inconsequent suc<\/span>–<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 68<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

cession of joys and griefs, frequent minor
\ndisturbances and vicissitudes and rarer strong searchings and upheavals of mind
\nor body, and through it all Nature, partly with the aid of his thought and
\nwill, partly without or in spite of it, arranging these things in some rough
\npractical fashion, some tolerable disorderly order, \u2013 this is the material of
\nhis existence. The average human being even now is in his inward existence as
\ncrude and undeveloped as was the bygone primitive man in his outward life. But
\nas soon as we go deep within ourselves, \u2013 and Yoga means a plunge into all the
\nmultiple profundities of the soul, \u2013 we find ourselves subjectively, as man in
\nhis growth has found himself objectively, surrounded by a whole complex world
\nwhich we have to know and to conquer.<\/span><\/p>\n

The most disconcerting
\ndiscovery is to find that every part of us \u2013 intellect, will, sense-mind,
\nnervous or desire self, the heart, the body \u2013 has each, as it were, its own complex
\nindividuality and natural formation independent of the rest; it neither agrees
\nwith itself nor with the others nor with the representative ego which is the
\nshadow cast by some central and centralising self on our superficial ignorance.
\nWe find that we are composed not of one but many personalities and each has its
\nown demands and differing nature. Our being is a roughly constituted chaos into
\nwhich we have to introduce the principle of a divine order. Moreover, we find
\nthat inwardly too, no less than outwardly, we are not alone in the world; the
\nsharp separateness of our ego was no more than a strong imposition and
\ndelusion; we do not exist in ourselves, we do not really live apart in an inner
\nprivacy or solitude. Our mind is a receiving, developing and modifying machine
\ninto which there is<\/span><\/p>\n

being constantly passed from moment to moment a
\nceaseless foreign flux, a streaming mass of disparate materials from above,
\nfrom below, from outside. Much more than half our thoughts and feelings are not
\nour own in the sense that they take form out of ourselves; of hardly anything
\ncan it be said that it is truly original to our nature. A large part comes to
\nus from others or from the environment, whether as raw material or as
\nmanufactured imports; but still more largely they come from universal Nature
\nhere or from other worlds and planes and their beings and powers and in- <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 69<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

fluences<\/span><\/span>; for we are overtopped
\nand environed by other planes of consciousness, mind planes, life planes,
\nsubtle matter planes, from which our life and action here are fed, or fed on,
\npressed, dominated, made use of for the manifestation of their forms and
\nforces. The difficulty of our separate salvation is immensely increased by this
\ncomplexity and manifold openness and subjection to the in-streaming energies of
\nthe universe. Of all this we have to take account, to deal with it, to know
\nwhat is the secret stuff of our nature and its constituent and resultant
\nmotions and to create in it all a divine centre and a true harmony and luminous
\norder.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the ordinary paths of
\nYoga the method used for dealing with these conflicting materials is direct and
\nsimple. One or another of the principal psychological forces in us is selected
\nas our single means for attaining to the Divine; the rest is quieted into
\ninertia or left to starve in its smallness. The Bhakta, seizing on the
\nemotional forces of the being, the intense activities of the heart, abides
\nconcentrated in the love of God, gathered up as into a single one-pointed
\ntongue of fire; he is indifferent to the activities of thought, throws behind
\nhim the importunities of the reason, cares nothing for the mind’s thirst for
\nknowledge. All the knowledge he needs is his faith and the inspirations that
\nwell up from a heart in communion with the Divine. He has no use for any will
\nto works that is not turned to the direct worship of the Beloved or the service
\nof the temple. The man of Knowledge, self-confined by a deliberate choice to
\nthe force and activities of discriminative thought, finds release in the mind’s
\nhushed inward-drawn endeavour. He concentrates on the idea of the self,
\nsucceeds by a subtle inner discernment in distinguishing its silent presence
\namid the veiling activities of Nature, and through the perceptive idea arrives
\nat the concrete spiritual experience. He is indifferent to the play of the
\nemotions, deaf to the hunger-call of passion, closed to the activities of Life,
\n\u2013 the more blessed he, the sooner they fall away from him and leave him free,
\nstill and mute, the eternal non-doer. The body is his stumbling-block, the
\nvital functions are his enemies; if their demands can be reduced to a minimum,
\nthat is his great good fortune. The endless difficulties that arise from the
\nenvironing world are dismissed by erecting firmly <\/span>
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 70<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

against them a defence of outer physical and
\ninner spiritual solitude; safe behind a wall of inner silence, he remains
\nimpassive and untouched by the world and by others. To be alone with oneself or
\nalone with the Divine, to walk apart with God and his devotees, to entrench
\noneself in the single self-ward endeavour of the mind or Godward passion of the
\nheart is the trend of these Yogas. The problem is solved by the excision of all
\nbut the one central difficulty which pursues the one chosen motive-force; into
\nthe midst of the dividing calls of our nature the principle of an exclusive
\nconcentration comes sovereignly to our rescue.<\/span><\/p>\n

But for the sadhaka of
\nthe integral Yoga this inner or this outer solitude can only be incidents or
\nperiods in his spiritual progress. Accepting life, he has to bear not only his
\nown burden, but a great part of the world’s burden too along with it, as a
\ncontinuation of his own sufficiently heavy load. Therefore his Yoga has much
\nmore of the nature of a battle than others; but this is not only an individual
\nbattle, it is a collective war waged over a considerable country. He has not
\nonly to conquer in himself the forces of egoistic falsehood and disorder, but
\nto conquer them as representatives of the same adverse and inexhaustible forces
\nin the world. Their representative character gives them a much more obstinate
\ncapacity of resistance, an almost endless right to recurrence. Often he finds
\nthat even after he has won persistently his own personal battle, he has still
\nto win it over and over again in a seemingly interminable war, because his
\ninner existence has already been so much enlarged that not only it contains his
\nown being with its well-defined needs and experiences, but is in solidarity
\nwith the being of others, because in himself he contains the universe.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nor is the seeker of the
\nintegral fulfilment permitted to solve too arbitrarily even the conflict of his
\nown inner members. He has to harmonise deliberate knowledge with unquestioning
\nfaith; he must conciliate the gentle soul of love with the formidable need of
\npower; the passivity of the soul that lives content in transcendent calm has to
\nbe fused with the activity of the divine helper and the divine warrior. To him
\nas to all seekers of the spirit there are offered for solution the oppositions
\nof the reason, the clinging hold of the senses, the perturbations of the heart, <\/span>
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 71<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

the ambush of the desires, the clog of the
\nphysical body; but he has to deal in another fashion with their mutual and
\ninternal conflicts and their hindrance to his aim, for he must arrive at an
\ninfinitely more difficult perfection in the handling of all this rebel matter.
\nAccepting them as instruments for the divine realisation and manifestation, he
\nhas to convert their jangling discords, to enlighten their thick darknesses<\/span>, to transfigure them separately and all
\ntogether, harmonising them in themselves and with each other, \u2013 integrally,
\nomitting no grain or strand or vibration, leaving no iota of imperfection
\nanywhere. An exclusive concentration, or even a succession of concentrations of
\nthat kind, can be in his complex work only a temporary convenience; it has to
\nbe abandoned as soon as its utility is over. An all-inclusive concentration is
\nthe difficult achievement towards which he must labour.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

*\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>*<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Concentration is indeed
\nthe first condition of any Yoga, but it is an all-receiving concentration that
\nis the very nature of the integral Yoga. A separate strong fixing of the
\nthought, of the emotions or of the will on a single idea, object, state, inner
\nmovement or principle is no doubt a frequent need here also; but this is only a
\nsubsidiary helpful process. A wide massive opening, a harmonised concentration
\nof the whole being in all its parts and through all its powers upon the One who
\nis the All is the larger action of this Yoga without which it cannot achieve
\nits purpose. For it is the consciousness that rests in the One and that acts in
\nthe All to which we aspire; it is this that we seek to impose on every element
\nof our being and on every movement of our nature. This wide and concentrated
\ntotality is the essential character of the Sadhana and its character must
\ndetermine its practice.<\/span><\/p>\n

But even though the
\nconcentration of all the being on the Divine is the character of the Yoga, yet
\nis our being too complex a thing to be taken up easily and at once, as if we
\nwere taking up the world in a pair of hands, and set in its entirety to a
\nsingle task. Man in his effort at self-transcendence has usually to seize on
\nsome one spring or some powerful leverage in the complicated machine that his
\nnature is; this spring or lever he touches in pre-<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 72<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

ference to others and uses it to set the machine
\nin motion towards the end that he has in view. In his choice it is always Nature
\nitself that should be his guide. But here it must be Nature at her highest and
\nwidest in him, not at her lowest or in some limiting movement. In her lower
\nvital activities it is desire that Nature takes as her most powerful leverage;
\nbut the distinct character of man is that he is a mental being, not a merely
\nvital creature. As he can use his thinking mind and will to restrain and
\ncorrect his life impulses, so too he can bring in the action of a still higher
\nluminous mentality aided by the deeper soul in him, the psychic being, and
\nsupersede by these greater and purer motive-powers the domination of the vital
\nand sensational force that we call desire. He can entirely master or persuade
\nit and offer it up for transformation to its divine Master. This higher
\nmentality and this deeper soul, the psychic element in man, are the two
\ngrappling hooks by which the Divine can lay hold upon his nature. <\/span><\/p>\n

The higher mind in man
\nis something other, loftier, purer, vaster, more powerful than the reason or
\nlogical intelligence. The animal is a vital and sensational being; man, it is
\nsaid, is distinguished from the animal by the possession of reason. But that is
\na very summary, a very imperfect and misleading account of the matter. For
\nreason is only a particular and limited utilitarian and instrumental activity
\nthat proceeds from something much greater than itself, from a power that dwells
\nin an ether more luminous, wider, illimitable. The true and ultimate, as
\ndistinguished from the immediate or intermediate importance of our observing,
\nreasoning, inquiring, judging intelligence is that it prepares the human being
\nfor the right reception and right action of a Light from above which must
\nprogressively replace in him the obscure light from below that guides the
\nanimal. The latter also has a rudimentary reason, a kind of thought, a soul, a
\nwill and keen emotions; even though less developed, its psychology is yet the
\nsame in kind as man’s. But all these capacities in the animal are automatically
\nmoved and strictly limited, almost even constituted by the lower nervous being.
\nAll animal perceptions, sensibilities, activities are ruled by nervous and
\nvital instincts, cravings, needs, satisfactions, of which the nexus is the
\nlife-impulse and vital desire. Man too is bound, but less bound, to <\/span>
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 73<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

this automatism of the vital nature. Man can
\nbring an enlightened will, an enlightened thought and enlightened emotions to
\nthe difficult work of his self-development; he can more and more subject to
\nthese more conscious and reflecting guides the inferior function of desire. In
\nproportion as he can thus master and enlighten his lower self, he is man and no
\nlonger an animal. When he can begin to replace desire altogether by a still
\ngreater enlightened thought and sight and will in touch with the Infinite,
\nconsciously subject to a diviner will than his own, linked to a more universal
\nand transcendent knowledge, he has commenced the ascent towards the superman;
\nhe is on his upward march towards the Divine.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is, then, in the
\nhighest mind of thought and light and will or it is in the inner heart of
\ndeepest feeling and emotion that we must first centre our consciousness, \u2013 in
\neither of them or, if we are capable, in both together, \u2013<\/span> and use that as our
\nleverage to lift the nature wholly towards the Divine. The concentration of an
\nenlightened thought, will and heart turned in unison towards one vast goal of
\nour knowledge, one luminous and infinite source of our action, one imperishable
\nobject of our emotion is the starting-point of the Yoga. And the object of our
\nseeking must be the very fount of the Light which is growing in us, the very
\norigin of the Force which we are calling to move our members. Our one objective
\nmust be the Divine himself to whom, knowingly or unknowingly, something always
\naspires in our secret nature. There must be a large, many-sided yet single
\nconcentration of the thought on the idea, the perception, the vision, the
\nawakening touch, the soul’s realisation of the one Divine. There must be a
\nflaming concentration of the heart on the seeking of the All and Eternal and,
\nwhen once we have found him, a deep plunging and immersion in the possession
\nand ecstasy of the All-Beautiful. There must be a strong and immovable
\nconcentration of the will on the attainment and fulfilment of all that the
\nDivine is and a free and plastic opening of it to all that he intends to
\nmanifest in us. This is the triple way of the Yoga.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

*\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>*<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

But on that which as yet
\nwe know not how shall we concen<\/span>–<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 74<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

trate<\/span><\/span>? And yet we cannot know
\nthe Divine unless we have achieved this concentration of our being upon him. A
\nconcentration which culminates in a living realisation and the constant sense
\nof the presence of the One in ourselves and in all of which we are aware, is
\nwhat we mean in Yoga by knowledge and the effort after knowledge. It is not
\nenough to devote ourselves by the reading of Scriptures or by the stress of
\nphilosophic reasoning to an intellectual understanding of the Divine; for at
\nthe end of our long mental labour we might know all that has been said of the
\nEternal, possess all that can be thought about the Infinite and yet we might
\nnot know him at all. This intellectual preparation can indeed be the first
\nstage in a powerful Yoga, but it is not indispensable: it is not a step which
\nall need or can be called upon to take. Yoga would be impossible, except for a
\nvery few, if the intellectual figure of knowledge arrived at by the speculative
\nor meditative Reason were its indispensable condition or a binding preliminary.
\nAll that the Light from above asks of us that it may begin its work is a call
\nfrom the soul and a sufficient point of support in the mind. This support can
\nbe reached through an insistent idea of the Divine in the thought, a
\ncorresponding will in the dynamic parts, an aspiration, a faith, a need in the
\nheart. Any one of these may lead or predominate, if all cannot move in unison
\nor in an equal rhythm. The idea may be and must in the beginning be inadequate;
\nthe aspiration may be narrow and imperfect, the faith poorly illumined or even,
\nas not surely founded on the rock of knowledge, fluctuating, uncertain, easily
\ndiminished; often even it may be extinguished and need to be lit again with
\ndifficulty like a torch in a windy pass. But if once there is a resolute
\nself-consecration from deep within, if there is an awakening to the soul’s
\ncall, these inadequate things can be a sufficient instrument for the divine
\npurpose. Therefore the wise have always been unwilling to limit man’s avenues
\ntowards God; they would not shut against his entry even the narrowest portal,
\nthe lowest and darkest postern, the humblest wicket-gate. Any name, any form,
\nany symbol, any offering has been held to be sufficient if there is the
\nconsecration along with it; for the Divine knows himself in the heart of the
\nseeker and accepts the sacrifice.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 75<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

But still the greater
\nand wider the moving idea-force behind the consecration, the better for the
\nseeker; his attainment is likely to be fuller and more ample. If we are to attempt
\nan integral Yoga, it will be as well to start with an idea of the Divine that
\nis itself integral. There should be an aspiration in the heart wide enough for
\na realisation without any narrow limits. Not only should we avoid a sectarian
\nreligious outlook, but also all one-sided philosophical conceptions which try
\nto shut up the Ineffable in a restricting mental formula. The dynamic
\nconception or impelling sense with which our Yoga can best set out would be
\nnaturally the idea, the sense of a conscious all-embracing but all-exceeding
\nInfinite. Our uplook must be to a free, all-powerful, perfect and blissful One
\nand Oneness in which all beings move and live and through which all can meet
\nand become one. This Eternal will be at once personal and impersonal in his
\nself-revelation and touch upon the soul. He is personal because he is the
\nconscious Divine, the infinite Person who casts some broken reflection of
\nhimself in the myriad divine and undivine personalities of the universe. He is
\nimpersonal because he appears to us as an infinite Existence, Consciousness and
\nAnanda and because he is the fount, base and constituent of all existences and
\nall energies, \u2013 the very material of our being and mind and life and body, our
\nspirit and our matter. The thought, concentrating on him, must not merely
\nunderstand in an intellectual form that he exists, or conceive of him as an
\nabstraction, a logical necessity; it must become a seeing thought able to meet
\nhim here as the Inhabitant in all, realise him in ourselves, watch and take
\nhold on the movement of his forces. He is the one Existence: he is the original
\nand universal Delight that constitutes all things and exceeds them: he is the
\none infinite Consciousness that composes all consciousnesses and informs all
\ntheir movements: he is the one illimitable Being who sustains all action and
\nexperience: his will guides the evolution of things towards their yet
\nunrealised but inevitable aim and plenitude. To him the heart can consecrate
\nitself, approach him as the supreme Beloved, beat and move in him as in a
\nuniversal sweetness of Love and a living sea of Delight. For his is the secret
\nJoy that supports the soul in all its experiences and maintains even the errant
\nego in its ordeals and <\/span>
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 76<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

struggles till all sorrow and suffering shall
\ncease. His is the Love and the Bliss of the infinite divine Lover who is
\ndrawing all things by their own path towards his happy oneness. On him the Will
\ncan unalterably fix as the invisible Power that guides and fulfils it and as
\nthe source of its strength. In the impersonality this actuating Power is a
\nself-illumined Force that contains all results and calmly works until it
\naccomplishes, in the personality an all-wise and omnipotent Master of the Yoga
\nwhom nothing can prevent from leading it to its goal. This is the faith with
\nwhich the seeker has to begin his seeking and endeavour; for in all his effort
\nhere, but most of all in his effort towards the Unseen, mental man must
\nperforce proceed by faith. When the realisation comes, the faith divinely
\nfulfilled and completed will be transformed into an eternal flame of knowledge.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

*\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>*<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Into all our endeavour
\nupward the lower element of desire will at first naturally enter. For what the
\nenlightened will sees as the thing to be done and pursues as the crown to be
\nconquered, what the heart embraces as the one thing delightful, that in us
\nwhich feels itself limited and opposed and, because it is limited, craves and
\nstruggles, will seek with the troubled passion of an egoistic desire. This
\ncraving life-force or desire-soul in us has to be accepted at first, but only
\nin order that it may be transformed. Even from the very beginning it has to be
\ntaught to renounce all other desires and concentrate itself on the passion for
\nthe Divine. This capital point gained, it has to be taught to desire, not for
\nits own separate sake, but for God in the world and for the Divine in
\nourselves; it has to fix itself upon no personal spiritual gain, though of all
\npossible spiritual gains we are sure, but on the great work to be done in us
\nand others, on the high coming manifestation which is to be the glorious
\nfulfilment of the Divine in the world, on the Truth that has to be sought and
\nlived and enthroned for ever. But last, most difficult for it, more difficult
\nthan to seek with the right object, it has to be taught to seek in the right
\nmanner; for it must learn to desire, not in its own egoistic way, but in the
\nway of the Divine. It must insist no longer, as <\/span>
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 77<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

the strong separative will always insists, on its
\nown manner of fulfilment, its own dream of possession, its own idea of the
\nright and the desirable; it must yearn to fulfil a larger and greater Will and
\nconsent to wait upon a less interested and ignorant guidance. Thus trained,
\nDesire, that great unquiet harasser and troubler of man and cause of every kind
\nof stumbling, will become fit to be transformed into its divine counterpart.
\nFor desire and passion too have their divine forms; there is a pure ecstasy of
\nthe soul’s seeking beyond all craving and grief, there is a Will of Ananda that
\nsits glorified in the possession of the supreme beatitudes.<\/span><\/p>\n

When once the object of
\nconcentration has possessed and is possessed by the three master instruments,
\nthe thought, the heart and the will, \u2013 a consummation fully possible only when
\nthe desire-soul in us has submitted to the Divine Law, \u2013 the perfection of mind
\nand life and body can be effectively fulfilled in our transmuted nature. This
\nwill be done, not for the personal satisfaction of the ego, but that the whole
\nmay constitute a fit temple for the Divine Presence, a faultless instrument for
\nthe divine work. For that work can be truly performed only when the instrument,
\nconsecrated and perfected, has grown fit for a selfless action, \u2013 and that will
\nbe when personal desire and egoism are abolished, but not the liberated
\nindividual. Even when the little ego has been abolished, the true spiritual
\nPerson can still remain and God’s will and work and delight in him and the
\nspiritual use of his perfection and fulfilment. Our works will then be divine
\nand done divinely; our mind and life and will, devoted to the Divine, will be
\nused to help fulfil in others and in the world that which has been first
\nrealised in ourselves, \u2013 all that we can manifest of the embodied Unity, Love,
\nFreedom, Strength, Power, Splendour, immortal Joy which is the goal of the
\nSpirit’s terrestrial adventure.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Yoga must start with
\nan effort or at least a settled turn towards this total concentration. A
\nconstant and unfailing will of consecration of all ourselves to the Supreme is
\ndemanded of us, an offering of our whole being and our many-chambered nature to
\nthe Eternal who is the All. The effective fullness of our concentration on the
\none thing needful to the exclusion of all else will be the measure of our
\nself-consecration to the One who <\/span>
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 78<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

is alone desirable. But this exclusiveness will
\nin the end exclude nothing except the falsehood of our way of seeing the world
\nand our will’s ignorance. For our concentration on the Eternal will be
\nconsummated by the mind when we see constantly the Divine in itself and the
\nDivine in ourselves, but also the Divine in all things and beings and
\nhappenings. It will be consummated by the heart when all emotion is summed up
\nin the love of the Divine, \u2013<\/span> of the Divine in itself and for itself, but love too of the
\nDivine in all its beings and powers and personalities and forms in the
\nUniverse. It will be consummated by the will when we feel and receive always
\nthe divine impulsion and accept that alone as our sole motive force; but this
\nwill mean that, having slain to the last rebellious straggler the wandering
\nimpulses of the egoistic nature, we have universalised ourselves and can accept
\nwith a constant happy acceptance the one divine working in all things. This is
\nthe first fundamental siddhi of the integral Yoga.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is nothing less that
\nis meant in the end when we speak of the absolute consecration of the
\nindividual to the Divine. But this total fullness of consecration can only come
\nby a constant progression when the long and difficult process of transforming
\ndesire out of existence is completed in an ungrudging measure. Perfect
\nself-consecration implies perfect self-surrender.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

*\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>*<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

For here, there are two movements
\nwith a transitional stage between them, two periods of this Yoga, \u2013 one of the
\nprocess of surrender, the other of its crown and consequence. In the first the
\nindividual prepares himself for the reception of the Divine into his members.
\nFor all this first period he has to work by means of the instruments of the
\nlower Nature, but aided more and more from above. But in the later transitional
\nstage of this movement our personal and necessarily ignorant effort more and
\nmore dwindles and a higher Nature acts; the eternal Shakti descends into this
\nlimited form of mortality and progressively possesses and transmutes it. In the
\nsecond period the<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 79<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

greater movement wholly replaces the lesser,
\nformerly indispensable first action; but this can be done only when our
\nself-surrender is complete. The ego person in us cannot transform itself by its
\nown force or will or knowledge or by any virtue of its own into the nature of
\nthe Divine; all it can do is to fit itself for the transformation and make more
\nand more its surrender to that which it seeks to become. As long as the ego is
\nat work in us, our personal action is and must always be in its nature a part
\nof the lower grades of existence; it is obscure or half-enlightened, limited in
\nits field, very partially effective in its power. If a spiritual
\ntransformation, not a mere illumining modification of our nature, is to be done
\nat all, we must call in the Divine Shakti to effect that miraculous work in the
\nindividual; for she alone has the needed force, decisive, all-wise and
\nillimitable. But the entire substitution of the divine for the human personal
\naction is not at once entirely possible. All interference from below that would
\nfalsify the truth of the superior action must first be inhibited or rendered impotent,
\nand it must be done by our own free choice. A continual and always repeated
\nrefusal of the impulsions and falsehoods of the lower nature is asked from us
\nand an insistent support to the Truth as it grows in our parts; for the
\nprogressive settling into our nature and final perfection of the incoming
\ninforming Light, Purity and Power needs for its development and sustenance our
\nfree acceptance of it and our stubborn rejection of all that is contrary to it,
\ninferior or incompatible.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the first movement of
\nself-preparation, the period of personal effort, the method we have to use is
\nthis concentration of the whole being on the Divine that it seeks and, as its
\ncorollary, this constant rejection, throwing out, katharsis<\/i>, of all that is not the true Truth of the Divine. An
\nentire consecration of all that we are, think, feel and do will be the result
\nof this persistence. This consecration in its turn must culminate in an
\nintegral self-giving to the Highest; for its crown and sign of completion is
\nthe whole nature’s all-comprehending absolute surrender. In the second stage of
\nthe Yoga, transitional between the human and the divine working, there will
\nsupervene an increasing purified and vigilant passivity, a more and more
\nluminous divine <\/span>
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 80<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

response to the Divine Force, but not to any
\nother; and there will be as a result the growing inrush of a great and
\nconscious miraculous working from above. In the last period there is no effort
\nat all, no set method, no fixed sadhana; the place of endeavour and Tapasya
\nwill be taken by a natural, simple, powerful and happy disclosing of the flower
\nof the Divine out of the bud of a purified and perfected terrestrial nature.
\nThese are the natural successions of the action of the Yoga.<\/span><\/p>\n

These movements are
\nindeed not always or absolutely arranged in a strict succession to each other.
\nThe second stage begins in part before the first is completed; the first
\ncontinues in part until the second is perfected; the last divine working can
\nmanifest from time to time as a promise before it is finally settled and normal
\nto the nature. Always too there is something higher and greater than the
\nindividual which leads him even in his personal labour and endeavour. Often he
\nmay become, and remain for a time, wholly conscious, even in parts of his being
\npermanently conscious, of this greater leading behind the veil, and that may
\nhappen long before his whole nature has been purified in all its parts from the
\nlower indirect control. Even, he may be thus conscious from the beginning; his mind
\nand heart, if not his other members, may respond to that seizing and
\npenetrating guidance with a certain initial completeness from the very first
\nsteps of the Yoga. But it is the constant and complete and uniform action of
\nthe great direct control that more and more distinguishes the transitional
\nstage as it proceeds and draws to its close. This predominance of a greater
\ndiviner leading, not personal to ourselves, indicates the nature’s increasing
\nripeness for a total spiritual transformation. It is the unmistakable sign that
\nthe self-consecration has not only been accepted in principle but is fulfilled
\nin act and power. The Supreme has laid his luminous hand upon a chosen human
\nvessel of his miraculous Light and Power and Ananda.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 81<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chapter II   Self-Consecration    \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 ALL Yoga is in its nature a new birth; it is a birth out of the ordinary, the mentalised material…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-20-the-synthesis-of-yoga-volume-20","wpcat-20-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/962\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}