About the Author
Sri Aurobindo was born in Calcutta on 15 August 1872. At the age of seven he was taken to England for his education. 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 the state's college.
In 1906 Sri Aurobindo quit his post in Baroda and went to Calcutta, where he became one of the leaders of the Indian nationalist movement. As editor of the newspaper Bande Mataram, he put forward the idea of complete independence from Britain. Arrested three times for sedition or treason, he was released each time for lack of evidence.
Sri Aurobindo began the practice of Yoga in 1905. Within a few years he achieved several fundamental spiritual realisations. In 1910 he withdrew from politics and went to Pondicherry in French India in order to concentrate on his inner life and work. Over the next forty years, he developed a new' spiritual path, the Integral Yoga, whose ultimate aim is the transformation of life by the power of a supramental consciousness. In 1926, with the help of his spiritual collaborator the Mother, he founded the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. His vision of life is presented in numerous works of prose and poetry, among the best known of which are The Life Divine, The Synthesis of Yoga, Essays on the Gita and Savitri.
Sri Aurobindo passed away on 5 December 1950.
Contents
THE HUMAN CYCLE
Chapter I
The Cycle of Society
5
Chapter II
The Age of Individualism and Reason
15
Chapter III
The Coming of the Subjective Age
26
Chapter IV
The Discovery of the Nation-Soul
35
Chapter V
True and False Subjectivism
44
Chapter VI
The Objective and Subjective Views of Life
55
Chapter VII
The Ideal Law of Social Development
63
Chapter VIII
Civilisation and Barbarism
73
Chapter IX
Civilisation and Culture
82
Chapter X
Aesthetic and Ethical Culture
92
Chapter XI
The Reason as Governor of Life
102
Chapter XII
The Office and Limitations of the Reason
114
Chapter XIII
Reason and Religion
124
Chapter XIV
The Suprarational Beauty
136
Chapter XV
The Suprarational Good
146
Chapter XVI
The Suprarational Ultimate of Life
155
Chapter XVII
Religion as the Law of Life
173
Chapter XVIII
The Infrarational Age of the Cycle 182
Chapter XIX
The Curve of the Rational Age
192
Chapter XX
The End of the Curve of Reason
208
Chapter XXI
The Spiritual Aim and Life
222
Chapter XXII
The Necessity of the Spiritual Transformation
232
Chapter XXIII
Conditions for the Coming of a Spiritual Age
246
Chapter XXIV
The Advent and Progress of the Spiritual Age
261
THE IDEAL OF HUMAN UNITY PART I
The Turn towards Unity: Its Necessity and Dangers
279
The Imperfection of Past Aggregates
285
The Group and the Individual
290
The Inadequacy of the State Idea
296
Nation and Empire: Real and Political Unities
304
Ancient and Modern Methods of Empire
312
The Creation of the Heterogeneous Nation
323
The Problem of a Federated Heterogeneous Empire
330
The Possibility of a World-Empire
337
The United States of Europe
344
The Small Free Unit and the Larger Concentrated Unity
355
The Ancient Cycle of Prenational Empire-Building - The Modern Cycle of Nation-Building
364
The Formation of the Nation-Unit - The Three Stages
374
The Possibility of a First Step towards International Unity - Its Enormous Difficulties
384
Some Lines of Fulfilment
395
The Problem of Uniformity and Liberty
405
THE IDEAL OF HUMAN UNITY PART ll
Nature's Law in Our Progress
- Unity in Diversity, Law and Liberty
417
The Ideal Solution-A Free Grouping of Mankind
427
The Drive towards Centralisation and Uniformity
-Administration and Control of Foreign Affairs
437
The Drive towards Economic Centralisation
445
The Drive towards Legislative and Social
Centralisation and Uniformity
451
World-Union or World-State
462
Forms of Government
465
The Need of Military Unification
475
Chapter XXV
War and the Need of Economic Unity
485
Chapter XXVI
The Need of Administrative Unity
-494
Chapter XXVII
The Peril of the World-State
505
Chapter XXVIII
Diversity in Oneness
513
Chapter XXIX
The Idea of a League of Nations
523
Chapter XXX
The Principle of Free Confederation
533
Chapter XXXI
The Conditions of a Free World-Union
540
Chapter XXXII
Internationalism
548
Chapter XXXIII
Internationalism and Human Unity
554
Chapter XXXIV
The Religion of Humanity
564
Chapter XXXV
Summary and Conclusion
571
A Postscript Chapter
579
WAR AND SELF-DETERMINATION
The Passing of War?
606
The Unseen Power
612
Self - Determination
623
A League of Nations
634
1919
664
After the War
668
APPENDIXES
Appendix I
685
Appendix II
686
Hindu (882)
Agriculture (85)
Ancient (1016)
Archaeology (604)
Architecture (532)
Art & Culture (854)
Biography (592)
Buddhist (545)
Cookery (159)
Emperor & Queen (495)
Islam (234)
Jainism (273)
Literary (877)
Mahatma Gandhi (381)
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