Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Himself and the Ashram

The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo. Volume 35

His Life and Attempts to Write about It
On His Published Prose Writings

The Synthesis of Yoga, The Mother and Lights on Yoga

Does the method of sadhana as given in The Synthesis of Yoga apply now in our practice? What one finds when one reads the Synthesis seems to differ a great deal from what one finds in The Mother and Lights on Yoga.

The Synthesis of Yoga was not meant to give a method for all to follow. Each side of the Yoga was dealt with separately with all its possibilities, and an indication as to how they meet so that one starting from knowledge could realise karma and bhakti also and so with each path. It was intended when the {{0}}Self-Perfection[[“The Yoga of Self-Perfection”, Part IV of The Synthesis of Yoga. — Ed.]] was finished, to suggest a way in which all could be combined, but this was never written. The Mother and the Lights were not intended to be a systematic treatment of the sadhana as a whole; they only touch on various elements in it.

18 May 1936