Sri Aurobindo pronounced through his many works that “All life is Yoga”

Guru and freedom fighter Thursday August 14 2008 02:01 IST CHENNAI Aug 14, 2008
Swahilya

“INDIA is free but she has not achieved unity, only a fissured and broken freedom…The wisely drastic policy of the Constitutent Assembly makes it possible that the problem of the depressed classes will be solved without schism or fissure. But the old communal division into Hindu and Muslim seems to have hardened into the figure of a permanent political division of the country. It is to be hoped that the Congress and the nation will not accept the settled fact as for ever settled or as anything more than a temporary expedient. For if it lasts, India may be seriously weakened, even crippled: civil strife may remain always possible, possible even a new invasion and foreign conquest…By whatever means, the division must and will go. For without it, the destiny of India might be seriously impaired and even frustrated.”

Watching the happenings today in the country, we can understand the prophecy in the words. We still have time to catch up before the predictions happen in toto. They were uttered by none other than the spiritual master Sri Aurobindo who pronounced through his many works that “All life is Yoga.” His birthday falls on Independence Day – August 15.

As editor of the newspaper Bande Mataram, he put forward the idea of complete independence from Britain. Arrested three times for sedition or treason, he was released each time for lack of evidence. In 1910 he withdrew from politics and retired to Pondicherry in French India to focus on his inner life and work. Over the next 40 years he developed a new spiritual path called the Integral Yoga or Purna Yoga. Its ideal was to transform life by the power of a supramental consciousness.

He founded the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in 1926 with the help of his spiritual collaborator, The Mother. Some of his best known works which represent his vision of life are The Life Divine, The Synthesis of Yoga, Essays on the Gita and most importantly People throng the ashram in Pondicherry and other centres to meditate on his birthday. swahilya.soulmate@gmail.com