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ARTArticleThe Role of Aspiration in the Spiritual Development of the Integral YogaSri Aurobindo identifies aspiration as one of the important steps in the sadhana of the integral yoga. What exactly is aspiration? We can understand it by looking at the operation of a frequency tuner, such as a radio or television tuner. There are numerous channels available, and the tuner allows the user to focus the reception on a specific channel. Aspiration acts as the tuning methodology to focus the attention and awareness on the Divine. Through aspiration, we call the divine forces into our lives.ARTArticleThe Role of Devotion and Love in the Integral YogaEvery part of the being must be engaged if the integral yoga is to progress. The physical body, the vital being, the emotional being, and the mind all have their role. What is a chore for the physical being, and a dry intellectual endeavour for the mind, becomes a source of joy and dedication when it comes from the emotional center. The emotional center is also closest to the true soul, the psychic being, within. Thus, there is an important, even essential role for devotion in the practice of the yoga.ARTArticleThe Role of Free Will in the Surrender of the EgoOur mental logic frequently stumbles over the apparent contradictions that lead us to adopt an extreme position over a more nuanced view of things. The debate about the role of free will in the processes of the yoga which involve the surrender of the ego to the action of the divine Force is one such area. Some people believe that surrender involves giving up any aspect of free will, and thus, they enter into a very passive state of fatality about what happens and when.ARTArticleThe Role of the Emotions in the Practice of the Integral YogaEmotions tend to be hard to deal with. Spiritual seekers recognise that emotions can disrupt the focus and lead the seeker into undesirable vital entanglements. Many spiritual paths counsel cutting off the emotional outlets and renouncing the life in the world. They ask the seeker to abandon family, friends and career, abandon relationships in society, in order to create a calm, quiet, focused life within which the spiritual aspiration can thrive. Other spiritual paths may try to harness the emotions to provide the intensity they evoke, while redirecting the energy created to divine worship.ARTArticleThe Role of the Mental Will in the Spiritual Development of the Integral YogaThe will power is a real and important part of the effort by the individual. Will power can be developed through exercise, just as we develop the physical muscles through exercise and weight training. In our development of the mental will, we frequently become frustrated when something we try to accomplish does not work out quickly or easily. How many people have tried to control their diet, or change some habit of reaction through exercise of the will, and lamented their failure! But this is simply an incorrect understanding of the process.ARTArticleThe Role of Work in the Sadhana of the Integral YogaThere is a famous story in the Upanishads which illustrates both the role and the power of work in spiritual practice and realisation. A youth approached a teacher to learn the spiritual truths of existence. The teacher handed over to him 2 head of cattle and said that he would take him up as a formal disciple when he returned with a herd of 1000 cattle. The youth went into the forest, living an isolated life, and focused on how to build the herd up, facing all the difficulties, obstacles and issues, both internal and exte
al, over a number of years that it took to accomplish this feat.ARTArticleThe Secret Significance and Process of EvolutionWestern science has attempted to understand existence by analysis, first and foremost of the outer forms and forces we experience in the world around us. The mind’s analytical and organisational capabilities have been brought intensively to bear upon the forms of existence, the material basis, the vital life-forms and the developments of mental capacity. Charles Darwin conducted extensive research which he recounted in his seminal work in the field titled The Origin of Species.ARTArticleThe Silent Mind Prepares the Receptivity for the Advent of the Higher Consciousness in the BeingAn important principle for the practitioner of yoga is to recognise that the old habits and ways of acting and reacting need to be removed in order to open up the capacity to receive the new powers of consciousness that are in the process of manifesting. Yoga is more or less a process of applied psychology with the secret leverage of refocusing the being away from the normal actions of body-life-mind toward a new higher level of awareness and force. As long as the original mind-life-body complex holds sway, the old ways will continue to dominate and control the time and attention.ARTArticleThe Spirit, the Soul and the Psychic BeingThere is considerable confusion about the various terms used to describe the spiritual quest and the reality of our individual existence. Sri Aurobindo distinguishes and defines the different aspects or elements and their role in spiritual practice. There is additional confusion around the term “psychic being”. The term “psychic” is used in a vastly different sense in today’s society, and thus, his use of the term can be easily misunderstood.ARTArticleThe Spiritual Life, the Religious Life and the Ordinary Human LifeOrdinary human life is essentially driven by response to outer circumstances, and is based in the desires, needs and reactions of the ego-personality. The interaction between people in a society, whether in the smallest groupings such as the family, or larger groupings of community, country or international relations, is essentially a widening of this same principle. In order to mitigate the effects of the underlying principles of a self-seeking for self-aggrandisement or defense, human society has developed concepts we call morality.ARTArticleThe Spiritual Need of the Modern AgeWe live in a time of extreme challenge where the entire fate of humanity, and of the planet we live on, is at risk. We have explored in every possible direction and created thereby the ultimate fragmentation, pitting every religion, philosophy and creed against one another in a battle for the hearts and minds of people everywhere. At the same time we have, through modern technology and communication, brought the entire world together and thereby accentuated the clash of ideologies. We find however no solution and no satisfaction in the doctrines of the past.ARTArticleThe Spiritual RevolutionHumanity is facing a crisis of existential proportions. Climate change, pollution, income inequality, access to fresh water and food, and the consequences that lead to mass migration, war, and increased risk of pandemic disease vectors all are forcing us to confront our entire way of looking at and thinking about life. We look for solutions through science and technology, through research into the material forces of the universe, through a moral revolution, through religious conversion, or through intellectual plans and ideas, ideologies and creeds for living.ARTArticleThe Supreme Consciousness and the Creative Force of ManifestationIndian spirituality and philosophy has recognized two primary aspects to existence, the Supreme Consciousness that creates, informs, constitutes and contains all that exists, and the Creative Force that actually manifests the universal creation. The Gita describes the Supreme Consciousness as the Purushottama, the ultimate Purusha, and the Creative Force as the Para Prakriti, the Divine Shakti, the supreme executive Nature.ARTArticleThe Surface Being and the Inner BeingFor most people, their lives are focused on the exte
al world and their inner life consists mainly of brooding over or planning actions within that context. Even the distinction between extrovert and introvert is primarily a difference in ways of response to the world. The extrovert tends to be social and outgoing, while the introvert may be more indrawn and focused on the internal monologue about their exte
al reality.ARTArticleThe Surrender of the Ego-Personality to the DivineThe ego-sense, in its attempt to be in control and glorify in its success, abhors the very idea of “surrender”. The connotation of the term in English is loaded with negative inferences, yet in other languages there are more subtle and deeper meanings to be unlocked. For instance, in Sanskrit, the term atmasamarpanam has the sense of self-offering. Similarly in German, self-surrender translates as ‘selbsthingabe’ which conveys a sense of dedication, commitment or self-offering.ARTArticleThe Tantra and the Integral YogaThe Tantric tradition has developed a methodology (frequently and widely misunderstood and misapplied), to bring about the opening of the subtle energy centers, called chakras, that reside within our energetic body and control the various functionality of powers of body, life and mind within our human instrument.ARTArticleThe Three Transformations of Consciousness in the Integral YogaIn The Life Divine, Sri Aurobindo provides a detailed explanation of what he describes as the “triple transformation”. The first two, the psychic and spiritual transformations, are well-known steps in the spiritual journey and thus, for a good portion of the way, the traditional paths of yoga may provide a solid foundation. The third transformation involves the descent of the supramental consciousness into the earth-consciousness and the subsequent changes that this effects in the mind, life and physical form of the earth-nature.ARTArticleThe Transcendental, the Cosmic and the Individual DivineThe idea of a trinity of aspects or statuses of the Divine has arisen throughout the major religious and spiritual traditions of the world. It is relatively easy to conceptualise this by looking at how we experience the world. We start with an individual perspective, and reference life from that standpoint. Our interaction with the world provides a second aspect, that of the universal creation of which we are a part and within which we participate. The third aspect is the one that the Upanishads reference when they try to avoid the limited definitions available to our mental framework.ARTArticleThe Transition from Supermind through Overmind to the Consciousness of Body-Life-MindWe start in our human way of mental understanding simply accepting what we believe to be the entirety of our existence as we experience it.ARTArticleThe Transitional Stage of Shifting from the Outer Surface Consciousness to the Inner ConsciousnessAt a certain stage of spiritual development, seekers tend to go through a phase where the world, its actions, objects, goals and results seem to be an illusion. The philosophical path of Mayavada resulted from just such an insight and experience. The seeker sees that everything is transitory and ephemeral in nature, that the objects of our desires and the fruits of our actions all crumble into dust and are not permanent. Everything changes and dies. There is nothing one can hold onto in the world that is not subject to death and dissolution.ARTArticleThe True Soul: the Psychic BeingThe nature of the soul and its function has been a subject of intense interest and debate for thousands of years around the world. Some claim there is no soul and that everything is simply a function of material forces randomly combining to create our existence and sense of intelligence. Others look at our lives as being created for one lifetime and thereafter we experience either a heaven or hell depending on the kind of life we have led. Still others claim there is no soul, but there is a stream of dependent origination that carries the momentum of energy forward forward into the future.ARTArticleThe Vital Nature and Its TransformationAs each phase of the evolution of consciousness manifests, it arises from the prior stage and continues to interact with that stage. At the point of meeting, the stages take on characteristics that resemble in many ways both together. Thus, the higher forms of Matter begin to exhibit characteristics of response, such as increased conductivity, responsiveness to stimuli, such as heat and cold, pressure and stress that presage the responses we observe in life.ARTArticleThe Way of the Integral YogaMany paths of yoga teach a fixed method that everyone who takes it up is asked to follow in a precise and standardized way. Whether it is the use of a fixed set of asanas, pre-determined pranayama routines, set routines of prayer, mantra, japa, or devotional practices, everyone is given essentially the same starting point and are set to reach essentially the same result at the end of the process.ARTArticleThe World is a Manifestation of the DivineThe mind can justify a world of illusion that has its outlet in an escape to unity with an undifferentiated, unmoving Absolute; and it can equally justify a world of reality that is the manifestation of the Being who creates, sustains, informs, contains and constitutes that world. The various concepts each provide a basis for a spiritual seeking and realisation. One of these paths leads away from the world of existence. The other unifies the transcendent, the universal and the individual in the One Reality, the “one without a second” while describing that “all this is the Brahman.”ARTArticleThe Worlds and Planes of ConsciousnessWe tend to take for granted the feelings, emotions, ideas, thoughts, creative impulses, imaginations, insights, inspirations and intuitions we experience. We do not generally try to find out the source of these things, or how they come to be known to or experienced by us. We treat our bodies as some kind of a “black box” that simply “does” these things.ARTArticleThe Yoga of the Supermind To Transform Earthly LifeThe integral yoga is not an attempt to abandon this life and achieve some realisation beyond. There is no promise of a heaven of bliss, nor an escape from the difficulties posed by matter, life and mind and their interaction in the world.ARTArticleThese small habits will change your life.Daily Habits.
The sole reason for this part is the Power of Habit, Discipline, and attitude.
I have set certain daily goals and habits that I practice rigorously no matter what weather, what time. I dedicate some amount of time for the mastery:
Read 50 pages daily of good self-improvement, psychology, philosophy, investment, finances, physics, astronomy or any knowledgeable book you think will add something valuable to your mind and personality. There is a ton of gold out there, Search, buy and read it. It will improve and develop the domain of your mindset and knowledge.rARTArticleThree Differences Between Integral Yoga and Traditional Spiritual PathsPeople frequently wonder how the integral yoga may differ from the traditional paths of yogic practice. The aim of the integral yoga is to transform consciousness here on earth; it is not fixated solely on individual liberation, although individual realisation is a necessary step on the path, but rather, it looks towards the entire collective consciousness of life on earth as the field of change. This involves fixing the next phase of the evolution of consciousness into the earth-plane, a phase Sri Aurobindo terms “supramental”, as it is beyond the mental level.ARTArticleThree Necessary Conditions to Receive and Act Under the Impulsion of the Divine ForceAs long as we identify with the individual ego-personality, we remain bound to the limits of the body-life-mind complex. The action of the Divine Force under such conditions is necessarily diffused and diluted. The energy is mixed with the much more fragmentary and limited goals and objectives of the human individual and the result is thereby very much weakened.ARTArticleThree Parts of Your Being: Conscience, Subconscious, and SoulMany ancient cultures embraced the concept of the mind consisting of conscious awareness (and unconscious) coexisting with the soul or super-conscious.
“Just as the soul fills the body, so God fills the world. Just as the soul bears the body, so God endures the world. Just as the soul sees but is not seen, so God sees but is not seen. Just as the soul feeds the body, so God gives food to the world.”
Marcus Tullius Cicero