Archive for January, 2009
The Synthesis of Yoga – Recitation and Summaries
The Synthesis of Yoga is Sri Aurobindo’s major work on Integral Yoga. In it are highlighted the ambitious methods and means of seeking the Divine integrally. The basic mantra is Aspiration, Rejection and Surrender.Yoga, must not be a goal, but the goal of Life for, All Life is Yoga.
The below links will make your study of this work easier than ever.
Download the complete text here.
Download audio recitations of all chapters from the Introduction and Part I here [mp3 at 48kbps CBR]. The rest are on their way.
David Hutchinson has prepared chapter-wise summaries of the book. They are available at collaboration.org.
Certitudes
In the deep there is a greater deep, in the heights a greater
height. Sooner shall man arrive at the borders of infinity than at
the fullness of his own being. For that being is infinity, is God -
I aspire to infinite force, infinite knowledge, infinite bliss.
Can I attain it? Yes, but the nature of infinity is that it has no
end. Say not therefore that I attain it. I become it. Only so can
man attain God by becoming God.
But before attaining he can enter into relations with him,
To enter into relations with God is Yoga, the highest rapture &
the noblest utility. There are relations within the compass of the
humanity we have developed. These are called prayer, worship,
adoration, sacrifice, thought, faith, science, philosophy. There
are other relations beyond our developed capacity, but within
the compass of the humanity we have yet to develop. Those are
the relations that are attained by the various practices we usually
call Yoga.
We may not know him as God, we may know him as Nature,
our Higher Self, Infinity, some ineffable goal. It was so that Buddha
approached Him; so approaches him the rigid Adwaitin. He
is accessible even to the Atheist. To the materialist He disguises
Himself in matter. For the Nihilist he waits ambushed in the
bosom of Annihilation.
-‘Essays Divine and Human’, 1910-1950
Podcast: The Core of the Gita’s Meaning
A Recitation of the chapter from ‘Essays on the Gita’.
Podcast: The Message of the Gita
Recitation of the last chapter from ‘Essays on the Gita’. Click to download.
The Message of the Gita
Existence is not merely a machinery of Nature, a wheel of law in which the soul is entangled for a moment or for ages; it is a constant manifestation of the Spirit. Life is not for the sake of life alone, but for God, and the living soul of man is an eternal portion of the Godhead. Action is for self-finding, for self-fulfillment, for self-realization and not only for its own external and apparent fruits of the moment or the future.
…
Know then your self; know your true self to be God and one with the self of all others; know your soul to be a portion of God. Live in what you know; live in the self, live in your supreme spiritual nature, be united with God and Godlike. Offer, first, all your actions as a sacrifice to the Highest and the One in you and to the Highest and the One in the world; deliver last all you are and do into his hands for the supreme and universal spirit to do through you his own will and works in the world.
- ‘Essays on the Gita’, 1928
Podcast: The Ideal of the Karmayogin
A recitation of this beautiful essay by Sri Aurobindo that first appeared in the weekly review called Karmayogin on 19 June 1909. Click to download.
Podcast: Uttarapara Speech
Recitation of the famous Uttarapara Speech which Sri Aurobindo made on 30 May 1909 soon after his release from Alipore jail. Click to download.
Podcast: The Present Situation
Reading Sri Aurobindo is tough. On the part of the reader, it requires sustained concentration and an ability to follow arguments through long sentences. This is a pity because it is really a goldmine of spiritual knowledge.
Fortunately, the audio format makes it much more easier to digest his works and that too at a faster pace. Following is a podcast of an inspiring speech given by Sri Aurobindo at the Bombay National Union at Bombay on 19th January, 1908. Click to download this speech, and others too.
Download:
The Present Situation – Podcast
Listen:
The Yoga and Its Objects
The whole heart and action and mind of man must be changed, but from within, not from without, not by political and social institutions, not ourselves and the world and a remoulding of life by that realisation. This can only be effected by Purnayoga, a yoga not devoted to a particular purpose, even though that purpose be Mukti or Ananda, but to the fulfilment of the divine humanity in ourselves and others. For this purpose the practices of Hatha and Raja Yoga are not sufficient and even the Trimarga will not serve; we must go higher and resort to the Adhyatmayoga. The principle of Adhyatmayoga is, in knowledge, the realisation of all things that we see or do not see but are aware of,—men, things, ourselves, events, gods, titans, angels,—as one divine Brahman, and in action and attitude, an absolute self-surrender to the Paratpara Purusha, the transcendent, infinite and universal Personality who is at once personal and impersonal, finite and infinite, self-limiting and illimitable, one and many, and informs with his being not only the Gods above, but man and the worm and the clod below. The surrender must be complete. Nothing must be reserved, no desire, no demand, no opinion, no idea that this must be, that cannot be, that this should be and that should not be;—all must be given. The heart must be purified of all desire, the intellect of all self-will, every duality must be renounced, the whole world seen and unseen must be recognised as one supreme expression of concealed Wisdom, Power and Bliss, and the entire being given up, as an engine is passive in the hands of the driver, for the divine Love, Might and perfect Intelligence to do its work and fulfil its divine Lila. Ahankara must be blotted out in order that we may have, as God intends us ultimately to have, the perfect bliss, the perfect calm and knowledge and the perfect activity of the divine existence. If this attitude of perfect self-surrender can be even imperfectly established, all necessity of Yogic kriya inevitably ceases. For then God himself in us becomes the sadhaka and the siddha and his divine power works in us, not by our artificial processes, but by a working of Nature which is perfectly informed, all-searching and infallibly efficient. Even the most powerful Rajayogic samyama, the most developed pranayama, the most strenuous meditation, the most ecstatic Bhakti, the most self-denying action, mighty as they are and efficacious, are comparatively weak in their results when set beside this supreme working. For those are all limited to a certain extent by our capacity, but this is illimitable in potency because it is God’s capacity. It is only limited by his will which knows what is best for the world and for each of us in the world and apart from it.
‘The Yoga and Its Objects’, 1912
Old Age
There is one thing certain which is not clearly stated here, but which is at least as important as all the rest. It is this, that there is an old age much more dangerous and much more real than the amassing of years, the incapacity to grow and progress.
As soon as you stop advancing, as soon as you stop progressing, as soon as you cease to better yourself, cease to gain and grow, cease to transform yourself, you truly become old, that is to say, you go downhill towards disintegration.
There are young, people who are old and there are old people who are young. If you carry in you this flame for progress and transformation, if you are ready to leave everything behind so that you may advance with an alert step, if you are always open to a new progress, a new improvement, a new transformation, then you are eternally young. But if you sit back satisfied with what has been accomplished, if you have the feeling that you have reached your goal and you have nothing left to do but enjoy the fruit of your efforts, then already more than half your body is in the tomb it is decrepitude and the true death.
Everything that has been done is always nothing compared with what remains to be done. Do not look behind. Look ahead always ahead and go forward always.
- ‘Commentaries on the Dhammapada’, 25 April 1958
