The increasing impulse of all individual life is to know, realize and master its own world and that urge of endless potentialities concealed within everything is an essential feature of the growing self-manifestation of the Divine in cosmic existence. All can serve the Divine, but few can dare to pursue The (Divine) Mother’s unfinished Yoga or the Nature’s conscious integral Evolution in its entirety. Among those few who are entirely aware of the whole course of Her Yoga and Evolution, fewer can hold Her Supreme Force or fix the Eternal in time made things and it is still the fewest to whom She reveals Her Integral and absolute Shakti in its entirety, samagram-mam⁶. The Mother-nature attempts universal Divine Incarnation or progressively manifest God in human body by emergence of concealed Consciousness through diffusion of all her human vessel but succeeds with the few through concentrated dynamic movement. Success of the few through intensive and swift evolution is the final promise and completest sanction of Nature towards the success of all or the Divinisation extended to the whole of humanity.

               The first object of integral Yoga is the Divine union and joy in the heart and Psychic transformation of nature in Ignorance by Purusha’s suffusion into Prakriti and experiencing the first reversal of Consciousness through Divine action, liberation, freedom, creation and Ananda; the second object is the Divine union in many sided world action, free enjoyment of cosmic unity and the Spiritual change of nature; thus the second reversal of Consciousness of intense joy through union of Ishwara and Ishwari is realised; the third object is Divinisation of Naturethrough inrush of Para Shakti and third reversal of Consciousness through fusion of  dual power of the Divine, Brahman and Maya, leading the creation towards Supramental transformation and the utilisation of transformed individuality as centre of world transformation; the last object is the movement of Consciousness towards the source of Ananda through fourth reversal of Consciousness of experiencing the Origin of Existence through intense oneness of Sat and Chit. Thus complete union of two sides of Duality is the deepest secret of Being and the highest ascending Spiritual experience of integral Yoga, where the utmost fundamental awareness of identity, mutual inclusion and interpenetration of Consciousness would be inherent and all would be direct action of Consciousness in Being itself, identical, intimate, intrinsically self-aware and all-aware. To repose in this last and highest summit of Omniscient and Omnipotent Bliss world permanently is in the end the supreme self-perfection of our evolving human Consciousness. The highest descending Spiritual experience of integral Yoga is the movement of the world towards conscious emergence of full Sachchidananda in its own creation.

               An Integral Yogi or the Divine’s dearest Child is at once a child, not doing any sadhana, but it is done for him due to his entire reliance on The Mother and the sadhaka of integral Yoga pursuing sadhana through renunciation, effort, concentration, and askesis and he can serve as a link in between the Supreme Mother Consciousness and the earth consciousness. He is outwardly a mere man, Nara, and inwardly Divine, Narayana, shall preoccupy himself in entire effort to reveal God in humanity, Nara-Narayana. One Integral Yogi is discerned from another from the degree of opening towards the Divine Shakti and capacity to receive, canalise, hold and assimilate it in his ‘universalised subtle body’⁷ for earth and men

             The Mother is at once the Supreme Mother, the Chit Shakti, the Creatrix of the universe, not doing any sadhana and the Sadhaka of Integral Yoga pursuing Her Sadhana in the body and a Mediatrix in between Sri Aurobindo’s sadhana and the World, and She draws heaven seeking and world shunning liberated Souls earthward to reconcile Self and Nature, fills in them the equal Divine Presence and builds in the abysm of Hell a road to Heaven.

             Sri Aurobindo is at once the Supreme Purusha, the Purushottama, carrying within Him the immutable, the unmanifest Divine, the Akshara Purusha and the mutable, the manifest Divine, the Kshara Purusha, and an Intermediary, the Guru, linking the disciples with the three Purushas and fusing Himself with the Supreme Prakriti, The Mother, for the highest action and delight of the Divine Lila.

               The Mother is the living representative of Consciousness by whose movement one will arrive at Sri Aurobindo, the living representative of the Being, the Self. Their relation is the union between Sat and Chit leading the creation to Ananda. Supramental Consciousness, Vijnana, the Real-Idea inherent in all cosmic force and existence, is the fourth name of the Divine activated through Their supreme relation linking the Sachchidananda to lower triple creation of Mind, Life and Body; if dynamised sufficiently then the lower creation retains its lost Divinity and the Divine Life becomes practicable.

               The Divine attracts all the human beings with four lures that of (1) earthly enjoyments, (2) the attraction towards escape into Heaven beyond and its joy, (3) attraction towards ineffable self-existent play of Ananda, here in this earth, ihaiva and (4) attraction of His Supreme reality of Oneness for which He created four Centres though not strictly divided, are that of the World, the Ascetics’ Fortress, the Divine Centre or the Ashram and the Virgin Mother’s Fortress. They allow us to take into account the total nature of man and recognise the legitimate and right place of this quadruple attraction through which reconciliation of Life and Spirit are worked out from birth to birth and man stands here with his highest aspiration at these four critical turning points to discover an evolutionary synthesis with Spiritual insight, largeness of view, symmetry and completeness of human life. These are the four stairs of Soul’s great adventure through which The Mother’s Shapeless Infinite Consciousness lures the Eternal to descend into the arms of Time and dynamises four kinds of progressive movements that of (1) moderate Spirituality through path of purification of intellect and emotion with the assistance of Science and Religion, (2) exclusive Spirituality through the path of indifference and renunciation with the aid of traditional schools of Yoga or later Vedantic Saints, (3) comprehensive Spirituality through the path of consecration and loss of ego of the Ancient Vedantic Seers and (4) Spirituality of cellular change and physical Immortality through the path of annulment of Self and Nature to find the Supreme transforming Light of the Veda, virgin Mother’s  Yoga or Savitri’s Yoga.

The Fortress of Moderate Spirituality:
              A mere man can elevate himself to the status of God either by slow evolution through long succession of rebirths or swift and concentrated evolution in this life, though the former effort always precedes the latter. It is safe for man to begin his conscious God-ward journey through a moderate path which is neither too extreme, dangerous, or the strenuous effort of Titans nor that of the Gods with their superhuman thought and power nor that of animals and birds who are driven by unthinking will, nor the senseless whirl of the inanimate Matter. So he can experience progress, change, expansion and enlargement by the developmental urge discovered by the Mother-nature either through Religion which is an unconscious Yoga of Nature through devotion or through Science which is an unconscious Yoga of Nature through intellect or through entry into Spiritual thought and preparation, which is identified as integral Yoga for beginners.

              All noble and high Religions aim at transfiguration of son of men into son of God and are having three fundamental ways or three essential affirmations of approaching life that can be adopted with regard to our  existence: Firstly, the belief in the immortality, the eternal persistence of the individual human Spirit apart from the body, that is our Supra-terrestrial or other worldly existence or an occult link through which all things are ordered, governed and harmonized in their fundamental relations and process; secondly, it is in Heavens beyond that we must seek our entire Divine fulfillment, and their other assertion of the kingdom of God or the kingdom of the perfect upon Earth must be put aside as delusion, or in any case, the Absolute, the Parabrahman is the origin and goal of all existence, that is our Supracosmic view of things; thirdly, an emphasis on the development of the Ethical and Spiritual being as the means of ascension and therefore the one proper business of this brief life in this world of Matter; during this temporary stay from birth to death we have to study the laws of becoming and take the best advantage of them to realise the dynamism and potentiality in us, that is our cosmic and Terrestrial existence. It is practically impossible for man taken as a race to guide his life permanently or wholly by the leading motive of any of these three mental attitudes towards life to the exclusion of the other two claims on his nature. Thus one of the above three does not harmonise with the other two and by this disharmony humanity is thrown into great perplexities of contradiction and hence subjects itself to doubt and denial. Integral Yoga rejects the above three limiting conclusions or unsatisfactory solution that after liberating Mind, Life and Soul within one must turn from the unconquerable Material principle and from the intractable and unregenerated Earth to find elsewhere his Divine substance. In Integral Yoga a fourth fundamental theory is developed which is integration, synthesis and reconciliation of the above three Religious factors which recognize the other states of Matter or an ascending series of the Divine gradations of substance and through acceptance of this higher law, the luminous and puissant material transfiguration is possible. In this last category would fall the view of Integral Spiritual Evolution where Supracosmic is accepted as source and support, the Supraterrestrial or other worldly for a condition and connecting link and the cosmic and Terrestrial for its field and circumstance, and with human Life and Mind for its nodus, turning point and dynamic mould into which Divine existence can be poured in for a higher and even highest perfection.

              Infinite Being, Sat, loses itself in the appearance of non-being, Nihil and emerges in the appearance of a finite Soul, the Psychic Being in whom manifestation is felt as a necessity; Infinite Consciousness, Chit, loses itself in the appearance of a vast indeterminate Inconscience and emerges in the appearance of a superficial limited consciousness of Mind with inherent will, aim, endeavour and purpose; Infinite self-sustaining Force, Tapas, loses itself in the appearance of a chaos of atoms and emerges in the appearance of the insecure balance of a world of Vital with inherent life urge, tendency, desire and seeking; Infinite Delight, Ananda, loses itself in the appearance of an insensible Matter with inherent secret energy and emerges in the appearance of a discordant rhythm of varied pain, pleasure and neutral feeling of indifference in the Physical; Infinite Unity of Sachchidananda loses itself in the appearance of a chaos of multiplicity of Mind, Life and Body and emerges in a discord of forces and beings which seek to recover unity by possessing, dissolving and devouring each other. An integral Moderate Soul Seeker is made aware of transforming the apparent negations of Mind, Life and Body through practice of Yoga. The three negations of Mind are identified as limitation of Consciousness (which gave birth to Pleasure, Pain and Indifference), Ignorance and Dualities transformed in integral Yoga into Infinite Consciousness, integral Knowledge and Oneness; of Life are identified as Death, Desire or Hunger and Incapacity transformed in integral Yoga in to Immortality, satisfied Delight and Omnipotence and of Physical are Ignorance, Inertia and Division transformed in integral Yoga in to Omniscience, Divine peace and tranquility and Unity. Every thought and impulse of an integral moderate is reminded in the language of the Kena Upanishad, “That is the Divine Brahman and not this which men here cherish and adore.” He can enlarge his experience on Existence and its Source through entry into practice followed by experience of all-inclusive Integral Divine and can ignite in him the spirit of Oneness through triple Vedantic formula of atmani atmanam atmana of living for the Divine, by the Divine and in the Divine.

The Ascetics’ Fortress:
               The Ascetics’ Fortress is born by following the later Vedantic doctrine of Illusionism and Asceticism, an impatience of heart and mind which seeks vehemently the One and denies the Many, receives the breath of the Spirit’s height and recoils from the secret of the Matter’s depth; it belittles the individual and the cosmos for the sole escape into Transcendence and neglects the building of the link principles that bridges the lower mental Maya with higher Supramental Maya. It is the revolt of Spirit against Matter and has dominated the Indian mind for last two thousand years and all have lived in the shadow of the three great Refusals, of chain of Work, Karma, of bondage to the principle of rebirth, Punarjanma and of cosmic Illusion of life, Maya. Renunciation is identified as the sole path of Knowledge and the ultimate end of life for all is the garb of the Ascetic. A traditional Ascetic is an exclusive Spiritual seeker who returns by inaction and silence to the Spirit’s immobile liberty because of his revolt and disgust with the animal grossness and mud of Matter, impatient of the purposeless stir, trouble and self imprisoned narrowness of Life and tired out by the goalless running and downward vision of the Mind. He enters into trance through meditation, contemplation, silencing of the mind and awakens in him the Presence of the One. But for him the Matter still sleeps empty of its Lord. He saves his Spirit while the body is lost and mute; lives still with Death, ancient Ignorance and Inconscient base and he lives in a Void or devastating simplicity of nullification, that is his fate.

            A traditional Ascetic is exclusively attached to his own individual salvation and regards other Souls as figment of his mind and considers their salvation unimportant. He regards his personal escape from bondage as real and does not bother for other brother Souls who remain behind in the bondage. The limitation of divided ego builds his individualised personality. These limitations are corrected in integral Yoga, though the personal salvation remains the primary necessity, pivot and keynote of definitive Divine action. An individual salvation is not sufficient for an integral Ascetic; for he must break through all separative boundaries and narrower intensity of a limited individual fulfilment and open to a cosmic Consciousness and spread himself in the World-nature. Integral Yoga transforms the three Ascetic Negations into three Integral Affirmations- that of chain of Karmais transformed into liberated worker and preservation of individual activities is no longer inconsistent with attainment of Cosmic and Transcendent consciousness; rebirth is not meant to encircle in the net of desire and ultimate escape into cessation of birth but it is accepted as means of Spiritual evolution and the emergence of the Divine in all creatures must be the high-uplifted goal and the later Vedantic mental Maya of Illusion which creates false mental forms and appearances of this apparent world-existence with its relation to pure, infinite, indivisible, immutable Existence, which is the God’s play with division, darkness, limitation, desire, strife and suffering has first to be embraced and accepted as an inverse creative movement of the Divine Consciousness, then to be overcome and transformed by ancient Vedantic Supramental Maya, a forward creative Consciousness of the Eternal, which is the God’s play of the infinities of existence, the splendours of Knowledge, the glories of force mastered and the ecstasies of Love illimitable of all comprehending and all containing Consciousness; thus the undivine mental Maya of adverse formative power of a lower knowledge and deluding magic of the Rakshasa become the all-knowledge and the order truth of the dynamic Being and true magic of the Divine Magician or the Illusion-Power of the Divine Knowledge in the world which creates appearances, negations, denial, pessimism and incapacity, works out in lower nature the Truth Power of Knowledge leading the creation towards complete affirmation of Supramental Divine Maya of conscious Knowledge.

              A renunciation of life and release into the Spirit of the Ascetic creates an exaggeration of the impulse of liberation, more complete and more final, but more perilous in its effects on the individuals and collectivities, which destroyed the symmetry and disturbed the balance of ancient Indian Vedic culture and cut it into two irreconcilable movements of life, the normal life of interests and desires with ethical and religious colouring and supernormal inner life by rejection of surface living. An Integral Ascetic retains the old Aryan synthesis of reconciling human perfection through normal and natural mental development with his Spiritual evolution. The full liberation can come by liberation of all the parts of Soul and Nature, universal detachment from all things, universal awareness of Knowledge and aesthesis and yet opens him to the touch of Spiritual Sympathy, Compassion and Oneness. In integral Yoga, the Ascetic or the later Vedantic formula of attaining the Spirit’s height, “One without the second,” ekamevadvitiyam is sufficiently linked with the other complementary ancient Vedantic formula of comprehensiveness and illumining the Matter’s depth, “all this is the Brahman,” Sarvam Khalu Idam Brahman. Thus the ascent of Consciousness to explore the height of the Spirit is followed by descent of Consciousness to explore the depth of Matter is realised.

The Divine Centre:
               A Divine Centre grows by following the ancient Vedantic doctrine, of calm, wise and clear teachings of most ancient sages who relied for everything not on intellect and conscience but on Intuition, Vision and Spiritual experience and for them this world is primarily a formation of Consciousness and secondarily a material formation of things and objects. They had the patience and strength to find and know the secret of Existence and clarity and humility to admit the limitation of existing knowledge. The steady eye of the ancient wisdom promises to know God equally in the One and the Many, in the Spirit and the Matter, a patient search of Truth everywhere without distinction. A Divine Centre is born either by intensification of evolution of a liberated ascetic Soul or individuals with Gnostic Consciousness decide to live in group as collective Soul-power of the Truth–consciousness, to intensify double purpose of liberation of Soul through Divine union or ascension of Consciousness and transformation of Nature through prolongation of Divine union or through descent of Divine Shakti.

              The three stages through which the Divine Centre  extends its influence on the surrounding are that firstly, the Centre would act initially as a Fortress, a secured atmosphere for a long period with minimising its contact and commerce with the outside world which takes up all life and action and offer them to the Divine till sufficient amount of Yoga Shakti is accumulated and self mastery over lower nature, swarat, individual perfection and an inner completeness of beingfollowed by mastery over surrounding atmosphere, samrat, are realised by one or some of its central representatives; secondly it would go through the period to build a Spiritual wall and admits through its gates only such activities as consent to undergo the law of Spiritual transformation and thus a door towards outside world is made open, the problems of a part of the surrounding world are accepted, pacified and nullified in the subtle body of its perfected vessels leading towards a complete universality and oneness with all life upon earth; during this intermediate divine change there can be a beginning of this fundamental ecstasy of being translated into a manifold beauty, love and delight; thirdly, the subtle and causal sheaths are more and more illumined, densified and perfected through the all embracing Divine contact, the Spirit within becomes powerful enough to receive and transform more and more world influence, admit within its borders as much of human life as is turned towards Spirituality and entire range of life’s more visible activities, resulting in a new world, a change in the total life of humanity or, at least, a new perfected collective life in the earth nature where none could escape the law of Ecstasy.

               This Divine Centre is not a religious association. Religious institutions do not insist on the whole change of human nature by entire self-giving and have no vision of curing the root problem and origin of human malady. They enter into ever ambiguous compromises with the lower nature and short-lived enjoyments; establish an imperfect customary mental control over physical and vital desires and instincts; seek to net the human heart with pietistic emotionalism and sensationalism, annexing vital nature into the fanaticism, homicidal fury; draw the physical in man towards hollow ceremony and lifeless rituals. The Divine Centre is not a monastery, mattha, or ascetic retreat of world shunning and heaven seeking discipline of exclusive quest of the Divine by entire rejection of world existence and its mundane theory, hunger for personal salvation and freedom from rebirth; here this existence is fully embraced and welcomed as the body and rhythm of the Brahman and full of Presence of the Divine; isolated individual liberation is extended to others, “the sum-total of all souls” as our Divine self-interest and rebirth is not considered as the Soul’s circling in the net of desire, but an opportunity of Spiritual evolution and through it the mind, life and body repeat the lesson of manifesting their involved Divinity till the recovery of their complete and undivided Divine Life. It is not a democratic institution where change is enforced through external manipulation of phenomena, here nothing is decided by collective opinion by activating the highest ideology of mind; nor an autocratic institution with aggrandisement of individual ego; nor a political institution; here all association of political, religious, social, family, mental, vital and physical are abandoned. One must arrive at the conscious unity and truly succeed in living selflessly for others not by mere sympathetic love and knowledge of mental understanding but by an inner Spiritual force of Love and Compassion and our being does embrace the being of others as our own Self. The individual Soul must exist in relation to the World, Nature and fellow Beings with an absolute and inalienable conscious Power, Freedom and Self-knowledge. The Consciousness of the Infinite creates all possible relations between the Many and the One and confirms all other personal relations to give them their fullness, significance and entire Delight. All his relation with the Divine is culminated by his comprehensive Self-knowledge which is the truth of the Infinite in Being, the Infinite in Consciousness, the Infinite in Delight repossessed as his own Self and Reality of which the finite is only a mask and an instrument for various expression; it insists on the emergence of Infinite Consciousness in the true individual Soul, a conscious power of the Eternal, who always recovers the truth of himself by self-realisation, always exists by the law of unity and always capable of mutuality and harmony. The individual conscious Soul would know the intention, scope and inevitable result of every action and would not crave or struggle but put forth an assured force self-limited to the immediate object in view. This Divine Centre is not a business institution where everything is centred around wealth and profit; here money or wealth is accepted as a subordinate, secondary, dispensable outer support of primary indispensable inner development; it is Nature’s vital force turned into one of the greatest powers of action and manifestation. Like air, water, fire and ether it cannot be under anybody’s personal possession, nor can there be any inheritor of it, nor can we put a ban on money power with the spirit of an ascetic shrinking, nor can it be misappropriated for enslaving self-indulgence in our gratification but utilised for the true, beautiful, harmonious Divinised vital and physical existence and must be put at the service of the Divine for the highest benefit of humanity. Here everything is centred around the three Divine faculties of Will, Knowledge and Love represented by the Psychic Being in the heart and Spiritual Being above the head. All action, both of the inner and outer life are done here as an offering to manifest the Divine’s Will through its Soul Centre or Central Representative, who is recognised as the purest vessel and fit channel to receive the Divine’s instruction, vision andcommand,  adesh. The individual Soul Centre is only the upholder of His Shakti, recipient, channel, reflector of Her Power, trustee of Her overhead thought, plan and action, executer of Her Will in eternal Time and luminously participates in Her Love, Light, Beauty, Joy and Force.

The Virgin Mother’s Fortress:
               The Virgins’ Fortress is the ultimate dream of the Divine Mother who is symbolised in the Veda as the high-bred golden maiden, Savitri, present always in earth’s atmosphere since the beginning of the creation, intends to build Her extreme Spiritual and Supramental superstructure and fulfils the deficiencies of all the previous three institutions through virgin Influence which draws one irresistibly towards the Divine only. Thus she endlessly unfolds the endless Truth and Timeless mystery.

              The first objective of a more concentrated Divine Centre or Virgin Mother’s Fortress is to safeguard the Time’s virginity¹ from invasion of various world forces and universal subconscient and wide open its door for marriage with Eternity or a captive life wedded her conqueror, the Supreme; thus Time is divinised to become Eternity’s transparent robe and climbs back into undying Self through a golden ladder. A true virgin is she or he whose mind, life, body and soul are pure enough to be united with the Divine and guards Truth’s diamond throne. Its second objective is to bridge the gulf between the dream truth and earth fact through the annulment of manifold void and oblivion in Consciousness that can keep the passage open for the virgin Fire² or Psychic being. Its third objective is to build a similar bridge between the subtle physical and the Superconscient Bliss sheath through movement of Consciousness that seems to recoil from reaching to its Source, the virgin Sun³or Supramental being. And the last objective is that Earth could have been made equal and peer of Heaven and Heaven’s joy could have stabilized here, had Earth were made pure and virgin. If the dream of the Virgins’ Fortress can extend towards the realisation of a virgin Earth,⁴ then through the earth’s virgin form the Formless will shine with all its resplendent glory and establish the empire of the Soul and lift earth to the neighbourhood with the Heaven. Thus a marriage between the virgin Earth and virgin Heaven annexes Divinity to mortal scheme and all discords are healed that Time’s torn heart has made and Immortality captures Time and carries ahead the Life.

The Synthesis of Evolution:
              The man’s attraction towards world strengthens the knowledge of the Becoming, this terrestrial existence; attraction towards the heaven strengthens the knowledge of our Source, the Supracosmic origin; attraction of heaven on earth strengthens the knowledge of the intermediate Supra-terrestrial link of subtle, superconscient and Supramental plane and attraction towards His oneness transforms Matter into image of the Spirit or material transfiguration, eliminating the permanent division between them, the Creation and the Creator.

              It is true that the deficiencies of the above four institutions are to be rightly related with the total harmony of the Existence. In the past the above evolutionary synthesis had failed due to exaggeration and exclusive importance of either one or another school of thought and now a time has come in the Soul history of Sri Matriniketan Ashram and its sister Spiritual Centres or in the recent development of integral Yoga, as another opportunity and trying ground of equal importance and regard for all the four schools of thought and their utmost Spiritual consummation. The secret truth behind the material existence of physical Science and truth of pure devotion of all Religious movements are to be reconciled with the Ascetic affirmation of a pure Spiritual impulse. The Ascetic or Sannyasin aspiration upward to unite with the Divine is to be rightly and sufficiently related with ancient Vedantic approach of descending movement of the Divine Shakti to embrace its manifestation. The ancient Vedantic quest to reconcile Matter and Spirit, One and Many in its comprehensiveness is to be sufficiently related with the Vedic representation of the Divine Mother, the daughter of the Sun, Savitri, who is concerned with the final aim of the Vedic discipline, Divine perfection of material life and physical Immortality of the mutable substance. Thus earth life can be transformed into ecstatic playfield of ‘virgin bridals of the dawn.’⁵