Aurobindo was a great scholar, litterateur, philosopher, patriot, social reformer and visionary. He was born in Calcutta in 1872. His father Dr K D Ghose was an anglophile (i.e. great admirer of English culture). When he was five years old, Aurobindo was admitted to the Loreto Convent School in Darjeeling. At the age of seven, he was sent to St. Paul’s School in London and then to King’s College, Cambridge. He mastered English, Greek, Latin and French and became familiar with major European languages. Being a brilliant scholar, he passed with record marks in the Classical Tripos examination. He qualified for the Indian Civil Service. However, he was dismissed from the service since he did not appear for horse riding test at the end of his training.
When he was 21, Aurobindo Ghose began working under the Maharaja of Baroda. He became a part-time lecturer in French at Baroda College. He later became a professor in English, and then the Vice-Principal of the college. He also became proficient in Sanskrit, Indian history and many Indian languages.
In 1906, Aurobindo resigned his position as the Principal of India’s first National University in Calcutta to join active politics. He took part in freedom movement and became famous for his patriotic editorials in Bande Mataram. He was among the first of the Nationalist leaders to insist on full independence for India as the goal of the movement. He devoted all his great ability and energy to freedom struggle. C R Das described him as “the poet of patriotism, the prophet of nationalism and a lover of humanity”. For Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, he was “a name to conjure with”. The Viceroy of India Lord Minto considered him “the most dangerous man we…have to reckon with”.
Aurobindo espoused the idealism of the Leftist thinkers, and fearlessly pleaded for Indian independence. He awakened the national aspiration for freedom, and urged people to give up their languor and indifference. He was arrested and imprisoned from 1908 to 1909. During this year of seclusion, Aurobindo experienced a spiritual transformation. He realised that man should aspire and attain a New Being and try to create a divine life upon earth. His spiritual experience led him to believe that the route to this is the Sanatana Dharma - the ancient spiritual knowledge and practice of India.
In 1910, obeying an inner call, he went to Pondicherry, then a French Indian territory, to evade policesurveillance. He established the AurovilleAshram. The Mother was his spiritual collaborator. He totally abandoned politics, concentrating exclusively on a spiritual inner awakening. He was searching for a means of permanently elevating human spiritual state. He practised “Internal Yoga” for many years. It is the route to acquire spiritual elevation. It embraces various aspects such as the mind, will, heart, life and body.
Aurobindo also spoke of the conscious as well asthe subconsciousandthesuperconsciousparts of human beings. His purpose was to reach a state which he termed the “Supramental Consciousness”. With this aim, Sri Aurobindo struggled inwardly with the dark forces within man. He continually fought secret spiritual battles to establish truth, peace and perennial joy. He believed this to be the sole way of moving towards the divine.
Aurobindo did not want to establish a new religion or establish a new faith or an order. His focus was on an inner development of man. Man can use his will and intelligence to begin to participate consciously in this process of self-discovery and self-exploration. It will enable each human being to perceive the oneness in all. It will lead to an elevated consciousness in man. In the process, the god-like attributes in man’s being will come to the surface and change his behaviour. Aurobindo’s vision gives each individual a meaningful place in a progressive cosmic unfolding, and casts our understanding of human endeavour, whether individual or collective, in a new and purposeful perspective.
Aurobindo was a prolific writer. He wrote many works with a view to enlighten human souls. His major works include: The Life Divine, The Synthesis of Yoga, Essays on the Gita, Commentaries on the Isha Upanishad, Powers Within . They express the intense knowledge that he had gained in the practice of
Yoga. He also wrote The Foundations of Indian Culture, The Ideal of Human Unity, The Future Poetry, The Secret of the Vedaand The Human Cycle. His other famous work is Savitri, a great epic of 23,837 lines directing man towards the Supreme Being.
He died in 1950. He left behind a great heritage of spiritual glory which can free man from his troubles. His ultimate message to humanity was: “Adivine life ina divine body isthe formula of theideal that we envisage.”
At the time of independence, people wanted his message. Aurobindo mentioned the following five dreams in his message:
¤ “... a revolutionary movement which would create a free and united India.”
¤ “... the resurgence and liberation of the peoples of Asia and her return to her great role in the progress of human civilization.”
¤ “... a world-union forming the outer basis of a fairer, brighter and nobler life for all mankind.”
¤ “... the spiritual gift of India to the world.”
¤ “... a step in evolutionwhichwould raise man to a higher and larger consciousness and begin the solution of the problems which have perplexed and vexed him since he first began to think and to dream of individual perfection and a perfectsociety.”
Aurobindo is one of the most difficult writers to read. This is probably because it is hard to put into words the insights he gained through his long and arduous meditations. He is also a metaphysician whose thoughts are hard to fathom. Wading through his philosophical writings is liketrying to climb towards remote peaks shrouded in mist. Clearly, his work is not amenable to common readers.
But even a cursory glance at some quotations which his admirers have put together, conveys deep insights into our ancient culture. There are three points to note. One is the deep reverence and love with which Aurobindo speaks about ancient Hindu religion, culture and the scriptures. The second point is the literary elegance of hislanguage. The third is a strain of sadness which a sensitive person will feel while watching the slow decay of hallowed, venerable institutions and traditions. In the process, a sudden realisation dawns on us that we are letting our great culture go to seed.
Aurobindo says about Hindu religion: “The Hindu religion appears ... as a cathedral temple, half in ruins, noble in the mass, often fantastic in detail but always fantastic with a significance - crumbling or badly outworn in places, but a cathedral temple in which service is still done to the Unseen and its real presence can be felt by those who enterwiththe right spirit ... That which we call the Hindureligion is reallythe Eternal religionbecause itembraces all others.” (Aurobindo’s Letters, Vol. II)
Again: “Hinduism ... gave itself no name, because it setitself no sectarian limits; it claimed no universaladhesion, asserted no sole infallible dogma, set up no single narrow path or gate of salvation; it wasless acreed or cultthan a continuously enlarging tradition of the God and endeavour of the human spirit. An immense many-sided and many stagedprovision for a spiritualself-building and self-finding, it had some right to speak of itself by the only name it knew, the eternal religion, Santana Dharma...”. (India’s Rebirth)
Aurobindo makes the following interesting comments on Indian Culture: “More high-reaching, subtle, many-sided, curious and profound than the Greek, more noble and humane than the Roman, more large and
spiritual than the old Egyptian, more vast and original than any other Asiatic civilization, more intellectual than the European prior to the 18th century, possessing all that these had and more, it was the most powerful, self-possessed, stimulatingandwide ininfluence of allpast humancultures.”(A Defence of Indian Culture)
Here, Aurobindo rates Indian culture as greater than that of ancient Greece, Rome and of Europe before the eighteenth century.
He also speaks of the Bhagavat Gita as a timeless document amenable to renewed interpretations by succeeding civilizations and succeeding generations: “The Bhagavad-Gita is a true scripture of the human race a living creation rather than a book, with a new message for every age and a new meaning for every civilization.” (The Message of the Bhagavad Gita)
We end with a quotation On Inner Strength: “The great are strongest when they stand alone, A God-given might of being is their force.” (Savitri)
We may note that Aurobindo’s writings would have boosted the morale of the nation still in bondage. They would have lifted the feeling of despondency, gloom and inferiority from the minds of people living in subjugation to a foreign power. The sense of the nation’s glorious past would have stirredtheir hearts and minds. There is nothing narrow or chauvinistic in Aurobindo’sthoughts. His message of spiritual self–enlightenment based on deepinternal meditation is addressed to the whole humanity.