Two Necessary Things in the Practice of the Integral Yoga

There is a considerable amount of confusion about objectives and methods related to the practice of the integral yoga, primarily due to widely spread ideas about spirituality in general and well-known paths and disciplines that have their own fixed methodologies. Integral Yoga has a different objective from traditional spiritual paths, as the goal is not to escape from life but to bring down the next stage of evolutionary expression of consciousness, and thereby to transform the actions of mind, life and body and the relationship to the exte
al world within which we live.

Essentially, there are two primary needs that Sri Aurobindo sets forth. The practitioner needs to become aware of the psychic being, the soul entity within that is the spark of the Divine Presence in the individual. This awareness creates and maintains a direct contact with the Divine and has the aspiration, and receptivity, needed to bring the Divine Force to bear on the individual’s exte
al being. The seeker also needs to find a way to abstract himself from total immersion and involvement in the exte
al ego-personality. This is best done through a process of shifting the awareness away from the surface being to the witness consciousness, the Purusha, which is not involved in the actions of the exte
al nature, Prakriti. By undertaking these two critical steps, the seeker gains the needed perspective and power to effectuate transformative change in the nature over time.

Sri Aurobindo observes: “It is not an undesirable thing for the mind to fall silent, to be free from thoughts and still — for it is oftenest when the mind falls silent that there is the full descent of a wide peace from above and in that wide tranquillity the realisation of the silent Self above the mind spread out in its vastness everywhere. Only, when there is the peace and the mental silence, the vital mind tries to rush in and occupy the place or else the mechanical mind tries to raise up for the same purpose its round of trivial habitual thoughts. What the sadhak has to do is to be careful to reject and hush these outsiders, so that during the meditation at least the peace and quietude of the mind and vital may be complete. This can be done best if you keep a strong and silent will. That will is the will of the Purusha behind the mind; when the mind is at peace, when it is silent one can become aware of the Purusha, silent also, separate from the action of the nature.”

“To be calm, steady, fixed in the spirit, dhira sthira, this quietude of the mind, this separation of the inner Purusha from the outer Prakriti is very helpful, almost indispensable. So long as the being is subject to the whirl of thoughts or the turmoil of the vital movements, one cannot be thus calm and fixed in the spirit. To detach oneself, to stand back from them, to feel them separate from oneself is indispensable.”

“For the discovery of the true individuality and building up of it in the nature, two things are necessary, first, to be conscious of one’s psychic being behind the heart and, next, this separation of the Purusha from the Prakriti. For the true individual is behind veiled by the activities of the outer nature.”

Sri Aurobindo, Bases of Yoga, Chapter 1, Calm — Peace — Equality, pp. 3-4