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150th Birth Anniversary of Sri Aurobindo

  • Posted By
    10Pointer
  • Categories
    History & Culture
  • Published
    17th Aug, 2022

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. 

Some of Aurobindo’s many literary works

  • Hour of God
  • Bases of Yoga
  • Rebirth and Karma
  • Savitri: A Legend and a Symbol
  • An English newspaper called Vande Mataram (in 1905)
  • Bhagavad Gita and Its Message
  • The Future Evolution of Man
    • 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. 

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