I’m amazed at how little awareness there is here in the U.S. about one of the world’s greatest sages, writers, and teachers. Sri Aurobindo Ghosh (Aug. 15, 1872-Dec. 5, 1950) was a classics scholar, freedom fighter, modern yogi, philosopher, poet. He helped lead India to self-determination and his followers to a holistic synthesis integrating the highest values of east & west, including literary and scientific traditions.
When independence happened, Aug. 15, he grieved at the divided birthday gift, seeing in the partition of India & Pakistan the serious trouble ahead–all the more as a Bengali, with East Bengal turned over to Pakistan. (He predicted more or less to the year how long it would take for East Bengalis to free themselves from Pakistani domination.)
Check the Wikipedia entry for Sri Aurobindo. You’ll be amazed. If you hadn’t known of his work before, you’ll wonder why. If you thought you were aware of him, click on a few of the links and find out how much more there is. Leave any preconceived ideas of the Indian yogi behind, for openers.
He was trained as a youth in what the west had to offer, at St. Paul’s School, and King’s College Cambridge. Avoiding the Indian Civil Service, he returned to positions in native state government & higher education before being drawn to indigenous traditions, the mystic hymns of the Vedas, yoga & the Indian national movement, becoming one of the first to articulate swaraj, self-determination, as national goal.
An amazing history–British jail, release, expanding horizons, move to French Pondicherry, lifetime of major works in philosophy (on evolution, the life divine, integral yoga, essays on the Gita), poetry (Savitri, a mantric epic of over 24,000 lines; The Future Poetry, on the nature of the beast), social organization (The Human Cycle; The Ideal of Human Unity), and integral yoga (The Synthesis of Yoga, his foundation for conscious evolutionary development).
Aurobindo’s work combines a rare clarity of conception with correspondingly tuned sound-power, a kind of directly effective psycho-musical sensitivity that serves rather than obscures the higher reason. The primary impact always includes a sense of informed honesty in what’s said (clear about what is & isn’t known) & the beneficence of motive (with its fundamental commitment to the process of enlightenment).
The approach is not based on dogma, but on dharma, not on formalized beliefs about, but what emerges in actual doing (karma). As such, the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, Auroville (the planetary city), and many other Aurobindo-inspired initiatives are involved in multi-cultural, multi-disciplinary, multi-dimensional experiments in on-the-ground education, living & growing.
Aurobindo deserves attention for the value rendered in each of the forms he works through, starting with a mind as open as his, alert to the nuance and precision with which he uses language, and continuing towards an increasingly comprehensive perspective. His language opens channels of insight & vision, while honing the critical skills that a trustworthy thought process requires. Its sound power must be experienced to be appreciated; no summary or secondary account of its content does it justice.
“And belief shall not be till the work is done.” —Savitri, Aurobindo
(“Is such work ever done?” —Ricardo
“Like earth’s, such work goes on getting done just the same.” –Bods)