Sri Aurobindo
- Born on August 15, 1872 in Calcutta and educated in England, Sri Aurobindo came back to India with only one aim: liberating India from the foreign yoke. His father was a doctor who never wanted his three sons to inherit anything of the Indian culture, including their mother tongue Bengali. He admitted all his sons into an English school in Darjeeling from where they were taken to England and put in St. Paul's and later Cambridge. Sri Aurobindo was of a unique mould. Darjeeling and its British atmosphere were not a source of pride for him. Instead he had a vision of a dark force entering him which remained until he returned to India about 20 years later. He was meant for the Indian Civil Service, but his anti-British feeling did not allow him to serve the British masters. By absenting himself from the compulsory horse-riding test, Sri Aurobindo disqualified himself from the I.C.S.
- The Maharaja of Baroda was looking for an administrator for his state and spotted in Sri Aurobindo a suitable candidate. It was thus Sri Aurobindo landed in Baroda, served the state, taught in the college and returned to Bengal. India was in a ferment. Sri Aurobindo organised the youth under the Congress and voiced radical ideas from several journals he contributed to. Their nationalist activities embraced founding a journal "Vandemataram", founding a National College, worshipping Kali, and experimenting with several ideas as well as procuring chemicals with which bombs were made. Sri Aurobindo did not believe in terrorism, even though he was a radical to the core. The British police arrested him and clapped him in Alipore jail, implicating him in a bomb throwing case.
- When his brother came down with a severe hill fever, Sri Aurobindo watched as a Naga Sanyasi chanted a mantra, crossed a cup of water with a knife and gave it to his brother. The fever vanished. Sri Aurobindo was interested in acquiring such a power to liberate India from the British domination. In pursuit of this goal, he approached several yogis for help. What he got in return was a silent mind, advaitic realisation and the vision of the Cosmic divine.
- He sought the help of Vishnu Lele, a Maharashtrian Yogi. The yogi accepted Sri Aurobindo and offered to initiate him into silence. "Sit down, close your eyes. You will see thoughts entering your mind from outside. Refuse them entry," he said to Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo did so and found Lele's words to be true. He could, after considerable effort, reject the thoughts. In three days Sri Aurobindo succeeded in establishing silence in his mind. To Lele this was unbelievable, since success in this experiment would normally be achieved only after several years. As Sri Aurobindo was an avatar, a great yogic realisation came to him in a few days. So also, later the yogic attainment of Nirvana, the hallmark of a great avatar, came to him. While in Alipore Jail, he used to be visited by Swami Vivekananda in his meditation. The swami guided Sri Aurobindo's yoga and helped him to scale great heights. It was there Sri Aurobindo saw the convicts, jailers, policemen, the prison bars, the trees, the judge, the lawyer etc., as Narayana. Sri Aurobindo saw compassion, honesty and charity in the hearts of murderers.
- After Sri Aurobindo was found innocent in the trial, his inner voice instructed him to go to Chandranagore, a French territory. The same voice led him to Pondicherry later. His heart was burning with one passion, the release of Mother India. God held a parley with him and told him that Indian freedom was assured and accomplished in the subtle plane. God had another work assigned to Sri Aurobindo. To accomplish that work on earth, He was commanding Sri Aurobindo to go to Pondicherry. During the trial Sri Aurobindo was prompted to help the lawyer with facts, opinions, etc., but his inner voice advised him to desist from giving advice to the lawyer. "The case is in my hands, do not interfere, keep quiet" was the dictum that was whispering from inside. Now, after the trial and release, Sri Aurobindo's impulse was in the direction of the freedom movement. God had to interfere with Sri Aurobindo's preference and insist on his fulfilling god's other mission.
Sri Aurobindo in Pondicherry
- Sri Aurobindo arrived in Pondicherry in 1910. Following him a few of his associates arrived. Sri Aurobindo was examining his God-given mission and was contemplating the best possible course for him to follow. With the Inner Guide leading silently, Sri Aurobindo mapped out his yogic course and fixed its landmarks.
- Liberation, moksha, came to him earlier but he did not accept it. Obviously that was not his course or goal. God's intention was different. God intended Sri Aurobindo to become a pure Divine Instrument that would hasten the descent of the Divine into earthly life making it Divine Life. In sum, the Yoga of Sri Aurobindo is as follows:
- When moksha is accepted, the yogi leaves the Earth, which remains in misery. The yogi who attains moksha for himself must renounce the world. He must endeavour to bring the high heavens into the daily life of humanity and all life on earth. To accomplish that mission the yoga cannot be partial. It has to be integral. The yogi cannot exclude life or even the body from his yogic purification. It is not the Divine intention that the embodied soul should seek release from the cycle of birth and death. The embodied soul should seek total release from falsehood and ego in all parts of its being and, rising into the higher worlds of Spirit, bring down the spiritual force and truth to life on earth, so that death, suffering and disease can be abolished forever.
- In the context of Indian yogic tradition this is an adventure and a departure from the tradition. Sri Aurobindo developed new terminology to explain the tenets of his yoga, which he called Integral Yoga or Purna Yoga. All this acquired special and full significance when Mother arrived. She was keen on a plan of action and had her own original ideas for redeeming the earth from falsehood. Sri Aurobindo and Mother shared their approaches and finally arrived at the future course of action.
- From 1926 to 1950 Sri Aurobindo lived in complete retirement and total silence, constantly raising himself to the level of the Supermind. Even his experience while in Alipore jail, of Narayana in the hearts of everyone, was a supramental experience according to Mother. As his yoga is one of ascent and descent, he had to raise himself first to the level of the Muni (higher mind) and wait for the force of that level to descend into him and reach down to the very physical after saturating his nerves and mind. According to Sri Aurobindo, each level of the ascent is followed by the descent of forces of that level, which integrates the experience of the sadhak i.e., fully illumines all parts of his being, viz. mind, vital (nerves) and physical. The next higher level is that of the rishi who is endowed with vision, jnanadrishti. Sri Aurobindo's description of this level is illumined mind. The yogi, who is above this, receives the divine intuition directly without the aid of sight, drishti or thought. The world of the gods, Shiva, Brahma, Vishnu, Indra, Lakshmi, Saraswati, Narada, Ganesh, etc., is known to us as Swar or swarloka. Sri Aurobindo calls this world the overmind. These levels of muni, rishi, yogi and the gods belong to the lower hemisphere of creation. The higher hemisphere begins with vijnana, the supramental world. It is followed by ananda loka, chit loka and sat loka. Creation ends with this. Outside creation is the Absolute, the Transcendent, the unmanifested Divine.
- In 1926, the overmental force descended into Sri Aurobindo on all levels. After that he was engaged in the yogic adventure of raising his being to the supramental world and bringing the power of that world into the earth through the instrumentation of his own body. Before 1950, he accomplished this feat fully. His yoga was realised. The high heavens were reached. They had answered the CALL of humanity represented by Sri Aurobindo. The FORCE was ready to move from its origin, descend on earth and abolish death and suffering.
- Sri Aurobindo saw at this point that the transformation of the earth presupposed one other condition. He saw the Golden Light of the supramental world when he left the blue light of the overmind. If the Golden Light were to remain on earth forever after the descent, it would require about ten yogis who had realised Supermind fully. At the time of Sri Aurobindo's realisation that condition remained unfulfilled. Even if the power of Supermind descended through the siddhi of Sri Aurobindo, the light could not remain on earth. Sri Aurobindo needed another ten accomplished yogis. They were not there. He spoke to Mother and said one of them had to leave the earth and continue the yoga from the subtle plane to expedite the ADVENT. Mother offered to go. He showed her the unique constitution of her body which alone could accomplish the transformation at the physical level. He decided to withdraw and continue his work from the subtle plane.
- In 1956, Sri Aurobindo's work from the subtle plane bore fruit. In 1950, he had offered his own body to the descending supramental light as a fit receptacle. At the time he left his body, the Golden Light invaded it and remained there for three full days. All the other yogic powers he had gathered, he deposited in Mother before he withdrew from his body. In six years, Sri Aurobindo's work prepared the Earth Consciousness as a whole to receive the supramental force, power and light. During the meditation in the playground on February 29, 1956, Mother saw Her subtle body enlarging to the size of the universe and becoming golden. Before her appeared a massive golden door and beside her was an equally massive golden hammer. With one blow Mother smashed the door, the curtain between earth and the golden supramental heavens. Floods of living light of golden colour poured down onto earth. Earth realised the Supermind. Instantaneously, the tamas, the inertia of the earth rose up in equally great floods and swallowed up the descending Grace. Following this great event, Divine Love descended on earth in 1962. The Supramental force advanced in 1967 by manifesting itself in the earth consciousness. Again on January 1st, 1969 the force further evolved and became superman consciousness and appeared before The Mother. Mother says that since its advent in 1956, the force is effectively determining the course of earthly events. The diffusion of the Cuban crisis and the inexplicable withdrawal of the Chinese from the Indian border took place because of the presence of this force. She also says children born after 1962 have greater receptivity to this force.
- Sri Aurobindo was known in the Ashram as the rebirth of Napoleon. Napoleon's birthday was also August 15th. In his previous births, it was believed he was Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Krishna and many other persons too. Someone asked Sri Aurobindo whether he had been Shakespeare as well, but could not elicit an answer.
- Mother spoke to Shiva and Krishna requesting them to incarnate in the body of Sri Aurobindo to expedite his yoga. Mother said Shiva declined the invitation and said he would come after the advent of the Supermind. Mother succeeded with Krishna who agreed. She said she saw with her own eyes Krishna entering into Sri Aurobindo's body. When she reported it to Sri Aurobindo, he evinced no interest in it. In another context, Sri Aurobindo said he did not want his work to be limited by the gods.
- Sri Aurobindo said that the world forces had always fulfilled his will, sooner or later.
- After he attained samadhi, his body was laid on his bed. It was kept thus for over four days, almost five days. Over 100,000 people had Darshan of the Master. The Golden Light slowly entered his body and stayed there for three full days, then gradually withdrew. On those days, Mother said she 'saw' him sitting on his bed -- of course the body was lying flat on the bed -- fully supramental and golden.
To read the full article please visit http://www.karmayogi.net
Thanks,
AuroMere Meditation Center (Sri Mother & Sri Aurobindo Center) (ஸ்ரீ அன்னை அரவிந்தர் தியான மையம்) TN, India.
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