The Synthesis of Yoga - Super school Auroville - The Synthesis of Yoga 502

Sri Aurobindo says Integral Yoga is known to every one of us. We know already. Therefore Sri Aurobindo says: “The lotus of the eternal knowledge and the eternal perfection is a bud closed and folded up within us.” Just as in a bud the whole of the flower is included. It is a fact. The entire flower when it blooms out was already present in the bud. Similarly this knowledge is also a bud in the heart of everyone. That bud: “It opens swiftly or gradually...” Both ways are possible: it can open swiftly at one stroke or it can open slowly, petal by petal. This is our normal procedure; this is what we are doing now. All of us are in the process of opening this bud little by little, petal by petal, “through successive realisations….” The word realisation means that you realise what you already have, what is real in you, you realise. All achievement is realisation, is remembrance through successive realisations. “…once his heart, no longer compressed and confined by attachment to finite appearances, becomes enamoured, in whatever degree, of the Infinite.” This is the only condition, we just have to turn — turning is the secret. As long as you don’t turn it will remain closed but the moment you turn towards it in the mind and in the heart, then it will open either swiftly or gradually. “All life, all thought, all energising of the faculties, all experiences passive or active, become thenceforward so many shocks which disintegrate the teguments of the soul and remove the obstacles to the inevitable efflorescence.” Once your mind turns to the Infinite then all your experiences, whatever happens to you, is only a shock by which you are reminded. What you have forgotten is remembered, and as a result all the teguments, all the obstacles, all the ties which are preventing you to remember are cut asunder and then you remember, you recover.

Then comes one of the greatest of all historical statements of the world: one short sentence: “He who chooses the Infinite has been chosen by the Infinite.” So even there you have an assurance that it is He, the Infinite Himself, who will choose and the sign of his choosing you is that you will choose Him. The moment you say: “Now I want to know the Divine,” it means the Divine has chosen you to know Him. The starting point is not you the starting point is He. He is the Lover and the moment he beacons you, you turn to Him. So “He who chooses the Infinite has been chosen by the Infinite.” Therefore it is always better on your part to choose because it will be the sign that you have been chosen. “He has received the divine touch without which there is no awakening.” It is like Socrates who calls Meno and says, “Come” and then Meno is asked questions. Without Socrates, Meno could not have recovered his knowledge of Pythagoras. Once the Divine chooses, all kind of questions will come up to you in your life and as you begin to answer these questions the Divine will be revealed, you will remember the Divine and you will achieve the perfection. But once it is received, attainment is sure.

You remember we started The Synthesis of Yoga because of one question which was raised. When we did the first Chapter of The Life Divine we came to the conclusion that we are now rationally convinced that aspiration for God, Light, Freedom, Bliss and Immortality is rationally justified. Granted this is so. The question was: “How should we realise it?” “How shall we attain to God, Light, Freedom, Bliss and Immortality?” This is the answer to that question basically. Although afterwards the answer is long but this is the basic answer, namely: the very fact that you ask the question in the class means you have chosen already and you chose it because He has chosen it. That is the sign otherwise you would not have raised this question at all. The very fact that you ask this question means the Divine has chosen that now you should know. You have reach the very important stage of being chosen. “…but once it is received attainment is sure.” This is the great assurance given to us. You have started, be sure it will be done. There is no stopping now. “…whether conquered swiftly in the course of one human life or pursued patiently through many stadia of the cycle of existence in the manifested universe.” If you so choose or if he so chooses you can attain within this life itself. Again when you decide that it has to be done in one life, remember: He has chosen that it should be in one life. But it may take a longer time it doesn’t matter — attainment is sure.

 Now comes the next paragraph, the very first sentence of which is an elucidation of the first line of the paragraph that we just read. This first line of the third paragraph is a repetition of the first line of the second paragraph but in other words. “Nothing can be taught to the mind which is not already concealed as potential knowledge in the unfolding soul of the creature.” If that knowledge was not concealed in your soul then nothing could be taught. If it can be taught it means: if you can learn, if you understand, it is because it was already in your soul, folded and it has now become unfolded. This is because we are nothing but an objective form of Him, all that He is so we are, only in the objective form, only in the mirror. But he is the original. We are a copy. We are only a reflection. Nothing can be taught to the mind which is not already concealed as potential knowledge in the unfolding soul of the creature. “So also all perfection of which the outer man is capable, is only a realising of the eternal perfection of the Spirit within him. We know the Divine and become the Divine, because we are That already in our secret nature. All teaching is a revealing, all becoming is an unfolding. Self-attainment is the secret; self-knowledge and an increasing consciousness are the means and the process.”

“…Self-attainment is the secret; self-knowledge and an increasing consciousness are the means and the process.” The more you go inward, the more you know yourself the more is the self-attainment. Usually we try to know by going outward. Here Sri Aurobindo says, go inward and the more you know yourself, within, you will know truly and even what is outer will be also known because of your knowledge of yourself. These last two sentences are extremely important for the entire life of everybody. All teaching is a revealing, all becoming is an unfolding. When you become teachers, in your life you remember this sentence. You arrive at a point where all that you say becomes a revelation. “All teaching is a revealing, all becoming is an unfolding. Self-attainment is the secret; self-knowledge and an increasing consciousness are the means and the process.”

These two paragraphs — the second and third paragraph — give you the whole shastra of the Integral Yoga. If there were no written books one could have said: “My dear friends what was to be told has been told, nothing more is needed to be told. Reflect on it, meditate on it and all that you want to know will be known.” But because there are written books we have the facility, we go ahead, we do not stop here and we have more and more elucidation. But what is told is told, fully. Everything is there. In fact these two paragraphs are all that has to be learned in the life. You do not need anything more than this. This was the style of the Upanishads. The student used to sit near the teacher, the teacher used to speak a few words and then say: “Now you meditate. Realise what I have told you.” This was the practice. But now such teachers are not available and they don’t have that capacity of revealing so we have to write long long books. And you have to repeat and elucidate and further elucidate…