Sri Aurobindo Ghosh

Table of Contents☰

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