Sri Aurobindo

The Nirvana Experience—II

There was an entire silence of thought and feeling and all the ordinary movements of consciousness except the perception and recognition of things around without any accompanying concept or other reaction. The sense of ego disappeared and the movements of the ordinary life as well as speech and action were carried on by some habitual activity of Prakriti alone which was not felt as belonging to oneself. But the perception which remained saw all things as utterly unreal; this sense of unreality was overwhelming and universal. Only some undefinable Reality was perceived as true which was beyond space and time and unconnected with any cosmic activity, but yet was met wherever one turned. This condition remained unimpaired for several months and even when the sense of unreality disappeared and there was a return to participation in the world-consciousness, the inner peace and freedom which resulted from this realisation remained permanently behind all surface movements and the essence of the realisation itself was not lost. At the same time an experience intervened: something else than himself took up his dynamic activity and spoke and acted through him but without any personal thought or initiative. What this was remained unknown until Sri Aurobindo came to realise [in the Alipore Jail] the dynamic side of the Brahman, the Ishwara and felt himself moved by that in all his Sadhana and action. – Sri Aurobindo

CWSA Vol. 29, pp. 406–7

Before returning to Bengal Sri Aurobindo asked Lele for guidance, at the same time informing him that a mantra had risen within him. ”The final upshot,“ he wrote in 1932, ”was that he [Lele] was made by a Voice within him to hand me over to the Divine within me enjoining an absolute surrender to its will, a principle or rather seed-force to which I kept unswervingly and increasingly till it led me through all the mazes of an incalculable Yogic development bound by no single rule or style or dogma or Shastra to where and what I am now and towards what shall be hereafter.“
– Sri Aurobindo

CWSA Vol. 35, p. 240

At the height of his political activities Sri Aurobindo travelled extensively and reached out to the people.

At a meeting in Dhulia, Maharashtra on 26 January 1908

Sri Aurobindo gave a number of speeches along the way and met with many of the Nationalist leaders of the day.

With Bipin Chandra Pal and others at Uttarpara in April 1908

Since 1908 when I got the silence, I never think with my head or brain—it is always in the wideness generally above the head that the thoughts occur. – Sri Aurobindo

CWSA Vol. 35, p. 259

At Amraoti, 28–29 January 1908

On May 1, 1908, at the Bande Mataram office, Sri Aurobindo read about a bomb thrown by revolutionaries at Muzaffarpur, and also that the police claimed to know the culprits.

”At that time I had no idea that I happened to be the main target of suspicion and that according to the police I was the chief killer, the instigator and secret leader of the young terrorists and revolutionaries.“ – Sri Aurobindo

Tales of Prison Life, p. 1

The next morning Sri Aurobindo was arrested and would spend a whole year as an undertrial prisoner in jail. Arrested and arraigned along with him was practically the whole group led by Barin.

In Alipore Jail, Calcutta, 1909

In the jail he spent almost all his time in reading the Gita and the Upanishads and in intensive meditation and the practice of Yoga. – Sri Aurobindo

Written in the third person
CWSA Vol. 36, p. 60

When the case opened in the lower court… He [God] said to me… ”Look now at the Magistrate, look now at the Prosecuting Counsel.“ I looked and it was not the Magistrate whom I saw, it was Vasudeva, it was Narayana who was sitting there on the bench. I looked at the prosecuting Counsel and… it was Sri Krishna who sat there.… – Sri Aurobindo

Written in the third person
CWSA Vol. 8, p. 7

In Alipore Jail, Calcutta, 1909

Experiences in Alipore Jail

When I was arrested… I was shaken in faith for a while, for I could not look into the heart of His intention. Therefore I faltered for a moment and cried out in my heart to Him, ”What is this that has happened to me? I believed that I had a mission to work for the people of my country and until that work was done, I should have Thy protection. Why then am I here and on such a charge?“ A day passed and a second day and a third, when a voice came to me from within, ”Wait and see.“ Then I grew calm and waited, I was… placed for one month in a solitary cell.… There I waited day and night.… I remembered then that a month or more before my arrest, a call had come to me to put aside all activity, to go into seclusion and to look into myself.… It seemed to me that He spoke to me again and said, ”The bonds you had not the strength to break, I have broken for you, because it is not my will nor was it ever my intention that that should continue. I have had another thing for you to do and it is for that I have brought you here, to teach you what you could not learn for yourself and to train you for my work.“ Then He placed the Gita in my hands. His strength entered into me and I was able to do the Sadhana of the Gita. – Sri Aurobindo

CWSA Vol. 29, p. 5

Practising the Yoga in Jail

While in jail, Sri Aurobindo practised the Yoga of the Gita and meditated with the help of the Upanishads. He was given permission to stroll every day back and forth in the open space in front of his solitary cell. ”Travelling to and fro“, he wrote, ”I would recite the deeply moving, ageless, powerful mantras of the Upanishads, or watching the movements and activities of the prisoners I tried to realise the basic truths of the immanent Godhead, God in every form.…“

The hard cover of my life opened up and a spring of love for all creatures gushed from within.… And the more these qualities developed, the greater the delight and the deeper the sense of unclouded peace. – Sri Aurobindo

Tales of Prison Life, ed 1997, p. 47

Sri Krishna

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. – Sri Aurobindo

CWSA Vol. 8, p. 6

Sanatana Dharma

We speak often of the Hindu religion, of the Sanatana Dharma, but few of us really know what that religion is. Other religions are preponderatingly religions of faith and profession, but the Sanatana Dharma is life itself; it is a thing that has not so much to be believed as lived. – Sri Aurobindo

CWSA Vol. 8, p. 06

This Sanatana Dharma has many scriptures, Veda, Vedanta, Gita, Upanishad, Darshana, Purana, Tantra, nor could it reject the Bible or the Koran; but its real, most authoritative scripture is in the heart in which the Eternal has His dwelling. It is in our inner spiritual experiences that we shall find the proof and source of the world’s Scriptures, the law of knowledge, love and conduct, the basis and inspiration of Karmayoga. – Sri Aurobindo

CWSA Vol. 8, p. 26

That which we call the Hindu religion is really the eternal religion, because it is the universal religion which embraces all others. If a religion is not universal, it cannot be eternal. A narrow religion, a sectarian religion, an exclusive religion can live only for a limited time and a limited purpose. This is the one religion that … impresses on mankind the closeness of God to us and embraces in its compass all the possible means by which man can approach God.
– Sri Aurobindo

CWSA Vol. 8, p. 11

There is a mighty law of life, a great principle of human evolution, a body of spiritual knowledge and experience of which India has always been destined to be guardian, exemplar and missionary. This is the Sanatana Dharma, the eternal religion. – Sri Aurobindo

CWSA Vol. 8, p. 24

In May 1909 Sri Aurobindo and some of the accused were acquitted. His sadhana, done so far in the solitary confinement of jail, went on with great intensity during the next nine months which he spent fully immersed in hectic public activity

In Calcutta, May–June 1909, after Sri Aurobindo was acquitted of the charges against him

Sri Aurobindo never brought any rancour into his politics. He never had any hatred for England or the English people; he based his claim for freedom for India on the inherent right to freedom, not on any charge of misgovernment or oppression; if he attacked persons even violently, it was for their views or political action, not from any other motive.
– Sri Aurobindo

Written in the third person
CWSA Vol. 36, pp. 80–81

Giving a speech in Beadon Square, Calcutta, on Partition Day, 16 October 1909

The Nationalist Position in 1909

In mid-1909 Sri Aurobindo was the only nationalist leader of a country-wide standing now at liberty: Lal and Pal had fled the country, Tilak was sentenced to six years imprisonment other editors suffered severer sentences; nationalist newspapers were suppressed; nine Bengali leaders were deported to various jails. The party was disorganised and demoralised.

Sri Aurobindo started an English weekly Karmayogin where, while not refraining from political writings, he laid stress on the moral and spiritual issues. He also started Dharma, a Bengali weekly. And he worked very hard to revive the party even going out on speaking tours; he led the party at provincial conferences and in the difficult negotiations with the Moderates over the issue of reconciliation.

As his influence grew, so did government anxiety: he was ”the most dangerous of our adversaries now at large“* and he had to be silenced. They could appeal against his acquittal but if unsuccessful it would create greater public sympathy and following. Was it not best to deport him, they wondered until he published ”Open Letter to My Countrymen“, declaring his political will and testament in case he was deported.

*Archives & Research, April 1983, Vol. 7, No 1, p. 83

The New Arrest Warrant

Since the day Sri Aurobindo was released from jail, every word he had written or spoken, every action had been painstakingly recorded by the police in the hope of building a case of sedition,… In December 1909 he published another signed article, ”To My Countrymen“, condemning the attitude of the moderates and criticising the recently proposed Minto-Morley Reforms as a sham which gave no real concessions but aimed rather to deepen the communal divide through separate electorates for Muslims; he also proposed an all-India nationalist conference. This article seemed heaven-sent, but by the time government actually issued the arrest warrant it was April and he had left British India.

Chandernagore and Pondicherry

I was in the Karmayogin Office when I received the word … that the Office would be searched the next day and myself arrested.… While I was listening to animated comments from those around on the approaching event, I suddenly received a command from above, in a Voice well known to me, in three words: ”Go to Chandernagore.“ In ten minutes or so I was in the boat for Chandernagore.… I remained in secret entirely engaged in Sadhana and my active connection with the two newspapers ceased from that time. Afterwards, under the same ”sailing orders“ I left Chandernagore and reached Pondicherry on April 4, 1910. – Sri Aurobindo

CWSA Vol. 36, p. 89

Why Sri Aurobindo withdrew from Politics

”I did not leave politics because I felt I could do nothing more there…“ he wrote; ”I came away because I did not want anything to interfere with my Yoga and because I got a very distinct adesh in the matter. I knew from within that the work I had begun there was destined to be carried forward, on lines I had foreseen, by others, and that the ultimate triumph of the movement I had initiated was sure without my personal action or presence. There was not the least motive of despair or sense of futility behind my withdrawal.“ – Sri Aurobindo

CWSA Vol. 35, p. 26

The part Sri Aurobindo took publicly in Indian politics was of brief duration, for he turned aside from it in 1910 and withdrew to Pondicherry; much of his programme lapsed in his absence, but enough had been done to change the whole face of Indian politics and the whole spirit of Indian people to make independence its aim and non-cooperation and resistance its method.…
– Sri Aurobindo

Written in the third person
CWSA Vol. 36, p. 53

At Sylhet, East Bengal (now Bangladesh), September 1909

He [Sri Aurobindo] has always stood for India’s complete independence which he was the first to advocate publicly and without compromise as the only ideal worthy of a self-respecting nation. In 1910 he authorised the publication of his prediction that after a long period of wars, world-wide upheavals and revolutions beginning after four years, India would achieve her freedom.… [W]hatever the immediate outcome, the Power that has been working out this event will not be denied, the final result, India’s liberation, is sure.

This press release was written by Sri Aurobindo and issued over the signature of Nolini Kanta Gupta.
CWSA Vol. 36, p. 472

In Calcutta, October–November 1909

Pondicherry

I need some place of refuge in which I can complete my Yoga unassailed and build up other souls around me. It seems to me that Pondicherry is the place appointed by those who are Beyond. – Sri Aurobindo

CWSA Vol. 36, p. 283

Pondicherry is my place of retreat, my cave of tapasya, not of the ascetic kind, but of a brand of my own invention. – Sri Aurobindo

CWSA Vol. 36, p. 255

Pondicherry in the 1930’s

The Yogi from the North (Uttara Yogi) was my own name given to me because of a prediction made long ago by a famous Tamil Yogi, that thirty years later (agreeing with the time of my arrival) a Yogi from the North would come as a fugitive to the South and practise there an integral Yoga (Poorna Yoga), and this would be one sign of the approaching liberty of India. He gave three utterances as the mark by which this Yogi could be recognised and all these were found in the letters to my wife. – Sri Aurobindo

CWSA Vol. 35, p. 78

Pondicherry in the 1930’s

[By mid 1909] Sri Aurobindo had already realised in full two of the four great realisations on which his Yoga and his spiritual philosophy are founded. The first he had gained while meditating with the Maharashtrian Yogi Vishnu Bhaskar Lele at Baroda in January 1908; it was the realisation of the silent, spaceless and timeless Brahman … his second realisation … was that of the cosmic consciousness and of the Divine as all beings and all that is, which happened in the Alipore jail.…
– Sri Aurobindo

Written in the third person
CWSA Vol. 36, p. 94

In Pondicherry, 15 August 1911

To the other two realisations, that of the supreme Reality with the static and dynamic Brahman as its two aspects and that of the higher planes of consciousness leading to the Supermind he was already on his way in his meditations in the Alipore jail.
– Sri Aurobindo

Written in the third person
CWSA Vol. 36, p. 94

In Pondicherry, around 1914

Map of Advance

As I have long had the map of my advance sketched out before me, I am able to measure my progress at each step and the particular losses are compensated for by the clear consciousness of the general advance that has been made. The final goal is far but the progress made in the face of so constant and massive an opposition is the guarantee of its being gained in the end. – Sri Aurobindo

26 June 1916
CWSA Vol. 36, p. 289

The Veda and the Upanishads

But far more interesting to me was the discovery of a considerable body of profound psychological thought and experience lying neglected in these ancient hymns. And the importance of this element increased in my eyes when I found, first, that the mantras of the Veda illuminated with a clear and exact light psychological experience of my own for which I had found no sufficient explanation either in European Psychology or in the teachings of Yoga or of Vedanta, so far as I was acquainted with them, and, secondly, that they shed light on obscure passages and ideas of the Upanishads to which, previously, I could attach no exact meaning and gave at the same time a new sense to much in the Puranas.
– Sri Aurobindo

M. P. Pandit, Reminiscences and Anecdotes of Sri Aurobindo, 1990 ed. p. 132–133

Glimpses of the Supermind

The Divine Guide within me urged me to proceed, adding experience after experience, reaching higher and higher, stopping at none as final, till I arrived at the glimpses of the Supermind. – Sri Aurobindo

M. P. Pandit, Reminiscences and Anecdotes of Sri Aurobindo, 1990 ed. p. 45

It took me four years of inner striving to find a real Way, even though the divine help was with me all the time, and even then, it seemed to come by an accident; and it took me ten more years of intense Yoga under a supreme inner guidance to trace it out and that was because I had my past and the world’s past to assimilate and overpass before I could find and found the future.
– Sri Aurobindo

CWSA Vol. 35, p. 239

In Pondicherry, 1915

A life-sketch in photographs