Sri Aurobindo: Spirit in Action

October 1, 2006

“Sri Aurobindo was born in Calcutta on 15 August 1872. At the age of seven he was taken to England for education and in 1890 went up to King’s College, Cambridge. Here he stood in the first class in the Classical Tripos and also passed the final examination for the Indian Civil Service. Returning to India in 1893, he worked for the next thirteen years in the Princely State of Baroda in the service of the Maharaja and as a professor in Baroda College. During this period he also joined a revolutionary society and took a leading role in secret preparations for an uprising against the British Government in India.
“After the Partition of Bengal in 1905, Sri Aurobindo quit his post in Baroda and went to Calcutta, where he soon became one of the leaders of the Nationalist movement. He was the first political leader in India to openly put forward, in his journal Bande Mataram, the ideal of complete independence for the country. Prosecuted twice for sedition and once for conspiracy, he was released each time for lack of evidence.
“Sri Aurobindo had begun the practice of Yoga in 1905 in Baroda. In 1908 he had the first of several fundamental spiritual realisations. In 1910 he withdrew from politics and went to Pondicherry in order to devote himself entirely to his inner spiritual life and work. During his forty years in Pondicherry he evolved a new method of spiritual practice, which he called the Integral Yoga. Its aim is a spiritual realisation that not only liberates man’s consciousness but also transforms his nature. In 1926, with the help of his spiritual collaborator, the Mother, he founded the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. Among his many writings are The Life Divine, The Synthesis of Yoga and Savitri. Sri Aurobindo left his body on 5 December 1950.”
~ from sriaurobindoashram.org

The likeness at the center of the banner, above, is that of Sri Aurobindo as a younger man. Highlights of his life of nearly eighty years could scarcely touch the depth and breadth of his contribution to the world: his spiritual practice, like that of Gandhi’s, informed activism, and the activism informed later spiritual life.

I have included links on the sidebar to some of our destinations. Among these are Aurobindo’s ashram; and Auroville, the intentional and international community of over 1700 members, whose work toward peace, spirituality and ecological sustainability is a model that has withstood the erosion of time – in fact, Auroville has grown and prospered, and turned a barren flatland into a green oasis. If you have time and the interest, follow the links in the section titled Places on the Road, and allow each of these centers of spiritual study and thought to speak for themselves…

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