Sri Aurobindo Ghosh

About Sri Aurobindo Ghosh:

Early Life & Career:

• Born to surgeon Krishna Dhan Ghose and Swarnalata Devi in Calcutta on August 15, 1872.
• He passed the Indian Civil Service Examination in 1890 but failed in the horsemanship test due to which he could not enter the service.
• In 1893, he accepted an appointment in the Baroda state service.
• He worked for 13 years and rose to the post of principal of the Baroda State College.
• Later, he left his job at Baroda to join the Bengal National College.

Revolutionary Streak:

• He became a leading figure in the freedom movement and used to write fearless articles for the English newspaper Bande Mataram.
• He also contributed articles to the Bengali weekly Yugantar.
• Later, he started the weekly English journal titled Dharma, in which he tried to convey the message of Swaraj or freedom from British rule.
• He was one of the founders of the youth club Anushilan Samiti which protested against the atrocities of the British government.
• He was one of the leading protesters against the 1905 Partition of Bengal and called on the citizens to boycott British institutions and goods.
• He took part in the 1906 session of the Indian National Congress and was a member of the team which set four objectives-Swadeshi, Swaraj, education and boycott.

Alipore Bomb Case

• Aurobindo, a revolutionary and a militant nationalist, was charged in the Alipore Bomb Case (1906-1910) and was sentenced to jail.
• He spent one year in solitary confinement at the Alipore Central Jail in Calcutta.
• Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das fought his case and Ghosh was released.

Spiritualism at Puducherry:

• He decided to give up active politics after his stint in jail and devoted himself to spiritualism.
• In 1910, he left British India and found refuge in the French colony of Pondichéry (now called ‘Puducherry’) in southeastern India.
• He founded a community of spiritual seekers, which took shape as the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in 1926.
• He devoted himself for the rest of his life to the development of his “integral” yoga.
• The main objective of his teachings was to increase the level of consciousness of people and to aware people of their true selves.

Work:

• Aurobindo’s voluminous literary work comprises philosophical speculation, many treatises on yoga and integral yoga, poetry, plays, and other writings.

His major works include:

• Essays on the Gita (1922),
• The Life Divine (1939)
• Collected Poems and Plays (1942),
• The Synthesis of Yoga (1948),
• The Human Cycle (1949),
• The Ideal of Human Unity (1949),
• Savitri: A Legend and a Symbol (1950),
• On the Veda (1956).

Q1) What is Integral Yoga?

Integral Yoga is a flexible combination of specific methods designed to develop every aspect of the individual: physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. It is a scientific system that integrates the various branches of Yoga to bring about a complete and harmonious development of the individual.

Source: All India Radio

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