Vageesh Express

Vedic Guru

May 2007 Edition

||Sri Gurubhyo Namah||

In 2006,‘Vedic Guru’ revered the lives of saints who lived in the 19th century and before.

In 2007, we humbly honor Gurus of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Sri Aurobindo

Spirituality is the master key of the Indian mind.

It is this dominant inclination of India which gives character.

- Sri Aurobindo

None can reach heaven Who has not Passed through hell. - Sri Aurobindo

Sri Aurobindo was born Aurobindo Akroyd Ghose in Kolkata, India, on 15th August, 1872. After schooling in Darjeeling, Aurobindo and his brothers were taken to England where Aurobindo trained and excelled in Greek and Latin. At St. Paul's School, London, he received the Butterworth Prize for literature, the Bedford Prize for history and a scholarship to King's College, Cambridge University. He returned to India in 1893.

As the leader of a group of Indian nationalists known as Extremists and as editor of Vande Mataram, a nationalist Bengali newspaper, Aurobindo had several clashes with the British Raj. His life transformed when he met a Yogi, Vishnu Bhaskar Lele who steered him towards exploring ancient Hindu Yogic practices. As a prisoner in the Alipur jai, he was inspired into deep meditation by the Bhagavad Gita. After he was acquitted, he was sought again by the Indian police and in year 1910, he found refuge in the French colony of Pondicherry.

Among Sri Aurobindo's innumerable spiritual works are The Life Divine, The Synthesis of Yoga, Essays on The Gita, The Secret of The Veda, Hymns to the Mystic Fire, The Upanishads, The Foundations of Indian Culture, War and Self-determination, The Human Cycle, The Ideal of Human Unity, Savitri, and The Future Poetry. The Mother is a book that is looked as an "instruction manual" for the practice of the Integral Yoga.

Sri Aurobindo's spiritual collaborator was Mirra Richard, known as The Mother. She was born in Paris on February 21, 1878. When Sri Aurobindo died in 1950, the Mother continued the spiritual work of the Ashram. She started Auroville, an international township sponsored by UNESCO. She passed away on November 17, 1973.

Sri Aurobindo was not in favour of a traditional Indian thinking that turning away from the World as Maya and living the life of a renunciate was the way to Moksha. He said that people can be enlightened while enjoying the world, by following all the paths of Yogas - Gyan, Bhakti, Karma, Tantra as one philosophy, which he called Purna or Integral Yoga.

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