The Agenda of integral education

Physical Education: Physical education is defined in Upanishadic language as earth is our footing and foundation and wider we extend and surer we enter the receptivity, plasticity and training of the body, wider and surer becomes our foundation for the higher knowledge whose perfection will lead towards discovery of true physical Being, Annamaya Purusha and imperishability of material substance. If we belittle physical training for any higher mental and spiritual quest then we do not become perfect but only shift the field of our imperfection.

Vital Education: Vital education is defined as energising of conscious vital sheath by purifying, transforming and perfecting the vital, emotional and sensational mind and discovery of vital being, Pranamaya Purusha that liberates creative force of existence such as effective dynamism, enthusiasm, delight, love and beauty.

Mental Education: The Mental education is defined as energising of conscious mental sheath by purifying, transforming and perfecting the intellect and discovery of true mental being, Manomaya Purusha, that liberates the power of concentration, development of capacities, organisation of ideas, control of thought and development of mental silence.

Psychic Education: The Psychic education is the energising of the Psychic sheath in the heart by opening the Psychic being and leading towards the emergence of new faculty of law of consecration, awareness of true motive of life, knowledge on past, present and future, limitless expansion of Consciousness to arrive at universality. Psychic education draws one towards the immortal life, ever progressive change, unbroken continuity in the world of forms, meets the Immanent God dwelling in each form. The true Psychic Soul is the flame of the Godhead, always alight within us, inextinguishable even by that dense unconsciousness which obscures our outward life. It is the flame born out of the luminous Divine inhabitant of the Ignorance, grows in it till it is able to turn the being towards the Knowledge of Self and the Divine, towards the supreme Truth, the supreme Good, the Divine heights and largeness. Our true Soul is a pure power of light, love, joy, beauty and harmony. It is the individual Soul, the Chaitya Purusha, supporting Mind, Life and Body and standing behind the subtle mental, vital and physical being, watching and profiting by their development in us. This inmost Psychic entity puts forward a Psychic personality which flowers as the saint, the sage and the seer and it changes, grows and develops from life to life; for this is also the traveller from the birth to death and from death to birth and our nature parts are its manifold changing vesture.

Spiritual Education:  The Spiritual education is the energising of the Spiritual sheath above the head by opening the Spiritual being and leading towards the discovery of a vast static and silent Self which we feel as our real basic existence, realise our extinction, a Nirvana both of our active Nature and of the sense of Self into a Reality that is indefinable and inexpressible and we realise that this Self is not only our Spiritual being but the true self of all others or cosmic Self. The Spiritual education throws one outside all creation, draws to live in infinite and eternal consciousness which is timeless and spaceless, meets the transcendent God beyond all forms.

Supramental Education: Supramental Education is at once the Knowledge of the One, the Knowledge of the Many and holding together of the Knowledge of the One Being and the Many Becoming.

Subconscient Education: Subconscient education is the extension of Supramental education to alight the riches of the dark and obscure Subconscient Sheath either by descent of Supramental dynamism or by opening of the Subconscient Self where Divine is stationed in the middest of Ignorance.

Inconscient Education: Inconscient Education begins by entering Inconscient sheath either through Supramental invasion or after the recovery of the Inconscient Self which rends the Night of Ignorance.

Learn French

The first support of learning French: “..but those who want to read me, well, let them learn French, it won’t do them any harm!..” The Mother

The second support of learning French:“Sri Aurobindo used to say that Frenchifying the English form improved it, while on the contrary, anglicizing the French language diminished it. The French language is clearer. But it (French) is bit rigid, it needs little suppleness.” The Mother

The third support of learning French: “French gives a precision to thought like no other language.” The Mother

The fourth support of learning French: “But Sri Aurobindo always told me that French once translated makes good English, while English once translated makes poor French. Because there is a precision in the language that comes from the translation, but that does not exist in natural English.” The Mother

3.	Learn French

The all orissa girls’ meet

1) The First Proposal for the young aspirants of beauty: The Integral Education delivers this message that The Mother is the representative power of Truth, Shakti, and those who can open themselves sufficiently to this descending Truth or those who hold the Mother in their heart, their virgin stuff of mind, life and body are automatically protected. By equipping themselves with double power of Truth and Virginity, they are undoubtedly identified as the Mother’s true devotees and the forerunners of a Supramental world.

2) The Second Proposal for young aspirants of sweet heart:This paper further proposes that their approach of the Divine from the beginning should be all-inclusive instead of exclusive. The all-inclusive embodied Mother who dwells in everybody’s heart is also universal Mother pervading every thing and every being and all deities and all godheads and She is also the Transcendent Mother, the source and becoming of all this existence.

3) The Third Proposal for the young aspirant growing mind:This paper also proposes that the young mind must be aware of renunciation, tyaga, vairagya, effort, abhyasa, exclusive concentration, samyama, askesis, tapasya, consecration, atma-samarpana and movement of Consciousness as means of entering contact with the inexhaustible height, depth and wideness of The Mother’s Consciousness. Or to become very close to the Divine Mother one must learn the lesson of constant self-offering to the Divine, movement of Consciousness in different planes and worlds, persistent rejection of Falsehood and acceptance of descending Truth and to keep mind, vital and body untouched from the influence of surrounding world and untransformed lower nature.

The Three Tasks of Integral Education:

1. The difficult task of Integral Education is discovery of Physical, Vital, Mental, Psychic, Spiritual, Universal, Supramental and Bliss Self.

2. The more difficult task of Integral Education is transformation of three Inconscient energies of tamas, rajas and sattwa and discovery of Subconscient and Inconscient Self..

3. The most difficult task of Integral Education is Subconscient transformation by Spirit travelling back and forward in Time and illumining all the dark Subconscient domains of this life and past lives in waking, non-waking, intense waking and intense non-waking Trance.

The emergence of integral personality

The Emergence of Surface Personality: Impersonality is the source of all personality. Surface personality is born by the pressure of the subtle mental being that secretly thinks and perceives in us, the subtle vital being that secretly feels and acts upon life through us, the subtle-physical being that secretly receives and responds to the contacts of things through our body and its organs and by the upthrow from the depth the surface personality is much exteriorized, distorted, mutilated and vulgarized. So the surface Personality is only a temporary mental, vital, physical formation in which powers, influences and motives are amalgamated.

The Emergence of Physical Personality: Physical personality is concerned with birth, money getting, procreation of a family, satisfaction of common impulses, short lived desires, the maintenance of the life and the body and death of this mutable body. This tamasic personality is dominated by the physical mind which is full of dull inertia, obscure in its reception, unwilling to change, recalcitrant to pressure of Spiritual force, conservative and clings to fixed type of limited established knowledge. By the pressure of subliminal self he can arrive at the idea of a finer, more beautiful and perfect physical life and extend the same in the collective existence.

The Emergence of Vital Personality: This surface vital personality is the dominance of the ignorant vital being which is the principal active source of all discord and disharmony, a cause of inner and outer perturbations of life, a mainspring of wrong-doing and evil. This rajasic personality is dominated by the vital mind and is of two kinds: (1) one kind is defensive with violence and passion, assertive of its mental individuality and all that is in agreement with it, preferred by its volition, adapted to its outlook, but aggressive against all that is contrary to its mental ego-structure or unacceptable  to its personal intellectuality; (2) the other kind is enthusiastic for new things, passionate, insistent, impetuous, often mobile beyond measure, inconstant, governed in its idea not by truth and light but by the enthusiasm of intellectual battle, restless movement and ambitious adventure. By the pressure true vital being the outer life personality can overcome the vital ego and becomes the instrument of the Soul and can develop higher vital faculties of delight, love, aesthesis and beauty in the maintenance of whole life.

The Emergence of Mental Personality: Mental personality is the form of our superficial or apparent surface self. It is divided into two parts, (1) its subjective experience of the ever-modified mental states of its personality and (2) its objective experience of the ever-changing environment which seems partly or wholly effects in building his mental personality.

The Emergence of Subliminal Personality: Surface personality is small, ignorant, active, swayed by helpless thought waves and inrush of grief, joy and reactions of all kind; whereas subliminal personality acts from behind the surface, is vast, calm, equal, observing the surface perturbation with an immovable detachment or it may act on its agitation to pacify, quiet, enlarge and transform it.

The Emergence of Psychic Personality: When he awakes the knowledge of the Soul and feels the need to bring it to the front his communication with the surface improves which is a pure power of light, love and joy. Then he is able to exercise a strong control, react against the false mixture, becomes master of his life and action.

The Emergence of Spiritual Personality: Beyond this Psychic personality he becomes impersonal Person and his nature and being identifies with the freedom of Sachchidananda and this Spiritual personality must go through extension of cosmic expression.

The First Resurgence of Study Circle Movement: Some developed devotees of Orissa have to transcend their earlier status of moderate Spirituality, leaning on shortcut, easy and comfortable method and resolve on themselves to do tapasya of its extreme kind in secrecy and silence and effect of their sadhana will directly influence the world atmosphere. “There must be, first, the effort towards at least an initial and enabling self-transcendence and contact with the Divine; next, the reception of that which transcends, that with which we have gained communion, into ourselves for the transformation of our whole conscious being; last, the utilisation of our transformed humanity as a divine centre in the world.” CWSA/23/The Synthesis of Yoga-58

The Second resurgence of Study Circle Movement: They will put their effort to do The Mother’s Work in conformity with Her requirement of entire knowledge on Sri Aurobindo in complete obedience to His law directed to perfect Her manifestation. They will also develop equal regard and reverence towards the law of the Soul, the law of the Collectivity and the law of the Divine. “In the end his (a Sadhaka of integral Yoga) own will and force become one with the higher Power; he merges them in the divine Will and its transcendent and universal Force. He finds it thenceforward presiding over the necessary transformation of his mental, vital and physical being with an impartial wisdom and provident effectivity of which the eager and interested ego is not capable. It is when this identification and this self-merging are complete that the divine centre in the world is ready.” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga-59

The Third Resurgence of Study Circle Movement: Those who are interested to collaborate in Her Divine manifestation they have to combine strongly three elements, the Divine, Buddha, the Law, Dharma and fellowship of those in whom the Law is manifested, Sangha; in the collective living the Divine represents the force of unity, Dharma represents the force of harmony and Sangha represents the force of mutuality.

The Fourth Resurgence of Study Circle Movement: The study circle is a small collective gathering to resolve the problem of mutuality of a Sangha, through intervention of the Divine, the force of unity and Dharma, the force of harmony; it is like a temple where one can receive Divine’s dynamic touch and harmonise his problems; a true study circle can transform into Divine Centre of the world, a powerful channel to receive and transmit the Divine Grace, where the whole of humanity will be benefited as a Sangha.

The Fifth Resurgence of Study Circle Movement: So, an ideal study circle is identified as illuminating means and sacred collective group for the Divine’s manifestation. It is a gathering together of wise devotees complemented by a liberated individual Soul at its centre. His longing to become the leader, teacher and path finder of the limited human Consciousness must be subordinate of his appetite to become the follower of Their limitless Consciousness. His act of giving knowledge to the collective group must be subordinate of his act of self-offering, austerity, service offered to the Divine and act of reception of Divine knowledge from within and above. The Shastra or written truth of integral Yoga carries Their living Divine Presence and can serve as a means, outer aid and guiding principle to call down the Divine Grace and the importance of its practice multiplies infinitely when its touch and dominant influence gives birth to realised Souls and their establishment in higher Consciousness. The Gita authorises ‘the men of knowledge who have seen the true principle of things’ can only deliver knowledge to the seekers whereas integral Yoga further recognises that ‘Spiritual Influence’ is the more powerful instrument than teaching through instructions and examples.

The vision of future orissa

The first Approach: Orissa is to be liberated from the limiting influence of later Vedantic Ascetics with excessive importance on the supernormal experience of Samadhi, Vaishnava Bhakti Movement with their theory of inaction and traditional Tantric misuse of Spiritual Powers, siddhis, directed either to hurt others or to gain some ambitious objective.

The second Approach: A living of man in the static Divine union and a corresponding descent of dynamic Divine Shakti into humanity can recompense a large amount of discord in collective living and if these two movements are established then one can heal the opposition between Spiritual life and the World. A successful collective living asks strong contact with the Divine, durable adherence to the law of inner Truth and to wage a constant war against outer falsehood, adharma.

The third Approach: “There lies before him¹ the possibility of a new birth²; there can be an ascent into a higher and wider plane of being and its descent to transform his members. An enlarged and illumined consciousness is possible that shall make of him a liberated spirit and a perfected force — and, if spread beyond the individual ³, it might even constitute a divine humanity or else a new, a supramental and therefore a superhuman race.” CWSA/23//The Synthesis of Yoga-90.

(1: a Sadhaka of integral Yoga, 2: of Divine Centre, 3: through universalisation of consciousness)

The fourth Approach: The Mother’s future ceaseless work in Orissa is a radical shift of Consciousness from mutilated mental plane to unmutilated Supramental plane and its foundation is secured from a ‘virgin stuff of mind and matter’ in which a movement towards complete Spiritual transformation will be natural and spontaneous.

The Central Truth of Integral Education

Integral Concentration, samjnana, is identified as the central Truth of Integral Education.

1. First Exclusive Concentration: It is defined as the complete absorption in the objective world by an entire separation from the true Self.
2. Second Exclusive Concentration: It is defined as to preoccupy and limit oneself with the mental knowledge of the present which is hurriedly changing from moment to moment in a helpless succession of events, forms, phenomena and actions, oblivious of the successive past and future happenings.
3. Third Exclusive Concentration: The third exclusive concentration or reverse movement of exclusive concentration, is defined as the complete absorption in the objective means or instruments of Education in finding the subjective Being.
4. Fourth Exclusive Concentration: In this concentration, the present moment is utilised in linking the subjective Time with the objective Space or in this concentration self-concentration and self-expansion are reconciled.
5. Essential Concentration: It is defined as the entire self-absorption in the essence of its own being through deeper self-oblivion of outward things.
6. Multiple Concentration: It is defined as a greater concentration or self-absorption in the universalised Self for greater world action.
7. Integral Concentration: It is capable of an integral, comprehensive, multiple, infinite self-concentration.