Transforming lives

Larry is a practitioner and scholar of integral yoga, who conducts online courses for the Sri Aurobindo Centre for Advanced Research in Pondicherry, and is a former editor of Auroville Today.

This book is not a compilation of the writings of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, but contains well-written and insightful chapters on various aspects of the yoga.

After a brief introduction to the life and work of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, the first chapter provides an overview of some of Sri Aurobindo’s teachings: the central tenets of his philosophy; his views on the psychology of social development; his exposition of the components of Indian culture and art; his concept of the poetry of the future and his views on integral education.

Chapter 2 deals with Sri Aurobindo’s contributions to Indian spirituality: his views of existence; his ideal of psychic, spiritual and supramental transformation; and the spiritual discipline he and The Mother elaborated. In the next chapter titled The Secret Knowledge, Larry goes in some detail into Sri Aurobindo’s epic poem Savitri: A Legend and a Symbol. The chapter titled The Ideal of Integral Perfection is an introduction to the chapters that follow: Practices in Integral Yoga, Seven attitudes for Spiritual Living, The Divine Grace, Emotion and its Transformation, and Spiritual Activism and Integral Yoga.

The book ends with a chapter titled Glimpses of the Mother’s Supramental Transformation, where Larry discusses the later stages of the Mother’s sadhana as recorded in Mother’s Agenda.

A glossary of yogic and Sanskrit terms is found at the end.

Transforming Lives, an introduction to Sri Aurobindo’s Integral Yoga. Published by the Sri Aurobindo Centre for Advanced Research, email sacar@auromail.net. Price in India Rs 250.