Reading Sri Aurobindo

Email

Whatsapp

Facebook

Pinterest

Twitter

Copy link

Sri Aurobindo dedicated his life to the transformation of humanity. His journey saw him traverse many paths, including that of poet, journalist, jailed revolutionary, philosopher, and radical mystic. Essays, translations, literary criticism, political articles, philosophical treatises, poetry, epics, plays and short stories-his writings encompass the depth and range of his extraordinary life. The modern sage commented on spiritual texts such as the Vedas, the Upanishads and the Bhagwad Gita, authored an epic poem, Savitri, presented his integral vision in The Life Divine, wrote on contemporary issues, all the while writing thousands of letters to guide his disciples, and even documenting his inner life in meticulous detail.

The relevance of Sri Aurobindo’s message has never been more urgent and compelling, yet, his Complete Works, thirty-six volumes in all, can be a daunting prospect even for those acquainted with his philosophy and practice. Reading Sri Aurobindo introduces each of these volumes through the perspectives of twenty-one contributors. The result is a book packed with insights inviting us to explore Sri Aurobindo’s deep wisdom and vision for resolving the fundamental issues facing individuals, societies, and nations today.

Gautam Chikermane

is a writer and the vice president at Observer Research Foundation (ORF). His areas of research are economics, politics and foreign affairs. His last book was 70 Policies that Shaped India (ORF, 2018). Earlier, he has held leadership positions in some of India's top newspapers and magazines, including Hindustan Times, Indian Express and Financial Express. He serves as a director on the board of CARE India, was the new media director at Reliance Industries Ltd, and vice chairman on the board of Financial Planning Standards Board India. A Jefferson Fellow (Fall 2001), he is a student of Sri Aurobindo, the Mahabharata and dhrupad music.

Devdip Ganguli

teaches undergraduate students at the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, Pondicherry, where he offers courses on the social and political philosophy of Sri Aurobindo, as well as on ancient Indian history, art and culture. He is frequently invited to speak in universities in India and abroad on topics related to Sri Aurobindo's writings.

He also works in one of the administrative departments of Sri Aurobindo Ashram.

My meeting with Sri Aurobindo began on the mental plane, through abstract ideas that explored the various aspects of Indian spiritual and philosophical traditions. I already had a working knowledge of the concepts, partly as a seeker and partly as a traveller, through the works and paths of other Indian philosophers and spiritual leaders to whom I was exposed to during my school days, college life and early career as a writer. It was not until I turned thirty that destiny placed me before Sri Aurobindo, More accurately, I was ready to receive his deep, wide and puissant ideas. This was no coincidence; it was the decisive tread of time that has irreversibly changed my life.

Since then, I have embarked on a journey that has gone beyond the mental. Or let us say, the mental has been enriched by the emotional-vital, which in turn has been deepened by the psychic, with all three held together by the spiritual. Sri Aurobindo's influence on every aspect of my life, from the way I think to the manner in which I express myself, has been, like his yoga, integral.

The Integral Yoga is a process by which not just the soul but the body, right down to the cells, is transformed through the union of two powerful forces-the human aspiration from below, and the divine grace from above. There is no single method, mantra, practice or process that the Integral Yoga professes; the journey and the resultant transformation of each individual soul is unique.

This transformation is destined. The Integral Yoga, according to Sri Aurobindo, accelerates what nature has preordained through evolution. To clarify, the Integral Yoga is not an admixture of Karma Yoga, Bhakti Yoga or Jnana Yoga (the yogas of Works, Devotion, and Knowledge). It is not a collection of ideas and words fused together by language. Sri Aurobindo's synthesis of yogas is wider than an agglomeration of extant schools, deeper than the living philosophical traditions and higher than the spiritual milestones mapped thus far. It is not an easy path. It requires grit, sincerity and the constant fire of aspiration.

**Contents and Sample Pages**