SEQUENCE - 11: SRI AUROBINDO: BARODA – 1893 - 1905 TOPIC 1: On setting foot on the Indian soil at Apollo Bunder in Bombay, on 06.02.1893, Sri Aurobindo was “uplifted by an unsolicited spiritual
grace: “A vast calm descended upon him… this calm surrounded him and remained for long months afterwards”. This is how Mother India had received her son who returned to her after a long sojourn in England. He had indeed returned to his motherland to liberate her from her shackles of bondage to foreign rule so that “the sun of India’s destiny would rise and fill all India with its light and overflow India and overflow Asia and overflow the world.” TOPIC 2: At Baroda, Sri Aurobindo joined the Baroda State Service on 18 February and he severed his connection after thirteen years, on 18 June 1906. At first he was put in the Survey Settlement Department; then, he moved to the Stamps and Revenue Department. From 1897, he became part-time lecturer in French at the Baroda College and later in 1900 he
was appointed as a permanent Professor of English. He then rose to become the Vice-Principal from March 1905 to February 1906 on a consolidated salary of Rs.710 per month. TOPIC 3:
Incident a) As Professor of English Sri Aurobindo was highly revered by his students. They felt that “To be close to him was to be quietened
and quickened to listen to him was to be fired and inspired.” (Rishabhchand, 23) As one of his students recollected: ‘The Aurobindonian legend in the college filled me with reverence, and it was with awe that I hung upon his words whenever he came to college as Professor of English.” “But more than his college lectures, it was a treat to hear him on the platform”, recollected another student
of his. “He used to preside occasionally over the meetings of the College Debating society. The large central hall of the college used to be full when he was to speak. He was not an orator but was a speaker of a very high order… language flowed like a stream from his lips with natural ease and melody that kept the audience spell-bound.” (Ibid, p.25)
Incident b) One of the speeches that Sri Aurobindo delivered before the College Social gathering in 1899 had the subject ‘Oxford and Cambridge’. It gives us an idea of the quality of his public speeches at the Baroda College. After recounting the unique privileges of the Oxford or Cambridge students, Sri Aurobindo concluded with these words: “The result is that he who
entered the university a raw student, comes out of it a man and a gentleman, accustomed to think of great affairs and fit to move in a cultivated society…
This is the social effect I should like the College and Universities of India also exercise, to educate by social influences as well as those which are merely academical and to create the feeling among their pupils that they belong to the community, that they are children of one mother…” (K.R.S. p. 52)
Incident c) Not only were the students inspired by his benign and benevolent personality, but, his colleagues, like the Principal of the Baroda College, too were touched by his greatness – bare and unshakable. The Principal once told one of his friends: “So
you met Aurobindo Ghosh. Dod you notice his eyes? There is a mystic fire and light in them. They penetrate into the beyond.”
TOPIC 4:
Incident a) During the first year of his stay in Baroda, Sri Aurobindo had also discovered the secret of India’s perennial and unparalleled greatness. With his quick and exceptional
mastery over Sanskrit, he fathomed effortlessly the secrets of the Unpanishads, the Gita, the Puranas, the great Epics, the poems of Bharathari, the dramas of Kalidasa and Bhavabhuti etc. With his knowledge of the vernaculars, Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali, Hindi he could identify himself with the contemporary Indian thought and feeling. It was as if in discovering the soul of India he had discovered his own inner secrets. This renewed contact with the Indian spiritual psyche released in him a
hidden spring of literary activity. Translations and original creations followed one another. Incident b) Sri Aurobindo translated some portions of the Ramayana and Mahabharata, some dramas of Kalidasa and some poems of Vidyapati and Chandidas into English. Amongst his original writings were Urvasi, Baji Prabhou, Love and Death andPerseus the Deliverer.
And the earliest draft of his great epic Savitriwere began in his early Baroda period. TOPIC 5:
Incident a) These poetic and literary creative activities were not divorced from outer engagements. Apart from his duties in the Baroda College, Sri Aurobindo’s services were utilised, from time to time, by the Maharaja
himself. Perhaps the most memorable and significant incident that could be remembered in his association with the Maharaja was his trip to Kashmir in May 1903. There he had his third major spiritual experience, which came to him as unexpected as the first two. Incident b) “There was a realisation of the vacant Infinite
while walking on the ridge of Takht-e-Seleiman in Kashmir”, wrote Sri Aurobindo. Later, he gave a full description of this experience: “One stands upon a mountain ridge and glimpses or mentally feels a wideness, a pervasiveness, a nameless Vast in Nature; then suddenly there comes the touch, a revelation, a flooding, the mental loses itself in the spiritual, one bears the first invasion of the Infinite. Or
you stand before a temple of Kali beside a sacred river and see what? - a sculpture, a gracious piece of architecture, but in a moment mysteriously, unexpectedly there is instead a Presence a power, a face that looks into yours, an inner sight in you has regarded the World-Mother” (Vol 22, p.199)
Incident c) The temple
of Kali beside the sacred river is the Mahakali temple on the northern bank of Narmada river near Karanali. In his poem The Stone Goddess, written in later years, Sri Aurobindo thus described the Goddess: In a town of gods, housed in a little shrine,
From sculptured limbs the Godhead looked at me, -
A living Presence deathless and divine,
A Form that harboured all infinity….
Incident d) It was much earlier, in 1894 that he had his second spiritual experience, as unbidden as the first one. One day, while Sri Aurobindo was going in a horse carriage, he suddenly found himself in danger of an accident. At that moment he saw ‘a mighty head’–– “A face with the calm of immortality,
And an omnipotent gaze that held the scene
In the vast circle of sovereignty. His hair was mingled with the sun and the breeze;
The world was in His heart and He was I:
I housed in me the Everlasting’s peace,
The strength of One whose substance cannot die.”
But all these four “were inner experiences coming of themselves and with a sudden unexpectedness, not part of a Sadhana.” (SABCL, 26, 50) Striking as they were these experiences did not then turn him on to yoga. TOPIC 6:
Incident a) But this is how it was with Sri
Aurobindo - the inner and the outer constantly merged. As he himself explained: “My own life and yoga have always been since my coming to India both this-worldly and other-worldly without any exclusiveness on either side. All human interests are, I suppose, this worldly and most of them have entered into my mental field and some, like politics, into my life…” Politics was for him nothing short of spiritual patriotism; the service of the country was to him the service of the divine
Mother. Incident b) This is what he had written to his wife Mrinalini Devi, the eldest daughter of Bhupal Chandra Bose, whom he had married in April 1901: “Others look upon their country as a mass of matter, comprising a number of fields,
plains, forests, mountains and rivers, and nothing more. I took upon it as my mother. I revere and adore it.”
He adored India not in any narrow partisan patriotic sense, but because he knew that – “God always keeps for himself a chosen country in which the higher knowledge is, through all chances and dangers, by the few or
the many, continually preserved, and for the present, in this chaturyuga at least, that country is India.”
Incident c) Such was the fiery intensity of love and devotion and prophetic ardour with which Sri Aurobindo had flung himself in the national movement aiming at a complete liberation of India. “I know I have the power to redeem this fallen race,” wrote Sri Aurobindo to his wife. “It is not physical power. I am not going to fight with sword or gun but the power of knowledge… This is not a new idea or a new feeling. I was born with it. It is in the marrow of my bones. It is to accomplish this mission that God had sent me to the earth.”
TOPIC 7:
Incident a) “There were three sides of Sri Aurobindo’s political ideas and activities. First, there was the action with which he started, a secret revolutionary propaganda and organisation of which the central object was the preparation of an armed insurrection.” (SABCL, 26, 21 )
To fulfil this plan, Sri Aurobindo sent a young. Bengali soldier from the Baroda army as his lieutenant to Bengal. ‘The idea was to establish secretly … under various pretexts and covers, revolutionary propaganda and recruiting throughout Bengal.” Incident b) The
revolutionary propaganda was planned to be spread through centres that were to be established in every town and in every village,societies of young men were to be established with various ostensible objects, cultural, intellectual or moral…
young men were to be trained in riding, physical training, athletics of various kinds so that they may be helpful for any ultimate military action. As soon as these ideas
were sown they gained a rapid growth. The existing small groups and the young men who had already the revolutionary aim took up the programme. Incident c) Meanwhile, Sri Aurobindo himself became a member of the Secret Society in Western India in order to generalise support for his plans in Bengal. TOPIC 8:
Incident a) The second side of Sri Aurobindo’s political ideas was to start “a public propaganda intended to convert the whole nation to the ideal of independence which was regarded, when he entered into politics, by the vast majority of Indians an unpractical and impossible, an almost insane chimera.” (SABCL 26, 21) Incident b) The public activity of Sri Aurobindo began with the writing of articles in the Indu Prakash under the caption ‘New Lamps for Old’. The nine articles written in this series within six months of his arrival in Baroda “vehemently denounced the then Congress policy of pray, petition and protest and called for a dynamic
leadership based upon self-help and fearlesness. But this outspoken and irrefutable criticism was checked by the action of a Moderate leader who frightened the editor and thus prevented any full development of his ideas in the paper; he had to turn aside to generalites... Finally, Sri Aurobindo suspended all public activity of this kind and worked only in secret till 1905”. (SABCL 26, 25) Incident c)
The times were not ripe for a public propaganda in the early 1893. So, Sri Aurobindo concentrated on “adroit incursions into the world of secret revolutionary activity” and at the same time took up the task of selecting ardent adherents to his revolutionary ideal so that, when the time was apportune these leaders could be put as the vanguards. It is with such an intention that he met in 1902 at the Ahmedabad
session of Congress, Lokamanya Tilak. Tilak seemed ‘one possible leader for a revolutionary party.’ Incident d) Sri Aurobindo also attended the Bombay and the Benares Congress in 1904 and in 1905 with a view to bring together the few like-minded leaders who were prepared to fight for a complete independence of India.
Incident e) With a view to reinforce his ideal of complete independence, Sri Aurobindo wrote two pamphlets, “No compromise” and “Bhavani Mandir”. Released just before the Partition of Bengal in 1905, these pamphlets proved to be ‘packets of political and spiritual dynamites’ causing endless nightmares to the high
British officials in Bengal while proving to be sources of a mighty inspiration to the ever expanding public propaganda that Sri Aurobindo had intended. TOPIC 9:
Incident a) As long as Sri Aurobindo was in the Baroda Service, he could not devote himself publicly in politics. So, he took in February 1906 a privilege leave
and went to Bengal. There he participated in the formation of the National Council of Education, Bengal. And the very next day, on March 12, 1906, he took up, at the suggestion of Barin, the editorship of a Bengali weekly, the Yugantar. In the very first articles of this weekly he preached “open revolt and the absolute denial of the British rule and include such items as a series of articles containing instructions for guerrilla warfare.” (SABCL 26, 24) Incident b) With the fire of nationalism already raging in his soul, the Barisal Provincial Conference, held in April 1906, added fuel to the inner fire. The brutal police atrocities bent upon crushing the renascent spirit of nationalism and the electrifying effect of the national cry of Bande Mataram brought home to Sri Aurobindo the urgent need of
political action. Sri Aurobindo then made a political tour of East Bengal accompanied by Bipin Pal in order to study the possibilities of his revolutionary plan and the general political atmosphere in Bengal. The mammoth meetings against the partition of Bengal and uninhibited mass contact with the proletariat convinced him that the time to enter the field action was ready. Incident c) Sri Aurobindo returned to Baroda in June 1906 but within a couple of weeks took leave on loss of pay for one year and went back to Calcutta. Mother India had called him to Bengal, for Bengal needed him. The call came in the form of an invitation to take charge of the newly founded Bengal National College in Calcutta. He hardly gave thought
to the new salary of the Principalship at the Bengal National College – he had to sacrifice a salary of Rs.750 to a salary of Rs.75 per month, later increased to Rs.150. On August 15, 1906, he joined the Bengal National College as its first Principal. “The Chapter of manifold intensive preparation closed, and a new chapter of
profound, dynamic spiritual sadhan and inspired, creative political action opened. And this dual activity, inner and outer, wrought the mosaic of India’s destiny.” (Rishabhchand, p. 154)
TOPIC 10:
Incident a) “I am not going to fight with sword or gun – but the power of knowledge. The prowess of the
Kshatriya (warrior) is not the only power; there is another power, the fire-power of the Brahmin, which is founded in knowledge,” wrote Sri Aurobindo to his wife Mrinalini Devi.
Incident b) Initially, he hadn’t much faith in that other ‘power’. “He watched the chaotic political scene in Bengal with dismay and
distress, and began, almost single – handedly, to bring order. His first work in the service to Mother India was to group together organisations and people who accepted the ideal of national independence. Although he had started this work right from an early age, it took a formal shape only in 1902. Deeply involved in such work, Sri Aurobindo had rejected all ideas of yoga, for, in the beginning his idea about yoga was that one had to retire into mountains and caves… and give up
everything.” “I was not prepared to do that,” said Sri Aurobindo, “for I was interested in the work for the freedom of my country.” Incident c) At the same, he also realised that his work for the freedom of the country involved other dimensions than the merely political and that it could not succeed by human effort
alone. A higher power of knowledge had to be harnassed for the fulfilment of the stupendous task before him. He felt that the great figures of the world could not have been after a chimera and if there was such a power why not use it for the freedom of the country.” (MC 5, 149) Incident d) “So in 1904, “He started
yoga by himself without a Guru, getting the rule from a friend, a disciple of Brahmanada of Ganga Math. It was confined at first to assiduous practice of pranayama (at one time for 6 hours or more a day). There was no conflict or wavering between yoga and politics; when he started yoga, he carried on both without any idea of opposition between them. He wanted however to find a Guru. He met a Naga Sannyasi in the course of this search, but did not accept him as Gurug, though he was confirmed
by him in a belief in Yoga-power when he saw him cure Barin in almost a moment of violent and clinging hill-fever with a knife while he repeated a silent Mantra. Barin drank and was cured.” (SABCL, 26, 50-51)
Incident e) So convinced was he with the yoga-power that he wanted to obtain it. But, it was not for personal
salvation or fame or desire for power but only for the spiritual strength that would see him through his mission. He prayed fervently, “If thou art, then thou knowest my heart. Thou knowest that I do not ask for any thing which others ask for. I ask only for strength to uplift this nation, I ask only to be allowed to live and work for this people whom I love and to whom I pray that I may devote my life.”
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