Aurobindo studied for the Indian Civil Service at King's College, in Cambridge, England. After returning to India he took up various civil service works under the Maharaja of the princely state of Baroda and became increasingly involved in nationalist politics in the Indian National Congress and the nascent revolutionary movement in Bengal with the Anushilan Samiti. He was arrested in the aftermath of a number of bombings linked to his organization in a public trial where he faced charges of treason for Alipore Conspiracy. However, Sri Aurobindo could only be convicted and imprisoned for writing articles against British colonial rule in India. He was released when no evidence could be provided, following the murder of a prosecution witness, Narendranath Goswami, during the trial. During his stay in the jail, he had mystical and spiritual experiences, after which he moved to Pondicherry, leaving politics for spiritual work.
At Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo developed a spiritual practice he called Integral Yoga. The central theme of his vision was the evolution of human life into a divine life in a divine body. He believed in a spiritual realisation that not only liberated but transformed human nature, enabling a divine life on earth. In 1926, with the help of his spiritual collaborator, Mirra Alfassa (referred to as "The Mother"), Sri Aurobindo Ashram was founded.
Sri Aurobindo was nominated twice for the Nobel prize without it being awarded, in 1943 for the Nobel award in Literature and in 1950 for the Nobel award in Peace.
His main literary works are The Life Divine, which deals with the philosophical aspect of Integral Yoga;[5]Synthesis of Yoga, which deals with the principles and methods of Integral Yoga;[6] and Savitri: A Legend and a Symbol, an epic poem.
Biography
Early life
Aurobindo Ghose was born in Calcutta (now Kolkata), Bengal Presidency, India on 15 August 1872 in a Bengali Kayastha family that was associated with the town of Konnagar in the Hooghly district of present-day West Bengal.[7] His father, Krishna Dhun Ghose, was then assistant surgeon of Rangpur in Bengal and later civil surgeon of Khulna, and a former member of the Brahmo Samaj religious reform movement who had become enamoured with the then-new idea of evolution while pursuing medical studies in Edinburgh.[8][a] His mother Swarnalata Devi's father Shri Rajnarayan Bose was a leading figure in the Samaj. She had been sent to the more salubrious surroundings of Calcutta for Aurobindo's birth. Aurobindo had two elder siblings, Benoybhusan and Manmohan, a younger sister, Sarojini, and a younger brother, Barindra Kumar (also referred to as Barin).[9][10]
Young Aurobindo was brought up speaking English, but used Hindustani to communicate with servants. Although his family were Bengali, his father believed British culture to be superior. He and his two elder siblings were sent to the English-speaking Loreto House boarding school in Darjeeling, in part to improve their language skills and in part to distance them from their mother, who had developed a mental illness soon after the birth of her first child. Darjeeling was a centre of Anglo-Indians in India and the school was run by Irish nuns, through which the boys would have been exposed to Christian religious teachings and symbolism.[11]
England (1879–1893)
Aurobindo (seated centre next to his mother) and his family. In England, ca. 1879
Krishna Dhun Ghose wanted his sons to enter the Indian Civil Service (ICS), an elite organisation comprising around 1000 people. To achieve this it was necessary that they study in England and so it was there that the entire family moved in 1879.[13][b] The three brothers were placed in the care of the Reverend W. H. Drewett in Manchester.[13] Drewett was a minister of the Congregational Church whom Krishna Dhun Ghose knew through his British friends at Rangpur.[14][c]
The boys were taught Latin by Drewett and his wife. This was a prerequisite for admission to good English schools and, after two years, in 1881, the elder two siblings were enrolled at Manchester Grammar School. Aurobindo was considered too young for enrollment, and he continued his studies with the Drewetts, learning history, Latin, French, geography and arithmetic. Although the Drewetts were told not to teach religion, the boys inevitably were exposed to Christian teachings and events, which generally bored Aurobindo and sometimes repulsed him. There was little contact with his father, who wrote only a few letters to his sons while they were in England, but what communication there was indicated that he was becoming less endeared to the British in India than he had been, on one occasion describing the British colonial government as "heartless".[15]
Basement of 49 St Stephen's Avenue, London W12 with Sri Aurobindo Blue Plaque
Drewett emigrated to Australia in 1884, causing the boys to be uprooted as they went to live with Drewett's mother in London. In September of that year, Aurobindo and Manmohan joined St Paul's School there.[d] He learned Greek and spent the last three years reading literature and English poetry, while he also acquired some familiarity with the German and Italian languages; Peter Heehs resumes his linguistic abilities by stating that at "the turn of the century he knew at least twelve languages: English, French, and Bengali to speak, read, and write; Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit to read and write; Gujarati, Marathi, and Hindi to speak and read; and Italian, German, and Spanish to read."[19] Being exposed to the evangelical structures of Drewett's mother developed in him a distaste for religion, and he considered himself at one point to be an atheist but later determined that he was agnostic.[20] A blue plaque unveiled in 2007 commemorates Aurobindo's residence at 49 St Stephen's Avenue in Shepherd's Bush, London, from 1884 to 1887.[21] The three brothers began living in spartan circumstances at the Liberal Club in South Kensington during 1887, their father having experienced some financial difficulties. The club's secretary was James Cotton, brother of their father's friend in the Bengal ICS, Henry Cotton.[22]
By 1889, Manmohan had determined to pursue a literary career and Benoybhusan had proved himself unequal to the standards necessary for ICS entrance. This meant that only Aurobindo might fulfill his father's aspirations but to do so when his father lacked money required that he studied hard for a scholarship.[18] To become an ICS official, students were required to pass the competitive examination, as well as to study at an English university for two years under probation. Aurobindo secured a scholarship at King's College, Cambridge, under recommendation of Oscar Browning.[23] He passed the written ICS examination after a few months, being ranked 11th out of 250 competitors. He spent the next two years at King's College.[17] Aurobindo had no interest in the ICS and came late to the horse-riding practical exam purposefully to get himself disqualified for the service.[24]In 1891 Sri Aurobindo also felt that a period of great upheaval for his motherland was coming in which he was destined to play an important role. He began to learn Bengali and joined a secret society, romantically named 'Lotus and Dagger', where the members took an oath to work for India's freedom.[25]
At this time, the Maharaja of Baroda, Sayajirao Gaekwad III, was travelling in England. Cotton secured for him a place in Baroda State Service and arranged for him to meet the prince.[26] He left England for India,[26] arriving there in February 1893.[27] In India, Krishna Dhun Ghose, who was waiting to receive his son, was misinformed by his agents from Bombay (now Mumbai) that the ship on which Aurobindo had been travelling had sunk off the coast of Portugal. His father died upon hearing this news.[28][29]
In Baroda, Aurobindo joined the state service in 1893, working first in the Survey and Settlements department, later moving to the Department of Revenue and then to the Secretariat, and much miscellaneous work like teaching grammar and assisting in writing speeches for the Maharaja of Gaekwad until 1897.[30] In 1897 during his work in Baroda, he started working as a part-time French teacher at Baroda College (now Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda). He was later promoted to the post of vice-principal.[31] At Baroda, Aurobindo self-studied Sanskrit and Bengali.[32]
Copy of Bande Mataram, September 1907
During his stay at Baroda, he had contributed to many articles to Indu Prakash and had spoken as a chairman of the Baroda college board.[33] He started taking an active interest in the politics of the Indian independence movement against British colonial rule, working behind the scenes as his position in the Baroda state administration barred him from an overt political activity. He linked up with resistance groups in Bengal and Madhya Pradesh, while travelling to these states. Aurobindo established contact with Lokmanya Tilak and Sister Nivedita.
Aurobindo often travelled between Baroda and Bengal, at first in a bid to re-establish links with his parents' families and other Bengali relatives, including his sister Sarojini and brother Barin, and later increased to establish resistance groups across the Presidency. He formally moved to Calcutta in 1906 after the announcement of the Partition of Bengal. In 1901, on a visit to Calcutta, he married 14-year-old Mrinalini, the daughter of Bhupal Chandra Bose, a senior official in government service. Aurobindo was 28 at that time. Mrinalini died seventeen years later in December 1918 during the influenza pandemic.[34]
In 1906, Aurobindo was appointed the first principal of the National College in Calcutta, started to impart national education to Indian youth.[35] He resigned from this position in August 1907, due to his increased political activity.[36] The National College continues to the present as Jadavpur University, Kolkata.[37]
Aurobindo was influenced by studies on rebellion and revolutions against England in medieval France and the revolts in America and Italy. In his public activities, he favored Non cooperation and Passive resistance; in private he took up secret revolutionary activity as a preparation for open revolt, in case that the passive revolt failed.[38]
Sri Aurobindo seated at the table, with Tilak speaking: Surat session of Congress, 1907
In Bengal, with Barin's help, he established contacts and inspired revolutionaries such as Bagha Jatin or Jatin Mukherjee and Surendranath Tagore. He helped establish a series of youth clubs, including the Anushilan Samiti of Calcutta in 1902.[39]
Aurobindo attended the 1906 Congress meeting headed by Dadabhai Naoroji and participated as a councilor in forming the fourfold objectives of "Swaraj, Swadesh, Boycott, and national education". In 1907 at the Surat session of Congress where moderates and extremists had a major showdown, he led along with extremists along with Bal Gangadhar Tilak. The Congress split after this session.[40] In 1907–1908 Aurobindo travelled extensively to Pune, Bombay and Baroda to firm up support for the nationalist cause, giving speeches and meeting with groups. He was arrested again in May 1908 in connection with the Alipore Bomb Case. He was acquitted in the ensuing trial, following the murder of chief prosecution witness Naren Goswami within jail premises, which subsequently led to the case against him collapsing. Aurobindo was subsequently released after a year of isolated incarceration.
Once out of the prison he started two new publications, Karmayogin in English and Dharma in Bengali. He also delivered the, Uttarpara Speech hinting at the transformation of his focus to spiritual matters. Repression from the British colonial government against him continued because of his writings in his new journals and in April 1910 Aurobindo moved to Pondicherry, where the British colonial secret police monitored his activities.[41][42]
Conversion from politics to spirituality
Photographs of Aurobindo as a prisoner in Alipore Jail, 1908.
In July 1905 then Viceroy of India, Lord Curzon, partitioned Bengal. This sparked an outburst of public anger against the British, leading to civil unrest and a nationalist campaign by groups of revolutionaries that included Aurobindo. In 1908, Khudiram Bose and Prafulla Chaki attempted to kill Magistrate Kingsford, a judge known for handing down particularly severe sentences against nationalists. However, the bomb thrown at his horse carriage missed its target and instead landed in another carriage and killed two British women, the wife and daughter of barrister Pringle Kennedy. Aurobindo was also arrested on charges of planning and overseeing the attack and imprisoned in solitary confinement in Alipore Jail. The trial of the Alipore Bomb Case lasted for a year, but eventually, he was acquitted on 6 May 1909. His defense counsel was Chittaranjan Das.[43]
During this period in the Jail, his view of life was radically changed due to spiritual experiences and realizations. Consequently, his aim went far beyond the service and liberation of the country. [44]
Aurobindo said he was "visited" by Vivekananda in the Alipore Jail: "It is a fact that I was hearing constantly the voice of Vivekananda speaking to me for a fortnight in the jail in my solitary meditation and felt his presence."[45]
In his autobiographical notes, Aurobindo said he felt a vast sense of calmness when he first came back to India. He could not explain this and continued to have various such experiences from time to time. He knew nothing of yoga at that time and started his practice of it without a teacher, except for some rules that he learned from Mr. Devadhar, a friend who was a disciple of Swami Brahmananda of Ganga Math, Chandod.[46][47] In 1907, Barin introduced Aurobindo to Vishnu Bhaskar Lele, a Maharashtrian yogi. Aurobindo was influenced by the guidance he got from the yogi, who had instructed Aurobindo to depend on an inner guide and any kind of external guru or guidance would not be required.[48]
In 1910 Aurobindo withdrew himself from all political activities and went into hiding at Chandannagar in the house of Motilal Roy, while the British colonial government were attempting to prosecute him for sedition on the basis of a signed article titled 'To My Countrymen', published in Karmayogin. As Aurobindo disappeared from view, the warrant was held back and the prosecution postponed. Aurobindo manoeuvred the police into open action and a warrant was issued on 4 April 1910, but the warrant could not be executed because on that date he had reached Pondicherry, then a French colony.[49] The warrant against Aurobindo was withdrawn.
Pondicherry (1910–1950)
In Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo dedicated himself to his spiritual and philosophical pursuits. In 1914, after four years of secluded yoga, he started a monthly philosophical magazine called Arya. This ceased publication in 1921. Many years later, he revised some of these works before they were published in book form. Some of the book series derived out of this publication was The Life Divine, The Synthesis of Yoga, Essays on The Gita, The Secret of The Veda, Hymns to the Mystic Fire, The Upanishads, The Renaissance in India, War and Self-determination, The Human Cycle, The Ideal of Human Unity and The Future Poetry were published in this magazine.[50]
At the beginning of his stay at Pondicherry, there were few followers, but with time their numbers grew, resulting in the formation of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in 1926.[51] From 1926 he started to sign himself as Sri Aurobindo, Sri being commonly used as an honorific.[52]
Sri Aurobindo on his deathbed 5 December 1950
For some time afterwards, his main literary output was his voluminous correspondence with his disciples. His letters, most of which were written in the 1930s, numbered in the several thousand. Many were brief comments made in the margins of his disciple's notebooks in answer to their questions and reports of their spiritual practice—others extended to several pages of carefully composed explanations of practical aspects of his teachings. These were later collected and published in book form in three volumes of Letters on Yoga. In the late 1930s, he resumed work on a poem he had started earlier—he continued to expand and revise this poem for the rest of his life.[53] It became perhaps his greatest literary achievement, Savitri, an epic spiritual poem in blank verse of approximately 24,000 lines.[54]
On 15 August 1947, Sri Aurobindo strongly opposed the partition of India, stating that he hoped "the Nation will not accept the settled fact as for ever settled, or as anything more than a temporary expedient."[55]
Sri Aurobindo was nominated twice for the Nobel prize without it being awarded, in 1943 for the Nobel award in Literature and in 1950 for the Nobel award in Peace.[56]
Sri Aurobindo died on 5 December 1950, of uremia. Around 60,000 people attended to see his body resting peacefully.[57] Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, and the President Rajendra Prasad praised him for his contribution to Yogic philosophy and the independence movement. National and international newspapers commemorated his death.[51][58]
Mirra Alfassa (The Mother) and the development of the Ashram
Sri Aurobindo's close spiritual collaborator, Mirra Alfassa (born Alfassa), came to be known as The Mother.[59] She was a French national, born in Paris on 21 February 1878. In her 20s she studied occultism with Max Theon. Along with her husband, Paul Richard, she went to Pondicherry on 29 March 1914,[60] and finally settled there in 1920. Sri Aurobindo considered her his spiritual equal and collaborator. After 24 November 1926, when Sri Aurobindo retired into seclusion, he left it to her to plan, build and run the ashram, the community of disciples which had gathered around them. Sometime later, when families with children joined the ashram, she established and supervised the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education with its experiments in the field of education. When he died in 1950, she continued their spiritual work, directed the ashram, and guided their disciples.[61]
Sri Aurobindo's concept of the Integral Yoga system is described in his books, The Synthesis of Yoga and The Life Divine. [64]The Life Divine is a compilation of essays published serially in Arya.
Sri Aurobindo argues that divine Brahman manifests as empirical reality through līlā, or divine play. Instead of positing that the world we experience is an illusion (māyā), Aurobindo argues that world can evolve and become a new world with new species, far above the human species just as human species have evolved after the animal species. As such he argued that the end goal of spiritual practice could not merely be a liberation from the world into Samadhi but would also be that of descent of the Divine into the world in order to transform it into a Divine existence. Thus, this constituted the purpose of Integral Yoga.[65] Regarding the involution of consciousness in matter, he wrote that: "This descent, this sacrifice of the Purusha, the Divine Soul submitting itself to Force and Matter so that it may inform and illuminate them is the seed of redemption of this world of Inconscience and Ignorance."[66]
Sri Aurobindo believed that Darwinism merely describes a phenomenon of the evolution of matter into life, but does not explain the reason behind it, while he finds life to be already present in matter, because all of existence is a manifestation of Brahman. He argues that nature (which he interpreted as divine) has evolved life out of matter and the mind out of life. All of existence, he argues, is attempting to manifest to the level of the supermind – that evolution had a purpose.[67] He stated that he found the task of understanding the nature of reality arduous and difficult to justify by immediate tangible results.[68]
At the centre of Sri Aurobindo's metaphysical system is the supermind, an intermediary power between the unmanifested Brahman and the manifested world.[69] Sri Aurobindo claims that the supermind is not completely alien to us and can be realized within ourselves as it is always present within mind since the latter is in reality identical with the former and contains it as a potentiality within itself.[70] Sri Aurobindo does not portray supermind as an original invention of his own but believes it can be found in the Vedas and that the Vedic Gods represent powers of the supermind.[71] In The Integral Yoga he declares that "By the supermind is meant the full Truth-Consciousness of the Divine Nature in which there can be no place for the principle of division and ignorance; it is always a full light and knowledge superior to all mental substance or mental movement."[72] Supermind is a bridge between Sachchidananda and the lower manifestation and it is only through the supramental that mind, life and body can be spiritually transformed as opposed to through Sachchidananda[73] The descent of supermind will mean the creation of a supramental race[74]
Affinity with Western philosophy
In his writings, talks, and letters Sri Aurobindo has referred to several European philosophers with whose basic concepts he was familiar, commenting on their ideas and discussing the question of affinity to his own line of thought. Thus, he wrote a long essay on the Greek philosopher Heraclitus[75] and mentioned especially Plato, Plotinus, Nietzsche and Bergson as thinkers in whom he was interested because of their more intuitive approach.[76] On the other hand, he felt little attraction for the philosophy of Kant or Hegel.[77] Several studies[78] have shown a remarkable closeness to the evolutionary thought of Teilhard de Chardin, whom he did not know, whereas the latter came to know of Sri Aurobindo at a late stage. After reading some chapters of The Life Divine, he is reported to have said that Sri Aurobindo's vision of evolution was basically the same as his own, though stated for Asian readers.[79][80]
Several scholars have discovered significant similarities in the thought of Sri Aurobindo and Hegel. Steve Odin has discussed this subject comprehensively in a comparative study.[81] Odin writes that Sri Aurobindo "has appropriated Hegel’s notion of an Absolute Spirit and employed it to radically restructure the architectonic framework of the ancient Hindu Vedanta system in contemporary terms."[82] In his analysis Odin arrives at the conclusion that "both philosophers similarly envision world creation as the progressive self-manifestation and evolutionary ascent of a universal consciousness in its journey toward Self-realization."[83] He points out that in contrast to the deterministic and continuous dialectal unfolding of Absolute Reason by the mechanism of thesis-antithesis-synthesis or affirmation-negation-integration, "Sri Aurobindo argues for a creative, emergent mode of evolution."[83] In his résumé Odin states that Sri Aurobindo has overcome the ahistorical world-vision of traditional Hinduism and presented a concept which allows for a genuine advance and novelty.[84]
Importance of the Upanishads
Although Sri Aurobindo was familiar with the most important lines of thought in Western philosophy, he did not acknowledge their influence on his own writings.[85] He wrote that his philosophy "was formed first by the study of the Upanishads and the Gita … They were the basis of my first practice of Yoga." With the help of his readings he tried to move on to actual experience, "and it was on this experience that later on I founded my philosophy, not on ideas themselves."[86]
He assumes that the seers of the Upanishads had basically the same approach and gives some details of his vision of the past in a long passage in The Renaissance of India. "The Upanishads have been the acknowledged source of numerous profound philosophies and religions", he writes. Even Buddhism with all its developments was only a "restatement" from a new standpoint and with fresh terms. And, furthermore, the ideas of the Upanishads "can be rediscovered in much of the thought of Pythagoras and Plato and form the profound part of Neo-platonism and Gnosticism ..." Finally, the larger part of German metaphysics "is little more in substance than an intellectual development of great realities more spiritually seen in this ancient teaching."[87] When once he was asked by a disciple whether Plato got some of his ideas from Indian books, he responded that though something of the philosophy of India got through "by means of Pythagoras and others", he assumed that Plato got most of his ideas from intuition.[88]
Sri Aurobindo's indebtedness to the Indian tradition also becomes obvious through his placing a large number of quotations from the Rig Veda, the Upanishads and the Bhagavadgita at the beginning of the chapters in The Life Divine, showing the connection of his own thought to Veda and Vedanta.[89][90]
The Isha Upanishad is considered to be one of the most important and more accessible writings of Sri Aurobindo.[91] Before he published his final translation and analysis, he wrote ten incomplete commentaries.[92] In a key passage he points out that the Brahman or Absolute is both the Stable and the Moving. "We must see it in eternal and immutable Spirit and in all the changing manifestations of universe and relativity."[91][93] Sri Aurobindo's biographer K.R.S. Iyengar quotes R.S. Mugali as stating that Sri Aurobindo might have obtained in this Upanishad the thought-seed which later grew into The Life Divine.[94]
Synthesis and integration
Sisir Kumar Maitra, who was a leading exponent of Sri Aurobindo's Philosophy,[95] has referred to the issue of external influences and written that Sri Aurobindo does not mention names, but "as one reads his books one cannot fail to notice how thorough is his grasp of the great Western philosophers of the present age..." Although he is Indian one should not "underrate the influence of Western thought upon him. This influence is there, very clearly visible, but Sri Aurobindo... has not allowed himself to be dominated by it. He has made full use of Western thought, but he has made use of it for the purpose of building up his own system..."[96] Thus Maitra, like Steve Odin,[97] sees Sri Aurobindo not only in the tradition and context of Indian, but also Western philosophy and assumes he may have adopted some elements from the latter for his synthesis.
R. Puligandla supports this viewpoint in his book Fundamentals of Indian Philosophy. He describes Sri Aurobindo's philosophy as "an original synthesis of the Indian and Western traditions." "He integrates in a unique fashion the great social, political and scientific achievements of the modern West with the ancient and profound spiritual insights of Hinduism. The vision that powers the life divine of Aurobindo is none other than the Upanishadic vision of the unity of all existence."[98]
Puligandla also discusses Sri Aurobindo's critical position vis-à-vis Shankara[99] and his thesis that the latter's Vedanta is a world-negating philosophy, as it teaches that the world is unreal and illusory. From Puligandla's standpoint this is a misrepresentation of Shankara's position, which may have been caused by Sri Aurobindo's endeavour to synthesize Hindu and Western modes of thought, identifying Shankara's Mayavada with the subjective idealism of George Berkeley.[98]
However, Sri Aurobindo's critique of Shankara is supported by U. C. Dubey in his paper titled Integralism: The Distinctive Feature of Sri Aurobindo’s Philosophy. He points out that Sri Aurobindo's system presents an integral view of Reality where there is no opposition between the Absolute and its creative force, as they are actually one. Furthermore, he refers to Sri Aurobindo's conception of the supermind as the mediatory principle between the Absolute and the finite world and quotes S.K. Maitra stating that this conception "is the pivot round which the whole of Sri Aurobindo’s philosophy moves."[100]
Dubey proceeds to analyse the approach of the Shankarites and believes that they follow an inadequate kind of logic that does not do justice to the challenge of tackling the problem of the Absolute, which cannot be known by finite reason. With the help of the finite reason, he says, "we are bound to determine the nature of reality as one or many, being or becoming. But Sri Aurobindo's Integral Advaitism reconciles all apparently different aspects of Existence in an all-embracing unity of the Absolute." Next, Dubey explains that for Sri Aurobindo there is a higher reason, the "logic of the infinite" in which his integralism is rooted.[100]
Legacy
Sri Aurobindo on a 1964 stamp of India
Sri Aurobindo was an Indian nationalist but is best known for his philosophy on human evolution and Integral Yoga.[101]
Influence
His influence has been wide-ranging. In India, S. K. Maitra, Anilbaran Roy and D. P. Chattopadhyaya commented on Sri Aurobindo's work. Writers on esotericism and traditional wisdom, such as Mircea Eliade, Paul Brunton, and Rene Guenon, all saw him as an authentic representative of the Indian spiritual tradition.[102] Though Rene Guenon thought Sri Aurobindo's thoughts were betrayed by some of his followers and that some works published under his name were not authentic, since not traditional.[103][104]
Sri Aurobindo influenced Subhash Chandra Bose to take an initiative of dedicating to Indian National Movement full-time. Bose writes, "The illustrious example of Arabindo Ghosh looms large before my vision. I feel that I am ready to make the sacrifice which that example demands of me."[107]
Karlheinz Stockhausen was heavily inspired by Satprem's writings about Sri Aurobindo during a week in May 1968, a time at which the composer was undergoing a personal crisis and had found Sri Aurobindo's philosophies were relevant to his feelings. After this experience, Stockhausen's music took a completely different turn, focusing on mysticism, that was to continue until the end of his career.[108]
Jean Gebser acknowledged Sri Aurobindo's influence on his work and referred to him several times in his writings. Thus, in The Invisible Origin he quotes a long passage from The Synthesis of Yoga.[109] Gebser believes that he was "in some way brought into the extremely powerful spiritual field of force radiating through Sri Aurobindo."[110][111] In his title Asia Smiles Differently he reports about his visit to the Sri Aurobindo Ashram and meeting with the Mother whom he calls an "exceptionally gifted person."[112][113]
After meeting Sri Aurobindo in Pondicherry in 1915, the Danish author and artist Johannes Hohlenberg published one of the first Yoga titles in Europe and later on wrote two essays on Sri Aurobindo. He also published extracts from The Life Divine in Danish translation.[114]
The Chilenean Nobel Prize winner Gabriela Mistral called Sri Aurobindo "a unique synthesis of a scholar, a theologian and one who is enlightened." "The gift of Civil Leadership, the gift of Spiritual Guidance, the gift of Beautiful Expression: this is the trinity, the three lances of light with which Sri Aurobindo has reached the great number of Indians..."[115]
William Irwin Thompson travelled to Auroville in 1972, where he met "The Mother". Thompson has called Sri Aurobindo's teaching on spirituality a "radical anarchism" and a "post-religious approach" and regards their work as having "...reached back into the Goddess culture of prehistory, and, in Marshall McLuhan's terms, 'culturally retrieved' the archetypes of the shaman and la sage femme..." Thompson also writes that he experienced Shakti, or psychic power coming from The Mother on the night of her death in 1973.[116]
Sri Aurobindo's ideas about the further evolution of human capabilities influenced the thinking of Michael Murphy– and indirectly, the human potential movement, through Murphy's writings.[117]
The American philosopher Ken Wilber has called Sri Aurobindo "India's greatest modern philosopher sage"[118] and has integrated some of his ideas into his philosophical vision. Wilber's interpretation of Aurobindo has been criticised by Rod Hemsell.[119]New Age writer Andrew Harvey also looks to Sri Aurobindo as a major inspiration.[120]
Followers
The following authors, disciples and organisations trace their intellectual heritage back to, or have in some measure been influenced by, Sri Aurobindo and The Mother.
Nolini Kanta Gupta (1889–1983) was one of Sri Aurobindo's senior disciples, and wrote extensively on philosophy, mysticism, and spiritual evolution based on the teaching of Sri Aurobindo and "The Mother".[121]
Nirodbaran (1903–2006). A doctor who obtained his medical degree from Edinburgh, his long and voluminous correspondence with Sri Aurobindo elaborate on many aspects of Integral Yoga and fastidious record of conversations bring out Sri Aurobindo's thought on numerous subjects.[122]
M. P. Pandit (1918–1993). Secretary to "The Mother" and the ashram, his copious writings and lectures cover Yoga, the Vedas, Tantra, Sri Aurobindo's epic "Savitri" and others.
Sri Chinmoy (1931–2007) joined the ashram in 1944. Later, he wrote the play about Sri Aurobindo's life – Sri Aurobindo: Descent of the Blue – and a book, Infinite: Sri Aurobindo.[123] An author, composer, artist and athlete, he was perhaps best known for holding public events on the theme of inner peace and world harmony (such as concerts, meditations, and races).[124][bettersourceneeded]
Pavitra (1894–1969) was one of their early disciples. Born as Philippe Barbier Saint-Hilaire in Paris. Pavitra left some very interesting memoirs of his conversations with them in 1925 and 1926, which were published as Conversations avec Pavitra.[125]
Dilipkumar Roy (1897–1980) was an Indian Bengali musician, musicologist, novelist, poet and essayist.
T.V. Kapali Sastry (1886–1953) was an eminent author and Sanskrit scholar. He joined the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in 1929 and wrote books and articles in four languages, exploring especially Sri Aurobindo's Vedic interpretations.
Satprem (1923–2007) was a French author and an important disciple of "The Mother" who published Mother's Agenda (1982), Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness (2000), On the Way to Supermanhood (2002) and more.[126]
Indra Sen (1903–1994) was another disciple of Sri Aurobindo who, although little-known in the West, was the first to articulate integral psychology and integral philosophy, in the 1940s and 1950s. A compilation of his papers came out under the title, Integral Psychology in 1986.[127]
K. D. Sethna (1904–2011) was an Indian poet, scholar, writer, cultural critic and disciple of Sri Aurobindo. For several decades he was the editor of the Ashram journal Mother India.[128]
Margaret Woodrow Wilson (Nistha) (1886–1944), daughter of US President Woodrow Wilson, came to the ashram in 1938 and stayed there until her death.[129] She helped to prepare a revised edition of The Life Divine.[130]
Prof XuFancheng (Hsu Hu) (26 October 1909, Changsha – 6 March 2000, Beijing) , Chinese Sanskrit scholar, came to Ashram in 1951 and became a devotee of Sri Aurobindo and a follower of The Mother. For 27 years (1951–78) he lived at Pondicherry and devoted himself in translating the complete works of Sri Aurobindo under the guidance of The Mother.
Critics
Adi Da finds that Sri Aurobindo's contributions were merely literary and cultural and had extended his political motivation into spirituality and human evolution.[131]
N. R. Malkani finds Sri Aurobindo's theory of creation to be false, as the theory talks about experiences and visions which are beyond normal human experiences. He says the theory is an intellectual response to a difficult problem and that Sri Aurobindo uses the trait of unpredictability in theorising and discussing things not based upon the truth of existence. Malkani says that awareness is already a reality and suggests there would be no need to examine the creative activity subjected to awareness.[132]
Ken Wilber's interpretation of Sri Aurobindo's philosophy differed from the notion of dividing reality as a different level of matter, life, mind, overmind, supermind proposed by Sri Aurobindo in The Life Divine, and terms them as higher- or lower-nested holons and states that there is only a fourfold reality (a system of reality created by himself).[133]
Rajneesh (Osho), in response to his devotees that "Sri Aurobindo says there is something more than the enlightenment of Gautam Buddha", stated that Sri Aurobindo "knows everything about enlightenment, but he is not enlightened."[134]
In popular culture
The 1970 Indian Bengali-language biographical drama film Mahabiplabi Aurobindo, directed by Dipak Gupta, depicted Sri Aurobindo's life on screen.[135] On the 72nd Republic Day of India, the Ministry of Culture presented a tableau on his life.[136] On 15 August 2023, a short animation film Sri Aurobindo: A New Dawn was released.[137][138]
Literature
Indian editions
A first edition of collected works was published in 1972 in 30 volumes: Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library (SABCL), Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram.[139]
A new edition of collected works was started in 1995. Currently, 36 out of 37 volumes have been published: Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo (CWSA). Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram.[140][141]
Early Cultural Writings.
Collected Poems.
Collected Plays and Stories.
Karmayogin.
Records of Yoga.
Vedic and Philological Studies.
The Secrets of the Veda.
Hymns to the Mystic Fire.
Isha Upanishad.
Kena and Other Upanishads.
Essays on the Gita.
The Renaissance of India with a Defence of Indian Culture.
The Life Divine.
The Synthesis of Yoga.
The Human Cycle – The Ideal of Human Unity – War and Self-Determination.
The Future Poetry.
Letters on Poetry and Art
Letters on Yoga.
The Mother
Savitri – A Legend and a Symbol.
Letters on Himself and the Ashram.
Autobiographical Notes and Other Writings of Historical Interest.
American edition
Main works
Sri Aurobindo Primary Works Set 12 vol. US Edition, Lotus Press, Twin Lakes, Wisconsin ISBN0-941524-93-0
Hemsell, Rod (Oct. 2014). The Philosophy of Evolution. Auro-e-Books, E-Book
Hemsell, Rod (Dec. 2014). Sri Aurobindo and the Logic of the Infinite: Essays for the New Millennium. Auro-e-Books, E-Book
Hemsell, Rod (2017). The Philosophy of Consciousness: Hegel and Sri Aurobindo. E-Book
Huchzermeyer, Wilfried (Oct. 2018). Sri Aurobindo’s Commentaries on Krishna, Buddha, Christ and Ramakrishna. Their Role in the Evolution of Humanity. edition sawitri, E-Book
Johnston, David T. (Nov. 2016) Jung's Global Vision: Western Psyche, Eastern Mind, With References to Sri Aurobindo, Integral Yoga, The Mother. Agio Publishing House, ISBN9781927755211
Johnston, David T. (Dec. 2016). Prophets in Our Midst: Jung, Tolkien, Gebser, Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. Universe, E-Book
Singh, Satya Prakash (2013). Nature of God. A Comparative Study in Sri Aurobindo and Whitehead. Antrik Express Digital, E-Book
Singh, Satya Prakash (2005). Sri Aurobindo, Jung and Vedic Yoga. Mira Aditi Centre, ISBN9788187471127
Eric M. Weiss (2003): The Doctrine of the Subtle Worlds. Sri Aurobindo’s Cosmology, Modern Science and the Metaphysics of Alfred North Whitehead, Dissertation (PDF; 1,3MB), California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco
The term involution has various meanings. In some instances it refers to a process prior to evolution which gives rise to the cosmos, in others it is an aspect of evolution, and in still others it is a process that follows the completion of evolution in the human form.
Integral yoga, sometimes also called supramental yoga, is the yoga-based philosophy and practice of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother. Central to Integral yoga is the idea that Spirit manifests itself in a process of involution, meanwhile forgetting its origins. The reverse process of evolution is driven toward a complete manifestation of spirit.
Kaikhosru Dhunjibhoy Sethna was an Indian poet, scholar, writer, philosopher, and cultural critic. He published more than 50 books. He was known by the diminutive Kekoo, but wrote his poetry under nom de plume of Amal Kiran.
M. P. Pandit was a spiritual author, teacher and Sanskrit scholar. For several decades, he was a secretary of the Mother of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. He wrote numerous books and articles on the yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, on social and political thought, science, philosophy, religion, mysticism, and the classical texts and spiritual traditions of India.
The Sri Aurobindo Ashram is a spiritual community (ashram) located in Pondicherry, in the Indian territory of Puducherry. The ashram grew out of a small community of disciples who had gathered around Sri Aurobindo after he withdrew from politics and settled in Pondicherry in 1910. On 24 November 1926, after a major spiritual realization, Sri Aurobindo withdrew from public view in order to continue his spiritual work. At this time he handed over the full responsibility for the inner and outer lives of the sadhaks and the ashram to his spiritual collaborator, "The Mother or La Mère", earlier known as Mirra Alfassa. This date is therefore generally known as the founding-day of the ashram, though, as Sri Aurobindo himself wrote, it had "less been created than grown around him as its centre."
Haridas Chaudhuri was an Indian integral philosopher. He was a correspondent with Sri Aurobindo and the founder of the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS).
In Sri Aurobindo's philosophy, the Intermediate zone refers to a dangerous and misleading transitional spiritual state between the ordinary consciousness and true spiritual realisation.
Savitri: A Legend and a Symbol is the poetic main work of Sri Aurobindo, composed in nearly 24000 lines in blank verse. It is based on the legend of Savitri and Satyavan in the Mahabharata, which was given a symbolic significance by Sri Aurobindo. In his epic poem he deals with numerous subjects and describes especially the spiritual paths of Savitri and her father Aswapati, striving to reach a higher stage of evolution.
Indra Sen was a devotee of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, psychologist, author, and educator, and the founder of Integral psychology as an academic discipline.
Arya: A Philosophical Review was a 64-page monthly periodical written by Sri Aurobindo and published in India between 1914 and 1921. The majority of the material which initially appeared in the Arya was later edited and published in book-form as The Life Divine, The Synthesis of Yoga, The Secret of the Veda, The Foundations of Indian Culture and The Ideal of Human Unity as well as a number of translations of Vedic literature.
The Advent is a quarterly magazine produced by the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, and is "Dedicated to the Exposition of Sri Aurobindo's Vision of the Future".
Ambulal Balkrishna Purani was an Indian writer. He was a prominent disciple and biographer of Sri Aurobindo.
Sri Anirvan, born Narendra Chandra Dhar, was an Indian Hindu monk, writer and philosopher. Widely known as a scholar, his principal works were a Bengali translation of Sri Aurobindo's The Life Divine and the three-volume treatise Veda Mimamsa.
Mirra Alfassa, known to her followers as The Mother or La Mère, was a French-Indian spiritual guru, occultist and yoga teacher, and a collaborator of Sri Aurobindo, who considered her to be of equal yogic stature to him and called her by the name "The Mother". She founded the Sri Aurobindo Ashram and established the town of Auroville; she was influential on the subject of Integral Yoga.
Peter Heehs is an American historian living in Puducherry, India, who writes on modern Indian history, spirituality and religion. Much of his work focuses on the Indian freedom fighter and spiritual leader Sri Aurobindo. His publications include twelve books and more than sixty articles in journals and magazines.
Supermind, in Sri Aurobindo's philosophy of integral yoga, is the dynamic manifestation of the Absolute, and the intermediary between Spirit and the manifest world, which enables the transformation of common being into Divine being.
Jatindra Nath Banerjee was one of two great Indian nationalists and freedom fighters – along with Aurobindo Ghosh – who dramatically rose to prominence between 1871 and 1910.
Kireet Joshi was an Indian philosopher, and disciple of Sri Aurobindo and Mirra Alfassa. In 1976, the Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi, appointed Kireet as Education Advisor to the Government of India. He also served as the Chairman of the Indian Council of Philosophical Research.
Chaitanya refers variously to 'awareness', 'consciousness', 'Conscious Self', 'intelligence' or 'Pure Consciousness'. It can also mean energy or enthusiasm. The meaning of name Chaitanya also stands for "State of Conscious Energy".
Judith Tyberg (1902–1980) was an American yogi ("Jyotipriya"), Sanskrit scholar, and orientalist. She authored The Language of the Gods as well as two other texts in Sanskrit. She was the founder and guiding spirit of the East-West Cultural Center in Los Angeles, California, an institution through which many Indian yogis and spiritual teachers of various Eastern and mystical traditions were first introduced to America and the West.
References
Notes
↑ Aurobindo described his father as a "tremendous atheist" but Thakur calls him an agnostic and Heehs believes that he followed his own coda.[9][10]
↑ Krishna Dhun Ghose returned to India soon after, leaving his wife in the care of a physician in London. Barindra was born in England in January 1880.[12]
↑ While in Manchester, the Ghose brothers lived first at 84 Shakespeare Street and then, by the time of the 1881 census, at 29 York Place, Chorlton-on-Medlock. Aurobindo was recorded in the census as Aravinda Ghose, as he was also by the University of Cambridge.[15][16][17]
↑ Benoybhusan's education ended in Manchester.[18]
Citations
↑ Dasgupta, Sanjukta. "A horrendous tale". www.thestatesman.com. The Statesman. Archived from the original on 18 January 2022. Retrieved 18 January 2022.
↑ Savitri: A Legend and a Symbol, Book XI: The Book of Everlasting Day, Canto I: The Eternal Day: The Soul's Choice and The Supreme Consummation, p 709
↑ Sri Aurobindo, Sri (May 2009). The Life Divine. Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department. ISBN9788170588443. Archived from the original on 5 February 2024. Retrieved 19 June 2021.
↑ Aall, Ingrid (1971). Robert Paul Beech; Mary Jane Beech (eds.). Bengal: change and continuity, Issues 16–20. East Lansing: Asian Studies Center, Michigan State University. p.32. OCLC258335. Aurobindo's father, Dr. Krishnadhan Ghose, came from a Kayastha family associated with the village of Konnagar in Hooghly District near Calcutta, Dr. Ghose had his medical training in Edinburgh...
↑ Ghose, Aurobindo. The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Dept. p.Vol 36: Autobiographical Notes, pg 54. ISBN978-81-7058-496-4.
↑ Heehs (2008), p.347: Sri Aurobindo without the surname seems to have first appeared in print in articles published in Chandernagore in 1920. It did not catch on at that time. He first signed his name Sri Aurobindo in March 1926, but continued to use Sri Aurobindo Ghose for a year or two.
↑ Yadav (2007), p.31: "the fame of Sri Aurobindo mainly rests upon Savitri which is considered as his magnum opus... [It is] a 24000 line blank verse epic in which he has widened the original legend of the Mahabharata and turned it into a symbol where the soul of man, represented by Satyavan, is delivered from the grip of death and ignorance through the love and power of the Divine Mother, incarnated upon earth as Savitri."
↑ Heehs (2008), pp.411–412: "On the morning of December 6, 1950 all of the major newspapers of the country announced the passing of Sri Aurobindo... President Rajendra Prasad, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, central and state ministers... recalled his contribution to the struggle for freedom, his philosophical and other writings, and the example of his yogic discipline. Abroad, his death was noted by newspapers in London, Paris and New York. A writer in the Manchester Guardian called him 'the most massive philosophical thinker that modern India has produced.'"
↑ Leap of Perception: The Transforming Power of Your Attention (1ed.). New York: Atria books. 2013. p.121. ISBN978-1-58270-390-9.
↑ One of the more comprehensive titles is: K.D. Sethna. The Spirituality of the Future. A Search apropos of R.C. Zaehner’s Study in Sri Aurobindo and Teilhard de Chardin. London 1981
↑ Sethna, K.D. (1981). The Spirituality of the Future. A Search apropos of R.C. Zaehner’s Study in Sri Aurobindo and Teilhard de Chardin. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. p. 257. ISBN978-1611470703.
↑ Sri Aurobindo and Hegel on the Involution-Evolution of Absolute Spirit. Philosophy East and West, Vol. 31, No. 2 (Apr. 1981), pp. 179–191
↑ Odin, p.179. (Sri Aurobindo himself denied to be influenced by Hegel. See A.B. Purani, Evening Talks with Sri Aurobindo. Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo Ashram 2001, p. 106)
↑ Maitra, S.K. (1988): The Meeting of the East and the West in Sri Aurobindo’s Philosophy. Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo Ashram. p. 49. ISBN978-8170580782
↑ For Sri Aurobindo’s critique, see, for instance, CWSA vol. 17, Isha Upanishad, pp. 498–99. There he says that Shankara’s world-negative approach "has overshadowed for centuries the lives and souls of hundreds of millions of human beings." However, he also recognized him as "one of the mightiest of metaphysical intellects." (Isha Upanishad, p. 497)
1 2 U. C. Dubey (2007) "Integralism the distinctive feature of Sri Aurobindo's philosophy", pp. 25–27, Ch. 2 in Understanding Thoughts of Sri Aurobindo. Indrani Sanyal and Krishna Roy (eds.). D K Printworld. New Delhi. ISBN978-81-246-0402-1
↑ Ken Wilber, Foreword to A. S. Dalal (ed.), A Greater Psychology– An Introduction to the Psychological Thought of Sri Aurobindo, Tarcher/Putnam, 2000.
Census Returns of England and Wales, Kew, England: The National Archives of the UK: Public Record Office, 1881, Class: RG11; Piece: 3918; Folio: 15; Page: 23; GSU roll: 1341936
Thorpe, Edgar (2010), The Pearson General Knowledge Manual, New Delhi: Dorling kindersley Pvt ltd
O'Mahony, John (29 September 2001), "The Sound of Discord", The Guardian, London, archived from the original on 14 August 2021, retrieved 13 December 2016
Iyengar, K. R. Srinivasa (1985) [1945]. Sri Aurobindo: a biography and a history. Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education. (2 volumes, 1945)– written in a hagiographical style
Raychaudhuri, Girijashankar.....Sri Aurobindo O Banglar Swadeshi Joog (published 1956)...this book was serially published in the journal Udbodhan and read out to Sri Aurobindo in Pondicherry while he was still alive......Sri Aurobindo commented, " he will snatch away smile from my face"
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