Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Triple Transformation - Track 906

Process of Yoga

The entire operation of breaking the veil is called the process of yoga. The veil is not only thick but multiple. It is not as if there is only one veil which we just cut asunder and you are out of it. It is multiple; it has many layers of this thickness. It is multisided and that is the reason why you have to have a multisided process of yoga. This multisided process of yoga consists first of three processes: purification, concentration and enrichment. Wherever we find impurity we have to purify ourselves. All impurities are mixtures, obscurities, overlapping of one principle over the other in a confusion. These are the basic impurities. So these impurities are to be purified.

Then there is a process of concentration in which we concentrate on wherever we find a thick veil and the veil is torn. This is the secret process of tearing the veil. Wherever you experience a veil, you concentrate upon it and by the force of concentration the veil tears. This was the great discovery made by the Vedic rishis. If you want to tear the veil, how do you tear it, – by the method of concentration.

And thirdly there is a process of enrichment. Our capacities today are limited, small, so these capacities are to be sharpened, chiselled, augmented, brightened, perfected. So with every capacity that we have, this is the process to be done. These are the three processes, – details of course are many – but these are the three basic processes.

In every system of yoga if you analyse ultimately, whether it is Hatha yoga or Raja yoga, or Bhakti yoga or Karma yoga or Jnana yoga, the three basic processes you will find in all of them are these three: purification, concentration, enrichment. Ultimately what happens by these three processes is an experience of liberation. We feel liberated from limitations, liberated from this veil. The first experience of every process of yoga, is the experience of some kind of a liberation. The highest of this liberation comes up when you have a liberation from the sense of egoism. And then one of the major experiences of liberation is the experience of the bird swinging out of the cage, soaring into the vast sky of freedom. But at all other levels there are some kind of small liberations. Secondly you find an experience of some kind of ascension, you feel as if you are ascending from a lower level to the higher level, or you find yourself going from the surface to the inner level, and to the inmost level. You also find a process of descent, you may rise up to a certain level and the powers of the level you have reached are brought down in to the lower levels.

I have learnt mentally that goodwill is the most important thing in our life. When somebody tells you that goodwill is the most important thing, it is a mental idea you have gained – then your try to apply goodwill in every activity of your life. This is an action of descent, you have attained a certain knowledge that goodwill is important and then you translate it in every activity. You translate it in the first place in your activities of friendship; goodwill towards friends is much easier. Goodwill towards neighbours whom you know or even you do not know is a more difficult task. So you descend into those activities and then you translate goodwill towards enemies, a much more difficult task. You translate it at lower and lower levels and transform yourself.  This is only one example but for every higher idea or a higher consciousness there is this process of descending. You bring it down lower and lower, so there is a constant process of ascent and descent. Or you also bring out from within, when you go inward, it is not exactly the process of descent but a process of bringing out from within, when you go inward. Then the powers which are within are brought out. When you go higher then the powers which are above are brought down. So bringing out and bringing down, these are the two other processes. When you go inwards into the psychic being you can experience the powers of the psychic being, the sweetness of the psychic being, the fire of the psychic being, the purity of the psychic being, and allow your mind, life and body to be drenched by this purity, by this light by this sweetness. You can let body, life and mind be drenched to such an extent that each and every corner of the body, life and mind is full of the psychic waters. Everywhere there is sweetness in nature, every vibration is sweetness, every vibration is luminous, every vibration is of goodwill, everything is turned to the truth, everything is turned to beauty. When this is done, it is first a process of change and then a process of conversion and then a process of transformation.