Sri Ramana Maharishi’s path is the traditional Jnana Yoga wherein through right discernment one arrives at the knowledge of the True Self, the Immutable Brahman. Its goal is self-liberation or Mukti of the Jiva by losing itself into the Consciousness of the One.
Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga is an Integral Yoga where not only the discerning mind but the heart and will and every other aspect of nature engages in the discovery of the True Self. Accordingly the Self Knowledge in this Yoga includes all aspects of the One Divine, in the Manifestation and beyond, not only as the Immutable Brahman that transcends all form and name but also the Brahman in the world of mutable becoming, Akshara and Kshara and further beyond, the Ishwara and His Shakti. It is the realisation of the Divine in all His totality, samagram. The reason is that the goal of this Yoga is not just self liberation but further to consciously participate in the Divine Manifestation as transformed channels and instruments of the Divine in the world. It is to consciously participate in God’s Lila after achieving the inner liberation. It means not only the Mukti of the Jiva but also of Prakriti by the transformation of our ignorant lower nature into a higher Supernature with its eventual consequence of individual transformation extending eventually into world transformation.
Sri Ramana Maharishi’s Yoga, as many other similar paths, answers man’s quest for God and freedom of the individual from the cycle of rebirth by going outside the Manifestation and losing oneself entirely. Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga answers man’s aspiration for the Divine Perfection upon earth through the transformation of the individual and collective life.
The method is mainly aspiration for the Divine Life and a progressive opening and surrender to the Divine Mother.
Here we have Sri Aurobindo’s own words about the goal.
‘Not only the freedom born of unbroken contact and identification of the individual being in all its parts with the Divine, sāyujya-mukti, by which it can become free2 even in its separation, even in the duality; not only the sālokya-mukti by which the whole conscious existence dwells in the same status of being as the Divine, in the state of Sachchidananda; but also the acquisition of the divine nature by the transformation of this lower being into the human image of the Divine, sādharmya-mukti, and the complete and final release of all, the liberation of the consciousness from the transitory mould of the ego and its unification with the One Being, universal both in the world and the individual and transcendentally one both in the world and beyond all universe.
By this integral realisation and liberation, the perfect harmony of the results of Knowledge, Love and Works. For there is attained the complete release from ego and identification in being with the One in all and beyond all. But since the attaining consciousness is not limited by its attainment, we win also the unity in Beatitude and the harmonised diversity in Love, so that all relations of the play remain possible to us even while we retain on the heights of our being the eternal oneness with the Beloved. And by a similar wideness, being capable of a freedom in spirit that embraces life and does not depend upon withdrawal from life, we are able to become without egoism, bondage or reaction the channel in our mind and body for a divine action poured out freely upon the world.
The divine existence is of the nature not only of freedom, but of purity, beatitude and perfection. An integral purity which shall enable on the one hand the perfect reflection of the divine Being in ourselves and on the other the perfect outpouring of its Truth and Law in us in the terms of life and through the right functioning of the complex instrument we are in our outer parts, is the condition of an integral liberty. Its result is an integral beatitude, in which there becomes possible at once the Ananda of all that is in the world seen as symbols of the Divine and the Ananda of that which is not-world. And it prepares the integral perfection of our humanity as a type of the Divine in the conditions of the human manifestation, a perfection founded on a certain free universality of being, of love and joy, of play of knowledge and of play of will in power and will in unegoistic action. This integrality also can be attained by the integral Yoga.
Perfection includes perfection of mind and body, so that the highest results of Rajayoga and Hathayoga should be contained in the widest formula of the synthesis finally to be effected by mankind. At any rate a full development of the general mental and physical faculties and experiences attainable by humanity through Yoga must be included in the scope of the integral method. Nor would these have any raison d’être unless employed for an integral mental and physical life. Such a mental and physical life would be in its nature a translation of the spiritual existence into its right mental and physical values. Thus we would arrive at a synthesis of the three degrees of Nature and of the three modes of human existence which she has evolved or is evolving. We would include in the scope of our liberated being and perfected modes of activity the material life, our base, and the mental life, our intermediate instrument.
Nor would the integrality to which we aspire be real or even possible, if it were confined to the individual. Since our divine perfection embraces the realisation of ourselves in being, in life and in love through others as well as through ourselves, the extension of our liberty and of its results in others would be the inevitable outcome as well as the broadest utility of our liberation and perfection. And the constant and inherent attempt of such an extension would be towards its increasing and ultimately complete generalisation in mankind.
The divinising of the normal material life of man and of his great secular attempt of mental and moral self-culture in the individual and the race by this integralisation of a widely perfect spiritual existence would thus be the crown alike of our individual and of our common effort. Such a consummation being no other than the kingdom of heaven within reproduced in the kingdom of heaven without, would be also the true fulfilment of the great dream cherished in different terms by the world’s religions.
The widest synthesis of perfection possible to thought is the sole effort entirely worthy of those whose dedicated vision perceives that God dwells concealed in humanity.’
Affectionately,
Alok Da
