Biography on Sri Aurobindo
Sri Aurobindo was born in Calcutta on August 15, 1872. In 1879, at the age of seven,
he was taken with his two elder brothers to England for education and lived there for
fourteen years. Brought up at first in an English family at Manchester, he joined St.
Paul's School in London in 1884 and in 1890 went from it with a senior classical
scholarship to King's College, Cambridge, where he studied for two years. In 1890
he passed also the open competition for the Indian Civil Service, but at the end of
two years of probation failed to present himself at the riding examination and was
disqualified for the Service. At this time the Gaekwar of Baroda was in London.
Aurobindo saw him, obtained an appointment in the Baroda Service and left England for India,
arriving there in February, 1893.
Sri Aurobindo passed thirteen years,
from 1893 to 1906, in the Baroda Service, first in the Revenue Department and in secretariat
work for the Maharaja, afterwards as Professor of English and, finally, Vice-Principal
in the Baroda College. These were years of self-culture, of literary activity - for much
of the poetry afterwards published from Pondicherry was written at this time - and of
preparation for his future work. In England he had received, according to his father's
express instructions, an entirely occidental education without any contact with the
culture of India and the East*. At Baroda he made up the deficiency, learned Sanskrit and
several modern Indian languages, assimilated the spirit of Indian civilisation and its forms
past and present. A great part of the last years of this period was spent on leave in silent
political activity, for he was debarred from public action by his position at Baroda.
The out-break of the agitation against the partition of Bengal in 1905 gave him the opportunity
to give up the Baroda Service and join openly in the political movement. He left Baroda in
1906 and went to Calcutta as Principal of the newly-founded Bengal National College.
The political action of Sri Aurobindo covered eight years, from 1902 to 1910. During the first
half of this period he worked behind the scenes, preparing with other co-workers the beginnings
of the Swadeshi (Indian Sinn Fein) movement, till the agitation in Bengal furnished an opening
for the public initiation of a more forward and direct political action than the moderate reformism
which had till then been the creed of the Indian National Congress. In 1906 Sri Aurobindo came to
Bengal with this purpose and joined the New Party, an advanced section small in numbers and not
yet strong in influence, which had been recently formed in the Congress. The political theory
of this party was a rather vague gospel of Non-cooperation; in action it had not yet gone
farther than some ineffective clashes with the Moderate leaders at the annual Congress assembly
behind the veil of secrecy of the "Subjects Committee". Sri Aurobindo persuaded its chiefs in
Bengal to come forward publicly as an All-India party with a definite and challenging programme,
putting forward Tilak, the popular Maratha leader at its head, and to attack the then dominant
Moderate (Reformist or Liberal) oligarchy of veteran politicians and capture from them the
Congress and the country. This was the origin of the historic struggle between the Moderates
and the Nationalists (called by their opponents Extremists) which in two years changed altogether
the face of Indian politics.
The new-born Nationalist party put forward Swaraj
(independence) as its goal as against the far-off Moderate hope of colonial self-government to
be realised at a distant date of a century or two by a slow progress of reform; it proposed as
its means of execution a programme which resembled in spirit, though not in its details, the
policy of Sinn Fein developed some years later and carried to a successful issue in Ireland.
The principle of this new policy was self- help; it aimed on one side at an effective organisation
of the forces of the nation and on the other professed a complete non-cooperation with the
Government. Boycott of British and foreign goods and the fostering of Swadeshi industries to
replace them, boycott of British law courts and the foundation of a system of Arbitration courts
in their stead, boycott of Government universities and colleges and the creation of a network of
National colleges and schools, the formation of societies of young men which would do the work of
police and defence and, wherever necessary, a policy of passive resistance were among the immediate
items of the programme. Sri Aurobindo hoped to capture the Congress and make it the directing
centre of an organised national action, an informal State within the State, which would carry
on the struggle for freedom till it was won. He persuaded the party to take up and finance as
its recognised organ the newly-founded daily paper, Bande Mataram, of which he was at the time
acting editor. The Bande Mataram, whose policy from the beginning of 1907 till its abrupt winding
up in 1908 when Aurobindo was in prison was wholly directed by him, circulated almost immediately
all over India. During its brief but momentous existence it changed the political thought of India
which has ever since preserved fundamentally, even amidst its later developments, the stamp then
imparted to it. But the struggle initiated on these lines, though vehement and eventful and
full of importance for the future, did not last long at the time; for the country was still
unripe for so bold a programme.
Sri Aurobindo was prosecuted for sedition in
1907 and acquitted. Up till now an organiser and writer, he was obliged by this event and
by the imprisonment or disappearance of other leaders to come forward as the acknowledged
head of the party in Bengal and to appear on the platform for the first time as a speaker.
He presided over the Nationalist Conference at Surat in 1907 where in the forceful clash of
two equal parties the Congress was broken to pieces. In May, 1908, he was arrested in the
Alipore Conspiracy Case as implicated in the doings of the revolutionary group led by his
brother Barindra; but no evidence of any value could be established against him and in
this case too he was acquitted. After a detention of one year as undertrial prisoner
in the Alipore Jail, he came out in May, 1909, to find the party organisation broken,
its leaders scattered by imprisonment, deportation or self-imposed exile and the party
itself still existent but dumb and dispirited and incapable of any strenuous action.
For almost a year he strove single-handed as the sole remaining leader of the Nationalists
in India to revive the movement. He published at this time to aid his effort a weekly
English paper, the Karmayogin, and a Bengali weekly, the Dharma. But at last he was
compelled to recognise that the nation was not yet sufficiently trained to carry out
his policy and programme. For a time he thought that the necessary training must first
be given through a less advanced Home Rule movement or an agitation of passive resistance
of the kind created by Mahatma Gandhi in South Africa. But he saw that the hour of
these movements had not come and that he himself was not their destined leader.
Moreover, since his twelve months' detention in the Alipore Jail, which had been
spent entirely in practice of Yoga, his inner spiritual life was pressing upon him
for an exclusive concentration. He resolved therefore to withdraw from the political
field, at least for a time**.
In February, 1910, he withdrew to a secret
retirement at Chandernagore and in the beginning of April sailed for Pondicherry in
French India. A third prosecution was launched against him at this moment for a signed
article in the Karmayogin; in his absence it was pressed against the printer of the paper
who was convicted, but the conviction was quashed on appeal in the High Court of Calcutta.
For the third time a prosecution against him had failed. Sri Aurobindo had left Bengal
with some intention of returning to the political field under more favourable circumstances;
but very soon the magnitude of the spiritual work he had taken up appeared to him and he
saw that it would need the exclusive concentration of all his energies. Eventually he
cut off connection with politics, refused repeatedly to accept the Presidentship of the
National Congress and went into a complete retirement. During all his stay at Pondicherry
from 1910 onward he remained more and more exclusively devoted to his spiritual work and
his sadhana.
In 1914 after four years of silent Yoga he began the publication
of a philosophical monthly, the Arya. Most of his more important works, The Life Divine,
The Synthesis of Yoga, Essays on the Gita, The Isha Upanishad, appeared serially in the
Arya. These works embodied much of the inner knowledge that had come to him in his
practice of Yoga. Others were concerned with the spirit and significance of Indian
civilisation and culture (The Foundations of Indian Culture), the true meaning of the
Vedas (The Secret of the Veda), the progress of human society (The Human Cycle), the
nature and evolution of poetry (The Future Poetry), the possibility of the unification
of the human race (The Ideal of Human Unity). At this time also he began to publish his
poems, both those written in England and at Baroda and those, fewer in number, added
during his period of political activity and in the first years of his residence at
Pondicherry. The Arya ceased publication in 1921 after six years and a half of
uninterrupted appearance.
Sri Aurobindo lived at first in retirement at
Pondicherry with four or five disciples. Afterwards more and yet more began to come to
him to follow his spiritual path and the number became so large that a community of
sadhaks had to be formed for the maintenance and collective guidance of those who had
left everything behind for the sake of a higher life. This was the foundation of the
Sri Aurobindo Ashram which has less been created than grown around him as its
centre.
Sri Aurobindo began his practice of Yoga in 1904. At first gathering into it the
essential elements of spiritual experience that are gained by the paths of divine
communion and spiritual realisation followed till now in India, he passed on in search
of a more complete experience uniting and harmonising the two ends of existence,
Spirit and Matter. Most ways of Yoga are paths to the Beyond leading to the Spirit
and, in the end, away from life; Sri Aurobindo's rises to the Spirit to redescend
with its gains bringing the light and power and bliss of the Spirit into life to
transform it. Man's present existence in the material world is in this view or vision
of things a life in the Ignorance with the In- conscient at its base, but even in its
darkness and nescience there are involved the presence and possibilities of the Divine.
The created world is not a mistake or a vanity and illusion to be cast aside by the
soul returning to heaven or Nirvana, but the scene of a spiritual evolution by which
out of this material inconscience is to be manifested progressively the Divine
Consciousness in things. Mind is the highest term yet reached in the evolution,
but it is not the highest of which it is capable. There is above it a Supermind or
eternal Truth-Consciousness which is in its nature the self-aware and self-determining
light and power of a Divine Knowledge. Mind is an ignorance seeking after Truth,
but this is a self-existent Knowledge harmoniously manifesting the play of its forms
and forces. It is only by the descent of this Supermind that the perfection dreamed of
by all that is highest in humanity can come. It is possible by opening to a greater
divine consciousness to rise to this power of light and bliss, discover one's true
self, remain in constant union with the Divine and bring down the supramental Force
for the transformation of mind and life and body. To realise this possibility has been
the dynamic aim of Sri Aurobindo's Yoga.
Sri Aurobindo left his body on
December 5, 1950. The Mother carried on his work until November 17, 1973. Their work
continues.
* It may be observed that Sri Aurobindo's education in England gave him a wide
introduction to the culture of ancient, of mediaeval and of modern Europe. He was a
brilliant scholar in Greek and Latin. He had learned French from his childhood in
Manchester and studied for himself German and Italian sufficiently to study Goethe
and Dante in the original tongues. (He passed the Tripos in Cambridge in the first
class and obtained record marks in Greek and Latin in the examination for the Indian
Civil Service.)
** For a more complete statement about Sri Aurobindo's political life see Volume 26,
On Himself, pp. 21-41.
The above life-sketch is taken from Vol. 30 of the
Sri Aurobindo Book Centennary Library, published 1972, copyright Sri Aurobindo
Ashram