21st century yogi's

Thanks for that Sylvanlightning. I would like to share this, from 'The Sunlit Path'


Question: Sweet Mother, what is the difference between yoga and religion?

Ah! My child...it is as though you were asking me the difference between a dog and a cat!

(long silence)

Imagine someone who, in some way or other, has heard of something like the Divine or who has a personal feeling that something of the kind exists, and begins to make all sorts of efforts of will, of discipline,efforts of concentration, all sorts of efforts to find this Divine, to discover what He is, to become aquainted with Him and unite with Him. Then this person is doing yoga.
Now, if this person has noted down all the processes he has used and constructs a fixed system, and sets up all that he has discovered as absolute laws - for example, he says: the Divine is like this, to find the Divine you must do this, make this particular gesture, perform this ceremony, and you must admit that this is the truth,you must say "I accept that this is the Truth and I fully adhere to it; and your method is the only right one, the only one which exists" - if all that is written down, organised, arranged into fixed laws and ceremonies, it becomes a religion.

Q. Many people say that the teaching of Sri Aurobindo ia a new religion. Would you say that it is a religion?

People who say that are fools who don't even know what they are talking about. You have only to read all that Sri Aurobindo has written to know that it is impossible to base a religion on His works, because he presents each problem, each question in all its aspects, showing the truth contained in each way of seeing things, and he explains that in order to attain the Truth you must realize a synthesis which goes beyond all mental notions and emerge into a transcendence beyond thought...
I repeat that when we speak of Sri Aurobindo there can be no question of a teaching nor even a revelation, but of an action from the Supreme; no religion can be founded on that.
But men are so foolish that they can change anything into a religion, so great is their need of a fixed framework for their narrow thought and limited action. They do not feel secure unless they can assert this is true and that is not; but such an assertion becomes impossible for anyone who has read and understood what Sri Aurobindo has written. Religion and yoga do not belong to the same plane of being and spiritual life can exist in all its purity only when it is free from all mental dogma.

The Sunlit Path.17 - 18.