Sri Aurobindo ~ An Introduction II

Sri Aurobindo II :

Sri Aurobindo ~ An Introduction

[Continued and concluded]

As an infant, Sri Aurobindo was schooled at a convent in Darjeeling. In 1879, He (then named as Aravinda Ghose), along with his two elder brothers, was taken to England. They were given an entirely Western education by their father Dr. Krishnadhan Ghose, a graduate in higher studies of medicine from England and a Civil Surgeon in Bengal. In England, they lived with a clergyman's family in Manchester. From there they joined St. Paul's public school in West London, and later went on to Cambridge University. Sri Aurobindo was a brilliant scholar and won record marks in the Classical Tripos examination. However, he was inspired by a will for the Freedom of India, and though He was successful in the Indian Civil Service Examination, He did not wish to become an official in the British colonial administration. He got himself disqualified himself by failing to take the mandatory riding test, and returned to India in 1893 in the service of the Indian princely State of Baroda. He worked there still 1906. In Baroda, He came in contact with Vishnu Bhaskar Lele, a Maharashtrian Yogi, with whose help, He had His first spiritual experience, the experience of Nirvana. About this, we will see more, later.

In 1906, he returned to Calcutta, his birthplace, as the first Principal of the newly formed Bengal National College. He resigned that post, as he was more and more actively involved in the Nationalist Movement. Sri Aurobindo was the first of the Nationalist leaders to think of full independence for India as the goal of the movement, and for several years he spent considerable abilities and energies to this struggle. This led to him being arrested in the Alipore Bomb Case, as we have seen earlier. He was kept in solitary confinement for about a year as an 'under-trial' prisoner in Alipore jail. During this time he had a fundamental spiritual experience, the second of the major spiritual experiences of his life, about which we discuss later.

After He was acquitted and released, the British authorities continued to pursue him. An inner Voice led him to take refuge in Pondicherry, then part of French India. In Pondicherry, he devoted himself intensively to the exploration of the new spiritual possibilities that opened up to him. With the cooperation of His spiritual collaborator The Mother [Mira Alfassa], and using his newfound spiritual capacities, he continued His Work: the Adventure of Consciousness leading to the Supramental Discovery and Its Ascent, Descent and Transformation, which was according to Him the only solution for all the human problems, which have been continuing for millennia. When India was Independent on 15.8.1947, he expressed in a message to his countrymen about his five dreams that he had worked for, and which he now saw on the way to fulfilment.

When Sri Aurobindo came to Pondicherry, He had two major spiritual realizations, one of Nirvana and the second one of the cosmic consciousness and of the Divine as all beings and all that is. Let us see what Sri Aurobindo speaks about Himself :  

“Sri Aurobindo had already realized in full two of the four great realizations 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 realization of the silent, spaceless and timeless Brahman gained after a complete and abiding stillness of the whole consciousness and attended at first by an overwhelming feeling and perception of the total unreality of the world, though this feeling disappeared after his second realization which was that of the cosmic consciousness and of the Divine as all beings and all that is, which happened in the Alipore jail and of which he has spoken in his speech at Uttarpara. To the other two realizations, 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 at the Alipore jail. Moreover, he had accepted from Lele as the principle of his Sadhana to rely wholly on the divine and his guidance alone both for his Sadhana and for his outward actions.” [On Himself, by Sri Aurobindo]

The most important of the major spiritual discoveries of Sri Aurobindo is the Supermind. ‘The Aurobindonian Supermind is not an entirely new discovery,' says
K D Sethna (Amalkiran, disciple of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother). In the Veda and some of Upanishads and the Gita, there is mention of the plane of consciousness, beyond and above mind, which is named Supermind by Sri Aurobindo; let us see what K D Sethna has said in this regard :

            ” As early as the Vedas, there was the vision of it as Satyam Ritam Brihat - the True, the Right, the Vast - and it was symbolized as the Sun of Knowledge in the highest heaven. But either it was experienced in deep trance from which its whole import could not be transmitted or what was seized was its reflection in the several grades between it and the mental level - grades distinguished by Sri Aurobindo from that level [mental level] upwards as Higher Mind, Illumined Mind, Intuition, Overmind. …”

And K D Sethna has further said :

“They had grand hints and glimmerings of it : the Vedas' Satyam, Ritam, Brihat, the True, the Right, the Vast - the Upanishad's Vijnana, the
all-comprehensive Knowledge - the Gita's Purushottama with Paraprakriti, the Supreme Being with his Super-Nature. But no radically transforming intimacy with it was present. To be uplifted into it in a trance or to belost in itand pass through its golden gate into the supra-cosmic Unknown or else to work under its glowing guidance from afar and above is not the same thing as to ascend to it and live in it with one's physical eyes open and bring about its progressive descent - as Sri Aurobindo and the Mother do.”   

And Satprem, a French disciple and the confidante of the Mother, when he was in Sri Aurobindo Ashram (till Her passing away in 1973), the author of
Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness , has asked a question :

“What can Sri Aurobindo do for us at this low altitude?”

In my understanding, the answer is : 

He has given us the Way to the New World.

We shall have to walk on the Way.

And He has given us the New World.

We shall have to reach and enter and live in this New World.

That is the Way we can change our present world and solve all our human problems and transform ourselves into the divine beings, NOT limited by human frailties and falls and failures and sufferings.

[Introduction concluded]

Barin

17-06-2006

Re: Sri Aurobindo ~ An Introduction II

Dear Barin,

What strikes me, at this point, is how easy it is to identify to the story told by you of Sri Aurobindo, although I was grown up in a different time and a different place it seems to me that the beginning of the awakening of the supra-mental mind goes along paths that are very similar to what I (and others) have experienced. And are experiencing. My spiritual path started when I met the Mother of a girlfriend, named Mia. She learned me the proper way to meditation and the chakra system. She learned me to visit the Akasha Memory Banks, She explained my dreams and visions, She learned me I had the opportunity to reach out to many if I would work hard and learn the true meaning of suffering so I could liberate others from this same suffering I had experienced. She was of great influence to me, in terms of spiritual growth. She is not with us anymore but I still feel her energy and love. This is significant for me because unlike religious doctrines, this puts the divine right in the middle of my own life. And if this can happen to me it can happen to anybody (in my humble opinion), this opens up a complete new spectrum of possibilities.

Thank you Barin for continuing the teachings.

Re: Sri Aurobindo ~ An Introduction II

Thanks Barin,

I resonate with this.I am reading whatever I else I can find about this on google.Please provide excellent resources that you know of.And thankyou of course for what you have provided here.

Cheers! 

Re: Sri Aurobindo ~ An Introduction II

Interesting.I said: “I resonate with this.”

And then just after that I came across this blog: Sri Aurobindo…. This resonates with me 

I get the impression since my brief time knowing of Sri Aurobindo, that his great skill was that his words resonated with so many.I've always said myself that “the truth resonates”

Cheers!