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Introduction
Seldom is man given to comprehend a personality like that of Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo is the synthesis between the East and the West; he
is the bridge between the Past and the Future and at the same time the visionary most relevant ‘here and now for you’!
He spent his most formative years in England, absorbing the highest ideals of the Western culture and experiencing the best and noblest
expressions of the West. Returning to India after fourteen years in the West, he dived into the deep foundations of the Eastern culture, as expressed and seen in India’s ancient culture. Thus gathering with his
consciousness the best of the Western and Eastern cultures plumbing into the depth of the divine achievements in the past of humanity, Sri Aurobindo launched himself on a perilous adventure towards a
new spiritual power, as yet unknown to man.
His Personality
And yet, when we analyse his life and personality, we see that, as Nolini Kanta Gupta writes, ‘He had never the consciousness of a
particular individual person: all reference to a personal frame of his was deleted from the texture of his nature and character.’ (Nolini Kanta Gupta, NKG 5/3) That is why, Sri Aurobindo had always discouraged
biographers to write about his life because his life on the outer level was only an expression of his inner growth of consciousness, which none could grasp.
His inner being, ‘not having to pass through the general gradations of any yoga, slowly moving from one experience to another higher one,
was one that was always stationed in a universal and transcendental consciousness.’ This ‘noumenal personality’, as Nolini Kanta Gupta labels, views ‘everything through the eyes of infinity and eternity, the eye
wide extended in heaven as the Vedic Rishi says, the third eye.’ (NKG 5/4)
a. Family Background
On the level of Sri Aurobindo’s family, the little that is known of his parents, brothers and sister is hardly of any importance – in the
sense, it did not at all influence his inner growth or his outer work. His marriage to Mrinalini Devi was hardly of any consequence, except that she was a person of reference of some inner and personal emotional
communication.
b. Political Framework
It is perhaps his political idealism and his spiritual efforts to liberate India that somewhat gives a frame to his impersonality.
The zeal and the vision with which he worked for his country’s freedom – all his writings, all his political contacts with revolutionary
leaders, his days in the prison in Calcutta, his fiery speeches in Bengal, were all but the stepping stones to a greater frame of humanity, the ideal of world unity. He did not limit himself to his success in his
plans for bringing freedom to India. He initiated them, put them on a firm foundation and moved to a larger frame – that of a human unity. After building up the consciousness of the nation-unit in India, after
arousing the dormant soul of India, he went further to awaken the dormant world-soul.
c. Humanity
For achieving this stupendous task, Sri Aurobindo yoked a greater Power than all the powers that existed upon earth – all the religious,
political, social powers were not sufficient to awaken and to bring together humanity and to tie it up in a unity expressing itself as a World-Unity. Sri Aurobindo did not work for humanity on the basis of the
religious ideal of human brotherhood, or equality or liberty, but, he saw all humanity as ‘the self-same being and personality’ of the one supreme Divine Consciousness. And for realising this vision of man and
mankind and to make it not a remote probability but an immediate possibility, Sri Aurobindo concentrated all his yogic energies in bringing down the Dynamic Force of the Divine: the Supramental Consciousness and
Power. He believed strongly:
‘Family, nationality, humanity are Vishnu’s three strides from an isolated to a collective unity. The first has been fulfilled, we yet
strive for the perfection of the second, towards the third we are reaching out our hands and the pioneer work is already attempted.’
Need for Supermind
But, Sri Aurobindo did not stop short with these three steps of Vishnu: he took the fourth stride – the step from humanity to divinity. ‘Man
must exceed himself if he is to fulfil himself. A new combination has to be found for family and nationality and even humanity. That connotation, Sri Aurobindo says, is divinity.’ (NKG 4/358)
Up until now man has been striving to raise himself both spirituality and materially through his own imperfect ways – such as science,
technology, philosophy, occultism and arts – and also through narrow religious ideology and theology seeking help from lower powers than the Divine. So, man’s progress has been slow, tardy and full of wars and
suffering. And, at present, mankind has reached a cul-de-sac, a crisis of consciousness. Mind is unable to extend any solution nor solace to his war-battered psyche and his materialistic death-traps. That is why Sri
Aurobindo seeks to transcend the Mental Man and bring down the Supramental Man who alone can deliver the suffering soul of mankind, bringing him peace and prosperity – both inner and outer.
Pioneers of the Spirit
This surpassing into the new Supramental Consciousness will not, of course involve the whole of humanity in the beginning. It is sufficient
to have the forerunners representing all nations of the world, all cultures of the earth who would aspire and work for this new creation beyond man. This is precisely the aim with which Auroville was started in
1968,in southern India, near Pondicherry. Auroville will be the cradle for the new humanity, envisaged by Sri Aurobindo and The Mother. It is the bridge between the human past and the divine future of humanity – a
solid world-base for the new creation. The snowball effect of Auroville will avalanche into larger and larger collectivities culminating in a world-body, a human unity.
New Basis
The old world is founded on the egoism; the new creation will be founded on the soul within man, the divine element that integrates the
individual as well as unifies the universal. As this soul–consciousness increases and takes control of man’s outer activities and the ego-centred consciousness expressing itself in demoniac ways, the animal
propensities in man will diminish and then vanish, giving way to the New Man. As such individuals increase in every part of the globe, a society based not only on co-operation, but on a consciousness of oneness will
emerge eliminating all suicidal competitive elements. In the long run even the nation-souls will bind themselves in a Federation of Free Nations.
Sri Aurobindo – His Consciousness
Towards such an ascent of man and mankind Sri Aurobindo worked for all his life: to lift mankind from his mental to the supramental level
which alone assures the continuity of mankind as well as its fulfilment. He personally laboured for such a transcendence of consciousness keeping in front of the Gita’s ideal of kartavyam karma – doing his duties selflessly. At the same time, he was not ascetic, withdrawing from external work in the world – he fulfilled his duties as patriotic citizen and lived as a world citizen – always in a large impersonal personality free from ego-senses which is the hallmark of a universal mind and personality.
Such is the consciousness of Sri Aurobindo – a cosmic consciousness manifesting gradually what is there in the womb of the future. He is not
only a pointer to the New Consciousness, but also the focus for the manifestation of the Supramental Force and Consciousness. We could, perhaps, best describe his vision, of which He is the harbinger, in his own
words:
All then shall change, a magic order come
Overtopping this mechanical universe.
A mightier race shall inhabit the mortal’s world
On nature’s luminous tops, on Spirit’s ground,
The supreme shall reign as king of life,
Make earth almost the mate and peer of heaven
And lead towards God and truth man’s ignorant heart
And lift towards godhead his mortality.
Savitri
And Sri Aurobindo is indeed the Pioneer to transform this earthly life into a life of divine.
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