Sri Aurobindo explains the business of a Sadhaka practicing Integral Yoga.
He makes a clear distinction between the ascetic path of withdrawal and the affirmative path of embracing life of the Integral Yoga; in order to transform. This distinction changes everything. It changes the concept of the divine. Therefore it changes your relationship with the divine. Therefore the way of practice in which you approach the divine. And the way in which you interact with the world. Everything changes fundamentally.
Fundamental realisations of the Integral Yoga:
That the Divine is Above You. Within You. Around You.
The Direct Method is the way in which Integral Yoga is to be practiced. And it all begins with the Peace Quartet.
1. Shanti Chatusthaya (The Peace Quartet)
1.1 Samata (Equality)
Equality in the most concrete, practical sense of the word. Freedom from mental, vital, physical preferences and even acceptance of all God’s working within and around him. Getting rid of the instinctive reactions and approaching everything with equality. As long as you’re driven by instinctive reactions there’s no chance for a higher truth to work itself out in you. There’s a necessity to disengage from these reactions into which we have been programmed since birth; to be free from false values, or distortion of higher values.
Once free, we approach everything entirely with equality. Like the Divine turns to a grain of sand or the whole cosmos; in every case she does so with her complete love, consciousness, and delight. Whether something goes right or wrong, we now turn to both equally, without agitation or over excitement.
Calm and powerful spontaneous possession of the universal energy and capable of determining easily and happily all its reactions in the Oneness and the Ananda. In every situation, find what is the maximum growth and progress possible out of this. Think in terms of forward movement.
Equality is the foundation on which you can embrace everything that life has to offer, and compel it to become a perfect form of action of the self and spirit. Equality is the first secret of the soul’s mastery of existence. Our souls are meant to master the universe and not to become vulnerable victims of our circumstances. If we really want to become the master of the whole play of the cosmos, to become the master of all challenges, including all challenges that are unseen and unimaginable in the cosmic video game that we are in, equality is the first secret of the soul’s mastery of existence. It’s the first secret which opens the doors to other secrets. Without mastering equality, the other doors will forever remain hidden. When we have it in perfection, we are admitted to the very ground of the divine spiritual nature. It is the gateway.
In essence, equality is to remain unmoved within centrally, irrespective of the external (or even internal) circumstances.
Therefore, the first business of the Sadhaka is to see whether he has the perfect equality, how far he has gone in this direction, or else where is the flaw, and to exercise steadily his will on his nature, or invite the will of the Purusha to get rid of the defects and its causes. All this is the first business of the Sadhaka. To be equal is to be infinite and universal, not to bind oneself to this or that form of the mind and life and its partial preferences and desires.
However, that is not our starting point. We all start from a limited capacity, preferences, desires, attachments and so on. To accept all our limitations at first is inevitable. To get beyond them is exceedingly difficult, and not perhaps altogether possible; so long as we are compelled to use the mind as the chief instrument of our action. But opening to the divine action, allowing a higher power to work in you, all this ceases to be true.
Going beyond one’s limitations then becomes relatively easy, as opposed to being exceedingly difficult; because we are no more using the mind as the chief instrument of our action. Thus now, even your little efforts will bring great results.
The first necessity therefore is to deprive your limitations of their greater insistence, their present egoism, their more violent claim on our nature. The test that you have made progress in this field is when you feel the presence of the undisturbed calm in the mind and spirit. The Sadhaka must be on the watch as the witnessing and the willing Purusha behind the mind, or better as soon as he can manage it, above the mind.
And repel even the least incidents of trouble, anxiety, greed, revolt, or any other disturbance in his mind.
Whenever there is a loss of equality, on no account must he admit any excuse for them, however natural, righteous, in seeming or plausible or any inner or outer justification. Never rush to justify the loss of equality. No ifs, no buts. Accept the loss of equality without any justification, discard it, and set it right. Bring back the perfect equality.
What is the method of this practice?
There must be a constant insistence on one main idea. That main idea is to self surrender to the master of our being, to the divine within us, to the divine above us, and around us in the world, to the supreme self, the universal spirit. That you are doing things, engaging with the world, but behind the appearances there is always the divine presence. And here you are playing your video game, accepting that your ego has zero claims over anything. This complete self surrender has to be the chief mainstay of the Sadhaka because it is the only way by which absolute calm and peace can come. The opening above to the higher influence brings with it the spontaneous nature of its illumined strength. And then, you establish this calm. The calm established in the whole being must remain the same, despite whatever happens; in health or in disease, in pleasure and in pain, even in the strongest physical pain, in good fortune and misfortune, our own or of that we love, in success and failure, honour and insult, praise and blame, justice done to us or injustice, everything that ordinarily affects the mind.
Knowing and accepting that whatever is the circumstance, there is a greater wisdom, and all the Sadhaka can do is to do what is needed to the best of his capacity. The full surrender of one’s personal being to the divine and through that attaining to the all possessing Ananda.
1.1.1 Passive or Negative Equality Passive equality is of three types based on differences in approach: Titiksha (way of will), Udasinata (way of knowledge), Nati (way of devotion). All three approaches lead to the same goal.
Tititksha
Ability to bear all sensations without being overpowered by unpleasant ones or overjoyed by pleasant sensations.
Udasinata
Indifference to dualities of life based on the fact that what the outer mentality sees are illusions of life. This indifference may be of four kinds: Tamasic (inertia), Rajasic (kinetic), Sattvic (pure), Trigunatita (that which has conquered the three Gunas or qualities).
Nati
An equal submission to the will of the Divine.
1.1.2 Active or Positive Equality
While Passive equality requires the cultivation of detachment of our Self from the outer world, Active equality implies a return and possession of the world in the power of the calm and equal Spirit. Once we acquire the full consciousness of the Self, we can act on the world with calm, joy, knowledge and seeing will of the Spirit. Active equality, like passive equality, has three approaches.
Rasa
Joyous calm based on Nati.
You can catch the rasa, the underlying delight, the deeper truth. The deeper truth is that we are playing a video game in a way. When a child plays a video game, it dies, it kills, it shoots, gets shot. But they look at that life and death as just another event to move to the next stage or to restart the game.
One can access the rasa, the underlying delight whether in a positive or a negative situation only if one turns to the situation with equality. This is perceiving the rasa.
Priti
Pleasure of the mind in all Rasa. Enjoyment of the rasa for the nourishment of the soul’s growth. This is Bhoga of the rasa.
Ananda
The Divine pleasure in existence, which is superior to the mental pleasure. The joy of unity. The ananda of unity in and with everything. This ananda is a delight that is undivided, not bound by any duality. The ananda of consciousness engaging with everything with perfect equality.
1.2 Shanti (Peace)
When Samata (Equality) mentioned above is perfected, the being reigns in Shanti (Peace). This may be a vast passive calm founded on Passive equality or a vast joyous calm based on Active equality. The former is an intermediate stage which must culminate in the latter. A firm peace and absence of all disturbance and trouble.
1.3 Sukham (Happiness)
A positive inner spiritual happiness and spiritual ease of the natural being which nothing can lessen. Complete release from grief and depression. A state of positive inner happiness and spiritual ease. This comes from the fulfillment of the first two parts of this quartet: Equality and Peace.
1.4 Hasyam (Atmaprasada)
Hasyam is the active side of Sukha. A clear joy and laughter of the soul embracing life and existence. Now the child playing the video game has extended its playground to the whole cosmos, and the potential is infinite. It is an active internal state of gladness and cheerfulness which no adverse experience mental or physical can trouble. Atmaprasada is a state of clearness, purity and contentment on the whole self; equivalent to hasyam (though hasyam is sometimes regarded as a still more positive state).
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