Aurobindo - Life History in Brief

SRI AUROBINDO

There is an ascending evolution in nature which goes from the stone to the plant, from the plant to the animal, from the animal to man. Because man is, for the moment, the last rung at the summit of the ascending evolution, he considers himself as the final stage in this ascension and believes there can be nothing on earth superior to him. In that he is mistaken. In his physical nature he is yet almost wholly an animal, a thinking and speaking animal, but still an animal in his material habits and instincts. Undoubtedly, nature cannot be satisfied with such an imperfect result; she endeavours to bring out a being who will be to man what man is to the animal, a being who will remain a man in its external form, and yet whose consciousness will rise far above the mental and its slavery to ignorance.

Sri Aurobindo came upon earth to teach this truth to men. He told them that man is only a transitional being living in a mental consciousness, but with the possibility of acquiring a new consciousness, the Truth-consciousness, and capable of living a life perfectly harmonious, good and beautiful, happy and fully conscious. During the whole of his life upon earth, Sri Aurobindo gave all his time to establish in himself [for the earth] this consciousness he called supramental, and to help those gathered around him to realise it.

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What Sri Aurobindo represents in the history of the earth’s spiritual progress is not a teaching, not even a revelation; it is a mighty action straight from the Supreme. – The Mother

In 1906, Sri Aurobindo openly joined India’s freedom movement. He quit his post in Baroda and went to Calcutta, where he became one of the leaders of the Indian national movement. As editor of the newspaper Bande Mataram, he boldly put forward the idea of complete independence from Britain. Arrested three times for sedition or treason, he was released each time for lack of evidence.

Sri Aurobindo began the practice of Yoga in1905. Within a few years he achieved several fundamental spiritual realisations. In 1910 he withdrew from politics and went to Pondicherry in French India in order to pursue exclusively his spiritual work. During his forty years there, he developed a new spiritual path, the Integral Yoga, whose ultimate aim is the transformation of life upon earth by the power of supramental consciousness. With this a new phase in the evolution of mankind began. In 1926, with the help of the Mother, he founded the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. His vision of life is presented in numerous works of prose and poetry, among which the best known are The Life Divine, The Synthesis of Yoga and Savitri. His Letters on Yoga in three volumes give practical guidance to seekers of Divine Life. Sri Aurobindo left his body on 5th December 1950. On 7th December the Mother wrote, “Lord, this morning Thou has given me the assurance that…all of Thyself would remain here and not leave the earth atmosphere until earth is transformed.”