All the schools of Yoga described so far were creations of premodern India. With Sri Aurobindo’s Integral Yoga we enter the modern era. His Yoga is a vivid demonstration that the Yoga tradition, which has always been highly adaptive, is continuing to develop in response to the changing cultural conditions. Integral Yoga is the single most impressive attempt to reformulate Yoga for our modern needs and abilities.
While intent on preserving the continuity of the Yoga tradition, Sri Aurobindo was eager to adapt Yoga to the unique context of the Westernized world of our age. He did this on the basis not only of his own European education but also his profound personal experimentation and experience with spiritual life. He combined in himself the rare qualities of an original philosopher and those of a mystic and sage.
Aurobindo saw in ail past forms of Yoga an attempt to transcend the ordinary person’s enmeshment in the external world by means of renunciation, asceticism, meditation, breath control, and a whole battery of other yogic means. As I have explained in the Introduction, many traditional schools of Yoga favor an approach that can conveniently be described as “verticalism”: They are pathways to the transcendental Reality, Spirit, Self, or the Godhead, which is conceived as being in some sense apart from the material world. The verticalist Yogas all seek to rise beyond conventional life by an ascent of attention.
In his magnificent work The Life Divine, Aurobindo speaks of the earlier Yogas as being characterized by “the refusal of the ascetic.”35 This refusal consists in the ascetics’ downgrading the material world as a result of their overpowering experience of the supra-mundane dimensions of existence, especially the splendorous domain of the Spirit itself. This negative attitude toward the world is encapsulated in the Vedântic teaching of illusionism, known as mâyâ-vâda.
The term mâyâ refers to the unreality of the manifest universe-a notion that has typically been understood to mean that the cosmos itself is illusory. This metaphysical axiom has generally been coupled with the idea that worldly existence is shot through with suffering, pain, distress, or sorrow, and therefore is utterly worthless. As a consequence, the verticalist philosophers and sages have recommended various paths that involve one or another form of external renunciation.
By contrast, Integral Yoga-which is called pûrna- yoga in Sanskrit-has the explicit purpose of bringing the “divine consciousness” down into the human body- mind and into ordinary life. It seeks to overcome the traditional paradigm that pits the Spirit against matter, which, according to Aurobindo, commenced with Buddhism some 2,500 years ago. He acknowledged that the Indian philosophers and sages made periodic efforts to overcome this influential paradigm, but, as he noted, “all have lived in the shadow of the great Refusal and the final end of life for all is the garb of the ascetic.”36 To quote Aurobindo’s insightful and eloquent remarks more fully:
The general conception of existence has been permeated with the Buddhistic theory of the chain of Karma and with the consequent antinomy of bondage and liberation, bondage by birth, liberation by cessation from birth. Therefore all voices are joined in one great consensus that not in this world of the dualities can there be our kingdom of heaven, but beyond, whether in the joys of the eternal Vrindâvan or the high beatitude of Brahmaloka, beyond all manifestations in some ineffable Nirvana or where all separate experience is lost in the featureless unity of the indefinable Existence. And through many centuries a great army of shining witnesses, saints and teachers, names sacred to Indian memory and dominant in Indian imagination, have borne always the same witness and swelled always the same lofty and distant appeal,-renunciation the sole path of knowledge, acceptation of physical life the act of the ignorant, cessation from birth the right use of human birth, the call of the Spirit, the recoil from Matter.37
While Aurobindo certainly did not deny the value of asceticism, he sought to assign to it its proper place within the context of an integral spirituality. He argued that the ancient Hindu thinkers and sages took very seriously the Vedântic axiom that there is only a single Reality but failed to do proper justice to the correlated axiom that “all this is Brahman.” In other words, they typically ignored the presence of the nondual Divine in and as the world in which we live.
Aurobindo’s critique of traditional Hindu metaphysics and Yoga is essentially correct, although he chose to ignore those sporadic efforts, such as the Sahajayâna (“Vehicle of Spontaneity”), which clearly aims at a more integral worldview and ethics. Thus the ideal of sahaja (“spontaneity”) could be said to be an attempt at overcoming the limitations of the traditional verticalism. It is true, however, that even some Sahajayâna schools contain a strong ascetical element, and they definitely cannot be said to subscribe to an evolution-based ethics of world affirmation, as is the case with Integral Yoga.
Aurobindo’s “supramental Yoga” revolves around the transformation of terrestrial life. He wanted to see paradise on Earth-a thoroughly transmuted existence in the world. As he wrote:
The fundamental difference is in the teaching that there is a dynamic divine Truth and that into the present world of Ignorance that Truth can descend, create a new Truth- consciousness and divinise Life. The old Yogas go straight from mind to the absolute Divine, regard all dynamic existence as Ignorance, Illusion or Lila; when you enter the static and immutable Divine Truth, they say, you pass out of cosmic existence … My aim is to realise and also to manifest the Divine in the world, bringing down for the purpose a yet unmanifested Power,-such as the Supermind.38
What is the Supermind? It is what Aurobindo calls the Truth-Consciousness-rita-cit in Sanskrit-behind the ordinary mind. It is “the real creative agency of the universal Existence.”39 It is the dynamic conduit between the eternal Being-Consciousness-Bliss and the conditional cosmos. The Supermind is the creator of the world, for it is the absolute principle of will and knowledge, organizing itself into the structures of the subtle and the coarse (or manifest) dimensions of existence.
According to Aurobindo, it is the Supermind that powers evolution, which he understands as a steady progression toward ever higher forms of consciousness. As such it also is responsible for the manifestation of the human brain-mind. The mind has the innate tendency to go beyond itself and to grasp the larger Whole. Yet it is destined to fail in this program, as is powerfully driven home by the history of philosophy and science. The most the human mind can do is to recognize its inherent limitations and open up to the higher reality of the Supermind. But this act of opening up is always experienced as the death of the mind-bound ego- personality-a terrifying experience for the spiritually immature individual. In his works, Aurobindo describes his own inner experience of the mind-shattering event of the Supermind’s descent:
… to reach Nirvana was the first radical result of my own Yoga. It threw me suddenly into a condition above and without thought, unstained by any mental or vital movement; there was no ego, no real world-only when one looked through the immobile senses, something perceived or bore upon its sheer silence a world of empty forms, materialized shadows without true substance. There was no One or many even, only just absolutely That, featureless, relationless, sheer, indescribable, unthinkable, absolute, yet supremely real and solely real… . I lived in that Nirvana day and night before it began to admit other things into itself or modify itself at all, and the inner heart of experience, a constant memory of it and its power to return remain until in the end it began to disappear into a greater Superconsciousness from above. But meanwhile realization added itself to realization and fused itself with this original experience. At an early stage the aspect of an illusory world gave place to one in which illusion is only a small surface phenomenon with an immense Divine Reality behind it and a supreme Divine Reality above it and an intense Divine Reality in the heart of everything that had seemed at first only a cinematic shape or shadow.40
Aurobindo regarded the person transformed by the Supermind as the pinnacle of evolution. Nature, which is a form of the Divine, struggles to produce the
truly spiritual being, who exceeds the “vital man” and the “mental man.” This yogic evolutionism is not widely understood in India, and Aurobindo’s work also is not as widely known among Western spiritual seekers as it deserves to be. But Integral Yoga is a living spiritual force that, in the words of philosopher Haridas Chaudhûri, “goes on fertilizing the spiritual soil of the world.”41
On the practical level, Integral Yoga is a matter of the synchronized action of personal aspiration “from below” and divine grace “from above.” The essence of aspiration, however, is self-surrender, which must be complete for grace to do its transformative work. Aurobindo contrasted this with the arduous self-effort made on the path of asceticism (tapasya).
Integral Yoga has no prescribed techniques, since the inward transformation is accomplished by the divine Power itself. There are no obligatory rituals, mantras, postures, or breathing exercises to be performed. The aspirant must simply open himself or herself to that higher Power, which Sri Aurobindo identified with The Mother. This self-opening and calling upon the presence of The Mother is understood as a form of meditation or prayer. Aurobindo advised that practitioners should focus their attention at the heart, which has anciently been the secret gateway to the Divine. Faith, or inner certitude, is deemed a key to spiritual growth. Other important aspects of Integral Yoga practice are chastity (brahmâcârya), truthfulness (satya), and a pervasive disposition of calm (prashânti).
The Mother was for Aurobindo not some abstract principle or otherworldly deity, but the force of grace embodied in his own lifelong partner. He understood himself as Consciousness and her as divine Power or Shakti manifesting in physical form.
“Yoga is a spirituality rather than a religion. As a spirituality it has influenced the entire range of Indian religious and spiritual development.”
-Thomas Berry, Religions of India, p. 75
I. A BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF THE CULTURAL HISTORY OF INDIA
The Indian subcontinent is the home of thousands of local cults that have been described as “animistic” and “polytheistic,” paralleling the richness of the shamanic cultures of the African continent. But India also has spawned four major spiritual traditions that rank among the world religions-Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism. Thus, India’s contribution to world spirituality is second to none. More than any other people, the Indians have demonstrated an incredible versatility in spiritual matters, which has inspired many other nations and which in our century has led to a much-needed enrichment of our spiritually ailing Western civilization.
The dominant tradition of the Indian subcontinent has for centuries been Hinduism, which today has more than 780 million adherents around the world. In India, which now has a population of over a billion, there are estimated to be roughly 750 million Hindus. The second largest religious group are the Muslims, who number around 100 million, followed by around 25 million Christians, and 20 million Sikhs. The Buddhists are a small minority in India but are strongly represented in Sri Lankâ (former Ceylon), Tibet, and South East Asia.
The term “Hinduism” is ambiguous. Sometimes it is used to refer to the total culture of all the inhabitants of the peninsula apart from those who belong to such clearly defined religions as Buddhism and Christianity. More specifically, the name applies to the numerous traditions that are historically and ideologically connected with the ancient Vedic culture of six thousand and more years ago and that assumed their characteristic form at the beginning of the first millennium C.E. In this volume, the designation “Hinduism” is understood in the broader sense.
Hinduism is more than a religion. Like the other world religions, it is an entire culture with its distinct lifestyle, characterized by a unique social structure: the caste system. For thousands of years, Hindu society has been organized into four estates (varna), which are often wrongly referred to as castes: the priestly or brâhmana estate or class; the warrior or kshatriya class; the “common people” or vaishya class (made up of agriculturalists, traders, and artisans), and the servile or shûdra class. This arrangement is explained as having its precedent in the divine order itself. Thus in the “Hymn of Man” (purusha-sûkta) of the Rig-Veda (10.90.12), the primordial being or macranthropos is described as giving birth to the four estates as follows:
The brahmin is His mouth; the warrior was fashioned from His arms; he who is merchant is His thighs, and from His feet the servant was bom.
The members of the servile estate were systematically excluded from learning the sacred lore and eventually came to be considered outcasts. The feet are symbolically “dirty,” and the assignment of the shûdras to the lower limbs of the Cosmic Man bespeaks their low social status. However, the feet are an integral part of a fully functional human being, and so the servile estate is likewise important to the well-being of society. Yet, from the Vedic point of view, the shûdras are karmically preordained for menial labor rather than intellectual work, leadership, or creative work, because their consciousness is of a darker hue (varna). It has often been wrongly assumed that the term varna (“color”) refers to skin color and that the four estates were separated from each other by ethnic boundaries. But all four estates belong to the social body of the Vedic Aryans, who, judging from the Rig-Veda, paid more attention to the soul’s color than to racial characteristics.
Only the top three estates are considered “twice- born” (dvija), that is, “born again” through proper initiation into the Vedic tradition. This occurred traditionally at the ages of eight, eleven, and twelve for boys and girls of the priestly, military, and agricultural/mercantile estates respectively. It was then that they underwent the ritual of investiture (upanâyana) in which they were given a sacred thread (yajna-upavîta, written yajno-pavîta)1 to be worn permanently over the left shoulder, hanging diagonally across the chest.
Permitted intermarriage between members of different estates led to the creation of social subdivisions, which are properly called castes (jâti). These, in turn, spawned an increasing number of subcastes. This social hierarchy is governed by elaborate conventions that carefully regulate the behavior and activities between members of different castes. Inevitably this stratification gave rise to marginal groups, which are deemed outcastes or “untouchables.”
This vast social edifice has frequently been challenged by visionaries and reformers. Gautama, the founder of Buddhism, was among the first to reject it. Yet it continued to persist over the centuries and to exert a compelling influence on all other traditions of the subcontinent. Social innovators who rejected the caste system generally also had to reject the Vedic revelation that sanctioned it. For the pious Hindu, the caste system with its social inequality is as natural as democracy is to us. Just as we justify democratic principles by pointing to the worth of the individual, the caste system is justified by invoking the law of karma: Each person has his or her station in life because of former volitions and actions. Brahmins are brahmins because of their virtuous and spiritual pursuits in previous lifetimes. Outcastes are outcastes perhaps because of their past lack of motivation toward a higher life or because of serious misdeeds.
The caste system may offend our modern Western sensibilities, but not too long ago our forebears held opinions and values similar to those of the traditional Hindus. It was only with the emergence of a pronounced individualism during the Renaissance that the ancient social order, which was pointedly hierarchical, came to be questioned, challenged, and finally abolished. Of course, even our modern so-called egalitarian societies are not free from social stratification, with a super-wealthy elite at one end and a great number of underprivileged people at the other.
The rigidity of the caste system has been balanced by a strong tendency toward ideological flexibility. Thus Hinduism has demonstrated an amazing capacity for assimilating even the most extreme opposites within itself. For instance, at one end of the spectrum we find the radical nondualist school of Shankara and at the other end the strict dualist school of Classical Sâmkhya, which despite its
atheism is still counted as one of Hinduism’s six major philosophical systems (darshana). Another example of such widely contrasting philosophical positions is the “cool” contemplative approach of nondualist Jnâna-Yoga of the Upanishads on one side and the fervent emotionalism of some schools of monotheistic Bhakti-Yoga on the other. The medieval path of devotionalism (bhakti-mârga) is strongly syncretistic and has incorporated, among other things, elements from Islamic Sufism. Typical of this all-inclusive spirit of Hinduism is the Allah-Upanishad, a late work composed under Muslim influence.
The spongelike absorptive power of Hinduism is such that even a well-defined religious tradition like Christianity fell under its spell and, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, had to be rescued by Jesuit missionaries from complete Hinduization. Sometimes the Hindu tendency of inclusiveness is misinterpreted as a universal kind of tolerance, which is not the case. Throughout India’s history there have been numerous instances of intolerance between various schools or factions of Hinduism, and one might mention the long-standing tension between the Vaishnavas and the Shaivas as an example.
Hinduism is best understood as a complex sociocultural process that has unfolded in the dynamics between continuity and discontinuity, or the persistence of ancient forms and the assimilation of new expressions of cultural and religious life. Thus, from one point of view, Hinduism can be said to have commenced with the Vedic civilization (possibly as early as the fifth millennium B.C.E.). From another point of view, there are real and important differences between the Vedic sacred culture and Hinduism as we know it today. Yet, overall, the continuity has been astonishing and more significant than the changes introduced in the course of history.
Until recently, most Western and Indian scholars tended to emphasize the element of discontinuity in India’s cultural evolution. In particular, they saw a clash between the civilization of the Indus valley and the Vedic “Aryan” culture, which they thought originated outside India. However, this long-standing theory of the Aryan invasion is now being vigorously challenged. A growing number of scholars, both in India and the West, regard this historical model as a scientific myth, which was constructed in the absence of adequate evidence and which has adversely influenced our understanding of ancient India’s history and culture. This important change in scholarly opinion is documented in the book In Search of the Cradle of Civilization.2
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