ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author reads Sri Aurobindo's The Synthesis of Yoga with one eye on how he develops his project of purna-yoga, and with the other on how the relationship between ascetic action and tradition draws implications for the study of religion. The ascetic practice consisting of an apprentice/master relationship, telos and rationality possesses the structure of tradition. The author outlines the internal structure of Aurobindo's purna-yoga. He brings three traditions of Classical, Brahmanical and Tantric yoga conceptually together by knitting hatha, raja, karma, gyana, bhakti, and tantra into a single system. The author argues that representations of 'actions and practices' can legitimately be termed 'religious' because the representation of action in language is part of the larger circle of mimesis, according to which it is the pre-figuration in action (religious) that is configured in language and in the construction of texts which through the act of reading is further re-configured into action (religious).
