SRI
AUROBINDO'S LIFE
The freedom movement was given a big impetus by the decision of Lord Curzon to partition Bengal. Protest meetings were held all over the country and a mass agitation was launched in Bengal. In June 1906 Sri Aurobindo took one year's leave without pay and went to Bengal to participate in the movement. In 1907 Sri Aurobindo left Baroda College and joined the newly established Bengal National College, as its principal. His salary of Rs.150/- per month was only one fifth of what he was getting in Baroda.
"It had a full-size sheet, was clearly printed on green paper, and was full of leading and special articles written in English with a brilliance and pungency not hitherto attained in the Indian press. It was the most effective voice of what we then called nationalist extremism". Bipin Chandra Pal described the role of Sri Aurobindo in the Bande Mataram: "Morning after morning, not only Calcutta but the educated community almost in every part of the country eagerly awaited its vigorous pronouncements on the stirring questions of the day.... It was a force in the country which none dared to ignore, however much they might fear or hate it; and Aravinda was the leading spirit, the central figure, in the new journal!"
"...a youngish man, I should think still under thirty. Intent dark eyes looked from his thin, clear-cut face with a gravity that seemed immovable.... Grave with intensity, careless of fate or opinion, and one of the most silent men I have known, he was of the stuff that dreamers are made of, but dreamers who will act their dreams, indifferent to means....". "Grave and silent - I think without saying a single word - Mr. Aravinda Ghosh took the chair, and sat unmoved, with far-off eyes, as one who gazes at futurity. In clear, short sentences, without eloquence or passion, Mr. Tilak spoke till the stars shone out and someone kindled a lantern at his side. " Sri Aurobindo, who always liked to work from behind the scene, had been pushed into the fore-front of the freedom movement. He was its acknowledged leader. The whole country rang with the cry of Bande Mataram and a new spirit swept across the country. People had awakened to the need of Swaraj - complete independence- and were willing to give their lives to attain it." In the midst of this turmoil Sri Aurobindo met in Baroda a Maharashtrian Yogi called Vishnu Bhaskar Lele. Lele asked Sri Aurobindo to remain in seclusion for three days. He told him to sit in meditation and not to think. He would find that thoughts were not his own but came from outside and should be thrown away. Sri Aurobindo describes his experience: "I did not think either of questioning the truth or the possibility, I simply sat down and did it. In a moment my mind became silent as a windless air on a high mountain summit and then I saw one thought and then another coming in a concrete way from outside; I flung them away before they could enter and take hold of the brain and in three days I was free." In three days Sri Aurobindo had achieved the silent mind which deepened into an experience of the Brahman Consciousness. He says: "When I was in Bombay, from the balcony of a friend's house I saw the whole busy movement of Bombay as a picture in a cinema show, all unreal and shadowy." But there was a problem. Sri Aurobindo had to address a national meeting after three days. His mind had become calm and blank. How was he to give a speech? Lele told him that it did not matter. He had only to bow down to the audience as Narayana and everything would be all right. As usual Sri Aurobindo followed the directions without questioning and he found that something else spoke through him. And thus it was for the rest of his life. Everything was done from the silent Brahman Consciousness, writing, speaking or the most intense political activity. This was another great turning point in Sri Aurobindo's spiritual life. He began listening to a Voice within and Lele told him to follow it and that he now had no need for any further instructions or an external Guru. But the Divine had a very different setting for the next major spiritual experience of Sri Aurobindo - the prison-cell of Alipore in Calcutta. The atmosphere in Bengal was tense. The British Government had let loose repressive measures to crush all resistance. In this charged atmosphere an unsuccessful attempt was made on the life of Magistrate Kingsford. Two Bengali youths threw a bomb at his horse carriage. Immediately the police carried out raids on the Manicktolla Gardens, a family property of Sri Aurobindo, where many revolutionaries were undergoing training. Sri Aurobindo was also arrested from his house. He was imprisoned and, for a long time, kept in a small cell in solitary confinement.
"My appeal to you is this, that long after the controversy will be hushed in silence, long after this turmoil, the agitation will have ceased, long after he is dead and gone, he will be looked upon as the poet of patriotism, as the prophet of nationalism and the lover of humanity. Long after he is dead and gone, his words will be echoed and re-echoed, not only in India but across distant seas and lands. Therefore, I say that the man in his position is not only standing before the bar of this Court, but before the bar of the High Court of History." Sri Aurobindo was found not guilty and acquitted. But this period of one year was a very important period in Sri Aurobindo's life. It was a period of intense sadhana when he had the experience of Krishna as the Immanent Divine. This is how he described the experience in a speech in Uttarpara: "I looked at the jail that secluded me from men and it was no longer by its high walls that I was imprisoned; no, it was Vasudeva who surrounded me. I walked under the branches of the tree in front of my cell but it was not the tree, I knew it was Vasudeva, it was Sri Krishna whom I saw standing there and holding over me His shade. I looked at the bars of my cell, the very grating that did duty for a door and again I saw Vasudeva. It was Narayana who was guarding and standing sentry over me. Or I lay on the coarse blankets that were given me for a couch and felt the arms of Sri Krishna around me, the arms of my Friend and Lover." Sri Aurobindo saw the same smiling Krishna in the magistrate and even the prosecuting counsel. Where was there any place for fear? When Sri Aurobindo had entered the prison he had said: "The agnostic was in me, the atheist was in me, the sceptic was in me and I was not absolutely sure that there was a God at all." But now all was changed. As Sri Aurobindo said afterwards: "I have spoken of a year's imprisonment. It would have been more appropriate to speak of a year's living in an ashram or a hermitage. The only result of the wrath of the British Government was that I found God." After his release Sri Aurobindo re-entered the political field with a new vision and purpose. India's freedom was necessary if she had to rise and be great and he declared: "India does not rise as other countries do, for self or when she is strong, to trample on the weak. She is rising to shed the eternal light entrusted to her over the world. India has always existed for humanity and not for herself and it is for humanity and not for herself that she must be great." Sri Aurobindo also started two weeklies: the 'Karmayogin' in English and the 'Dharma' in Bengali. But the air was full of rumours of an impending arrest. The view of the British Government was clearly expressed in what Lord Minto wrote about Sri Aurobindo: "I can only repeat that he is the most dangerous man we have to reckon with."
"I could not question. It was Sri Krishna's adesh. I had to obey. Later I found it was for the Ashram, for the Yogic work." Sri Aurobindo's work in the political field had come to an end. The country had awakened to the call of the Mother and freedom was assured. It was more important to see what india would do with that freedom and what man would do with his future. It was for this work that Sri Aurobindo sailed for Pondicherry to start the most important chapter of his earthly life.
Sri Aurobindo reached Pondicherry on 4th April 1910. He was then 38 years old. He was received by several revolutionaries of Pondicherry. In fact some of them had been waiting for an Uttarayogi, a yogi from the north. They had heard the prophecy that he would come as a fugitive and practise the Poorna Yoga. He would be recognised by three statements. These statements were made by Sri Aurobindo in a letter he wrote from Baroda to his wife Mrinalini Devi on August 30, 1905 where he spoke about his "three madnesses." This letter was later found by the police and produced in court during the Alipore Bomb trial. "I have three madnesses.
Mrinalini passed away on December 17, 1918 in Calcutta, before she could come to Pondicherry. From 1910 for several years Sri Aurobindo lived with a few followers depending entirely on donations to maintain them. Outwardly and financially these were very difficult times. Sri Aurobindo pointed out the precarious nature of their position in a letter to Motilal Roy written half humorously but also half seriously: "The situation just now is that we have Rs. 1 1/2 or so in hand. Srinivasa is also without money... No doubt, God will provide, but He has contracted a bad habit of waiting till the last moment. I only hope He does not wish us to learn how to live on a minus quantity like Bharati."
When Mirra saw Sri Aurobindo she recognised in him the Krishna of her vision and knew that her place and work were with him in India. She wrote in her diary the next morning: "It matters little that there are thousands of beings plunged in the densest ignorance, He whom we saw yesterday is on earth; His presence is enough to prove that a day will come when darkness shall be transformed into light, and Thy reign shall be indeed established upon earth." Immediately there was a greater impetus to the movement. On August 15th 1914, the monthly Arya was launched. The Arya continued for seven years and through it Sri Aurobindo presented to the world his great spiritual vision and the path to attain it. Nearly all the major works of Sri Aurobindo which were published later in book form - The Life Divine, The Synthesis of Yoga, The Human Cycle, The Ideal of Human Unity, On the Veda, The Upanishads, Essays on the Gita, The Foundations of Indian Culture, The Future Poetry - all of them first came out serially in the Arya. It was a veritable torrent which flowed, month after month, on a variety of subjects, words of surpassing depth and beauty. And none of it was thought out; it did not even pass through his mind, but flowed straight from the silent consciousness into his pen. In 1915, with the outbreak of the First World War, the Richards had to go back to France. Mirra went to Japan in 1916 and returned to Pondicherry in 1920, never to leave. The Descent of the 'Overmind' Conciousness Sri Aurobindo and the Mother believe that evolution is primarily a process of the manifestation of higher and higher levels of consciousness upon earth. As life descended into inert matter, and mind into unconscious life, so too higher levels are waiting to descend. The highest of these is the Supermind and it was the constant endeavour of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother to bring it down for a radical and permanent transformation of the earth. But before the Supermind could descend, other planes had to manifest to build the proper base. On November 24, 1926, a decisive step was taken when the Overmind, the highest of the inner planes before the Supermind, descended into the earth consciousness. It was a momentous day. It also brought about many outward changes. Sri Aurobindo now installed Mirra as the Mother of his spiritual endeavour, his collaborator and equal, and handed over to her the responsibility of the inner and outer life of the small group of sadhaks who had gathered around him. He then withdrew into seclusion, to concentrate on the next step of his Yoga. This was also the beginning of what has now grown into a spiritual community of nearly fifteen hundred persons, known as the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. The Ashram grew and expanded under the Mother's guidance. Though Sri Aurobindo had withdrawn physically he continued to guide the disciples inwardly and through letters. Day after day, he sat late into the night answering their smallest queries, apparently even the most trivial, and pouring out his love and light. At the same time he remained in touch with the world events and movements, shaping and moulding them with a purely inner spiritual force and action. When the Second World War broke out, Sri Aurobindo and the Mother came out openly on the side of the Allies because Hitler represented the forces of darkness. He who had fought the British earlier now put his full support and spiritual help behind them for their victory. Though Sri Aurobindo had retired from the political scene, when the Cripps Mission came, he broke his silence and sent an emissary to ask the Indian leaders to accept the proposals. But the country was not yet ready. Sri Aurobindo knew his efforts would not succeed and yet made the attempt as "disinterested work". As he said in his usual impersonal manner: "Well, I have done a bit of Kartavya Karma." The passage of time revealed the great truth of what Sri Aurobindo had proposed. The late K.M. Munshi, then a senior cabinet minister in the Indian Government remarked about Sri Aurobindo: "He saw into the heart of things.... His perception of the political situation in India was always unerring. When the World War came in 1939...it was he of the unerring eye who said that the triumph of England and France was the triumph of the divine forces over the demoniac forces.... He spoke again when Sir Stafford Cripps came with his first proposal: He said, `India should accept it.' We rejected the advice... but today we realise that if the first proposal had been accepted, there would have been no partition, no refugees, and no Kashmir problem." The Five Dreams of Sri Aurobindo August 15th 1947 saw the dawn of India's freedom. In a very significant message given on that day Sri Aurobindo spoke of his five dreams: "Indeed, on this day I can watch almost all the world movements which I hoped to see fulfilled in my life time, though then they looked like impracticable dreams, arriving at fruition or on their way to achievement."
On December 5, 1950, at the age of 78, Sri Aurobindo left his physical body. His body was kept in State for four days and given Samadhi on December 9, 1950. Dr. P. K. Sanyal, who had attended on Sri Aurobindo during his last illness, was surprised to find that the body had not decomposed. He asked the Mother about this phenomenon. He described what happened: But the dreams of Sri Aurobindo continue to become a reality. The world moves forward on the destined way. Sri Aurobindo was first and foremost a poet. And his greatest work, on which he spent his maximum love and care, was his Epic "Savitri" What he wrote there is very well applicable to himself: "One yet may come armoured, invincible; His will immobile meets the mobile hour; The world's blows cannot bend that victor head; Calm and sure are his steps in the growing Night; The goal recedes, he hurries not his pace, He turns not to high voices in the Night. He asks no aid from the inferior gods; His eyes are fixed on the immutable aim." There is perhaps no better way to end this narration of Sri Aurobindo's life than to quote the message given by the Mother, which is engraved on his Samadhi:
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He
had already been contributing articles to the Bengali weekly "Yugantar". Now Bipin
Chandra Pal started the daily "Bande Mataram" and Sri Aurobindo soon
became its chief editor, though his name was not printed, to avoid prosecution.
Overnight, the paper became the organ of the Nationalist Movement and a mighty
force in Indian Politics. The London Times complained that its articles reeked
of sedition but were so cleverly worded that no action could be taken. Mr. Radcliff,
editor of The Statesman, said about the Bande Mataram:
An
attempt was made to prosecute Sri Aurobindo for sedition in July 1907, but the
charges could not be proved, and he was acquitted. In the meantime differences
of policy and approach were building up between the moderates and the nationalists.
A historic session of the Indian National Congress was held in Surat where it
split in two and the nationalists led by Sri Aurobindo and Tilak held a
separate meeting. Henry Nevinson, a member of Parliament from England who happened
to be present, describes his impressions of Sri Aurobindo and the scene after
the split:
Thus
began one of the historic trials of the Indian freedom movement. There were 49
accused and 206 witnesses. 400 documents were filed and 5000 exhibits were produced
consisting of bombs, revolvers, acid, etc. The judge C.B. Beechcroft had been
a student with Sri Aurobindo at Cambridge. The Chief Prosecutor Eardley Norton
kept a loaded revolver on his briefcase throughout the trial. The case for Sri
Aurobindo was taken up by C. R. Das. The trial lasted for one full year. At the
end C. R. Das addressed the court in these ringing words: 
One
day when Sri Aurobindo was sitting in the Karmayogin office, news was received
that the Government intended to arrest him. Immediately, there was an agitated
discussion all around. Sri Aurobindo sat calm and unmoving and heard a distinct
voice tell him, "Go to Chandernagore". Sri Aurobindo went straight to the
Ganga and boarded a boat for Chandernagore which was then a French settlement.
Soon he received another `adesh' to go to Pondicherry. Sri Aurobindo remarked
later: 
But
the inner yoga, intense and unwavering went on unaffected by outward circumstances.
For four years it was a lonely and solitary journey. His sadhana and work were
still waiting for the coming of the one who was to be his true collaborator, 
"The
Mother and I had a look at Him; how wonderful, how beautiful He looked, with a
golden hue. There were no signs of death as science had taught me, no evidence
of the slightest discoloration, or decomposition. The Mother whispered, `As long
as the supramental light does not pass away, the body will not show any signs
of decomposition, and it may be a day or it may take many more days.' I whispered
to Her, `Where is the light you speak of - can I not see it?' I was then kneeling
by Sri Aurobindo's bed, by the Mother's feet. She smiled at me and with infinite
compassion put her hand on my head. There He was - with a luminous mantle of bluish
golden hue around him." 
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