Sri Aurobindo
The Harmony of Virtue
Early Cultural Writings — 1890-1910
Man fulfilling himself in the body is given Hathayoga as his means. When he rises above the body, he abandons Hathayoga as a troublesome and inferior process and rises to the Rajayoga, the discipline peculiar to the aeon in which man now evolves. The first condition of success in Rajayoga is to rise superior to the dehātma-buddhi2, the state of perception in which the body is identified with the Self. A time comes to the Rajayogin, when his body seems not to belong to him or he to have any concern in3 it. He is not troubled by its troubles or gladdened by its pleasure4; it has them itself5 and very soon, because he does not give his sanction to them, they fall away from it. His own troubles and pleasures are in the heart and the mind6, for he is the rajasic and psychical man, not the tamasic, material. It is these that he has to conquer in order that he may realise God in his heart or in his buddhi or in both. God seen in the heart — that is the quest of the Rajayogin. He may recover the perception and enjoyment of God7 as love and God as knowledge.
The processes of the Rajayoga are mental and emotional.
Patanjali's science is not the pure Rajayoga; it is mixed and allows an important element8 of the Hathayoga9 in its initial processes.
It admits the āsana and the10 prāṇāyāma.
It is true, it reduces each to one of its kind, but the method of conquest is physical and therefore not Rajayogic.
It may be said that the stillness of the body is essential to concentration or to samādhi; but this is a convention of the Hathayoga.
The Rajayoga11 concedes no such importance to the body; he knows by experience that concentration can be secured in any easy and unconstrained posture, which allows one to forget the body; it is often as much helped by rhythmic motion as by stillness.
samādhi, when it comes, itself secures stillness of the body.
The pure Rajayogin dispenses therefore with the physical practice of āsana.
The real reason why Patanjali laid so much importance12 on āsana, was that 
he thought prāṇāyāma essential to samādhi and āsana essential to prāṇāyāma.
It is difficult though not impossible to do the practice of prāṇāyāma, according to Patanjali's system, without perfect bodily stillness.
It can be done and has been done, even while walking about, but this is not so easy or usual.
Now prāṇāyāma, in its proper sense, the mastery of the vital force in oneself and Nature, is essential to every Rajayogin, but it can be brought about by much simpler methods. The only process13 that the Rajayogin finds helpful enough to be worth doing is nāḍī-śuddhi (नाडीशुद्धि) or the purification14 of the nerve system by regular breathing, and this can be done while lying, sitting, reading, writing and walking15. This process has great virtues. It has a wonderful16 calming effect on the whole mind and body, drives out every lurking disease in the system, awakens the yogic force accumulated in former lives and even where no such latent force exists removes the physical obstacles to the awakening17 of the kuṇḍalinī-śakti. But even this process is not essential. The Rajayogin knows that by tranquillising the mind, he can tranquillise the body, by mastering the mind he can master both the body and the prāṇa. This is the great secret of the Rajayoga — that mind is the master of the body, creates it and conditions it, body is not the master, creator or law-giver of the mind. It may be said that the body at least affects the mind; but this is the other discovery of the Rajayogin that the body need not in the least affect the mind, unless by our consent we allow it to do so.
The kumbhaka or cessation18 of the natural breathing19 is essential to the deeper kinds of samādhi, not to all; but even so he finds that by the cessation of the lawlessness, the restlessness20 of the mind, which we mistakenly call thought, we can easily, naturally and spontaneously bring about the cessation of the breathing, a calm, effortless and perfect kumbhaka. He therefore dispenses with physical processes, easy or laborious and goes straight to the root of the problem, the mind.
Rajayoga is of three kinds, saceṣṭa, upaceṣṭa and niśceṣṭa21.
Patanjali's, the systematised,
though22 each is quite methodical, is saceṣṭa, involving great strain of23 effort, throughout.
We may best compare the systems by taking each of Patanjali's steps separately and seeing how much the24 three kinds of the Rajayogins25 
will deal with them.
(In the present article, we shall deal with Patanjali.)
The first step is the preparation of the moral nature, the perfection26 of the heart in27 the four great qualities of love, purity, courage and calm, without which siddhi in the Rajayoga is impossible. Patanjali prescribes the practice of the five yamas or regulating moral exercises, truth, justice and honesty, harmlessness, chastity and the refusal28 of ownership and the five niyamas or regulating moral habits, cleanliness and purity, contentment, austerity, meditation on scriptures29, worship and devotion to God. In order to establish these habits and exercises and remove the impurities of the heart, it is evident that Patanjali intends us to use the method of abhyāsa or constant practice. Any one30 who has made the attempt will realise how difficult it is to compass all these qualities and how long and tedious a discipline is required to establish them even imperfectly. Patanjali seeks to purify and quiet the life, while the heart and mind31 are yet impure and restless, a system possible only to hermits in an āśrama. For this reason, the Rajayoga has fled from the homes of man32 and taken refuge in the forest and cavern33. Afterwards Patanjali recommends the quieting of the body and mastering34 of the prāṇa by āsana and prāṇāyāma. The reason of this is clear enough. The Pranayama in35 Hathayoga does not lead to purity, but to force and intensity, every quality that it finds potent in the system, it raises to tenfold activity and power. Unless therefore the life and character be made36 quiet and pure, prāṇāyāma done in one's own strength may do immense mental37, physical and moral38 mischief. Allowing for the overcome39 of this40 initial difficulty and for the admission of Hathayoga41 into Rajayoga, it must be admitted that Patanjali's system is admirably logical and reasonable in its arrangement.
Next comes the control42 of the mind, that restless, self-willed and shifting force which is difficult43 to control.
Again, as in his previous steps, Patanjali relies wholly on practice44.
He arranges concentration in four stages of development.
Pratyāhāra or the drawing inward of the senses from their objects; dhāraṇā or the success in this process resulting in the fixing of mind45 for a moment on a single thought, feeling or object, such as the 
nāsāgra or the bhrūmadhya
for preference46; dhyāna or the continuation of this state for a fixed period; samādhi or the withdrawing47 into oneself for an indefinite time.
The preliminary exercise48 once successful, the rest follows with comparative ease, but the preliminary process is so49 enormously difficult that one should50 be amazed at Patanjali's putting it first, if one did not perceive that he is relying on the rigorous and thorough mastery of each step, before the next is attempted; he trusts to the Hathayogic kumbhaka to bring about pratyāhāra with comparative ease.
Even as it is, most Yogins prefer to take51 dhāraṇā first (on a single object)52, trusting to the practice of dhāraṇā to bring about pratyāhāra by a natural process.
This is undoubtedly the more easy and straightforward process, though Patanjali's is the more logical and scientific and if mastered may lead to greater results.
Concentration, once attained, we proceed to what Patanjali evidently considers the essence of Yoga, the coercion of all vṛttis or functionings of the mental or53 moral qualities, so as to arrive at saṃyama or throwing54 the whole passionless intelligent will in the spirit on whatsoever he55 wishes to possess from the realisation of God to the enjoyment of mundane objects.
But how is this silencing of the vṛttis to be effected?
For the yamas and niyamas only establish certain good habits of life, they do not thoroughly purify the mind56 and heart.
We have to do it by a process of removal, by replacement, always depending on abhyāsa, replacing bad vṛttis by good, the many good by the few better, the few better by the still few57 best, until we arrive at absolute saṃyama.
This can be done, not easily but daily without58 insuperable difficulty, if the power of concentrating59 is thoroughly obtained60 by Patanjali's method.
saṃyama is a mighty power.
Whatever the Yogin does saṃyama upon, says Patanjali, that he masters.
The knowledge of one's past lives, of the thoughts of men in this61 world and spirits in the other, the vision of the past and the future, the knowledge of all that is, is in his grasp62.
As to what he shall do with the power, Patanjali leaves the choice to the successful Yogin.
Later edition of this work: The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo.- Set in 37 volumes.- Volume 1.- Early Cultural Writings (1890 — 1910).- Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 2003.- 784 p.
1 First published in The Standard Bearer, 19 December 1920
2 2003 ed.: dehatmak bodh
3 2003 ed.: with
4 2003 ed.: pleasures
5 2003 ed.: them to itself
6 2003 ed.: and mind
7 2003 ed.: of the body afterwards, but it is only to help the enjoyment of God
8 2003 ed.: an element
9 2003 ed.: Hatha
10 2003 ed.: it admits the
11 2003 ed.: Rajayogin
12 2003 ed.: stress
13 2003 ed.: only physical process
14 2003 ed.: or purification
15 2003 ed.: writing, walking
16 2003 ed.: wonderfully
17 2003 ed.: wakening
18 2003 ed.: or natural cessation
19 2003 ed.: the breathing
20 2003 ed.: lawless restlessness
21 2003 ed.: sachesta, salpachesta and nischesta, with effort, with little effort, and without effort.
22 2003 ed.: the only systematised kind, though
23 2003 ed.: and
24 2003 ed.: how the
25 2003 ed.: of Rajayogins
26 2003 ed.: discipline
27 2003 ed.: its perfection in
28 2003 ed.: and refusal
29 2003 ed.: Scripture
30 2003 ed.: Anyone
31 2003 ed.: mind and heart
32 2003 ed.: men
33 2003 ed.: and the cavern
34 2003 ed.: and the mastering
35 2003 ed.: of the
36 2003 ed.: be previously made
37 2003 ed.: moral
38 2003 ed.: mental
39 2003 ed.: overcoming
40 2003 ed.: his
41 2003 ed.: Hatha
42 2003 ed.: mastery
43 2003 ed.: is so difficult
44 2003 ed.: on abhyasa or practice
45 2003 ed.: of the mind
46 2003 ed.: as a single part of the body, the tip of the nose or the centre of the brows for preference
47 2003 ed.: the entire withdrawing
48 2003 ed.: process
49 2003 ed.: is itself so
50 2003 ed.: would
51 2003 ed.: take the
52 2003 ed.: or concentration on a single object first
53 2003 ed.: and
54 2003 ed.: turning of
55 2003 ed.: the Yogin
56 2003 ed.: purify mind
57 2003 ed.: one
58 2003 ed.: but without
59 2003 ed.: concentration
60 2003 ed.: attained
61 2003 ed.: men, of men in this
62 2003 ed.: all that is in the present, the mastery of Nature, the siddhis of the Hathayogin, the realisation of God, all power, all bliss, all knowledge is in his grasp.