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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 October 2008
Sri Aurobindo Ghose (1872–1950), the Indian Nationalist and yogi, developed in the period of his life at Pondicherry in Southeast India a system of thought, practice and experience which he called ‘Integral Yoga’. The title indicated, he said, that ‘it takes up the essence and many processes of the old Yogas — its newness is in its aim, standpoint and the totality of its method’. In the development of Integral Yoga Aurobindo believed he was speaking and acting as a ‘realized yogi’ or, better still, a yogi who was in the process of realization. He had not attained a final experience of jñāna, but he believed he had experienced levels of supra-mental consciousness which would lead to the higher level of Supermind itself.
page 365 note 1 This paper is concerned with the final period of Aurobindo's life after he had retired from direct political activity. For a delineation of his thought in the various periods of his life, see my forthcoming Sri Aurobindo: the Perfect and the Good (Calcutta: Minerva Associates, 1978).Google Scholar
page 365 note 2 Aurobindo, Sri, Birth Centenary Library (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, 1972), XXVI, 108. Hereafter this set of his complete works will be abbreviated BCL.Google Scholar
page 365 note 3 McDermott, Robert A., ‘The Life Divine: Sri Aurobindo's Philosophy of Evolution and Transformation’, in Six Pillars: Introductions to the Major Works of Sri Aurobindo, ed. by McDermott, Robert A. (Chambersburg, Pa.: Wilson Books, 1974), p. 166.Google Scholar
page 365 note 4 Aurobindo was very conscious of the progressive and yet revelatory nature of his experiences. However, 24 November 1926 was considered his ‘Day of Siddhi’. On that day Aurobindo experienced the descent of the Overwind consciousness to the level of the earth-consciousness. This was to him the assurance that the Supermind would descend. See for this experience the discussions of this event by his disciples: Iyengar, K. R. Srinivasa, Sri Aurobindo: A Biography and a History (3rd rev. ed. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, 1972), II, 987–91Google Scholar; and Diwakar, Ranganath Ramchandra, Mahayogi Sri Aurobindo: Life, Discipline and Teachings of Sri Aurobindo (5th ed.Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1972), pp. 193–4.Google Scholar Introductions to Aurobindo's thought are numerous. Besides Iyengar and Diwakar see Bruteau, Beatrice, Worthy is the World: The Hindu Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo (Rutherford, New Jersey: Farleigh Dickinson University Press, 1971). For his thought in the various periods of his life see my Ethics.Google Scholar
page 365 note 5 BCL XVIII, 137–41, 542.Google Scholar
page 365 note 6 Ibid. p. 136.
page 366 note 1 See Ibid. p. 579. Cf. pp. 78, 126. On the nature of such knowledge see pp. 7, 52.
page 366 note 2 BCL XXII, 176–84, 192.Google Scholar
page 366 note 3 BCL XIX, 912.
page 366 note 4 Calling the result a ‘system’ in the sense of a definite method of classification is not meant to imply that it is complete at all points, for Aurobindo himself speculates in his writings on some questions on the basis of his knowledge. He admits that he has no complete answer to some questions. See BCL XIX, 1013–14. Whether the certainty placed in this ‘system’ is ‘misplaced’ certainty as argued by Deutsch, Eliot (‘Sri Aurobindo's Interpretation of Spiritual Experience: A Critique’, International Philosophical Quarterly IV, 4 (December 1964), 591), however, is a normative judgment.Google Scholar
page 366 note 5 For a summary see BCL XIX, 824. For a chart of the levels of the involution/evolution see my Sri Aurobindo, pp. 108–9, or Robert McDermott, A., ‘Sri Aurobindo: An Integrated Theory of Individual and Historical Transformation’, International Philosophical Quarterly XII (June 1972), 175.Google Scholar A number of helpful diagrams illustrating the movement of ascent and descent may be found in Bruteau, pp. 123–4, 126–7.
page 366 note 6 BCL XVIII, 42, 843; xv, 396.Google Scholar
page 366 note 7 BCL XVIII, 599; XVIII, 167.Google Scholar
page 367 note 1 BCL XVIII, 611, 615.Google Scholar
page 367 note 2 For a full discussion of the problem of evil in Aurobindo's thought see my Sri Aurobindo, pp. 137–42.
page 367 note 3 BCL xv, 302.Google ScholarCf. his statement while a student in England, BCL III, 30.Google Scholar
page 367 note 4 BCL XXII, 174. Cf. also xv, 412 on ‘the Islamic religion’.Google Scholar
page 367 note 5 BCL XIV, 123–4.Google Scholar
page 368 note 1 BCL xv, 122.Google Scholar Cf. p. 145. By ‘a Being’ in this quotation, Aurobindo does not mean to limit the Divine to a personal god but to indicate that the personal is contained in the Absolute as is the impersonal. Actually, the Divine transcends both the personal and impersonal, though Aurobindo prefers impersonal terms. Cf. p. 352.
page 368 note 2 Ibid. p. 162.
page 368 note 3 Ibid. p. 125.
page 368 note 4 Ibid. p. 127.
page 369 note 1 Ibid. XVII, 54–5.
page 369 note 2 BCL XVIII, 283.Google Scholar
page 369 note 3 BCL xv, 122. Cf. XIII, 274.Google Scholar
page 369 note 4 Ibid. pp. 124–5.
page 369 note 5 BCL XXII, 137.Google Scholar
page 369 note 6 BCL XIX, 784, 865; xv, 244–5.Google Scholar
page 370 note 1 BCL xx, 149.Google Scholar
page 370 note 2 That this view is common to a large number of Indian religious thinkers probably need not be pointed out. Thus, that saguna brahman (Brahman with qualities) is a lower level object of devotion, while nirguna brahman (Brahman without qualities) is the absolute of higher knowledge, is the view of Śam¯kara (Brahmasutrabhasya I, I, II; I, 1, 20), and is accepted as ‘the Hindu’ belief by modern thinkers even though others who have been included by historians in the ‘Hindu’ tradition have affirmed that the Highest Reality has infinite qualities. (Cf. Sushil, Kumar De, The Early History of the Vaisnava Faith and Movement in Bengal (Calcutta: Firma K. L. Mukhopadhyay, 1961), p. 273.Google Scholar) Aurobindo on the one hand wanted to affirm both positions, but clearly relegated the worship of a god as worshipped by the Goswamins of Bengal (sixteenth century) to a level of greater ignorance on the evolutionary scheme.
page 370 note 3 BCL xv, 166. Emphasis mine.Google Scholar
page 370 note 4 BCL XVIII, 397. Cf. XIII, 272–3.Google Scholar
page 370 note 5 BCL xv, 213.Google Scholar
page 370 note 6 Ibid. p. 554. Cf. p. 542.
page 370 note 7 Ibid. pp. 546–7.
page 371 note 1 Ibid. p. 543.
page 371 note 2 BCL XVIII, 23, 415.Google Scholar
page 371 note 3 BCL xx, 163.Google ScholarCf. BCL xv, 168–70, 543, 554; XVIII, 126.Google Scholar
page 371 note 4 BCL xv, 125, 127, 162.Google Scholar
page 371 note 5 BCL XVIII, 67–8.Google Scholar
page 372 note 1 BCL XXII, 150.Google Scholar
page 372 note 2 BCL xv, 165.Google Scholar
page 372 note 3 Ibid. pp. 166–7.
page 372 note 4 BCL xx, 181.Google Scholar
page 373 note 1 BCL xv, 249.Google ScholarCf. BCL XIX, 863.Google Scholar
page 373 note 2 BCL XIX, 699–701.Google Scholar
page 373 note 3 BCL xv, 386.Google Scholar
page 373 note 4 Cf. his critique: BCL XVI, 249.
page 373 note 5 One would hope that this is so obvious a historical case that examples need not be given. The difficulty might be in finding many devotees and religious thinkers who would agree that their own views were less than ultimate, and Aurobindo's view more complete.
page 374 note 1 See Long, J. Bruce, ‘A New Yoga for a New Age: A Critical Introduction to The Synthesis of Yoga’ in McDermott, Robert A. (ed), Six Pillars: Introductions to the Major Works of Sri Aurobindo (Chambersburg, Pa.: Wilson Books, 1974), pp. 97–128.Google ScholarCf. BCL XX, 5, 7.Google Scholar
page 374 note 2 BCL XX, 15.Google Scholar
page 374 note 3 Ibid.
page 374 note 4 Ibid. p. 17.
page 374 note 5 E.g. Śam¯kara and the Buddha, BCL XVIII, 415–16, 454–5.Google Scholar
page 374 note 6 Ibid. p. 461.
page 375 note 1 BCL xv, 528.Google Scholar By ‘spirituality’ Aurobindo means the emphasis upon the Divine within and the evolutionary process of the Divine. Cf. Ibid. p. 554.
page 375 note 2 Ibid. p. 164.
page 375 note 3 Ibid. pp. 152–3.
page 375 note 4 BCL XIX, 1058–9.Google Scholar
page 375 note 5 BCL XXII, 139.Google Scholar
page 375 note 6 BCL XXI, 594.Google Scholar
page 375 note 7 BCL XIX, 1022, 1023; XV, 339.Google Scholar
page 376 note 1 BCL XXII, 139.Google Scholar
page 376 note 2 This is the title and subject of chapter thirty-four, BCL xv, 541–7.Google Scholar
page 376 note 3 Ibid. p. 554.
page 376 note 4 Ibid. pp. 213–14.
page 376 note 5 Ibid. p. 544.
page 376 note 6 BCL XIX, 672.Google Scholar
page 376 note 7 BCL xv, 215.Google Scholar
page 377 note 1 Cf. my Sri Aurobindo, pp. 137–42.Google Scholar
page 377 note 1 Cf. BCL XIII, 301n.Google Scholar