श्रीभगवानुवाच
मय्यासक्तमनाः पार्थ योगं युञ्जन्मदाश्रयः ।असंशयं समग्रं मां यथा ज्ञास्यसि तच्छृणु ॥
mayyāsaktamanāḥ pārtha yogaṁ yuñjanmadāśrayaḥasaṁśayaṁ samagraṁ māṁ yathā jñāsyasi tacchṛṇu
The Blessed Lord said: Hear, O Partha, how by practising Yoga with a mind attached to Me and with Me as ashraya (the whole basis, lodgment, point of resort of the conscious being and action) thou shalt know Me without any remainder of doubt, integrally.
Compiled rendering · Anilbaran Roy
Mottoes of The Life Divine
Hear how thou shalt know Me in My totality . . . for even of the seekers who have achieved, hardly one knows Me in all the truth of My being.
His translation
KRISHNA When thou hast cloven to me with thy whole self, O Partha, taking refuge in me & practising Yoga, hearken how then thou shalt know me without doubt and without imperfection. For I will declare to thee without reserve the whole result of Philosophy & Science which when thou hast known there is nought else that is left to be known in this existence. Among many thousands of men hardly one striveth after perfection and of those even that strive & are spiritually whole, hardly one knoweth me without misprision.
Essays on the Gita
Therefore, in this uncertainty, what has now to be done is to give more completely the knowledge on which divine works are to be founded. And this can only be the complete, the integral knowledge of the Divine who is the source of works and in whose being the worker becomes by knowledge free; for he knows the free Spirit from whom all works proceed and participates in his freedom. Moreover this knowledge must bring a light that justifies the assertion with which the first part of the Gita closes. It must ground the supremacy of bhakti over all other motives and powers of spiritual consciousness and action; it must be a knowledge of the supreme Lord of all creatures to whom alone the soul can offer itself in the perfect self-surrender which is the highest height of all love and devotion. This is what the Teacher proposes to give in the opening verses of the seventh chapter which initiate the development that occupies all the rest of the book. “Hear,” he says, “how by practising Yoga with a7·1 mind7·1–2 attached to me and with me as āśraya (the whole basis, lodgment, point of resort of the conscious being and action) thou shalt know me without any remainder of doubt, integrally, samagraṁ mām. I will speak to thee without omission or remainder, aśeṣataḥ,” (for otherwise a ground of doubt may remain), “the essential knowledge, attended with all the comprehensive knowledge, by knowing which there shall be no other thing here left to be known.” The implication of the phrase is that the Divine Being is all, vāsudevaḥ sarvam, and therefore if he is known integrally in all his powers and principles, then all is known, not only the pure Self, but the world and action and Nature. There is then nothing else here left to be known, because all is that Divine Existence. It is only because our view here is not thus integral, because it rests on the dividing mind and reason and the separative idea of the ego, that our mental perception of things is an ignorance. We have to get away from this mental and egoistic view to the true unifying knowledge, and that has two aspects, the essential, jñāna, and the comprehensive, vijñāna, the direct spiritual awareness of the supreme Being and the right intimate knowledge of the principles of his existence, Prakriti, Purusha and the rest, by which all that is can be known in its divine origin and in the supreme truth of its nature. That integral knowledge, says the Gita, is a rare and difficult thing;7·3 “among thousands of men one here and there strives after perfection, and of those who strive and attain to perfection one here and there knows me in all the principles of my existence, tattvataḥ.”
The difficulty which baffles our intelligence is that these two seem to be irreconcilable opposites with no real nexus between them or any transition from the one to the other except by an intolerant movement of separation. The Kshara acts, or at least motives action, separately in the Akshara; the Akshara stands apart, self-centred, separate in its inactivity from the Kshara. At first sight it would almost seem better, more logical, more easy of comprehension, if we admitted with the Sankhyas an original and eternal duality of Purusha and Prakriti, if not even an eternal plurality of souls. Our experience of the Akshara would then be simply the withdrawal of each Purusha into himself, his turning away from Nature and therefore from all contact with other souls in the relations of existence; for each is self-sufficient and infinite and complete in his own essence. But after all the final experience is that of a unity of all beings which is not merely a community of experience, a common subjection to one force of Nature, but a oneness in the spirit, a vast identity of conscious being beyond all this endless variety of determination, behind all this apparent separativism of relative existence. The Gita takes its stand in that highest spiritual experience. It appears indeed to admit an eternal plurality of souls subject to and sustained by their eternal unity, for cosmos is for ever and manifestation goes on in unending cycles; nor does it affirm anywhere or use any expression that would indicate an absolute disappearance, laya, the annullation of the individual soul in the Infinite. But at the same time it affirms with a strong insistence that the Akshara is the one self of all these many souls, and it is therefore evident that these two spirits are a dual status of one eternal and universal existence. That is a very ancient doctrine; it is the whole basis of the largest vision of the Upanishads,—as when the Isha tells us that Brahman is both the mobile and the immobile, is the One and the Many, is the Self and all existences, ātman, sarvabhūtāni, is the Knowledge and the Ignorance, is the eternal unborn status and also the birth of existences, and that to dwell only on one of these things to the rejection of its eternal counterpart is a darkness of exclusive knowledge or a darkness of ignorance. It too insists like the Gita that man must know and must embrace both and learn of the Supreme in his entirety7·1 —samagraṁ mām, as the Gita puts it—in order to enjoy immortality and live in the Eternal. The teaching of the Gita and this side of the teaching of the Upanishads are so far at one; for they look at and admit both sides of the reality and still arrive at identity as the conclusion and the highest truth of existence.
Mottoes of The Life Divine
Hear how thou shalt know Me in My totality . . . for even of the seekers who have achieved, hardly one knows Me in all the truth of My being.
Gita.*
Other writings
The integral Yoga is so called because it aims at a harmonised totality of spiritual realisation and experience. Its aim is integral experience of the Divine Reality, what the Gita describes in the words samagram mam, “the whole Me” of the Divine Being. Its method is an integral opening of the whole consciousness, mind, heart, life, will, body to that Reality, to the Divine Existence, Consciousness, Beatitude, to its being and its integral transformation of the whole nature[.]
Writings in Bengali
ঐক্যকে মানসিক ভূমির (level) উপরে তুলিয়া মনের অতীত বিজ্ঞানভূমিতে পূর্ণ সিদ্ধ করা হচ্ছে তাহার মূল তত্ত্ব। পুরাতন যোগের দোষ এই ছিল যে সে মনবুদ্ধিকে জানত আর আত্মাকে জানত, মনের মধ্যেই অধ্যাত্ম অনুভূতি পেয়ে সন্তুষ্ট থাকত, কিন্তু মন খণ্ডকেই আয়ত্ত করিতে পারে, অনন্ত অখণ্ডকে সম্পূর্ণ ধরিতে পারে না, ধরিতে হলে সমাধি মোক্ষ নির্ব্বাণ ইত্যাদিই মনের উপায়, আর উপায় নাই। সেই লক্ষণহীন মোক্ষলাভ এক এক জন করিতে পারে বটে কিন্তু লাভ কি? ব্রহ্ম আত্মা ভগবান ত আছেনই, ভগবান মানুষে যা চান, সেটী হচ্ছে তাঁহাকে এখানেই মূর্ত্তিমান করা ব্যষ্টিতে, সমষ্টিতে — to realise God in life। পুরাতন যোগপ্রণালী অধ্যাত্ম ও জীবনের সামঞ্জস্য বা ঐক্য করিতে পারে নি, জগৎকে মায়া বা অনিত্য লীলা বলে উড়িয়ে দিয়েছে। ফল হয়েছে জীবনশক্তির হ্রাস, ভারতের অবনতি। গীতায় যা বলা হয়েছে, “উৎসীদেয়ুরিমে লোকা ন কুর্য্যাং কর্ম্ম চেদহম্”, ভারতের “ইমে লোকাঃ” সত্যই সত্যই উৎসন্ন হয়ে গেছে। কয়েকজন সন্ন্যাসী ও বৈরাগী সাধু সিদ্ধ মুক্ত হয়ে যাবে, কয়েকজন ভক্ত প্রেমে ভাবে আনন্দে অধীর হয়ে নৃত্য কর্ব্বে, আর সমস্ত জাতি প্রাণহীন বুদ্ধিহীন হয়ে ঘোর তমোভাবে ডুবে যাবে, এ কিরূপ অধ্যাত্মসিদ্ধি? আগে মানসিক levelএ যত খণ্ড অনুভূতি পেয়ে মনকে অধ্যাত্মরসপ্লুত, অধ্যাত্মের আলোকে আলোকিত কর্ত্তে হয়, তাহার পর উপরে ওঠা। উপরে না উঠিলে — অর্থাৎ বিজ্ঞানভূমিতে, জগতের শেষ রহস্য জানা অসম্ভব, জগতের সমস্যা solved হয় না। সেখানেই আত্মা ও জগৎ, অধ্যাত্ম ও জীবন, এই দ্বন্দ্বের অবিদ্যা ঘুচে যায়। তখন জগৎ আর মায়া বলে দেখতে হয় না, জগৎ ভগবানের সনাতন লীলা, আত্মার নিত্য বিকাশ। তখন ভগবানকে পূর্ণভাবে জানা পাওয়া সম্ভব হয়, গীতায় যাকে বলে “সমগ্রং মাং জ্ঞাতুং প্রবিষ্টুম্”। অন্নময় দেহ, প্রাণ, মনবুদ্ধি, বিজ্ঞান, আনন্দ এই হল আত্মার পাঁচটী ভূমি, যতই উঁচুতে উঠি, মানুষের spiritual evolutionএর চরম সিদ্ধির অবস্থা নিকট হয়ে আসে। বিজ্ঞানে ওঠায় আনন্দে ওঠা সহজ হয়ে যায়, অখণ্ড অনন্ত আনন্দের অবস্থার স্থির প্রতিষ্ঠা হয় শুধু ত্রিকালাতীত পরব্রহ্মে নয়, দেহে জগতে জীবনে। পূর্ণ সত্তা পূর্ণ চৈতন্য পূর্ণ আনন্দ বিকশিত হয়ে জীবনে মূর্ত্ত হয়। এই চেষ্টাই আমার যোগপন্থার central clue, তার মূল কথা।
Letters
Because through it you surrender not only to the impersonal but to the personal, not only to the Divine in yourself but to the Divine outside you; you get a chance for the surpassing of ego not only by retreat into the Self where ego does not exist, but in the personal nature where it is the ruler. It is the sign of the will to complete surrender to the total Divine, samagraṁ mām, mānuṣīṁ tanum āśritam. Of course it must be a genuine spiritual surrender for all this to be true.
The Arya — text not in the CWSA
Gita VII. 1–28
Evening talks
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, but that is from another standpoint. By opposition they help man in his upward evolution. This is the standpoint from which God is known integrally – _samagram; vāsudevah sarvam_ [“The Divine Being is all.” The Gita, VII, 19.]
