{"id":979,"date":"2013-07-13T01:31:43","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:31:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=979"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:31:43","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:31:43","slug":"07-synthesis-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\/07-synthesis-vol-20-the-synthesis-of-yoga-volume-20","title":{"rendered":"-07_Synthesis .htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n


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


\nSynthesis<\/span><\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

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

\nB<\/font><\/span>Y THE<\/span><\/font> <\/span> <\/b>very nature of the
\nprincipal Yogic schools, each covering in its operations a part of the complex
\nhuman integer and attempting to bring out its highest possibilities, it will appear
\nthat a synthesis of all of them largely conceived and applied might well result
\nin an integral Yoga. But they are so disparate in their tendencies, so highly
\nspecialised and elaborated in their forms, so long confirmed in the mutual
\nopposition of their ideas and methods that we do not easily find how we can
\narrive at their right union.<\/span><\/p>\n

An undiscriminating
\ncombination in block would not be a synthesis, but a confusion. Nor would a
\nsuccessive practice of each of them in turn be easy in the short span of our
\nhuman life and with our limited energies, to say nothing of the waste of labour
\nimplied in so cumbrous a process. Sometimes, indeed, Hathayoga and Rajayoga are
\nthus successively practised. And in a recent unique example, in the life of
\nRamakrishna Paramhansa, we see a colossal spiritual capacity first driving
\nstraight to the divine realisation, taking, as it were, the kingdom of heaven
\nby violence, and then seizing upon one Yogic method after another and
\nextracting the substance out of it with an incredible rapidity, always to
\nreturn to the heart of the whole matter, the realisation and possession of God
\nby the power of love, by the extension of inborn spirituality into various
\nexperience and by the spontaneous play of an intuitive knowledge. Such an example
\ncannot be generalised. Its object also was special and temporal, to exemplify
\nin the great and decisive experience of a master-soul the truth, now most
\nnecessary to humanity, towards which a world long divided into jarring sects
\nand schools is with difficulty labouring, that all sects are forms and
\nfragments of a single integral truth and all disciplines labour in their
\ndifferent ways towards one supreme experience. To know, be and possess <\/span>
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 36<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

the Divine is the one thing needful and it includes
\nor leads up to all the rest; towards this sole good we have to drive and this
\nattained, all the rest that the divine Will chooses for us, all necessary form
\nand manifestation, will be added. <\/span><\/p>\n

The synthesis we propose
\ncannot, then, be arrived at either by combination in mass or by successive
\npractice. It must therefore be effected by neglecting the forms and outsides of
\nthe Yogic disciplines and seizing rather on some central principle common to
\nall which will include and utilise in the right place and proportion their
\nparticular principles, and on some central dynamic force which is the common
\nsecret of their divergent methods and capable therefore of organising a natural
\nselection and combination of their varied energies and different utilities.
\nThis was the aim which we set before ourselves at first when we entered upon
\nour comparative examination of the methods of Nature and the methods of Yoga
\nand we now return to it with the possibility of hazarding some definite
\nsolution.<\/span><\/p>\n

We observe, first, that
\nthere still exists in India a remarkable Yogic system which is in its nature
\nsynthetical and starts from a great central principle of Nature, a great
\ndynamic force of Nature; but it is a Yoga apart, not a synthesis of other
\nschools. This system is the way of the Tantra. Owing to certain of its
\ndevelopments Tantra has fallen into discredit with those who are not Tantrics;
\nand especially owing to the developments of its left-hand path, the Vamamarga,
\nwhich not content with exceeding the duality of virtue and sin and instead of
\nreplacing them by spontaneous rightness of action seemed, sometimes, to make a
\nmethod of self-indulgence, a method of unrestrained social immorality.
\nNevertheless, in its origin, Tantra was a great and puissant system founded
\nupon ideas which were at least partially true. Even its twofold division into
\nthe right-hand and left-hand paths, Dakshinamarga and Vamamarga, started from a
\ncertain profound perception. In the ancient symbolic sense of the words
\nDakshina and Vama, it was the distinction between the way of Knowledge and the
\nway of Ananda, \u2013 Nature in man liberating itself by right discrimination in
\npower and practice of its own energies, elements and potentialities and Nature
\nin man liberating itself by joyous acceptance in power and practice of its own
\nenergies, <\/span>
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 37<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

elements and potentialities. But in both paths
\nthere was in the end an obscuration of principles, a deformation of symbols and
\na fall. <\/span><\/p>\n

If, however, we leave
\naside, here also, the actual methods and practices and seek for the central
\nprinciple, we find, first, that Tantra expressly differentiates itself from the
\nVedic methods of Yoga. In a sense, all the schools we have hitherto examined
\nare Vedantic in their principle; their force is in knowledge, their method is knowledge,
\nthough it is not always discernment by the intellect, but may be, instead, the
\nknowledge of the heart expressed in love and faith or a knowledge in the will
\nworking out through action. In all of them the lord of the Yoga is the Purusha,
\nthe Conscious Soul that knows, observes, attracts, governs. But in Tantra it is
\nrather Prakriti, the Nature-Soul, the Energy, the Will-in-Power executive in
\nthe universe. It was by learning and applying the intimate secrets of this
\nWill-in-Power, its method, its Tantra, that the Tantric Yogin pursued the aims
\nof his discipline, \u2013 mastery, perfection, liberation, beatitude. Instead of
\ndrawing back from manifested Nature and its difficulties, he confronted them,
\nseized and conquered. But in the end, as is the general tendency of Prakriti,
\nTantric Yoga largely lost its principle in its machinery and became a thing of
\nformulae and occult mechanism still powerful when rightly used but fallen from
\nthe clarity of their original intention.<\/span><\/p>\n

We have in this central
\nTantric conception one side of the truth, the worship of the Energy, the
\nShakti, as the sole effective force for all attainment. We get the other
\nextreme in the Vedantic conception of the Shakti as a power of Illusion and in
\nthe search after the silent inactive Purusha as the means of liberation from
\nthe deceptions created by the active Energy. But in the integral conception the
\nConscious Soul is the Lord, the Nature-Soul is his executive Energy. Purusha is
\nof the nature of Sat, the being of conscious self-existence pure and infinite;
\nShakti or Prakriti is of the nature of Chit, \u2013 it is power of the Purusha’s
\nself-conscious existence, pure and infinite. The relation of the two exists
\nbetween the poles of rest and action. When the Energy is absorbed in the bliss
\nof conscious self-existence, there is rest; when the Purusha pours itself out
\nin the action of its Energy, <\/span>
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 38<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

there is action, creation and the enjoyment or
\nAnanda of becoming. But if Ananda is the creator and begetter of all becoming,
\nits method is Tapas or force of the Purusha’s consciousness dwelling upon its
\nown infinite potentiality in existence and producing from it truths of
\nconception or real Ideas, vij\u00f1āna, which, proceeding from an omniscient
\nand omnipotent Self-existence, have the surety of their own fulfilment and
\ncontain in themselves the nature and law of their own becoming in the terms of
\nmind, life and matter. The eventual omnipotence of Tapas and the infallible
\nfulfilment of the Idea are the very foundation of all Yoga. In man we render these
\nterms by Will and Faith, \u2013 a will that is eventually self-effective because it
\nis of the substance of Knowledge and a faith that is the reflex in the lower
\nconsciousness of a Truth or real Idea yet unrealised in the manifestation. It
\nis this self-certainty of the Idea which is meant by the Gita when it says, Yo
\nyacchraddhah sa eva sah, \u201cwhatever is a man’s faith or the sure Idea in him,
\nthat he becomes.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

We see, then, what from the
\npsychological point of view, \u2013 and Yoga is nothing but practical psychology, \u2013
\nis the conception of Nature from which we have to start. It is the
\nself-fulfilment of the Purusha through his Energy. But the movement of Nature
\nis twofold, higher and lower, or, as we may choose to term it, divine and
\nundivine. The distinction exists indeed for practical purposes only; for there
\nis nothing that is not divine, and in a larger view it is as meaningless,
\nverbally, as the distinction between natural and supernatural, for all things
\nthat are are<\/span> natural. All things are in Nature and
\nall things are in God. But, for practical purposes, there is a real
\ndistinction. The lower Nature, that which we know and are and must remain so
\nlong as the faith in us is not changed, acts through limitation and division,
\nis of the nature of Ignorance and culminates in the life of the ego; but the
\nhigher Nature, that to which we aspire, acts by unification and transcendence
\nof limitation, is of the nature of Knowledge and culminates in the life divine.
\nThe passage from the lower to the higher is the aim of Yoga; and this passage
\nmay effect itself by the rejection of the lower and escape into the higher, \u2013
\nthe ordinary view-point, \u2013 or by the transformation of the lower and its
\nelevation to the higher Nature. It is <\/span>
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 39<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

this, rather, that must be the aim of an
\nintegral Yoga.<\/span><\/p>\n

But in either case it is
\nalways through something in the lower that we must rise into the higher
\nexistence, and the schools of Yoga each select their own point of departure or
\ntheir own gate of escape. They specialise certain activities of the lower
\nPrakriti and turn them towards the Divine. But the normal action of Nature in
\nus is an integral movement in which the full complexity of all our elements is
\naffected by and affects all our environments. The whole of life is the Yoga of
\nNature. The Yoga that we seek must also be an integral action of Nature, and
\nthe whole difference between the Yogin and the natural man will be this, that
\nthe Yogin seeks to substitute in himself for the integral action of the lower
\nNature working in and by ego and division the integral action of the higher
\nNature working in and by God and unity. If indeed our aim be only an escape
\nfrom the world to God, synthesis is unnecessary and a waste of time; for then
\nour sole practical aim must be\u00a0 <\/span>to find
\nout one path out of the thousand that lead to God, one shortest possible of
\nshort cuts, and not to linger exploring different paths that end in the same
\ngoal. But if our aim be a transformation of our integral being into the terms
\nof God-existence, it is then that a synthesis becomes necessary.<\/span><\/p>\n

The method we have to
\npursue, then, is to put our whole conscious being into relation and contact
\nwith the Divine and to call Him in to transform our entire being into His. Thus
\nin a sense God Himself, the real Person in us, becomes the sadhaka of the
\nsadhana\u00b9 as well as the Master of the Yoga by whom the lower personality is
\nused as the centre of a divine transfiguration and the instrument of its own
\nperfection. In effect, the pressure of the Tapas, the force of consciousness in
\nus dwelling in the Idea of the divine Nature upon that which we are in our
\nentirety, produces its own realisation. The divine and all-knowing and
\nall-effecting descends upon the limited and obscure, progressively illumines
\nand energises the whole lower nature and substitutes its own action for all the
\nterms of the inferior human light and mortal activity.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00b9 Sādhanā, the practice by
\nwhich perfection, siddhi, is attained; sādhaka, the Yogin who seeks by
\nthat practice the siddhi.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 40<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

In psychological fact
\nthis method translates itself into the progressive surrender of the ego with
\nits whole field and all its apparatus to the Beyond-ego with its vast and
\nincalculable but always inevitable workings. Certainly, this is no short cut or
\neasy sadhana. It requires a colossal faith, an absolute courage and above all
\nan unflinching patience. For it implies three stages of which only the last can
\nbe wholly blissful or rapid, \u2013 the attempt of the ego to enter into contact
\nwith the Divine, the wide, full and therefore laborious preparation of the
\nwhole lower Nature by the divine working to receive and become the higher
\nNature, and the eventual transformation. In fact, however, the divine Strength,
\noften unobserved and behind the veil, substitutes itself for our weakness and
\nsupports us through all our failings of faith, courage and patience. It \u201cmakes
\nthe blind to see and the lame to stride over the hills.\u201d The intellect becomes
\naware of a Law that beneficently insists and a succour that upholds; the heart
\nspeaks of a Master of all things and Friend of man or a universal Mother who
\nupholds through all stumblings. Therefore this path is at once the most
\ndifficult imaginable and yet, in comparison with the magnitude of its effort
\nand object, the most easy and sure of all.<\/span><\/p>\n

There are three
\noutstanding features of this action of the higher when it works integrally on
\nthe lower nature. In the first place it does not act according to a fixed
\nsystem and succession as in the specialised methods of Yoga, but with a sort of
\nfree, scattered and yet gradually intensive and purposeful working determined
\nby the temperament of the individual in whom it operates, the helpful materials
\nwhich his nature offers and the obstacles which it presents to purification and
\nperfection. In a sense, therefore, each man in this path has his own method of
\nYoga. Yet are there certain broad lines of working common to all which enable
\nus to construct not indeed a routine system, but yet some kind of Shastra or
\nscientific method of the synthetic Yoga.<\/span><\/p>\n

Secondly, the process,
\nbeing integral, accepts our nature such as it stands organised by our past
\nevolution and without rejecting anything essential compels all to undergo a
\ndivine change. Everything in us is seized by the hands of a mighty Artificer
\nand <\/span>
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 41<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

transformed into a clear image of that which it
\nnow seeks confusedly to present. In that ever-progressive experience we begin
\nto perceive how this lower manifestation is constituted and that everything in
\nit, however seemingly deformed or petty or vile, is the more or less distorted
\nor imperfect figure of some element or action in the harmony of the divine
\nNature. We begin to understand what the Vedic Rishis meant when they spoke of
\nthe human forefathers fashioning the gods as a smith forges the crude material
\nin his smithy.<\/span><\/p>\n

Thirdly, the divine
\nPower in us uses all life as the means of this integral Yoga. Every experience
\nand outer contact with our world-environment, however trifling or however
\ndisastrous, is used for the work, and every inner experience, even to the most
\nrepellent suffering or the most humiliating fall, becomes a step on the path to
\nperfection. And we recognise in ourselves with opened eyes the method of God in
\nthe world, His purpose of light in the obscure, of might in the weak and
\nfallen, of delight in what is grievous and miserable. We see the divine method
\nto be the same in the lower and in the higher working; only in the one it is
\npursued tardily and obscurely through the subconscious in Nature, in the other
\nit becomes swift and self-conscious and the instrument confesses the hand of
\nthe Master. All life is a Yoga of Nature seeking to manifest God within itself.
\nYoga marks the stage at which this effort becomes capable of self-awareness and
\ntherefore of right completion in the individual. It is a gathering up and
\nconcentration of the movements dispersed and loosely combined in the lower
\nevolution.<\/span><\/p>\n

An integral method and
\nan integral result. First, an integral realisation of Divine Being; not only a
\nrealisation of the One in its indistinguishable unity, but also in its
\nmultitude of aspects which are also necessary to the complete knowledge of it
\nby the relative consciousness; not only realisation of unity in the Self, but
\nof unity in the infinite diversity of activities, worlds and creatures.<\/span><\/p>\n

Therefore, also, an
\nintegral liberation. Not only the freedom born of unbroken contact and
\nidentification of the individual being in all its parts with the Divine,
\nsāyujyamukti, by which it can become free even in its separation, even in
\nthe duality; not only the sālokyamukti<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 42<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

by which the whole conscious existence dwells in
\nthe same status of being as the Divine, in the state of Sachchidananda; but also
\nthe acquisition of the divine nature by the transformation of this lower being
\ninto the human image of the Divine, sādharmyamukti, and the complete and
\nfinal release of all, the liberation of the consciousness from the transitory
\nmould of the ego and its unification with the One Being, universal both in the
\nworld and the individual and transcendentally one both in the world and beyond
\nall universe.<\/span><\/p>\n

By this integral
\nrealisation and liberation, the perfect harmony of the results of Knowledge,
\nLove and Works. For there is attained the complete release from ego and
\nidentification in being with the One in all and beyond all. But since the
\nattaining consciousness is not limited by its attainment, we win also the unity
\nin Beatitude and the harmonised diversity in Love, so that all relations of the
\nplay remain possible to us even while we retain on the heights of our being the
\neternal oneness with the Beloved. And by a similar wideness, being capable of a
\nfreedom in spirit that embraces life and does not depend upon withdrawal from
\nlife, we are able to become without egoism, bondage or reaction the channel in
\nour mind and body for a divine action poured out freely upon the world.<\/span><\/p>\n

The divine existence is
\nof the nature not only of freedom, but of purity, beatitude and perfection. An
\nintegral purity which shall enable on the one hand the perfect reflection of
\nthe divine Being in ourselves and on the other the perfect outpouring of its
\nTruth and Law in us in the terms of life and through the right functioning of
\nthe complex instrument we are in our outer parts, is the condition of an
\nintegral liberty. Its result is an integral beatitude, in which there becomes
\npossible at once the Ananda of all that is in the world seen as symbols of the
\nDivine and the Ananda of that which is not-world. And it prepares the integral
\nperfection of our humanity as a type of the Divine in the conditions of the
\nhuman manifestation, a perfection founded on a certain free universality of
\nbeing, of love and joy, of play of knowledge and of play of will in power and
\nwill in unegoistic action. This integrality also can be attained by the
\nintegral Yoga.<\/span><\/p>\n

Perfection includes
\nperfection of mind and body, so that the <\/span>
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 43<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

highest results of Rajayoga and Hathayoga should
\nbe contained in the widest formula of the synthesis finally to be effected by
\nmankind. At any rate a full development of the general mental and physical
\nfaculties and experiences attainable by humanity through Yoga must be included
\nin the scope of the integral method. Nor would these have any raison d’\u00eatre
\nunless employed for an integral mental and physical life. Such a mental and
\nphysical life would be in its nature a translation of the spiritual existence
\ninto its right mental and physical values. Thus we would arrive at a synthesis
\nof the three degrees of Nature and of the three modes of human existence which
\nshe has evolved or is evolving. We would include in the scope of our liberated
\nbeing and perfected modes of activity the material life, our base, and the
\nmental life, our intermediate instrument.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nor would the
\nintegrality to which we aspire be real or even possible, if it were confined to
\nthe individual. Since our divine perfection embraces the realisation of
\nourselves in being, in life and in love through others as well as through
\nourselves, the extension of our liberty and of its results in others would be
\nthe inevitable outcome as well as the broadest utility of our liberation and
\nperfection. And the constant and inherent attempt of such an extension would be
\ntowards its increasing and ultimately complete generalisation in mankind.<\/span><\/p>\n

The divinising of the
\nnormal material life of man and of his great secular attempt of mental and
\nmoral self-culture in the individual and the race by this integralisation of a
\nwidely perfect spiritual existence would thus be the crown alike of our
\nindividual and of our common effort. Such a consummation being no other than
\nthe kingdom of heaven within reproduced in the kingdom of heaven without, would
\nbe also the true fulfilment of the great dream cherished in different terms by
\nthe world’s religions.<\/span><\/p>\n

The widest synthesis of
\nperfection possible to thought is the sole effort entirely worthy of those
\nwhose dedicated vision perceives that God dwells concealed in humanity.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 44<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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