Aurobindo, Sri (1872-1950), was an Indian mystic, poet, and independence activist. In 1910, he withdrew from political activism and devoted himself to spiritual study and writing. Nearly all of Aurobindo’s writings were in English.
Before 1910, Aurobindo was a leader in India’s struggle for independence from the United Kingdom. He advocated a more extreme resistance to British rule than did the Indian National Congress, then the dominant pro-independence organization. For example, he called for a total boycott of British institutions. He also emphasized the importance of Hindu spirituality in the independence struggle, seeing these two ideas as inseparable. To him, India was a divine concept as well as a political one. In 1908, he was arrested on charges of terrorism. He was imprisoned for almost a year before being acquitted of the charges.
In 1910, Aurobindo moved to Pondicherry (now Puducherry), an area in southeastern India ruled at that time by France. He founded an ashram (religious community) there and began writing his works on mysticism, religion, and yoga. After 1926, he withdrew from the outside world. Although he continued to write, he left the administration of his ashram to the French-born Mira Richard, commonly known as “the Mother.”
During World War II (1939-1945), Aurobindo opposed Hitler’s Germany, which he saw as the triumph of barbarism. He supported the Allied war effort and upheld the idea of Indo-British cooperation within the Commonwealth of Nations.
In his writing, Aurobindo claimed that the material and spiritual worlds are united and that humanity needs to ascend to a consciousness that brings together the physical and spiritual worlds. The Life Divine (1939-1940) is an explanation of Aurobindo’s mystical and metaphysical system. In it, he outlines a structure of the higher (spiritual) and lower (physical) orders of being and explains that the goal of humanity is to achieve an understanding of, and a balance between, the different orders of being. This balance is another order of being, known as Supermind, which he believed to be the spiritual and evolutionary goal of humanity. Savitri: A Legend and a Symbol (1950-1951) is an epic poem in which Aurobindo follows the journey of a human being to spiritual perfection. His Collected Poems and Plays was published in 1942. Aurobindo’s vast body of published work also includes books on history, politics, philosophy, and mysticism, as well as volumes of autobiography and letters.
Aurobindo Ghose was born on Aug. 15, 1872, in Calcutta (now called Kolkata). He went to England at the age of 7 to study. He attended St. Paul’s School in London and King’s College, Cambridge University, where he studied Greek and Latin. He also learned English, French, Italian, and German. He returned to India in 1892 and was a civil servant and professor in the princely state of Baroda from that year to 1906. It was in Baroda that Aurobindo began his study of classical Indian literature and philosophy and of yoga. He died on Dec. 5, 1950.
