India: A Planet

Sri Aurobindo’s Life Journey from Political Activism to Spiritual Realization

A Visionary and Mystic who Envisaged the Evolution of Human Consciousness to Divinity through Yoga and Meditation

Sri Aurobindo, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons-https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sri-Aurobindo-sit.jpg

The whole world yearns after freedom, yet each creature is in love with his chains; this is the first paradox and inextricable knot of our nature.

- Aurobindo

I love revisiting the biographies of great personalities, spiritual leaders, philosophers and freedom fighters. I am a voracious reader and like to share whatever knowledge I gain from reading. One among them whose life and works I admire a lot is Sri. Aurobindo.

It is my dream to visit the Aurobindo Ashram at Pondicherry in South India. I did not get an opportunity to visit Auroville, the township founded by Mirra Alfassa (“the Mother”) to promote human unity and sustainable living. I hope I get a chance to visit there in the near future. So here are some facts about the life and works of Sri Aurobindo, the great Indian Nationalist, philosopher, mystic, and spiritual leader.

Sri Aurobindo Ghosh was an Indian nationalist, mystic philosopher who changed the concept of yoga and meditation. He set forth a different insight and methodology, bringing awareness and attention to every movement of the body to advance our consciousness to higher levels of divinity and evolve as divine beings.

He achieved ascending levels of consciousness through yoga and meditation and was one of the most influential reformers of the 20th century in India. He influenced many prominent figures of the Indian freedom struggle like Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose and other leaders.

The early part of his life was dedicated to India’s freedom struggle, but later his political ideology changed to a spiritual one and he was involved in yoga and meditation. His writings synthesized eastern philosophy with western intellectualism, advocating the transformation of human nature into a super mind rather than just escaping the world.

Early Life, Education and Career

Aurobindo was born as the youngest of three siblings on 15th August 1872 in Calcutta. After moving to England with his two brothers, he continued to live there for 14 years. His early schooling was at St. Paul’s followed by a two-year college education at Cambridge with a senior classical scholarship.

Though selected for the Indian Civil Services, he could not get qualified because he did not attend the riding exam at that time. In 1893, he relocated to Baroda in India from England and served in the Revenue department, then as Professor of English, finally as vice president at Baroda college for thirteen years.

This was the period of intense literary activity and self-development in his life. It was at this time that most of his poetic work that was published later was created. Aurobindo acquired a good knowledge of the culture of ancient, medieval and modern Europe because of his education in England.

He was brilliant in Greek and Latin. He learnt French in his childhood at Manchester. He also and learnt German and Italian by himself to study Goethe and Dante in their original tongues. At Baroda he got the chance to learn Sanskrit and several modern Indian languages, assimilating the spirit of the Indian civilization, past and present.

A Patriot at Heart

In 1905 he gave up the Baroda service, to join the agitation against the partition of Bengal. In 1906 he went to Calcutta from Baroda, as principal of the newly founded Bengal national Congress.

During the eight years of his political activity, he worked, at first, behind the scene preparing with other coworkers for the swadeshi movement. The agitation against the partition of Bengal provided him an opportunity to bring together moderate leaders of congress to form an all-India party suggesting Tilak, the Maratha leader as the head.

This culminated in the origin of the Nationalist Party, with Swaraj(independence) as its goal. The movement professed non-cooperation with the government and boycott of foreign goods, creation of a network of national colleges and schools, formation of societies of young people to do the work of police and defense. A policy of passive resistance was the immediate agenda of the party.

Aurobindo was instrumental in starting the daily newspaper ‘Bande Mataram’ of which he was the editor. The newspaper was circulated all over India to awaken the people to participate wholly in the nationalist movement.

Aurobindo’s Political Life

A series of events lead twice to his arrest due to his political activities. Returning from detention, after his acquittal, Shri Aurobindo found the party organization broken, the leaders scattered by imprisonment, deportation or self-imposed exile.

At this time, he strove single handedly for almost a year as the sole leader of the Nationalist party to revive the movement. The publication of an English paper ‘Karmayogin’ and a Bengali weekly ‘Dharma’ was done at the time.

He withdrew into self-induced retirement when he realized that the nation was not sufficiently prepared to carry out his policy and programme and he was not the destined to be the leader.

He then sailed to Pondicherry which was then a French colony. During the twelve-month detention in Alipore Jail, he had spent the entire time in the practice of Yoga, awakening the spiritual side of him.

At Pondicherry he devoted himself to spiritual work, after refusing the Presidentship of the National Congress.

Aurobindo’s Spiritual Experiences

Aurobindo is believed to have several spiritual experiences even before he began his practice of yoga in 1904, the facts of which were deduced from his notes and letters. These experiences were spontaneous and unexpected.

The first experience was of the atman or true self when he was reading the Upanishads in London in 1892. The next year a ‘vast calm’ descended on him the moment he set foot on the Indian soil after his long stay in England.

This calm surrounded him and remained with him for many months. Also, in 1893, Aurobindo had a vision of the Godhead surging up from within when he was in danger of a carriage accident.

In 1903, he had the realization of the vacant infinite, while walking along the edge of the Takht-i-Suleman in Kashmir and a year later when he visited a temple of Goddess Kali on the banks of the river Narmada, he felt the presence of the divine feminine energy and underwent an out of body experience.

Aurobindo’s Spiritual Advancement

In 1904 Sri Aurobindo began yoga and pranayama, around which time, he met Brahmananda and was greatly impressed by him. But it was only in 1908 that he met the Maharashtrian Yogi, Vishnu Bhaskar Lele that changed him completely

The yogi Lele showed Aurobindo how to establish complete silence of mind and immobility of consciousness. Sri Aurobindo succeeded in achieving this state within three days, that usually requires a lifetime of yogic sadhana.

The result was a series of lasting and massive spiritual realizations which opened to him the larger components of yoga. Lele advised him to immerse himself totally into the divine within and to move only when he was moved by the supreme.

This henceforth became the foundation and principle of Sri Aurobindo’s sadhana. He parted ways with Lele after a month or two and from that time until the Mother came to India, Sri Aurobindo received no spiritual help.

Spiritual Pursuit and Literary Works

In 1914, after four years of silent contemplation and yogic practices, he started the philosophical monthly ‘Arya’. His important literary works including The Life Divine, the synthesis of Yoga, Essays on the Gita, The Isha Upanishads were published serially in the Arya. These works embodied much of the inner knowledge that he had acquired during his spiritual pursuit.

His other works had more of the spirit of Indian civilization and culture ( The Foundation of Indian Culture), the true meaning of the Vedas ( The Secret of the Veda), the progress of human society ( The human Cycle), the nature and evolution of poetry (The Future Poetry), the unification of the human race ( The Ideal of Human Unity). This was the period when he began to publish his poems.

Sri Aurobindo’s philosophy is of the ancient sages of India., that behind the appearance of the universe, there is the reality of a consciousness, supreme and eternal.

In Aurobindo’s words “ All beings are united in this one spirit but divided by a separateness of consciousness, who live in ignorance of their true self, in the reality of their mind, body and life.

It is possible by certain psychological discipline to remove this veil of separate consciousness and become aware of the true self, the divinity within us all”.

A quiet mind does not mean that there will be no thoughts or mental movements at all, but that these will be on the surface, and you will feel your true being within, separate from them, observing but not carried away Sri Aurobindo

© VIDYA SAGAR

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