The purṇa yoga
Śrī Aurobindo’s yoga is the purṇa yoga, the Integral Yoga, in that it gathers the classical yoga and adds to them the supramental dimension—here too his being an avatāra becomes manifest.
The basis of Śrī Aurobindo’s yoga is that it is not necessary to awaken Kuṇḍalī from below, but that her descent from above is sufficient. Śrī Aurobindo refers to the effective “consciousness-energies” of every human being by employing the term typical of the tantric currents: Kuṇḍalī means “the coiled one”, the serpent of light that lies asleep, wrapped in three and a half coils at the base of the spine, in the Mūlādhāra-cakra. This is the first real advance of the pūrṇa yoga—and indeed of every yoga: the light (which is described as neurobiological; that it be spiritual or aspirational is believed only in pseudo-esoteric texts) that is the awakening of Kuṇḍalī.
All yoga directed toward liberation within a single lifetime—that is, the tantric yoga—are in fact founded on the awakening of the individual’s subtle or occult energies, on making the mind empirically ascertain that it does not coincide with the I, so that the encephalon in turn abandons that belief.
According to the classical Indian and later Tibetan framework, the yoga have two domains: Haṭha-yoga and Rāja-yoga—the former aimed at awakening Kuṇḍalī, the latter at learning to be the states of mind that her awakening sets in motion. This is, naturally, only a systematic description a posteriori: it may well happen that one finds oneself suddenly and by chance in Samādhi (a term mostly translated as “absorption”), as occurred with Śrī Aurobindo; or that Kuṇḍalī refuses to give the slightest sign despite yogīn covered in ash consecrating to her an entire lifetime; or again, any of the infinite intermediate possibilities that may arise, each unique and peculiar, in a progression whose where and when of beginning one does not know, nor the where and how of its possible end. If, however, she awakens, Kuṇḍalī rises along the Suṣumnā-nāḍī, whose material counterpart is the spinal column; she traverses the various cakra, bursts into the white light of Ājñā-cakra, the “command centre” (for it is in this place—or moment—that, as the Kashmiri Śaivites say, Śiva installs himself), and then spreads into the Sahasrāra-cakra, the thousand-petalled lotus at the crown of the head—after which, some Tantra say, she proceeds into the Dvādaśānta, twelve fingers above the head, the first cakra that is not physically human. On such extra-corporeal dimensions, however, Śrī Aurobindo’s descriptions differ from those of the classical revealed texts.
Once the Sahasrāra-cakra has been reached, Kuṇḍalī descends again into the body as amṛta, the nectar (which is none other than the much misunderstood Rigvedic Soma), producing Sat-cit-ānanda (being-consciousness-bliss); and this is the stage to which Haṭha-yoga is appointed.
There follows Rāja-yoga, the yoga of the mind which, as the Ṛṣi Gheraṇḍa declares with regard to Haṭha-yoga and the Ṛṣi Patañjali with regard to Rāja-yoga, presupposes that Kuṇḍalī has been awakened—just as Dzogchen and Mahāmudrā in Tibetan Buddhism presuppose gtum-mo (that is, the realisation of Kuṇḍalinī-yoga)—otherwise these higher yoga are inauthentic. This, of course, is said from the systematic point of view: in operative terms, if liberation is attained by practising the higher yoga directly, the realisation itself implies the immediate attainments of the preceding yoga. (For this reason Dzogchen is simultaneously the ninth and highest sub-vehicle in the progression of the teachings of the Nyingma school, and also a possible instantaneous path.)
Thus the ascent and subsequent descent of Kuṇḍalī are the object of Haṭha-yoga, in the sense that the techniques described therein (or at least some of them, the others being preparatory) serve precisely to raise her, while the descent follows consequentially. The point is that she descends with more than what ascended, so to speak, for the realisation of Kuṇḍalī consists in experiencing states of consciousness anterior to the I; and it is precisely the sustained experiencing of these states of consciousness anterior to the I over time that constitutes Rāja-yoga. The point of connection between the two phases lies in what the revealed texts always repeat: the techniques devoted to Kuṇḍalī serve to “initiate the mechanism”. Once one experiences oneself as other than the I, they are no longer necessary—and indeed become deleterious. What is then required is to become aware that the encephalic mind has registered the pre-theoretical, and to allow the nervous system itself to realise that it is confined to representation solely because of representation. This second area is the domain of the yoga of the mind, of which Rāja-yoga is among the most complete expositions in the Indian tradition; but here too one has, on the one hand, techniques preparatory to witnessing the mind’s transformation in the terms described above, and on the other, the living of the reality that has been accessed.
Once a certain degree of awareness of one’s true nature has been attained—an awareness that is pre-logical and as such not communicable as discursive knowledges—once, that is, one has gained a foothold in the authentic dimension of reality, nothing remains but to allow, pre-theoretically, the stabilisation of the attainment, to live in the authentic reality, without any further technique being necessary (the techniques being, it goes without saying, theoretical as such). And the same, naturally, is said in Tantric Buddhism, where the summit of Dzogchen and Mahāmudrā is precisely this: once the preliminary techniques have been accomplished, to live “spontaneously”, that is, in the dimension where Base (pre-theoretical awareness), Path (the realising of its implementation), and Fruit (the ever-deepening consolidation in it) are one and the same.
Śrī Aurobindo’s yoga focuses precisely on these ultimate stages, greatly innovating both their description and their scope, for according to Śrī Aurobindo not even these conditions are to be regarded as an end point (assuming they are such in the yoga just mentioned).
According to Śrī Aurobindo, to summarise, it is not necessary to practise the yoga aimed at awakening Kuṇḍalī from below, for Kuṇḍalī herself activates automatically through the realisation of the Integral Yoga—Śrī Aurobindo, like all yogīn, describes the path that he himself found himself travelling: the occurrence of the śaktipāta is precisely the unexpected finding of oneself in the dimension of true reality, whereas the Tantra, and in truth all yoga, indicate the way to mechanically ascertain whether one is called to this.
At this point, Śrī Aurobindo’s yoga begins.
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Continue in Part IV