Integral Yoga Its Nature and Significance

Author(s): G N Joshi
Publisher: Z_Pushkarmuni_Abhinandan_Granth_012012.pdf

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श्री पुष्करमुनि अभिनन्दन ग्रन्थ : नवम खण्ड
sion of the physical body and its normal activities like the ascetics, but it tries to make the body a fit, efficient and effective medium and vehicle for the divine energy for its work. It must be remembered that for the divine life on the earth, earth and matter have not to be and can not be rejected, and have only to be sublimated, and to reveal in themselves the possibilities of the spirit, serve the spirit's highest uses and be transformed into instruments of of a greater living. The Supermind
By Divinisation' Sri Aurobindo means the descent of the supramental consciousness in man. The Supermind is in its very essence truth-consciousness, which is always free from the ignorance which is the foundation of our present natural or evolutionary existence. The supermind is an eternal reality of the Divine Being and the Divine Nature.
The supermind is already involved in the present inconscient part of man and the world. It is not something to evolve as a new emergent quality, as Lloyd Morgan would say. The supermind is already here but is involved, concealed behind this manifest mind, life and matter and not yet acting overtly or in its own power; if it acts, it is through these interior powers and modified by their characters, and so not yet conceivable. Sri Aurobindo says that it is only by the arrival of the descending supermind upon earth that it can reveal itself in the action of our material, vital and mental parts so that these lower powers can become portions of a total divinised activity of our whole being. Sri Aurobindo asserts in categorical terms that the manifestation of a supramental truth-consciousness is therefore the capital reality that will make the divine life possible. It is when all the movements of thought, impulse and action are governed and directed by a self-existent and luminously automatic truth-consciousness and our whole nature comes to be constituted by it and made of its stuff that the life divine will be complete and absolute.
In Sri Aurobindo's view, the Divine is already there immanent within us, and it is our inmost reality, and it is this reality that we have to manifest. It is that which constitutes the urge towards the divine living and makes necessary the creation of the life divine even in this material existence. Descent and Ascent
The manifestation of the supermind will happen in the normal course of evolution of the universe because it is inevitable. It must happen in this world sooner or later. This evolution has two aspects i.e., a Descent from Above and an Ascent from Below. The Descent is a self-revelation of the spirit, an evolution in Nature. But the Ascent is necessarily an effort, a working of Nature, an urge on her side to raise her lower parts by an evolutionary or revolutionary change, conversion or transformation into the divine reality, and it may happen by a process and progress or by a rapid miracle.
The evolutionary process is slow and tedious and it usually needs ages to reach new levels. But the pace of evolution can be made quick and rapid and the realisation of the Supermind can be expedited by another method, and it consists in the practice of Yoga. Sri Aurobindo advocates the supermental Yoga for an easy and speedy descent of the supermind to the lower levels of consciousness and material existence by supporting it with an ardent and sincere ascent of the individual self. The descent of the supermind itself becomes a process of divinisation of the mind, vital, body and senses. Sri Aurobindo says that the divine life will give to those who enter into it and possess it. An increasing and finally complete possession of the truth-consciousness and all that it carries in it--will bring with it the realisation of the Divine in self and the Divine in Nature. The God-seeker will then realise in his personal experience the Sachchidananda.
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