The Synthesis of Yoga

by Sri Aurobindo

Book Overview

Sri Aurobindo's principal work on Yoga; an examination of the traditional systems & an explanation of his own method of Integral Yoga. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 8170586151
• ISBN13: 9788170586159
• Release Date: January 2000
• Publisher: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publications Department
• Length: 918 Pages
• Weight: 2.63 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.7" x 1.6" x 5.5"

Customer Reviews

The Book I have been looking for

This is the sort of book that is an automatic meditation as it is read. Read slowly it might take a year or more to get through. But you get enough each day to satisfy. When done with it, start over. But then, Aurobindo has so many writtings, maybe best to move on to another. What a genius! I can't get over how clearly he writes about such ineffable things. "All life is yoga".

This Book Saved My Life

While bowing to the Venerable David Frawley's excellent review, I thought I'd add my two cents from an experiential perspective. Many consider Sri Aurobindo's Life Divine - U.S. Edition to be his magnum opus, but for me, Synthesis of Yoga has consistently intersected my sadhana (spiritual practice) in seemingly miraculous ways. Along about summer of 1995, I'd lost all desire to maintain an existence on Earth, and was spending about ten hours daily in meditation. Needless to say, my landlord was running out of patience. Deep down inside, I'd made a deal with myself that said, "I'm not dealing with the world until my spiritual activation is initiated." This meant that I was ready for homelessness if it came to that. Things opened up in the nick of time. While I'd met a few people who'd experience a classic "bottom-up" ascent of the kundalini energy -- with all the difficulties that typically accompany that divine experience -- the onset of shakti in my system started in and around the head, spreading outwards and downwards, which was all very pleasant but unexplainable to myself or anyone else. I was ecstatic to have witnessed the rise of these phenomena... though I had absolutely no way of processing them from a place of authority, and I found myself desperate in search of guidance. My future wife happened to work in a metaphysical bookstore at that time, and she intuitively guided me to this book. She had not read it, but had flipped through it a time or two, and she thought there may be something there for me. I started on the first page and read all 900 within the space of a couple weeks, barely emerging from my bedroom the entire time. Aurobindo's teaching actually encourages a top-down movement of the divine energy, asserting that, by purifying the higher chakras in descending order, a clear pathway is created for the kundalini serpent, which is then able to ascend to the 7th chakra with relative ease. There are three chapters in the last section of Synthesis of Yoga that spell this out in great detail, terming the process "descent of Shakti." So, at my moment of worldly bottoming-out, which coincided with a spiritual crisis for which I was receiving no guidance or encouragement, Sri Aurobindo reached across the years to not only validate my experiences, but place an entire practice system around it. He continues to do so to this day. This one is on my very short desert island booklist.

A Modern Classic on Yoga

Of the many books available on Yoga in book stores today, very few deal with the subject in any real depth. Most cater to the popular image of Yoga as yoga postures for physical well-being. Few challenge the reader to a deeper vision of Yoga or of their own inner nature. The Synthesis of Yoga stands apart from the available literature on Yoga, expressing the soul of Yoga to the deepest intelligence within us. In fact, there are few works of such magnitude and comprehensiveness about Yoga ever written, and probably nothing comparable in the English language. Yet more importantly, this profound compendium on Yoga was not written from an academic or scholarly perspective, or from the view of those who work primarily with the physical yoga. It is a study of Yoga written by one of the greatest yogis of modern India, Sri Aurobindo, who has a reputation of spiritual greatness in India that exceeds Mahatma Gandhi, Tagore and other more well known figures in the West. There is probably no work of such scope and grandeur on Yoga available, and none by an author who was speaking from his own direct experience and realization. The Synthesis of Yoga deals with Yoga as a means of Self-realization, God-realization and the transformation of humanity. It addresses all the classical yogic paths of knowledge, devotion, works and meditation, including Raja Yoga in all of its aspects. In this book, the term "Integral Yoga," first arises, combining all aspects of Yoga into a comprehensive system for the full development of all of our potentials on all levels of our being. The book shows the relevance of Yoga to all that we are, do, or are meant to become. As a student, teacher and writer on Yoga and related teachings for more than thirty years, I cannot emphasize enough the importance at looking at Yoga the deeper and integral manner that is so eloquently expressed in the Synthesis of Yoga. It is recommended reading to all those who want to approach deeper or inner aspects of Yoga. The book will transform your idea of Yoga and open many new dimensions of practice and realization for you that you had not previously considered possible. I don't think anyone can seriously read the book and not come away without a sense of the vastness of real Yoga practice. The book will provide you with a deep understanding of the essence of Yoga, far beyond the common stereotypes of yoga as a physical or psychological practice for personal enhancement. The Synthesis of Yoga contains the keys for restoring Yoga as a deep spiritual practice with both an ancient and a futuristic vision. In these days in which Yoga has largely been reduced to an exercise or fitness system, it is important to remember the spiritual orientation and purpose that classical Yoga was all about. The Synthesis of Yoga does this and much more, not from the ancient past or a poorly translated foreign language, but from a master teacher of the modern world, an eloquent poet and profound philosopher.

A Perennial Reference on the Yoga of Life

In this monumental work, Sri Aurobindo explains in depth how the different aspects of the ancient practice of yoga combine to enhance and promote our spiritual evolution. Speaking from a knowledge that is clearly the product of experience, Aurobindo explores and explains every facet of our human journey as we move toward conscious unification with our Source. One can get the most from this definitive work by moving through it slowly, giving oneself the time needed to understand and absorb its contents, for its scope is both broad and deep, thus making it a perennial reference for the serious seeker.

yoga explained

Sri Aurobindo provides an overview of the field of yoga. This is not a series of physical exercises, but the practices that allow an individual to understand the complex inner psychology and begin to move it toward union with the Divine. After a brief overview, Sri Aurobindo goes into great depth on the paths of knowledge, love and works, and concludes with his own unique contribution to the yoga of self perfection, where he reveals the evolutionary purpose of our human existence and puts the entire struggle we face into context.