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Namah The Gift of Integral Yoga...

(aggregates): form, feeling, perception,
formation, and consciousness. After
death, these elements dissolve, and our
actions continue in a new form (7). Other
forms of Buddhism, such as the Tibetan
system of recognising reincarnations, rely
on people’s recollection of their past lives.
There are two ways in which someone can
take rebirth after death: rebirth under the
sway of karma and destructive emotions and
rebirth through the power of compassion
and prayer (8).

Although the concept of rebirth is important
in many spiritual traditions and marks a way
of continuous growth and progress, it can
sometimes appear mechanical. Individuals with The rebirth facilitated by our natural ladder
an intense aspiration for the transformation of of human evolution is often misunderstood.
earthly woes can often become disillusioned, Although it is a purposeful effort that
as rebirth may seem like a cyclical movement ultimately helps us achieve our highest
of the soul often caught in the reproachable potential, it is ill-lit because, in our waking
nature of karma. However, Sri Aurobindo’s consciousness, we don’t have control over
Integral Yoga provides an uplifting insight our death and reincarnation. However,
into understanding rebirth through the through yoga, Sri Aurobindo explains that
concept of ‘new birth,’ which beautifully one can achieve an integral transformation
integrates various understandings of rebirth through a transformative journey from mental
and presents an evolutionary perspective on to supramental being. Another important
human consciousness. In the third chapter of contribution of Integral Yoga in infusing
The Synthesis of Yoga, Sri Aurobindo explains an integral understanding of rebirth is by
that, through yoga, one gives oneself a new making a distinction between the evolving
birth, which is a conscious evolutionary soul (psychic being) and the pure AAtman,
process fostering a dynamic and growth- self, or spirit. In his Letters on Yoga, Sri
oriented mindset: Aurobindo explains that the journey of
rebirth is supplemented by the psychic
“For the natural evolution is at its best an uncertain being, “This being that supports the evolution
growth under cover, partly by the pressure of and develops a physical, a vital, a mental
the environment, partly by a groping education human consciousness as its instruments
and an ill-lighted purposeful effort, an only of world-experience and of a disguised,
partially illumined and half-automatic use of imperfect, but growing self-expression (10).”
opportunities with many blunders and lapses
and relapses (9).” The first progression from mental to spiritual
being, which is the ‘new birth’ of human

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