Integrality (Vividha
Rachana, 1955) Sri Aurobindo
WRITINGS IN BENGALI TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH
You
have stepped on to the path of integral Yoga. Try to
fathom the meaning and the aim of the integral Yoga before you advance. He who has the noble aspiration of attaining the high summit of
realisation should know thoroughly these two things; the aim and the path. Of the path I shall speak later on. First
it is necessary to draw before your eyes, in bold outline, the complete picture
of the aim.
What is the meaning of integrality? Integrality is the image of the Divine being, the dharma of the
Divine nature. Man is incomplete, striving after and
evolving towards the fullness and moving in the flow of gradual manifestation
of the Self. Integrality is his destination; man is only
a half-disclosed form of the Divine, that is why he is travelling towards the
Divine integrality. In this human bud hides the
fullness of the Divine lotus, and it is the endeavour of Nature to bring it
into blossom gradually and slowly. In the practice of
the Yoga, the Yoga-shakti begins to open it at a great speed, with a lightning
rapidity. That which people call full manhood — mental
progress, ethical purity, beautiful development of the faculties of mind,
strength of character, vital force, physical health — is not the Divine
integrality. It is only the fullness of a partial
dharma of Nature. The real indivisible integrality can
only come from the integrality of the Self, from the integrality of the
Supramental Force beyond the mind, because the indivisible Self is the real
Purusha, and the Purusha in mind, life or body is only a partial outward and
debased play of the Supermind. The real integrality can
only come when the mind is transformed into the Supermind. By
the Supramental Force, the Self has created the universe and regulated it; by the Supramental Force, it
raises the part to the Whole. The Self in man is
concealed behind the veil of mind. It can be seen when
this veil is removed. The power of the Self can feel in
the mind the half-revealed, half-hidden, diminished form and play. Only when the Supramental Force unfolds itself, can the Self
fully emerge.
WRITINGS IN BENGALI TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH
The
Integral Yoga, the divine life founded on the Self, in a human body, and the
integral Lila conducted by the Divine Power, these we preach to be the supreme
goal of our human birth; the fundamental basis of this conclusion does not rest
upon a mentally constructed new thought, nor does it derive its authority from
the letters of any ancient manuscript, the proof of any written scripture or
the formula of any philosophy. It is based upon a spiritual knowledge more
integral; it is based upon the burning experience of the Divine Reality in the
soul, life, mind, heart and body. This knowledge is not a new discovery
but old and indeed eternal. This experience is the experience of the
ancient Vedic Rishis, of the supreme Truth-Seers of the Upanishads. It is
the experience of those Truth-Hearing Poets. It sounds new in the
low-aspiring, fruitlessly busy and despondent life of a fallen India of the
Kali-yuga.Where most people are content to lead a semi-human existence, and so
few ever make an effort to develop even their full manhood, there cannot be any
question about the new godhood. But it was with this ideal that our strong
Aryan forefathers shaped the first life of the nation. At the rapturous
dawn of the Sun-knowledge, the fervent call of the Vedic chants sung by the
bird of felicity, self-lost with Soma wine in its voice, rose to the feet of
the Universal Being. The high aspiration of enshrining the glorious image
of the immortal Universal being in the soul of man, in the life of man, by
shaping an all-round divinity, was the primary mantra of the Indian
civilization. Gradual enfeeblement, deformation and forgetting of that
mantra are the causes of the decline and the misfortune of this country and the
nation.To 
utter that mantra again, to strive for that realisation again, are the
only perfect path, the only irreproachable means for their revival and progress
because this mantra is the eternal truth where both the individual and the
collectivity find their fulfilment. This is the profound significance of
the effort of man, the building up of nations, the birth and the gradual
development of civilisation. All other aims whose pursuit tires our mind
and life are minor and partial aims, aids to the true intention of the gods. All
other fragmentary realisations which gratify us are no more than rest-houses on
the way, fixing of victory flags on the peaks along the path. The true
aim, the true realisation is the unfolding of the Brahman, its
self-manifestation, the visible diffusion of the Power of the Divine, the Lila
of His Knowledge and Ananda, not in a few great souls, but in everybody in the
nation and the entire humanity.
utter that mantra again, to strive for that realisation again, are the
only perfect path, the only irreproachable means for their revival and progress
because this mantra is the eternal truth where both the individual and the
collectivity find their fulfilment. This is the profound significance of
the effort of man, the building up of nations, the birth and the gradual
development of civilisation. All other aims whose pursuit tires our mind
and life are minor and partial aims, aids to the true intention of the gods. All
other fragmentary realisations which gratify us are no more than rest-houses on
the way, fixing of victory flags on the peaks along the path. The true
aim, the true realisation is the unfolding of the Brahman, its
self-manifestation, the visible diffusion of the Power of the Divine, the Lila
of His Knowledge and Ananda, not in a few great souls, but in everybody in the
nation and the entire humanity.
We
see the first form and stage of this knowledge and this sadhana in the Rigveda,
the earliest characters inscribed on the Stupa near the entrance to the temple
of the Aryan dharma at the beginning of history. We cannot say with
certainty that it finds expression for the first time in the Rigveda, because
even the Rishis of the Rigveda admit that those who were before them, the early
ancestors of the Aryan race, ‘the primeval fathers of the human race’, had
discovered this path of truth and immortality for the later man. They also
say that the new Rishis were only following the path which had been shown to
them by the ancient Rishis. We find that the mantra of the Rigveda is the
echo of the words of the ‘fathers’, of the Divine speech they uttered;
consequently, the form of the dharma that we see in the Rigveda can be said to
be its earliest form. The knowledge of the Upanishads,
the sadhana of the Vedanta are only a very noble and generous transformation of
this dharma. The knowledge of the supreme Divine and
the sadhana for attaining the Divine life of the Vedas, the Self-knowledge and the
sadhana for realising the Brahman of the Upanishads, both of them are based on
a synthetic dharma; various aspects of the cosmic Purusha and the cosmic
Shakti, the supreme Divine unifying all the truths of the Brahman, the
experience and the pursuit of the All-Brahman are its intimate subject-matter. Then started the age of analysis. The
Purva Mimansa, the Uttara Mimansa, the Sankhya, the Yoga, the Nyaya, and the
Vaisheshika of the Vedantas, each of them took up a partial philosophy of the
truth and developed different ways of the sadhana. Finally,
the parts of the partial philosophies gave rise to Monism, Dualism, Qualified
Monism, the Vaishnava and the Shaiva schools, the Puranas and the Tantras. The attempt at synthesis also never stopped. We
find that effort in the Gita, the Tantras and the Puranas; each of them has
been successful to a certain extent; many new experiences have been gained but
no longer do we find in them the comprehensiveness of the Vedas and the
Upanishads. It looks as if the ancient spiritual
message of India
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