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On August 15, 1872, Sri Aurobindo was born in Kolkata. When he was seven years old, his parents moved him England for his studies. This was norm among the wealthy Indians during that time, so that they would be educated in the British system and find a good job when they returned to India. He attended King’s College in Cambridge as well as St. Paul’s School in London while he was there. When he eventually made it back to India in 1893, he spent the following thirteen years working for the King and teaching at Baroda College in the Princely State of Baroda. He also became a member of a revolutionary society during this time and played a key part in the covert planning of an uprising against the Indian government of the British.
He was arrested a few times and spent twelve months in the Alipore Jail, where he practiced yoga and was able to access his inner spiritual self. So he made the decision to step away from politics, at least temporarily.
He retired to the French enclave of Chandernagore in February of 1910, and at the beginning of April, he set sail for Pondicherry in French India. He was in Pondicherry until his Mahasamadhi. After practising yoga in silence for four years in Pondicherry, in 1914 he started publishing the Arya, a monthly journal of philosophy. His books The Life Divine, The Synthesis of Yoga, Essays on the Gita, The Isha Upanishad, and the majority of his more significant writing were serialised in the magazine Arya.
From his quotes below, we can see that spirituality can be cultivated. It is the hard work, the tapas that we should perform through self discipline, that will enable us to come closer to divine. We all believe that we should have been gifted, but from this quote we can clearly see that all of us has the potential to find the inner Divinity.
From Volume 26, SABCL, “On Himself”:
I had no urge toward spirituality in me, I developed spirituality. I was incapable of understanding metaphysics, I developed into a philosopher. I had no eye for painting — I developed it by Yoga. I transformed my nature from what it was to what it was not. I did it by a special manner, not by a miracle and I did it to show what could be done and how it could be done. I did not do it out of any personal necessity of my own or by a miracle without any process. I say that if it is not so, then my Yoga is useless and my life was a mistake — a mere absurd freak of Nature without meaning or consequence. You all seem to think it a great compliment to me to say that what I have done has no meaning for anybody except myself — it is the most damaging criticism on my work that could be made. I also did not do it by myself, if you mean by myself the Aurobindo that was. He did it by the help of Krishna and the Divine Shakti. I had help from human sources also.” p.148-9 (13-2-1935)
Sri Aurobindo left his body on December 5, 1950. The Mother carried on his work until November 17, 1973. Their work continues.
You can find more information about Sri Aurobindo and download the PDF version of his works here: https://www.sriaurobindoashram.org/sriaurobindo/writings.php
