Integral Yoga, Level I.B

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother have written volumes of letters and literature that span a wide range of topics and approaches to knowledge. In this second series on Integral Yoga, we present major works of the Mother’s and suggest a starting place for those new to Integral Yoga. In I.C., we will present and review Sri Aurobindo’s major works and publications.

Integral Yoga is so named for several reasons. In I.A, we saw that Integral Yoga acknowledges the wisdom and insights from various spiritual paths. It honors them by integrating their essential truths into a comprehensive spiritual practice. Another way in which the teachings of Sri Aurobindo’s and the Mother’s is considered integral is its emphasis on bringing together the various parts and strands of our outer being – mind, vital and body – to create an integral or harmonious whole centered around the soul, rather than the ego. Living an Integral Life: Finding your Center of Gravity discusses this aspect of Integral Yoga and the need of the outer being for a solid, unshifting anchor: the soul. Through several exercises, participants are encouraged to reflect on how important decisions are made in life and the consequences when such decisions are ego-centric rather than soul-centric.   

In the last section, we continue our journey on the Parts of the Being and Levels of Consciousness. Sri Aurobindo provides us with two perspectives or systems from which this may be understood: the concentric system and vertical system. Here, we turn our attention to the concentric system of consciousness and introduce the inner, subtle planes of consciousness: the inner mind, inner vital and inner or subtle physical, as well as the subconscious.