CWSA > Essays In Philosophy And Yoga > NOTE ON THE TEXTS PART TWO: THE YOGA AND ITS OBJECTS (CIRCA
1912)
The
Yoga and Its Objects This essay, which is mentioned in a letter written by Sri Aurobindo in
1912, was first published as a booklet in 1921 under the title "The Yoga
and Its Object" The title was changed to the present form in the second
edition, issued in 1922 New editions were published in 1931, 1938, 1943, 1946,
1949 and subsequently In 1934 Sri Aurobindo wrote that the booklet represented
"an early stage" of his sadhana "and only a part of it is
applicable to the Yoga as it has at present taken form after a lapse of more
than twenty years"
Appendix: Explanations of Some Words and Phrases consists of explanations of certain words and
phrases in the essay, written by Sri Aurobindo in June 1938 in answer to
questions posed by a disciple. Page – 597
Manuscripts
of six of these essays—"The Sources of Poetry", "The
Interpretation of Scripture", "On Original Thinking", "The
Balance of Justice", "Social Reform" and "The Claims of
Theosophy"—were typed in or around 1912 using the same typewriter and the
same sort of paper. The other seven essays are related to the typed ones by subject
or date or both.
On Original Thinking. Circa 1912. After the text of the principal version,
the editors have placed the draft opening of another version, entitled in the
manuscript "On the Importance of Original Thinking". Above this title
Sri Aurobindo wrote: "Essays—Human and Divine". Page – 504 The editors have used a
variant of this (see "The Silence behind Life" below) as the title of
this part and of the volume as a whole.
The Balance of Justice. Circa 1912. This is a
revised and enlarged version of "European Justice" (published in Early
Cultural Writings), which probably was written in 1910.
Social Reform. Circa 1912. The first nine paragraphs were typewritten. Sri
Aurobindo subsequently added five handwritten paragraphs to the last typed
sheet. (These paragraphs are difficult to read and parts have been lost through
mutilation of the manuscript.) The passage beginning "We are Hindus"
was written separately and headed "For Social Reform'". Sri Aurobindo
left no indication where he wanted it inserted. The editors have placed it at
the end, separating it from the main text by a white space.
Hinduism and the Mission of
India. Circa 1912. Editorial title. The first pages of the manuscript
have been lost; the first surviving sentence lacks its beginning.
The Psychology of Yoga (regarding the title, see the note on "The Psychology of Yoga"
in Section One). Circa 1912 (written around the same time as the pieces on
Theosophy that follow).
The Claims of Theosophy. Circa 1910 12
(certainly written after January 1908, when Sri Aurobindo met V. B. Lele, the
"member of the Theosophical Society who [gave] me spiritual help"
mentioned in paragraph six). This article, like the others on Theosophy, was
never published by Sri Aurobindo. However much he disagreed with some of the
methods or doctrines of the Theosophical Society, he was well aware of the
pioneering work done by this movement, which "with its comprehensive
combinations of old and new beliefs and its appeal to ancient spiritual and
psychic systems, has everywhere exercised an influence far beyond the circle of
its professed adherents" (The Renaissance in India, CWSA vol. 20,
p. 70). He assured a disciple who had been associated with the Theosophists:
"I have nothing against it [the Theosophical Society] nor against any of
the Theosophists, to all of whom I wish the best. I am not against them"
(Talk with a disciple, 11 January 1926).
Science and Religion in
Theosophy. Circa 1910
12. Heading in the manuscript: "Papers on Theosophy / II / Science &
Religion in Theosophy". (Although not so identified, "The Claims of
Theosophy" evidently is the first of the papers.) Page – 505
The Silence behind Life. Circa 1912. Above the
title Sri Aurobindo wrote: "Essays Divine and Human". The editors
have used this as the title of this part and of the volume as a whole.
Section
Three (circa 1913)
The essays in this section
form three groups, which were written in three notebooks in or around 1913. The
titles of the first and third groups were given by Sri Aurobindo.
The
Psychology of Yoga. Sri Aurobindo wrote this title inside the cover of
the notebook used. On the front of the cover he wrote, and then cancelled,
"Hints on Yoga".
Initial
Definitions and Descriptions. Circa
1913. Before the first paragraph Sri Aurobindo wrote the numeral "1".
The
Object of Our Yoga. Circa 1913. This essay is found in the notebook
containing the pieces that make up the next group, but seems to go better here.
It has no title in the manuscript.
Purna
Yoga. Editorial
title. The three pieces are headed I, II, III in the manuscript.
I. The Entire Purpose of
Yoga. Circa 1913.
It does not matter if for
the present we fall short of our aim, so long as we give ourselves
whole-heartedly to the attempt and by living constantly in it and for it move
forward even two inches upon the road; even that will help to lead humanity out
of the struggle and twilight in which it now dwells into the luminous joy which
God intends for us. But whatever our immediate success, our unvarying aim must
be to perform the whole journey and not lie down content in any wayside stage
or imperfect resting place. Page – 98
In brief, we have to
replace dualities by unity, egoism by divine consciousness, ignorance by divine
wisdom, thought by divine knowledge, weakness, struggle & effort by
self-contented divine force, pain & false pleasure by divine bliss. This is
called in the language of Christ bringing down the kingdom of heaven on earth,
or in modern language, realising & effectuating God in the world.
Humanity is, upon earth,
the form of life chosen for this human aspiration & divine accomplishment;
all other forms of life either do not need it or are ordinarily incapable of it
unless they change into humanity. The divine fullness is therefore the sole
real aim of humanity. It has to be effected in the individual in order that it
may be effected in the race. Page – 101
II. Parabrahman,
Mukti and Human Thought-Systems. Circa 1913.
Natural and Supernatural
Man. This title is written on the cover of the notebook that contains all the
pieces in this group.
The Fullness of Yoga—In
Condition. Circa 1913. A
draft of this and the preceding essay is published as piece 127 of Part Two.
The second part of the draft, from the phrase "Yoga in its practice may be
either perfect or partial" to the end, was rewritten as "The Fullness
of Yoga—In Condition". This essay follows the draft rather closely for two
and a half paragraphs; from this point the two are developed on different
lines. The significance of the phrase "in condition" in the title is
not made clear in the essay; but it is brought out sufficiently well in the
draft. Page – 506
Nature. Circa 1913. This essay was at one point to be
entitled "Maya, Lila, Prakriti, Chit-Shakti". Individual pieces on
each of these aspects of the force called Nature were apparently planned, but
only "Maya" was written.
Maya. Circa 1913. In the second paragraph Sri Aurobindo
writes of his intention to "look at the Cosmos from . . . the standpoint .
. . of . . . Lila". Although never able to complete an essay on this
theme, he did sketch his view of the subject in two sentences written on the
back cover of the notebook. These sentences are given as a footnote.
PART TWO:
FROM MAN TO SUPERMAN
5. Circa 1912. Heading: "Ishavasyam".
On the next two pages of the same notebook is written a fragmentary commentary
on the Isha Upanishad. The present piece clearly is related to that commentary.
The rooted and fundamental
conception of Vedanta is that there exists somewhere, could we but find it,
available to experience or self-revelation, if denied to intellectual research,
a single truth comprehensive & universal in the light of which the whole of
existence would stand revealed and explained both in its nature and its end.
This universal existence, for all its multitude of objects and its diversity of
faces, is one in substance and origin; and there is an unknown quantity, X or
Brahman to which it can be reduced, for from that it started and in & by
that it still exists. Page – 182
22. Circa 1913.
All existence is Brahman,
Atman & Iswara, three names for one unnameable reality which alone exists.
We shall give to this sole real existence the general name of God, because we
find it ultimately to be not an abstract state of Existence not conscious of
itself, but a supreme & self-aware One who exists—absolutely in Himself,
infinitely in the world & with an appearance of the finite in His various
manifestations in the world.
God in Himself apart from
all world manifestation or realisable relation to world manifestation is called
the Paratpara Brahman, & is not knowable either to the knowledge that
analyses or the knowledge that synthetically conceives. We can neither say of
Him that He is personal or impersonal, existence or nonexistence, pure or
impure, Atman or unAtman. We can only say to every attempt to define Him
positively or negatively, neti neti, Not this, not this. We can pass into the
Paratpara Brahman, but we cannot know the Paratpara Brahman. God in the world is
Brahman-Iswara-Atman, Prakriti or Shakti and Jiva. These are the three terms of
His world-manifestation.
24. Circa 1913.
The self which we have to
perfect, is neither pure atman which is ever perfect nor the ego which is the
cause of imperfection, but the divine self manifested in the shifting stream of
Nature. Existence is composed of Prakriti & Purusha, the consciousness that
sees and the consciousness that executes & formalises what we see. The one
we call Soul, the other Nature. These are the first double term from which our
Yoga has to start. When we come to look in at ourselves instead of out at the
world and begin to analyse our subjective experience, we find that there are
two parts of our being which can be, to all appearance, entirely separated from
each other, one a consciousness which is still & passive and supports, and
the other a consciousness which is busy, active & creative, and is
supported. The passive & fundamental consciousness is the Soul, the
Purusha, Witness or Sakshi; the active & superstructural consciousness is
Nature, Prakriti, processive or creative energy of the Sakshi. But the two seem
at first to stand apart & distinct, as if they had no share in each other.
The Purusha, still &
silent witness of whatever Prakriti chooses to create, not interfering with her
works, but reflecting only whatever forms, names & movements she casts on
the pure mirror of his eternal existence and the Prakriti restlessly creating,
acting, forming & effecting things for the delight of the Purusha, compose
the double system of the Sankhyas. But as we continue analysing their relations
and accumulate more and more experience of our subjective life, we find that
this seeing of the Purusha is in effect a command. Whatever Prakriti perceives
it to be the pleasure of the Purusha to see, she tends to preserve in his
subjective experience or to establish; whatever she perceives it to be his
pleasure to cease to see, she tends to renounce & abolish. Whatever he
consents to in her, she forces on him & is glad of her mastery & his
submission, but whenever he insists, she is bound eventually to obey. Easily
found to be true in our subjective experience, this ultimate principle of
things is eventually discovered by the Yogin to determine even objective
phenomena. The Purusha & Prakriti are therefore not only the Witness &
the Activity witnessed, but the Lord & his executive energy. The Purusha is
Ishwara, the Prakriti is His shakti. Their play with each other is both the
motive & the executive force of all existence in the universe. Page – 195
30. Early 1913.
Chitshakti not mind has
created the world. Chitshakti is the thing which the Scientists call in its
various aspects Force & Energy, but it is no material Force or Energy, it
is the divine power of self-conscious Being forming itself not materially, not
in substance of matter but in the substance of that self-consciousness into
these images of form and force which make up the world. What we call world, is
a harmony of things seen not by the individual mind or even by universal mind,
but rather seen through universal mind, as through a reflecting medium, by the
Eye of divine Being. The eye that sees is immaterial, the things seen are immaterial;
for matter itself is only a form, image & appearance of eternal Spirit. Page
– 200
35. Circa 1912. Heading:
"Life".
36. Circa 1912. Heading:
"Vedantic Suggestions / The Secret of Life —Ananda".
62. Circa 1913.
Matter is but a form of
consciousness; nevertheless solve not the object entirely into its
subjectivity. Reject not the body of God, O God lover, but keep it for thy joy;
for His body too is delightful even as His spirit.
Perishable and transitory
delight is always the symbol of the eternal Ananda, revealed and rapidly
concealed, which seeks by increasing recurrence to attach itself to some typal
form of experience in material consciousness. When the particular form has been
perfected to express God in the type, its delight will no longer be perishable
but an eternally recurrent possession of mental beings in matter manifest in
their periods & often in their moments of felicity.
106. 1912 13.
107. 1912 13. Faces piece
in the manuscript.
122. Circa 1913.
Yoga
is the contact of the humanity in us with the deity in which it dwells, of the
finite with the Infinite, of the as yet accomplished evolving & imperfect
humanity with its yet unevolved attainable perfection, of the outwardly active
waking consciousness which is controlled with the inwardly active controlling
consciousness, of man with God, of the changing outward apparent ego with the
secret real and immutable Self. By that contact the lower rises to the higher,
the unevolved evolves, the unborn is created, humanity assumes some part of
godhead, man moves upward to God. This upward and self-expanding movement is
the utility of Yoga.
124. Circa 1913. Heading:
"The Evolutionary Aim of Yoga." The piece apparently is related to
"The Evolutionary Aim in Yoga" (Part One, Section Three), and so to
piece 127.
The human being on earth is
God playing at humanity in a world of matter under the conditions of a hampered
density with the ulterior intention of imposing law of spirit on matter &
nature of deity upon human nature. Evolution is nothing but the progressive
unfolding of Spirit out of the density of material consciousness and the
gradual self-revelation of God out of this apparent animal being.
Yoga is the application,
for this process of divine self-revelation, of the supreme force of tapas by
which God created the world, supports it & will destroy it. It substitutes
always some direct action of an infinite divine force for the limited workings
of our fettered animal humanity. It uses divine means in order to rise to
divinity.
All Yoga is tapasya and all
siddhi of Yoga is accomplishment of godhead either by identity or by relation
with the Divine Being in its principles or its personality or in both or
simultaneously by identity and relation.
Identity is the principle
of Adwaita, relation of Dwaita, relation in a qualified identity of
Visishtadwaita. But entire perfection comes by identity with God in essential
experience & relation of difference with Him in experience of manifestation.
126. Circa 1920. Heading:
"An Introduction to Yoga. / 1 / The Meaning of Yoga".
127. Circa 1913. This long
piece can be considered a draft of what, differently developed, became two
essays, "The Evolutionary Aim in Yoga" and "The Fullness of
Yoga—In Condition" (Part One, Section Three). The sense of the second of
these titles is explained better in the last two paragraphs of the present
piece than in the revised essay.
129. Circa 1915. Heading: "Essays
in Yoga. / The Seeds of Yoga."
144. Circa 1912.
PART THREE:
NOTES AND FRAGMENTS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS
A Cyclical Theory of
Evolution. 1910 13. This piece
probably was written around the same time as the preceding one. The opening
page or pages (and so also the title) are missing.
Towards Unification. Circa 1912. In the manuscript written beneath the
heading: "Studies in the Mahabharat—/ The Book of the Woman."
Evidently the passage printed here was meant to be an introduction to a
discussion of the eleventh book of the Mahabharata, the Stri-Parva or
Book of the Woman. Sri Aurobindo broke off work on the piece without reaching
the proposed subject. The title has been supplied by the editors.
Poetic Genius. Circa 1912.
Editorial title. In the manuscript the heading is "The Genius of
Valmekie" (see the next piece).
The Voices of the Poets. Circa 1912. Editorial
title. The text of this piece, like the preceding one, was written under the
heading "The Genius of Valmekie". There is no explicit mention of
Valmiki in either piece.
PART FOUR:
THOUGHTS AND APHORISMS
Thoughts
and Aphorisms. In or around 1913, Sri Aurobindo wrote 552 aphorisms in a single
notebook. In May 1915 and May 1916 he published ten of them in the monthly
review Arya.
