Integral yoga

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Integral Yoga (also called Purna Yoga) is the spiritual path created by Sri Aurobindo and The Mother. It teaches that the Spirit first enters the material world (involution) and then gradually returns to reveal itself in life on earth (evolution). Humanity is not final; we are a transitional stage meant to unfold the Divine within us and bring down a higher, supramental consciousness to transform life.

The practice seeks a rapid and conscious evolution through a triple effort: aspiration, rejection, and surrender. This leads to a triple transformation:
- Psychicisation: the inner divine soul (the Psychic Being) guides and changes the outer nature.
- Spiritual transformation: a descent of higher Light and Power into the person.
- Supramentalisation: the full birth and bringing down of the Supramental Consciousness (the Supermind) to transform all levels of being.

Key ideas:
- Spirit is the Absolute, expressed as Sat (truth), Citta (consciousness), and Ananda (bliss). Involution is Spirit’s movement into creation, producing many forms and experiences.
- The evolution moves from matter to life to mind and finally toward a spiritualized mind and beyond, toward the Supermind, which links the divine and the earthly.
- The world is a differentiated unity, a vast spectrum from physical matter to pure spiritual being.

Being and levels:
- Outer Being: the body, life (vital), and mind we usually experience.
- Inner Being: a larger, subtler consciousness beyond everyday life, more open to spiritual reality.
- Psychic Being: the Innermost, Divine Soul that can transform the outer nature when contacted.
- Central Being/Jivatman: the transcendent Spirit that remains unborn but presides over our lives.

Mind and consciousness:
- Beyond the ordinary mind are higher levels of mind that approach Spirit: Higher Mind, Illumined Mind, Intuitive Mind, Overmind, and finally Supermind (the Truth Consciousness). Mind is a step in the journey; true realization requires moving toward consciousness itself, not just thinking about it.
- The path involves working with the subconscious and inconscient layers that lie beneath the surface of daily life, including a subtle physical layer and a vital (life) plane. These layers can hinder progress unless one brings them into alignment with the inner divine.

Practice and risks:
- Unlike many yoga systems, Integral Yoga does not require physical postures or breath control. It emphasizes inner reflection, self-analysis, and deliberate inner transformation.
- The journey includes a potential intermediate zone where one may experience powerful but misleading forces or attractions. A disciplined, surrendering readiness helps the seeker distinguish genuine spiritual growth from false signs of progress.

The goal and outcome:
- The ultimate aim is Supramentalisation: the descent and embodiment of the Supramental consciousness, transforming the entire being and, ideally, bringing a new, supra-human life to earth.
- Psychicisation and spiritualisation prepare the inner instruments for this descent, allowing a life of ever-increasing harmony, truth, and power to unfold.

Overall, Integral Yoga is about uniting the infinite with the finite, the timeless with the changing world, and bringing down a divine life into ordinary existence through inner growth, self-offering, and a conscious transformation of the whole being.