Aravind Ghose, later known as Sri Aurobindo, was born in Calcutta on 15th August 1872 and passed away in Pondicherry on 5th December 1950.
Wholly educated in England along with his two brothers, he was given an entirely Western education by their Anglophile father. After primary schooling at a convent in Darjeeling, they were taken to England to live with a clergyman’s family in Manchester. From there, they joined St. Paul’s public school in West London and later went on to Cambridge University. At Cambridge, Sri Aurobindo was a brilliant scholar, winning record marks in the Classical Tripos examination.
However, he had already been inspired by the idea of India’s independence and did not wish to become an official of the colonial administration—a position his father and education had intended for him. To avoid this career path, he deliberately failed to take the mandatory riding test and instead returned to India in 1893. Upon his return, he entered the service of the Indian princely State of Baroda, where he remained up to 1906.
In that year, he returned to his birthplace, Calcutta, as the first Principal of the new Bengal National College. He resigned that post because of his increasingly active involvement in the Nationalist Movement. Sri Aurobindo was the first of the Nationalist leaders to insist on full independence for India as the goal of the movement, and for several years he lent all his considerable abilities and energies to this struggle. This led to him being arrested on a charge of treason and being kept in solitary confinement for almost a year as an ‘under trial’ prisoner in Alipore jail. During this time, he had a number of fundamental spiritual experiences which convinced him of the truth of the “Sanatana Dharma”—the ancient spiritual knowledge and practice of India.
His political activities led to multiple arrests, culminating in his incarceration in Alipore Jail in 1908. It was during this time in prison that Sri Aurobindo underwent a profound spiritual transformation, experiencing what he later described as divine revelations and inner guidance. After his release in 1909, he continued to be politically active but gradually shifted his focus towards spiritual evolution and self-realization.
After he was acquitted and released, this spiritual awareness led him to take refuge from continuing pursuit by the British authorities in Pondicherry, then part of French India, where he devoted himself intensively to the exploration of the new possibilities it opened up to him. Supported by his spiritual collaborator, The Mother, and using his new-found spiritual capacities, he continued to work tirelessly for the upliftment of India and the world. When India gained its Independence on 15 Aug 1947, he responded to the request for a message to his countrymen by speaking of five dreams that he had worked for, and which he now saw on the way to fulfilment.
These five Dreams were:
“… a revolutionary movement which would create a free and united India.” “… the resurgence and liberation of the peoples of Asia and her return to her great role in the progress of human civilization.” “… a world-union forming the outer basis of a fairer, brighter and nobler life for all …[people].” “… the spiritual gift of India to the world.” “… a step in evolution which would raise …[humans] to a higher and larger consciousness and begin the solution of the problems which have perplexed and vexed […them] since […they] first began to think and to dream of individual perfection and a perfect society.”
In Pondicherry, he developed and expounded his integral yoga philosophy, which aimed at the transformation of human consciousness and the divinization of life. His teachings attracted numerous disciples, and the Sri Aurobindo Ashram was established as a center for spiritual practice and self-discovery.
The great originality of Sri Aurobindo is to have fused the modern scientific concept of evolution with the perennial gnostic experience of an all-pervading divine consciousness supporting all phenomenal existence. His synthesis was not a philosophic construct, but a realisation stemming from direct spiritual experience. The unfolding of more and more complex forms and higher levels of consciousness out of an original total material inconscience is seen as the gradual return to self-awareness and the diverse self-expression of involved Spirit. This process is evidently not complete, and the evolution of higher levels of consciousness and less unconscious forms of expression are to be expected. But with the development of Mind, individual human beings can, if they choose, use their will and intelligence to begin to participate consciously in this process of self-discovery and self-exploration. This knowledge founds an optimistic and dynamic world-view, which gives each individual a meaningful place in a progressive cosmic unfolding, and casts our understanding of human endeavour, whether individual or collective, in a new and purposeful perspective. Many facets of this world-view are elaborated in the 35 volumes of Sri Aurobindo’s Collected Works.
Sri Aurobindo’s vast literary contributions include philosophical treatises, poetry, and commentaries on Indian scriptures. His magnum opus, “The Life Divine,” explores the evolution of consciousness and the ultimate purpose of human life. Other significant works include “Savitri: A Legend and a Symbol,” an epic poem of profound spiritual significance, and “The Synthesis of Yoga,” a comprehensive guide to his method of spiritual practice.
Through his life and work, Sri Aurobindo remains one of the most influential figures in modern Indian thought, blending spirituality, politics, and philosophy into a vision of human progress and divine transformation.
“Savitri: A Legend and a Symbol”
All grace and glory and all divinity
Were here collected in a single form;
All worshipped eyes looked through his from one face;
He bore all godheads in his grandiose limbs.
An oceanic spirit dwelt within;
Intolerant and invincible in joy
A flood of freedom and transcendent bliss
Into immortal lines of beauty rose.
In him the fourfold Being bore its crown
That wears the mystery of a nameless Name,
The universe writing its tremendous sense
In the inexhaustible meaning of a word.
In him the architect of the visible world,
At once the art and artist of his works,
Spirit and seer and thinker of things seen,
Virât, who lights his camp-fires in the suns
And the star-entangled ether is his hold,
Expressed himself with Matter for his speech:
Objects are his letters, forces are his words,
Events are the crowded history of his life,
And sea and land are the pages of his tale,
Matter is his means and his spiritual sign;
He hangs the thought upon a lash’s lift,
In the current of the blood makes flow the soul.
