The Synthesis of Yoga - Super school Auroville - The Synthesis of Yoga 101

“Yoga-siddhi, the perfection that comes from the practice of Yoga, can be best attained by the combined working of four great instruments. There is, first, the knowledge of the truths, principles, powers and processes that govern the realisation — shastra.”

Some processes may be very short if you want to move very fast and if you know the principles then even processes can be shortened. The knowledge of processes is conditioned by the knowledge of principles. And the principles always depend upon the Truth, - so, truths, principles, powers and processes. These four things are necessary.

Any book that describes these four things is called shastra. If you read the Bhagavad Gita for example you get the same kind of knowledge of the truths, principles, powers and processes. That is why the Bhagavad Gita is also called Yoga shastra. If you read the Upanishads you have the same: truths, principles, powers and processes. Upanishads are also called Yoga shastra. The Veda also contains the truths, principles, powers and processes. Veda is also called Yoga shastra. There are many other Yoga shastras in India and also elsewhere, in other parts of the world. There are many, many such shastras.

But no shastra deals with the problem with which we have started. We have started with the question: “How do we realise divine life on the earth?” Some shastras describe only how you can ascend towards the Divine. They do not tell you how to come back. You go upwards but they don’t tell you how to come down. Some tell you how to go upwards up to a certain point but not beyond that point. The Veda for example gives you the shastra of going upwards and also coming down but not to that point which will make collective divine life on the earth possible. That requires a further descent. Therefore this book, The Synthesis of Yoga, is the only book which tells you how to realise divine life on the earth. Not only to rise up towards the Divine but to bring down the Divine to such an extent that the whole earth can be flooded with the Divine Light.

Therefore we have selected this book. I had selected the Veda initially just to begin. It only prepared your mind, whether you remember or not does not matter. We shall come back again one day to all that we have dealt with in the first part of our journey. But that created a climate in your mind. So that everything that comes here will not be so strange as it would have been. One day we shall study the Upanishads, at least a few of them. One day we shall study also the Bhagavad Gita because that gives you a passage. We shall also study what Christ for example has said about the movement towards the Divine, the manifestation of the Divine Love on the earth for example. There are many such processes and we shall come across many of them.

But this book, The Synthesis of Yoga, is the one book that gives you the most articulate and intellectually the most satisfying statement. All the questions that you may have regarding the truths, principles, powers and processes of the divine realisation on the earth, all that has been addressed in fullness. Even that fullness is not yet full in this book. If you read the whole book you will find towards the end that it is incomplete. Thereafter there are thirteen volumes which are called Mother’s Agenda — L’Agenda de Mère — and Mother herself has said these Agenda books are the continuation of The Synthesis of Yoga. It is very large, very intricate, detailed, extremely scientific, microscopic — just as when you see under a microscope you can see things much enlarged, the minute things are seen, similarly these two volumes of The Synthesis of Yoga and the thirteen volumes of the Mother’s Agenda are the long canvas before us.

But the first Chapter gives you what you need to know. That is a great solace that we have everything here. If you read this Chapter very carefully and then you proceed on the way then other things will follow very easily. That is why I am slowly entering into this Chapter without any haste so that every word is grasped as fully as possible.

So, the first instrument of yogic realisation is the knowledge of the truths, principles, powers and processes of yoga that leads to realisation. “Next, comes a patient and persistent action on the lines laid down by the knowledge, the force of our personal effort…” Even if you know what is the process that will not lead you to realisation unless you make an effort yourself. And effort of what kind: patient and persistent. Do not have the ambition of realizing now at this moment — be patient. Don’t say: Twelve years I have been doing sadhana and nothing happened. Don’t worry, thirty-six years is a minimum, - does not matter. Even seventy years is not enough, - so patience. But if you have no ambition, you will find every time sufficient signs of your progress which will give you a push to move forward. There is no need to be disappointed in this process. If you feel disappointed it means that you do not know how to be patient. When you feel disappointed remember that you are too impatient. Remember that you have too great an ambition. And in this process you should have no ambition. Let us do at every moment what is to be done, as perfectly as possible, and in due course everything will be fulfilled. So patience is a very important word.