“The “latent” philosopher failed to come out at the first shot (when I was in Calcutta) - after some years of incubation (?) it burst out like a volcano as soon as I started writing the Arya.” 4 Interestingly, after six months, on 1-4-1935, he wrote to another disciple: That was what Sri Aurobindo had written to a disciple on 4-9-1934. ![]() How I managed to do it and why? First, because X proposed to me to co-operate in a philosophical review - and as my theory was that a Yogi ought to be able to turn his hand to anything, I could not very well refuse … Secondly, because I had only to write down in the terms of the intellect all that I had observed and come to know in practising Yoga daily and the philosophy was there automatically. I knew precious little about philosophy before I did the Yoga and came to Pondicherry - I was a poet and a politician, not a philosopher. “Let me tell you in confidence that I never, never, never was a philosopher-although I have written philosophy which is another story altogether. “And philosophy!” exclaimed Sri Aurobindo: And among the bearers of this great tradition in India, one of the greatest, particularly in the present age, has been Sri Aurobindo.” 2 Their words still enable men everywhere to lift up their hearts for a vision of Truth and Beauty. “…one of the great band of divine choristers in the history of man … The Priest-Kings of Babylon and of Egypt, the Rishis of India, the Prophets of Israel, the Sages of China, the Philosophers of Greece, the Sufis or Wise Men of Islam: - they form a noble band of singers and choristers of the Unseen. Indeed, as Suniti Kumar Chartterji opined in his speech at the National Seminar held in honour of Sri Aurobindo’s birth Centenary, 1972, New Delhi, Sri Aurobindo was: “After Sri Aurobindo’s passing on 5 December 1950, his Ashram only grew in strength of numbers and range of activities, and his mystic Presence was felt in the Ashram as powerfully as before.” 1 Like the matrix of the future, the Ashram began taking shape from 1920, and more actively after 24 November 1926 when Sri Aurobindo withdrew into silence and gave her a free hand. “Again, what was the lilā of the Supreme when it brought Madame Mirra Richard ( née Alfassa), later to be known as the Mother, to Pondicherry to meet Sri Aurobindo on 29 March 1914, and so help the launching of the Arya four months later? It was her presence too that made the establishment of Sri Aurobindo Ashram possible. He embarked on a deep study of the Veda, and he explored the infinitudes of the Supermind … ![]() ![]() What was the quirk of destiny that sent this magnetic enigmatic figure - this Bengali with his Cambridge and Baroda antecedents, this leader in whom Brahmabandhab Upadhyaya had found “the Bhavananda, Jivananda and Dhirananda of Rishi Bankim all in one” - to a corner of South India, a French colonial possession in Tamil Nad? He met there other political exiles from India like Subramania Bharati, V.V.S. But when he retired to Pondicherry in April 1910 (he was still under forty), he gradually receded from the public consciousness except for the small section that read the Arya as it appeared month after month from 15 August 1914 for over six years. The Bande Mataram prosecution of 1907 and the Alipur Trial of 1908-9 made him something of a martyr as well. “Soon after the turn of the century, Sri Aurobindo was already a well-known figure on the Indian political scene, and took an active part in the agitation following the (first) “Partition of Bengal” of almost seventy years ago. Das and Chidambaram Pillai, a man of God like Guru Nanak and Namdev, an intrepid apostle like Gobind Singh and Vivekananda,… a poet like Tagore, a particular kind of poet like Dante - and there are many who believe that he was also an avatar like the Buddha … ![]() “Sri Aurobindo was a revolutionary like Lenin, a patriot like Tilak, C. Srinivasa Iyengar-the most authentic biographer of Sri Aurobindo: I think that the best I can do to give a snap-shot of Sri Aurobindo’s outer personality, which was hardly on the surface for men to see and understand, is to quote from K.R.
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