Readings In Sri Aurobindos The Synthesis Of Yoga Volume 2

Santosh Krinsky has endeavoured to make Sri Aurobindos teachings relevant and readable to the very different audience today, without compromising the essence of this teaching. The Synthesis of Yoga in four volumes of which this current book is the second, focusing on The Yoga of Knowledge. He clearly explains Aurobindos vision of Yoga in the world today and the many-sided approach that is needed to make it work in our daily lives.

Santosh Krinsky has endeavored to make Sri Aurobindo's teachings relevant and readable to the very different audience today, without compromising the essence of his teaching. I do not think that any other writer in America has better represented Aurobindo's teachings today than Santosh. This is a difficult task to be sure but one that he has been able to do consistently and with depth of thought. The reader is guided through short episodes that can constitute a simple yet direct immersion into the heart of Aurobindo's teachings. Krinsky has approached The Synthesis of Yoga in four volumes of which this current book is the fourth and final one, which addresses Sri Aurobindo's unique contribution of the Yoga of Self-Perfection. This helps the reader understand the depths of Yoga and how it can be used to make fundamental changes in our being and character that are more important and enduring than mere outer changes in our body. - David Frawley, author of Yoga and Ayurveda

Santosh Krinsky has endeavored to make Sri Aurobindos teachings relevant and readable to the very different audience today, without compromising the essence of his teachings. I do not think that any other writer in American has better represented Aurobindos teachings today than Santosh. This is a difficult task to be sure but one that he has been able to do consistently and with depth of thought. The reader is guided through short episodes that can constitute a simple yet direct immersion into the heart of Aurobindos teachings. Krinsky has approached The Synthesis of Yoga in four volumes of which this current book is the third, focusing on The Yoga of Divine Love. He clearly explains Aurobindos vision of Yoga in the world today and the many-sided approach that is needed to make it work in our daily lives. This helps the reader understand the depths of Yoga and how it can be used to make fundamental changes in our being and character that are more important and enduring than mere outer changes in our body.

Between 1927 and 1950, Sri Aurobindo--one of the foremost Indian philosophersof the 20th century--perfected a new kind of spiritual practice he called the"Integral Yoga." This volume brings together a comprehensive selection of SriAurobindo's letters pertaining to the practice of this discipline.

Sri Aurobindo calls us to what he terms an “adventure of consciousness”. Integral yoga was not intended to set forth a specific and rigid set of practices for everyone to follow; rather, it was developed to understand the specific needs of each individual at each stage of development and to employ those methods and practices that would best aid in the further progress for the individual seeker. It also was not targeted at abandoning life. The integral yoga first focuses on achieving the necessary liberation from the fixed habits of body, life and mind that create a framework around each person's life, and then, on bringing down into the being a higher status of consciousness and aiding its transformation of the being in all its aspects. The eventual objective of the integral yoga was to provide conscious support to the natural process of evolution of consciousness, and thereby speed up its advent. The book Integral Yoga: Sri Aurobindo's Teaching and Method of Practice was compiled and organised from among the thousands of letters on yoga that Sri Aurobindo wrote to disciples and others over a number of years. It outlines his philosophical outlook, the background and basis of the integral yoga, and delves into a vast array of details which aid the sincere seeker in understanding the inner workings of consciousness, and helps the seeker to work through the difficulties, obstacles and resistances of nature to truly bring about a transformation of consciousness in all parts of his being.

"Truth of philosophy is of a merely theoretical value unless it can be lived, and we have therefore tried in The Synthesis of Yoga to arrive at a synthetical view of the principles and methods of the various lines of spiritual self-discipline and the way in which they can lead to an integral divine life in the human existence." Index.

"The Synthesis of Yoga is probably the most extensive, comprehensive and innovative examination of Yoga in modern times, and by one of the greatest Yogis and seers of all time, Mahayogi Sri Aurobindo....Sri Aurobindo called his Yoga an "Integral Yoga." It was he who invented the term integral yoga and the idea of an integral approach to life, terms that now many people and yoga groups use for their own activities. Yet by integral Yoga, Aurobindo meant combining the three great Yogas of Karma Yoga or the Yoga of Action, Bhakti Yoga or the Yoga of Devotion, and Jnana Yoga or the Yoga of Knowledge leading to an all inclusive Yoga of Self-Perfection. That great original integral Yoga is what is explained in this yogic classic of the Synthesis of Yoga.