The Integral Yoga Archives

Talks on the Life Divine, Vol. 2

The second volume of M.P. Pandit‘s Talks on the Life Divine continues the commentary on Sri Aurobindo‘s great work, taking up the later chapters — the cosmic consciousness, Brahman-Purusha-Ishwara, the eternal and the individual, the higher planes of mind, the ascent of consciousness, and the eventual possibility of the divine life on earth. As in the first volume, the treatment is at once faithful to Sri Aurobindo’s text and alive to the questions of the practising sadhak. Together the two volumes form the most complete and accessible commentary on The Life Divine available.

1. The Cosmic Indeterminate
2. Brahman — Purusha — Ishwara (I)
3. Brahman — Purusha — Ishwara (II)
4. Brahman — Purusha — Ishwara (III)
5. The Eternal and the Individual
6. The Divine and the Undivine (I)
7. The Divine and the Undivine (II)
8. The Divine and the Undivine (III)
9. The Cosmic Illusion (I)
10. The Cosmic Illusion (II)
11. The Cosmic Illusion (III)
12. Reality and the Cosmic Illusion (I)
13. Reality and the Cosmic Illusion (II)
14. Reality and the Cosmic Illusion (III)
15. The Knowledge and the Ignorance
16. Memory, Self-Consciousness and the Ignorance
17. Memory, Ego, Self-Experience
18. Knowledge by Identity and Separative Knowledge (I)
19. Knowledge by Identity and Separative Knowledge (II)
20. Knowledge by Identity and Separative Knowledge (III)
21. Knowledge by Identity and Separative Knowledge (IV)
22. Knowledge by Identity and Separative Knowledge (V)
23. The Boundaries of the Ignorance (I)
24. The Boundaries of the Ignorance (II)
25. The Origin of the Ignorance
26. Exclusive Concentration
27. The Origin of Falsehood and Evil (I)
28. The Origin of Falsehood and Evil (II)
29. The Origin of Falsehood and Evil (III)
30. The Origin of Falsehood and Evil (IV)
31. Origin of Falsehood and Evil (V)
32. Reality and the Integral Knowledge (I)
33. Reality and the Integral Knowledge (II)
34. Reality and the Integral Knowledge (III)
35. Four Theories of Existence (I)
36. Four Theories of Existence (II)
37. Four Theories of Existence (III)
38. Progress to Knowledge (I)
39. Progress to Knowledge (II)
40. Progress to Knowledge (III)
41. The Evolutionary Process (I)
42. The Evolutionary Process (II)
43. From Sevenfold Ignorance
44. The Philosophy of Rebirth (I)
45. The Philosophy of Rebirth (II)
46. The Philosophy of Rebirth (III)
47. The Philosophy of Rebirth (IV)
48. The Philosophy of Rebirth (V)
49. The Philosophy of Rebirth (VI)
50. Man and Evolution (I)
51. Man and Evolution (II)
52. The Evolution of the Spiritual Man (I)
53. The Evolution of the Spiritual Man (II)
54. The Evolution of the Spiritual Man (III)
55. Triple Transformation (I)
56. Triple Transformation (II)
57. The Ascent towards Supermind (I)
58. The Ascent towards Supermind (II)
59. The Ascent towards Supermind (III)
60. The Gnostic Being (I)
61. The Gnostic Being (II)
62. The Gnostic Being (III)
63. The Gnostic Being (IV)
64. The Gnostic Being (V)
65. The Gnostic Being (VI)
66. The Divine Life (I)
67. The Divine Life (II)
68. The Divine Life (III)
69. The Divine Life (IV)

Talks on the Life Divine, Vol. 1

M.P. Pandit‘s Talks on the Life Divine is a chapter-by-chapter commentary on Sri Aurobindo‘s magnum opus, given to small groups of students in the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. This first volume covers the opening chapters of The Life Divine — from the human aspiration and the materialist denial through the nature of reality, consciousness-force, the supermind, life, mind, matter and the ascent to the supermind. Pandit’s gift is his ability to make the great metaphysical argument concrete, personal and practical; the talks read as a living study-circle in which the deepest questions of existence are brought into the light of experience.

1. The Human Aspiration
2. The Materialist Denial
3. The Refusal of the Ascetic
4. Reality Omnipresent
5. The Destiny of the Individual
6. Man in the Universe
7. The Ego and the Dualities
8. The Methods of Vedantic Knowledge
9. The Pure Existent
10. Consciousness Force
11. The Delight of Existence: The Problem
12. The Delight of Existence: The Solution
13. The Divine Maya
14. The Supermind as Creator
15. The Supreme Truth-Consciousness
16. The Triple Status of Supermind
17. The Divine Soul
18. Mind and Supermind
19. Life
20. Death, Desire and Incapacity
21. The Ascent of Life
22. The Problem of Life
23. The Double Soul in Man
24. The Double Soul in Man (continued)
25. Matter
26. The Knot of Matter
27. Ascending Series of Substance
28. The Sevenfold chord of Being
29. Supermind, Mind and the Overmind Maya
30. Supermind, Mind and the Overmind Maya (Continued)

Introducing Savitri

M.P. Pandit‘s Introducing Savitri is the ideal gateway to Sri Aurobindo‘s epic poem. In five chapters Pandit takes the reader through the story and vision of the poem — Savitri old and new, the quest of Aswapathy, the birth and growth of Savitri, Savitri and the new age, and the encounter with the God of Death — revealing the symbolic depth and spiritual power of Sri Aurobindo’s masterpiece. An addendum, “Savitri: Veda of the New Age”, places the poem in the line of the ancient Vedic revelation. For readers approaching Savitri for the first time, or returning to it, this book is an indispensable companion.

1. Savitri: Old and New
2. The Quest of Aswapathy
3. Birth and Growth of Savitri
4. Savitri and the New Age
5. Savitri and the God of Death
Addendum: Savitri, Veda of the New Age

Sri Aurobindo and His Yoga

M.P. Pandit‘s Sri Aurobindo and His Yoga is a comprehensive introduction to the life, philosophy and practice of Sri Aurobindo‘s integral yoga. The first part surveys Sri Aurobindo’s life and work — his philosophy, his yoga, his writings on the Veda, the Upanishads, the Gita and the Tantra, and his vision of Indian culture and social development. The second part turns to the practice of the yoga itself: the foundations of sadhana, the role of the Mother, the stages of the inner development, and the conditions of transformation. Written by one of Sri Aurobindo’s closest disciples, this is a classic introduction to the integral yoga.

Part II — Sadhana in Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga
Part I — Sri Aurobindo: A Survey
Part II — Sadhana in Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga
Chapter I — Sri Aurobindo
Chapter II — Sri Aurobindo’s Philosophy
Chapter III — Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga
Chapter IV — Sri Aurobindo on the Veda
Chapter V — Sri Aurobindo on the Upanishads
Chapter VI — Sri Aurobindo on the Gita
Chapter VII — Sri Aurobindo on the Tantra
Chapter VIII — Sri Aurobindo on Indian Culture
Chapter IX — Sri Aurobindo on Social Development
Chapter X — Sri Aurobindo on Human Unity
Chapter XI — Sri Aurobindo’s Epic Savitri
Chapter XII — Sri Aurobindo Literature
Chapter XIII — Sri Aurobindo: An Estimate
Chapter I — Introduction
Chapter II — The Mother
Chapter III — The Yoga and Its Objects
Chapter IV — The Superman
Chapter V — The Letters
Chapter VI — The Object of Integral Yoga
Chapter VII — Basic Requisites of Integral Yoga
Chapter VIII — Foundations of Sadhana
Chapter IX — The Way of Works
Chapter X — The Way of Meditation
Chapter XI — The Way of Love
Chapter XII — Conclusion
Chapter XIII — Yoga Sadhana
Chapter XIV — Sadhana and The Body
Chapter XV — Divine Grace and Human Effort
Chapter XVI — Inner Strength and Will-Power
Chapter XVII — Law of Karma
Chapter XVIII — Meditation
Chapter IXX — Disturbing Thoughts
Chapter XX — Sadhana and Apparel
Chapter XXI — Sadhana and Gifts
Chapter XXII — Sadhana in the Ashram
Chapter XXIII — Movements Outside and the Ashram
Chapter XXIV — Gayatri

Thoughts on the Gita

M.P. Pandit‘s Thoughts on the Gita is a series of studies of the Bhagavad Gita in the light of Sri Aurobindo‘s integral vision. Taking up the Gita’s great themes — the Divine Teacher and the human disciple, works and sacrifice, equality, the two natures, avatarhood, the vision of the universal form, and the way to the supreme secret — Pandit unfolds the Gita as a living guide to the spiritual life rather than a text of dry philosophy. His approach follows Sri Aurobindo’s own teaching: the Gita is not a book of abstract metaphysics but the record of a decisive spiritual battle, and its message is addressed to every seeker who must act in the world.

1. The Gita
2. The Divine Teacher
3. The Human Disciple
4. Interpretations
5. Towards Trimarga
6. Rush of Force of Destruction
7. Man and the Battle of Life
8. Creed of the Aryan Fighter
9. Sankhya and Yoga
10. Sankhya Yoga and Vedanta
11. Yoga of the Intelligent Will
12. Works and Sacrifice
13. Significance of Sacrifice
14. The Lord of the Sacrifice
15. Principle of Divine Works
16. Avatarhood (I)
17. Avatarhood (II)
18. Avatarhood (III)
19. The Divine Worker
20. Equality
21. Equality and Knowledge
22. Determinism of Nature
23. Beyond Modes of Nature
24. Nirvana and Works in the World
25. Gist of Karmayoga
26. The Two Natures
27. The Synthesis of Devotion and Knowledge
28. The Supreme Person
29. Secret of Secrets
30. The Divine Truth and the Way
31. Unity of Manifestation
32. Works, Devotion and Knowledge
33. The Supreme Word
34. Becoming
35. Vibhuti
36. Visva Rupa Darshana
37. Way of Fulfilment
38. The Field and the Knower
39. Above the Gunas
40. The Three Purushas – I
41. The Three Purushas – II
42. Deva and Asura
43. Faith — Gunas
44. Operation of the Gunas
45. Svabhava and Svadharma
46. Towards the Supreme Secret
47. Above All Standards

The Heart of Sadhana

M.P. Pandit‘s The Heart of Sadhana contains his talks on Sri Aurobindo‘s book The Mother — the classic text in which Sri Aurobindo described the Divine Mother and her Four Powers. In seventeen short chapters Pandit takes up the central themes of the spiritual life: aspiration and grace, the conditions of the sadhana, personal effort, the conquest of desire, universalisation, and the four great powers of the Mother — Maheshwari, Mahakali, Mahalakshmi and Mahasaraswati. Written with the clarity of a lifelong practitioner, this is an ideal companion to the study of The Mother, guiding the reader from the first stirrings of aspiration to the conditions of complete transformation.

1. Aspiration and Grace
2. Conditions
3. Keep the Temple Clean
4. Obstacles
5. Perseverance
6. False Ambitions
7. Ascent and Descent
8. The Light Above
9. The Conquest of Desire
10. Universalisation
11. The Sacrifice
12. Equanimity
13. The Divine Mother
14. Maheshwari
15. Mahakali
16. Mahalakshmi
17. Mahasaraswati
Conditions for Transformation

Beyond Man

The Life and Work of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother

The book “Beyond Man” by Georges van Vrekhem is based on documents which have never been presented before as a whole by other authors. It gives a surprising look behind the scenes of the history of this century. It presents a positive evaluation of the crisis our Earth is subject to at this very moment and it opens a vertiginous but hopeful perspective on the coming of a superhuman species and a divine life upon Earth.

The Mother The Story of Her Life

The Mother
The Story of Her Life

The Mother The Story of Her Life is a biography of the Mother (Mirra Alfassa) by Georges Van Vrekhem. Despite their essential contribution to the present world, Sri Aurobindo and the Mother are still mostly unknown outside the circles of their disciples and devotees. It is Georges Van Vrekhem’s intention in this biography of the Mother to examine all available material about her life and to present it in an accessible and interesting way. He attempts to draw the full picture, including the often neglected but important last years of her life, and even of some reincarnations explicitly confirmed by the Mother herself.

Hitler and his God

The Background to the Nazi Phenomenon

Hitler remains an enigma in spite of everything that has been written about him. Historians like Alan Bullock, Ian Kershaw and H.R. Trevor-Roper confess their perplexity openly. How was it possible that an unknown, solitary and future-less front-soldier in 1918 became, some years later, the Leader and Messiah of the German people? How could a nullity unleash the most destructive and deadliest war humanity has ever known? Academic historians give countless reasons because the essential reason keeps escaping them; fantasy writers find the most bizarre occult explanations, disregarding the historical facts.

Georges Van Vrekhem has studied the literature in German, English, French, Dutch and Italian for several years. His conclusion is clear: in Hitler there must have been a cause equivalent to the effects of his actions. Van Vrekhem gives a revealing picture of the rise of the unknown Austrian corporal and brings to life the people who helped him in the saddle: Dietrich Eckart, Captain Mayr, General von Mohl, and many others. The author analyses Mein Kampf, the book in which Hitler laid bare his thoughts and intentions without being believed. And he shows how this “man from nowhere”, driven by the obsession of his mission and helped by incredible luck, managed to become the Führer.

To explain the foundations of a people who made Hitler possible, Van Vrekhem undertakes, in the book’s second part, a deep-probing analysis of the historical background. In this he gives a surprisingly clear picture of the German ambition, the racism which supported it, and the romantic youth movements which incorporated the racism. In a memorable chapter he sketches the history of the German Jews. And he shows another side of the German people: their longing for a better world, although vitiated by their sense of superiority.

All this brings Georges Van Vrekhem to his central theme: Hitler’s possession by the “god” who inspired him, guided him, brought him to power – and dropped him when no longer needed. This leads the author, in the third part of the book, to the unexpected but well-documented role of the Indian philosopher and sage Sri Aurobindo in the action against Hitler before and during the Second World War. While Hitler wanted to bring humanity back to a state of barbarism, Sri Aurobindo stood for the progress of humanity and a future in which a new evolutionary being, beyond humanity, might at last create the world humanity has never ceased to long for. In this view of history, many worlds interact and all facts fit into the big picture.

Evolution, Religion and the Unknown God

“A Witness of creation, if there had been one conscious but uninstructed, would only have seen appearing out of a vast abyss of an apparent nonexistence an Energy busy with the creation of Matter, a material world and material objects, organizing the infinity of the Inconscient into the scheme of a boundless universe or a system of countless universes that stretched around him into Space without any certain end or limit, a tireless creation of nebulae and star-clusters and suns and planets, existing only for itself, without a sense in it, empty of cause and purpose.”

– Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, pp. 881-84

The evolution of life on Earth is a fact; Darwinism is one theory among several, based on the research of predecessors like Buffon and Lamarck, and formulated simultaneously with the very similar theory of Alfred Wallace. Besides, what is nowadays generally labelled as Darwinism hardly resembles what Darwin wrote in The Origin of Species, but is the result of scientific developments at times considered anti-Darwinian.

This book narrates the relevant events in the history of ‘Darwinism’ and the resulting Social Darwinism and Sociobiology. It also stresses the antagonism of the scientific materialism at its basis and the religious teachings of the origin and evolution of life on our planet. It is this antagonism that has inevitably resulted in the ongoing controversies between creationism, the positivist scientific view of evolution, and ‘intelligent design’. The foundations of physical science as adopted by the biological sciences are examined, as are the motives for the attacks on religion by authors like Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and Stephen Jay Gould. The book analyses and clearly discerns between the various branches of creationism and intelligent design.