The Synthesis of Yoga (2000-2001, Super school, Auroville) - Session 1 (20 October 2000)

Yoga-Siddhi, the perfection that comes from the practice of Yoga, can be best attained by the combined working of four great instruments. There is, first, the knowledge of the truths, principles, powers and processes that govern the realisation—śāstra. Next comes a patient and persistent action on the lines laid down by this knowledge, the force of our personal effort—utsāha. There intervenes, third, uplifting our knowledge and effort into the domain of spiritual experience, the direct suggestion, example and influence of the Teacher—guru. Last comes the instrumentality of Time—kāla; for in all things there is a cycle of their action and a period of the divine movement.

Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga - I: The Four Aids

Some processes may be very short if you want to move very fast and if you know the principles then even processes can be shortened. The knowledge of processes is conditioned by the knowledge of principles. And the principles always depend upon the Truth,—so, truths, principles, powers and processes. These four things are necessary.

Any book that describes these four things is called shastra. If you read the Bhagavad Gita for example you get the same kind of knowledge of the truths, principles, powers and processes. That is why the Bhagavad Gita is also called Yoga shastra. If you read the Upanishads you have the same: truths, principles, powers and processes. Upanishads are also called Yoga shastra. The Veda also contains the truths, principles, powers and processes. Veda is also called Yoga shastra. There are many other Yoga shastras in India and also elsewhere, in other parts of the world. There are many, many such shastras.

But no shastra deals with the problem with which we have started. We have started with the question: “How do we realise divine life on the earth?” Some shastras describe only how you can ascend towards the Divine. They do not tell you how to come back. You go upwards but they don’t tell you how to come down. Some tell you how to go upwards up to a certain point but not beyond that point. The Veda for example gives you the shastra of going upwards and also coming down but not to that point which will make collective divine life on the earth possible. That requires a further descent. Therefore this book, The Synthesis of Yoga, is the only book which tells you how to realise divine life on the earth. Not only to rise up towards the Divine but to bring down the Divine to such an extent that the whole earth can be flooded with the Divine Light.

Therefore we have selected this book. I had selected the Veda initially just to begin. It only prepared your mind, whether you remember or not does not matter. We shall come back again one day to all that we have dealt with in the first part of our journey. But that created a climate in your mind. So that everything that comes here will not be so strange as it would have been. One day we shall study the Upanishads, at least a few of them. One day we shall also study the Bhagavad Gita because that gives you a passage. We shall also study what Christ for example has said about the movement towards the Divine, the manifestation of the Divine Love on the earth for example. There are many such processes and we shall come across many of them.

But this book, The Synthesis of Yoga, is the one book that gives you the most articulate and intellectually the most satisfying statement. All the questions that you may have regarding the truths, principles, powers and processes of the divine realisation on the earth, all that has been addressed in fullness. Even that fullness is not yet full in this book. If you read the whole book you will find towards the end that it is incomplete. Thereafter there are thirteen volumes which are called Mother’s Agenda —L’Agenda de Mère —and Mother herself has said these Agenda books are the continuation of The Synthesis of Yoga. It is very large, very intricate, detailed, extremely scientific, microscopic —just as when you see under a microscope you can see things much enlarged, the minute things are seen, similarly these two volumes of The Synthesis of Yoga and the thirteen volumes of the Mother’s Agenda are the long canvas before us.

But the first Chapter gives you what you need to know. That is a great solace that we have everything here. If you read this Chapter very carefully and then you proceed on the way then other things will follow very easily. That is why I am slowly entering into this Chapter without any haste so that every word is grasped as fully as possible.

So, the first instrument of yogic realisation is the knowledge of the truths, principles, powers and processes of yoga that leads to realisation.

Yoga-Siddhi, the perfection that comes from the practice of Yoga, can be best attained by the combined working of four great instruments. There is, first, the knowledge of the truths, principles, powers and processes that govern the realisation—śāstra. Next comes a patient and persistent action on the lines laid down by this knowledge, the force of our personal effort—utsāha. There intervenes, third, uplifting our knowledge and effort into the domain of spiritual experience, the direct suggestion, example and influence of the Teacher—guru. Last comes the instrumentality of Time—kāla; for in all things there is a cycle of their action and a period of the divine movement.

Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga - I: The Four Aids

Even if you know what is the process that will not lead you to realisation unless you make an effort yourself. And effort of what kind: patient and persistent. Do not have the ambition of realizing now at this moment —be patient. Don’t say: Twelve years I have been doing sadhana and nothing happened. Don’t worry, thirty-six years is a minimum,—does not matter. Even seventy years is not enough,—so patience. But if you have no ambition, you will find sufficient signs of your progress every time which will give you a push to move forward. There is no need to be disappointed in this process. If you feel disappointed it means that you do not know how to be patient. When you feel disappointed remember that you are too impatient. Remember that you have too great an ambition. And in this process you should have no ambition. Let us do at every moment what is to be done, as perfectly as possible, and in due course everything will be fulfilled. So patience is a very important word.

And that is not enough: persistence. Constantly you have to make an effort, whether awake or in sleep, whether you are tired or you are in a great heat. In every state there should be a persistent effort and the minimum of the effort is the simplest thing: aspire. Aspiration is the minimum of the effort. You just aspire: “I want the Divine Life”. This is the aspiration. I simply want, “I want Divine Life”, go on saying this. Even when you are tired you simply say: “I want the Divine Life”. Even when you are not making an effort, it does not matter, say simply: “I want Divine Life on the earth”. Persistent, all the time with one mantra: “I want the Divine Life on the earth.” This is called in Sanskrit Utsaha. Utsaha is actually enthusiasm. We should feel fired. Even when you don’t feel enthusiastic the only effort to make is: do not give way, do not fall down. And even if you fall down you will say: “Even fallen, I am God”. And you rise again and again and again. That is the second factor, knowledge of the truths, principles, powers and processes, which govern the realisation, supported by a persistent effort, a patient effort.

Yoga-Siddhi, the perfection that comes from the practice of Yoga, can be best attained by the combined working of four great instruments. There is, first, the knowledge of the truths, principles, powers and processes that govern the realisation—śāstra. Next comes a patient and persistent action on the lines laid down by this knowledge, the force of our personal effort—utsāha. There intervenes, third, uplifting our knowledge and effort into the domain of spiritual experience, the direct suggestion, example and influence of the Teacher—guru. Last comes the instrumentality of Time—kāla; for in all things there is a cycle of their action and a period of the divine movement.

Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga - I: The Four Aids

When your knowledge is increasing, even when your effort is increasing your life is uplifting; you have lifted up your whole being. You have to imagine that we are in a pit and you are making a lot of effort to rise up from the pit. Then there is somebody who pulls you—this is a tremendous assurance, there is always somebody around you who is ready to pull you up. Only on one condition that you should put your hand upwards. That is, uplifting your effort there is somebody to pull you up. What is it that pulls you up? Three things: direct suggestion, example and influence of the teacher. There is always a teacher around you and he comes in time —always, be sure of that.

When Arjuna wanted a teacher he found right there that the charioteer was his teacher. When he came on the chariot to the battlefield he did not know that Sri Krishna who was the charioteer was going to teach him. He only knew that Sri Krishna would drive his chariot. He did not know that a crisis would come to him, that a big question would arise in his mind, but he found, when the question arose he had just to turn to his charioteer and there was the answer. This is one assurance in Yoga. Always, always, always a teacher stands near us. We may not be aware of him but when you rise with a question, when you uplift yourself, you will find the teacher just near you and he will uplift you.

There are three ways of uplifting. Direct suggestion. If you read the Bhagavad Gita it is a story so you will know very easily how Sri Krishna gives a suggestion, orally, and then he gives his own example, and then he makes an influence by his presence. It is like mesmerism, —charisma, he is so attractive, the Master is so attractive that he becomes irresistible. And you have to follow him,—that is the Master. So he gives you a suggestion, he gives an example of himself as to how he has attained, how he has embodied the realisation himself and then, he gives you such a power of attraction that you are uplifted. This is the third factor: the Teacher. In Sanskrit the word teacher is called guru. First is shastra, second is utsaha and third is the guru.

Now only the fourth factor remains. What is the fourth factor? Already Sri Aurobindo has given the fourth factor when he used the word: patient. Be patient. It is a question of time. Time is the fourth factor.

Yoga-Siddhi, the perfection that comes from the practice of Yoga, can be best attained by the combined working of four great instruments. There is, first, the knowledge of the truths, principles, powers and processes that govern the realisation—śāstra. Next comes a patient and persistent action on the lines laid down by this knowledge, the force of our personal effort—utsāha. There intervenes, third, uplifting our knowledge and effort into the domain of spiritual experience, the direct suggestion, example and influence of the Teacher—guru. Last comes the instrumentality of Time—kāla; for in all things there is a cycle of their action and a period of the divine movement.

Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga - I: The Four Aids

The word time in Sanskrit is called kala. Why kala, why time? Sri Aurobindo explains: “…for in all things there is a cycle of their action and a period of the divine movement.” If you sow a seed in the soil, you have to wait for sometime before it sprouts. You cannot sow a seed and immediately it starts sprouting. It sprouts and then it gives flowers and then it gives fruits. It takes time. In everything there is a different time limit. Some things give immediate fruits while certain things take a long time. Everything has a rhythm. So you must know for everything how much time it will take. Accordingly, you should move forward. The whole science of Time is to be understood by a yogi, by anyone who moves forward towards realization.

This is all that Sri Aurobindo says in the whole Chapter and in the whole book. In all the thirteen volumes of the Agenda also. These four things come again and again and again. If you know these five lines you know the secret of the whole yoga. All that we shall now do is a summary, a long summary, of these four elements.

Now to repeat, as I told you I’ll go back again and again and again. I shall read again.

Yoga-Siddhi, the perfection that comes from the practice of Yoga, can be best attained by the combined working of four great instruments. There is, first, the knowledge of the truths, principles, powers and processes that govern the realisation—śāstra. Next comes a patient and persistent action on the lines laid down by this knowledge, the force of our personal effort—utsāha. There intervenes, third, uplifting our knowledge and effort into the domain of spiritual experience, the direct suggestion, example and influence of the Teacher—guru. Last comes the instrumentality of Time—kāla; for in all things there is a cycle of their action and a period of the divine movement.

Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga - I: The Four Aids

Now we shall close the book and we shall come back again to it after a little while.

The very first word which is given in this paragraph is yoga-siddhi. It is a very important word. Siddhi means perfection, perfection that comes by Yoga. Yoga-siddhi is a compound word. Yogena siddhi: the siddhi that comes by yoga. There are many siddhis which you can get without yoga but you don’t get that siddhi of divine life. The divine life on the earth can be attained only by a process of yoga. That is why the necessity of yoga. You cannot avoid yoga. Even those people who want to avoid yoga, secretly do a yoga. As Sri Aurobindo says, “All life is yoga” whether you know it or not, whether you like it or not. Mother was once asked the question: “Why should we teach yoga to the students?” This question arises because it was very often said that you should teach yoga only to those who want to do yoga. Don’t pull anybody into yoga. Don’t tell somebody: now do yoga and practice it, whether he likes it or not. It is a very wise thing to never pull anybody. So the question arises: If you have decided to do yoga then of course you teach yoga but if you have not decided to do yoga why should you be taught yoga? The answer is that everybody in this world is secretly doing yoga. Everyone. But he does it slowly, unknowingly, tardily, with a great delay. When you say I don’t want to do yoga it means that you do not want to do yoga consciously. It only means that you don’t want to do it fast. It only means that you want to linger on the route, you want to waste your time. That is the only meaning when you say: I don’t want to do yoga. But anybody who wants to move fast, anybody who wants perfection even if he may not know the word yoga, it does not matter, the moment you are making an effort to move upwards, you are doing yoga.

In fact I examined this question myself before taking up this book. I asked whether you wanted to do yoga or not. For six months I have been waiting. And I observed whether you really wanted to do yoga and I got enough answers from each one of you that you wanted to do yoga, in one way or the other. Not that everyone has answered in the same way with the same kind of intensity but every one of you is striving for perfection. This is what I found in all your activities. Everyone has been doing intensely. So because I am sure that each one of you is striving for perfection and there is an inner demand for it in your being therefore we have taken this up. In any case, as I told you, whether you make a demand or not everybody has to practice yoga. There is a justification in any case. All life is yoga therefore to know about yoga, to learn about yoga; to do yoga is simply a normal, automatic thing to do. But in your case it is more special because consciously you are striving for perfection. And this perfection cannot come without the knowledge of yoga, without the shastra of yoga. However much you try if you do not know the shastra of yoga you cannot attain to the perfection.

Of course, there are people who come to know about yoga little by little. In the Upanishads there was one process of learning yoga. The disciple used to come to the teacher and would say: “Teach me.” Then the teacher used to give only one formula. A little sentence, not teach the whole yogic principle, not the entire book of yoga. And then he would say: “Now you meditate on it.” Years passed only on one sentence. Realisation came and then he went to the teacher again and said: “Now teach me.” Then again the teacher gave another sentence to reflect on, to meditate upon, to practice it. That is another way of learning yoga.

We have the facility of books; at that time there were no books. So we make use of the facility. Because the whole book is available, it is possible for us to read it at one stroke. Or as much as we can, that is why we take the big step to study this entire book. We shall read this in a ten year time. That is our programme: ten year programme for The Life Divine and ten years programme for The Synthesis of Yoga both combined together. Patience, do not worry if there is a lot of time still to be spent on this. It is worth spending. These ten years of study are very important.

In India there was a system where if you went to a teacher and said: “Teach me”, normally the teacher would say no. There used to be a lot of testing to see whether you can really learn, whether you are worthy of learning or not. The teacher, even when he would say: “Alright I’ll teach you”, sometimes he used to test. I don’t know if you have read The Story of Initiation. It is a story told by the Mother in a class.

It is a story of a disciple who wanted to learn. Yusuf was the student. Junjun was the teacher. And the student went to the teacher and said: “I want to learn.” The teacher did not even look at him. For months he went on and on staying near the house of the teacher. And one day the teacher said to the pupil: “I have some work to give you.” Actually it was a test on the part of the teacher. He said: “I have a friend who lives on the other side of the river and I want to give him a small box. Keep it very safely, he said, be very, very, careful and give it intact, as it is.” The pupil was very happy that at last the teacher had said something to him and trusted him with something. And he took the box, went on his way. By noon it was very hot, so he rested a little while. While resting —the mind as you know is like a bazaar, a market place, so many ideas come and go —he began to think of what was contained in the box. This very simple question arose in the mind. Can I see what is contained? And he remembered that the teacher had said: “Keep it intact.” So it meant that he should not open it. It was to be kept intact, absolutely. He forgot about it and again went to rest. Again the question came to his mind. “What is in the box?” Again he argued within himself: “Can I open it? Just open it. Just have a look. I’ll do nothing. I’ll keep it intact absolutely. I won’t touch anything. I’ll just open it for a second and put it back.” Then he said: “No, no, who knows, my teacher will be very displeased.” He argued pros and cons, thesis and antithesis, dialectical arguments. Then again he went to rest, but this time he jumped up: “Let me just see, nothing more. Why are these arguments coming all over again? I will be free from these arguments the moment I see it once. Besides, the box is not locked, and if the teacher didn’t want that I should open it, he would have locked it. So it means that the teacher had already given a kind of permission to me, and I can open it.” And this young man just opened the lid, only for a second and to his horror he found a small rat which jumped out and ran away. Now you can see the condition of this man. How could he keep the box intact? There was a small rat in it. It could not wait one second to remain intact. As soon as the lid was opened the rat fled away. He was so sorry, so sorry. Why did he do it? Why did he open it? With a fallen crest he went to the friend of his teacher and gave the box which was not intact. And the teacher’s friend opened the box and immediately understood what the pupil had done and he said: “My dear Yusuf you have lost a big chance. Your teacher wanted to teach you. He wanted to teach you but you cannot keep even this little thing intact. You became so impatient. You began to have this mill in your mind, so powerfully. If you can’t keep this little rat inside then this knowledge, which is such a big treasure, how will you hold it in your mind? Therefore you have failed. I feel very sorry that you have failed. But do not be despondent. It is only the first test and many more tests will come. Go back, practice patience, practice to keep your mind under control. You should not go again to the market place. Make your mind very, very quiet.” He went back to his teacher who said nothing. And again he started waiting, waiting, and waiting. He learnt the lessons of patience; he learnt the lessons of quieting the mind. He did a lot of tapasya. At last the teacher was pleased and gave him the knowledge. It is a true story. Yusuf became one of the great mystics in his own life. He himself ultimately became a teacher.

It is a very good story, kindly read it. It is given in one of my books ‘The Good Teacher and The Good Pupil’ There are five things which every teacher asks in India. No yoga book can be read without this practice. So you should practice these five things patiently, persistently. This is your utsaha. This is your effort. What are these five things? Truth,—Satya, Non–violence,—Ahimsa, Self–control,—Brahmacharya, Self-limitation to minimum,—Aparigraha, Non stealing,—Asteya.

Every Indian student of yoga knows these five words. Every student of yoga is asked to practice this for years and years and years. This is not a small thing that you can practice for a short time; it takes a lot of time. You must have seen some of the statements of the Mother regarding Auroville. Even while writing a letter, Mother had said at the end you write: Truth. Every person in Auroville is asked before signing his name to write Truth. That is because Mother gives the condition of yoga in Auroville. Auroville is a place of yoga whether you like it or not. It is a conscious yoga. The very fact that you are born in Auroville means that you have decided that you want to practice yoga. Therefore Truth is the fundamental and the first principle.

Ahimsa is a word which is equivalent to unfailing good will. You must have seen that Mother herself had said that all people of goodwill are invited to come to Auroville. This is the second principle of Indian yoga that Mother had put down for Auroville. To practice goodwill is a very difficult practice, unfailing goodwill. Our human nature is so narrow; it gets affected so much by narrow circumstances, there is too much combativeness in our nature, we have to turn it into a great fight for goodwill. Under every circumstance we should have goodwill, unfailing goodwill. As a result you don’t injure anybody. A lot of compassion, kindness, In speech you should not injure anybody. In action you should not injure anybody.

Then comes, brahmacharya. All of us have a tremendous power of impulses. Yoga implies that you should be able to see your impulses, control your impulses, master your impulses, eliminate your impulses so that only the Divine Will remains. What remains behind the impulses is the divine’s Will. All impulses are distortions of the divine Will. So when you can control and master your impulses, and you can eliminate them, what remains which can never be eliminated because it is always there eternally is the divine Will. That is the meaning of brahmacharya,—control of the impulses, mastery over the impulses and elimination of impulses,—three things. That is brahmacharya.

Then the fourth thing is to limit yourself to the minimum. Your needs should be the minimum. Your wants should be minimum,—Aparigraha. Parigraha means collecting. You go on collecting. Why do we collect too many things? Because we want more and more and more, therefore we go on collecting. But you keep your needs to the minimum, you should be like a traveler, not too much baggage, because if you have too much baggage you cannot travel easily. Remember all of us are travelers here. Travelers build a home of a very different kind. When we speak of a divine life on the earth that is the home that we want to build, a home of divine life. In the meantime we are making a long, long journey, so don’t carry too much baggage, keep it to the minimum. You should be able to give up everything, in a moment if necessary. If you are asked to live in a small cottage you should be able to do it. If you are asked to live in a big palace you should be able to do it. Because in either case you don’t need anything except the minimum. It is very easy to live in a palace if your needs are very minimal. You can enjoy the palace very well. But if you don’t know how to keep your needs to the minimum even if a palace is given it will be incomplete. Not enough. You will find that there is not enough here and not enough there. Some deficiencies you will go on finding. You won’t enjoy the palace, the freedom of a huge place. So keep your needs minimal. Aparigraha. You don’t need to collect; you don’t want to carry big baggage anywhere.

Last thing is non-stealing. We are constantly in need of what others possess. That is our normal human nature and this is the weakness of human beings. We covet what others have; we want that which others are enjoying. If I have two cars why should I not have three? Not that you need the three cars but you simply want to possess them. Therefore that tendency has to be controlled. Usually people steal in order to possess. They are many kinds of stealing. If you examine your nature you will find in how many ways you are constantly stealing from outside; for parigraha, so that you collect. Even if you don’t need you collect. That is why in the Upanishads there is a very nice sentence: “Ma gridhah kasya svid dhanam”. It is a Sanskrit sentence which I would like you to remember because it is connected with the last statement. Ma means do not, gridhah means desire, kasya svid whosoever’s, dhanam means wealth. Do not desire whosoever’s wealth —including yours. Even your own wealth, do not desire.

It is said that if you practice these five things all problems of yoga will come up in your life, you will need to know how to resolve those problems and you will have siddhi, you will realise the aim of Yoga. This is now proposed for all of us. We shall practice these five things throughout our study of The Synthesis of Yoga.

This is the first part of my introduction to the first paragraph of this Chapter.

There is a second part that I want to introduce which is very important for the practice of Yoga. This is connected with the shastra of yoga. The first aid is shastra. It is the knowledge of the truths, principles, powers and processes that govern the realisation. I told you that we should imagine that we are in a pit and we want to come out of it. This is the basic idea of all yoga. We may not know that we are in a pit; many people don’t know that they are in a pit, but yoga becomes meaningful when we know that we are in a pit. How we have gone into a pit, how we can lift ourselves out of the pit that is the truths, principles, powers and processes that govern the realisation. Mother has said that when you have a feeling that wherever you look around you feel barred, like a bird in a cage, wherever it turns it looks at the sky but it is barred, it can’t fly, it is arrested. So whenever you feel that you are barred and there is a great feeling in you to fly that means that you are ready for conscious yoga. Everybody is doing yoga in any case. Unknowingly we are all trying to fly from the cage but when you really feel that you are barred then you realise that you are now fit for yoga. You want to fly, you want to be free. Again I’ll give you a Sanskrit word which is very important: mumukshutva —desire to be free, that is the meaning. The word moksha means liberation. The desire to be liberated is called mumukshutva —the desire to have moksha. You need to be free. You desire to be free. Why because you feel bound, when you feel that you are in a cage, that you are barred, then there is a desire to be free.

The question is: how did you get into bondage? How did you get into the cage? Such a cage from which you cannot escape. The answer to this question gives you the truth of yogic realisation. If you know how you got bound then you will also know how to be free. There is only one word that you should remember in this connection; it will give you the key to the whole yoga. That word is: exclusive concentration of consciousness. This is the word which takes you through the whole process of yoga. It is a key. We are bound because of exclusive concentration of consciousness. I gave the story of Yusuf, when he was resting he could have thought of a hundred and one things, but no! He was exclusively concentrated upon the box. Even while trying to forget about it he was returning back to the box. What is in the box? He could not be free from this question. It is one simple example of exclusive concentration of consciousness. He had such a concentration on the box that everything else was excluded —therefore exclusive. He came back again and again and again to the box. What is in the box? We are all barred; we are all bound because we are all concentrated upon our small little field.

If you examine yourself you will find that we are all the time gazing outward. What captures you all the time are the sounds, the sights, the smells and the touches that you have. We are constantly attracted by them. Again I give you a Sanskrit word which is very important —bahirmukha. Mukha means towards, oriented towards. Bahir means outward. Bahirmukha means oriented towards the outside. We are so much exclusively concentrated upon outside that we don’t even suspect that there is something inside. So the first word of yoga is: there is inside. As long as you are occupied with the outside you are bound to feel barred, you cannot escape. You are in the pit and you cannot come out of it because you go on round and round and there is no solution there. The solution is above and you can come out only at the top. You have to turn into what is called antarmukha. Antarmukha means oriented towards the inside.

The first step of yoga is to turn inward. The truth is that we are turned outward so the truth of yoga is you turn inward. You lead an inner life where normally we are leading an external life. Then you begin to lead an inner life. There is no yoga siddhi without inner life. You have to live inwardly. Our concentration now is outward. Yoga means you turn inward. Just turn within. In the beginning when you turn within you find almost darkness or nothing, emptiness. It is only the first preliminary experience. But when you do it again and again… go on, you will find that there is so much inside which you did not even suspect earlier. The discovery of that is the discovery of yoga. Yoga is the discovery of the inner realms of existence. There are realms and realms, so much to be known, so much to be learnt. So you might say that the device of yoga, the process is to turn inward. That is the only process: turn inward. But then, there is a further process. Turn inward and connect again with the outward. Merely turning inward you might lose what is outside that is also a reality. We should not lose either. But you will find the more you turn inward the greater is the power you gain for controlling the outside. This is the minimum, elementary process of yoga. Turn inward and then connect the inward with the outward, control and master outward with inward so that you are concentrated inward so as to master the outward concentration. You develop what is called integral concentration. That is another important word: integral concentration. When you are able to concentrate integrally, that is siddhi. That is yoga siddhi, the perfection that comes by the practice of yoga. This attainment of integral concentration is the subject matter of the entire Synthesis of Yoga. The whole book —how to attain integral concentration. In the first chapter of The Life Divine we have heard the word Supermind. And one of the definitions of Supermind is: it is a power of integral concentration.

Now you have basically everything that needs to be known and you don’t need any further lessons at all. If you practice those five things —satya, ahimsa, brahmacharya, aparigraha, asteya, —and if you turn inward so as to achieve integral concentration, all that you need to know is known. In fact this is all that I want to say in my very first talk to you on this subject. If you were living in the time of the Upanishads I would have said: “Now come after two years. We have finished. You have now got everything that needs to be told at this stage. Practice it for two years then we shall meet after.” But because we are living in an age where books are available —if the books were not available it would be enough —we shall go through the process of books.