Yoga

Letters on Yoga - II
“The Aim of the Integral Yoga”

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(Mother to Mona Sarkar:) “It as if for arriving at the goal there is a route which is absolutely straight but difficult; that is what we are following or Sri Aurobindo has shown us. And there is another one which takes a roundabout way to arrive at the goal, like this, like this, like this (gesture) to arrive at the goal, and it takes thousands of years. And people think that it is indispensable to see the world and take these detours in order to have the experience. It is not true, it is only to satisfy their ego and their ambition that they prefer this road which in fact takes thousands and thousands of lives to reach the goal. Whereas ours takes one, two, five or six lives to reach the goal. Anyway, it is a straight path which leads to the goal without any diversions. But if someone chooses and prefers the other path, I do not say anything. I wait for the day when they will realise through various circumstances the folly they had committed. This also is a way of learning.
         (The Mother looks at a box of pencils on her table) Do you want a pencil? I have just received a lot of pencils. Do you want one to write with?

(Mona Sarkar:) Mother, not this one, but a sharpened pencil.

I give you one that is not sharpened.

If you give me, give me one that is sharpened, and also write something with it.

Oh, is that what you want? Then I choose a blue pencil for you... What shall I write for you?

Whatever you like, Mother.

Wait, I shall do a drawing of the path to traverse... what I spoke to you now. This is the Goal and this is the path straight towards the Goal. And this is the other path which meanders and finally one arrives at the Goal. (Mother makes a sketch) Look here, I shall do this, the straight road, with red ink. This is the Start and there, is the Finish, all right?”

(Amal Kiran:) “The fusion of the supramental light with the inmost soul and the descent of it into mind and life-energy and even the physical body, transforming and divinising them in entirety, are Sri Aurobindo’s special discovery and Yoga.”

(Medhananda:) “All the difficulties in yoga come from the fact that people do not dare to believe that this applies to them.”

(Sri Aurobindo:) “Our purpose in Yoga is to exile the limited outward-looking ego and to enthrone God in its place as the ruling Inhabitant of the nature.”

(Mother to Shyam Sundar:) “To grow in consciousness is the very purpose of life on earth. It is through the experience of successive lives that the range of the subconscient is gradually reduced.
         By Yoga and the effort to find the Divine in oneself and in life, the work is considerably accelerated and can be accomplished in a few years.”

(Sri Aurobindo:) “It is the psychic and the mind and the higher vital usually that join together for the Yoga — for if these three do not join, it is difficult to do any Yoga at all beyond getting a few experiences from time to time.”

(T. Kodandarama Rao:) “For integral yoga, a person must have a balanced head and heart, a sound body and a strong vital. One may begin this yoga without all these qualifications, but for a successful life of yoga all these are quite essential. The Master was rejecting many persons who came to take up his yoga as he used to say that it was a very difficult one attended with many ups and downs and only a great hero could succeed in this yoga. Transformation of Nature is a very arduous thing and the change of material body takes a very long time.”

(Mother:) “When you come to the Yoga, you must be ready to have all your mental buildings and all your vital scaffoldings shattered to pieces. You must be prepared to be suspended in the air with nothing to support you except your faith. You will have to forget your past self and its clingings altogether, to pluck it out of your consciousness and be born anew, free from every kind of bondage. Think not of what you were, but of what you aspire to be; be altogether in what you want to realise. Turn from your dead past and look straight towards the future. Your religion, country, family lie there; it is the DIVINE.”

(Sri Aurobindo:) “The Mother was an adept in the Buddhist yoga and the yoga of the Gita even before she came to India. Her yoga was moving towards a grand synthesis. After this, it was natural that she should come here. She has helped and is helping to give a concrete form to my yoga. This would not have been possible without her co-operation.
         One of the two great steps in this yoga is to take refuge in the Mother.”

(When Sri Aurobindo was asked, on a later occasion, what the second great step is, he replied, “Aspiration of the sadhak for the divine life.”)

(Mother, 1929:) “First of all there is an ascension; you raise yourself out of the level of material consciousness into superior ranges. But this ascension of the lower into the higher calls a descent of the higher into the lower. When you rise above the earth, you bring down too upon earth something of the above, — some light, some power that transforms or tends to transform its old nature. And then these things that were distinct, disconnected and disparate from each other — the higher in you and the lower, the inner and the outer strata of your being and consciousness — meet and are slowly joined together and gradually they fuse into one truth, one harmony.”

(Shyam Sundar:) “In fact, Mother, what is the Yogi's attitude towards outer appearances?

The usefulness of seeing clearly instead of being blind.
         The usefulness of not being deceived any more by outer appearances.
         The usefulness of knowing the true raison d'être of life instead of living in ignorance and falsehood.”

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See also

• Yogi
• Evolution
• =1 "Laser of consciousness"
• Hatha yoga