Jung 1 1983 4 2 1

Review
Author(s): Richard Stein

Review by: Richard Stein
Source: The San Francisco Jung Institute Library Journal, Vol. 4, No. 2 (Winter 1983), pp.
1-29
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco
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r
p-
i
The Yoga of Transformation: A Review of the Writings of Sri Aurobindo

in the Light of Analytical Psychology. By Richard Stein.
Preface
r
I
Only those thoughts are true the opposite of which is also
true in its own time and application; indisputable dogmas
are the most dangerous kind of falsehoods.*
Before embarking on the following material, it seems necessary to

provide the reader a frame of reference for presenting the radical ideal
posited by Sri Aurobindo. In the East, one begins a treatise with the goal
or ultimate statement to be made, and then fills in the supporting material.
© C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco

Oriental scholarship is not as clearly divided into the categories of
religion, philosophy, science, and art as that of the West. However, spi-
ritual discipline, in contrast to religious belief, is a scientific method,
.... based in part on acceptance of the subjective experience of its seers as
a statement of the possibilities for human consciousness. The personal
II attainment, as exemplified in the teacher's life, writings, works, and the
felt power of his psyche to affect those who are touched by him, is a
measure of the validity of the statement made. Sri Aurobindo's spiritual
philosophy and yoga are based on his undeniable attainment, and are pre-
sented in writing with refined intellectual precision, developed by a
classical Western education.
Although Rhadhakrishnan claims that IIphilosophy in India is
essentially spiritual ,II Sri Aurobindo's is perhaps the only
comprehensive philosophic system that issues from spiritual
experience. (Robert McDermott, ed., The Essential Aurobindo.
New York, Schocken Books, 1973, p. 12)
Sri Aurobindo is the pre-eminent Oriental thinker whose work can be
.. compared directly to that of Jung. Both Sri Aurobindo and Jung drew
from the Vedic conception of Self in order to understand and elaborate
their individual experiences of that core of human awareness. Accepting
.. r.
l
the reality of the psyche as fact, both see man and God in an historical
process of co-evolution, with man necessary for God to become conscious
of Himself in creation. The touchstone shared by Jung and Sri Aurobindo
is the gnostic tradition, which recognizes man's urge to surpass the old
gods and to achieve his own direct experience. For this reason, I will
relate Sri Aurobindo's thought to that of Jung, emphasizing the similari-
ties in their viewpoints, as a contribution to bridging the gap between
East and West. The tension between these cultural and archetypal opposites
can be approached as a dynamis for the transformation of consciousness.
Sri Aurobindo's collaborator, Mira Alfassa (later known as "the
Mather" in Sri Aurobindo Ashram), came to India with a deep gnostic insight
derived in part from her prior study of Kabbalah. According to her, the
*Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library, Pondicherry, India, Sri Aurobindo
Ashram Press, 1972, Vol. 17, p. 83. All subsequent quotations from Sri
r 1
Aurobindo are from the Centenary Library unless otherwise specified.
The San Francisco Jung Institute Library Journal Volume 4, Number 2 1983
r This content downloaded from 128.197.26.12 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 03:30:25 UTC
- 2 - Stein - - -
...I
Vedic and Kabbalistic traditions derive from an earlier, common source.
Her role in this work provides the essential feminine presence needed to
realize the teaching. What follows is a brief account of this emerging
spiritual renewal, exemplified by contemporaries who represent a link
in the creative synthesis of East and West.
A brief comment on the language of Sri Aurobindo is in order. The
sound of the Sanskrit language carries inherent "vibrations of conscious-
ness," which the science of mantra (repetitive chant of a sacred phrase)
uses to convey meanings beyond whJt is explicitly stated. Though Sri
Aurobindo wrote primarily in English, he continually used this occult
.. I,
science to transmit the experience about which he was writing. Quotes in

the text are intended, in part, to convey something of this effect. ~'
o Fire, achieve at my call the Revealing Speech, the many-

actioned, the lasting conquest of the Light. May there be
for us a Son of our begetting pervading in his birth; 0 Fire,
may there be created in us that true thinking of thine. (Sri
Aurobindo's translation of the Rig Veda, Hymns to the Mystic
Fire, Centenary Library, Vol. 11, pp. 145-146) . 9
Introduction
Aurobindo Ghose was born in Calcutta in 1872 just three years before
the birth of C. G. Jung. Jung, a Western psychiatrist trained in the
European philosophic and academic tradition, was able to extend his under-
standing of the human psyche, in part, by inquiry into the Eastern mind.
Aurobindo Ghose, whose early life was shaped by an Anglicized family and
a Western education, returned to India to find his own spiritual identity.
Jung approached the psyche as a doctor and a scientist; he had little in-
terest in politics, but his concern with clinical matters led him to ad- ..
dress more universal issues. Sri Aurobindo was a poet and a political
revolutionary, whose vision of India1s independence led him to the heart
of contemporary spirituality.
What follows is a brief biography, expanded by an overview of the
metapsychology and practice of his fourfold path of yoga. This will in-
,
clude a discussion of some parallels between his writings and Jung1s, con-
cluding with a speculation on the problem of evil and the role of the femi-
nine in the current spiritual transformation. It should be emphasized
that these considerations are not based on the treatment of psychologically
disturbed people; though they encompass a broad spiritual framework, they
do not underestimate the importance of the clinical or symbolic approach.
lilt
:\
Biographical Sketch I
Although Sri Aurobindo more than once cautioned the biographer

'that his life "has not been on the surface for men to see,"
some understanding of his development is essential for a grasp
of his spiritual and intellectual force. The relationship
between Sri Aurobindo's observable life and his inner life
r - - - Yoga of Transformation - 3 -
exemplifies his insistence that a transformation in conscious-

ness precedes and molds personal and historical forms. Thus,
in his life, as in all human experience, the inner precedes
the outer realization; his work for Indian independence, the
formation of a yoga based on action and historical evolution,
and the emergence of a spiritual community devoted to the cre-
ation of a spiritual age--all tOOK shape in Sri Aurobindo's
.. consciousness before receiving historical and institutional

expression. (McDermott, p. 6)
Aurobindo Ackroyd Ghose, born on August 15, 1872, was the fourth
child of Krishnadhan Ghose, an English trained surgeon, and Swarnalati
Devi Ghose. (The designation, "S r i ," which refers to his spiritual
eminence, has been used as part of his name since 1926.) English was
his native tongue, and he was sent to an Irish nunnery school in
- Darjeeling, at age five. His father, an avowed rationalist, sent him

and his two brothers to England for their education, with the explicit
instruction that they be given no religious education. Aurobindo excelled
- academically at St. Paul's school and later at King's College, Cambridge

University, where he received the classical English education of that
era. His first love was poetry and literature, but he also became politi-
-
i
cally active in an Indian student group known as the Majlis, which was
dedicated to India's independence from Great Britain. Following his
graduation, in 1893, he sailed for India and landed in Bombay. For
several months, he experienced a vast peace and calm, and later wrote
that a dark cloud, which had entered his being when he was sent away
to school, finally lifted when he returned to India.
As Professor of English and French at Baroda College, where he
was later Vice-Principal, he began writing political articles in support
of India's independence. As early as 1893, he wrote to his fellow Indians,
"0ur actual enemy is not any force exterior to ourselves, but our own
crying weakness, our cowardice, our purblind sentimental ism. (New II
Lamps for Old, quoted by Satprem, Sri Aurobindo, or the Adventure-Gf

Consciousness, New York, Harper and Row, 1968, p. 27) His outer political
acti vi ty began in 1900. In 1904, fo 11 owi ng a spontaneous experi ence of
what he called lithe vacant Infinite," he began the active practice of
yoga to bring a spiritual power to the work for independence. Sri Aurobindo
was initially skeptical about yoga and mysticism, especially taken as a
withdrawal from life, but he became more attracted to it as he realized the
practical value of a change in consciousness for the large work he had
undertaken. The way his inner spiritual quest underlay his outer political
work is evident in a personal letter he wrote in 1905; he was, he said,
afflicted by three madnesses: to put his talents exclusively at God's
service, to get "a direct realization of the Lord," and to put into practice
his conviction that India was the Divine Mother or Shakti. He moved to
r Calcutta in 1906 to devote his full energy to politics and began publishing
a revolutionary newspaper, Bande Mataram ell bow to t10ther India"). His
..
t
goal was to awaken the Indian consciousness to the possibility of political
independence from Great Britain, and his work actually prepared the way
I
for Gandhi's efforts which began fifteen years later. The goal of political
independence, which was in fact achieved on Sri Aurobindo's 75th birthday
(August 15, 1947), was only part of the vision he had for India: as part
of the entirety of Asia, she would be restored to her historic role in
- 4 - Stein - - -
the evolution of humanity, to enjoy a new material and social prosperity,

and to give from her ancient spiritual storehouse a revivifying force to
humanity at large.
On August 16, 1907, the day after his thirty-fifth birthday, he was
arrested by the British for seditious articles in the Bande Mataram. After
a brief incarceration, he was released on bail. The following May he was
arrested in a conspiracy case; he served a year in prison, awaiting trial
for charges which could have resulted in the death penalty. He intensified
his yoga practice at this time, realizing that his enforced solitude was
leading him inwardly to his true calling in life. Prior to this imprison-
ment, a yogi had instructed him in meditation practice to silence the mind,
and within three days, Sri Aurobindo achieved this goal. In response to
a disciple's question, he was later to write that the experience of nirvana
.
was for him the beginning of his yoga, not the end of it.

I lived in that Nirvana day and night before it began to admit
other things into itself or modify itself at all . . . in the
end it began to disappear into a greater Super-conscious from
above . . . The aspect of an illusionary world gave place to
one in which illusion is only a small surface phenomenon with
an inmense Divine RealitY...ilbove it and an intense Divine Reality
in the heart of everything that had seemed at first only a cine-
matic shape or shadow. And this was no reimprisonment in the
senses, no diminution or fall from supreme experience, it came
rather as a constant heightening and widening of the Truth . . .
Nirvana in my liberated consciousness turned out to be the begin-
ning of my realisation, a first step towards the complete thing,
not the sole attainment possible or even a culminating finale.
,
(Centenary Library, Vol. 26, pp. 101-102) ...
.
.1
Another of the important experiences of this period was a V1Slon of

the Hindu diety, Lord Krishna. While walking in the prison yard, he saw a j
tree transform into the luminous image of Krishna, the avatar of devotion,
love, and transformation through work. The vision persisted, revealing to
Aurobindo the true godlike nature of the people around him: his prison- ~i
mates, the guards, the lawyers, and the judge. Even his rough blanket be- I
came the warm embrace of the deity. Matter itself, as well as all life,
revealed a divine origin. A major focus of Sri Aurobindo's Integral Yoga
is the revelation of matter not only as divine in origin, but as capable of
tran~formation from its state of inconscience (lacking self-awareness and
connection to the central consciousness of one's being) to its rightful ,
place in the harmonious totality of matter, life, mind, and spirit.
The experience of Krishna brought with it the .need to find some link.
between the higher states of consciousness which lie both above the mind
and <;Jeep in the heart, with life in the world. In the sacred Indian text,
the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna admonishes the doubtful warrior, Arjuna, to
fight on the great battlefield, the Kurukshetra. Aurobindo had been doubt-
,
ful himself about the value of yoga prior to his imprispnment, seeing it
(as Jung did later) as an escape from life in the world; now he was to find
a means for an outpouring of the higher and wider states of consciousness
into his daily life. He realized that silencing the mind and opening it
, J
r - - - Yoga of Transfo-rmation - 5 -
r to the light above allowed a higher consciousness to act through one's

being, and that in this state of surrender to a higher force, one could
... participate fully in life without a diminution of consciousness. This
higher force, once contacted, becomes the doer of the yoga; the individual
.
i
!'
ego is then guided and transformed by this consciousness. Sri Aurobindo
describes the functioning of this process on the mental plane:
The substance of the mental being . . . is still, so still
that nothing disturbs it. If thoughts or activities come,they
.. ~ cross the mind as a flight of birds crosses the sky in
a windless air. It passes, disturbs nothing, leaving no trace.
Even if a thousand images or the most violent events pass across
it, the calm stillness remains as if the very texture of the
mind were a substance of eternal and indestructible peace. A
mind that has achieved this calmness can begin to act, even
...

intensely and powerfully, but it will keep its fundamental
stillness--originating nothing from itself but receiving from
Above and giving it mental form without adding anything of its
... own, calmly, dispassionately, though with the joy of the Truth and
the happy power and light of its passage. (quoted by Satprem, p. 51)
(Much of Sri Aurobindo's writing, including third-person references to him-
self, is written from this poise of consciousness. His personal correspon-
dence is generally written in first person.)
In May, 1909, after a year in prison, mostly in solitary confine-
ment, he was acquitted; his brother Barin was sentenced to the gallows, a
sentence later commuted to lifelong exile to the Andaman Islands. Follow-
ing his release, Sri Aurobindo edited weekly newspapers both in English and
,. in Bengali, and led the Nationalist Party at the Bengal Provincial Confer-
ence. In April, 1910, he learned that he too was to be deported, so he
sailed for Pondicherry, at that time a French colony in the south of India,
where he hoped to be free from further intrusion by the English. His with-
drawal from political leadership, four years prior to Gandhi's return from
South Africa, was in part an expression of his conviction that the change
in Indian consciousness had taken place, and that political success was
therefore inevitable. At a deeper level, however, a profound commitment to
the transformation of human consciousness, right down to the material level,
was drawing all his energy. He spent the remaining forty-two years of his
life in Pondicherry, practicing an intensive "sa dhana,1I the ultimate aim of
which was and is the mobilization of psychic and spiritual forces to further
the evolution of consciousness on a global basis.
r In 1914 a French woman named Mira Alfassa came to Pondicherry with her
second husband, a journalist named Paul Ri~hard. Born in Paris in 1878, she
was a mystic with extraordinary conscious faculties. Even her childhood was
r~, marked by unusual inner experiences, including a guide who came in the form
of an Indian man. During her late teens, she went to Morocco to study eso-
,. teric Kabbalism with a Russian Jew, Max Theon. When she came to Pondicherry
at age thirty-six, she realized that Sri Aurobindo was the inner guide of
her early years. He, in turn, saw in her his spiritual collaborator. After
World War I, she returned from Japan to Pondicherry, where Sri Aurobindo
acknowledged her as the Divine Mother of Sri Aurobindo Ashram. This vision
r on his part was a deep recognition of her pre-eminence, signifying her as the
- 6 - Stein - - -
,
embodiment of Shakti, or the conscious force which carries the world pro-
cess of evolution to higher stages.
IIWhen I came to Pondicherry," he told his early followers, "a'
programme was dictated to· me from within for my sadhana [dis-
,
-'
cipline]. I followed it and progressed for myself but could

not do much by way of helping others. Then came the Mother
and with her help I found the necessary method.
Satprem, p. 294)
(quoted by II
1
The Mother organized and developed the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, and
continued as its spiritual leader for twenty-three years after Sri Auro-
bindo passed away in 1950. In later writings, Sri Aurobindo explained
to disciples that his consciousness and the Mother's were one, each indis-
pensable to the action of the yoga; his was the poise of witnessing con-
,

sciousness and hers the active force of transformation. In describing
three aspects of her function as the Shakti, he writes:
Transcendent, the original supreme Shakti, she stands above
the worlds and links the creation to the ever unmanifest mystery
of the Supreme. Universal, the cosmic Mahashakti, she creates
all these beings and contains and enters, supports and conducts
all these million processes and forces. Individual, she embodies
the power of these two vaster ways of her existence, makes them
living and near to us and mediates between the human personality
and the divine Nature. (Centenary Library, -Vol. 25, p. 20)
Satprem describes the descent of thi s force, "the necessa ry method, as II
the yoga evolved under the t{iotrler ' s guidance for those disciples' inwardly con-
nected to her.
With the yoga of Sri Aurobindo the descending Force opens very
slowly, gently, these very centers (the chakras) from top to
bottom. Often enough the lower centers do not open at all till
much later. This process has an advantage if we understand that
each center corresponds to a universal mode of consciousness or
,
energy; if, from the very beginning, we open the lower vital
and subconscient centers, we risk being now swamped not by our
own small personal affairs but by universal torrents of mud;
we become automatically connected with the Confusion and Mud of
the world. This is why the traditional yogas required the pre-
sence of a Master who protects. With the descending Force this
danger is avoided and we face the lower centres only after es- ,
tablishing our being solidly in the higher superconscient light.
(Satprem, p. 57)
(Those familiar with Kundalini yoga will notice a difference here; Sri ,
Aurobindo teaches that modern man, with his developed mental capabilities,
can open to the Shakti from above. This avoids' the unnecessary dangers in-
herent in raising the Shakti from below, as is taught in the older system. ,
The fact that this yoga involves the utilization of the Shakti connects it
to the broad category of tantra, to which the Kunda1ini system also belongs.)
,;,
,
During the World War I period, from 1914 to 1921, Sri Aurobindo wrote
r - - - Yoga of Tranformation - 7 -
r most of his major works, in the following way. Paul Richard, Mira's
husband, had asked him to collaborate on a monthly philosophic journal,
Arya, but was called away because of his duties as a journalist during
the war. Sri Aurobindo was left to write sixty pages a month of philoso-
phy, yoga, poetry, and social and cultural essays. These are now pub-
lished separately as his major works~ and include The Life Divine, The
Synthesis of Yoga, The Ideal of Human Unity, Essays on the Gita, Founda-
tions of Indian Culture, The Future Poetry, The Hour of God, War and Self-
Determinism, The Secret of the Veda, Heraclitus, as well as his transla-
tions and commentaries on the Vedas and the Upanishads. During the late
1920s and the 1930s he revised the first book of The Synthesis of Yoga and
all of The Life Divine, and he wrote extensive letters answering individual
questions about the yoga, which was evolving continually and was different
for each disciple. A relatively complete edition of his collected works
was published in 1972 on the occasion of his centenary, comprising thirty

volumes. His most significant poetic work is an epic entitled Savitri,
which he wrote over a span of fifty years. In a sense, this is Sri
Aurobindo's inner autobiography. Consisting of over 700 pages and 23,000
lines of mantric verse, it is the longest epic poem in the English language.
Many Indian scholars and spiritual leaders feel that Sri Aurobindo has
restored the original meaning to the ancient Indian scriptures, freeing
them from the ascetic degradations of a later Indian tradition and from the
distortions of modern European and Indian commentators.
Sri Aurobindo, with his deeper knowledge of the West and an
increased appetite for the complete Truth, tries to grasp the
r Upanishadic wisdom in its entirety by diving back into the
spiritual vision of the Seers who uttered the truths; and then
applying his quickened and purified intellect and his profound
scholarship, he presents the philosophy of the secret wisdom
in conceptual terms. His integral view also re-asserts the
traditional belief that the Vedas and the Upanishads, which
modern scholars find to be antagonistic, really form a contin-
uous culture. (D. M. Datta, forward to M. P. Pandit, The
Upanishads, Madras, Ganesh, 1968, p. v)
The Nature of Reality

The Unknown is not the Unknowable; it need not remain the
unknown for us, unless we choose ignorance or persist in our
first limitations. For to all things that are not unknowable,
all things in the universe, there correspond in that universe
faculties which can take cognisance of them, and in man, in
microcosm, these faculties are always existent and at a certain
stage capable of development. We may choose not to develop
~ them; where they are partially developed, we may discourage
t'
and impose on them a kind of atrophy. But, fundamentally, all

possible knowledge is knowledge within the power of humanity.
r (The Life Divine, Centenary Library, vol. 18, p. 13)
This is the fundamental statement of epistemology with which Sri
r Aurobindo begins. There have been two great denials or partial seekings
after knowledge in man's search. Sri Aurobindo found the I'denial of the
- 8 - Stein - - -
materialist,1I with its pursuit of rational knowledge, to lead to ever

deeper questions and to a frank admission of agnosticism. This he saw as
far less dangerous than the IIdenial of the ascetic," who in pursuing ulti-
mate liberation, may achieve a detached state which prods him to no further
,i
J
questioning. What the rationalist may eventually come to see is the limita-
tion of the mind itself in coming to know lithe Unknown this may lead to ll
;
an awareness that it is not more knowledge, but new organs of consciousness

which are needed for further development.
His major metaphysical exploration is contained in The Life Divine.
As the title suggests, he envisages the union of the traditional goals of
spiritual attainment with an active life in the world. His notion of the
divinization of life, as well as his ideas on evolution of the spirit are
quite different from the traditional Indian yogas, whose goals are purely
,t
transcendent and eternal, and thus unconcerned with historical process.

Though he drew heavily on the ideal of the ancient scriptures mentioned .,

previously, as well as tantric philosophies and the Bhagavad Gita, his
vision parallels and anticipates the insights of much of twentieth century
science, especially physics, biology, and evolutionary theory, as well as
the findings of depth psychology.
In regard to the question of doing this yoga in the midst of life,
, I
the Mother said,

But I don't see how all this work could be done in the soli-
tude of the Himalayas or the forest. There's a great risk of
entering into that very impersonal, universal consciousness
., il
.j
where things are relatively easy--the material consequences
are so far below that it doesn't much matter! One can act
directly only in the midst of things. (Mother's Agenda, Vol.
2. Paris, The Institute for Evoluti'onary Research, 1982,
p. 274)
This yoga, which combines the pursuits of the inner and outer worlds,
is based on a synthesis of the traditional Indian goal of spiritual transcen-
dence with modern biological theories of evolution. Sri Aurobindo sees
the evolutionary scheme as a spiritual process .
. . . behind the appearances of the universe there is a
,
reality of a being and consciousness, a self of all things, one
and eternal. All beings are united in that one self and spirit
but divided by a certain separativity of consciousness . . . It
is possible by a . . . psychological discipline to remove this
veil of separative consciousness and become aware of the true
Self, the divinity within us and all.
,
,
. . . this one being and consciousness is involved here in
matter. Evolution is the process by which it liberates itself;
consciousness appears in what seems to be the inconscient, and
once having appeared is self-impelled to grow higher . . . Life
is the first step of this release of consciousness; mind is the
second. But the evolution does not finish with mind; it awaits
a release into something greater, a consciousness which is spirit-
,
ua1 and s upe rme ntal . . .
,
But while the former steps in evolution were taken by nature

without a conscious will in the plant and animal life, in man
nature becomes able to evolve by a conscious will in the instru-
..
ment. It is not, however, by the mental will in man that this
can be wholly done, for the mind goes only to a certain point
and after that it can only move in a circle. A conversion has
to be made, a turning of the consciousness by which the mind
..
~
has to change into the higher principle. This method is to be
found through the ancient psychological discipline and practice
of yoga. (Sri Aurobindo, quoted in r'1cDermott, pp. 29-30)
..
/.
Sri Aurobindo perceives reality as a sevenfold being. The totality

of existence is experienced on seven planes which correspond to the seven
..
chakras in the human organism. The most rarified of these is pure spirit
and the densest is pure matter; ultimately, spirit and matter, as well as

all the intervening planes are one universe. As the Upanishads say, "This
too is Brahman. The lower three planes of this seven-fold being comprise
..
II
the manifest reality in which we live: matter, life, and mind. In the pro-
cess of evolution, these begin with matter, out of which emerges life, and
I
out of living forms emerges the mental being; man is the -highest example
'!! known thus far. As life emerges out of matter, however, there remains an
inertial pullan the life force; this regressive pull of matter on life is
the source of death. Death functions to break up material formations which
embody life, so that nature can experiment in creating new life forms in
evolution. In the same manner, when mental beings emerge from living forms,
the life energy or vital force maintains an opposing tension on the reasoning
processes; this persistence of the vital force in the mental being is desire.
Desire functions to expand the embodied mental being1s range of experience
and possibility of discovery.
Desire is the lever by which the divine Life-principle effects
its end of self-affirmation in the universe and the attempt to
extinguish it in the interests of inertia is a denial of the
'£.
divine Life-principle, a Will-not-to-be which is necessarily
ignorance; for one cannot cease to be individually except by
being infinitely. (Sri Aurobindo, Centenary Library, Vol. 18,
p. 195)
,. Implicit in this vie\v of evolution is the idea that man is a "trnnsition-

al being " in the harmony of nature's larger stages of development. He parti-
cipates in the evolution of what Sri Aurobindo calls the Supermental being,
providing a channel for the spirit to divinize matter, uniting material con-
sciousness with that of the individualized mental ego. He sees mind as one
of several instruments of the Supermental being, whose consciousness is
based on the experience and knowledge of Oneness as well as perception of the
multiplicity of form.
r Supermind proceeds by a double faculty of comprehensive and
apprehensive knowledge; proceeding from the essential oneness
r to the resultant multiplicity, it comprehends all things in
i tsel f as i tsel f . . . and it apprehends separately all things
in itself as objects of its will and knowledge. (Centenary
r Library, Vol. 18, p. 263)
- 10 - Stei n - - -
Inherent in each step of evolution are the more conscious levels

which emerge in fue subsequent development. As a higher level emerges,
,,
it influences the workings of what has preceded it; e.g., the mind in
man alters the harmonious interaction of life and matter in the animal,
.,
"
whose vital instincts and physical needs are in harmony. The Mother
commented that, though man is more conscious, the tiger is more divine,
that is, more in harmony with the totality of Nature. The emergence of
mind has upset the balance in man, leading to a tension and disturbance
in his functioning. Sri Aurobindo takes this as further evidence for
,
man as a transitional being in the scheme of development, having sur-
passed the harmonious interaction of matter and life, yet not having
achieved a new balance, which would incorporate the mental being but not
be based solely on its superiority.
Jun g echoes th is theme in II Answe r to Job. II

While unconscious creation--animals, plants, and crystals--
functions satisfactorily so far as we know, things are con-
stantly going wrong with man. At first his consciousness
is only a little higher than that of the animals, for which
reason his freedom of will is also extremely limited.
(C. G. Jung, Collected Works, Vol. 11, par. 620)
Just as matter and life exert their respective influences on the devel-
opment of mind, the latter too has an opposing effect on the emerqence of the
III
,
higher states of consciousness which know the Oneness. For Sri Aurobindo,
knowledge is the conscious experience of Oneness or unity, while ignorance
is awareness limited to the separate form. Both are necessary for the
interactive play of existence.
Evolution, in fact, proceeds by the creation and development of such
,
separate forms. First come material forms, such as galaxies, stars, planets,
rocks. Next to emerge are separate life forms, as the specific manifesta-
tion of the life impulse; these eat, procreate, and struggle to survive.
It is against this background, and from these striving, combative, separate
living entities that mental beings appear. Emerging first in life forms,
,
,
the ego, or the sense of a separate and self-aware existence, becomes most
highly developed and most useful for individualization as it functions in the
mentalized human being.
Mind, not only in its origin but also in its very functioning, is based
in separateness. It is able to objectify, compare, define, judge, even
imagine because of being separate from the objectified universe. This is
,
the source of its power, but also of its limitation, for the general direction
of the evolutionary process is from separation to oneness. By reason of the
evolving complexity of form and function, the consciousness is able to inte-
grate the various levels of its development into a harmonious totality. At
higher levels of integration it is possible to realize the original oneness
while maintaining the discriminatory powers achieved by the experience of
,,
separ~tion.
The ancient yogis spoke of transcendent states, beyond the primary terms
of consciousness, attained by release from the body, usually through the crown
chakra of the head. To the embodied mental being, these states seem
,, I
I
inaccessible.and undifferentiated .. The tradition speaks of the trinitary

na~ure of thlS trans~endent, unmanlfest, absolute reality, which upholds the
unl~erse, ~nd calls lt b~ a thr:e~o~d n~me, Sat-chit-ananda. This "upper
~emlsphe~e of the unmanlfest d1vlnlty 1S actually a unitary state, but it
~s descrlbed men~ally as three qualities of reality. These three qualities
ln the upper hemlsphere complement matter, life, and mind of the lower hemi-
sphere.
These higher tenns may be delineated separately as follows. "S a t is ll
Sanskrit. for "being" .or pure exi:tence. It corresponds in the upper hemi-
sphere wlth the quallty of matter which just lIis. "Chit is translated as 11 ll
...i,
I'
"consciousness force." It is the impulse of consciousness to realize itself
in manifestation, and in the lower triad manifests as the vital or life
1 plane. The third term, IIAnanda,1I is translated as "b1iss,1I which is consid-
ered the source of the soul. The Taittiriya Upanishad (111.6) says, "From
,.. Delight all these beings are born, by Delight they exist and grow, and to

Del i ght they return."
I
These unitary qualities of consciousness are linked to the manifest
reality of the lower hemisphere (with its terms of matter, life, and mind)
by a fourth level of consciousness, which Sri Aurobindo calls the Supermind,
Real-Idea, or Truth consciousness. This is the vijnana, the "turiyam svid"
(a certa in Fourth) of the Vedi c ri sh i s (seers). He a1so refers to it as
the linking consciousness, as it is the first level to differentiate from
the unmanifest, unitary state of Satchitananda. According to his vision,
III
I'
of evolution, we live in an epoch of tremendous spiritual growth; this link-
I
-t
ing consciousness is accessible to humanity at a new level, bringing with
it the potential for the Supramental transformation of the human animal into
the divinized man, a process which may take centuries. Supermind overtops
the highest levels of the mind, which merge into Supermind in the same way
as the highest frequencies of violet light merge into the ultraviolet spec-
trum. In its descent or involution, Supermind upholds the mind (through the
highest level of mind, the Overmind) and assists it in its evolution.
The descent of the Supermind leads to a transformation of mind, life,
and ultimately the physical body. The awakening of higher consciousness
r
i
in these levels brings about a change in their functioning. The Supermind
is founded in the unitary consciousness of Satchitananda, but it also has
the ability to make the distinctions and discriminations of the manifest
multiplicity. In the lower hemisphere it manifests as mind, which though
based in ignorance, has as its function the pursuit of knowledge. Supermind,
based in the unitary consciousness of gnosis, has access to the physical,
r vital, and intellectual levels, and opens them to revelation, illumination,

and intuition. This involution of the unmanifest is how Supermind functions
to link the transcendent states with the manifest reality.
r Sri Aurobindo's experience of Supermind and his conceptual explication

of it came as a later development in his yoga. From this vantage point, he
saw the earlier processes and experiences, including lithe Vacant infinite ll
r and the descent of Krishna, as partial revelations from the Ovennind, that
1eve T of mi nd whi ch spawned the great re 1i gi ons of the worl d.
f
r As a concurrent development in his vision (the period of his revision

of The Life Divine and the first section of The Synthesis of Yoga), there
r The San Francisco Jung Institute Library Journal Volume 4, Number 2 1983
- 12 - Stein - - -
..
I
was a new emphasis on the soul, whose outer aspect he called lithe psychic
..
being." Here, the soul is a representative in the lower hemisphere of the
principle of Ananda of the unitary state. In this view, it is the soul
which functions as the true center for the process of individualizing con-
sciousness in the universe; the ego is its outermost instrument, the shell
necessarily created through the separation of subject and object. The
psychic being connects the deeper soul within to the instruments of the ego
(mind, life, and body) without. In the practice of the yoga, to be taken
up shortly, the soul is the guide, the still small voice, while Supermind
acts with the vision and force of transformation. Just as Supermind, as a
level of consciousness, mediates between the One and the Many, so the soul
is the point, in manifest reality, by which consciousness can establish an
individual center, yet remain aware of Oneness. ,
Ego's moth-wings to lift the seraph soul
Appeared, a surface glamour of brief date , .1

(Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, Centenary Library~
The following diagram represents the connections between the comple-

mentary levels of the upper and lower hemispheres, according to this later
Vol. 28, p. 159)
., "
view.
Upper Hemisphere Lower Hemisphere

Sat (existence) corresponds to Natter
Chit (consciousness-force) corres ponds to Life
~
Ananda (bliss)
Supermind (truth consciousness)
corresponds to
co rres ponds to
Sri Aurobindo delineates various stages of the involution of Supermind

Psyc.re or Soul
Mind , I
as it undergoes the Self-limitation, separation from oneness, and differen- ,

tiation necessary to create the various forms of manifest existence. The
word "maya" comes from a Sanskri t verb root which means "to measure the an- ll
;
cient rreaning of "maya" was that power of the original, divine totality to ..,
limit itself in order to create the universe of multiple forms. Below Super- !
mind! at the highest ranges of the mind, one perceives basic patterns of con-
sciousness which have associated images--these are experienced as "the gods. II 1
It is fascinating to see how closely this parallels Jung's conception of the
archetypes, which deintegrate out of the field of the Self. Sri Aurobindo
called this highest level of the mind the Overmind, to distinguish it from
the Supermind, and he considered it to be the source of all religion.
He was emphatic in his refusal to become the founder of a new religion,
based on an Overmental experience, preferring to allow others to find their •
unique experience in this spiritual transformation.
It is not his [Sri Aurobindo's] object to develop anyone reli-
gion or to amalgamate the older religions or to found any new
The San Francisco Jung Institute Library Journal Volume 4, Number 2 1983 •
r - - - Yo gao f Tran forma t ion - 13 -
.
.. religion--for any of these things would lead away from his
central purpose. The one aim of his yoga is an inner self-
development by which each one who follows it can in time dis-
cover the One Self in all and evolve a higher consciousness
.. than the menta 1 . . . (Sri Aurobi ndo, quoted in McDermott,
p. 31)
Experiencing the Overmind can be seen as possession by a particular

archetype, while the transformation brought about by the Supermind super-
cedes the various archetypal patterns. The evolution of the scientific
,.
:1
intellect places man in a new position with regard to the Overmental exper-
ience of the gods or archetypes. According to Sri Aurobindo, the age of
collective religions is passing. In the new spiritual era, each individual
will develop according to his own unique soul experience, understanding the
..
II
truths behind many of the great religions, but identifying with and limited

by none of them. He does not offer a belief system, though many may take
his teachings in that way; what he provides is a vision which the individual
may take as an hypothesis to be tested, provided he follows certain guide-
lines for inner development. Sri Aurobindo uses religious metaphor, mythic
story, and metaphysical thesis to convey a paradigm of reality as a frame
for the discipline.
The seven-fold being not only comprises static levels of reality, but
also is a dynamic process: manifest existence ascends, aided and supported
by the descent or involution of higher forms of consciousness. Evolution
is the upward integration of separate existences moving towards a more com-
plex. unity, while involution is the downward infusion of higher states of
pure existence, consciousness-force, and bliss in a separative self-forgetting.
In religious terms one could say that the Divine loses Himself in order to
". find Himself objectified, in order to see his limitless potentiality manifested
in specific form, and for that form to seek the source of its own existence
and find it. But why? For the sheer delight of the experience, expressed
~ as the Divine Lila, or play of the universe.
,
I'
To summarize, the seven levels of reality include matter, life, and
mind which ascend, meeting Sat, Chit and Ananda as they descend into this
manifested reality; and the linking consciousness which unites the two is the
Supermind. There are thus two trinities which are each completed by a fourth
element, the Supermind. The processes of ascent and descent form a major
part of the actual practice of the yoga. There are interesting similarities
here to Jung1s explanation of the transformative processes in alchemy, to be
disclJssed later with regard to Mysterium Coniunctionis.
r The Yoga
r Yo yacchraddhah sa eva sah, "whatever is a man's faith or the sure

idea in him, that he becomes.
Vo 1. 20, r. 39)
(Sri Aurobindo, Centenary Library,
'I
An excellent and brief introduction to the subtle practice of this

yoga is Founding the Life Divine, by Morwenna Donnelly (London, Ryder, 1955).
Sri Aurobindo's major work is The Synthesis of Yoga, written in four parts
r and delineating the fourfold path which makes yoga aprlicable to the modern
.
,
- 14 - Stein - - -
situation. In the introductory chapters~ he says that all life is yoga,

that nature is in a process of subconscious yoga~ and that man can actively
and consciously participate in that process when he becomes aware of it. .,
,
'1
In the right view of both life and of Yoga all life is either
consciously or subconsciously a Yoga. For we mean by this term
a methodized effort towards self-perfection by the expression i
of the potentialities latent in the being and a union of the
human individual with the universal and transcendent Existence
. . . But all life, when we look behind its appearances, is a
vast Yoga of Nature attempting to realize . . . her potential-
ities and to unite herself with her own divine reality. In man,
her thinker~ she for the first time upon this Earth devises self- ,
,
conscious means and willed arrangements of activity by which 1
this great purpose may be more swiftly and puissantly attained .

. . . A given system of Yoga, then, can be no more than a . . .

compression, into narrower but more energetic forms of intensity,
of general methods which are already being used loosely, largely, J
in a more leisurely movement . . . by the great Mother in her
vast upward labour. (Centenary Library, Vol. 20, p. 2) t'
",
.
ll
This view is echoed by Jung in "Answer to Job :
,
Whatever man's wholeness, or the self, may mean per se~ empirically
it is an image of the goal of life spontaneously produced by the un-
conscious irrespective of the wishes and fears df the conscious
mind. It stands for the goal of the total man, for the realization
of his wholeness and individuality with or without the consent of
his will. The dynamic of this process is instinct, which insures
that everything which belongs to an individual's life shall enter
into it, whether he consents or not, or is conscious of what is hap-
pening to him or not. Obviously, it makes a great deal of differ-
ence subjectively whether he knows what he is living out, whether
he understands what he is doing, and whether he accepts responsi-
.,
bility for what he proposes to do or has done. (Collected Works,
.,
I
Vol. 11, par. 745)

Sri Aurobindo tried to strip the ancient yogas of their accoutrements I
and ritualized practices to get to the inner essence and psychological pro-
cess. He commented in The Synthesis of Yoga that yoga is nothing but practi-
cal psychology. Since yoga means union with the Divine, the synthesis can
be understood psychologically as union with the higher self, the Divine within.
The four types of yoga are: the yoga of works, or karma yoga, based in part
on the Bhagavad Gita; the yoga of knowledge or jnana yoga (the Greek word
,
,
I
"gnosis" is etymologically connected to the Sanskrit IIjnana which means ll
knowledge or wisdom); the yoga of love, which aims at a purification of the

heart and the emotional being; and the final work that synthesizes these
first three, the yoga of self-perfection. (He left to the individual the
decision as to the use of specific techniques from hatha yoga, raja yoga, and
so on.) ,
The yoga of self-perfection is really Sri Aurobindo's own synthesis of
these previous, traditional, paths in an attempt to integrate the various
,
,
aspects of the being, to create a human vessel for the divine, and then to
r
divinize that vessel. By self-perfection, he does not mean the achieve-
ment of some final, maximum state of being, but an ongoing harmonization
of the various elements of the psyche, an idea not dissimilar to Jung's
concept of individuation. Like Jung in "Answer to Job," Sri Aurobindo
finds God capable of imperfection and further evolution.
The Mother, describing her own struggle as a Westerner with the
Christian notions of God's perfection and manls original sin, comments on
~
the dark side of God as seen by Sri Aurobindo in his Aphorisms.
i'
III
Sri Aurobindo also had to struggle against this because he

too received a Christian education. And these Aphorisms are
the result--the flowering--of the necessity to struggle
against the subconscious formation which has produced such
questions (Mother takes a scandalous tone): "How can God be

weak? How can God be fool ish? How. II
All the believers, all the faithful (those from the West in
particular) think in terms of something else" when they speak
Il
~
I of God--He cannot be weak, ugly, imperfect. He is something
immaculate--but this is wrong thinking. They are dividing,
I
- separating. For subconscious thought (I mean thinking without

reflecting, instinctively, out of habit, without observing one-
self thinking), what is generally considered per fection is
precisely what is seen or felt or postulated as being virtuous,
II
ll
divine, beautiful, admirable--but it's not at all! Perfection

means something in which nothing is missing. The divine per-
.. fection is a totality. The divine perfection is the whole of

the Divine, with nothing subtracted from it. For the moralists
it is the exact opposite: the divine perfection is nothing but
the virtues they stand for! (Mother1s Agenda, Vol. 2, pp. 252-
-
;l
254)
One of Sri Aurobindo1s main achievements is the synthesis of India's
two great streams of spiritual philosophy and practice, the Vedantic and
the tantric. The Vedantic practices involve a detachment from outer reality,
• while the tantrics worship the energies of nature, the earth spirits, and
strive to divinize them. There is a striking parallel between Sri Aurobindols
synthesis and Jung's discovery of alchemy as the compensatory philosophic
system to the Christian ideal. Sri Aurobindo found in the ancient tantric
view the necessary vitalizing force to bring the lofty spiritual attainment
of the Vedantic schools into human personality and daily life. Indian spi-
r rituality, especially Buddhism (from the fifth century B.C.) and the ascetic
tradition of Shankaracharya (from the tenth century), had rejected life in
the world in order to embrace pure states of Non-being (Asat) or Being (Sat)
,. respectively; but such spirituality was at the expense of the human connec-
tion to the earth. Sri Aurobindo was struck, upon his return to India, by
I the lack of mastery over matter and outer circumstances that he had become
accustomed to in the West. It was as though the natural, conscious link of
r the human mind to matter had been neglected by centuries of disuse and dis-
interest, replaced by an otherworldly spirituality which had little desire
for material progress. These conditions remind one of the Middle Ages in
Europe, a time which spawned the great alchemical studies which were to
fascinate Jung. There seem to be connections between the attitudes and goals
,
- 16 - Stein - - -
of the tantric tradition, with its relationship to the earth, darkness,

and the material and vital processes, and the fascination of certain
Western minds with the transformation of the elements. As Jung notes in
"Answer to Job" (par. 610), there are similarities between Sophia, the
,!
Hebrew Chochma, and the Indian Shakti. More than ever it seems, in this
century, we must struggle with the shadow cast by material science in the ,
alchemy of nuclear physics, and find a contemporary spirituality which
encompasses the dark power we have unleashed.
The Individual
,.,
11
The one infinitely variable Spirit in things carries all of
,
himself into each form of his omnipresence; the self, the II
I
Being is at once unique in each, common in our collectivities
and one in all beings. God moves in many ways at once in his

,
own indivisible unity. (Sri Aurobindo, The Problem of Rebirth.-_ I
Pondicherry, India, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, 1952)
One of the points of agreement between Sri Aurobindo and Jung is
their concern with the phenomenon of mass consciousness and the related
loss of individual perspective. Like Jung, Sri Aurobindo did not wish to
found a movement or cult, but sought to create a useful frame for yogic
knowledge in the modern situation.
A movement in the case of a work like mine means the founding
of a school or a sect or some other damned nonsense. It means
that hundreds or thousands of useless people join in and corrupt
. I
the work or reduce it to a pompous farce . . . . (Sri Aurobindo,

quoted in McDermott, p. 22)
In order to achieve this new system, Sri Aurobindo pointed to the need
for the individual to preserve his own viewpoint and path of unique develop-
ment. In the traditional Indian yogas, the two points at which the individual
can merge with the Divine are the transcendent godhead and the universal god-
head. These correspond in Western theology to the Divine as transcendent and
,
,
the Divine as immanent. Sri Aurobindo emphasized a third point of contact
with the Divine--through the nature of the human personality. This insight
forms an interesting parallel to Jung's idea of individuation. He wrote that
the Divine can remain unmanifest in the form of the transcendent, manifest
in a total way as the universe, and can also manifest in the uniquely parti-
culnr evolution of the individual personality. Traditionally, the Divine as
person could only be experienced in the form of the guru or holy man, who
,.\
in the Orient fits a prescribed social definition. Sri Aurobindo believed

that the need for the guru was ending, and that at most, the guru would func-
tion in the new spiritual age to awaken the individual to his own Divine con-
,
,
sciousness. His vision included the individual personality achieving mani-
fest divinity in whatever role or field of life was chosen for it by the soul,
apart from socially defined roles. The I'psychic being" (that part of the soul
connecting its inmost recesses to the mental, vital, and physical aspects of
the being) would thus replace the guru as a source of guidance and would deter-
mine the outer form of the life according to its true calling. This view,
which he developed from the late 1920s onward, casts a whole different light
on the practice of the yoga; it not only allows, but encourages the full ,
.,
,..
development of the individual's gifts and potentials as a vehicle for the
Divine. Mind, life, and body are seen as instruments of the soul. They
are to be uplifted and transformed by the higher consciousness acting from
..
above.
II'
Essential to tthe work is an intentional deepening of awareness by
.I meditation on the heart center, which enables one to discriminate between
,.
II
the "desire soul l' and the "true soul" or psychic being. To e~hance this
meditation practice in his daily activities, the sadhak (one who practices
the discipline) tries to remain equal in the face of all experience, whether
'- pleasant or unpleasant. He cultivates a poise of consciousness within
based on peace and quiet and is attentive to moments of consciousness in
which there is some sense of light, heightened awareness, objectless love,
delight, or aesthetic appreciation. These he cultivates and offers to
their source, which is ultimately his higher self. In time the practice

of remembering the higher source and offering one's works, thoughts, and
feelings to it brings to him the experience of a higher power of conscious-
ness, which Sri Aurobindo describes as the Master within, the Isvara, or
Lord.
A second process in the yoga can begin at this point: the mental
and vital energies are stilled and opened to this higher source, which
then begins making a progressive descent into the entire being, transform-
ing its instruments, i.e., the mind, life, and body. It is emphasized that
the process is different for each individual and that the higher force will
r direct the progress of the individual according to his unique path. It

may take years to begin to get a sense of these processes, but in doing
so the sadhak can rely on four aids:
,. Yoga-Siddhi, the perfection that comes from the practice of
Yoga, can best be attained by the combined working of four great
instruments. There is, first, the knowledge of the truths,
r
.1
principles, powers and processes that govern the realization--
sastra. Next comes a patient and persistent action on the
lines laid down by the knowledge, the force of our personal
pi effort--utsaha. There intervenes, third, uplifting our know-
ledge and effort into the domain of spiritual experience, the
1-
direct suggestion, example and influence of the Teacher--guru.
Last comes the instrumentality of Time--kala; for in all things
there is a cycle of their action and a period of the divine
movement. (Sri Aurobindo, Centenary Library, Vol. 20, p. 47)
r In Indian religious development~ yoga practice arose concurrently

with a philosophic tradition called "samkhya," which distinguished between
purusha (the witness consciousness) and prakriti (the action of nature).
r The witness consciousness or the soul is considered masculine. In its

purely witnessing, passive capacity it is indeed purusha, but at a higher
level it actually upholds and sanctions the action of the feminine principle;
here it is called the Isvara or Lord. The energy of nature or active force
r in the universe, on the other hand, is expressed in feminine terms; prakriti

is the unconscious, mechanical form of nature, while Shakti is the conscious,
divinized feminine action. Purusha and prakriti exist at all levels of be-
r ing in an undifferentiated state; in the individual, they can be separated

and then consciously united as Isvara/Shakti.
- 18 - Stein - - -
.
,
,
In meditation, work, daily activity, or even sleep, one can become J
aware of a witness consciousness (purusha) as separate from the workings
of nature (prakriti). The separation of purusha from prakriti, and the
resulting ascent, was the goal of the ancient yogas; by a radical asceti-
cism it became a pure state, free from the flux of nature. Sri Aurobindo
however, teaches that from this ascended poise, the purusha can go further
to change the nature of prakriti and become more than a passive instrument
of consciousness (See his quote on nirvana, in the biographical sketch of
him, above.) As the sadhak establishes this stable poise, a subjective
sense of higher self develops which can begin to attain mastery over the
workings of prakriti. The first stage of this mastery would be the ability
to sanction or not a particular movement of consciousness. A later stage
would develop an inner source of activity, conscious of the internally
transmuted energies of nature. At this level, prakriti would be transformed
from an unconscious mechanism into the conscious, active feminine principle,
Shakti .

This active, creative process is described in the Bhagavad Gita,
which teaches that action can be performed without creating karma (fate or
character rigidity) if the actor is not attached to the fruit of the action. ,
According to the advice that Krishna gives to the doubtful warrior, Arjuna,
Arjuna can do battle without creating karma if he allows himself to be an
instrument of the godhead, Krishna. This practice leads to a purification ,
,
of motive by introspection into the unconscious motives of action, which
are then turned to the service of the Divine. This is the basic procedure I
in Sri Aurobindo's yoga of works. The previously unconscious motivating

energies are transformed and surrendered to the Isvara or presiding con-
sciousness, and thus divinized, now functioning as Shakti, the goddess who
is the Universe. In tantra, she is often portrayed in sexual union with the
Lord, Shiva or Isvara; their coniunctio represents the goal of this practice.
One can see a similarity between the transformation of prakriti into
1
Shakti and Jung's objectification of the undifferentiated unconscious, which
leads to the emergence of the Sophia aspect of the anima. Depth analysis
helps to create a relationship to this conscious feminine form with its own
intent and perception. There is an interesting parallel to Sri Aurobindo's
1
view in Mysterium Coniunctionis, where Jung describes the rapprochement
between the ego and unconsciousness. l
When consciousness draws near to the unconscious not only does
it receive a devastating shock but something of its light pene-
trates into the darkness of the unconscious. The result is
l
that the unconscious is no longer so remote and strange and ter-
rifying, and this paves the way for an eventual union. Naturally
the "illumination " of the unconscious does not mean that from now
on the unconscious is less unconscious. Far from it. What happens
is that its contents cross over into consciousness more easily than
before. The "light" that shines at the end is the "l ux moderna "
of the alchemists, the new widening of consciousness, a further
,
l
!
step in the realization of the Anthropos, and everyone of these

. steps signifies a rebirth of the deity. (Collected Works, Vol. 14,
par. 211)
To summarize this aspect of the yoga, one could say that by withdrawing
l
,. - - - Yoga of Tranformation - 19 -
- projections, by getting free from enslavement to greed, hatred, and delu-
- sion, there is an ascent of consciousness to a detached state where the un-

conscious, or prakriti, can be objectified. This is followed by a rapproche-
ment where the unconscious is revivified by a meeting with the ascended
consciousness. Jung describes this new relationship as a dialogue between
r
I
I
ego and unconscious whereas for Sri Aurobindo it is the transformation of
inert prakriti into the goddess Shakti. (There are also striking similar-
ities to Gerhard Dorn's alchemical treatise, as described by Jung in
- Mysterium Coniunctionis, on the creation of the "un io mentalis and the unus
mundus. lI
)
ll
lI
.. Surrender and the Sacrifice

For many Western readers, the concept of surrender or sacrifice is

difficult to accept. This is perhaps wise, for as the Mother warned, the
first thing that most people surrender is their common sense. We cherish
our individuality and free will, and feel threatened by the idea of giving
up control to an external God. Perhaps this is due to our fear of His dark
side, as well as of the misuses of the idea of God by religious institutions.
But even if one accepts the idea in principle, trusting in the Indian view
that the Divine is our higher Self, it is not something achieved in a moment
of conversion. It requir~s, rather, bhakti, devotion.
For surrender, everyone has his own first way of approach to-
wards it. . . . Complete and total surrender is not so easy
as some seem to imagine. There are always many and large
reservations; even if one is not conscious of them they are
there. Complete surrender can come best by complete love and
bhakti. (Sri Aurobindo, Letters, Vol. 2. Pondicherry, India,
Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, 1958, p. 339)
-
"
Initially there must be an act of self-consecration which may be based
on faith (a temporary belief to be tested by knowledge as one does the prac-
..
I.:
I
tice). Doubt is accepted as a natural and useful function of the mind, to
be sincerely explored, though not to be indulged as an obstruction. One mea-
sure of success is that as the surrender proceeds, the sense of individual
..
t
I
effort, whether of the mind, vital urge, or physical body, is replaced by a
sense of harmony and support by the higher consciousness .
For Sri Aurobindo sacrifice has the literal meaning of "sacre ficio,"
to make sacred. More and more life energies and activities, as well as mo-
". ments of consciousness are brought into the field of the sacrament, or the
sacral as Eliade uses the term. Denial and repression are not advocated;
rather a true integration of aspects of the being into a centralizing con-
sciousness of the individual is sought.
The law of sacrifice is a common Divine action that was thrown
out into the world in its beginning as a symbol of the solidari-
ty of the universe. It is by the attraction of this law that a
divinizing, a saving power descends to limit and correct and gra-
dually to eliminate the errors of an egoistic and self-divided
,. creation. This descent, this sacrifice of the Purusha, the
I Divine Soul submitting itself to Force and Matter so that it may
inform and illuminate them, is the seed of redemption of this
".
I This content downloaded from 128.197.26.12 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 03:30:25 UTC
- 20 - Stein - - - -
world of Inconscience and Ignorance. For "with sacrifice as
their companion," says the Gita, "the All-Father created these
peoples." The acceptance of the law of sacrifice is a practical
recognition by the ego that it is neither alone in the world
nor chief in the world. It is its admission that, even in this
much fragmented existence, there is beyond itself and behind
that which is not its own egoistic person, something greater
and completer, a diviner All which demands from it subordination
-
and serv; ce. Indeed sacri'fi ce is imposed and, where need be,
compelled by the universal World-Force; it takes it even from
those who do not consciously recognize the law, --inevitably
because this is the intrinsic nature of things. Our ignorance
or our false egoistic view of life can make no difference to this ~
11
eternal bedrock truth of Nature. For this is the truth in Na-

ture, that this ego which thinks itself a separate independent

being and claims to live for itself, is not and cannot be inde-
pendent nor separate, nor can it live to itself even if it would,
but rather all are linked together by a secret Oneness. Each
existence is continually giving out perforce from its stock; out
of its mental receipts from Nature or its vital and physical
assets and acquisitions and belongings a stream goes to all that
is around it. And always again it receives something from its
environment in return for its voluntary or involuntary tribute.
For it is only by this giving and receiving that it can effect its
own growth while at the same time it helps the sum of things. At
-
length, though at first slowly and partially, we learn to make
the conscious sacrifice; even, in the end, we take joy to give our-
selves and what we envisage as belonging to us in the spirit of
love and devotion to That which appears for the moment other than
ourselves and is certainly other than our limited personalities.
The sacrifice and the divine return for our sacrifice then become
a gladly accepted means towards our last perfection; for it is
recognized now as the road to the fulfillment in us of the eternal
purpose. (Synthesis of Yoga, p. 99)
For Sri Aurobindo sacrifice is a law of nature, not a moralism imposed ,
,
by'man or a separate deity. Sacrifice is part of the workings of a unitary
Gonsciousness which first divides itself into separate egos in order to mani- I
fest, then slowly, painfully, but finally gladly brings the ego back to an
,
experience of its Divine origin. It is important to realize that the Purusha,
the Divine soul, also sacrifices itself, in the form of self-division and .,
resulting multiplicity, that manifestation might exist. This law of sacrifice
pervades the universe, and the ego, having been created by it, is ultimately
subject to it. i
Jung speaks of the importance, yet danger, of sacrifice in Symbols of

.,
,
Trans forma t ion.
Through the sacrifice of the natural man an attempt is made to
reach this goal, for only then will the dominating ideal of con-
sci~usness be in a position to assert itself completely and mould
human nature as it wishes. The loftiness of this ideal is incon-
testable and should indeed not be contested. Yet it is precisely ,
at this lofty height that one is beset by a doubt whether human
,
,.
I
nature is capable of being moulded in this way, and whether our

dominating idea is such that it can shape the natural material
without damaging it. Only experience will show. Meanwhile,
the attempt must be made to climb these heights, for without
such an undertaking it could never be proved that this bold and
~ violent experiment in self-transformation ;s possible at all.
,I Nor could we ever estimate or understand the powers that favour
.. the attempt or make it utterly impossible. (Collected \Jorks,
Vol. 5, par. 674)
He is referring here to an ideal of Christianity, in which man is sacrificed
.. to a purely transcendent, spiritual goal. He continues,
This ideal is hard schooling which cannot help alienating
man from his own nature and, to a large degree, from nature

in general. The attempt, as history has shown, was entirely
possible and led in the course of a few centuries to a devel-
opment of consciousness which could have been quite out of
- the question but for this training. Developments of this kind
are not arbitrary inventions or mere intellectual fantasies;
they have their own inner logic and necessity. (Collected
.. Works, Vol. 5, par 674)
In Mysterium Coniunctionis Jung again addresses the phenomenon of a
greater power at work on the individual.
The self, in its efforts at self-realization, reaches out beyond
the ego-personality on all sides; because of its all-encompassing
- nature, it is brighter and darker than the ego, and accordingly

confronts it with problems which it would like to avoid. Either
one's moral courage fails, or one's insight or both, until in the
end fate decides. The ego never lacks moral and rational counter-
arguments, which one cannot and should not set aside so long as
it is possible to hold onto them. For you can feel yourself on
-
the right road when the conflicts of duty seem to have resolved
themselves, and you have become the victim of a decision made
! over your head or in defiance of the heart. From this we can see
the numinous power of the self, which can hardly be experienced
in any other way. For this reason the experience of the self is
always experienced as a defeat for the ego. (Collected Wor.ks,
Vol. 14, par. 778)
The darker tone of Jung's statements about sacrifice in contrast to
those of Sri Aurobindo seems to reflect the Judeo-Christian heritaqe. with its
clear division between Goo and man. In yogic tradition and gnosticism, the
possibility of man becoming God, along with the other way around, puts greater
r"
I emphasis on love with one's higher self as the motive power, without the
r
denial of one's right to divinity.
Jnana Yoga
The yoga of knowledge is based on silencing the mind to allow higher,
L
.. synthetic states and functions of consciousness to emerge. The physical,
- 22 - Stein - - -
,
vital, and intellectual levels of the mind are disciplined in order to
,
I
;
allow functions including inspiration, illumination, and intuition to oper-

ate. Sri Aurobindo gives detailed instruction on the development of more
accurate intuition, to replace the slower, more mechanical operations of
,
"
the intellectual mind. The sadhak is advised to seek and nurture moments
of quiet and silence through the use of meditation and concentration, and
to allow the emergence and operation of higher functions within the mental
sphere. Detachment from dogma and fixed ideas (mental formations), along
with fearless scrutiny of himself, frees his mind to explore wider vistas.
This process in jnana yoga creat€~ a calm state for thought and intellectual
activity, in much the same way that the poise of non-attachment and equal-
ity operates in the yoga of action. The mind is poised and receptive, but
, t,
does not grasp for knowledge or attach itself to any dogmatic posture.
The soul within, and the supramental consciousness above, become the active
organs of knowledge--the soul with its voice of wisdom and guidance, the

vijnana or Supermind with its vision and transformative force. The latter,
according to Sri Aurobindo, can empower even the consciousness of the body
wi th its gnos is.
., ,
J
Bhakti Yoga I
In his essay on Heraclitus, Sri Aurobindo comments that this V1Slon
,
of fire as the essential element was the last Greek philosophy founded on
mystical passion. From Aristotle onward, Western philosophy and theology,
founded on logos, has had to look eastward for its Divine eros. India
has preserved this tradition unabashedly in the practice of bhakti yoga,
which, in its pure form led to a loss of the sense of separate self
through passionate love. Many of the bhakti cults focus on the guru,
and express their mythologem in the stories, songs, and paintings of ,'I
Krishna and his amorous adventures with Rhada and with the Gopis.
However, a conscious coniunctio with the Divine Lover leads to a ,
more differentiated awareness and a devoted participation in life, rather
than to uroboric merger. Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, in fact, both es-
chewed prolonged use of the state of samadhi, or yogic trance, with its
loss of connection to the outer world. The emotional purification achieved
by this union with the Divine is to be lived in the world, according to the
principles of their discipline. The ultimate goal is an inner coniunctio,
,
which finds in its conclusion the gnosis of jnana yoga and surrender in
works of karma yoga. What is needed in bhakti yoga is neither a romantic 1
sentimentality nor a rigid asceticism, but a conscious turning of the pas-
sions and emotional energies towards a purity of love, in whatever form it .,
enters one's life.
Love is a passion, and it seeks for two things, eternity and ,
intensity, and in the relation of the Lover and the Beloved
the seeking for eternity and for intensity is instinctive and
self-born. Love is a seeking for mutual possession, and it is
here that the demand for mutual possession becomes absolute. ,
-Passing beyond desire of possession which means a difference,
it is a seeking for oneness, and it is here that the idea of
oneness, of two souls merging into each other and becoming one
finds the acme of its longing and the utterness of its
,
1
r
"
- - - Yoga of Tranformation - 23 -
satisfaction. Love, too, is a yearning for beauty, and it is

,.
I
here that the yearning is eternally satisfied in the vision and
the touch and the joy of the All-Beautiful. Love is a child and
a seeker of Delight, and it is here that it finds the highest
possible ecstasy both of the heart consciousness and of every
fiber of the being. (Sri Aurobindo, Centenary Library, Vol. 21,
p. 545)
.. The Shadow and S~iritua1 Transformation
.. The prob1~m of evil is complex, and perhaps itself demonic. Jung was
adamant that we not fall into the devil IS most dangerous trap, namely denying
his existence. Indian religious and philosophic systems are quite differ-
entiated in their exposition of the hostile powers; there are demons of all

sizes on all planes, but most dangerous are the Asuras of the mentalized
vital plane. There are four great Asuras, which correspond to the initial
qualities of the unmanifest Divine, but in an opposing form. In Indian cos-
mogony, the attributes of the Divinity separated into pairs of opposites
for creation to manifest. The attributes of Satchitananda are threefold:
from Sat or pure conscious Existence comes the Asura of Inconscience; from
Chit, the source of the life force, separates the Asura of Death; from
Ananda or bliss comes the Asura of Suffering. Representing the quality
opposite to Supermind, or Truth, is the Asura of Falsehood. This mythic
.. scheme resembles~ in structure the Kabbalistic story of the shards,1I as
told by Gershom Sho1em.
II
The "shards ll
form the counterpoles to the ten sephiroth,
•••
which are the ten stages in the revelation of Godls creative

power. The shards, representing the forces of evil and dark-
ness, were originally mixed with the light of the sephiroth.
The IIZohar" describes evil as the by-product of the life process
of the sephiroth. Therefore the sephiroth had to be cleansed
of the evil admixture of the shards (for creation to manifest).
The elimination of the shards took place in what is described in
the cabalistic writings--particularly of Luria and his school--as
the "breaking of the vessel. Through this the powers of evil
II
assumed a separate and real existence. (Sholem quoted in Jung,

Collected Works, Vol. 11, p. 381 footnote)
According to Sri Aurobindols view, it is evil that prods humanity in
its evolutionary urge towards consciousness. These Asuric powers--incon-
r science, death, suffering, and falsehood--are what we experience as evil.
He sees the play of opposites as an essential part of the Divine drama, in
much the same way that Junganalyzes the alchemical processes in Mysterium
Coniunctionis and "Answer to Job." Sri Aurobindo is consistent with
an Indian philosophic school which sees the opposites within a fundamental
unity. Physical reality, including the body and its instincts, is the car-
rier of the dark projection, and the work of this yoga is specifically the
redemption of the physical body, as the microcosm of "materia," from the
inconscience, darkness, perversion, and falsehood to which it has been
necessarily relegated in the play of opposites. The feminine principle, em-
bodied in the Divine Mother as Shakti, is the material base as well as the
active force for this transformation of the physical life that occurs through
- 24 - Stein - - -
1
the descent of the Supramental consciousness. (Here we approach Jung's
view, in "Answer to Job," on the importance of the bodily assumption of
the Virgin Mary; this point will be considered below.)
It is Falsehood which is the main force of evil in the world today,
,
j
according to the Mother, and the main source of the body's susceptibility
to disease and death. She feels that the task we now face is an evolu-
tionary challenge to bring into moment-to-moment awareness the power of
Truth-Consciousness, lest we destroy ourselves in our own lies. She even
pointed to Watergate as a major defeat for the Asura of Falsehood. The
problem of "disinformation," including the danger of excessive military
build-up in the name of security, could also be seen as an example of
1
this Asura. One might say further that a confrontation with the demon of
Falsehood, who wants us to risk nuclear war in the name of freedom, is
already happening in the collective psyche.

Every thing created is worth being liquidated," says Mephisto. (Jung,
II
Collected Works, Vol. 11, par. 718) The Indian myth which expresses this
truth is Shiva, the destroyer, who dances at the end of each cycle of crea-
tion. In our time, the power of that destructive dance rests within our-
selves. It is, however, the individual who holds the balance, inasmuch as
he can see and act in accordance with his own inner truth, achieved through
1
struggle with the opposites.
Everything now depends on man: immense power of destruction is
given into his hand, and the question is whether he can resist
the will to use it, and can temper his will with the spirit of
love and wisdom. He will hardly be capable of doing so on his
own unaided resources. He needs the help of an "advocate" in
heaven, that is, of the child who was caught up to God and who
brings the "healing" and making whole of the hitherto fragmen-
tary man. (Jung, Collected Works, Vol. 11, par. 745)
~
Chaim Potok, in his Kabbalistic novel, The Book of Lights (New York, I
Ballantine Books, 1981) focuses on the alchemical geniuses of the
turn of the century, those nuclear physicists who placed this destructive
power in our hands (they were almost exact contemporaries of Jung, Sri
Aurobindo, and the Mother). The main character is a Kabbalistic rabbi,
whose individuation forces him to struggle with the collective shadow cast
by these giants of physical science. He quotes the following scriptural
commenta ry:
, I
"Until the day be cool and the shadows flee away. This refers II
~
to the secret known to the Companions, that when a man's time
comes to leave this wor1d i his shadow deserts him. Rabbi I
Eleazar says that man has two shadows, one larger and one small-
er, and when they are together, then he is truly himself. (p. ~
I
354) j
The bringing together of the two shadows is consistent with Jung's original
conception of the shadow as a collective product of the human psyche (mankind's
"evolutionary tail"), as well as an individual problem. Work on the personal
shadow is a necessary prelude to the direct encounter, within one's own psyche, , l
~
I
with the collective darkness common to all lives within a gl·ven epoch , e . g.
the nucl ear era. Sri Aurobi ndo woul d agree wi th Jung about the need for
man to free himself from the sense of original sin, to see the powers of
evil a~ objectively pres€nt, and to call on the grace from above, if the
- essentlal work of transforming the shadow is to take place. Jung points
out in lIAnswer to Job" that we are victims of our shadows far more than
were the early Christi ans.
As a result of the spiritual differentiation fostsred by the
Reformation, and by the growth of the sciences in particular
(which were originally taught by fallen angels), there is al-
ready a considerable admixture of darkness in us, so that com-
pa red wi th the puri ty of the early Chri st i an sa i nts . . . we
do not show up in a very favorable light. Our comparative
blackness naturally does not help us a bit. Though it miti-

gates the impact of evil forces, it makes us more vulnerable
and less capable of resisting them. We therefore need more
light, more goodness and moral strength, and must wash off as
much of the obnoxious blackness as possible, otherwise we
shall not be able to assimilate the dark God who also wants
to become man, and at the same time endure him without perish-
~
ing. For this all the Christian virtues are needed and some-
i thing else besides, for the problem is not only moral: we also
need the Wisdom that Job was seeking. (Collected Works, Vol.
-
r
11, par. 742)
Jung's major thesis in "Answer to Job" is that the dark side of Yahweh--
Satan--by which He tested Job and became conscious of His own demonic power,
...
I
!
brings with it the need for a redemptive feminine principle. In the history
of religions, the pagan myths of the divine mother and her son-lover, along
with the gnostic legend of heavenly Sophia, serve as prototypes for the earth-
ly human bride of Christianity, the Virgin, who in her purity can immacu-
,
~
lately conceive the divine child of God.
A further development of God's shadow is also foreseen in the New Test-
~ ament. Christ is modeled not only after Adam, but also Abel, who dies by the
I
hand of his murderous brother. Christ too suffers an early death, in a sense
as further appeasement of the wrathful diety; but in so doing, he redeems
man. The Christ child is God become man, a longterm goal of the deity, and
he paves the way, through the Holy Ghost or Paraclete, for the universal
div;n;zation of mankind. Yet as the Book of Revelations shows, the dark side
reappears in the apocalyptic vision of John, wherein it is seen that the
wrathful Lamb, the Antichrist, will reign over the second half of the Age of
Pisces. What struck Jung as crucial in this vision was
r . . . the sun-woman, wi th the moon under her feet, and on her

Il
head a crown of twel ve sta'rs" (Rev. 12: 1, Revi sed Standa rd

Version). She was in the pangs of birth, and before her stood
a great red dragon that wanted to devour her child. (Jung,
r Collected Works, Vol. 11, par. 710)
Jung sees'her as an image of lithe feminine Anthropos," a woman connActed
with the earth, and as such a symbol that reconciles spirit and nature. From
,. The San Francisco Jung Institute Library Journal Volume 4, Number 2 1983
l This content downloaded from 128.197.26.12 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 03:30:25 UTC
- 26 - Stein - - -
this he finds a logical progression to the promulgation by Pope Pius XII

of the Assumpti on of the Vi rgi n Ma ry, as a' further step in the process
of God incarnating in man. Jung sees the acceptance of the divinity of
the feminine, not just in principle, but in ma teria as essen'tia1 to ' ll
,
II
modern spiritual development. Another interesting point of synchronicity

is the date on which the Assumption of Mary is celebrated by the Catholic
Church; again, as with the liberation of India, it is August"15, Sri " j
Aurobindo's birthday. And it is clear that in recognizing the Mother as
Shakti, the divine feminine principle, Sri Aurobindo was making an epochal
statement about the spi ri tual need and readi ness of modern humani ty to
incorporate the feminine divinity.
Jung sees this spiritual renewal through the feminine as foretold
in the Book of Revelations.
.
I
I'
Ever since John the apoca1yptist experienced for the first

time (perhaps unconscio~sly) that conflict into which'
Christianity inevitably leads, mankind has groaned under
this burden: GOD WANTED TO BECOME MAN, AND SrILL WANTS TO.
This is probably why John experienced in his vision a se-
cond birth of a son from the mother Sophia, a divine birth
which was characterized by a coniunctio ositorum and °
which anticipated the'filius sapientiae son of wisdom),
the essence of the individuation process. (Collected Works,
Vol. 11, par. 739)
Sri Aurobindo, in his historically based vision of spiritual evolution,
would agree that God is in'the'process of incarnating ih man; in so doing
, 1
"He will redeem matter and the human ~ody from incon~cience.
In this investiture of fleshly life 1
A soul that is a spark of God' survives
And sometimes it breaks through the sordid screen ,
And kindles a fire that makes us half-divine.
rn our body·s cells there sits a hidden Power
That sees the unseen and plans eternity,
, I
,
Our smallest parts have room for deepest needs;
There too the golden Messengers can come:
A door is cut in the mud wall of self;
Across the lowly threshold with bowed heads
Angels of ecstasy and self-giving pass,'
And lodged in an inner sanctuary of dream
The makers of the image of deity live. ,
(Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, Centenary
pp.169-170)
Libra~y, Vol. 28,
,
The son of this new era can be seen as the transformative consciousness
which Sri Aurobindo and the Mother described as the Supermind. Its emergence
is a change in the operational functioning of humanity as great in magnitude , I
as the development of the first mental being. Sri Aurobindo describes the
portentous circumstances of this point in time in his poetic prose-invocation
liThe Hour of God. II
,
,
r
I
I
- - - Yoga of Tranformation - 27 -
There are moments when the Spirit moves among men and the
breath of the lord is abroad upon the waters of our being;
there are others when it retires and men are left to act in the
strength or weakness of their own egoism. The first are periods
when even a little effort produces great results and changes
destiny; the second are spaces in time when much labour goes to
the making of a little result. It is true that the latter may
prepare the former, may be the little smoke of sacrifice going
up to heaven which calls down the rain Df God's bounty . . . .
In the hour of God cleanse thy soul of all self-deceit and
r hypocrisy and vain self-flattering that thou mayest look

straight into thy spirit and hear that which summons it .
. . . Nor let worldly prudence whisper too closely in thy
... ear; for it is the hour of the unexpected. (Centenary Library,

Vol. 17, p. ])
It is clear that the new force of destruction placed in the hands of men
creates further polarization of consciousness and a heightened tension of
opposites, necessitating a greater force of God to incarnate in man. In
1926, just before his withdrawal to begin the Supramental yoga, Sri Auro-
II!II
I
bindo spoke with a' French scientist about developments in theoretical phy-
sics.
There are two statements of modern science that woul d sti r
up deeper ranges in an occultist:
1) Atoms are whirling systems like the solar system.
2) The 4toms of all elements are made out of the same
constituents. A different arrangement is the only
cause of different properties.
- If these statements are considered under their true aspect,

they could lead science to new discoveries of which it has no
ideas at present and in comparison with which the present
knowledge is poor.
. . . according to the experience of ancient Yogis . . . Agni
is threefold:
1) ordinary fire, jada Agni
.2) electric fire, vaidyuta Agni
3) solar fire, saura Agni.
~
Science ·has only entered upon the first and second of these
I~ fires. The fact that the atom is like the solar system could
I
lead to the knowledge of the third. (Sri Aurobindo, quoted in
Sa tprem, p. 323)
In the evolutionary phases of contracting and expanding consciousness,
Supe~mind is seen as an encompassing consciousness; when it is embodied, it
can carry creation beyond the threat of annihilation posed by an unspiritual-
ized knowledge of saura Agni, the solar fire of nuclear physics. Behind and
within the nuclear fire is the power and knowledge of spiritual Agni, lithe
child of the waters, the child of the forests, the child of things stable and
the child of things that move. Even in the stone he is there. (Rig Veda, 1I
I. 70.2, quoted in Satprem, p. 325)
- 28 - Stein - - -
The consciousness involved in the processes of atomic physics is

being approached from within the psyche at the same time that the scien-
tific mind objectifies it from without. This contemporary alchemy--as ..,
expounded by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother no less than by Jung--brings t
a rapprochement of science and mystical vision at a much more differen-
tiated level of awareness than that of the Vedic seers .or the medieval
philosophers.
The Mother, for instance, describes her first experience of Super-
mind in imagery that is strikingly alchemical.
.,I
I
Everything happens as though our spiritual life were made of

silver, whilst the supramental life is made of gold . . . .
There was an impression of power, of warmth, of qo~d: it was
not fluid, it was like a glow of dust . . . . it was like vivid
gold, a warm gold dust--one cannot say it was brilliant, one ,

cannot say it was dark nor was it made of light as we under-
stand it: a crowd of tiny little points of gold, nothing but
that . . . . It was movement at its fastest . . . and at the
same time it was absolute peace, perfect tranquility. (quoted
in Satprem, pp. 279-280)
, i
So much of Sri Aurobindo's later writing is devoted to elucidating and
,
lilt
giving expression to Supermind that it is beyond this review to enter an
exposition of its levels, functions, and effects on the other grades of mani-
festation. His writing, particularly the mantric poetry of Savitri and
the lengthy passages in Life Divine, provide the most direct access to this
"vi brati on of consci ousness. In a passage from The Synthesi s of Yoga, Sri
II
Aurobindo describes the unitary experience and its effect on the sense or-
gans: ,
Nothing to the supramental sense is really finite: . it is
founded on a feeling of all in each and of each in all: its
sense definition, although more precise and complete than the
, i
mental, creates no walls of limitation; it is an oceanic and
ethereal sense in which all particular sense knowledge and
1
,
sensation is a wave or movement or spray or drop that is yet
a concentration of the whole ocean and inseparable f~om the
ocean . . . . . This sense . . . is luminous with a revealing
light that carries in it the secret of the thing it ~xperi
ences . . . . (It) is strong with a luminous power that carries
within it the force of self-realization . . . . It is raptur-
ous with a powerful and luminous delight that makes. of ,
all sense a vessel of the divine and infinite Ananda. (Cen-
tenary Library, Vol. 21, p. 835)
,
,
It seems that the eternal verities remain, yet the evolution of conscious-
ness demands new forms and modes of being for their revaluation. The changes
brought upon us in this age demand a renewed commitment and growth, one which
is not limited by separate religions or cultural dichotomies like East and
West. Our individual struggles can be seen as part of this emergence, and
in seeing them in this way, Sri Aurobindo emphasizes our fundamental Oneness
with all creation, in the Self that unites all selves.
,
1
Our seekings are short-lived experiments

Made by a wordless and inscrutable Power
Testing its issues from inconscient Night
To meet its luminous self of Truth and Bliss
.., In the symbol pictures drawn by word and thought,
It seeks the truth to which all figures point;
It looks for the source of Light with vision's lamp;
..
1I
It works to find the doer of all works,
The unfelt Self within who is the guide,
The unknown Self above who ;s the goal.
.. (Savitri, Centenary Library, Vol. 28, p. 159)
..

.:,
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.- I
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Review

Author(s): Richard Stein

The Yoga of Transformation: A Review of the Writings of Sri Aurobindo

Before embarking on the following material, it seems necessary to

© C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco

science to transmit the experience about which he was writing. Quotes in

o Fire, achieve at my call the Revealing Speech, the many-

© C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco

Although Sri Aurobindo more than once cautioned the biographer

exemplifies his insistence that a transformation in conscious-

.. consciousness before receiving historical and institutional

© C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco

- academically at St. Paul's school and later at King's College, Cambridge

Lamps for Old, quoted by Satprem, Sri Aurobindo, or the Adventure-Gf

the evolution of humanity, to enjoy a new material and social prosperity,

© C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco

Another of the important experiences of this period was a V1Slon of

r to the light above allowed a higher consciousness to act through one's

© C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco

cipline]. I followed it and progressed for myself but could

© C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco

© C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco

The Nature of Reality

and impose on them a kind of atrophy. But, fundamentally, all

materialist,1I with its pursuit of rational knowledge, to lead to ever

an awareness that it is not more knowledge, but new organs of consciousness

transcendent and eternal, and thus unconcerned with historical process.

© C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco

the Mother said,

But while the former steps in evolution were taken by nature

Sri Aurobindo perceives reality as a sevenfold being. The totality

© C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco

,. Implicit in this vie\v of evolution is the idea that man is a "trnnsition-

r Library, Vol. 18, p. 263)

Inherent in each step of evolution are the more conscious levels

© C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco

inaccessible.and undifferentiated .. The tradition speaks of the trinitary

These higher tenns may be delineated separately as follows. "S a t is ll

© C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco

r vital, and intellectual levels, and opens them to revelation, illumination,

r Sri Aurobindo's experience of Supermind and his conceptual explication

r As a concurrent development in his vision (the period of his revision

© C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco

The following diagram represents the connections between the comple-

Upper Hemisphere Lower Hemisphere

Sri Aurobindo delineates various stages of the involution of Supermind

as it undergoes the Self-limitation, separation from oneness, and differen- ,

Experiencing the Overmind can be seen as possession by a particular

© C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco

r Yo yacchraddhah sa eva sah, "whatever is a man's faith or the sure

An excellent and brief introduction to the subtle practice of this

situation. In the introductory chapters~ he says that all life is yoga,

this great purpose may be more swiftly and puissantly attained .

© C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco

Vol. 11, par. 745)

knowledge or wisdom); the yoga of love, which aims at a purification of the

Sri Aurobindo also had to struggle against this because he

© C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco

- separating. For subconscious thought (I mean thinking without

divine, beautiful, admirable--but it's not at all! Perfection

.. fection is a totality. The divine perfection is the whole of

of the tantric tradition, with its relationship to the earth, darkness,

The one infinitely variable Spirit in things carries all of