Finding Auroville

Sri Aurobindo’s Integral Yoga, founded on the Bhagvad Gita, is an integration of three yogas: Karma Yoga (the yoga of action), Jnana Yoga (the yoga of knowledge) and Bhakti Yoga (the yoga of devotion). Integral Yoga is the purpose of the Auroville experiment, and so these three yogas should be central to the activities that take place here. In one way or another all three are represented in the everyday life and rhetoric of Auroville, but in distorted forms. Devotion can be said to be present in the photos of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother that are ubiquitous in the houses and offices of Auroville, and the continuous references to these two founders of Auroville in discussions here. Knowledge can be said to be represented in the references to “unending education” that occur in the aforementioned discussions that Aurovilians unendingly partake in. Unending education was one of the phrases that The Mother put into the Auroville Charter. And “the yoga of work”, which is what Karma Yoga is translated into here, is one of the favorite phrases of Aurovilians to use when they are discoursing on the purpose of Auroville. These symbolic and rhetorical representations of the three yogas of Integral Yoga are woefully inadequate when we consider what Integral Yoga actually is and what its three constituent yogas imply. In this post (part I) I will go through the significance and meaning of these three yogas, using quotes from Sri Aurobindo’s Essays on the Gita. This post is comparatively long and contains many quotes by Sri Aurobindo. Then in the next post (part II) I’ll focus on how attaching the term yoga to the terms action, knowledge and devotion fundamentally alters and deepens their meaning, and I will situate this discussion in the context of Auroville.

Before dealing with the three yogas, lets take a look once more at how Sri Aurobindo defines the spiritual philosophies of Yoga and Integral Yoga. In Essays on the Gita, he writes this about Yoga:

To exalt oneself out of the lower imperfect Prakriti, traigunyamayı maya, into unity with the divine being, consciousness and nature, madbhavam agatah, is the object of the Yoga.

The Principle of Divine Works, Essays on the Gita

In this blog, the term “dissolution of the ego” has been used to describe this movement, in which an individual moves away from identification with and attachment to the material self and material nature towards identification with the Divine consciousness.

Yoga as defined above deals with the individual and not the collective, and the Bhagvad Gita almost entirely deals with the union of the individual with the Divine, and not the collective. What the Bhagvad Gita brings to the philosophy of Vedanta is to stress that this union does not need to come only from a complete renunciation of the material world, but can also come (and in fact comes more fully) from an inner renunciation while still continuing to act outwardly in the material world. Even though the purpose of continuing to work in the material world is to help move the collective towards the Divine, the Gita only hints at this collective movement. To understand this movement in the collective which is fundamental to Integral Yoga, as well as the evolutionary path of humanity, we need to quote Sri Aurobindo from sources other than Essays on the Gita, and so we will briefly divert ourselves to another source. In The Life Divine, he first defines a person who has made this movement from material nature to union with the Divine consciousness as a gnostic being.

The gnostic individual would be the consummation of the spiritual man; his whole way of being, thinking, living, acting would be governed by the power of a vast universal spirituality.

The Gnostic Being, The Life Divine

He then writes about how the spiritual development of the collective will follow after the spiritual development of some of the individuals that comprise it, and how the allegiance of the individual has to be to the Divine (which is in all beings of the collective), and not directly to any material sense or definition of the collective:

The individual is indeed the key of the evolutionary movement; for it is the individual who finds himself, who becomes conscious of the Reality. The movement of the collectivity is a largely subconscious mass movement; it has to formulate and express itself through the individuals to become conscious: its general mass consciousness is always less evolved than the consciousness of its most developed individuals, and it progresses in so far as it accepts their impress or develops what they develop. The individual does not owe his ultimate allegiance either to the
State which is a machine or to the community which is a part of life and not the whole of life: his allegiance must be to the Truth, the Self, the Spirit, the Divine which is in him and in all; not to subordinate or lose himself in the mass, but to find and express that truth of being in himself and help the community and humanity in its seeking for its own truth and fullness of being must be his real object of existence.

The Divine Life, The Life Divine

It is the identification of the individual with the Divine that is the key to the individual’s identification with the collective in the context of Integral Yoga. The allegiance is not in the realm of material nature, it is not emotional or sentimental, but rather spiritual. It is a recognition of the Divine in all beings, and a recognition that collective humanity will only be able to progress towards a fundamentally better future if it sheds its attachment to material nature collectively, and moves towards the Divine. And this will only happen when more and more individuals in that collective move towards spirituality. In the context of Integral Yoga then, the spiritual allegiance of the individual is with the spiritual collective, and not necessarily with the collective as it exists materially. The individual then resolves to work for the spiritualization of the material collective and the individuals in it.

In the gnostic or divine being, in the gnostic life, there will be a close and complete consciousness of the self of others, a consciousness of their mind, life, physical being which are felt as if they were one’s own. The gnostic being will act, not out of a surface sentiment of love and sympathy or any similar feeling, but out of this close mutual consciousness, this intimate oneness. All his action in the world will be enlightened by a truth of vision of what has to be done, a sense of the will of the Divine Reality in him which is also the Divine Reality in others,
and it will be done for the Divine in others and the Divine in all, for the effectuation of the truth of purpose of the All as seen in the light of the highest Consciousness and in the way and by the steps through which it must be effectuated in the power of the Supernature. The gnostic being finds himself not only in his own fulfilment, which is the fulfilment of the Divine Being and Will in him, but in the fulfilment of others; his universal
individuality effectuates itself in the movement of the All in all beings towards its greater becoming.

…

There is no separative ego in him to initiate anything; it is the Transcendent and Universal that moves out through his universalised individuality into the action of the universe. As he does not live for a separate ego, so too he does not live for the purpose of any collective ego; he lives in and for the Divine in himself, in and for the Divine in the collectivity, in and for the Divine in all beings. This universality in action, organised by the all-seeing Will in the sense of the realised oneness of all, is the law of his divine living.

The Divine Life, The Life Divine

This is how a spiritualized individual sees the collective, not as a collection of individuals in material nature who must be engaged with by negotiation, but rather as individualized parts of the Divine consciousness, which are all still connected to the universal and transcendent Divine, and are all part of that one Divine. On this spiritualized plane, there is no need for interaction and negotiation between individuals and groups. Instead, the “spontaneous cooperation” of spiritual anarchy will be activated, and individuals will spontaneously cooperate and collaborate will one another for the good of the collective. And as an individual makes progress on the path of spiritualization and self-realization, their understanding of the collective at this level of the spiritual develops further and further.

So for all this spiritual development of the collective to happen as defined in Integral Yoga, there needs to be the spiritual development of the individual as defined in Yoga. And the basis of that individual development is the three yogas as described in the Gita and in Essays on the Gita.

The argument of the Gita resolves itself into three great steps by which action rises out of the human into the divine plane leaving the bondage of the lower for the liberty of a higher law. First, by the renunciation of desire and a perfect equality works have to be done as a sacrifice by man as the doer, a sacrifice to a deity who is the supreme and only Self though by him not yet realised in his own being. This is the initial step. Secondly, not only the desire of the fruit, but the claim to be the doer of works has to be renounced in the realisation of the Self as the equal, the
inactive, the immutable principle and of all works as simply the operation of universal Force, of the Nature-Soul, Prakriti, the unequal, active, mutable power. Lastly, the supreme Self has to be seen as the supreme Purusha governing this Prakriti, of whom the soul in Nature is a partial manifestation, by whom all works are directed, in a perfect transcendence, through Nature. To him love and adoration and the sacrifice of works have to be offered; the whole being has to be surrendered to Him and the whole consciousness raised up to dwell in this divine consciousness so that the human soul may share in His divine transcendence of Nature and of His works and act in a perfect spiritual liberty.

The first step is Karmayoga, the selfless sacrifice of works, and here the Gita’s insistence is on action. The second is Jnanayoga, the self-realisation and knowledge of the true nature of the self and the world; and here the insistence is on knowledge; but the sacrifice of works continues and the path of Works becomes one with but does not disappear into the path of Knowledge. The last step is Bhaktiyoga, adoration and seeking of the supreme Self as the Divine Being, and here the insistence is on devotion; but the knowledge is not subordinated, only raised, vitalised and fulfilled, and still the sacrifice of works continues; the double path becomes the triune way of knowledge, works
and devotion. And the fruit of the sacrifice, the one fruit still placed before the seeker, is attained, union with the divine Being and oneness with the supreme divine nature.

The Core of the Teaching, Essays on the Gita

The three yogas of Karma, Jnana and Bhakti are the path to union with Divine for the individual yogi. And as more individuals move towards this union with the Divine, the collective will also move towards that goal. These three yogas work in conjunction, helping to deepen each other and move the individual towards the Divine in an increasingly complete manner.

Let’s first deal with Karma Yoga, the yoga of action. Sri Aurobindo stresses that action in the material world has to continue, but when we are talking about karma as yoga, it has to be completely selfless, desireless action. And what is meant by karma is all our actions in the material world: our physical actions, our thoughts and our emotions. Therefore, a complete renunciation is impossible, because even inaction is a form of action.

For how, if the works of Prakriti continue, can the soul help being involved in them? How can I fight and yet in my soul not think or feel that I the individual am fighting, not desire victory nor be inwardly touched by defeat? This is the teaching of the Sankhyas that the intelligence of the man who engages in the activities of Nature, is entangled in egoism, ignorance and desire and therefore drawn to action; on the contrary, if the intelligence draws back, then the action must cease with the cessation of the desire and the ignorance. Therefore the giving up of life and works is a necessary part, an inevitable circumstance and an indispensable last means of the movement to liberation. This objection of a current logic,—it is not expressed by Arjuna, but it is in his mind as the turn of his subsequent utterances shows,—the Teacher immediately anticipates. No, he says, such renunciation, far from being indispensable, is not even possible. “For none stands even for a moment not doing work; everyone is made to do action helplessly by the modes born of Prakriti.”

…

Man embodied in the natural world cannot cease from action, not for a moment, not for a second; his very existence here is an action; the whole
universe is an act of God, mere living even is His movement.

Our physical life, its maintenance, its continuance is a journey, a pilgrimage of the body, sarıra yatra, and that cannot be effected without action.

…

For it is not our physical movements and activities alone which are meant by works, by karma; our mental existence also is a great complex action, it is even the greater and more important part of the works of the unresting energy,—subjective cause and determinant of the physical.

…

The mind must bring the senses under its control as an instrument of the intelligent will and then the organs of action must be used for their proper office, for action, but for action done as Yoga. But what is the essence of this self-control, what is meant by action done as Yoga, Karmayoga? It is non-attachment, it is to do works without clinging with the mind to the objects of sense and the fruit of the works. Not complete inaction, which is an error, a confusion, a self-delusion, an impossibility, but action full and free done without subjection to sense and passion, desireless and unattached works, are the first secret of perfection.

Works and Sacrifice, Essays on the Gita

We then move on to Jnana Yoga, the yoga of knowledge. This in many ways is the foundation on which Karma and Bhakti rest, since it is the beginnings of self-knowledge that get the wheel of all yoga moving. The knowledge we speak of when we speak of jnana yoga is not knowledge about the material world, but rather specifically self-knowledge, the experiential knowledge that our true self is our inner-self that is part of the Divine consciousness. And it is the knowledge that our natural identification with our material self, which is the involved self in material nature, is the source of all our unhappiness and suffering and the source of all the problems of humanity.

This knowledge of which the Gita speaks, is not an intellectual activity of the mind; it is a luminous growth into the highest state of being by the outshining of the light of the divine sun of Truth, “that Truth, the Sun lying concealed in the darkness” of our ignorance of which the Rigveda speaks, tat satyam suryam tamasi ksiyantam. The immutable Brahman is there in the spirit’s skies above this troubled lower nature of the dualities, untouched either by its virtue or by its sin, accepting neither our sense of sin nor our self-righteousness, untouched by its joy
and its sorrow, indifferent to our joy in success and our grief in failure, master of all, supreme, all-pervading, prabhu vibhu, calm, strong, pure, equal in all things, the source of Nature, not the direct doer of our works, but the witness of Nature and her works, not imposing on us either the illusion of being the doer, for that illusion is the result of the ignorance of this lower Nature. But this freedom, mastery, purity we cannot see; we are bewildered by the natural ignorance which hides from us the eternal self-knowledge of the Brahman secret within our being. But knowledge comes to its persistent seeker and removes the natural self-ignorance; it shines out like a long-hidden sun and lights up to our vision that self-being supreme beyond the dualities of this lower existence, adityavat prakasayati tat param. By a long whole-hearted endeavour, by directing our whole conscious being to that, by making that our whole aim, by turning it into the whole object of our discerning mind and so seeing it not only in ourselves but everywhere, we become one thought and self with that, tad-buddhayas tad-atmanah. , we are washed clean of all the darkness and suffering of the lower man by the waters of knowledge, jnana-nirdhuta-kalmasah.

…

Always in this sense of a supreme self-knowledge is this word jnana used in Indian philosophy and Yoga; it is the light by which we grow into our true being, not the knowledge by which we increase our information and our intellectual riches; it is not scientific or psychological or philosophic or ethical or aesthetic or worldly and practical knowledge. These too no doubt help us to grow, but only in the becoming, not in the
being; they enter into the definition of Yogic knowledge only when we use them as aids to know the Supreme, the Self, the Divine …

Equality and Knowledge, Essays on the Gita

This spiritual turning of the buddhi [intellect] from the outward and downward to the inward and upward look is the essence of the Yoga of knowledge. The purified understanding has to control the whole being, atmanam niyamya; it must draw us away from attachment to the outward-going desires of the lower nature by a firm and a steady will, dhrtya, which in its concentration faces entirely towards the impersonality of the pure spirit. The senses must abandon their objects, the mind must cast away the liking and disliking which these objects excite in it,— for the impersonal self has no desires and repulsions; these are vital reactions of our personality to the touches of things and the corresponding response of the mind and senses to the touches is their support and their basis. An entire control has to be acquired over the mind, speech and body, over even the vital and physical reactions, hunger and cold and heat and physical pleasure and pain; the whole of our being must become indifferent, unaffected by these things, equal to all outward touches and to their inward reactions and responses. This is the most direct and powerful method, the straight and sharp way of Yoga. There has to be a complete cessation of desire and attachment, vairagya; a strong resort to impersonal solitude, a constant union with the inmost self by meditation is demanded of the seeker. And yet the object of this austere discipline is not to be self-centred in some supreme egoistic seclusion and tranquillity of the sage and thinker averse to the trouble of participation in the world-action; the object is to get rid of all ego. One must put away utterly first the rajasic kind of egoism, egoistic strength and violence, arrogance, desire, wrath, the sense and instinct of possession, the urge of the passions, the strong lusts of life. But afterwards must be discarded egoism of all kinds, even of the most sattwic type; for the aim is to make soul and mind and life free in the end from all imprisoning I-ness and my-ness, nirmama. The extinction of ego and its demands of all sorts is the method put before us. For the pure impersonal self which, unshaken, supports the universe has no egoism and makes no demand on thing or person; it is calm and luminously impassive and silently regards all things and persons with an equal and impartial eye of self-knowledge and world-knowledge. Then clearly it is by living inwardly in a similar or identical impersonality that the soul within, released from the siege of things, can best become capable of oneness with this immutable Brahman which regards and knows but is not affected by the forms and mutations of the universe.

Towards the Supreme Secret, Essays on the Gita

The emphasis here is on the fact that this self-knowledge, as it is progressively obtained by completely dedicated and persistent pursuit, takes us away from the ignorance of our involvement and attachment with our material selves and with material nature, and towards the luminous freedom that comes with the dissolution of the ego and identification with the Divine.

These two yogas of action and knowledge described above work in tandem to deepen each other.

Yoga and knowledge are, in this early part of the Gita’s teaching, the two wings of the soul’s ascent. By Yoga is meant union through divine works done without desire, with equality of soul to all things and all men, as a sacrifice to the Supreme, while knowledge is that on which this desirelessness, this equality, this power of sacrifice is founded. The two wings indeed assist each other’s flight; acting together, yet with a subtle
alternation of mutual aid, like the two eyes in a man which see together because they see alternately, they increase one another mutually by interchange of substance. As the works grow more and more desireless, equal-minded, sacrificial in spirit, the knowledge increases; with the increase of the knowledge the soul becomes firmer in the desireless, sacrificial equality of its works.

Equality and Knowledge, Essays on the Gita

This brings us to the third yoga, the yoga of devotion or Bhakti. The two earlier yogas that we had described, the knowledge of the Divine, and the sacrifice of all action and works to the Divine, lead to an outpouring of selfless and desireless love and adoration towards the individuated, universal and transcendent Divine.

The wisdom of the liberated man is not then, in the view of the Gita, a consciousness of abstracted and unrelated impersonality, a do-nothing quietude. For the mind and soul of the liberated man are firmly settled in a constant sense, an integral feeling of the pervasion of the world by the actuating and directing presence of the divine Master of the universe, etam vibhutim mama yo vetti. He is aware of his spirit’s transcendence of the cosmic order, but he is aware also of his oneness with it by the divine Yoga, yogam ca mama. And he sees each aspect of the transcendent, the cosmic and the individual existence in its right relation to the supreme Truth and puts all in their right place in the unity of the divine Yoga. He no longer sees each thing in its separateness,—the separate seeing that leaves all either unexplained or one-sided to the experiencing consciousness. Nor does he see all confusedly together,—the confused seeing that gives a wrong light and a chaotic action. Secure in the transcendence, he is not affected by the cosmic stress and the turmoil of Time and circumstance. Untroubled in the midst of all this creation and destruction of things, his spirit adheres to an unshaken and untrembling, an unvacillating Yoga of union with the eternal and spiritual in the universe. He watches through it all the divine persistence of the Master of the Yoga and acts out of a tranquil universality and oneness with all things and creatures. And this close contact with all things implies no involution of soul and mind in the separative lower nature, because his basis of spiritual experience is not the inferior phenomenal form and movement but the inner All and the supreme Transcendence. He becomes of like nature and law of being with the Divine, sadharmyam agatah. , transcendent even in universality of spirit, universal even in the individuality of mind, life and body. By this Yoga once perfected, undeviating and fixed, avikampena yogena yujyate, he is able to take up whatever poise of nature, assume whatever human condition, do whatever world-action without any fall from his oneness with the divine Self, without any loss of his constant communion with the Master of existence.

This knowledge translated into the affective, emotional, temperamental plane becomes a calm love and intense adoration of the original and transcendental Godhead above us, the ever-present Master of all things here, God in man, God in Nature. It is at first a wisdom of the intelligence, the buddhi; but that is accompanied by a moved spiritualised state of the affective nature, bhava. This change of the heart and mind is the beginning of a total change of all the nature. A new inner birth and becoming prepares us for oneness with the supreme object of our love and adoration, madbhavaya. There is an intense delight of love in the greatness and beauty and perfection of this divine Being now seen everywhere in the world and above it, priti. That deeper ecstasy assumes the place of the scattered and external pleasure of the mind in existence or rather it draws all other delight into it and transforms by a marvellous alchemy the mind’s and the heart’s feelings and all sense movements. The whole consciousness becomes full of the Godhead and replete with his answering consciousness; the whole life flows into one sea of bliss-experience. All the speech and thought of such God-lovers becomes a mutual utterance and understanding of the
Divine. In that one joy is concentrated all the contentment of the being, all the play and pleasure of the nature. There is a continual union from moment to moment in the thought and memory, there is an unbroken continuity of the experience of oneness in the spirit. And from the moment that this inner state begins, even in the stage of imperfection, the Divine confirms it by the perfect Yoga of the will and intelligence. He uplifts the blazing lamp of knowledge within us, he destroys the ignorance of the separative mind and will, he stands revealed in the human spirit. By the Yoga of the will and intelligence founded on an
illumined union of works and knowledge the transition was effected from our lower troubled mind-ranges to the immutable calm of the witnessing Soul above the active nature. But now by this greater yoga of the Buddhi founded on an illumined union of love and adoration with an all-comprehending knowledge the soul rises in a vast ecstasy to the whole transcendental truth of the absolute and all-originating Godhead. The Eternal is fulfilled in the individual spirit and individual nature; the individual spirit is exalted from birth in time to the infinitudes of the Eternal.

The Supreme Word of the Gita, Essays on the Gita

This devotion is not one of looking up at any kind of godhead who is to be feared or who will remove our material troubles and anxieties and give us material riches. This devotion comes from an inward realization of the Divine that exists in each of us, pervades the universe and transcends it. This complete devotion is to the source of Ananda, the “sea of bliss-experience” that is the key to the salvation of the self, of humanity and of the universe. This devotion transcends material nature. It comes when the vital emotions of insecurity, fear, desire, attachment, needs and wants are replaced by gratitude towards the Divine consciousness for our return into its fold. And this gratitude is the driver of our actions at the service of the Divine.

Finally, there is a synthesis of action, knowledge and devotion that constitutes the “divine nature” in a being:

What then will be the divine nature, what will be the greater state of consciousness and being of the bhakta who has followed this way and turned to the adoration of the Eternal? The Gita in a number of verses rings the changes on its first insistent demand, on equality, on desirelessness, on freedom of spirit. This is to be the base always,—and that was why so much stress was laid on it in the beginning. And in that equality bhakti, the love and adoration of the Purushottama must rear the spirit towards some greatest highest perfection of which this calm equality will be the wide foundation. Several formulas of this fundamental equal consciousness are given here. First, an absence of egoism, of I-ness and my-ness, nirmamo nirahankarah. The bhakta of the Purushottama is one who has a universal heart and mind which has broken down all the narrow walls of the ego. A universal love dwells in his heart, a universal compassion flows from it like an encompassing sea. He will have friendship and pity for all beings and hate for no living thing: for he is patient, long-suffering, enduring, a well of forgiveness. A desireless content is his, a tranquil equality to pleasure and pain, suffering and happiness, the steadfast control of self and the firm unshakable will and resolution of the Yogin and a love and devotion which gives up the whole mind and reason to the Lord, to the Master of his consciousness and knowledge. Or, simply, he will be one who is freed from the troubled agitated lower nature and from its waves of joy and fear and anxiety and resentment and desire, a spirit of calm by whom the world is not afflicted or troubled, nor is he afflicted or troubled by the world, a soul of peace with whom all are at peace.

Or he will be one who has given up all desire and action to the Master of his being, one pure and still, indifferent to whatever comes, not pained or afflicted by any result or happening, one who has flung away from him all egoistic, personal and mental initiative whether of the inner or the outer act, one who lets the divine will and divine knowledge flow through him undeflected by his own resolves, preferences and desires, and yet for that very reason is swift and skilful in all action of his nature, because this flawless unity with the supreme will, this pure instrumentation is the condition of the greatest skill in works. Again, he will be one who neither desires the pleasant and rejoices at its touch nor abhors the unpleasant and sorrows at its burden. He has abolished the distinction between fortunate and unfortunate happenings, because his devotion receives all
things equally as good from the hands of his eternal Lover and Master. The God-lover dear to God is a soul of wide equality, equal to friend and enemy, equal to honour and insult, pleasure and pain, praise and blame, grief and happiness, heat and cold, to all that troubles with opposite affections the normal nature. He will have no attachment to person or thing, place or home; he will be content and well-satisfied with whatever surroundings, whatever relation men adopt to him, whatever station or fortune. He will keep a mind firm in all things, because it is constantly seated in the highest self and fixed for ever on the one divine object of his love and adoration. Equality, desirelessness and freedom from the lower egoistic nature and its claims are always the one perfect foundation demanded by the Gita for the great liberation. There is to the end an emphatic repetition of its first fundamental teaching and original desideratum, the calm soul of knowledge that sees the one self in all things, the tranquil egoless equality that results from this knowledge, the desireless action offered in that equality to the Master of works, the surrender of the whole mental nature of man into the hands of the mightier indwelling spirit. And the crown of this equality is love founded on knowledge, fulfilled in instrumental action, extended to all things and beings, a vast absorbing and all-containing love for the divine Self who is Creator and Master of the universe, suhrdam sarvabhutanam sarvalokamahesvaram.

This is the foundation, the condition, the means by which the supreme spiritual perfection is to be won, and those who have it in any way are all dear to me, says the Godhead, bhaktiman me priyah. But exceedingly dear, atıva me priyah, are those souls nearest to the Godhead whose love of me is completed by the still wider and greatest perfection of which I have just shown to you the way and the process. These are the bhaktas who make the Purushottama their one supreme aim and follow out with a perfect faith and exactitude the immortalising Dharma described in this teaching. Dharma in the language of the Gita means the innate law of the being and its works and an action proceeding from and determined by the inner nature, svabhava-niyatam karma. In the lower ignorant consciousness of mind, life and body there are many dharmas, many rules, many standards and laws because there are many varying determinations and types of the mental, vital and physical nature. The immortal Dharma is one; it is that of the highest spiritual divine consciousness and its powers, para prakrtih. It is beyond the three gunas, and to reach it all these lower dharmas have to be abandoned,
sarva-dharman parityajya. Alone in their place the one liberating unifying consciousness and power of the Eternal has to become the infinite source of our action, its mould, determinant and exemplar. To rise out of our lower personal egoism, to enter into the impersonal and equal calm of the immutable eternal all-pervading Akshara Purusha, to aspire from that calm by a perfect self-surrender of all one’s nature and existence to that which is other and higher than the Akshara, is the first necessity of this Yoga. In the strength of that aspiration one can rise to the immortal Dharma. There, made one in being, consciousness and divine bliss with the greatest Uttama Purusha, made one with his supreme dynamic nature-force, sva prakrtih, the liberated spirit can know infinitely, love illimitably, act unfalteringly in the authentic power of a highest immortality and a perfect freedom.

The Way and the Bhakta, Essays on the Gita

This is the synthesis of Karma Yoga, Jnana Yoga and Bhakti Yoga that together constitute Sri Aurobindo’s Integral Yoga. What becomes obvious from the passages above is that there is a very specific framework in which these yogas operate when seen in the context of Integral Yoga. In this framework the aim of action, knowledge and devotion is the movement towards the dissolution of the ego, the movement away from material nature’s vital desires, attachments, fears and insecurities and towards the immateriality, desirelessness and selflessness of the Divine consciousness that resides in us. Action, knowledge and devotion are the instruments with which this movement is achieved, they are the key to this movement. And as progress is made in this direction of fundamental immateriality, desirelessness and selflessness, knowledge and devotion deepen, and action becomes more firmly committed to the Divine, leading to a cycle of deepening action, knowledge and devotion at the service of Truth. And even as the dissolution of the ego remains the core aim of these three yogas, the variations that arise from the specific nature of action, knowledge and devotion in each individual, and the interplay of these three, lead to the infinite diversity and flexibility of Integral Yoga, all while maintaining its core purpose.

This has turned into a long post, and as mentioned at the beginning of it, in the next post I will use the framing that we have done in the passages above to talk about how putting the term yoga next to the terms action, knowledge and devotion fundamentally alters and deepens their meaning, and I will situate these three yogas in the context of Auroville.