by Vishnu Eschner
||When Sri Aurobindo had first taken up yoga, it was with
the idea of obtaining Divine guidance and a spiritual force
for the political work. By the time he reached Pondicherry, his inner
realization had taken on a scope which went far beyond the emancipation
one country and was instead world-wide, concerned with the future of
humanity. He went into complete retirement in Pondicherry, curbed his
affiliation with the political life and even refused several times
accept the Presidentship of the National Congress.
Letters written to young disciples in 1911 and 1912 state that the yoga
practice he embarked upon is not for attaining personal salvation or
escaping from the world, but for "the work of changing the world."
India as the center for the return of the Age of Truth, Satya Yuga,
the reemergence of the Sanatana Dharma-the eternal path of Righteousness.
...to establish a Yogic Sadhana which will not only liberate
before us daily evidence of a transformation which seems to be
soul, but prepare a perfect humanity. ...But what we propose just now
to make the earth a supramental world but to bring down the supramental
a power and established consciousness in the midst of the rest-to let
work there and fulfill itself as Mind descended into Life and matter
has worked as a power there to fulfill itself in the midst of the rest.
This will be enough to change the world and to change Nature by breaking
down her present limits...
acting upon the very material of our civilization, a power working
inside and from without, shattering the frail constructs of society
government, and even testing the limits of nature. We hear of the breakdown
of governments, worldwide chaos, record storms and fires and floods,
random violence, organized warfare, and the eroding of the once robust
values encoded in custom and tradition. At the same time we hear of
massive new-age quest for spirituality and alternatives to the status
of a crusade to imbue our institutions with a newer, high-minded ethic.
may be that we are experiencing the descent into the world of a force
humankind in its present state is generally unprepared or unequipped
The descent of Truth-Consciousness, which Sri Aurobindo called "supramental
descent," was foreseen by him as the next step in humanity's evolution.
was not referring to Darwinian evolution in which the struggle for
worked out by the mechanical circumstances of the world. With patient
logic, he makes clear in his work The Life Divine that the force which
drives evolution responds differently to the environment in different
creatures; that the numerous species can be seen to express alterations
adjustments of the same original seed. He reveals the presence of a
conscious Force, playing with and developing its own Idea-" . . . from
matter into life, from life into mind, from the mind into the spirit."
The One Being and Consciousness is involved here in Matter.
supramental light of which Sri Aurobindo wrote has
Evolution is the method by which it liberates itself, consciousness
in what seems to be inconscient, and once having appeared is self-impelled
to grow higher and higher and at the same time to enlarge and develop
towards a greater and greater perfection. Life is the first step of
release of consciousness; mind is the second; but the evolution does
finish with mind, it awaits a release into something greater, a
consciousness which is spiritual and supramental.
Evolution is nothing but the progressive unfolding of Spirit out of
the density of material consciousness and the gradual self-revelation
God out of this apparent animal being.
existed from the beginning as a realm of creation: "a dynamic
Truth-Consciousness which is not there yet, something to be brought
from above." But unlike the physical, vital, and mental worlds in which
move, it has the complete Truth and does not partake of ignorance.
The next step of the evolution must be towards the development
The character of this supramental nature is a recognition and an experience
Supermind and Spirit as the dominant power in the conscious being,
then will the involved Divinity in things release itself entirely and
become possible for the life to manifest perfection.
of the oneness of the cosmos, through the power of Love.
It must come by a fourth status of life in which the
Like Darwin's ape, who could not conceive of or imagine that he would
of the many is realized through the spiritŠ
evolve into man, the human mind, ignorant and limited by nature, cannot
itself discern the Truth-Consciousness which enfolds it. It cannot
the supramental principle or its infusion into Mind, Life and Matter.
Evolution is usually a sluggish, methodical and difficult process,
requiring ages to achieve a minute transformation. But human beings
unique in the creation. We can bring this process into the light.
Individually, we may enhance or assist the evolution, and even cooperate
with the descent of the Truth-Consciousness through the supramental
other methods to purify the heart and mind.
four years in Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo lived an ascetic life,
completely absorbed in the sadhana, rarely leaving his residence. By
the year World War I began, a young woman arrived in Pondicherry. Born
Mirra Alfassa on February 21, 1878, she had lived a silent and
introspective life since childhood, showing a penetrating detachment
things of the world. In Paris, she had been the center of a group of
spiritual seekers. Independently, her aspiration had developed along
similar thread as Sri Aurobindo's. Her writings in 1912, before their
meeting, echo his concept of evolution:
The general aim to be attained is the advent of a progressive
She met Sri Aurobindo for the first time and immediately recognized him
harmonyŠ The means for attaining this aim, in regard to the earth,
realization of human unity through the awakening in all and the
manifestation by all of the inner Divinity which is one.
the master who for many years had been inwardly guiding her spiritual
development. Later she would be known and adored by her thousands of
spiritual children as the Mother, the Divine Mother in manifestation.
Aurobindo recalled of their meeting, "That was the first time I knew
perfect surrender down to the last physical cell was humanly possible;
was when the Mother came and bowed down that I saw that perfect surrender
Mirra and her husband Paul Richard collaborated with Sri Aurobindo to
a philosophical monthly, the Arya. In the six years it existed, the
published most of Sri Aurobindo's important works, comprising the inner
knowledge that had come to him in his practice of yoga: The Life Divine,
The Synthesis of Yoga, Essays on the Gita, The Isha Upanishad, and
Secret of the Veda, as well as political and literary works. The
Foundations of Indian Culture, The Human Cycle, The Future Poetry,
Ideal of Human Unity first appeared there in serial form along with
his poetry. Because of the war, the Mother returned to France after
months in Pondicherry, and later lived nearly four years in Japan.
24, 1920, she returned to Pondicherry and resumed her collaboration
Sri Aurobindo. She remained in India the rest of her life. When she
returned, a handful of disciples had gathered around Sri Aurobindo.
more and more came to follow his spiritual path, leaving everything
for a new birth into a life of yoga.
Sri Aurobindo withdrew into deeper seclusion in 1926, and in November
that year commended the entire safekeeping and spiritual care of the
disciples to the Mother. He maintained correspondence with disciples
1930 to 1938. After 1938, Mother was his only link with the world.
During nearly 50 years of the Mother's attentive and patient guidance,
informal group of sadhaks (seekers) grew into a diverse community which
became the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, presently consisting of about 2,000
people. The Mother's unique role in bringing Sri Aurobindo's vision
concrete form can be understood from Sri Aurobindo's words: "The Mother's
consciousness and mine are the same, the one Divine Consciousness in
because that is necessary for the play." One facet of the miracle of
working is that within the thousands of transcribed words of both Sri
Aurobindo and the Mother-recorded spontaneously and independently over
decades of growth and progress-nowhere do we find a contradiction between
them, either in the broad philosophy of the yoga or in practical details.
Among the extensive volumes written by Sri Aurobindo, is a small book
called The Mother. Contained simply and clearly in its forty-one pages
the seeds, perhaps, of his Integral Yoga:
In all that is done in the universe, the Divine through his
behind all action but he is veiled by his Yoga Maya and works through
ego of the Jiva in the lower nature.
What did I find in Pondicherry to answer my questions on Yoga?
* * *
Live always as if you were under the very eye of the Supreme
and of the
Divine Mother. Do nothing, try to think and feel nothing that would
unworthy of the Divine Presence.
* * *
. . . find the presence of the Divine Mother within and the
the heart and from there the knowledge will come and all the power
dissolve the inner obstacles.
* * *
You have to learn to go inward, ceasing to live in external
I had been mistaken, I was trying to do the yoga myself. I learned that
quiet the mind and aspire to become aware of the Mother's workings
* * *
is She who must do it.
* * *
O Savitri, I am thy secret soul
With gratitude to the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Pondicherry, for the
I have come down to the wounded desolate earth
To heal her pangs and lull her heart to rest
And lay her head upon the Mother's lap
That she may dream of God and know his peace
And draw the harmony of higher spheres
Into the rhythm of earth's rude troubled days.
permission to quote passages from the writings of Sri Aurobindo and
Vishnu Eschner is a resident of Sri Aurobindo Sadhana Peetham in
California, and president of the Sri Aurobindo Association.
recently visited Pondicherry in fall 1994. For a complete
list of sources
for the quotations in this article, write to him at the Sri Aurobindo
Sadhana Peetham, 2621 W. Highway 12, Lodi, CA 95242