La bhagavad gita sri aurobindo biography

He returned to India in He later attended Cambridge University , studying classics, poetry, and language. Although the society was short-lived, this experience led Aurobindo to believe that Indian freedom from Britain was imminent, and that he should return to India to be part of the nationalist movement. He began to write articles for a daily newspaper which encouraged Indians to work toward freedom, stating that the true enemy was not the British, but the weak resolve of the Indian people.

During this period, Aurobindo took an interest in aspects of Indian culture that had eluded him during his childhood in Britain. He studied yoga , and mastered several Indian languages. In , he accepted presidency of the new National College, which reflected his own political values. Soon, he was identified as a national leader in the Indian freedom movement.

During the First Partition of Bengal from to , he became a leader of the group of Indian nationalists known as the Extremists for their willingness to use violence and advocate outright independence, a plank more moderate nationalists had shied away from up to that point. He was one of the founders of Jugantar party, an underground revolutionary outfit.

In he attended a convention of Indian nationalists where he was seen as the new leader of the movement. However, his life was beginning to take a new direction. In Baroda he met a Maharashtrian yogi called Vishnu Bhaskar Lele who convinced him to explore the ancient Hindu practices of yoga. Thereafter, it is said that he experienced a change of consciousness , which he described as an overwhelming feeling of silence, peace, and freedom.

On May 4, , Aurobindo was arrested for his alleged involvement in this incident. Though eventually acquitted, he remained in prison for one year during the investigation of the crime. Aurobindo later stated that his imprisonment initially led him to question God , but eventually, he heard a voice which told him that his experiences in prison would help him with his future work in a different area.

During his incarceration, it is said that Aurobindo had another spiritual experience, in which he could see the divinity in all those around him, including thieves and murderers. Aurobindo began to conceptualize divinity as more than an incomprehensible ultimate reality, but a force that represents the goodness in all beings. While in jail, Sri Aurobindo claimed to be visited, in his meditation, by the renowned Swami Vivekananda , a Hindu philosopher of great importance to Advaita Vedanta.

The swami guided Sri Aurobindo's yoga and helped him to scale great heights. It was there Sri Aurobindo saw the convicts, jailers, policemen, the prison bars, the trees, the judge, the lawyer etc. Sri Aurobindo was even able to see compassion, honesty, and charity in the hearts of murderers. The trial for which he was incarcerated was one of the most important trials in Indian nationalism movement.

There were 49 accused and witnesses. The English judge, C. Beechcroft, had been a student with Sri Aurobindo at Cambridge. The Chief Prosecutor Eardley Norton displayed a loaded revolver on his briefcase during the trial. The case for Sri Aurobindo was taken up by Chittaranjan Das. Chittaranjan Das, in his conclusion to the Judge, said: "My appeal to you is this, that long after the controversy will be hushed in silence, long after this turmoil, this agitation will have ceased, long after he Sri Aurobindo is dead and gone, he will be looked upon as the poet of patriotism, as the prophet of nationalism and lover of humanity.

Long after he is dead and gone, his words will be echoed and re-echoed, not only in India, but across distant seas and lands. Therefore, I say that the man in his position is not only standing before the bar of this Court, but before the bar of the High Court of History. Aurobindo was acquitted. After his year in prison, Aurobindo joined the revolutionaries once more.

He began two weekly newspapers, Dharma in Bengali and Karmayogin in English. However, it appeared that the British government would not tolerate his nationalist program as Lord Minto wrote about him: "I can only repeat that he is the most dangerous man we have to reckon with. Jnana Yoga Course. Course Realization of the Bhagavad Gita. Buy Book Gita in Spanish.

Instagram Top of page. Pedro Nonell and The Gita. After returning to India he took up various civil service works under the Maharaja of the princely state of Baroda and became increasingly involved in nationalist politics in the Indian National Congress and the nascent revolutionary movement in Bengal with the Anushilan Samiti. He was arrested in the aftermath of a number of bombings linked to his organization in a public trial where he faced charges of treason for Alipore Conspiracy.

However, Sri Aurobindo could only be convicted and imprisoned for writing articles against British colonial rule in India. He was released when no evidence could be provided, following the murder of a prosecution witness, Narendranath Goswami, during the trial. During his stay in the jail, he had mystical and spiritual experiences, after which he moved to Pondicherry , leaving politics for spiritual work.

The central theme of his vision was the evolution of human life into a divine life in a divine body. He believed in a spiritual realisation that not only liberated but transformed human nature, enabling a divine life on earth. Sri Aurobindo was nominated twice for the Nobel prize without it being awarded, in for the Nobel award in Literature and in for the Nobel award in Peace.

His main literary works are The Life Divine , which deals with the philosophical aspect of Integral Yoga; [ 5 ] Synthesis of Yoga , which deals with the principles and methods of Integral Yoga; [ 6 ] and Savitri: A Legend and a Symbol , an epic poem. She had been sent to the more salubrious surroundings of Calcutta for Aurobindo's birth.

Aurobindo had two elder siblings, Benoybhusan and Manmohan , a younger sister, Sarojini, and a younger brother, Barindra Kumar also referred to as Barin. Young Aurobindo was brought up speaking English, but used Hindustani to communicate with servants. Although his family were Bengali , his father believed British culture to be superior. He and his two elder siblings were sent to the English-speaking Loreto House boarding school in Darjeeling , in part to improve their language skills and in part to distance them from their mother, who had developed a mental illness soon after the birth of her first child.

Darjeeling was a centre of Anglo-Indians in India and the school was run by Irish nuns, through which the boys would have been exposed to Christian religious teachings and symbolism. To achieve this it was necessary that they study in England and so it was there that the entire family moved in Drewett in Manchester. The boys were taught Latin by Drewett and his wife.

This was a prerequisite for admission to good English schools and, after two years, in , the elder two siblings were enrolled at Manchester Grammar School. Aurobindo was considered too young for enrollment, and he continued his studies with the Drewetts, learning history, Latin, French , geography and arithmetic. Although the Drewetts were told not to teach religion, the boys inevitably were exposed to Christian teachings and events, which generally bored Aurobindo and sometimes repulsed him.

There was little contact with his father, who wrote only a few letters to his sons while they were in England, but what communication there was indicated that he was becoming less endeared to the British in India than he had been, on one occasion describing the British colonial government as "heartless". Drewett emigrated to Australia in , causing the boys to be uprooted as they went to live with Drewett's mother in London.

By , Manmohan had determined to pursue a literary career and Benoybhusan had proved himself unequal to the standards necessary for ICS entrance. This meant that only Aurobindo might fulfill his father's aspirations but to do so when his father lacked money required that he studied hard for a scholarship. Aurobindo secured a scholarship at King's College, Cambridge, under recommendation of Oscar Browning.

He spent the next two years at King's College. He began to learn Bengali and joined a secret society, romantically named 'Lotus and Dagger', where the members took an oath to work for India's freedom. Cotton secured for him a place in Baroda State Service and arranged for him to meet the prince. His father died upon hearing this news. In Baroda , Aurobindo joined the state service in , working first in the Survey and Settlements department, later moving to the Department of Revenue and then to the Secretariat, and much miscellaneous work like teaching grammar and assisting in writing speeches for the Maharaja of Gaekwad until He was later promoted to the post of vice-principal.

During his stay at Baroda, he had contributed to many articles to Indu Prakash and had spoken as a chairman of the Baroda college board. He linked up with resistance groups in Bengal and Madhya Pradesh , while travelling to these states. Aurobindo established contact with Lokmanya Tilak and Sister Nivedita. Aurobindo often travelled between Baroda and Bengal, at first in a bid to re-establish links with his parents' families and other Bengali relatives, including his sister Sarojini and brother Barin, and later increased to establish resistance groups across the Presidency.

He formally moved to Calcutta in after the announcement of the Partition of Bengal. In , on a visit to Calcutta, he married year-old Mrinalini, the daughter of Bhupal Chandra Bose, a senior official in government service. Aurobindo was 28 at that time. Mrinalini died seventeen years later in December during the influenza pandemic. In , Aurobindo was appointed the first principal of the National College in Calcutta, started to impart national education to Indian youth.

Aurobindo was influenced by studies on rebellion and revolutions against England in medieval France and the revolts in America and Italy. In his public activities, he favored Non cooperation and Passive resistance ; in private he took up secret revolutionary activity as a preparation for open revolt, in case that the passive revolt failed.

He helped establish a series of youth clubs, including the Anushilan Samiti of Calcutta in Aurobindo attended the Congress meeting headed by Dadabhai Naoroji and participated as a councilor in forming the fourfold objectives of "Swaraj, Swadesh, Boycott, and national education". In at the Surat session of Congress where moderates and extremists had a major showdown, he led along with extremists along with Bal Gangadhar Tilak.

The Congress split after this session. He was arrested again in May in connection with the Alipore Bomb Case. He was acquitted in the ensuing trial, following the murder of chief prosecution witness Naren Goswami within jail premises, which subsequently led to the case against him collapsing. Aurobindo was subsequently released after a year of isolated incarceration.

Once out of the prison he started two new publications, Karmayogin in English and Dharma in Bengali. He also delivered the, Uttarpara Speech hinting at the transformation of his focus to spiritual matters. Repression from the British colonial government against him continued because of his writings in his new journals and in April Aurobindo moved to Pondicherry, where the British colonial secret police monitored his activities.

This sparked an outburst of public anger against the British, leading to civil unrest and a nationalist campaign by groups of revolutionaries that included Aurobindo. In , Khudiram Bose and Prafulla Chaki attempted to kill Magistrate Kingsford, a judge known for handing down particularly severe sentences against nationalists. However, the bomb thrown at his horse carriage missed its target and instead landed in another carriage and killed two British women, the wife and daughter of barrister Pringle Kennedy.

Aurobindo was also arrested on charges of planning and overseeing the attack and imprisoned in solitary confinement in Alipore Jail. The trial of the Alipore Bomb Case lasted for a year, but eventually, he was acquitted on 6 May His defense counsel was Chittaranjan Das. During this period in the Jail, his view of life was radically changed due to spiritual experiences and realizations.

Consequently, his aim went far beyond the service and liberation of the country. Aurobindo said he was "visited" by Vivekananda in the Alipore Jail: "It is a fact that I was hearing constantly the voice of Vivekananda speaking to me for a fortnight in the jail in my solitary meditation and felt his presence. In his autobiographical notes, Aurobindo said he felt a vast sense of calmness when he first came back to India.

He could not explain this and continued to have various such experiences from time to time. He knew nothing of yoga at that time and started his practice of it without a teacher, except for some rules that he learned from Mr. Aurobindo was influenced by the guidance he got from the yogi, who had instructed Aurobindo to depend on an inner guide and any kind of external guru or guidance would not be required.

In Aurobindo withdrew himself from all political activities and went into hiding at Chandannagar in the house of Motilal Roy , while the British colonial government were attempting to prosecute him for sedition on the basis of a signed article titled 'To My Countrymen', published in Karmayogin. As Aurobindo disappeared from view, the warrant was held back and the prosecution postponed.

Aurobindo manoeuvred the police into open action and a warrant was issued on 4 April , but the warrant could not be executed because on that date he had reached Pondicherry, then a French colony. In Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo dedicated himself to his spiritual and philosophical pursuits. In , after four years of secluded yoga, he started a monthly philosophical magazine called Arya.

This ceased publication in Many years later, he revised some of these works before they were published in book form. At the beginning of his stay at Pondicherry, there were few followers, but with time their numbers grew, resulting in the formation of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in For some time afterwards, his main literary output was his voluminous correspondence with his disciples.

His letters, most of which were written in the s, numbered in the several thousand. Many were brief comments made in the margins of his disciple's notebooks in answer to their questions and reports of their spiritual practice—others extended to several pages of carefully composed explanations of practical aspects of his teachings. These were later collected and published in book form in three volumes of Letters on Yoga.

In the late s, he resumed work on a poem he had started earlier—he continued to expand and revise this poem for the rest of his life. On 15 August , Sri Aurobindo strongly opposed the partition of India , stating that he hoped "the Nation will not accept the settled fact as for ever settled, or as anything more than a temporary expedient. Sri Aurobindo died on 5 December , of uremia.

Around 60, people attended to see his body resting peacefully. National and international newspapers commemorated his death. In her 20s she studied occultism with Max Theon. Along with her husband, Paul Richard, she went to Pondicherry on 29 March , [ 60 ] and finally settled there in Sri Aurobindo considered her his spiritual equal and collaborator.

After 24 November , when Sri Aurobindo retired into seclusion, he left it to her to plan, build and run the ashram, the community of disciples which had gathered around them. Sometime later, when families with children joined the ashram, she established and supervised the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education with its experiments in the field of education.

When he died in , she continued their spiritual work, directed the ashram, and guided their disciples. As such he argued that the end goal of spiritual practice could not merely be a liberation from the world into Samadhi but would also be that of descent of the Divine into the world in order to transform it into a Divine existence. Thus, this constituted the purpose of Integral Yoga.

Sri Aurobindo believed that Darwinism merely describes a phenomenon of the evolution of matter into life, but does not explain the reason behind it, while he finds life to be already present in matter, because all of existence is a manifestation of Brahman. He argues that nature which he interpreted as divine has evolved life out of matter and the mind out of life.

All of existence, he argues, is attempting to manifest to the level of the supermind — that evolution had a purpose. From the time of its first appearance, the Gita has had an immense spiritual action; but with the new interpretation that Sri Aurobindo has given to it, its influence has increased considerably and has become decisive.

La bhagavad gita sri aurobindo biography

It is his own reading of the Gita. One can say that the Gita shows the way to something further or to our Yoga. What it speaks of is the need to act from a spiritual consciousness using the instruments of the human mind, vital, etc. In that case my claim that our Yoga is new doesn't hold good, and the man who said that the Gita speaks of transformation would be right.

The Gita follows the Vedantic tradition which leans entirely on the Ishwara aspect of the Divine and speaks little of the Divine Mother because its object is to draw back from world-nature and arrive at the supreme realisation beyond it; the Tantrik tradition leans on the Shakti or Ishwari aspect and makes all depend on the Divine Mother, because its object is to possess and dominate the world-nature and arrive at the supreme realisation through it.