The Synthesis of Yoga - Super school Auroville - The Synthesis of Yoga 1001

All life is Yoga. Yesterday we said that, isn’t it? And we pointed out that this statement brings out what is entirely new in Sri Aurobindo and Mother’s works. I have made the statement but I have not yet shown you the details of this novelty. You should keep this with a question mark in your diary. I have not yet proved it to you because that will take us into more details. “All life is Yoga.”: this statement brings out what is new in Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, what was never present earlier. I only told you one sentence as a formula that in order that all life is yoga you have to dissolve four poison stings: falsehood, sorrow, darkness and death. These are the four stings and unless they are conquered and removed we cannot say that all life is being proved to be yoga. All life must be a manifestation of the Divine. In fact, the very book’s name is The Life Divine. Life becomes completely Divine and if it becomes really Divine there is no place for falsehood, sorrow, darkness and death. And I pointed out that this can be achieved only if the Supreme Consciousness can enter into the inconscient and can transform it, because these four stings arise out of the inconscient. So unless you deal with the inconscient you cannot deal with these four poisonous flowers of the inconscient. This I have told you only in the form of a formula, like a sutra. Next time I shall have to tell you in detail what is the Supreme consciousness, what is the inconscient, how the inconscient is capable of being transformed and what will be the process by which it can be transformed. Only then shall we have proved that “All life is Yoga.” So till that time you use it only as a formula to be worked out as yet -- in fact the whole book The Life Divine is an explanation of this formula. And the whole book The Synthesis of Yoga is an exposition of the process by which the inconscient can be conquered, transformed, out of which the result will be the elimination of these four flowers of the inconscient. Having said this we shall now proceed further with the four aids.

“By this Yoga we not only seek the Infinite, but we call upon the Infinite to unfold himself in human life.” It is the same statement as “All life is Yoga”. By this yoga we not only seek the Infinite, we not only reach the Supreme Consciousness but we call upon the infinite, the Supreme Consciousness to unfold itself in human life right to the inconscient. “Therefore the Shastra of our Yoga must provide for an infinite liberty in the receptive human soul. A free adaptability in the manner and the type of the individual’s acceptance of the Universal and Transcendent into himself is the right condition for the full spiritual life in man. Vivekananda, pointing out that the unity of all religions must necessarily express itself by an increasing richness of variety in its forms, said once that the perfect state of that essential unity would come when each man had his own religion, when not bound by sect or traditional form he followed the free self-adaptation of his nature in its relations with the Supreme. So also one may say that the perfection of the integral Yoga will come when each man is able to follow his own path of Yoga, pursuing the development of his own nature in its upsurging towards that which transcends the nature. For freedom is the final law and the last consummation.” There are three things that I would like to point out.

First is the statement of Vivekananada. This statement speaks of every man having his own religion, a religion different from the religion of another. The second is Integral yoga having such a possibility of adaptability that each one of us will have his own yoga. Not one fixed law, not one fixed system and process of yoga meant for all. Each one having his own process although each one of them will be integral. But each one will have his own process of development. And third is the question of freedom. There are three things which we need to attempt to understand in this paragraph.

 So let us start first with the question of religion. The ordinary belief is that religion is a method, is a process of relating oneself with the Divine or with that which is highest. Every universal religion such as Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism claims that it is applicable to everyone in the world -- one uniform religion applicable to all people in the world. And therefore it claims that other religions are either wrong, erroneous or subordinate whereas one’s own religion is the highest. This is the present condition of those who believe in religion and who are adherents of one religion or the other. A Christian believes that Christianity is the best religion and everyone in the world ultimately ought to embrace Christianity. One religion, one uniform religion which should be embraced by everyone in the world. Islam believes that it is the best religion and that everyone in the world should embrace Islam; that the way of meeting the highest is what is laid down in Koran. Christianity believes that the way of meeting the highest in laid down in the Bible. This is the mark of religion. Religion is a way of meeting the Highest, or the Divine, it is a method of meeting the Divine and that this method is universally applicable uniformly. It is a very important part of the definition of religion.

Vivekananda travelled all over the world and his main message was this: Let religions not quarrel among themselves; let no religion claim that it is the best religion. He pointed out that actually everyone should have his own religion. There is no religion as such which is supreme. For each individual there can be one special religion and in that sense the present number of religions are not enough. There are only five or eight, at the most ten religions. He pointed out that everyone should be able to develop his own religion, his own method of meeting the Highest. For each one his religion is the method by which he can rise. For him his religion is better than others but it is not that for everyone it is better than others. This is the way in which he tried to show how the conflict of religion can be overcome. Even among Christians there can be as many Christian religions as individuals. Or one may even transcend what is Christianity. The reason behind this proposition was that his own teacher Sri Ramakrishna made a tremendous experiment in the life of religions.