{"id":1263,"date":"2013-07-13T01:33:40","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:33:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1263"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:33:40","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:33:40","slug":"02-sri-aurobindo-life-and-works-vol-30-index-and-glossary-volume-30","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/30-index-and-glossary-volume-30\/02-sri-aurobindo-life-and-works-vol-30-index-and-glossary-volume-30","title":{"rendered":"-02_Sri Aurobindo- Life and Works .htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

\nSRI AUROBINDO<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nLIFE AND WORKS<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nSriAurobindo<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nS<\/span>RI AUROBINDO<\/font> was born in Calcutta on August 15, 1872. In 1879, at
\nthe age of seven, he was taken with his two elder brothers to England for education and lived there for fourteen years. Brought up at first in an English family
\nat Manchester, he joined St. Paul’s School in London in 1884 and in 1890 went
\nfrom it with a senior classical scholarship to King’s College, Cambridge, where
\nhe studied for two years. In 1890 he passed also the open competition for the
\nIndian Civil Service, but at the end of two years of probation failed to present
\nhimself at the riding examination and was disqualified for the Service. At this
\ntime the Gaekwar of Baroda was in London. Aurobindo saw him, obtained an
\nappointment in the Baroda Service and left England for India, arriving there
\nin February, 1893.<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nSri Aurobindo passed thirteen years, from 1893 to 1906, in the Baroda
\nService, first in the Revenue Department and in secretariat work for the Maharaja, afterwards as Professor of English and, finally, Vice-Principal in the
\nBaroda College. These were years of self-culture, of literary activity\u2014for
\nmuch of the poetry afterwards published from Pondicherry was written at this
\ntime \u2014 and of preparation for his future work. In England he had received,
\naccording to his father’s express instructions, an entirely occidental education
\nwithout any contact with the culture of India and the East.\u00b9<\/font> At Baroda he made
\nup the deficiency, learned Sanskrit and several modern Indian languages, assimilated the spirit of Indian civilisation and its forms past and present. A great
\npart of the last years of this period was spent on leave in silent political activity,
\nfor he was debarred from public action by his position at Baroda. The out-
\nbreak of the agitation against the partition of Bengal in 1905 gave him the opportunity to give up the Baroda Service and join openly in the political movement.
\nHe left Baroda in 1906 and went to Calcutta as Principal of the newly-founded
\nBengal National College.<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\u00b9<\/font>It may be observed that Sri Aurobindo’s education in England gave him a wide introduction
\nto the culture of ancient, of mediaeval and of modern Europe. He was a brilliant scholar in Greek
\nand Latin. He had learned French from his childhood in Manchester and studied for himself
\nGerman and Italian sufficiently to study Goethe and Dante in the original tongues. (He passed the
\nTripos in Cambridge in the first class and obtained record marks in Greek and Latin in the examination for the Indian
\nCivil Service.) <\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

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\n\u2013 1<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nThe political action of Sri Aurobindo covered eight years, from 1902 to
\n1910. During the first half of this period he worked behind the scenes, preparing
\nwith other co-workers the beginnings of the Swadeshi (Indian Sinn Fein) movement, till the agitation in Bengal furnished an opening for the public initiation
\nof a more forward and direct political action than the moderate reformism which
\nhad till then been the creed of the Indian National Congress. In 1906 Sri
\nAurobindo came to Bengal with this purpose and joined the New Party, an advanced section small in numbers and not yet strong in influence, which had been
\nrecently formed in the Congress. The political theory of this party was a rather
\nvague gospel of Non-cooperation; in action it had not yet gone farther than
\nsome ineffective clashes with the Moderate leaders at the annual Congress
\nassembly behind the veil of secrecy of the "Subjects Committee". Sri Aurobindo
\npersuaded its chiefs in Bengal to come forward publicly as an All-India party
\nwith a definite and challenging programme, putting forward Tilak, the popular
\nMaratha leader at its head, and to attack the then dominant Moderate (Reformist or Liberal) oligarchy of veteran politicians and capture from them the
\nCongress and the country. This was the origin of the historic struggle between
\nthe Moderates and the Nationalists (called by their opponents Extremists)
\nwhich in two years changed altogether the face of Indian politics.<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nThe new-born Nationalist party put forward Swaraj (independence) as its
\ngoal as against the far-off Moderate hope of colonial self-government to be
\nrealised at a distant date of a century or two by a slow progress of reform; it
\nproposed as its means of execution a programme which resembled in spirit,
\nthough not in its details, the policy of Sinn Fein developed some years later and
\ncarried to a successful issue in Ireland. The principle of this new policy was self-
\nhelp; it aimed on one side at an effective organisation of the forces of the nation
\nand on the other professed a complete non-cooperation with the Government.
\nBoycott of British and foreign goods and the fostering of Swadeshi industries
\nto replace them, boycott of British law courts and the foundation of a system
\nof Arbitration courts in their stead, boycott of Government universities and
\ncolleges and the creation of a network of National colleges and schools, the
\nformation of societies of young men which would do the work of police and
\ndefence and, wherever necessary, a policy of passive resistance were among the
\nimmediate items of the programme. Sri Aurobindo hoped to capture the
\nCongress and make it the directing centre of an organised national action, an
\ninformal State within the State, which would carry on the struggle for freedom
\ntill it was won. He persuaded the party to take up and finance as its recognised<\/p>\n

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\n\u2013 2<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\norgan the newly-founded daily paper, Bande Mataram<\/i>, of which he was at the
\ntime acting editor. The Bande Mataram<\/i>, whose policy from the beginning of 1907
\ntill its abrupt winding up in 1908 when Aurobindo was in prison was wholly
\ndirected by him, circulated almost immediately all over India. During its brief
\nbut momentous existence it changed the political thought of India which has ever
\nsince preserved fundamentally, even amidst its later developments, the stamp
\nthen imparted to it. But the struggle initiated on these lines, though vehement
\nand eventful and full of importance for the future, did not last long at the time; for the country was still unripe for so bold a programme.<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nSri Aurobindo was prosecuted for sedition in 1907 and acquitted. Up
\ntill now an organiser and writer, he was obliged by this event and by the imprisonment or disappearance of other leaders to come forward as the acknowledged
\nhead of the party in Bengal and to appear on the platform for the first time as a
\nspeaker. He presided over the Nationalist Conference at Surat in 1907 where in
\nthe forceful clash of two equal parties the Congress was broken to pieces. In
\nMay, 1908, he was arrested in the Alipore Conspiracy Case as implicated in the
\ndoings of the revolutionary group led by his brother Barindra; but no evidence
\nof any value could be established against him and in this case too he was acquitted. After a detention of one year as undertrial prisoner in the Alipore Jail, he
\ncame out in May, 1909, to find the party organisation broken, its leaders
\nscattered by imprisonment, deportation or self-imposed exile and the party itself
\nstill existent but dumb and dispirited and incapable of any strenuous action.
\nFor almost a year he strove single-handed as the sole remaining leader of the
\nNationalists in India to revive the movement. He published at this time to aid his
\neffort a weekly English paper, the Karmayogin<\/i>, and a Bengali weekly, the
\nDharma<\/i>. But at last he was compelled to recognise that the nation was not yet
\nsufficiently trained to carry out his policy and programme. For a time he
\nthought that the necessary training must first be given through a less advanced
\nHome Rule movement or an agitation of passive resistance of the kind created by
\nMahatma Gandhi in South Africa. But he saw that the hour of these movements had
\nnot come and that he himself was not their destined leader. Moreover, since his twelve months’ detention in the Alipore Jail, which had been
\nspent entirely in practice of Yoga, his inner spiritual life was pressing upon him
\nfor an exclusive concentration. He resolved therefore to withdraw from the
\npolitical field, at least for a time.\u00b9<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\u00b9<\/font>For a more complete statement about Sri Aurobindo’s political life see Volume 26,
\nOn Himself<\/i>, pp. 21-41. <\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

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\n\u2013 3<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nIn February, 1910, he withdrew to a secret retirement at Chandernagore
\nand in the beginning of April sailed for Pondicherry in French India. A third
\nprosecution was launched against him at this moment for a signed article in the
\nKarmayogin<\/i>; in his absence it was pressed against the printer of the paper who
\nwas convicted, but the conviction was quashed on appeal in the High Court of
\nCalcutta. For the third time a prosecution against him had failed. Sri Aurobindo
\nhad left Bengal with some intention of returning to the political field under more
\nfavourable circumstances; but very soon the magnitude of the spiritual work he
\nhad taken up appeared to him and he saw that it would need the exclusive concentration
\nof all his energies. Eventually he cut off connection with politics, refused repeatedly to accept the Presidentship of the National Congress and went
\ninto a complete retirement. During all his stay at Pondicherry from 1910 onward
\nhe remained more and more exclusively devoted to his spiritual work and his
\nsadhana.<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nIn 1914 after four years of silent Yoga he began the publication of a philosophical monthly, the
\nArya<\/i>. Most of his more important works, The Life Divine,
\nThe Synthesis of Yoga, Essays on the Gita, The Isha Upanishad<\/i>, appeared serially
\nin the Arya<\/i>. These works embodied much of the inner knowledge that had
\ncome to him in his practice of Yoga. Others were concerned with the spirit and
\nsignificance of Indian civilisation and culture (The Foundations of Indian Culture<\/i>), the true meaning of the Vedas (The Secret of the Veda<\/i>), the progress of human society (The Human Cycle<\/i>), the nature and evolution of poetry (The Future
\nPoetry<\/i>), the possibility of the unification of the human race (The Ideal of Human
\nUnity<\/i>). At this time also he began to publish his poems, both those written in
\nEngland and at Baroda and those, fewer in number, added during his period of
\npolitical activity and in the first years of his residence at Pondicherry. The
\nArya<\/i> ceased publication in 1921 after six years and a half of uninterrupted appearance.<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nSri Aurobindo lived at first in retirement at Pondicherry with four or five
\ndisciples. Afterwards more and yet more began to come to him to follow his
\nspiritual path and the number became so large that a community of sadhaks had
\nto be formed for the maintenance and collective guidance of those who had left
\neverything behind for the sake of a higher life. This was the foundation of the
\nSri Aurobindo Ashram which has less been created than grown around him as
\nits centre.<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nSri Aurobindo began his practice of Yoga in 1904. At first gathering into it<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 4<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nthe essential elements of spiritual experience that are gained by the paths of
\ndivine communion and spiritual realisation followed till now in India, he passed
\non in search of a more complete experience uniting and harmonising the two
\nends of existence, Spirit and Matter. Most ways of Yoga are paths to the
\nBeyond leading to the Spirit and, in the end, away from life; Sri Aurobindo’s
\nrises to the Spirit to redescend with its gains bringing the light and power and
\nbliss of the Spirit into life to transform it. Man’s present existence in the
\nmaterial world is in this view or vision of things a life in the Ignorance with the In-
\nconscient at its base, but even in its darkness and nescience there are involved the
\npresence and possibilities of the Divine. The created world is not a mistake or a
\nvanity and illusion to be cast aside by the soul returning to heaven or Nirvana,
\nbut the scene of a spiritual evolution by which out of this material inconscience
\nis to be manifested progressively the Divine Consciousness in things. Mind is the
\nhighest term yet reached in the evolution, but it is not the highest of which it is
\ncapable. There is above it a Supermind or eternal Truth-Consciousness which
\nis in its nature the self-aware and self-determining light and power of a Divine
\nKnowledge. Mind is an ignorance seeking after Truth, but this is a self-existent
\nKnowledge harmoniously manifesting the play of its forms and forces. It is only
\nby the descent of this Supermind that the perfection dreamed of by all that is
\nhighest in humanity can come. It is possible by opening to a greater divine consciousness to rise to this power of light and bliss, discover one’s true self, remain
\nin constant union with the Divine and bring down the supramental Force for the
\ntransformation of mind and life and body. To realise this possibility has been
\nthe dynamic aim of Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga.<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n*<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nSri Aurobindo left his body on December 5, 1950. The Mother carried on
\nhis work until November 17, 1973. Their work continues.<\/p>\n

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