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... The personal yoga of Sri Aurobindo, as he himself once characterized it, was an "incalculable" one, leading from realization to realization in a journey without end. Through his life, Sri Aurobindo attempted to chart this journey in the form of a darshana (or philosophy) and a yoga (a process leading to experience and transformation). His earliest formulation to himself of this journey with its goals and processes is what he called the Sapta Chatusthaya (Seven Quartets) which form the background to his private notes to himself of his own yogic progress, kept mostly between 1912-1920 and now publshed as The Record of Yoga. Between 1914-1920, he wrote most of his major works in the serialized journal, Arya, where he outlined his yoga, philosophy of evolution and social philosophy in terms which may also be thought of as contemporaneous with the Record of Yoga. Particularly, in his principal work on yoga, The Synthesis of Yoga, the fourth part, the Yoga of Self-Perfection, can be thought of as a yoga of transformation, a new formulation for the future which followed the achievements of the more traditional yogas of Works, Knowledge and Divine Love, comprising respectively the first three parts of Sri Aurobindo's synthesis in this text. This Yoga of Self-Perfection can largely be correlated with the Sapta Chatusthaya and thus, the Record of Yoga.

Later, after 1926, we have Sri Aurobindo's Letters on Yoga and later still, after 1932, further revisions to his other texts, including the Synthesis of Yoga and the Life Divine. In these writings, Sri Aurobindo introduces a new terminology and what may seem new emphases to his yoga and darshana.

Richard Hartz, who works at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram archives, has studied Sri Aurobindo's texts and revisions intensively as an editor of his Complete Works and takes a historical view of the development of Sri Aurobindo's yoga and writing. Here, he raises and tries to answer some of the questions pertaining to the changes and revisions in Sri Aurobindo's understanding and teaching, by looking at the Record of Yoga, the Yoga of Self-Perfection and other key texts of Sri Aurobindo such as the Life Divine and Savitri. He also considers what may be the special contribution of Sri Aurobindo to the Indian tradition of yoga and touches on the part paid by Vivekananda as a precursor. ...   more »

In appreciation to RY Deshpande, I'm reposting here a portion of one of his recent comments with which I deeply resonated. - ron

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...True, devious has been the path of man’s progress and uncertain is the outcome, true also the huge obstacles of mortal space block the hastening lane, and retrograde are the steps of hostile and menacing time; true, indeed, the sages came and the prophets came and the Avatars came, and the gods and goddesses toil for a better cosmic order with the possibility of a greater light dawning in the spiritual sky. But what is the efficacy of the divine working, if it cannot arrest the downward slide, if the divine Power cannot subdue the dreadful terrifying agents that are ever busy creating havoc? Is there a way out? Is there? Can the logjam of the curving and chaotic way be dissolved? And yet something worthwhile must happen. Futile and abortive can never be the heavenly will. Life arose out of engendering grief and pain, and even what is great Negation is only the Real’s face prohibiting the vain process of Time. All might look illusory, ephemeral, contentless, but (Savitri , pp. 600-01):

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Thanks to RY Deshpande for this wonderful link!

Audio recordings of The Mother reading Savitri, compiled by Narad.

Cavaet: Listening to these recordings could change your life ...   more »

There are many myths in the Veda which describe the Beginning of Creation from different angles or stages. Some of them start with the description of the Supreme Person, Atman, Self (4), others - of the Impersonal Spirit, Brahman (5), some start from Nothingness or Darkness (6), which they call “night”, ratri-, or apas, apraketam salilam (7), “dark waters”, or sometimes as mrityu (8), “death”, etc., etc. They all refer to different stages of Creation, where Darkness or Nothingness was depicted as our beginning, but not as our Origin. We can easily reconcile these myths, knowing that Darkness was the result of the Fall of the Supreme Light, (Involution): ...   more »

Debashish asked me to post this review by Prema Nandakumar of J.K. Mukherjee's book: "The Ascent of Sight in Sri Aurobindo's Savitri."

Re-reading Savitri is ever a new experience. One may keep reading the epic for half a century like Jugalda, and each reading brings a fresh insight into the inexhaustible springs of the narrative. The process of ascent from an ordinary seeing to the spiritual vision in the higher ranges of thought and beyond as stated in Savitri is a fascinating phenomenon. Especially so, when Jugalda is our Paraclete. As always, Jugalda does not tease us with an impossible mystic diction. He is the ideal acharya who swoops down like the eagle in the classroom and then rises slowly and majestically past the green crests of life holding the hands of the reader-student. ...   more »

Part 1 was, after the two introductory cantos which set up the central conflict of Savitri, the story of Aswapati, the Traveller of the Worlds, who explores all the levels of Consciousness and beyond, and calls down the Missioned Soul, Savitri. ...   more »

Rod asked me to post his following talk, which is related to a popular article he posted on SCIY a year ago.

...first I would like to make a few observations about "Savitri" and the Mother’s mantra. (I would be surprised if no one has made these before, but they seem original to me because I haven’t read them anywhere yet.) You might remember that the Mother elaborated on her mantra to Satprem in 1965, and at that time she said:

“Of all the formulas or mantras, the one that has the most direct effect on this body is the Sanskrit mantra: OM NAMO BHAGAVATE. ...   more »

"For knowledge shall pour down its radiant streams
And even darkened mind quiver with new life
And kindle and burn with the Ideal's fire
And turn to escape from mortal ignorance.
The frontiers of the Ignorance shall recede,
More and more souls shall enter into light,
Minds lit, inspired, the occult summoner hear
And lives blaze with a sudden inner flame
And hearts grow enamoured of divine delight
And human wills tune to the divine will,
These separate selves the Spirit's oneness feel,
These senses of heavenly sense grow capable,
The flesh and nerves of a strange ethereal joy
And mortal bodies of immortality. ..."   more »

"The Woman answered to the mighty Shade,
And as she spoke, mortality disappeared;
Her Goddess self grew visible in her eyes,
Light came a dream of heaven into her face.
"O Death, thou too art God and yet not He,
But only his own black shadow on his path
As leaving the Night he takes the upward Way
And drags with him its clinging inconscient Force. ..."   more »

"At first in a blind stress of woods she moved
With strange inhuman paces on the soil,
Journeying as if upon an unseen road.
Around her on the green and imaged earth
The flickering screen of forests ringed her steps.
Its thick luxurious obstacle of boughs
Besieged her body pressing dimly through
In a rich realm of whispers palpable,
And all the murmurous beauty of the leaves
Rippled around her like an emerald robe. ...   more »

"An awful dimness wrapped the great rock-doors
Carved in the massive stone of Matter's trance.
Two golden serpents round the lintel curled,
Enveloping it with their pure and dreadful strength,
Looked out with wisdom's deep and luminous eyes.
An eagle covered it with wide conquering wings.
Flames of self-lost immobile reverie,
Doves crowded the grey musing cornices
Like sculptured postures of white-bosomed peace.   more »

"As floats a sunbeam through a shady place,
The golden virgin in her carven car
Came gliding among meditation's seats.
Often in twilight mid returning troops
Of cattle thickening with their dust the shades
When the loud day had slipped below the verge,
Arriving in a peaceful hermit grove
She rested drawing round her like a cloak
Its spirit of patient muse and potent prayer. ..."   more »

"On a height he stood that looked toward greater heights.
Our early approaches to the Infinite
Are sunrise splendours on a marvellous verge
While lingers yet unseen the glorious sun.
What now we see is a shadow of what must come.
The earth's uplook to a remote unknown
Is a preface only of the epic climb
Of human soul from its flat earthly state
To the discovery of a greater self
And the far gleam of an eternal Light. ..."   more »

Click this to hear the Mother's actual voice reading this excerpt.

"It was the hour before the Gods awake. ..."   more »