Integral Yoga

Integral yoga comes from the Sanskrit, 'Purna Yoga', which translates as 'full, or complete'. It is an integrative study from the Bhagavad Gita, which lays out the roots of bhakti, jnana, and karma yoga. What makes this form of yoga 'integral' is the idea of uniting tantra and vedanta. Combining the mind with the consciousness of man, we can attain a deep realization of who we are, direction, comfort, and awareness of the divine within all that is living. Let's look at a short breakdown of what this actually means and the concepts behind the words.

Tantra, translated as 'weave', brings focus to the physical. It is an awareness of our primal and instinctive energy - the base of our creative potential. Using the macrocosm of creative energy within our astronomical system, we are able to ritually move that energy through the microcosm of individual self. It is a conscious give and take, or accept and release, that creates a dualism of the inner balance of the individual with the accepted balance of nature.

Vedanta translates as 'knowledge-end', or the end of knowledge, merges the ideas of the eternal self, atman, and the Brahman, our supreme ground of which life may grow, stemmed from the ritual and philosophical ancient texts of the Vedas and Upanishads. In integral yoga, a synthesis is created among the internal individual and the internal nature of the DNA of living and creation. Through realization and enlightenment (samadhi), we are able to transform our primal and animalistic nature into something divine.

Are you thinking that this sounds too psychological for your own taste? Or maybe just like too many new-age terms when part of your mind is thinking about work, or picking up the children, or what will you make for dinner tonight when you just don't feel like cooking? Let's look at this logically, then.

As you prepare dinner for your family, you are not only fulfilling the primal need of food, but are also considering which foods can be placed together to create a balanced meal. You may consider the nutritional value of food combinations, where the best partnering of carbohydrates, protein and minerals can give you or those you love the best energy to realize their potential. The greater the value we place on what we intake into our bodies, the greater value we give to the functioning of our bodies, our minds, and our potential to create. When you are chopping those vegetables, you are taking from nature what can give those who eat them greater potential. This creates a balance
and a duality with the need to create (we grow the vegetables, we feed the body), the desire to sustain (we grow the vegetables, we cultivate the mind), and the necessity for destruction to create again (we pick and eat the vegetable, we process thoughts and eradicate bad habits and unhealthy patterns with ourselves).

Sri Aurobindo helped to develop this concept of yoga, and stating in one of his books, 'Synthesis of Yoga': "The process...accepts our nature...and compels all to undergo a divine change...In that ever progressive experience, we begin to perceive how this lower manifestation is constituted and that everything in it, however seemingly deformed or petty or vile, is the imperfect figure of some element in the divine nature."

Integral Yoga and Human Faculty

here is a distinguishing mark in the field of yoga to separate and understand what we are made of. We are not only matter and cells, nor are we a concept. We are a system and when one part of that system is unhealthy, there is effect in all parts because of the connection between them. This connection creates consciousness, therefore lays a consciousness beyond the Western use of the term. The basic three parts to our system includes: The Vital, The Physical, and The Mental Faculties.

The Physical Faculty

In Integral Yoga, we take our thought just beyond the physical body as purely made by what we eat. There is a mental connection, or consciousness, that expresses itself by our brain sending commands and we follow. As we follow a command, our minds will assess the situation - awareness of cause and effect of the command, judgement of that awareness, and execution. Emotions tie together our ebb and flow of mental and physical activity. Our instinct is to eat and as our physical self attains this, we feel pleasure and we feel full. Our emotions are signals to our mental activity, our thoughts. They give personal judgement to each situation and can lead us to our greatest achievements, or turn us away from our greatest love. We must be aware of our internal and external movement to learn and create a higher consciousness within. All of these aspects affect our energies. This energy extends beyond our skin to a field around us. Our Physical Self is our conscious and subconscious, our psychology, and the energy that we consist of.

The Vital Faculty

s individuals, we are each driven in different ways and in different directions. Individual passions, desires, fears and preferences. This is all part of our life-force and is included in the Vital Faculty of Integral Yoga. Our instinctive self, seated in the Navel, or Muladhara, Chakra. This is the place of our first connection to life, the umbilical cord, and is the emotional center of our body to bring balance or transformation. Another name that can be given to the Vital is the Will - that separation from the 'Divine' to 'I'. This consists of what we feel as semi-conscious sensations and desires to bring emotion and Life Intelligence.

The Mental Faculty

The mind is not our consciousness, nor is it our brain. However, it is cognitive and it is conceptual. Integral Yoga aims to create awareness of the mind; understanding to become Divine. The Mental Faculty is an abstract part of the brain that brings knowledge, discernment, reasoning and decision-making. Sri Aurobindo helps to define our Mental Faculty by integrating levels, which include:

Spiritual Mind - A general term for levels of mind above the normal mental level.

Higher Mind - First/ Lowest Spiritual Mental Grade - above the normal mental level.

Inner Mind - the mental component of the Inner Being, which lies behind the surface mind or ordinary consciousness and can only be directly experienced by sadhana.

True Mental Being - is the Purusha (Self) of the mental level freed from the error and ignorance of the lower Prakriti (Balance of the Universe) and open to the knowledge and guidance above.

Psychic Mind - a movement of the mind in which the Psychic Being predominates; the mind turned towards the Divine.

Mind Proper - The Thinking Mind, Dynamic Mind, and Externalizing Mind. It constitutes the sum of one's thoughts, opinions, ideas, and values, which guide conscious thinking, conceptualizing and decision-making processes, and is transformed, widened, and spiritualized through the practice of Integral Yoga.

Thinking Mind - the highest aspect of the mind proper, concerned with ideas and knowledge in their own right. It is equated with the Ajna Chakra.

Dynamic Mind - that aspect of the ordinary mind that puts out of mental forces for realization, acting by the idea and by reason. It is also equated with the Ajna or Brow center.

Externalizing Mind - the most "external" part of the mind proper, concerned with the expression of ideas in speech, in life, or in any form it can give. It is equated with the Vishuddha or Throat Chakra.

Vital Mind - a mediator between the vital emotions, desires, and so on the mental proper. It is limited by the vital view and feeling of things, and expresses the desires, feelings, ambitions, and other active tendencies of the vital in mental forms, such as daydreams and imaginations of greatness, happiness, and so on. As with the Externalizing Mind, Sri Aurobindo associates it with the Vishuddha or Throat Chakra.

Physical Mind - refers to either or both the Externalizing Mind and the Mental in the Physical; it is limited to a physical or materialistic perspective, and cannot go beyond that, unless enlightened from above. Mind in the physical or mental physical mentalises the experiences of outward life and things, sometimes very cleverly, but it does not go beyond that, unlike the externalizing mind which deals with these things from the perspective of reason and its own higher intelligence.

The Mechanical Mind - a much lower action of the mental physical which when left to itself can only repeat the same ideas and record the reflexes of the physical consciousness in its contact with outward life and things.

Mind of Light - according to The Mother this is the Physical Mind receiving the supramental light and thus being able to act directly in the Physical

Integral Yoga: A Relationship of Man, The Universe, and You

We are driven as humans. Driven by our needs and wants, our passions and crimes, our emotions and feeling. Yet, it is our spirit that hungers for connection and higher sources of power not derived from greed and capital gain. Yoga is a practice in which we use to find, but there is a term for this spiritual energy that hungers and that we all hold - often without thought or consciousness. This energy is called Sadhana. It is the directed energy of the spirit towards an intentional goal.

Yoga uses types of Sadhana such as asana study and practice, meditation, and chanting (or mantra). Two goals are inspirations during yoga practice and include: Moksha (liberation) or Mukti (release). Finding spiritual direction gives us conscious awareness of the inner workings of our beings and this awareness allows for deep spiritual awakening.

The Integration of Who We Are

Integral Yoga describes the trinity of the self as the Outer Being, the Inner Being, and the Psychic Being. The development and understanding of all three can bring transformation to the Outer Nature as well as a parallel transformation of the Physical, Vital, and Mental Faculties. The consciousness of the self, as it is developed, can bring a great comfort and peace to the individual in understanding what is Divine.

The Outer Being consists of the characteristics of our everyday existence, which includes aspects of the Physical, Vital, and Mental as well as the location of the Desire within.

The Inner Being holds the potential for spiritual awareness and can act as the 'spiritual guide' of our conscious. Integral Yoga holds unity of the self as the key to greater consciousness.

Sri Aurobindo describes this aspect of our being in 'Letters on Yoga':

" There are always two different consciousnesses in the human being, one outward in which he ordinarily lives, the other inward and concealed of which he knows nothing. When one does sadhana, the inner consciousness begins to open and one is able to go inside and have all kinds of experiences there. As the sadhana progresses, one begins to live more and more in this inner being and the outer becomes more and more superficial. At first the inner consciousness seems to be the dream and the outer the waking reality. Afterwards the inner consciousness becomes the reality and the outer is felt by many as a dream or delusion, or else as something superficial and external. The inner consciousness begins to be a place of deep peace, light, happiness, love, closeness to the Divine or the presence of the Divine, the Mother. One is then aware of two consciousnesses, the inner one and the outer which has to be changed into its counterpart and instrument-that also must become full of peace, light, union with the Divine. At present you are moving between the two and in this period all the feelings you have are quite natural. You must not be at all anxious about that, but wait for the full development of the inner consciousness in which you will be able to live."

What is known as the most essential aspect of Integral Yoga lies within the Psychic Being. As we develop our practice of gazing inwards at the habits and roots of our self, the natural course takes us to our psychic self. It is the connection between our inner mind and inner soul.

Sri Aurobindo describes this phenomena in the 'Synthesis of Yoga':

"An integral method and an integral result. First, an integral realization of Divine Being; not only a realization of the One in its indistinguishable unity, but also in its multitude of aspects which are also necessary to the complete knowledge of it by the relative consciousness; not only realization of unity in the Self, but of unity in the infinite diversity of activities, worlds and creatures. Therefore, also, an integral liberation. Not only the freedom born of unbroken contact of the individual being in all its parts with the Divine, sayujyamukti, by which it becomes free even in its separation, even in the duality; not only the salokyalmukti by which the whole conscious existence dwells in the same status of being as the Divine, in the state of Sachchidananda; but also the acquisition of the divine nature by the transformation of this lower being into the human image of the divine, sadharmyamukti, and the complete and final release of all, the liberation of the consciousness from the transitory mould of the ego and its unification with the One Being, universal both in the world and the individual and transcendentally one both in the world and beyond all universe."