Integral Yoga is the synthesis of all the wide and supple Methods of All Nature pursued by exclusive Spirituality of later Vedantic ascetics, the exclusive worshipper of the Being, the Brahman, the Ishwara and the synthetic Spirituality of Tantrics, the exclusive worshipper of the Energy, the Consciousness, the Divine Mother, the Ishwari and the comprehensive Spirituality of the ancient Vedantic Seers who work out  passive and active relation between the Purusha and Prakriti in Ignorance, Ishwara and Shakti relation in Spiritual plane, Jnana, and Brahman and Maya relation in Supramental plane, Vijnana, resulting in Ananda. The later Vedantic doctrine of exclusive union of Soul with the immutable Spirit is extended in the Gita’s teachings of comprehensive union of Soul with the Purushottama Consciousness. In Tantric doctrine the highest realisation of liberation of later Vedanta is dynamised and it reconciles the two poles of Being, Purusha and Nature, Prakriti and includes four elements of purification, Suddhi, liberation, Mukti, perfection, Siddhi, andDelight, Bhukti. Its teaching of compelling enemy of Spiritual life to become means of richer Spiritual conquest is more bold and forceful than the Spiritually profound and subtle synthesis of the Gita. In ancient Vedanta, this later Vedantic and Tantric method are further integrated. When the Prakriti, the Ishwari, the Maya and the Chit are self absorbed in the conscious existence of the Purusha, the Ishwara, the Brahman and the Sat respectively, there is rest, the passive silence, the Nirvana, the realisation of Oneness. When the Purusha, the Ishwara, the Brahman, the Sat pour themselves out in the action of the Prakriti, the Ishwari, the Maya, the Chit respectively then there is action, creation, manifestation of Love, Beauty and Ananda in Ignorance, exclusive Knowledge, comprehensive Knowledge and supreme Knowledge respectively. Integral Yoga proposes triple realisations that (1) of realisation of absolute Divinity by activation of Soul, (2) of transformation and Divinisation of whole Nature and (3) of unification and reconciliation of these highest aspirations through which Divine gives happy completeness of Purusha, Ishwara, Brahman and Sat with Prakriti, Shakti, Maya and Chit respectively. So the inspiring motive of integral Yoga is the largest development of Spiritual Being, Spiritual Power of Nature and the dual Divine relation in the shortest way and shortest time.

             Integral Yoga is primarily swift Spiritual evolution meant for few developed Souls and secondarily slow collective evolution of Nature meant for large number of developing Souls; its method is primarily Psychic, Spiritual and Supramental and secondarily Psycho-physical; its centre of action is primarily through direct Divine contact from a Divine Centre and secondarily through indirect or intermittent Divine Contact from a moderate Spiritual Centre. This Yoga is primarily ‘Yoga of Self-perfection’ of developed Souls and secondarily Karma, Jnana and Bhakti Yoga of developing and developed Souls. Out of these triple paths, integral Yoga is primarily Karma Yoga and secondarily the subordinate action of Jnana and Bhakti Yoga. Integration comes by reconciliation of triple Yoga and practice of the fourth ‘Yoga of Self-perfection.’ The Consciousness in which an integral Yogi is established is primarily waking trance or entry into multiple subtle bodies/koshas in waking state and secondarily dream trance, sleep trance and absolute trance of Turiya, ‘to which few can attain and from which not all can return’ to the body.

The Synthesis of Yoga:
             This book is the outcome of Sri Aurobindo’s concentrated Sadhana extending over four decades at Pondicherry in complete seclusion.
.
             The Synthesis of Yoga is basically a book which culminates with Yoga of Self-perfection which is activated after synthesis of central truth of all the traditional schools of Yoga or after one is thoroughly established in Karma, Jnana and Bhakti Yoga. Or the Yoga of Self-Perfection is regarded as the extension of three paths of Works, Knowledge and Love, and here thirty-six exclusive siddhis and forty-six sub-siddhis are concentrated followed by all-inclusive siddhis in the Supramental plane. As Yoga of Self-Perfection is an incomplete exercise of Sri Aurobindo, so more experience in these lines are explored in Savitri, The Life Divine and the Mother’s Agenda.

               The highest secret, hinted in The Synthesis of Yoga, is identified as the basis of its self-exceeding. First it declared that the synthesis is possible not by including all the methods of traditional Yoga schools but by discovering their central secrets, central faith, central dynamic process and directing them to move towards the Source, the Sachchidananda. So an evolution of integral method is recommended in which all the faculties related with integral perfection is included. Integral method itself is a progressive and evolving method which are initially dynamised with the three Purushas, that of Psychic, Spiritual and Supramental Being and finally a more comprehensive approach of entering all the planes of Consciousness through the ten Purushas that of Inconscient, Subconscient, Physical, Vital, Lower Mental, Psychic, Higher Mental or Spiritual, Universal, Supramental and Bliss Self. The uncovering of the ten Purushas and perfection of their encircling ten koshas, sheaths, subtle bodies are the subject of our final concern. The Synthesis of Yoga has hinted that we are surrounded with many subtle bodies but never got the opportunity to develop them elaborately. It also hinted about the absolute trance into which few can enter but all cannot return to earthly existence.  The other criteria and utility of absolute trance in Integral Yoga was beyond its scope. It spoke elaborately about exclusive concentration to which all traditional schools of Yoga lean but developed little about Integral Concentration in which Integral Yoga must proceed and still less developed about the intermediate stairs between exclusive and Integral Concentration. Similarly it maintains silence or hinted little about intermediate planes of Consciousness like Higher Mind, Illumined Mind and Overmind and proposes to leap from ordinary mind to Intuition and from Intuitive mind to Supermind. So the study and practice of The Synthesis of Yoga will be considered incomplete without similar study and practice of its three complementary books, The Life Divine, The Mother and Savitri in which many of the uncovered realms of Consciousness are restated, systematized, extensively developed and made available for further exploration to the human race.

             The thirty-six siddhis are: samata, shanti, sukha, hasya, viryam, shaktih, chandibhavah, sraddha, Jnanam, trikaladristih, samadhi, vyapti, prakamya, aisvarya, isita, vasita, mahima, laghima, anima, garima, arogyam, utthapana, saundaryam, vividhanandah, krishnah, kali, kamah, karma, sarvam brahma, anantam brahmah, jnanam brahmah, anandam brahmah, suddhi, mukti, bhukti and siddhi.

            The forty-six sub-siddhis are: titiksa, udasinata, nati, rasah, pritih, anandah, jnanalipsa, jnanaprakasho, brahmovarcasyam, sthairyam, abhayam, sahasam, yasolipsa, atmaslagha, danam, vyayah, kausalam, bhogalipsa, kamah, prema, dasyalipsa, atmasamarpanam, mahattva-bodhah, balaslagha, laghuta, dharanasamarthyam, purnata, prasannata, samata, bhogasamarthya, snigdhata, tejahslagha, kalyanasraddha, premasamarthyam, visuddhata, prakasah, vichitrabodhah, jnana dharanasamarthya, saktyam, bhagavati, dristih, srutih, smritih, pratibodha, vrutte tu karmani, satyadharma.

The Life Divine:
             This is a book in which highest hinted truth of The Synthesis of Yoga is further developed or this is a book in which hierarchies of Consciousness is explored which is necessary for the fullness and perfection of Being, Nature and Life. 

             In The Life Divine, the knowledge hinted but not sufficiently developed in The Synthesis of Yoga is restated again, with greater intensity, finer precision, larger universal approach and clearly spelt hierarchies between the Matter and the Spirit, seven-fold Ignorance and seven-fold Integral Knowledge, Exclusive Concentration and Integral Concentration, Separative Knowledge by indirect contact and Knowledge by Identity, Higher Mind and Supermind, Inconscient self and Bliss self; gives us ample opportunity to go beyond Buddha, Shankara and the Gita; defines Religion and Occultism in their evolutionary context and possible emergence of Divine community, for the wider and total benefit of the humanity.

The Mother:
             The Mother book aims at possession of tantric objective of dynamic Divine Shakti with the help of Vedantic method. The Vedantic method of Karma, Jnana and Bhakti Yoga have been restated in new terms and combinations of fivefold methods that of aspiration, rejection, surrender, faith and sincerity. Where first three are utilized to enter union with the static Divine and last three are meant to experience dynamic Divine union. And consecration is divided into two types that of Purusha Yajna and Prakriti Yajna. Faith is also divided into two parts that of ascending faith and descending faith or the faith that helps in the ascent of the Soul and faith that prolongs the descent of Shakti.

            The first chapter of The Mother book gives importance to discernment of truth from falsehood and acceptance of the former by the rejection of the latter is the starting point of all Yoga. The second chapter gives importance to the psycho-spiritual Vedantic method to enter partial static and dynamic union with the Divine. The third chapter insists on integration of this Divine union through faith, sincerity and surrender. The fourth chapter stresses on acceptance and utilisation of the Money power for the Divine Work. The fifth chapter hints the essence of Karma Yoga and attainment of dynamic oneness with the Divine Mother. The sixth chapter develops contact with the four mediatrix Mother Powers which is identified as extension of Yoga of Self-perfection hinted in The Synthesis of Yoga. This is also the supreme mystery, the Gita has hinted as four powers of Manu, ‘chatvaro manabasthata’61but never developed. The method of self-discipline proposed by The Mother book is simple but its objective is difficult to realise and there are still many missing links that will connect the static and dynamic Divine. It proposes to initiate transformation of Nature with the aid of Purusha Yajna and intensify this action by Prakriti Yajna.

Savitri:

            Human love is defined as an exclusive dual enjoyment and a fragile happiness between the lover and the beloved in their heart’s secret chamber by an entire separation from the World, the Self and the God; whereas in the Divine Love this exclusive enjoyment excludes neither the World, nor the Self, nor the God and could deliver mental, vital and physical love from their utter deficiencies. The heart that yearn Soul slaying human love will be tired within one hour, unable to feel it in a continuous way whereas the Soul saving Divine love is tireless in its nature and can be experienced through all eternity. The transformation of transient unstable vital enjoyment of human love into eternal Divine Love is the prerogative of a developed Soul through practice of mutual self-giving, an interfusion of inner substance, vision through identity, by rapturous fusion of two Souls into one body of the God followed by similar fusion of two bodies into one Soul of God. The former is the Psychic experience of ‘wedding of the eternal Lord and Spouse’ in waking trance and the latter is its extension of Spiritual experience of ‘Wedded to all he had been, became himself’ in dream and sleep trance. Or in integral Yoga, exclusive Psychic Divine Love begins with the Soul’s union (Jivatma) with the Divine (Paramatma) and here one could love without return for love and could live without the attraction of mental imitations and without the aid of human lover. This Psychic Love cannot keep itself satisfied with the highest intensities of exclusive enjoyment; it calls down entire truth of Divine Love in Spiritual plane; which is universal, includes all the worlds and worlds beyond to be possessed by the intensities of Supreme Ananda. The nature of highest Divine Love is all inclusive, all embracing, all compassionate, universal, eternal, absolute immobility and unparalleled intensity of absolute vibration. In order to keep Divine Love unalloyed, warm and homogenous vibratory mass it must search truth in close proximity with the Divine union in Personal, Impersonal, Universal and Transcendent plane.

            Savitri reminds us constantly that the Divine Love is ‘the heavenly seal of the Supreme’ or a sealed book for developing Soul or integral Yoga for beginner because the inability to conquer the greatest trouble of vital and emotional impurities drags him down towards the profanation of the Spiritual mysteries, the loss of their truth and significance and corruption of the purity of its motive resulting in the Spiritual fall on the Eternal’s road, ‘Forfeiting the spirit’s lonely chance in Time.’ Savitri further recognises all gross physical and vital enjoyment as the wine of desire whose cupbearer is Death, Yama and one who begins the initial effort to conquer death must abstain himself from all objective enjoyment and disrupt and dislodge by the Soul’s force his past ordinary life that stands as a block on the immortal’s road. After rejecting desire he will further abandon social duty, religious activity, family obligation and influence, profession, serving the nation and humanity. The child Soul or infant-Spirit needs these inferior attractions badly in his growth so long as they are not in conflict with his higher Spiritual pursuit, but they drop in the ripened Soul. Few prepared Souls through their thousand years of birth history can call down the Supreme’s descent and hold Love’s nectar wine in their earthly vessel. For developed Soul, the Divine Love is identified as the most powerful of all redeeming and creative forces, most frontally active in his earthly life and the greatest force for transforming Nature and does not submit to the law of earthly attachment and death. 

             The central truth of The Synthesis of Yoga is (Vedantic) consecration which is defined as Prakriti’s submission to Purusha. The central truth of The Life Divine is Consciousness whose static form is identified as Purusha and dynamic form is identified as Prakriti. The central truth of The Mother book is Faith, Sraddha, which is defined as Purusha is pouring down its Divine attributes into the Prakriti. The central truth of Savitri is Divine Love which is the outcome of the Purusha’s Divine union with Prakriti. The central truth of Integral Education (a utilitarian aspect of Integral Yoga) is concentration, samyama, which is activated when Prakriti sincerely leans around Purusha. The above relation of Purusha and Prakriti in ignorance is intensified and universalized in Ishwara-Shakti union in Knowledge, Jnana, Brahman-Maya union in the comprehensive Knowledge, Vijnana and Sat-Chit union in the Unmanifest Sachchidananda.
           
            So submission of finite dynamic consciousness to infinite static consciousness is defined as (Vedantic) surrender. Consciousness is a self-aware force of existence extended from Inconscient Sheath to Bliss Sheath. Sraddha is the pouring down of Divine attributes of infinite Static consciousness into finite dynamic Consciousness. Divine Love labours as Consciousness force in the depth of Inconscient Sheath and exults as Consciousness force, Chit Shakti in the height of Bliss Sheath. Integral Education (a utilitarian aspect of Integral Yoga) proceeds ahead with effort, askesis and tapasya which is defined as concentration power of consciousness. This concentration grows in ascending order with Purusha’s union with Prakriti, Ishwara’s union with Shakti, Brahman-Maya union and union of unmanifest Sat and Chit.