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Movement

Integral Yoga

Sri Aurobindo’s teaching of a spiritual evolution in which the divine is to be realized not beyond the world but in it.

Also called Pūrṇa Yoga, the yoga of Sri Aurobindo

Introduction

Integral Yoga is the spiritual teaching of Sri Aurobindo and of his collaborator Mirra Alfassa, known as the Mother. It takes up the Upaniṣadic vision of Brahman as being, consciousness and bliss (saccidānanda), but rejects the conclusion that the world is an illusion to be escaped. The world, on this view, is a real manifestation of the divine, and has a purpose.

Aurobindo taught that the divine has involved itself in matter, and is evolving back through life and mind toward higher levels of consciousness, culminating in what he called the supermind, a truth-consciousness in which knowledge and being are one. The aim of yoga is therefore not only individual liberation but the transformation of human nature and of earthly life: “all life is yoga”, as he wrote.

The yoga is integral because it combines the paths of knowledge, works and devotion, together with the Tantric surrender to the divine Mother’s power, and because it seeks to transform the whole being, body, life and mind, rather than leave them behind. Aurobindo rejected both the materialist denial of spirit and what he called the refusal of the ascetic, the denial of matter.

History

Historical

Aurobindo Ghose, educated in England, was a leader of the radical wing of the Indian nationalist movement. Imprisoned in 1908 during the Alipore bomb trial, he underwent spiritual experiences in jail, and after his acquittal withdrew in 1910 to Pondicherry, then a French territory, to devote himself to yoga.

In 1914 he met Mirra Alfassa, and with her and her husband Paul Richard began the monthly review Arya, in which, until 1921, he published his major works: The Life Divine, The Synthesis of Yoga, Essays on the Gita and The Secret of the Veda. From 1926, when Aurobindo withdrew into seclusion, the Mother organized the community around them as the Sri Aurobindo Ashram.

After Aurobindo’s death in 1950 the Mother led the Ashram, and in 1968 founded Auroville, an international township near Pondicherry, as an experiment in human unity. She died in 1973. Aurobindo’s ideas were carried to the West by students such as Haridas Chaudhuri, and influenced later movements that call themselves “integral”.

  1. 1908–1909Aurobindo’s imprisonment and the Alipore trial
  2. 1910Aurobindo settles in Pondicherry
  3. 1914–1921The Arya publishes The Life Divine
  4. 1926The Sri Aurobindo Ashram takes shape
  5. 1950Death of Sri Aurobindo
  6. 1968The Mother founds Auroville

Major thinkers

Key concepts

Important texts

Convergence and divergence

Resemblance and difference, given equal room. Each note is marked with the kind of statement it makes.

Areas of convergence

  • Brahman, with Advaita Vedānta

    Historical

    Integral Yoga, like Advaita, takes the Upaniṣadic Brahman, being, consciousness and bliss, as the one reality, and holds that the self in each being is that reality.

Areas of divergence

  • Māyā, with Advaita Vedānta

    Scholarship

    Aurobindo rejected the Advaita reading of māyā as illusion: the world is a real self-manifestation of Brahman, and the goal is to transform life, not to escape it.

Cite this entry
Chicago (bibliography)

“Integral Yoga.” Tradition. The Library, Unitive Knowledge Society. Last modified November 7, 2026. https://www.unitiveknowledge.org/library/traditions/integral-yoga.

Chicago (note)

“Integral Yoga,” tradition, The Library, Unitive Knowledge Society, last modified November 7, 2026, https://www.unitiveknowledge.org/library/traditions/integral-yoga.

MLA

“Integral Yoga.” The Library, Unitive Knowledge Society, 7 Nov. 2026, www.unitiveknowledge.org/library/traditions/integral-yoga.

BibTeX
@misc{traditions-integral-yoga,
  title = {{Integral Yoga}},
  howpublished = {The Library, Unitive Knowledge Society},
  note = {Tradition. Last modified November 7, 2026},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://www.unitiveknowledge.org/library/traditions/integral-yoga}
}

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