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Integral Yoga : Its Nature and Significance
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Only for a limited spiritual liberation less than transformation became enough, but if the supramental has to govern and change the entire structure, it has got to come down to mental, vital and physical planes by an earnest, ardent and intense sādhanā by the individual self. Sri Aurobindo prescribes aspiration for and complete surrender of the Ego to the Divine for this purpose. For attaining such fundamental spiritual attainment no metaphysical and logical reasoning can be of use and so philosophy cannot do it.
Sri Aurobindo says that the one and only aim of the Integral Yoga is to bring down the supramental Truth into the world. Truth alone is its aim. He further says that the Integral Yoga is not something brand new in all its elements. It is integral because it takes up the essence and many processes of the old Yogas, and its newness consists in its aim, standpoint and the totality of its method. According to him neither Sri Krishna nor Buddha nor Sankara nor Ramakrishna had any idea of transformation of the body. Their aim was spiritual mukti and nothing more than that.
The aim of Integral Yoga is to change spiritually the world and not to escape or abandon it. Man has to become a fit instrument of the Divine and to facilitate the descent of the supramental into the world. According to him never such an attempt was made in the past even by the great veterans of spiritual life. According to Sri Aurobindo there are some grades of consciousness between the Mind and the Supermind, and the great sages and spiritual veterans had reached some of the grades or rungs of spiritual consciousness. For example, Sri Aurobindo believes that Sri Krishna's mind was overmentalised, Rāmakrishna's intuitive, Chaitanya's spiritual-psychic, Buddha's illumined higher mental ; but none of them had experienced the supramental. The object of spiritual seeking is to find out what is eternally true, not what is new in Time.
Divinisation Sri Aurobindo repeatedly says that the aim of Yoga is not and should not be either social reform or moral perfection or greater material enrichment of the society, nor should it be merely mental, intellectual and rational development and enrichment. In his opinion the only aim of Integral Yoga is total Divinization of the human being. He uses a new term 'Divinisation' which does not mean the destruction of the human elements; but divinisation consists in taking up the human elements, showing them the way to their own perfection, raising them by perfection to their full power and Ananda, and that means the raising of the whole earthly life to its full Power and Ananda. While elaborating it further he says that divinisation of life means a greater art of life, for the present art of life produced by ego and ignorance is comparatively mean, crude and imperfect, and it is by a spiritual and psychic opening and refinement that it has to reach its true perfection. This can only be done by its being steeped in the Divine Light and Flame in which its material will be stripped of all heavy dross and turned into the true metal. This Yoga is not a rejection of life but of closeness and intimacy between the Divine and the sadhakes. Its ideal aims at the greatest closeness and unity on the physical as well as the other planes, at the most divine largeness and fullness and joy of life.
Complete Sarrender The practice of Yoga is Sadhana. It can be performed in many ways. In Sadhana one has to return one's all facilities and powers such as the passions, emotions, thoughts, mind, heart, will and even action to the Divine. One can adopt knowledge, devotion (Bhakti), work or Tapasya of Self-purification. Sri Aurobindo says that there is no single rule for all, it depends on one's personality and nature. Surrender is the main power of the Yoga. One has to offer not only one's thoughts and emotions but one's very will and entire being to the Divine. Sri Aurobindo's main emphasis is on offering oneself or a complete surrender to the Divine. If
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