1

In a major blow to DU, Sisodia has decided to discontinue financial aid to 28 colleges.

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He cited unchecked corruption breeding in the university behind the decision.

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The move is likely to have an impact on the long awaited appointment of permanent principals.

In a major blow to Delhi University (DU), deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia has decided to discontinue financial aid to 28 colleges, including prominent ones such as Gargi College, Kamala Nehru College, Sukhdev College of Business Studies, Shaheed Rajguru College, Maharaja Agrasen College and Deen Dayal Upadhyaya College.

Citing unchecked corruption breeding in the university by not forming governing bodies in the 28 fully and partially funded colleges, Sisodia tweeted the guideline and said, "Have ordered finance department to stop funding for Delhi government funded 28 Delhi University colleges, as DU is not willing to form governing bodies for last 10 months."

"I cannot allow unchecked corruption and irregularities to be sustained on Delhi government funds in the name of education," Sisodia tweeted, sending the varsity officials in a panic.

Calling the move political, DU dean of colleges Devesh Sinha said, "The university has been following guidelines to formulate the governing bodies with due caution. The governing bodies are scrutinised thoroughly by our executive council by including representatives from all cited fields like education, law, media and sports."

He added that the university has assured the Delhi government by writing to them and ensuring that governing bodies in the government-run colleges will be constituted by August.

The move is likely to have an impact on the long awaited appointment of permanent principals and faculty members. Currently, due to the absence of governing bodies, nearly 26 colleges of the varsity are being run by officiating or "acting principals".

The government funds 28 colleges of DU, out of which 12 are fully funded and include Maharaja Agrasen College, Sukhdev College of Business Studies, Shaheed Rajguru College, Maharaja Agrasen College and Deen Dayal Upadhyaya College.

The government also partially funds 16 colleges by providing 5 per cent of the financial aid, which includes Gargi College, Kamala Nehru College, Institute of Home Economics, Shaheed Bhagat Singh College (morning and evening) and Sri Aurobindo College (morning and evening).

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Manish Sisodia to discontinue financial aid to 28 DU colleges, blames unchecked corruption - India Today

BENGALURU: Bhu means earth and naman means to prostrate. This is a sitting spinal twist.

STEPS: Sit in dandasan with your legs extended in front. First the warm-up: Inhale and take your arms over your head. Exhale and place both hands on the floor beside your right buttock (your elbows will be bent) do not bend your knees and try to keep both buttocks on the floor. Inhale and take arms over the head and repeat on the other side. FINAL POSE: Now inhale again with arms overhead, when you twist to the right the right hand will be placed on the floor 8-12 inches behind the buttocks in line with the spine and the left hand will be placed beside the right hip (here again do not bend your knees and try to keep both buttocks on the floor). Try to bring the forehead towards the floor by twisting the torso. This is a deeper twist to the spine. Bend your elbows to facilitate the twist and the bend but do not strain yourself.Repeat on the other side.

BENEFITS: This pose gives a nice twist to the spine and also the lower back. It improves the flexibility of your spine and prepares you for advanced poses.

CONTRAINDICATIONS: Do not try this if you have a slip disc, hernia or a chronic back pain.

Anshu Vyas Seetharaman is a yoga and fitness trainer at Sri Aurobindo Society, Bengaluru. (110 Gangadhara Chetty Road, Ulsoor)Email: bodysculpting.yogatherapy@gmail.comhttps://www.facebook.com/bsytbangalore/

Read more here:
Twisting earth with your spine - The New Indian Express

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In The Synthesis of Yoga Sri Aurobindo unfolds his vision of an integral (also called purna or complete) yoga embracing all the powers and activities of man. He provides an overview of the main paths of yoga, their primary methodologies and the necessity for integrating them into a complete, all-embracing and all-encompassing activity. The motto All Life Is Yoga is the theme of this text.

Sri Aurobindo points out that this is not intended as a fixed methodology: The Synthesis of Yoga was not meant to give a method for all to follow. Each side of the Yoga was dealt with separately with all its possibilities, and an indication as to how they meet so that one starting from knowledge could realise Karma and Bhakti also and so with each path. (pg. 899)

The final section begins to flesh out an integrative method which Sri Aurobindo called the yoga of self-perfection. While all the details of this approach were not completed to the extent desired, Sri Aurobindo has provided ample guidelines for the seeker to understand the direction and the path.

It is our goal to take up the systematic review of The Synthesis of Yoga in the following pages. All page number citations in this review are based on the U.S. edition of The Synthesis of Yoga published by Lotus Press, EAN: 978-0-9415-2465-0 Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga

Chapter headings and organization of the material follow The Synthesis of Yoga.

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Sri Aurobindos integral yoga has enormous implications for the time we find ourselves in. As we systematically destroy the basis of life on the planet, and wall off one another through ultimate fragmentation, we are left with the stark contrast of choosing between survival and destruction, life and death, growth or decline. Sri Aurobindo recognizes the necessity of the individual within the context of the collectivity, universality and the transcendent consciousness of Oneness. The individual is the nexus or hub of the evolutionary urge, but not separate from nor at the expense of the life of the cosmic whole.

We also have a daily twitter feed on Sri Aurobindos studies at http://www.twitter.com/santoshk1

We have systematically worked our way through The Life Divine as well as The Mother , Essays on the Gita and Rebirth and Karma. The newest posts appear near the top. If you want to start at the beginning, go to the oldest post and roll forward until you reach the final posts in July 2012.

Another option is to search for the chapter you would like to study and see all posts relating to that chapter. You may have to ask for older posts once you have the search results if you are looking for one of the earlier chapters.

We have separated the posts relating to each book into their own folder as an additional organisational tool.

Similarly you can use the search box to find specific concepts, terms or issues you are interested in. The results will show all posts that address those concepts or terms. You may have to click on older posts to find all the references here as well.

The next book we are taking up is The Synthesis of Yoga by Sri Aurobindo, following a similar format to that we have utilised for The Life Divine , The Mother, Essays on the Gita and Rebirth and Karma.

You may also want to visit our information site for Sri Aurobindo at Sri-Aurobindo.Com

Sri Aurobindos major writings are published in the US by Lotus Press.

The systematic studies on this blog have also been published as self-standing books by Lotus Press and are available in both printed formats and as e-books. There are 3 volumes encompassing Readings in Sri Aurobindos The Life Divine as well as 1 volume for Readings in The Mother by Sri Aurobindo, and Readings inSri AurobindosRebirth and Karma.

Both volumes of Readings in Sri Aurobindos Essays on the Gita have now been published as well.

Many of the major writings of Sri Aurobindo are now also accessible on the Amazon Kindle Platform. As of early 2015 we are actively at work to prepare editions for itunes, google play, kobo, and nook as well. We will notify when these additional platforms become available. Kindle e-book reader program is also available for PC, Laptop, iPad, Blackberry, Android, iPhone and many other platforms from Amazon without charge. You can find the current list of titles available by going to http://www.amazon.com , go to the kindle store and type in Aurobindo New titles are being added as they can be made ready. Many of the major books are already accessible by the Kindle Reader.

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The influence of the vital prana on the emotional mind overwhelms the ability to express pure, clear and undistorted emotional energy. The human being is thus dominated by the wash of conflicting emotional reactions, joy and sorrow, love and hate, anger, jealousy, as well as all kinds of hopes and dreams and aspirations. Because of the identification of the ego-personality with this array of emotions, the individual tends to treat this as an expression of his uniqueness, and of his soul.

Sri Aurobindo observes that this surface reaction is not actually the true soul in man: But the real soul, the real psychic entity which for the most part we see little of and only a small minority of mankind has developed, is an instrument of pure love, joy and the luminous reaching out to fusion and unity with God and our fellow-creatures. This psychic entity is covered up by the play of the mentalised Prana or desire-mind which we mistake for the soul; the emotional mind is unable to mirror the real soul in us, the Divine in our hearts, and is obliged instead to mirror the desire-mind.

This is an important distinction as the more deeply the individual attaches himself to this surface play of emotional reactions, the less is he able to channel the pure energy stemming from the divine standpoint and respond with an equal and radiant goodwill to all. We can see the action of the vital energy infiltrating the emotional sheath of the being as the cause of this mis-identification. This understanding can aid the seeker in eventually discovering the true soul and heeding its quiet promptings in all fields of life and action.

The ancient texts define the soul as no bigger than the thumb of a man, and residing deep in the inner heart, for the most part unseen, unheard, and unheeded in the outward rush of the senses, the vital reactions, the emotions and the mind.

Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga, Part Two: The Yoga of Integral Knowledge, Chapter 8, The Release from the Heart and the Mind, pg. 336

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Desire, a key attribute of the vital being of man, is considered by many to be necessary as the motivating force of action. We frequently hear that without desire, there would be no impetus for action and there would be no possibility of progress. Sri Aurobindo acknowledges the current role of desire, yet at the same time, takes care to point out that desire is not the only possible spur to action and in fact, it is not the true and proper guide for our human journey.

Desire is at once the motive of our actions, our lever of accomplishment and the bane of our existence. If our sense-mind, emotional mind, thought-mind could act free from the intrusions and importations of the life-energy, if that energy could be made to obey their right action instead of imposing its own yoke on our existence, all human problems would move harmoniously to their right solution.

If desire is not to interfere with the actions of mind, then we need to find an appropriate relationship between the mind and the vital being in man. The proper function of the life-energy is to do what it is bidden by the divine principle in us, to reach to and enjoy what is given to it by that indwelling Divine and not to desire at all. The proper function of the sense-mind is to lie open passively, luminously to the contacts of Life and transmit their sensations and the rasa or right taste and principle of delight in them to the higher function; but interfered with by the attractions and repulsions, the acceptances and refusals, the satisfactions and dissatisfactions, the capacities and incapacities of the life-energy in the body it is, to begin with, limited in its scope and, secondly, forced in these limits to associate itself with all these discords of the life in Matter. It becomes an instrument for pleasure and pain instead of for delight of existence.

Sri Aurobindo envisions here a vital being that, instead of making demands and coloring the scope and direction of action, actually follows the higher guidance and direction and impetus of the Divine Force carrying out its Will in the world. The impulsion to action, then, is not desire, but the channeling of the Divine intention into direct, undistorted energy in the world. The individual becomes the nexus or occasion for a specific action without biasing the action or the fruit of the action by personal gain or loss, desire or aversion.

Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga, Part Two: The Yoga of Integral Knowledge, Chapter 8, The Release from the Heart and the Mind, pp. 335-336

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Prana, the life-energy, supports the physical body as the physical prana, but it also supports the action of the mind as the psychic prana. The seeker, in order to overcome the limitations of the life-energy in its characteristic action, needs to appreciate and fully understand the action of the psychic prana.

Sri Aurobindo describes the three characteristics of the life-energy: The characteristics of Life are action and movement, a reaching out to absorb and assimilate what is external to the individual and a principle of satisfaction or dissatisfaction in what it seizes upon or what comes to it, which is associated with the all-pervading phenomenon of attraction and repulsion. These three things are everywhere in Nature because Life is everywhere in Nature. But in us mental beings they are all given a mental value according to the mind which perceives and accepts them. They take the form of action, of desire and of liking and disliking, pleasure and pain.

This vital action distorts to its own ends the understanding of the pure mental instrument, and leads to confusion and mis-direction. Desire plants a bias in our mental process. As the universal Divine Being, all-embracing and all-possessing, acts, moves, enjoys purely for the satisfaction of divine Delight, so the individual life acts, moves, enjoys and suffers predominantly for the satisfaction of desire.

The yogic process requires the seeker to leave behind the desire-mind and associate with the bliss or enjoyment of the Divine, in an equal and wide embrace of the entire existence. Understanding the way that the desire-mind embeds itself in the mental process and colors the thoughts and decisions is an important step in conquering the attachment to the life-energy which limits and retards the process of the yoga.

Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga, Part Two: The Yoga of Integral Knowledge, Chapter 8, The Release from the Heart and the Mind, pg. 335

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Yoga is very much a science of applied psychology, and a great deal of work has been done to distinguish and identify the various elements of the being in the development of the yogic science. The physical body is a framework that is inert without the action of the life energy, and thus, when the life energy, known as Prana, is withdrawn from the body, we say that the body dies. The prana provides all energy, both to the body and to the mental faculties, while taking various forms based on the action to be undertaken. The science therefore distinguishes between physical prana which operates the physical framework of the body, and psychic prana which enlivens the action of the mental being.

Sri Aurobindo emphasizes the importance of understanding the role of the Prana, because the loosening of the attachment to the body, and the rejection of its domination over the mental Purusha requires the seeker, at the same time, to reject and eliminate the impulsions of the pranic energy, which manifests as the various forms of desire, including physical drives such as hunger and thirst, and the vigor of the natural man in the forms of general health and outward drives of action, and the opposites in the form of fatigue and ill-health. The Taittiriya Upanishad has a lengthy exposition on the various sheaths that make up the life of man, starting with the gross outer physical body, the food sheath, and then the vital sheath constituted of the action of the prana, as well as further sheaths that become ever more subtle.

Practically, in drawing back from the body we draw back from the physical life-energy also, even while we distinguish the two and feel the latter nearer to us than the mere physical instrument. The entire conquest of the body comes in fact by the conquest of the physical life-energy.

Along with the attachment to the body and its works the attachment to life in the body is overcome. For when we feel the physical being to be not ourselves, but only a dress or an instrument, the repulsion to the death of the body which is so strong and vehement an instinct of the vital man must necessarily weaken and can be thrown away. Thrown away it must be and entirely. The fear of death and the aversion to bodily cessation are the stigma left by his animal origin on the human being. That brand must be utterly effaced.

At certain stages of the yogic development the seeker is directly confronted with the detachment of the consciousness from the life and body and the fear of death arises strongly at that moment. The first impulse is to shrink back from the experience that has brought this specific reaction, and if that impulse is followed, the seeker returns to the physical life of the body and does not pierce the barrier into a new realm of consciousness at that time. Eventually, this fear must be faced and overcome for the progress to continue and the evolutionary development beyond the bodily life to manifest.

Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga, Part Two: The Yoga of Integral Knowledge, Chapter 7, The Release From Subjection to the Body, pp. 333-334

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The Yoga of knowledge emphasizes the importance of withdrawal from action in order to focus the attention and achieve the necessary mental and vital stillness for the achievement of spiritual liberation. There can be no doubt that the seeker must at some point undertake this focus and the ability to withdraw from the outer worlds demands is clearly helpful, if not in fact totally necessary.

At the same time, the Yoga of knowledge has tended to treat the withdrawal or renunciation of the outer world of action as a goal unto itself, and has thus condemned the outer life as being either of lesser importance or reality, or an illusory existence from which the seeker must escape.

Sri Aurobindo observes that for the integral Yoga, which accepts the reality of the world and its spiritual purpose, a total abandonment of that world is neither necessary nor desired. The seeker of the integral state of knowledge must be free from attachment to action and equally free from attachment to inaction. He goes on to state that with the withdrawal a tendency toward inertia may arise, and this must be counteracted, as it is a rising up of tamas, and is not beneficial to the spiritual development. The ideal poise is one in which the body-life-mind act purely as instruments of the forces of Nature put to work by the will of the Purusha carrying out the spiritual intention of the Divine.

He therefore counsels, until a state of higher perfection can be realized, a course of moderation of action: When we attain to this perfection, then action and inaction become immaterial, since neither interferes with the freedom of the soul or draws it away from its urge towards the Self or its poise in the Self. But this state of perfection arrives later in the Yoga and till then the law of moderation laid down by the Gita is the best for us; too much mental or physical action then is not good since excess draws away too much energy and reacts unfavourably upon the spiritual condition; too little also is not good since defect leads to a habit of inaction and even to an incapacity which has afterwards to be surmounted with difficulty.

Still, periods of absolute calm, solitude and cessation from works are highly desirable and should be secured as often as possible for that recession of the soul into itself which is indispensable to knowledge.

Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga, Part Two: The Yoga of Integral Knowledge, Chapter 7, The Release From Subjection to the Body, pp. 332-333

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The influence of the three Gunas, the qualities of Nature, cannot be underestimated for all action that takes place in the world generally. This includes the practice of Yoga until such time as the seeker has attained the status that is beyond the three Gunas (trigunatita). It is a basic tenet of the Yoga of knowledge as practiced historically that the seeker, in order to attain the refined states that are the object of the practice, must withdraw from active life in the world as much as possible.

Sri Aurobindo observes that there is a natural tendency, when adopting the poise of the Witness Self, to back off of the frenetic activity that characterizes the normal life of humanity. At the same time, he clarifies that if this becomes an opening for the action of tamas, through indolence, lassitude, indifference and sloth, rather than an inactivity that is based on a concentrated force of light and energy through tapas, then it will not yield the desired result, and is in fact, not the recommended approach.

The true status of inaction comes about through an intensity of focused energy, not a degradation of the energy. The power to do nothing, which is quite different from indolence, incapacity or aversion to action and attachment to inaction, is a great power and a great mastery; the power to rest absolutely from action is as necessary for the Jnanayogin as the power to cease absolutely from thought, as the power to remain indefinitely in sheer solitude and silence and as the power of immovable calm. Whoever is not willing to embrace these states is not yet fit for the path that leads towards the highest knowledge; whoever is unable to draw towards them, is as yet unfit for its acquisition.

Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga, Part Two: The Yoga of Integral Knowledge, Chapter 7, The Release From Subjection to the Body, pg. 332

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We may observe that most people, including the Western scientific community, will look upon the idea of changing the historical and customary relationship between mind and body as something either impossible or imbalanced. The touchstone of Western psychology for instance is the idea of bringing people to the state of being normal, which is defined essentially as abiding by the habitual lines of understanding and action and not exceeding them.

Sri Aurobindo observes that this is contradictory to the very approach of physical science which constantly seeks to overcome the established laws of nature and find ways to exceed, develop and enhance the basic actions of nature.

Yoga seeks to apply the concept of evolutionary progress to the realm of psychology and thereby must, by definition, work toward the upsetting of the normal relations of mind and body. The result here can be seen as madness and insanity if it leads to pure fantasies, but it can also lead to a breakthrough in human psychology and understanding. Western psychological researchers have also commented on the link between genius and madness with the difference being the ability of the genius to integrate the new experiences and understanding into a consistent and effective formation, while the mad person loses that basic sense of integration.

Sri Aurobindo comments: Suffice it to say here once for all that a change of mental and physical state and of relations between the mind and body which increases the purity and freedom of the being, brings a clear joy and peace and multiplies the power of the mind over itself and over the physical functions, brings about in a word mans greater mastery of his own nature, is obviously not morbid and cannot be considered a hallucination or self-deception since its effects are patent and positive. In fact, it is simply a willed advance of Nature in her evolution of the individual, an evolution which she will carry out in any case but in which she chooses to utilise the human will as her chief agent, because her essential aim is to lead the Purusha to conscious mastery over herself.

Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga, Part Two: The Yoga of Integral Knowledge, Chapter 7, The Release From Subjection to the Body, pp. 331-332

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Sri Aurobindo Studies | Sri Aurobindo's Integral Yoga

Sri Aurobindo (1872-1950) was born in Calcutta on 15 August, and educated at a christian convent in Darjeeling. At the age of seven, along with his two brothers, he was sent by his Anglophile father to England in order to receive a "British Education". Returning to his homeland at age 21, he worked for some years in the public service, while learning from scratch the languages and traditions of his own culture. He was prominent in the struggle for independence against the British, and spent a year in prison. Whilst in prison he had a vision of the Divine, which assured him that India would attain its independence and that he could leave the movement to devote himself to the spiritual task. He retreated to the French colony of Pondicherry, where he would be safe against the British, and set up an ashram. There he became an important philosopher, yogi, and teacher and developed he called Integral Yoga, the yoga of the whole being. He was joined by his co-worker and fellow Adept Mirra Alfassa, who later became known as The Mother. For the remainder of his life Sri Aurobindo worked tirelessly for the transformation of the world, the yoga of the earth. A prolific writer, he produced a total of twenty-nine volumes, including such classics of spirituality as Savitri, The Life Divine, and the Synthesis of Yoga. He spent many hours each day writing replies to letters from disciples, some of which were later collated and published.

Sri Aurobindo's teachings are interesting, indeed unique for a major Indian philosopher, in that he presents a very theosophical-anthroposophical cosmology, involving specific planes of existence, subtle psychic faculties, spiritual entities, and long processes of evolution. In a real sense he represents more the theosophical-gnostic stream in Indian guise, rather than a specifically Indian (Advaitan or Tantric) approach; the very real contributions of the latter notwithstanding. So if Western spiritual philosophy aquires an Indian-Tibetan flavour with Blavatskian Theosophy, India conversely aquires a Western (esoteric and exoteric) flavour with Aurobindo.

Of course, Theosophy itself had a strong influence on Indian politics. Madam Blavatsky's successor Annie Besant was outspoken in her struggle on behalf of Indian independence (swaraj or "self-rule") from the British; and Gandhi was chosen, educated, and primed by Theosophical people in London. And the Vegetarian Society he founded there was strongly Theosophcal.

Sri Aurobindo was not just a Realizer, he was a Divinizer. And, like all Realizers and Divinizers, his life - as he put it - was not on the surface for men to see. That is, his real work was conducted on an occult and esoteric level, of which secular modernity, and even progressive forms of modernity like postmaterialism, know nothing.

This is why academic biographies, such as Peter Heehs' study, which has caused such consternation among religious followers, can only convey the surface, empirical, historical, facts, but not the metaphysical subtle, causal, and transcendent Divine Reality of his life and life and mission.

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Sri Aurobindo - Kheper

Sri Aurobindo (Calcuta 1872 Pondicherry 1950), nombre de nacimiento Aurobindo Ghose, fue un maestro de yoga y poeta indio que defendi la independencia de la India y del que algunos afirman que fue un descubridor de nuevos caminos de acercamiento a la divinidad y conocimientos sobre La Tierra y el universo.

Sri Aurobindo naci en Calcuta el 15 de agosto de 1872. A la edad de 7 aos fue enviado a Inglaterra, donde pas los siguientes aos de su vida. En 1889 ingres en Cambridge, con una bolsa de estudios concedida por la St. Paul's School de Londres. Despus de haber adquirido los ttulos necesarios para entrar en el servicio civil de la India, en el que no entr por haber rehusado presentarse al examen de equitacin, regres a su pas y entr, en 1893, en el servicio administrativo del principado de Baroda (actual distrito del estado indio de Gujarat). Aparte de su trabajo administrativo, fue nombrado profesor de francs del colegio de Baroda, y, posteriormente, de ingls.

En este periodo aprendi el snscrito y otras lenguas indias. Segua al mismo tiempo con inters los acontecimientos polticos de la India.

Volvi de Inglaterra convertido en un duro crtico de los britnicos a quienes acusaba, por ejemplo, de haber conquistado Irlanda utilizando los viejos mtodos de la traicin cnica y la masacre implacable y de gobernarla con el principio de la fuerza es la ley y de los bengales partidarios de la occidentalizacin de la India. Seal que stos se engaaban a s mismos porque los propios britnicos consideraban a la democracia y al liberalismo como poco apropiados para una nacin sometida, donde es imprescindible mantener la supremaca desptica del hombre blanco aun a costa de todos los principios y de toda moral, y que adems ponan en peligro el alma de la India por culpa de una ciega rendicin a las aberraciones del materialismo europeo. As consideraba que todos los movimientos del siglo XIX en la India haban sido en realidad movimientos europeos que[1]

adoptaban la maquinaria y los mviles de Europa, el llamamiento a los derechos de la humanidad o a la igualdad de estatus social, y una imposible uniformidad que la Naturaleza siempre se ha negado a conceder. Entremezclada con esos falsos evangelios haba una veta de odio y amargura, que se manifestaba en la condena del sacerdocio de los brahmanes, en la hostilidad hacia el hinduismo y en el ignorante distanciamiento de las consagradas tradiciones.

Tambin denunci los pretextos con los que los britnicos justificaban su dominio sobre la India y el imperialismo en general:[1]

El imperialismo tena que justificarse a s mismo frente a esa moderna forma de sentir [que la esclavizacin de una nacin por otra, de una clase por otra, de un hombre por otro resultaba repugnante para la moral], y la nica forma de lograrlo era fingir que se actuaba en calidad de fideicomisario de la libertad, encargado desde las ms altas esferas de civilizar a los incivilizados e instruir a los incultos, hasta que llegara el momento en que el benevolente conquistador hubiera cumplido su tarea y pudiera retirarse de forma altruista. Estos fueron los pretextos con los que Inglaterra justific la usurpacin del legado de los mongoles y nos deslumbr para que diramos nuestra aquiescencia como tributo al esplendor de su rectitud y generosidad.

Con motivo de la divisin de Bengala, en 1905, abandon Baroda y empez a participar abiertamente en poltica, en concreto en el movimiento nacionalista de Bengala, durante el trgico periodo de 1906 a 1910. Trat de influir en la transformacin del pensamiento y opinin de la India, especialmente a travs del peridico Bande Mataram, vehculo de sus teoras. Detenido en 1908, fue encarcelado durante un ao en la prisin de Alipore (Calcuta).

En 1909 afirm sardnicamente que los principales triunfos de la Ilustracin europea ante la que agachamos la cabeza haban sido la chaqueta y los pantalones, el aristcrata britnico, el capitalista estadounidense y el apache parisino.[1]

Tras la tragedia de la Primera Guerra Mundial afirm que la jactanciosa, agresiva y dominante Europa estaba condenada a muerte, a la espera de su aniquilacin y que la civilizacin cientfica, racionalista, industrial y pseudodemocrtica de Occidente estaba en vas de disolucin.[1]

Su estancia en prisin signific un cambio decisivo en su vida. Al salir de la crcel fund dos semanarios, uno en ingls, Karmayogin, y otro en bengal, Dharma. Continu durante algn tiempo sus actividades polticas, pero una noche recibi el aviso de que la polica proyectaba realizar un registro en su despacho de Karmayogin y, para no ser detenido o deportado, fue a esconderse a Chandemagore, a pocos kilmetros de Calcuta. Aqu recibi "una orden de lo Alto" de ir a Pondicherry a donde lleg el 4 de abril de 1910.

Despus de cuatro aos de yoga en el silencio fund, el 15 de agosto de 1914, una revista filosfica mensual, Arya, en la que expresaba, en lenguaje intelectual, su visin del hombre y de la Historia, del destino divino del hombre y del camino a seguir para alcanzarlo, de la marcha de la sociedad humana hacia la unidad y la armona, de la naturaleza y de la evolucin de la poesa, del sentido profundo de los Vedas, de los Upanishad y de la Bhagavad-gt y del espritu y de la significacin de la cultura india.

Durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial se pronunci abiertamente en apoyo de la causa aliada, al percibir con claridad el peligro que las fuerzas del nazismo representaban para la evolucin futura de la humanidad.

Tras la independencia declin el ofrecimiento de presidir el Congreso Nacional Indio.

Sri Aurobindo muri el 5 de diciembre de 1950.

Su ntima colaboradora, Mirra Alfassa, ms conocida como La Madre, nacida en Pars de padre turco y madre egipcia, lleg a Pondicherry el 29 de marzo de 1914, asentndose all definitivamente en 1920.

Sri Aurobindo la consideraba su igual, y a causa de su capacidad para la organizacin, se hizo cargo de la vida diaria del shram a partir del 24 de noviembre de 1926, cuando Sri Aurobindo se recluy retirndose de la vida pblica. Desde esta fecha queda a cargo de La Madre la supervisin de los asuntos del shram, incluidos sus Institutos y Auroville, la ciudad internacional cercana a Pondicherry, fundada en 1968.

Tras la desaparicin de Sri Aurobindo, La Madre continu el trabajo yguico emprendido por ste. Las enseanzas de La Madre fueron impartidas principalmente en forma oral, habiendo sido recopiladas en diversos volmenes bajo los ttulos de Conversaciones y de La Agenda. De su obra escrita cabe destacar Plegarias y meditaciones.

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Sri Aurobindo - Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre

Sri Aurobindo falls into the exclusive category of Poet-Seers who have achieved the highest realisations and have endeavoured to share that experience with the rest of humankind. The teachings and very utterances that spiritual masters of this calibre offer to the world come from the most sublime realms of consciousness that human beings can attain to. Their poetry transcends the page to become mantra, an invocation to the transcendental consciousness.

Sri Aurobindo, Indian nationalist, poet, philosopher and Spiritual Guru was born in Calcutta on 15th August 1872.

Sri Aurobindo spent his formative years in England studying at St Pauls and Trinity College where he excelled in the study of Literature and the Classics. In 1892 he returned to India where he became heavily involved in the Indian independence movement, he was a natural leader and one of the most radical nationalist politicians. Because of his radicalism, in 1908 Sri Aurobindo was arrested on suspicion of being involved in a bomb plot and was remanded in Alipore jail. It was here in jail that Sri Aurobindo had significant spiritual experiences, he became aware of a divine inner guidance and also realised the omnipresence of God even in a darkened prison cell.

Due to the commitment of Sri Aurobindos lawyer C.R.Das, Sri Aurobindo was released without charge. However this experience had changed Sri Aurobindos outlook. Henceforth he retired from politics and focused his energies on spirituality.

Sri Aurobindo travelled to Pondicherry, South India where he could practise yoga undisturbed. In 1914 he was later joined by a French women, Mira Richards who would later became known as the Mother of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. Together they founded the Sri Aurobindo ashram, which began to attract disciples attracted to their dynamic reinterpretation of yoga.

As well as being a spiritual Guru to many disciples Sri Aurobindo was a noted poet, philosopher and writer. His main works were The Life Divine, The Synthesis of Yoga, Essays on the Gita and Savitri. Savitri was an epic work of poetry that he worked on for over 20 years.

Sri Aurobindo did notnegate the world like Indian yogis of the past. Instead Sri Aurobindo affirmed that all life is Yoga; through a conscious aspiration it is possible for man to evolve into a higher consciousness a consciousness of truth and inner harmony. Sri Aurobindo called this new consciousness the Supramental.

For over 40 years, Sri Aurobindo worked tirelessly for his vision of a divine life on earth. Through his writings and poetry he left a legacy which reflected his hopes of a golden future for humanity. Sri Aurobindo entered mahasamadhi on Dec 5th, 1950.

Selected Poems of Sri Aurobindo

Savitri

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Poet Seers Sri Aurobindo

The Motherexplains the process

Everybody can do it. It is done in this way: you concentrate. Now, it depends on what you want. If you have an inner problem and want the solution, you concentrate on this problem; if you want to know the condition you are in, which you are not aware of - if you want to get some light on the state you are in, you just come forward with simplicity and ask for the light. Or else, quite simply, if you are curious to know what the invisible knowledge has to tell you, you remain silent and still for a moment and then open the book. I always used to recommend taking a paper-knife, because it is thinner; while you are concentrated you insert it in the book and with the tip indicate something. Then, if you know how to concentrate, that is to say, if you really do it with an aspiration to have an answer, it always comes.

For, in books of this kind (Mother shows The Synthesis of Yoga), books of revelation, there is always an accumulation of forces - at least of higher mental forces, and most often of spiritual forces of the highest knowledge. Every book, on account of the words it contains, is like a small accumulator of these forces. People don't know this, for they don't know how to make use of it, but it is so. In the same way, in every picture, photograph, there is an accumulation, a small accumulation representative of the force of the person whose picture it is, of his nature and, if he has powers, of his powers. Now, you, when you are sincere and have an aspiration, you emanate a certain vibration, the vibration of your aspiration which goes and meets the corresponding force in the book, and it is a higher consciousness which gives you the answer.

Everything is contained potentially. Each element of a whole potentially contains what is in the whole. It is a little difficult to explain, but you will understand with an example: when people want to practise magic, if they have a bit of nail or hair, it is enough for them, because within this, potentially, there is all that is in the being itself. And in a book there is potentially - not expressed, not manifest - the knowledge which is in the person who wrote the book. Thus, Sri Aurobindo represented a totality of comprehension and knowledge and power; and every one of his books is at once a symbol and a representation. Every one of his books contains symbolically, potentially, what is in him. Therefore, if you concentrate on the book, you can, through the book, go back to the source. And even, by passing through the book, you will be able to receive much more than what is just in the book.

There is always a way of reading and understanding what one reads, which gives an answer to what you want. It is not just a chance or an amusement, nor is it a kind of diversion. You may do it just "like that", and then nothing at all happens to you, you have no reply and it is not interesting. But if you do it seriously, if seriously your aspiration tries to concentrate on this instrument - it is like a battery, isn't it, which contains energies - if it tries to come into contact with the energy which is there and insists on having the answer to what it wants to know, well, naturally, the energy which is there - the union of the two forces, the force given out by you and that accumulated in the book - will guide your hand and your paper-knife or whatever you have; it will guide you exactly to the thing that expresses what you ought to know. Obviously, if one does it without sincerity or conviction, nothing at all happens. If it is done sincerely, one gets an answer.

Certain books are like this, more powerfully charged than others; there are others where the result is less clear. But generally, books containing aphorisms and short sentences - not very long philosophical explanations, but rather things in a condensed and precise form - it is with these that one succeeds best.

Naturally, the value of the answer depends on the value of the spiritual force contained in the book. If you take a novel, it will tell you nothing at all but stupidities. But if you take a book containing a condensation of forces - of knowledge or spiritual force or teaching power - you will receive your answer.

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Lakshmi's House - Sri Aurobindo Institute

Sri Aurobindo Born Aurobindo Ghosh (1872-08-15)15 August 1872 Calcutta, Bengal Presidency, British India (now Kolkata, West Bengal, India) Died 5 December 1950(1950-12-05) (aged78) Pondicherry, French India (now in Puducherry) Nationality Indian Founder of Sri Aurobindo Ashram Auroville Philosophy Integral Yoga, Involution (Sri Aurobindo), Evolution, Integral psychology, Intermediate zone, Supermind Literary works Life Divine, Synthesis of Yoga, Savitri, Agenda Notable disciple(s) Champaklal, N.K. Gupta, Amal Kiran, Nirodbaran, Pavitra, M.P. Pandit, A.B. Purani, D.K. Roy, Satprem, Indra Sen Quotation The Spirit shall look out through Matter's gaze. And Matter shall reveal the Spirit's face.[1] Signature

Sri Aurobindo (Sri robindo), (15 August 1872 5 December 1950), born Aurobindo Ghose, was an Indian nationalist, philosopher, yogi, guru, and poet. He joined the Indian movement for independence from British rule, for a while became one of its influential leaders and then became a spiritual reformer, introducing his visions on human progress and spiritual evolution.

Aurobindo studied for the Indian Civil Service at King's College, Cambridge, England. After returning to India he took up various civil service works under the maharaja of the princely state of Baroda and began to involve himself in politics. He was imprisoned by the British for writing articles against British rule in India. He was released when no evidence was provided. During his stay in the jail he had mystical and spiritual experiences, after which he moved to Pondicherry, leaving politics for spiritual work.

During his stay in Pondicherry, Aurobindo developed a method of spiritual practice he called Integral Yoga. The central theme of his vision was the evolution of human life into a life divine. He believed in a spiritual realisation that not only liberated man but transformed his nature, enabling a divine life on earth. In 1926, with the help of his spiritual collaborator, Mirra Alfassa ("The Mother"), he founded the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. He died on 5 December 1950 in Pondicherry.

His main literary works are The Life Divine, which deals with theoretical aspects of Integral Yoga; Synthesis of Yoga, which deals with practical guidance to Integral Yoga; and Savitri: A Legend and a Symbol, an epic poem which refers to a passage in the Mahabharata, where its characters actualise Integral Yoga in their lives. His works also include philosophy, poetry, translations and commentaries on the Vedas, Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1943 and for the Nobel Prize in Peace in 1950.[3]

Aurobindo Acroyd Ghose was born in Calcutta (now Kolkata), Bengal Presidency, India on 15 August 1872. His father, Krishna Dhun Ghose, was then Assistant Surgeon of Rangapur in Bengal, 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 Britain.[a] His mother was Swarnalotta Devi, whose father was Rajnarain Bose, 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, and both a younger sister, Sarojini, and a younger brother, Barindrakumar (also referred to as Barin, born Emmanuel Matthew).

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 to that of his countrymen. 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 British life in India and the school was run by Irish nuns, through which the boys would have been exposed to Christian religious teachings and symbolism.

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.[b] The three brothers were placed in the care of the Reverend W. H. Drewett in Manchester. Drewett was a minister of the Congregational Church whom Krishna Dhun Ghose knew through his British friends at Rangapur.[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 enrolment 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 Raj as a "heartless government".

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. He also acquired some familiarity with the German and Italian languages and, exposed to the evangelical strictures of Drewett's mother, a distaste for religion. He considered himself at one point to be an atheist but later determined that he was agnostic. 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. 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.

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 fulfil his father's aspirations but to do so when his father lacked money required that he studied hard for a scholarship. 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. 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. Sri Aurobindo had no interest in the ICS and came late to the horse-riding practical exam purposefully to get himself disqualified for the service.

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. He left England for India, arriving there in February 1893. 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.

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 many miscellaneous work like teaching grammar and assisted in writing speeches for the Maharaja of Gaekwad until 1897. 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. At Baroda, Sri Aurobindo self-studied Sanskrit and Bengali.

During his stay at Baroda he contributed to many articles to Indu Prakash and spoke as a chairman of the Baroda college board. He also started taking active interest in the politics of India's independence struggle against British rule, working behind the scenes as his position in the Baroda state administration barred him from overt political activity. He linked up with resistance groups in Bengal and Madhya Pradesh, while travelling to these states. He established contact with Lokmanya Tilak and Sister Nivedita. He also arranged for the military training of Jatindra Nath Banerjee (Niralamba Swami) in the Baroda army and then dispatched him to organise the resistance groups in Bengal.

Aurobindo often travelled between Baroda and Bengal, at first in a bid to re-establish links with his parent's families and other Bengali relatives, including his cousin Sarojini and brother Barin, and later increasingly to establish resistance groups across the Presidency. He formally moved to Calcutta only in 1906 after the announcement of the Partition of Bengal. Aged 28, he had married 14-year-old Mrinalini, daughter of Bhupal Chandra Bose, a senior official in government service, when he visited Calcutta in 1901. Mrinalini died in December 1918 during the influenza pandemic.

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 favoured non-co-operation and passive resistance but in private he took up secret revolutionary activity as a preparation for open revolt, in case that the passive revolt failed.

In Bengal, with Barin's help, he established contacts with revolutionaries, inspiring radicals such as Bagha Jatin, Jatin Banerjee and Surendranath Tagore. He helped establish a series of youth clubs, including the Anushilan Samiti of Calcutta in 1902.

Aurobindo attended the 1906 Congress meeting headed by Dadabhai Naoroji and participated as a councillor 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 with extremists along with Bal Gangadhar Tilak. The Congress split after this session.In 19071908 Aurobindo travelled extensively to Pune, Bombay and Baroda to firm-up support for the nationalist cause, giving speeches and meeting various groups. He was arrested again in May 1908 in connection with the Alipore Bomb Case. He was acquitted in the ensuing trial and 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. The British persecution continued because of his writings in his new journals and in April 1910 Aurobindo moved to Pondicherry, where Britain's secret police monitored his activities.

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, who 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 defence counsel was Chittaranjan Das.

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.

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."

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 practise of it without a teacher, except for some rules that he learned from Ganganath, a friend who was a disciple of Brahmananda. 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.

In 1910 Aurobindo withdrew himself from all political activities and went into hiding at Chandannagar while the British were trying 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. The warrant against Aurobindo was withdrawn.

In Pondicherry, 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 were 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.

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.[41] From 1926 he started to sign himself as Sri Aurobindo, Sri (meaning holy in Sanskrit) being commonly used as an honorific.

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 thousands. Many were brief comments made in the margins of his disciple's notebooks in answer to their questions and reports of their spiritual practiceothers 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 earlierhe continued to expand and revise this poem for the rest of his life. It became perhaps his greatest literary achievement, Savitri, an epic spiritual poem in blank verse of approximately 24,000 lines.

Aurobindo died on 5 December 1950. Around 60,000 people attended his funeral. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, and President Rajendra Prasad praised him for his contribution to Yogic philosophy and the independence struggle. National and international newspapers commemorated his death.[41]

Aurobindo's close spiritual collaborator, Mirra Richard (b. Alfassa), came to be known as The Mother.[46] 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, and finally settled there in 1920. Aurobindo considered her his spiritual equal and collaborator. After 24 November 1926, when 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. Some time 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.

Aurobindo's concept of the Integral Yoga system is described in his books, The Synthesis of Yoga and The Life Divine.

Aurobindo believed that the current concept of evolution merely describes a phenomenon and does not explain the reason behind it, while he finds life to be already present in matter. He argued that nature (which he interpreted as divine) has evolved life out of matter and then mind out of life, in other words that evolution had a purpose. He believed that matter has an impulse to become life, and that life has a similar impulse to become mind. He stated that he found the task of understanding the nature of reality arduous and difficult to justify by immediate tangible results.

Aurobindo was an Indian nationalist but is best known for his philosophy on human evolution and Integral Yoga.

His influence has been wide-ranging. In India, S. K. Maitra, Anilbaran Roy and D. P. Chattopadhyaya commented on 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.

Haridas Chaudhuri and Frederic Spiegelberg[54] were among those who were inspired by Aurobindo, who worked on the newly formed American Academy of Asian Studies in San Francisco. Soon after, Chaudhuri and his wife Bina established the Cultural Integration Fellowship, from which later emerged the California Institute of Integral Studies.[55]

Karlheinz Stockhausen was heavily inspired by Satprem's writings about Aurobindo during a week in May 1968, a time at which the composer was undergoing a personal crisis and had found 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.

William Irwin Thompson traveled to Auroville in 1972, where he met "The Mother". Thompson has called 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 McLuhans 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.[57]

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.

The American philosopher Ken Wilber has called Aurobindo "India's greatest modern philosopher sage"[59] and has integrated some of his ideas into his philosophical vision. Wilber's interpretation of Aurobindo has been criticised by Rod Hemsell.[60]New Age writer Andrew Harvey also looks to Aurobindo as a major inspiration.[61]

The following authors, disciples and organisations trace their intellectual heritage back to, or have in some measure been influenced by, Aurobindo and The Mother.

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Sri Aurobindo - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sri Aurobindo was born in Calcutta on 15 August 1872. At the age of seven he was taken to England for education. There he studied at St. Paul's School, London, and at King's College, Cambridge. 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.

In 1906, soon after the Partition of Bengal, 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 newspaper Bande Mataram, the idea 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.

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Sri Aurobindo

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 retired 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 (spiritual aspirants) and the ashram to his spiritual collaborator, "the Mother", 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.[1]

Sri Aurobindo Ashram has only one location. It does not have any branches. (Sri Aurobindo Ashram Delhi Branch is a separate organization, with its own administration.) Many other organisations in Pondicherry and elsewhere include Sri Aurobindo in their name, but they are not part of Sri Aurobindo Ashram. The most important organisation also inspired by the vision of Sri Aurobindo is Auroville, an international township founded by the Mother and dedicated to human unity.

Life in the community that preceded the ashram was informal. Sri Aurobindo spent most of his time in writing and meditation. The three or four young men who had followed him to Pondicherry in 1910 lived with him and looked after the household. Otherwise they were free to do as they wished. The Mother and French writer Paul Richard met Sri Aurobindo in 1914 and proposed that they bring out a monthly review; but after the outbreak of World War I, they were obliged to leave India, and Sri Aurobindo had to do almost all of the work on the review himself, helped a little by the young men who were living with him. In April 1920 the Mother returned to Pondicherry, and soon the community began to take the form of an ashram, more because the sadhaks desired to entrust their whole inner and outer life to the Mother than from any intention or plan of hers or of Sri Aurobindo.[2] After the ashram was given formal shape in 1926, it experienced a period of rapid growth, increasing from around 24 in the beginning of 1927 to more than 150 in 1934.[3] The membership leveled off in 1934 owing to a lack of suitable housing.

During these years there was a regular routine. At 6:00 every morning the Mother appeared on the ashram balcony to initiate the day with her blessings. Sadhaks would have woken very early and completed a good portion of the days work including meditation and then assembled under the balcony to receive her blessings.[4]

As the ashram grew, many departments came up and were looked after by the sadhaks as part of their sadhana: the offices, library, dining room, book/photograph printing, workshops, sports/playground, art gallery, dispensary/nursing home, farms, dairies, flower gardens, guest houses, laundry, bakery, etc. The heads of the departments met the Mother in the morning and took her blessings and orders. She would meet the sadhaks individually again at 10 am and, in the evening at 5:30 pm, she would conduct meditation and meet the sadhaks.

In addition, four times a year Sri Aurobindo and the Mother used to give public Darshans (spiritual gatherings where the guru bestows blessings) to thousands of devotees gathered to receive grace.

Once confined to a few buildings in one corner of Pondicherry, the Ashrams growth has caused it to expand physically in all directions. Today Ashramites live and work in more than 400 buildings spread throughout the town. The central focus of the community is one group of houses including those in which Sri Aurobindo and the Mother dwelt for most of their lives in Pondicherry. This interconnected block of houses called the Ashram main-building, or more usually just the Ashram surrounds a tree-shaded courtyard, at the centre of which lies the flower-covered Samadhi. This white marble shrine holds, in two separate chambers, the physical remains of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.

Today, Pondicherry has become an important destination for spiritual seekers as well as tourists. Thousands of visitors from all over the world come to the ashram.

The visiting hours for the visitors are from 8 am to 12 noon and then again from 2 pm to 6 pm.

The Ashram, according to Sri Aurobindo, has been created with another object than that ordinarily common to such institutions, not for the renunciation of the world but as a centre and a field of practice for the evolution of another kind and form of life which would in the final end be moved by a higher spiritual consciousness and embody a greater life of the spirit.[5]

The practice of Integral Yoga, Sri Aurobindo explained, does not proceed through any set mental teaching or prescribed forms of meditation, mantras or others, but by aspiration, by a self-concentration inwards or upwards, by self-opening to an Influence, to the Divine Power above us and its workings, to the Divine Presence in the heart, and by the rejection of all that is foreign to these things.[6]

The complete method of Integral Yoga aims to transform human life into a divine life. In Sri Aurobindo's yoga, the highest aim is the state of being one with the Divine, without the renunciation of life in the world. For such a fulfillment of the consciousness, the urge for perfection must not be confined to a few individuals. There must be "a general spiritual awakening and aspiration in mankind" as well as "a dynamic re-creating of individual manhood in the spiritual type."[8] This would lead eventually to the emergence of a new type of being, the gnostic being, which would be the hope of a more harmonious evolutionary order in terrestrial Nature.[9]

Sri Aurobindo Ashram is the primary publisher of the works of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. As of January 2015 it keeps some 200 publications in English in print, of which 78 are books by Sri Aurobindo, 44 books by the Mother, 27 compilations from their works, and 47 books by other authors. These books are printed at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, which has been in operation since the 1940s. They are distributed by SABDA, the Ashrams book distribution service, which has been in operation since the 1950s. SABDA also carries books relating to Sri Aurobindo, the Mother, and their yoga brought out by other publishers, making the number of English books on their list more than 600. The Ashram also publishes books in 17 other European and Indian languages, for a total of more than 550 publications. SABDA carries these and other non-English titles: in all there are 1678 titles in 23 languages.

The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo are being issued in 37 volumes, of which 34 have been published. The Collected Works of the Mother have been issued in 17 volumes.

The Ashram publishes a number of journals relating to the philosophy and yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. These are currently printed at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, though several were earlier brought out in other cities. Some of Sri Aurobindos works first appeared in these and other journals, among them The Advent, a quarterly, which has recently ceased publication. The most important journals in English are:

The Ashram press also prints several journals published by other organizations. These include:

During the early years of the community Sri Aurobindo and the Mother imposed very few rules on the sadhaks, because they wished them to learn to direct their lives by looking for the divine guidance within. According to author Peter Heehs, during the 1920s Aurobindo's policy was laissez faire with only one rule: strict brahmacharya (celibacy).[10] After 1926, written rules were circulated. The main rules were an absolute prohibition of alcohol, drugs, sex and politics.[11][12] There were also a number of guidelines for the smooth functioning of the collective life of the community. These rules were collected in Rules and Regulations of Sri Aurobindo Ashram, copies of which are given to all members.

The Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust was established in 1955 to administer the community and its assets. The trust board consists of five Trustees, the first of whom were chosen by the Mother herself. After her passing in 1973, the trustees have chosen replacements by consensus.

The main ashram departments are overseen by department heads who report to the Trustees.

The Ashram, a public charitable trust, is open to all. No distinctions of nationality, religion, caste, gender, or age are observed. Members come from every part of India and many foreign countries. A large number of devotees from Pondicherry and Tamil Nadu visit the Ashram every day, and support the activities of the Ashram in various ways. Many say that they have benefited from the teachings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.[13] However, some feel that there is little mingling of ashramites and local people. According to a senior Ashram official, the practice of silence observed by the ashramites may have been misunderstood as rude behaviour.[14]

In 2001, a female member was expelled from the ashram for violating a "mandatory rule".[15] Thereafter she filed charges of sexual harassment against various members. These charges were dismissed by committees and government agencies, all of which found the charges false.[16][17][18][19] The National Human Rights Commission of India added that there "appeared to be malicious planning behind the complaints".[18][20] Cases relating to the dismissal of the former member and her four sisters were lodged in various courts, and were pursued up to the Supreme court of India, which in 2014 ruled against the sisters and ordered them to be evicted from their rooms in an ashram residence by the police.[21] The sisters then presented the ashram with an ultimatum demanding full reinstatement, failing which they would all commit suicide.[22] The day after their eviction, the sisters and their parents entered the sea in order to commit suicide by drowning. Three died in the attempt. The four others were saved. Violence and protests erupted against the ashram in the wake of this incident. The trustees of the Ashram expressed shock at the suicides and offered to help the sisters in finding accommodation. On 23 December a joint memorandum was presented by delegates of various political parties seeking the intervention of chief minister N. Rangaswamy for a takeover of the Ashram by the Puducherry government.[23] (The territorial government has however no jurisdiction over the Ashram's internal activities, since the public affairs of the Trust, as of all public charitable trusts, are governed by the appropriate sections of the Indian Trusts Act, Government of India.[24]) The pressure for a government takeover is alleged to come from elements within the ashram,[25] who have pushed for the rewriting of the ashram's Trust Deed, which was signed by the Mother.[26]

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Sri Aurobindo Ashram - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia