“yoga is a complete god-realisation, a complete self-realisation, a complete fulfillment of our being and consciousness, a complete transformation of our nature – and this implies a complete perfection of life here and not only a return to an eternal perfection elsewhere.” This is the view of Sri Aurobindo on yoga.
If we try to understand this closely, then it is nothing but total personality development of a human being. As per Sri Aurobindo this personality of man starts with the physical body and ends with spiritual and national education.
The purpose of personality development is god- realisation and self-realisation. Self-realisation is nothing but to understand and to experience inner integrity and god-realisation means to understand and experience outer integrity, and ultimately both; jivatma (inner self) and paramatma (outer self- the God) are one and the same.
The whole process starts from self-education and it starts from the physical body. In this regard Sri Aurobindo says ‘I put a value on the body first as an instrument, for sadhana, or, more fully, as a centre of manifested personality in action, a basis of spiritual life and activity as of all life and activity upon the earth, but else because for me the body as well as the mind and life are parts of the divine whole a form of the spirit and therefore not to be disregarded or despised as something incurably gross and incapable of spiritual realisation or spiritual use to put this in practice one has to start working on one’s physical and mental essence of personality. We have to treat our body and mind with dignity, worship them as gods.
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Let us close this chapter by resolving within ourselves to develop our personality more carefully and consciously so that none of us will ever feel disgraced or frustrated in life. May Swami Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo shower their love and blessings on all of us, so that we all will become the worthy sons and daughters of the great Bharat Mata.