Synthesis of Yoga
This work, Synthesis of Yoga, is Sri Aurobindo’s principal work on yoga: an examination of the traditional systems of yoga and an explanation of his own system of Integral Yoga.
This reading consists of the first half of Chapter 3, The Psychology of Self-Perfection, found in Part 4, The Yoga of Self-Perfection, page 623.
Divine self-perfection means a transformation of the human into a oneness with the divine nature. How to disengage from this knot of mentalised vital animal into the fullness of his submerged hints of Godhead is the real problem of a human being and living; Yoga is the unravelling of the knot of Life’s difficulty. … Man is, in his real nature, a spirit using the mind, life and body for an individual as well as a communal experience in the universe. … Supermind, mind, life and body are the four instruments which the spirit uses for its manifestation in the workings of Nature. … Matter (or body) is a limiting form of substance of spirit in which life, mind and spirit are involved, self-hidden, self-forgetful but … bound to emerge by a self-compelling evolution. … all matter contains the powers of higher principles.