150th Birth Anniversary of Sri Aurobindo
Context
August 15, 2022 marks the 150th birth anniversary of Sri Aurobindo.
?About Aurobindo Ghose
- On August 15, 1872, Aurobindo Ghose was born in Calcutta.
- He was a philosopher, poet, yogi, seer, and Indian nationalist who preached a spiritual evolution-based philosophy of divine life on Earth.
- Education
- In Darjeeling, he began his schooling at a Christian convent school.
- He enrolled in the University of Cambridge, where he learned two classical languages and a number of modern European languages.
- In 1892, he worked in Baroda (Vadodara) and Calcutta in various administrative posts (Kolkata).
- He began his yoga and Indian language studies, which included classical Sanskrit.
- In Pondichéry he founded a community of spiritual seekers, which took shape as the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in 1926.
- He was much influenced by the American Revolution, revolts in Italy and the medieval French revolts against England.
- He attended Congress sessions and at the same time, helped establish the Anushilan Samiti of Calcutta in 1902.
- He and his brother revolutionary Barin Ghose contributed articles to the magazine Jugantar which inspired many young people to take up revolutionary work.
- He was also a journalist, editing newspapers such as Bande Mataram.
- In May 1908, Aurobindo was arrested in connection with the Alipore Conspiracy Case.
- In 1914, he started publishing a magazine called Arya.
- He wrote copiously and his greatest literary achievement was ‘Savitri’, an epic poem with about 24000 lines.
- He developed a kind of Yoga called Integral Yoga.
- He inspired scores of people both from India and abroad.
- Sri Aurobindo died on 5 December 1950 in Pondicherry aged 78.
About his yoga practices
- He had begun the practice of Yoga in 1905 in Baroda.
- In 1908 he had the first of several fundamental spiritual realisations.
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Some of Aurobindo’s many literary works
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- In 1910 he withdrew from politics and went to Pondicherry in order to devote himself entirely to his inner spiritual life and work.
- During his forty years in Pondicherry, he evolved a new method of spiritual practice, which he called the Integral Yoga.
- Its aim is a spiritual realisation that not only liberates man's consciousness but also transforms his nature.
- In 1926, with the help of his spiritual collaborator, the Mother, he founded the Sri Aurobindo Ashram.
