Sri Aurobindo: The Infinite

Fulfilling the vision of the sages,

With smiling face opens to-day

Our Mother's body is not amputated.

Though even now Her glow and grace

It is the festival of awakening of our Mother;

Our Mother is bringing for us Her casket

We shall bestow to the comity of nations, to the world at large

We shall satisfy by the favour of our Mother

The vision of Jesus Christ — the Kingdom of Heaven —

Narayan is revealed today in man

Victory of the Creator, victory of Bharatvarsha,

Is indicated today, and of the Golden Age

```

August 15th, 1945<sup>55</sup>

God in human form

To touch and feel

Comrades, His Victory

All our world-responsibility-obligations.

O Lord Absolute,

Shall satisfy You with our

We embody certainty's life

Our journey's birthless

Lovingly, prayerfully and soulfully

From the Consciousness-Ocean-Beyond

Place it at Your Feet

A poltroon-body, a dunce-mind,

We never shall be.

In the newness-vortex

No sorrow, no diffidence,

Before Your blessingful, august Presence.

Shall we offer our fear-surrender.

You to invoke

Our mind's seraglio-cave,

Occupy our mind, shunning

Together, in oneness-heart,

You if we fail to receive and achieve,

Its utter worthlessness and uselessness.

Singing our Master's Victory-Song,

Shall walk along Eternity's Road

Like fully blossomed flowers,

Our sweet redolence-fragrance.

Our journey's progress-march.

Your new Message we shall carry

We shall be self-discoverers;

Refrain

God in human form

To touch and feel

Comrades, His Victory

All our world-responsibility-obligations.

O Summit-Soul supreme,

To keep our hearts

In all,

And the higher than the highest,

Sleeplessly Your Victory-Song

You are a perfect stranger

You are at once the chosen Haven

You are Your Life's Sweetness-Affection

None can dare fathom

To offer You our raison d’être,

Your Infinity's Height,

All the bondage-shackles

Refrain

God in human form

To touch and feel

Comrades, His Victory

All our world-responsibility-obligations.

To spread Your Compassion-flooded

Here on earth,

Our very last breath.

Even if we fail to muster

At each hush-gap,

Shall not permit ourselves

While enjoying a short respite,

And fly Your Victory-Banner

A day shall dawn

Only by virtue of

Shall proclaim our world-conquest

No iota of wealth You own;

O Lord Supreme,

Your boundless Bounty

Our stark mind-confines.

Refrain

God in human form

To touch and feel

Comrades, His Victory

All our world-responsibility-obligations.

If any bosom pines

Then presto!

Your world-pleasure-plethora.

When all world-attachments leave you,

To join our group

The rich and the poor,

All those who inhabit the world —

We shall see the living Presence of God,

If ever we become pride-victims,

That Your infinite Compassion-Treasure

We, the ever-blossoming souls,

In preserving

Refrain

God in human form

To touch and feel

Comrades, His Victory

All our world-responsibility-obligations.

He whom the holy saints

In perfect amity worship,

Invoke to claim as their own.

He has taken human form

In His happiness

In His sadness

To each and every soul,

Our hearts' newness-strength.

Shall dive deep

O Lord Absolute,

With Your Compassion-Flood.

Ever be found

O Transcendental Height,

To You we bow.

To our earthly gains and losses

To Your Service-Light.

Refrain

God in human form

To touch and feel

Comrades, His Victory

All our world-responsibility-obligations.

O Lord of the ever-transcending Beyond,

In Your birthless and deathless Light.

All utterly lost human souls

Vishma, Dadichi, Arjuna, Drona,

Were all indomitable hero-souls

With their loftiest tower-majesty-heads.

You have inundated us

By virtue of Your Blessings,

Shall equal those immortal souls

O Lord, Your Consciousness

And the Himaloy-pinnacle-heights.

And in ocean-expanse

In perfect oneness.

O Lord Absolute,

The saints, sages and yogis

Proclaim Your Victory

Refrain

God in human form

To touch and feel

Comrades, His Victory

All our world-responsibility-obligations.

If ever others speak ill of us,

In return.

That the Absolute Lord Supreme abides,

How can we ever torture

The way the Life-Force

Resides in us

The Life-Force abides in all,

Each and every human being.

You are the Source

Before You we place

And adoration-surrender.

No iota of fear have we

Our wee, puny and paltry gifts,

You are the Compassion-Lord

You are the Vision-Light

You are our Eternity's only Friend.

Refrain

God in human form

To touch and feel

Comrades, His Victory

All our world-responsibility-obligations.

Like the most insignificant service

To the ocean-surface,

Is equally and unmistakably

Notwithstanding, lovingly

To bless us

In fire and water,

Seeing You, Your Meditation-Trance,

Your immortal Beauty.

They are our pioneers.

To reach Your hallowed Feet.

We are weaving the garland

Prayerful and soulful:

"Victory, victory, victory

The Guru Supreme of the Universe!"

Repeating this incantation,

Eternity's sweetness-purity-breath.

O Lord Supreme,

An earthly cloak.

Our surrender unconditional

Here on earth.

Refrain

God in human form

To touch and feel

Comrades, His Victory

All our world-responsibility-obligations.

"Savitri"<sup>56</sup>

Savitri, wonder-light of the Seer supreme!

Stretching to perfection's knowledge-sun clay-boughs

At every step tearing the frown of Doom,

Our heart can dwell beyond the clutch of fate:

```

"The Life Divine"⁵⁷

The only way to grow

We are in a ceaseless flow

Truly, no end there is

Behold!

Transforms our nature dark.

Our oneness with Him we own

We meet: the Truth is revealed —

```

A strange coincidence: with the start of the first World War, shaking human life and culture to their foundations with its unprecedented horrors, the world-saving message of The Life Divine found publication.

Part III — Essays

Sri Aurobindo: a glimpse<sup>58</sup>

At the age of five, Aurobindo was sent to Loreto Convent School in Darjeeling for two years. Strangely enough, it was to this same convent that Mother Teresa was sent when she first arrived in India in 1929 at the age of eighteen.

When Aurobindo was just seven years old, his father took him and his two older brothers to England to receive their education. Aurobindo was to remain in England for fourteen years, far removed from his parents and his homeland. He attended St. Paul's School in London for five years and was accepted into King's College, Cambridge, as an Indian Civil Service (I.C.S.) probationer. Aurobindo was at Cambridge from October 1890 to October 1892. He secured a First-Class result in Latin and Greek, but was disqualified from the open I.C.S. examination for failing to present himself for the riding test. In later years, Sri Aurobindo revealed that he was wandering the streets of London at the time of his appointment. He had resolved to bring about his rejection from the I.C.S. because he felt no call for the administrative life. He preferred poetry, literature, the study of languages and patriotic activities.

At this time, he was introduced to the Gaekwar of Baroda, who offered him a position in his State Secretariat. Aurobindo accepted the position and decided to sail for India in January 1893. Aurobindo's father was extremely attached to this son, whom he had not seen for fourteen years. He had almost intuitive high hopes that his Auro was to brighten the face of India. Alas, the ship which was to carry Aurobindo sank off the coast of Portugal. On the assumption that his son must have perished with the lost ship, his father died of a broken heart. But Aurobindo boarded a second ship and he reached India safely in February 1893.

As soon as Aurobindo stepped on India's soil at Apollo Bunder, Bombay, he had a most significant spiritual experience. His entire being was inundated with peace. The all-pervading Presence of the Infinite he felt. This lofty experience came to him unsought. Aurobindo's father had been an atheist and his children's upbringing in England did not encompass spirituality. Aurobindo's spiritual experiences came to him gradually.

Aurobindo's mother, Swarnalata, was extremely beautiful. She was known as "the Rose of Rangpur." A most poignant moment occurred when Aurobindo and his mother were reunited. To the family's intense sorrow, over the passage of years she had lost her mental balance and could not recognise her Aurobindo. Only by looking at an old scar on his finger could she verify that it was her own son who had returned.

Aurobindo spent thirteen years in the Baroda State Service, first in the Secretariat, later as Professor of French and English, and finally as Vice-Principal of the Baroda State College. Consecrated to India's independence from his Cambridge days, he devoted his spare time to learning Indian languages, absorbing Indian culture and practising yoga. He conducted secret societies for work towards independence and wrote political articles constructively criticising the thinking of India's political leaders of the National Congress.

In 1903 the Maharaja took Aurobindo with him as secretary on a tour to Kashmir. There, on Shankaracharya Hill, high above the valley of Kashmir, Aurobindo had a vivid experience of the vacant Infinite. This experience left an abiding impression on his mind.

In 1906 the National Movement, centring around the Partition of Bengal, brought Aurobindo to Calcutta. While Principal of the Bengal National College, he conducted the journals Bande Mataram in English and Yugantar in Bengali. A leader of the secret societies, he also worked ceaselessly — publicly and behind the scenes — sowing the seeds of love of country and her independence in the national mind and heart. As Aurobindo's stars were ascending in Bengal politics, India's greatest poet Rabindranath Tagore — a patriot and nationalist of the supreme height — proudly and unreservedly voiced forth from his unhorizoned vision-eye:

> "Aurobindo, do accept Rabindranath's salutations!

> You embody the living message-image-light

> (translated from the original Bengali)

Aurobindo's contributions to the cause of lndian independence were also highly appreciated by the towering trinity of Lal-Bal-Pal — Lala Lajpat Rai, Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Bipin Chandra Pal. Pal, who was one of Aurobindo's closest colleagues in those days, cheerfully accepted six months' rigorous imprisonment just to keep his cherished friend Aurobindo at large.

In 1907 Aurobindo resigned from the Bengal National College. At his farewell party, Aurobindo's students asked him for some words of advice. He responded with a momentous and soul-stirring speech, saying:

> "...There are times in a nation's history when Providence places before it one work, one aim, to which everything else, however high and noble in itself, has to be sacrificed, Such a time has now arrived for our Motherland when nothing is dearer than her service, when everything else is to be directed to that end....Work that she may prosper. Suffer that she may rejoice."

Hand in hand with his political activities of those days, Aurobindo also pursued his spiritual inclinations. He took as his spiritual guide a yogi by the name of Vishnu Bhaskar Lele. Just before meeting with Aurobindo, Lele had the intuition that he was about to give initiation to a very great soul. In 1908 Aurobindo stayed with Lele for three days and Lele instructed him in meditation, specially how to make his mind completely blank. Lele was extremely proud of his student. What it had taken Lele himself six long years to accomplish, Aurobindo accomplished in just three days. He far surpassed Lele.

On May 4th, 1908 Aurobindo was suddenly arrested on charges of sedition and imprisoned in Alipore Jail. He was to remain there for twelve months. This period of enforced seclusion was actually a blessing in disguise for Aurobindo. It enabled him to carry on his yoga uninterrupted and he passed hour after hour in his cramped cell in silent contemplation. For fifteen days he vividly heard the voice of Swami Vivekananda speaking to him about the Supermind. As Aurobindo Ghose progressed towards his God-realisation, he had the vision of Vasudeva, Lord Krishna, everywhere and in everything. Sri Krishna assured him that He would work in and through Aurobindo's junior counsel, Chitta Ranjan Das, to secure Aurobindo's acquittal. Sri Krishna also gave Aurobindo direct assurance that India's independence would be achieved — but that the rest of the work towards that end would be carried out by others, while he himself would have to work for a higher Cause.

While concluding the case for the defence, C. R. Das said:

> "...My appeal to you is this — that long after this turmoil, this agitation will have ceased, long after he is dead and gone, he will be looked upon as the poet of patriotism, as the prophet of nationalism and the 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...."

After his acquittal on May 6th, 1909 Sri Aurobindo started two publications: the Dharma in Bengali and the Karmayogin in English. In 1910 he received an Adesh or 'Command' from Above and abruptly quit all his political activities. He retired into seclusion, first at French Chandernagore, then at French Pondicherry, to work for the greater Cause of the world's spiritual transformation and divinisation.

Because he had taken refuge in French territory, Sri Aurobindo could not be recaptured by the British. However, they posted a spy in his household to report on his movements. This spy became Sri Aurobindo's cook. At the end of six months, the spy came to Sri Aurobindo and made a clean breast of his real motives. Then, with tears in his eyes, he offered Sri Aurobindo all his savings from the Government pay and begged his forgiveness. Sri Aurobindo did forgive him, smilingly and unreservedly.

From 1910 to 1920, from his base at Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo conducted the Arya, a philosophical monthly into which he poured his spirituality-flooded message. These writings formed the basis of his major works: The Life Divine, The Synthesis of Yoga, Essays on the Gita and many more. He also wrote essays on poetry and literature, including The Future Poetry, Hymns to the Mystic Fire and two volumes of Collected Poems and Plays. His last and greatest work is Savitri, the epitome of spiritual autobiography, It is an epic of 23,814 lines, far surpassing in height, depth and length any epic in Greek, Latin, English, Italian or German. It is, indeed, a new Veda for the New Age.

On November 24th, 1926 Sri Aurobindo attained to his spiritual perfection. He withdrew from all contacts and put into the hands of his spiritual Collaborator, the Mother, the disciples who had gathered around him. This marked the beginning of the Ashram at Pondicherry.

For over twenty-four years, with the Mother working in front, he continued with his yoga, not caring to rest on the laurels of his first Victory, but pushing upward till he found himself within sight of his supreme and final Victory which alone could achieve the end of his Mission: the descent of what he called the Supermind into the very cells of his physical body.

India's independence was won on August 15th, 1947. Most significantly, this was Sri Aurobindo's own Birth Day. He was requested to offer a message to the free nation and he began:

> "August 15th, 1947 is the birthday of free India. It marks for her the end of an old era, the beginning of a new age. But we can also make it, by our life and acts as a free nation, an important date in a new age opening for the whole world, for the political, social, cultural and spiritual future of humanity.

At the age of seventy-eight, for purposes of his own, Sri Aurobindo decided to part with his body, and he carried out this decision on December 5th, 1950 after a brief "illness." He left the charge of his work to the Mother, who accepted it and gave her word that she would remain on earth to accomplish his work of integral transformation. Sri Aurobindo, too, gave his word to the Mother that he would not leave the earth atmosphere until his work was done. People living in the Ashram and abroad have been, ever since, feeling his living Presence and Force at work. An immortal event took place on February 29th, 1956, when the manifestation of the Power for which Sri Aurobindo had sacrificed his body took place and it has been operating increasingly in world affairs since that time.

It was the Mother's conviction and assertion that the more the earth responds seriously and sincerely, and offers itself for the radical transformation of its nature, the sooner will it change with the help of the New Light and Consciousness. As confidence was her wont, this goal would be attained, and she left the body in 1973 at the age of ninety-five.

Inner memories of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother I and many others have, but I would like humbly to share with you some of my most precious outer possessions and memories. When I joined the Ashram in 1944 as a young boy of twelve years old, I received from Sri Aurobindo a copy of his book Kara Kahani (Tales of Prison Life). Sri Aurobindo had blessingfully written down my name, Chinmoy, in his own handwriting. Needless to say, I was overjoyed.

At the Ashram I had many mentors who encouraged my literary attempts. In 1946 I was inspired to render one of Sri Aurobindo's Bengali stories about the Vedic sages Vasishtha and Vishwamitra into Bengali verse. Sri Aurobindo's story is called Kshamar Adarsha ("The Ideal of Forgiveness"). My poem ran to about two hundred lines. Timidly and devotedly I submitted it to the Mother. Out of her infinite compassion for me, the Mother gave it to Sri Aurobindo. In a few days' time, at four-thirty in the afternoon, I was on my way to the volleyball ground. One of Sri Aurobindo's dearest attendants, Mulshankar, stopped me and said, "Chinmoy, Nirod is reading out to Sri Aurobindo your long poem and Sri Aurobindo is smiling." When I heard this, I was in the seventh Heaven of delight! A few hours later, Nirod-da sent for me and returned the poem. He told me that Sri Aurobindo had remarked: "It is a fine piece of poetry. He has capacity. Tell him to continue."

In 1948 I translated one of my Bengali poems about India’s independence into English and, as usual, with utmost timidity, I gave the Mother the poem. Smiling, Mother said to me, "I know it is for Sri Aurobindo that you are giving it to me." She took it from me and gave it to Sri Aurobindo.

In 1958 I began writing a play about the Life of Sri Aurobindo and I was told by Champaklal, one of his personal assistants, that the Mother enjoyed hearing my play. It was published serially in the Mother India.

In 1959, on my birthday, the Sri Aurobindo Ashram manager, Amrita — a pioneer-pillar-disciple whose name, meaning ‘Nectar: Immortality’, was given by Sri Aurobindo himself — presented me with a Parker fountain pen. "Chinmoy, I am giving you my most precious and my most treasured possession. This was the pen our Lord gave me on one of my birthdays many years ago, long before you were born. He himself used it many, many times."

Finally, my prayerful heart is all gratitude to the Divine Mother for granting me the invaluable blessing-opportunity to be allowed to meditate every morning very early in front of the Mother's and Sri Aurobindo's pictures at the place where they used to give Darshan four times a year and also at the two doors of Sri Aurobindo's main room. This unimaginable privilege started in 1958 and continued until 1964 when I came to America. In the beginning, I used to pray and meditate for five minutes and then, gradually, gradually, after a few months' time, it went up to about two hours. My soulful joy knew no bounds, specially when the Mother herself watched and passed by me as I was praying and meditating. This happened four or five times over the course of the years. With my heart's tearful devotion, I place those Heaven-touched moments of my aspiration-life at the Feet of the Divine Mother.

Long twenty-seven years ago — to be precise, on November 23rd, 1970 — I was extremely fortunate to give a talk on "The Higher Worlds" here at this august King's College of Cambridge University. I wish to conclude today my prayerful and soulful talk on Sri Aurobindo, a transcendental pride of Cambridge, the way I began my talk three decades ago:

```

I bow to your knowledge-light.

True, you are in England, you are of England,

The entire world claims you as its very own.

The Sri Aurobindo Ashram: a nursery of the spirit⁵⁹

The ashramites endeavour to cultivate a comprehensive scale of divine values broad enough to harmonise opposites like work and meditation, mysticism and rationalism, austerity and aesthetic expression and to unite the twin goals of our individual and collective evolution.

The Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo, with its two inseparable limbs of action and meditation, makes the Ashram quite unlike most others, for it has a different story to unfold for the future. It carries within itself the seeds of a new and greater cosmos to come. It is a powerful influence towards the reconciliation of the highest past in Indian spiritual attainment and the most glorious future. All over the world we observe new tentative ideologies and impulses arising, a new attempt to develop and progress. The Sri Aurobindo Ashram is one expression of this new dynamic drive. And in years to come this spirit is bound to assert itself and result in the greater and higher development of mankind.

The Ashram represents humanity through its individual types and society through its different vocations.

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother observed that the enforcement of regulations tends to encourage their violation in secret. Hence discipline here is learned through the efforts towards self-rule, attempted and expressed in freedom. This freedom helps to promote in the individual an unflinching honesty and integrity. Nevertheless, this lack of ordinary discipline in the Ashram does not mean that the question of test does not arise.

"There is in the Ashram," says the Mother, "no exterior discipline and visible test. But the inner test is very severe and constant; one must be very sincere in the aspiration to surmount all egoism and to conquer all vanity in order to be able to stay. A complete surrender is not outwardly exacted but it is indispensable for those who wish to stick on, and many things come to test the sincerity of this surrender. However, the grace and the help are always there for those who aspire for them."

The Mother is the Ashram. All the ashramites are bound to her by their inner faith in her divine Realisation and her spiritual Insight. Her divine guidance solves all individual and collective problems, physical, vital, mental and spiritual. The final authority in the carrying out of any decision is the Mother.

People living here are from many countries, speaking different languages, belonging to different religions and cultures. They find themselves thrown into an atmosphere which is not always easy to adjust to, where souls alone can breathe. Yet the remarks of a newcomer from America on the Ashram are significant:

> "The atmosphere of the Ashram is discouraging to all pretence and vanity. Ego-antics, common in the average small group, are rarely noted here, even among a thousand — blessed relief! Surely there is here a powerful force at work to subdue the ego and bring forward the soul....Yet we were warned on arrival not to assume that we were in the company of angels, but rather a grand cross-section of humanity, who form the Mother's laboratory for the great transformation."

The Mother is the sole exponent of Sri Aurobindo's yoga. "Surrender to the Mother" has ever been the refrain of the Master's supremely inspired voice.

> "She [the Mother] alone can say what is the right way to deal with people. If she were to deal with people only according to their defects, there would be hardly a dozen people left in the Ashram."

This message of Sri Aurobindo is deeply engraved in the hearts of the aspiring souls who want to launch into the field of His Integral Yoga. Indeed his ideal and the Mother's creation are a mirror for the world to come.

Part IV — Extracts from essays

Rishi Rajnarayan Bose⁶¹

'His strength lay in his touch with God'⁶²

'Nationalism'⁶³

'Bankim'⁶⁴

Sri Aurobindo's appreciation of Bankim may partly be attributed to the fact that Bankim had theoretically chalked out the path of ideas in the cause of India's independence which Sri Aurobindo was to work out and extend in his inimitable way.

Now let us learn in a flash from Sri Aurobindo the difference between the earlier Bankim and the later Bankim: "The earlier Bankim was only a poet and stylist — the later Bankim was a seer and nation-builder."

'Bankim Chandra Chatterjee'⁶⁴

But somehow Chitta Ranjan Das felt an inner urge to participate in the defence of Sri Aurobindo, his dear friend, whom he had first met in England. In those days, he used to communicate with the spirit-world with the help of a planchette. One day a particular message was received by him repeatedly.

"You must defend Arabinda." To the query who he was, the reply came, "Upadhyaya." Requested to be more explicit, the "spirit" replied: "Brahma Bandhava Upadhyaya" (a fire-soul of patriotism). From that day on, it became quite clear to Chitta Ranjan that he would have to conduct the Alipore Bomb Case.

Meanwhile, for some reason or other, the counsel Byomkesh Chakravarti was dispensed with and C. R. Das was called in.

On this occasion Sri Aurobindo's sister, Sarojini Ghose, played a significant role in saving her brother. She raised subscriptions and even begged from door to door, appealing to the very rickshaw-drivers and the coolies who, on their part, never failed to respond to her throbbing appeal. At last, on August 18th, 1908 in Bande Mataram she issued the following appeal:

> "I am sincerely grateful to my countrymen and countrywomen of different provinces, creeds and grades of society for their kind response to my appeal for funds for the defence of my brother, Srijut Aurobindo Ghose. The time has now come to engage a counsel to defend him in the Court of Sessions."

> "May I not hope that the balance will be received shortly?..."

Deshabandhu Chitta Ranjan's love and affection for Sri Aurobindo will be evident from the following incident. When some of the friends of Sri Aurobindo made a fervent request to him to conduct the case to the best of his ability, he was deeply pained:

> "Am I less anxious than any of you to get Aurobindo released?"

On another occasion he said that while defending Aurobindo he felt that he himself was the accused and he was arguing his own case. What a sense of identification he developed with his intimate friend!

While closing the Alipore Bomb Case, he made a short and eloquent speech. His prophetic voice will ring in the ears of posterity for all time:

> "...My appeal to you is this — that long after this turmoil, this agitation will have ceased, long after he is dead and gone, he will be looked upon as the poet of patriotism, as the prophet of nationalism and the 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..."

Let us here leave Sri Aurobindo to speak about the loving sacrifice of C. R. Das and the divine mystery involved in the matter.

> "He came unexpectedly — a friend of mine, but I did not know he was coming. You have all heard the name of the man who put away from him all other thoughts and abandoned all his practice, who sat up half the night day after day for months and broke his health to save me — Srijut Chitta Ranjan Das. When I saw him, I was satisfied, but I still thought it necessary to write instructions. Then all that was put away from me and I had the message from within. ‘This is the man who will save you from the snares put around your feet. Put aside those papers. It is not you who will instruct him. I will instruct him.’ From that time I did not of myself speak a word to my counsel about the case or give a single instruction, and if ever I was asked a question, I always found that my answer did not help the case. I had left it to him and he took it entirely into his hands, with what result you know."

'The Master-Seer of the Age'⁶⁵

'Lala Lajpat Rai's deportation'⁶⁶

According to Sri Aurobindo, "Swaraj means fulfilment of our national life."

'Lala Lajpat Rai'⁶⁷

'Tilak'⁶⁸

At a time when our Motherland was swooning under the yoke of subjugation imposed by the British, the profusely inspired voice of Tilak, the Father of Indian Unrest, was heard: "Home rule is my birthright." And his voice was propagated from that very moment to Eternity.

Tilak's lofty appreciation of Sri Aurobindo runs in this wise:

> "None is equal to Aravinda in self-sacrifice, knowledge and sincerity....It is a dispensation of benign Providence that persons like Aravinda have been drawn to the national work....He writes from divine inspiration, satwic intelligence, and unshakeable determination."

'Bipin Chandra Pal'⁶⁹

Indeed, one of his self-sacrifices captures our attention and draws admiration from all his countrymen. But for him, Aurobindo, his dearest colleague, would have been thrown into jail. He cheerfully accepted six months' rigorous imprisonment just to keep his cherished friend Aurobindo at large.

According to Bipin Chandra Pal, a nation is not simply a collection of individuals. His firm conviction is that "a nation is an organism; it has organical life, and like all organisms a nation has an end unto itself, which is different from the ends that regulate the activities of other similar organisms, other similar nations."

And Sri Aurobindo reveals the truth that lies behind the rise of India. "She does not rise as others do, for herself or when she is strong, to trample on the weak. She is rising to shed the eternal Light entrusted to her over the world. India has always existed for humanity and not for herself and it is for humanity and not for herself that she must be free."

In his unique Uttarpara Speech, Sri Aurobindo's lofty appreciation of Bipin Chandra Pal runs: "He is one of the mightiest prophets of Nationalism." No other characterisation of Bipin Chandra Pal's life could be more apposite than this.

'Bharati'⁷⁰

In 1910 occurred a stroke of Providence. Aurobindo Ghose of Bengal was no more in the vortex of politics. The presiding Deity of Pondicherry housed the fiery apostle of Indian Nationalism not only peacefully but also cheerfully.

The opportunity was too good to be missed. For years, when the sun would go down, Bharati would go to Sri Aurobindo's place to bask in the sunshine of his affection. Under that great influence, his head began to teem with national songs which brought him, in after years, transcendental praise. Sri Aurobindo taught him how to vision the country as the Mother personified. Bharati saw that, while mankind was engrossed in the immediate, Sri Aurobindo was devoted to the Ultimate. It was Sri Aurobindo who so very kindly helped him to launch into the Vedic mysteries, and made him at home in ancient literatures. Let us listen to Prema Nandakumar, an authority on Bharati and a student of Sri Aurobindo, describe the relation between the two: "...a spellbinder, an inspiration, a veritable Krishna to the neophyte Arjuna."

'Pondicherry'⁷¹

In Agastya's time it was Vedapuri, the seat of Vedic knowledge. The truths of the Vedas are at once eternal and ever-new. Coming down to our own days, we find Vivekananda visiting Pondicherry in 1893, just a few months before embarking on his historic voyage to America, where the multitudes of people heard in him the voice of Eternity ringing across the ages, and saw in him the ineffable vision of God.

Vivekananda, the dearest disciple of Sri Ramakrishna; Tilak, the fearless champion of India's swaraj; Bharati, the patriot-bard of India's nationalism and independence; Sri Aurobindo, the Heaven-born prophet of India's independence and of the Life Divine — all hallowed the town with the dust of their feet.

Sri Aurobindo's choice of Pondicherry as the divinely ordained seat of his world-transforming sadhana led to visits by a number of distinguished leaders of the national movement — Lala Lajpat Rai, C. R. Das, Moonje Purushottandas Tandon and Rabindranath Tagore, to name only a few. In 1914 there occurred an epoch-making event in the history of the world. From Paris came a remarkable spiritual figure. Madam M. Alfassa, now known as the Mother of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. It is she who by her divine Personality and far-seeing powers of organisation has changed the face of Pondicherry to a great extent, and is continuing to build a New Life in this ever-new town. The Vedapuri of old is again going to be the Vedapuri of the modern times — the meeting-place of East and West, the place of pilgrimage of the whole world.

Nolini Kanta Gupta⁷²

Your soul-life was written

Your heart-life was produced

Your mind-life was directed

```

Since the beginning of creation

Has been your permanent Address.

```

Sri Aurobindo's younger brother,

Of Chittagong

The mind-begotten son of Sri Aurobindo.

Part V — Aphorisms

Chandelier⁷³. This is Chinmoy's original dedication page for his fourth book,

The Mother always gives.

Hers is the Blessing.

Sri Aurobindo's Truth is the Seed.

His Forgiveness is the Tree.

The Mother is ceaseless forgiveness.

Sri Aurobindo and The Mother⁷⁴

The Mother is the Fragrance,

Sri Aurobindo is the Face.

Sri Aurobindo is the Lamp.

Sri Aurobindo is the Victory.

Sri Aurobindo is the Mast.

Sri Aurobindo is the Aerodrome.

Sri Aurobindo is Truth in its Conception.

Sri Aurobindo is a Cup of Nectar.

Sri Aurobindo is the Heart.

Sri Aurobindo is the Song.

Sri Aurobindo is the all-containing Book.

Sri Aurobindo is the Handkerchief.

Sri Aurobindo is Immensity in its growing revelation.

Sri Aurobindo protects the disciples.

Sri Aurobindo is the crystal-pure Water.

Sri Aurobindo is the Medicine.

Sri Aurobindo is the Vision.

Sri Aurobindo is the ever-creative subtle body of his disciples.

Sri Aurobindo draws admiration from his disciples.

Sri Aurobindo is the Unfailing Hope.

Sri Aurobindo's eyes are All-Grace for the fallen earth-consciousness.

Sri Aurobindo is our souls' Reserve Bank.

The disciple sees in Sri Aurobindo an Ocean of Peace the moment he places himself at His Feet.

Sri Aurobindo says: "The Mother is Everything."

Sri Aurobindo's Integral Yoga⁷⁵

Sri Aurobindo's Yoga is an ambrosial consciousness with infinite possibilities; it is a never-tiring march, a decisive and everlasting victory of Truth.

The keynote of Sri Aurobindo's Integral Yoga is evolution — evolution of consciousness in and through Matter. There is no shadow of doubt that Matter and Spirit are one. Spirit, when it is fast asleep, is Matter; Matter, when it is fully awakened, is Spirit.

Integral Yoga is founded on an all-fulfilling experience which is anything but speculation and reasoning. An Integral Yogi is he who has seen all the phases of existence and whose very life is full of variegated experiences and realisations.

A marvel-idealism and a highly practical divinity are housed in Sri Aurobindo. His are the experiences that may serve as humanity's royal road to a life worth living — a life of the Spirit, the Life Divine.

Sri Aurobindo holds that physical work is in no way a bar to spiritual progress. On the contrary, he strongly feels that physical work is an aid to self-preparation for the full manifestation of the Divine both in oneself and upon the earth.

Sri Aurobindo tells the world that it is not only possible but entirely practicable to work easily, incessantly, consciously, inwardly, outwardly, thus finally successfully. And in his opinion, life itself is a blessing of God through which man has to realise Him and be one with Him.

Sri Aurobindo's is the supernal Smile that reveals at once the embodiment of an infinite achievement and the future spiritual destiny of mankind.

Invisible to the blind, yet invincible to the strong, and a wonderful practical hope to the four corners of the globe, is the power of Sri Aurobindo's Integral Yoga.

Sri Aurobindo is the ever-creative silent bridge between God's Will and His Fulfilment.

In Integral Yoga, God-realisation means merely standing at the shore of the vast sea of Consciousness. The fire-pure change of the inner and outer life means swimming in that sea. Manifestation of the Divine on earth means returning Home after having crossed the sea, bringing with you the Golden All.

It is not a dream of God but His Decree that Heaven and earth must fall supremely in love with each other. He wants their marriage to take place sooner than immediately. Earth feels that she is inferior to Heaven. Heaven feels that he is superior to earth. And because of their mutual hesitation, the day of their marriage is kept in abeyance.

Integral Yoga has made a significant choice. It wants not only to see and feel the conscious evolution of life, but also to embody a fully harmonised life of Matter and Spirit.

An Integral Yogi is he who sacrifices his life to become a bridge between earth and Heaven. He has foregone Heaven; he uplifts earth.

The aspirant in man is the cross-bearer. The Yogi in man is the crown-bearer.

To say that Yoga is the realisation of God is not to say all. Yoga is the living union with God by self-affirmation and self-abnegation.

Sri Aurobindo tells us that God-realisation never obliges us to kill all feelings, to make our heart a sterile wasteland and to pronounce a curse on the world. God is everything and in everything.

Readiness in Integral Yoga amounts to an aspiration that wishes to be expressed. Willingness amounts to an aspiration that has already been expressed.

An unprecedented teaching of Integral Yoga propounded by Sri Aurobindo is that man can have material prosperity alongside his spiritual development.

Give an ordinary man ten dollars. He will immediately wonder what he can buy with it to make life more pleasant. Give a sannyasin ten dollars. He will try to avoid taking it or else find some means by which he can do without it. Give an Integral Yogi ten dollars. Since he has neither attachment to nor repulsion from money, he will try to utilise it as a divine trustee.

To be unconscious of a spiritual opportunity is to starve one's spiritual destiny.

Difficulties in Integral Yoga never indicate one's unworthiness. Behind each difficulty there is a possibility, nay, a blessing in disguise, to accept the test boldly and to come out successfully.

In Yoga, all reactions are threatening but passing clouds. Human aspiration is the naked and permanent sword of the soul to stab through the weakness of human nature and rise triumphant on the ashes of its conquests.

Follow no other ideal than to materialise the power of perfection on earth.

Sri Aurobindo's Yoga is the tallest mango tree. His disciples and followers have to climb right up to the top of the tree and bring the mangoes down to earth. For if the fruit is taken at the top, it tastes sour; if taken at the foot of the tree, it tastes delicious.

What is the meaning of coming into contact with God? It means that we shall become one with His universal Existence. As after marriage a woman automatically possesses her husband's name, home and wealth, even so, after our union with God we shall infallibly become one with His all-fulfilling Nature. Verily, in that Divine Hour we shall hear Sri Aurobindo's soul-stirring voice:

> "We are sons of God, and must be even as He."

Part VI — Editor's notes

Editor's note

Editor's preface

Sri Aurobindo spent almost fourteen years in England from the age of seven to twenty. He was a student at King's College, Cambridge, from October 1890 to October 1892 and was considered to be one of the most brilliant emerging classical scholars of the day. Returning to India in 1893, he plunged into the cause of nationalism and was later arrested. After being detained for twelve months in Alipore Jail, Sri Aurobindo was released. Eventually, he retired into seclusion in Pondicherry, South India, in order to devote himself entirely to his inner, spiritual work.

Sri Chinmoy spent his early years from 1944 to 1964 as a permanent resident of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry. He received Sri Aurobindo's darshan four times a year while Sri Aurobindo was in the physical.

On August 15th, 1947 — the day of Sri Aurobindo's 75th birthday — India's independence was finally won and Sri Aurobindo issued his historic message to the nation. In this message, Sri Aurobindo spoke of the deep, personal significance for him of August 15th:

> "August 15th, 1947 is the birthday of free India. It marks for her the end of an old era, the beginning of a new age. But we can also make it, by our life and acts as a free nation, an important date in a new age opening for the whole world, for the political, social, cultural and spiritual future of humanity.

Sri Chinmoy's poems in this volume offer us a poetic biography of the life of Sri Aurobindo, from his earliest days as a boy in London, through to his self-realisation and his transformation into the "Avatar of the Era," which was presaged by his Birth. As the great scholar M. P. Pandit wrote when he first read these poems almost half a century ago, "Each poem celebrates a landmark and is elevating."

The poet was blessed to receive direct encouragement from Sri Aurobindo himself in his poetic journey. In 1946, at age fourteen, the young Chinmoy rendered Sri Aurobindo's story "Kshamar Adarsha" ("The Ideal of Forgiveness") into two hundred lines of Bengali verses. This poem was read to Sri Aurobindo by his literary assistant, Nirodbaran. Sri Aurobindo remarked, "It is a fine piece of poetry. He has capacity. Tell him to continue."

Publisher's notes

Flame-Waves, 1955

The Infinite: Sri Aurobindo, 1956

The Mother of the Golden All, 1958

Chandelier, 1959

The date that appears after each poem in the present volume indicates the date of the first publication. A number of the poems were published in the Mother India, the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Monthly Review of Culture, prior to that date.