Principles and Practices in the Integral Yoga
There is a distinction which might be helpful in understanding the practice of Integral Yoga. For the most part, Sri Aurobindo and the Mother did not prescribe a fixed set of practices or methods for spiritual development. On the other hand, a careful look at their writings reveals that in spite of the hundreds of methods they offered to various disciples, there are a few essential psychological principles underlying the many practices.
By “principles” I don’t mean something abstract or theoretical. Sri Aurobindo, in many of his letters to his disciples, wrote that his Yoga involved primarily “psychological” methods. If you come to understand the psychological principles underlying the Integral Yoga, you will have a key to developing an individualized Yoga practice which honors the unique qualities of your soul.
So, what is the distinction between a “psychological principle” or movement of consciousness, and a practice? Here is a description from Sri Aurobindo of the process involved in awakening to what he refers to as “the inner being”:
“You must develop the power of looking within. When you look within you must first realize yourself as the being, quite separate from the movements of Nature going on in the body, life, mind, etc…. You must not only separate yourself, but the being must become the calm and passive witness. Thus there will be a portion of yourself which will be quiet, unaffected by anything in the Nature. The calm of the witness then [over a long period of time] extends to the nature which remains quite unmoved by any disturbance.”1
So, the principle here is a movement of the consciousness inward, separating itself from the activities of the outer nature, the constant flux of thinking, feeling, sensing, reacting, desiring, etc. But what is the method? Well, perhaps the best method, if it could be called a “method” at all, would simply be to become conscious. If you constantly remember to look within, as Sri Aurobindo recommends, without any specific method or practice, over time you will learn to distinguish what he calls the different “parts of your being”. You will be able to distinguish the movements of the mind from those of the heart, the life (prana) and body. You will gradually discover (or uncover) a calm, quiet consciousness deeper than your ordinary surface consciousness.
But suppose this is too difficult. Sri Aurobindo and the Mother recommend dozens of methods, including the following: you can concentrate in the heart, focusing on your intention, your deepest desire to awaken within, opening to the Force of the Mother, feeling Her Presence inspiring and guiding you; you can look at a photograph of the Mother, or Sri Aurobindo, or, in fact, any sage or saint who inspires you; you can repeat a mantra; you can follow your breath, calm your body, and allow yourself to be carried within. Sri Aurobindo and the Mother also at times have recommended methods from other spiritual disciplines. You could practice Vipassana, focusing on the sensations in your body, seeing and by this seeing thus calming the reactivity of the emotional and vital consciousness, thus purifying the nature and making it easier for you to awaken within. You could practice hatha yoga and pranayama, remaining sensitive to the increasing peace you feel, not identifying with your thoughts and reactions, constantly stepping back into the deeper calm within. You can study the writings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, combining silent contemplation with intuitive – and even intellectual, if it appeals to you – investigation of the meaning of their works.
Sri Aurobindo and the Mother were never dogmatic about methods – you can use the body, the prana (vital), the heart, even the intellect to do Yoga. You can make use of a hundred and one methods in the course of practicing Yoga. If you understand that the purpose of all the methods mentioned in the previous paragraph is the awakening of the inner being, then there will come a time when – whatever method you started with – you will no longer feel the need of a particular form, and you discover your own way of awakening within. The point is, it’s not the method that counts; what matters is the movement in consciousness, the underlying psychological principles. The same is true for the awakening of the psychic being, the Self, and the transformation of the Nature.
Given the profusion of possible methods of practice, and the potential for confusion amidst such an embarrassment of riches, it may be helpful to keep in mind what Sri Aurobindo points to here as the essence underlying the varying techniques:
“We usually attach a more limited sense to the word [Yoga]; when we use or hear it, we think of the details of Patanjali's system [Raja-Yoga], of rhythmic breathing, of peculiar ways of sitting, of concentration of mind, of the trance of the adept. But these are merely details of particular systems. The systems are not the thing itself, any more than the water of an irrigation canal is the river Ganges. Yoga may be done without the least thought for the breathing, in any posture or no posture, without any insistence on concentration, in the full waking condition, while walking, working, eating, drinking, talking with others, in any occupation, in sleep, in dream, in states of unconsciousness, semi-consciousness, double-consciousness. It is no nostrum or system or fixed practice, but an eternal fact of process based on the very nature of the Universe.”2
According to Sri Aurobindo, the "nature of the Universe" is a movement of consciousness, a movement IN consciousness:
“Consciousness is... the fundamental thing in existence—it is the energy, the motion, the movement of consciousness that creates the universe and all that is in it…”3
Whatever technique or practice is recommended, the method itself is not the point – the aim is a particular movement of consciousness. Not that there is any basic problem in the use of spiritual methods. However, human nature being what it is, the repetition of a method tends to become mechanical and ritualistic. As long as the underlying spirit remains alive, the method can serve its primary purpose, to direct our attention to a particular movement of consciousness.
“If the consciousness places or associates itself within the ego, you are identified with the ego—if in the mind, it is identified with the mind and its activities and so on. If the consciousness puts its stress outside, it is said to live in the external being and becomes oblivious of its inner mind and vital and inmost psychic [soul]; if it goes inside, puts its centralising stress there, then it knows itself as the inner being or, still deeper, as the psychic being [soul]; if it ascends out of the body to the planes where self is naturally conscious of its wideness and freedom, it knows itself as the self and not the mind, life or body. It is this stress of consciousness that makes all the difference. That is why one has to concentrate the consciousness in heart or mind in order to go within or go above. It is the disposition of the consciousness that determines everything, makes one predominantly mental, vital, physical or psychic [spiritual], bound or free,...”4
The psychological movements Sri Aurobindo describes underlying various practices of Yoga are quite simple:
Establish order in your life by referring your actions to the highest and deepest intelligence available to you. At first this will be your intelligence or reason; gradually a more intuitive consciousness will unfold. This will lessen desire and make it easier for your consciousness to move inward.
Open to an awareness of a calm consciousness of the inner being within by recognizing that the movements of the outer consciousness – thoughts, feelings, sensations – are separate from this calm inner being. As you become established in this awareness of inner calm, extend it to the surface nature as well.
Open still deeper to the awareness of the soul, the psychic being. Extend the influence of the psychic being to the outer nature, guiding all your actions, thoughts, etc by always listening to and following the “still small voice of the soul”. This is the psychic transformation.
Open above the consciousness of the Atman, the Self, the vast, infinite, transcendent Spirit. You will have glimpses of this consciousness to the extent you have been able to establish yourself in the inner being. Becoming progressively more centered in the awareness of the psychic being and the Self, open the mind, heart, life and body – by means of this psychic/spiritual awareness – to the influence of the Spiritual Force above. This is the spiritual transformation.
Progressively open your mind to the influences of the spiritual consciousness (of many layers) above the ordinary mind. This will allow the mind to rise through progressive layers of consciousness until it awakens to the supramental consciousness. Open – again through the consciousness of the psychic being and Self – the mind, heart, life and body to the transforming power of the supramental consciousness-force. This is the supramental transformation and the ultimate goal of the Integral Yoga.
And of course, throughout the entire Yoga, the first principle is to remember the all-pervading existence of the Mother – the Supreme Consciousness-Force – and offer all practices to Her. As the Mother puts it quite simply, summing up the underlying principle of the entire Integral Yoga, “Remember and Offer”.
As the awareness grows in you of the essential workings of consciousness – the psychological principles of your being – you’ll find you have a key to guide you through the entire practice of Integral Yoga.
- Don Salmon (USA)
Keywords: Inner growth, Spiritual practice, Integral Yoga, Psychological principles, Self-development, Consciousness
1 Sri Aurobindo, in Evening Talks, Recorded by A.B. Purani, pp.33-34.
2 Sri Aurobindo, CWSA vol.12, Essays Divine and Human, ‘The Psychology of Yoga’, Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram.
3 Ibid., CWSA vol.28, Letters on Yoga-1, Part 1, Section 1, ‘Outer Consciousness and Inner Consciousness’.
4 Ibid.
COMMENT #1: So I know this was longer than other blog posts but it's the fruit of 40+ years reflection on IY and I think it has some crucial things that are rarely addressed in the Yoga. There are SO many cliches I've heard, endlessly, that I'm thinking some time next year creating a whole series on what is NOT true about Integral Yoga!
ReplyDeleteSo first, one often hears there are no methods in IY. And people say Sri Aurobindo wrote that. Well, he did and did not. He said GENERALLY there's no methods, and then in the SAME LETTER goes on to mention some methods!
I've heard people say, "I don't want to hear about ANYTHING from ANY other tradition, I want only methods that Sri Aurobindo and the Mother taught.
If you followed this strictly, you would have to eliminate about 90% of the methods They taught.
Surrender to the Divine
Aspiration for the descent of Grace
Stepping back
Separating Purusha and Prakriti
Self offering in work
Just about everything to do with Bhakti
COMMENT #3: Which gets me back to the other point. One of my favorite comments from the Mother is, "The first thing people surrender when they start Integral Yoga is common sense." And I know AT LEAST 15 occasions where She URGED people to use reason as long as they cannot ALWAYS rely on higher intuition.
ReplyDeleteWhat have people said when I quoted Her on that? "Oh that, that's for beginners."
Now, one of the most universal concerns about sadhana among people who have come to the Integral Yoga is IT'S SO COMPLEX." This is why when I wrote this blog post, I ended with simplicity.
COMMENT #4: Here's what I find most helpful for me at the present time
ReplyDelete1. Wherever I am, whatever I'm doing, whether in formal meditation, if it's possible at the moment to Directly, Incontrovertibly, Without Any Doubt shift to Awareness of the Divine Presence, that's the best. But there are many times, if I'm truly honest and sincere, I'm only conjuring an image or feeling of it. So I find 100% of the time, shifting to sensory awareness is an infallible way to "drop the story" - whatever mishigas (that's yiddish for nonsense) is going on with the physical and vital/ie mechanical minds. particularly listening to sounds, as that spontaneously widens attention, something both Mother and Sri Aurobindo recommended countless times.
2. With NO further effort (in the spirit, if not the reality, of surrender) just waiting. The background, all pervading Silence may emerge, the heart may open, a genuine sense of Presence may emerge, intuitive Guidance may emerge, but whatever happens, I have found it best, over decades, not to make further effort. The effort is in coming back again and again and again and again and again to dropping the story and tuning into sensory awareness.
COMMENT #5: Now, one final myth. I sent one IY sadhak a link to our "train your brain" course - and DISTINCTLY said this is NOT for integral yoga people. I don't know why this is, but whenever I tell anybody in the integral yoga community that as a psychologist, I try to include the spirit and if possible, techniques and attitudes from IY in my work but i never ever ever ever pretend to be a "teacher" of integral yoga, or anything more than a fellow sadhak sharing what little insights or experience I've gleaned.
ReplyDeletethe response? Sri Aurobindo NEVER talks about the brain. Well, in fact "brain" appears 48 times in Savitri and all over His writings, and Mother seems never to tire in the Agenda of talking about brain cells!
COMMENT #6: Finally, I told a long time (30 years at the time, I believe) sadhak and writer of the IY that I found sensory awareness enormously helpful in doing the Yoga. The response? "I"ve never heard of Mother or Sri Aurobindo talking about awareness of body sensations."
ReplyDeleteCan you imagine? What would you guess, off the top of your head, is the number of times the Mother referred to some form of body awareness as being CRUCIAL in preparing the instruments for the supramental yoga? I gave up counting at 20, but i'm guessing it might even go into the hundreds! And the last thing Sri Aurobindo wrote (except for Savitri) was on the body and Integral Yoga!
COMMENT #7: Is the Integral Yoga unique?
ReplyDeleteIs the psychic being found only in IY
Is it true that there is no point anymore in being concerned about realizing the Self or Impersonal Brahman?
Is the psychic transformation found only in IY
Is the spiritual transformation found only in IY
Is the supramental realization found only in IY
Is the supramental transformation of the mental and vital consciousness found only in IY?
It's the same answer to all of the above. What do you think it is? Yes or no?
Thank you, Don, for raising these question. They are very important for us to understand, because IY is not an exclusive but all inclusive path.
DeleteThank you Don for writing your understanding and experience of the IY so succinctly and simply. The questions you have raised are questions I have also repeatedly asked myself and a few fellow sadhaks over many years and cannot say I have the answers even today with complete clarity, although a lot of thing have become clearer by methodically going through the synthesis of yoga, the life divine, the human cycle and the ideal of human unity lectures by Kireet Joshi jee, AB Purani jee and reading the original texts themselves.
DeleteThe difficulty I have found over the years has been that it is not very easy for a layman to form a big picture of Integral yoga without reading The original texts of Sri Aurobindo in some depth, which are difficult to understand both intellectually and experientially without sufficient development and opening.
To read the simpler texts, I started with the mother’s writings and Letters on Yoga but realised after a long time that they are highly contextual and not relevant to everyone in every situation, hence, one cannot stop only at these texts to understand and formulate a self practice.
As far as the methods are concerned, for a beginner, it is easier to have a rigid system to follow but The Mother and SriAurobindo lay down signposts but not rigid systems.
Hence, your suggestion of having a comparison of IY and other paths would be helpful and it would also be useful to discuss the methods which have commonly been used by sadhaks successfully to follow IY, it’s aims and objectives.
Thank you. This is Monica Chand.
Thanks Monica - this is all too rarely recognized: ", I started with the mother’s writings and Letters on Yoga but realised after a long time that they are highly contextual and not relevant to everyone in every situation, hence, one cannot stop only at these texts to understand and formulate a self practice. "
DeleteNow, this is true: "As far as the methods are concerned, for a beginner, it is easier to have a rigid system to follow but The Mother and SriAurobindo lay down signposts but not rigid systems." But all too many IY folks take this as something unique.
In fact, the idea of rigid systems is largely (not entirely) a creation of the modern age. Just take the Chinese Chan tradition for one, going back to the 5th century. The Chan masters almost entirely eschewed methods of any kind. By comparison, Mother and Sri Aurobindo offered thousands of VERy specific, step by step techniques (though as you say, did not create a rigid system out of it). Shirdi Sai Baba, many Christian mystics and Vaishnava devotees (in fact, Sri Aurobindo writes eloquently of the lack of methods or systematization in most devotional traditions in "The Yoga of Devotion" in Synthesis of Yoga.
In contrast many of the most financially successful "gurus" of today have extremely rigid systems. Take Sadguru, for one. I only learned of him recently, from people associated with him for decades. How and what you eat, how you sleep (direction of the body), very precise and very rigid instructions for hatha yoga, pranayama and absurdly rigid rules for "meditation." In striking contrast, Swami Sarvapriyananda, the head of the Vedanta Society in New York, teaches Jnana yoga as being utterly without techniques, even meditation!
I was asked to write a chapter on meditation in the Integral Yoga, and the editor gave me very precise categories and rules, which involved writing about the specific steps, benefits, outcomes, etc (he was involved in the transcendental meditation organization which touts its techniques as "scientifically based"). I explained that IY doesn't work that way and consulted with several dozen IY writers. I ended up with principles, not so much practices.
Finally, when I give talks or write about IY, I try to begin with two practical things:
1. quiet mind
2. open heart
The entire yoga can come from there. If you read (and more important, put into practice) the first 3 or 4 pages of Bases of Yoga, you can develop at least 10-20 seconds of a quiet mind as an absolute beginner (I'm saying this from having taught this to many therapy patients with absolutely no interest in yoga or spirituality of any kind).
Once you've had a taste of the quiet mind, if you have a sincere connection to IY, you'll find at least at times, the quiet mind spontaneously leads to an open heart. And if you have a sincere will to surrender, you'll find with a quiet mind and open heart, a sense of Presence and Guidance will also emerge spontaneously. And finally, if you understand purification, you'll find that a disciplined life - physically, with food, exercise, sleep and a generally organized, responsible day - vitally, with a well developed sensory awareness as well as the intention to develop one's character in every action; and mentally - rather than attacking thinking as "mentalizing" (sorry, I had to put that in, a particular concern of mine regarding widespread anti-intellectual views in the IY community, as opposed to the very widespread "vitalizing"!!), developing what Mother called a rich, complex capacity for multi faceted thought, ultimately leading to Silence -
Well, if you get that far, the whole Yoga will unfold spontaneously, as I understand it.
And that only took a few paragraphs to write. At LaGrace, in 2023, I'm intending to devote as much time as possible to writing about this, making videos about it, and possibly - not sure at the moment - doing presentations as well. My preference is to work beyond the scenes but of course it all depends on what Mother wants.
DeleteDear Don,
Thank you for your simple and precise response, enumerating the essence of IY practice.
Finally, when I give talks or write about IY, I try to begin with two practical things:
1. quiet mind
2. open heart
The entire yoga can come from there. If you read (and more important, put into practice) the first 3 or 4 pages of Bases of Yoga, you can develop at least 10-20 seconds of a quiet mind as an absolute beginner (I'm saying this from having taught this to many therapy patients with absolutely no interest in yoga or spirituality of any kind).
This is such a beautiful and clear way to put it for a total beginner. It conveys the message of what is needed.
In my personal experience, i started out very young and the restlessness and the complexity of the nature was too much, so to even conceive of a silent mind was a near impossibility. Hence, at that time. I personally found hatha yogic practices of Asana, pranayama and guided meditation very helpful to even arrive at a semblance of order amongst the chaos of the body, mind and life. Mother's words and Sri Aurobindo's writings were always keeping the psychic fire alive and guiding as per the need of the nature.
It is only after decades of doing both Hatha Yogic practices and reading of IY, I have been able to fully grasp the simplicity yet the depth of IY.
So, when you say the " quiet mind" and the "open heart", it makes a lot of sense and depending on the age and the stage of development of a person, it is possible to employ any and all methods to arrive at this goal as a starting point....
Delete“ Finally, when I give talks or write about IY, I try to begin with two practical things:
1. quiet mind
2. open heart
The entire yoga can come from there. If you read (and more important, put into practice) the first 3 or 4 pages of Bases of Yoga, you can develop at least 10-20 seconds of a quiet mind as an absolute beginner (I'm saying this from having taught this to many therapy patients with absolutely no interest in yoga or spirituality of any kind).
Thank you for putting it so simply yet effectively for even a novice or uninitiated to understand.
what you write gives the essence of what one needs to do to start one’s inner journey.
On a personal level, I started when I was very young and had so much restlessness and complexity in nature that to even conceive of a quiet mind was a near impossibility.
At that stage what really helped me was the hatha yogic practices of Asana , pranayama, guided meditations. Reading the mother and Sri Aurobindo kept the aspiration alive.
As time passed, those practices were needed lesser and lesser and I started to understand what Sri Aurobindo meant by the yoga being different with different inner guidance for each individual depending on their age, stage and nature.
So, while everyone needs to arrive at the basis of quiet mind and open heart, the method can be different for each one.
Thanks again for sharing a simplified version of the prerequisites of IY and your suggestion of reading the bases of yoga.
Thanks. This is Monica Chand .
COMMENT #7a: Actually, I was wrong. It's the same answer to all of the above except the first question. Can you guess what the answers are?
ReplyDeleteCOMMENT #8: I forget to say something about the almost universal admonishment: "You're mentalizing."
ReplyDeleteHave you heard this? Instead of me saying more, what do you think about this? For example, we're told to read the Life Divine and Savitri with "a silent mind" - what does that mean? And does it imply that all thinking is bad?
Of course Psychic Being was known in Indian Tradition from the Vedic times. Antaryamin, Antaratman, Angushtha-matra Purusha, Chaitya Purusha etc. are the names used to indicate the Psychic Being or an individual soul. But for some reason the importance of it wasn't so highlighted in the spiritual practice of the past, maybe due to other important spiritual experiences, such as Samadhi, Dhyana, Nirvana, Rising of Kundalini, and many different Siddhis depicted in Yoga Sutras.
ReplyDeleteThanks Vladimir. The description of the psychic being was SO familiar and SO helpful to me when I came across it first in Adventure of Consciousness in 1975, and later in Mother's essay Psychic Education in 1976, that I was stunned when I kept hearing disciples say (big name ones) it was unique. I recognized it in Christian, Jewish, Sufi and Hindu devotional teachings. The Mother said somewhere, "The psychic being has been known in all cultures in all times throughout the world." If we focus on Raja Yoga, Jnana Yoga and certain primarily impersonal oriented Buddhist texts it's hard to find something similar to the psychic being.
DeleteBy the way, I don't want to give the impression I think IY is the same, either. The AIM is not just different, to my understanding, but unique. Absolutely unique.
So in that sense, EVERY term and EVERY practice IS different. One is separating Purusha and Prakriti not for mukti but to make one more receptive to the descent of the Force, ultimately for the sake of Divine manifestation, not at all for one's liberation OR even one's realization and "personal" transformation.
But this need to see EVERYTHING about IY as being unique leads, I think, not just to confusion but a lot of egoic confusion.
Thanks for your helpful clarification. This is a description of Sufi meditation based on practices going back at least 1000 years (note, interestingly, that this tradition traces to Sufis in North India): https://goldensufi.org/the-sufi-meditation-of-the-heart/ It sure sounds to me like something related to the psychic being!
Most interesting is this. I studied with Llewellyn in 1992-1994. At the time, as he later acknowledged, his path was quite traditional, and primarily about liberation.
Some time around 2000, he says he became aware of an evolutionary Force, and this awareness radically changed his practice and his teaching. I've noticed others who are relatively awake who have recognized this. David Frawley said, in that very same year (2000) he became more aware of the Divine Mother's universal influence on the planet (and I'll just add, Llewelyn, in my experience, is one of the rare human beings on the planet who is at some level, fully awake - his Presence SHINES with love and beauty and devotion)
Regarding the realisation of the Self or Jivatma, or separation of Purusha from Prakriti, or another important realisation of Impersonal Brahman or Nirvana, they are as important for Integral Yoga as they were for any other path of Yoga. Without them Integral Yoga is impossible.
ReplyDeletePsychic transformation is found in many different paths of Christianity and Hinduism, especially Bhakti movement: Kabir, Mirabai, Surdas, Tulsidas etc. etc. Spiritual and even Supramental Transformation are known from the times of the Vedas. What was not done yet, was to bring the Supramental into the physical. This is the step made by Sri Aurobindo and The Mother. They declared a growth of consciousness and a birth of new species in evolution of Consciousness.
ReplyDeleteYes, yes, beautiful! Exactly. This is a point, in fact, all the points you're making, that I think would be a crucial part of what could be put together in videos clarifying the relationship between IY and other paths. Thank you SO much. I don't think I've EVER seen anyone in our IY community, in 40+ years, put the point as clearly as you just put it.
Delete(this is from Dr. Ramesh Bijlani - due to a technical error he could not post it from his end)
ReplyDeleteA sincere experience-based blog and dialogue. Takes head-on some of the weaknesses of IY practitioners. Most of the weaknesses are rooted either in the collective ego, or in 'surrendering commonsense'. Thank you for injecting a sense of proportion, a nudge for honest introspection, and humility.
As usual, Sri Aurobindo says it best (all of these are from the first chapter of the Yoga of Works in Synthesis of Yoga)
ReplyDelete********
The sadhaka of the integral Yoga .. will use, but never bind himself even by the greatest Scripture. Where the Scripture is profound, wide, catholic, it may exercise upon him an influence for the highest good and of incalculable importance. It may be associated in his experience with his awakening to crowning verities and his realisation of the highest experiences. His Yoga may be governed for a long time by one Scripture or by several successively, — if it is in the line of the great Hindu tradition, by the Gita, for example, the Upanishads, the Veda. Or it may be a good part of his development to include in its material a richly varied experience of the truths of many Scriptures and make the future opulent with all that is best in the past.
One often even hears the objection urged against a new practice, a new Yogic teaching, the adoption of a new formula, “It is not according to the Shastra.” But neither in fact nor in the actual practice of the Yogins is there really any such entire rigidity of an iron door shut against new truth, fresh revelation, widened experience. The written or traditional teaching expresses the knowledge and experiences of many centuries systematised, organised, made attainable to the beginner. Its importance and utility are therefore immense. But a great freedom of variation and development is always practicable. Even so highly scientific a system as Rajayoga can be practised on other lines than the organised method of Patanjali. Each of the three paths of the trimarga ¯ 1 breaks into many bypaths which meet again at the goal.
The general knowledge on which the Yoga depends is fixed, but the order, the succession, the devices, the forms must be allowed to vary; for the needs and particular impulsions of the individual nature have to be satisfied even while the general truths remain firm and constant. An integral and synthetic Yoga needs especially not to be bound by any written or traditional Shastra; for while it embraces the knowledge received from the past, it seeks to organise it anew for the present and the future. An absolute liberty of experience and of the restatement of knowledge in new terms and new combinations is the condition of its self-formation.
**********
The Shastra of our Yoga must provide for an infinite liberty in the receptive human soul. A free adaptability in the manner and the type of the individual’s acceptance of the Universal and Transcendent into himself is the right condition for the full spiritual life in man. Vivekananda, pointing out that the unity of all religions must necessarily express itself by an increasing richness of variety in its forms, said once that the perfect state of that essential unity would come when each man had his own religion, when not bound by sect or traditional form he followed the free selfadaptation of his nature in its relations with the Supreme. So also one may say that the perfection of the integral Yoga will come when each man is able to follow his own path of Yoga, pursuing the development of his own nature in its upsurging towards that which transcends the nature. For freedom is the final law and the last consummation.
*****
(this next passage is a particularly beautiful statement of what I attempted to express in my blog post)
Certain general lines have to be formed which may help to guide the thought and practice of the sadhaka. But these must take as much as possible the form of general truths, general statements of principle, the most powerful broad directions of effort and development rather than a fixed system which has to be followed as a routine.
(and finally)
The sadhaka of the integral Yoga will not be satisfied until he has included all other names and forms of Deity in his own conception, seen his own Ishta Devata in all others, unified all Avatars in the unity of Him who descends in the Avatar, welded the truth in all teachings into the harmony of the Eternal Wisdom.