Sri Aurobindo

In News

• The Prime Minister of India will participate in a programme commemorating Sri Aurobindo’s 150th birth anniversary.

About Sri Aurobindo

• Born: in Calcutta on 15th August 1872
• Early Life:
  • Primary education from England – St. Paul’s School, London, and at King’s College, Cambridge. 
  • Returned to India in 1893 and worked for the next thirteen years in the Princely State of Baroda and as a professor in Baroda College. 
• Contributions to India’s Freedom Struggle:
  • He also joined a revolutionary society and took a leading role in secret preparations for an uprising against the British Government in India.
  • In 1906, soon after the Partition of Bengal, Sri Aurobindo quit his post in Baroda and went to Calcutta, where he soon became one of the leaders of the Nationalist movement.
  • He was the first political leader in India to openly put forward, in his newspaper Bande Mataram, the idea of complete independence for the country. 
  • Prosecuted twice for sedition and once for conspiracy, he was released each time for lack of evidence.
• Yogic Life:
  • Sri Aurobindo had begun the practice of Yoga in 1905 in Baroda. 
  • In 1908 he had the first of several fundamental spiritual realizations. 
  • In 1910 he withdrew from politics and went to Pondicherry in order to devote himself entirely to his inner spiritual life and work. 
  • During his forty years in Pondicherry he evolved a new method of spiritual practice, which he called the Integral Yoga. 
  • Its aim is a spiritual realization that not only liberates man’s consciousness but also transforms his nature. 
  • In 1926, with the help of his spiritual collaborator, the Mother, he founded the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. 
• Teachings: 
  • Propounded a philosophy of divine life on earth through spiritual evolution.
• Literary Works: 
  • The Life Divine, The Synthesis of Yoga and Savitri. 
  • wrote a series on Bankim Chandra’s Vande Mataram
• Achievements:
  • In 1943, he was nominated for the Nobel Prize for literature and in 1950, for the Nobel Peace Prize.
• Died on: 5 December 1950

Source: PIB