Evolution with Harmony: Integral Yoga and Its Transformational Potential in the Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo

Abstract

AbstractAlthough the philosophy of Integral Yoga matured during Aurobindo’s retirement from politics and his relocation to Pondicherry, it could be viewed as an evolution from his earlier phase of life as a revolutionary nationalist as in both phases his philosophy was governed by a sensitivity towards the harmony between individual liberation and social unity. As a revolutionary nationalist thinker, his vision of unity and oneness epitomized in the ideal of the nation, whereas in the post-Alipore phase, it was elevated to a search for universalized human experience, thereby propagating a constructive ideal of spiritual oneness of all humanity or sarvamukti. During his later days, he advocated Integral Yoga as a means for self-liberation and self-perfection through a process of evolution of consciousness. By Integral Yoga Sri Aurobindo aimed at a complete transformation of human nature through three stages of transformation: pshychic, spiritual and supramental—to raise human consciousness to the level of ‘divine gnostic consciousness’, which he called the supermind. This evolution was complimented by a necessary harmony that Aurobindo visualized between the temporal and the transcendental reality, along with the harmony between individual’s quest for liberation and its collective experience, and the harmony between different paths of yoga. So evolution with harmony represents the central tenet in Aurobindo’s ideation of transformation achieved through Integral Yoga. Keywords Svaraj Integral yogaDivine life Sarvamukti Supermind Gnostic beingSupramental consciousness