In integral knowledge we aim not at eliminating the role of faculties but at the shadow part of them. Like: eliminating the falsity of being which figures as ego, vital cravings of life, material clinging of senses, desires and passion of heart, false mental constructions and strong assertions and negations in thought. And sublimating to divine beauty, delight of forms, divine emotions, hunger after truth, light and divine wisdom.
Response by Learner MD
Sri Aurobindo’s object of knowledge differs from the object of knowledge of traditional Indian Yogas in three primary ways. It differs first in its perception and wholeness of the object itself, next it differs in its approach and attitude in attaining it and third it differs in its final aim and resting place.
The object of all yoga is the realization of the Divine, Absolute and Infinite. Sri Aurobindo’s emphasis is always on the wholeness and integrality of the Divine realisation, not just on one aspect, however convincing and overwhelming it may be. The traditional jnanayoga aims at the Supreme Impersonal Single quiescent aspect of the Divine. This is necessarily, as Sri Aurobindo points out, an essential and crowning truth of the Divine but it is not the whole truth.
The Divine is equally the Personal, the temporal and the manifest. And to aim only at one aspect of the Reality ignoring the other as entirely of no use is a grave misunderstanding. It might be a necessary giant step but it cannot be the resting place of any real spiritual seeking. For the divine is multi-faceted, multi-dimensional, many sided, and many purposed. Is it not valid then that his realization too be as richly diverse as He himself, his discovery and attainment be as integral and whole as He himself? Is it not then alone that such colossal labour, time and energy, wisdom and work invested in creating a universe as incredible as this be justified? Sri Aurobindo says the heart, the body and the life are supreme indices of the Divine.
In their method, the traditional yogas reject altogether the activities of the world, of the life and of the heart, all works and all acts of devotion too as means only of the Ignorance. Thought too must be eventually renounced when it reaches its summits in the silence of the Supreme non-Existence. Sri Aurobindo prefers to proceed more widely, more integrally, with due attention to every part of the being as having a role in the yoga of knowledge, making sure every part of the being is purified and consummated in its highest so that the knowledge received by the mind and the Self it seeks is purer, more luminous and better realised.
We cannot be content with such a fierce and ruthless Extinction and annihilation of everything. The integral knowledge cannot culminate in a Supreme Negation and non-Existence. Somehow it does not fit into the final and integral scheme of things. The knowledge and realization of the Divine must be as vast as the divine Himself and not the partial Supremacy of the traditional Nirvana.
Response by Learner JT
In the way of knowledge, we are driven to a point where we can leap out from our personality and universe. We can also escape from all thoughts, will and works. Though it is something again which has to be experienced rather than expressed in words. What is important here is to understand that when a sadhak reaches on this sphere of experience, in traditional yoga he would have reached the “object of knowledge.” And this object of knowledge starts from a progression of negating from one aspect to another aspect. How does it happen? Sadhak starts a withdrawal process. In this process he negates all the thoughts in his mind and reaches higher spheres of mind. Then again he negates those higher spheres and reaches to further higher plains. The phenomenon can be referred as a climbing from one type of
