Related material:
(2-Let India be guided by Sri Aurobindo)
(3-Let India be guided by Sri Aurobindo)
(4-Let India be guided by Sri Aurobindo)
(Introduction common to all articles in this series)
It is critical time today. Let India be guided by the vision of Sri Aurobindo in moving forward.
All the so called secularist forces, left organizations, opposition political parties of India, a large number of religious minorities, network of terrorists and the international forces with big money and powerful voices supporting this conglomeration of anti-India forces operating within the country are on the one side of India. On the other side of India are the forces that represent Indian nationalism, Hindutva and transformation of this country reflected in slogans like, “sabka sath, sabka vikas, sabka vishwas”.
Also, in the world, greed knows no limits. Holders of big money in India and outside India want more and more money – crazy for more and more profits – at the cost of human miseries that this crazy greed causes. These big money holders do not care even a little for the pains that others suffer because of them. They do not care that because of their greed for more money is turning this Earth onto an inhabitable place.
Religious terrorism is determined to wage a world-wide Jihad even at the cost of extinction of human race by an atomic war that may be triggered by its mission. It is seriously busy in destroying the world peace and international order.
Humans are Mental Beings and Christians are no exception to this. They have some mental idea of Christ and their flag-beaers are busy in bringing – converting – the entire humanity to their fold, as if humans have nothing better to do in their life. And, then there comes in the play of lower human impulses – lust for sex, power, politics, subversion of native life and what not. They cross all limits of normal human decency in their pursuit. India is a prime example of their nefarious activities.
This is the world today we are living in.
Sri Aurobindo needs no introduction and one ignorant of his name may be said, in the literal sense of the word, a real illiterate of India. A western scholar has spoken of Sri Aurobindo as, “Albert Einstein of human and cosmic consciousness !” In Gita’s terminology, he was a “vibhuti” (and all “Vibhutis” are Avatars – and a part of Divine that descended on Earth in human flesh and blood), who lived ìn higher Divine consciousness and saw the future, which is yet to happen. What is in store for India? Here we reproduce Sri Aurobindo’s answers to varied questions relating to India, world and humanity, which were put to him by many public figures and ordinary persons from 1914 to 1950. Let India take cue from his vision of things to come in future and be guided in its actions and plans. These answers are recorded by Purani A. B., who was Sri Aurobindo’s co-revolutionary and an intimate disciple, in his book, “Purani A. B.: Evening Talks with Sri Aurobindo”.
“The question which Arjuna asks Sri Krishna in the Gita [2nd Chap.] occurs pertinently to many about all spiritual personalities: “What is the language of one whose understanding is poised? How does he speak, how sit, how walk?” Men want to know the outer signs of the inner attainment,— the way in which a spiritual person differs outwardly from other men. But all the tests which the Gita enumerates are inner and therefore invisible to the outer view. It is true also that the inner or the spiritual is the essential and the outer derives its value and form from the inner. But the transformation about which Sri Aurobindo writes in his books has to take place in nature. So, all the parts of nature — including the physical and the external — are to be transformed. In his own case the very physical became the transparent mould of the Spirit as a result of his intense Sadhana. This is borne out by the impression created on the minds of sensitive outsiders like Sj. K. M. Munshi who was deeply impressed by his radiating presence when he met him after nearly forty years.
The Evening-Talks collected here may afford to the outside world a glimpse of its richness, its many-sidedness, its uniqueness. One can also form some notion of Sri Aurobindo’s personality from the books in which the height, the universal sweep and clear vision of his integral ideal and thought can be seen. His writings are, in a sense, the best representative of his mental personality. The versatile nature of his genius, the penetrating power of his intellect, his extraordinary power of expression, his intense sincerity, his utter singleness of purpose — all these can be easily felt by any earnest student of his works. He may discover even in the realm of mind that Sri Aurobindo brings the unlimited into the limited. Another side of his dynamic personality is represented by the Ashram as an institution. But the outer, if one may use the phrase, the human side of his personality, is unknown to the outside world because from 1910 to 1950 — a span of forty years — he had led a life of outer retirement. No doubt, many knew about his staying at Pondicherry and practicing some kind of very special yoga to the mystery of which they had no access. To some, perhaps, he was living a life of enviable solitude enjoying the luxury of spiritual endeavour. Many regretted his retirement as a great loss to the world because they could not see any external activity on his part which could be regarded as “public”, “altruistic” or “beneficial.” Even some of his admirers thought that he was after some kind of personal salvation which would have very little significance for mankind in general. His outward non-participation in public life was construed by many as lack of love for humanity.
But those who knew him during the days of the national awakening — from 1900 to 1910 — could not have these doubts. And even these initial misunderstandings and false notions of others began to evaporate with the growth
of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram from 1927 onwards. The large number of books published by the Ashram also tended to remove the idea of the other-worldliness of his yoga and the absence of any good by it to mankind.
This period of outer retirement was one of intense Sadhana and of intellectual activity — it was also one during which he acted on external events,— though he was not dedicated outwardly to a public cause. About his own retirement he writes. But this did not mean, as most people supposed, that he [Sri Aurobindo] had retired into some height of spiritual experience devoid of any further interest in the world or in life. It could not mean that, for the very principle of his yoga is not only to realize the Divine and attain to a complete spiritual consciousness, but also to take all life and all world-activity into the scope of this Spiritual Consciousness and action and to base life on the Spirit and give it a spiritual meaning. In his retirement Sri Aurobindo kept a close watch on all that was happening in the world and in India and actively intervened, whenever necessary, but solely with a spiritual Force and silent spiritual action; for it is part of the experience of those who have advanced in yoga that, besides the ordinary forces and activities of the mind and life and body in Matter, there are other forces and powers that can and do act from behind and from above; there is also a spiritual dynamic Power which can be possessed by those who are advanced in spiritual consciousness,— though all do not care to possess, or possessing, to use it, and this Power is greater than any other and more effective. It was this force which Sri Aurobindo used at first only in a limited field of personal work, but afterwards, in a constant action upon the world {{0}}forces.[[Sri Aurobindo and his Ashram]]
Twice he found it necessary to go out of his way to make public pronouncements on important world-issues, which shows distinctly that renunciation of life is not a part of his yoga. “The first was in relation to the second world-war. At the beginning he did not actively concern himself with it, but when it appeared as if Hitler would crush all the forces opposed to him and Nazism dominate the world, he began to {{0}}intervene.”[[Sri Aurobindo and his Ashram]]
The second was with regard to Sir Stafford Cripps’ proposal for the transfer of power to India.”
The Evening-Talks collected here may afford to the outside world a glimpse of its richness, its many-sidedness, its uniqueness. One can also form some notion of Sri Aurobindo’s personality from the books in which the height, the universal sweep and clear vision of his integral ideal and thought can be seen. His writings are, in a sense, the best representative of his mental personality. The versatile nature of his genius, the penetrating power of his intellect, his extraordinary power of expression, his intense sincerity, his utter singleness of purpose — all these can be easily felt by any earnest student of his works. He may discover even in the realm of mind that Sri Aurobindo brings the unlimited into the limited. Another side of his dynamic personality is represented by the Ashram as an institution. But the outer, if one may use the phrase, the human side of his personality, is unknown to the outside world because from 1910 to 1950 — a span of forty years — he had led a life of outer retirement. No doubt, many knew about his staying at Pondicherry and practicing some kind of very special yoga to the mystery of which they had no access. To some, perhaps, he was living a life of enviable solitude enjoying the luxury of spiritual endeavour. Many regretted his retirement as a great loss to the world because they could not see any external activity on his part which could be regarded as “public”, “altruistic” or “beneficial.” Even some of his admirers thought that he was after some kind of personal salvation which would have very little significance for mankind in general. His outward non-participation in public life was construed by many as lack of love for humanity.
