Great Call, immeasurable hope
Burning now in his heart -
Superman distinguishing the image,
He ascended to the invisible heights of the spirit,
Striving to summon the heavenly world to Earth.
Savitri. Book I, Canto 5

Sri Aurobindo Ghosh is a great Indian thinker, Teacher, researcher of human consciousness, founder of integral and supramental yoga, poet, writer, revolutionary. The work includes poetry lines of the poet. Note: “Shri” is a respectful title, translated as “Saint”.

This work is written on the basis of Satprem's book "Sri Aurobindo, or The Journey of Consciousness", which is a classic introduction to the worldview of Sri Aurobindo, has been published in many countries of the world, translated into Russian, English, Italian, German, Dutch, Spanish and several languages India.

Sri Aurobindo's Father, Dr. Krishna Dhan Ghosh

Arberden, Scotland. 1871

Aurobindo Ghosh was born on August 15, 1872 in Calcutta. This was the time when Queen Victoria of England was about to become Empress of India.

Aurobindo's father studied medicine in England and returned to India as a doctor and a consummate Anglomaniac. He did not want his three sons (Aurobindo was the youngest) to know about the traditions and languages ​​of India. Therefore, Aurobindo received the English name Ackroyd and the English governess. At the age of 5 he was sent to the Irish monastic school in Darjeeling, where the sons of English officials studied.

Aurobindo. 1879

At the age of 7 (1989), Aurobindo and his brothers left for England, where their father, Dr. Ghosh, entrusted the upbringing of his sons to a priest, moreover, with strict instructions that forbade them to make acquaintances with Indians. The boys' father also ordered that the pastor not give his sons any religious instruction, so that then, at 18, they could choose their own religion if they wanted. Their father, Dr. Ghosh, was probably a strange man: while he gave money to poor Bengali peasants, his sons in London were starving and freezing in clothes not for the northern climate. Obviously, the father in this way brought up a masculine character in the boys.

At the age of 12, Aurobindo already knew Latin and French. English, on the other hand, was his "native" language. The headmaster was impressed by the boy's abilities and began to study Greek with him. Aurobindo studied well ahead of his classmates. This allowed him in the free time to do what he loved - reading. In the originals, Aurobindo already reads Homer, Aristophanes and all European poets and thinkers.

Aurobindo. 1884

At school they tried to convert him into a religious person, but Aurobindo did not think to become one. He said: “Religion and spirituality are not necessarily synonymous. Religions divide humanity, and spirituality unites. True theocracy is the kingdom of God in man, and not the kingdom of the Pope, the clergy or the class of priests. " Aurobindo did not strive for communication, he lived his own life, but did not feel lonely. He lived in the world of literature, poetry. He was, as he said himself: "somewhere in other areas." And his world was full.

The school appreciated the amazing abilities and knowledge of Aurobindo and assigned him a scholarship to continue his studies at Cambridge - at King's College. In his first year in college, he received all the prizes for versification in Greek and Latin, but now he is thinking about liberating his homeland. He is interested in the feat of Jeanne dArc and the American Revolution.

Aurobindo becomes secretary of the Indian Students' Association, then a member of the secret society "Lotus and Dagger". His name is blacklisted by the British government. Cambridge Aurobindo graduated brilliantly, but he was not accepted into the service (in the Ministry), because in the Ministry of Colonies, Aurobindo Ghosh was considered a dangerous person. And they were not far from the truth.

At the age of 20 (in 1892) Aurobindo Ghosh returned to India, to Bombay. His father had just died, his mother was ill - she did not recognize him. He had neither position nor titles. And somehow I had to feed myself. And he finds a job teaching French and English in college. Then he becomes deputy director of the college.

Sri Aurobindo. 1893

Having mastered all European languages, Aurobindo, upon returning to India, begins to study his native Bengali. A Bengali teacher describes his first meeting with Aurobindo as follows: “Before I met Aurobindo, I pictured him (tall) impeccably dressed from head to toe in a European style, with a stern look and a terrible accent (he is from Cambridge!) And a very difficult character. Who would have thought that this dark-skinned young man with soft dreamy eyes, long wavy hair parted in the middle and cascading around his neck, dressed in the usual rough Ahmedabad dhoti and a tight-fitting Indian jacket, shod in old-fashioned shoes with curled toes, whose face was slightly marked smallpox was none other than Mr. Aurobindo Ghosh, a living repository of French, Latin and Greek. "

The Bengali teacher lived with Aurobindo for two years, and therefore his memories of his student remained. Aurobindo sat for hours in one position, reading a book, until one in the morning, indifferent to mosquito bites. He read English, Russian, German and French novels, as well as the sacred books of India: Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita, Ramayana, works of Ramakrishna. But Aurobindo did not confine himself to reading the sacred texts in translation. He studied Sanskrit - the ancient Indian sacred language. Studied it myself. Aurobindo had a phenomenal memory: he memorized the text of the entire page from one read time.

Sri Aurobindo with officers of Baroda, Kashmir. 1903

But upon returning to his homeland, Aurobindo continues to worry about the political situation in India. He writes articles urging his compatriots to get rid of the British yoke. Aurobindo had a goal: to gather and organize all the forces of the nation for revolutionary action. But he has his own, unusual approach to the problem: he places the blame not on the British, but on the Indians themselves. "Our real enemy is not some kind of external force, but our glaring weakness, our cowardice, our dull sentimentality."- he said.

And in these words Aurobindo is one of his main principles: both in political and spiritual struggle, under all circumstances, one must first of all look inside oneself in order to find out the cause of one's own misfortunes and sufferings.

And maybe, having experienced the futility of all hopes,
We will find the key to perfection within.

To raise a huge nation to fight, it was necessary to breathe power into it, and in search of this power Sri Aurobindo turned to integral yoga, i.e. yoga has become for Aurobindo a means of effective action, and not an escape from life: "The otherworldly heavens are great and wonderful, but much greater and more amazing are the heavens within you."

Sri Aurobindo does not follow the traditional path of yoga: not in solitude, but in the thick of everyday life, moreover, in active revolutionary activity; he showed that a person is able to master his hidden powers, to reveal potential opportunities.

Look for Him on earth ...
You Thou art, O King, only the burden of darkness
Your soul is embraced. -
But that was only your will.
So throw off this veil and return
That clear wholeness
With which you are truly one.

Sri Aurobindo has no wonderful recipes, no magic formulas - his whole integral yoga is based on two very simple and indisputable facts:

1) presence of mind in us,
2) the manifestation of spirit in matter.

“There is God in every person, and to manifest Him is the goal of divine life. This is what we can all do. " Sri Aurobindo's integral yoga is a synthesis of traditional yogic methods that allow one to achieve unity with the divine at all levels of the human being and transform the lower human nature.

"The goal of integral yoga is the transformation of the lower and raising it to the level of the higher nature."(Sri Aurobindo. Synthesis of yoga).

"The touch of Heaven to Earth is not death, but fullness bestows."

Sri Aurobindo wants to intensify the fire of the consciousness of every cell of the body, to transform matter into consciousness. "The body will be created from concentrated energy obeying the will." The first step in Sri Aurobindo's yoga was to calm his mind. A person lives in an exhausting incessant whirlwind of thoughts. And the first task of the yogi Aurobindo was to get rid of these permanent, empty, unnecessary mental clots, to open a free path for other subtle vibrations, pure images, to hear and see the true world.

"The cup must be cleaned and emptied in order for the divine drink to fill it."

Agni Yoga says the same: "Drive small thoughts, We are stifling from them." You can get rid of empty, unnecessary thoughts only by replacing them with good memories, reading a poem, prayer, presenting the image of the Teacher, who is close in spirit to the Holy One. Sri Aurobindo writes: “There is only one way to calm this orgy: do not fight with the mind mentally, do not try to simply drive our fussy thoughts, but you need to concentrate on something else: the boundless ocean, the rustle of golden foliage, the image of the Teacher. So we will learn not only to expand the mind, but also to expand the consciousness (i.e., the expansion of the channel from the lower mind - the 4th principle to the higher - the 5th principle, L.K.). Everyone must find their own way. You can practice calming your mind both on the street and on the subway.

(The author of this article once decided to follow this advice of Sri Aurobindo, in the underground passage of the metro in St. Petersburg. It was rush hour. A crowd of passengers pressed from all sides, it seemed that I would not get on the escalator. Then I presented the image of Sri Aurobindo above my head. anxiety and anxiety disappeared. The crowd seemed to recede from me, my eyes began to grow, and now I - only huge eyes, only sight - freely step on the escalator ("empty") in a state of extraordinary joy and love for everyone. that it is necessary to stop this experience, I returned to reality, but a bright, joyful state remained until the end of the day. - L.K.).

Further, Sri Aurobindo says: “When the machine of the mind (the lower mind - LK) stops, a person makes various kinds of discoveries and, first of all, he understands that if the ability to think is a wonderful gift, then the ability not to think is a much greater gift. Let a person try not to think for at least a few minutes - he will quickly understand what he is dealing with! He will understand that he lives in an invisible chaos, in an exhausting incessant whirlwind of his thoughts. " And Living Ethics: "In order to direct the spirit, one must expel unnecessary thoughts and be ready to receive the waves of vibrations that We send." .

When peace is established in our lower, earthly mind, the Higher divine energy of the Cosmos gradually descends into our bodies: mental, astral, physical, there is a purification, deification, transformation of lower matter by the fiery energy of the Higher planes.

"Christ said:" Matter will be conquered by matter that remembered its spiritual origin. " .

In every cell of the body, in every atom, there is fire, consciousness. We can collect the scattering threads of our consciousness and work on ourselves every minute. And we will be focused, concentrated, we will receive help from the Higher planes, from the Teachers. All in our hands.

When the mind is quite firmly established, if not absolute silence, then at least peace, we begin to feel a “descending” current of force, bringing a feeling of fresh energy. This stream surrounds, washes, illuminates us and gives us calmness, confidence and joy. This joy is everywhere, in us, near, everywhere. We live with a smile "Smile of Buddha". We have freed ourselves from the chaos that surrounds us. We become the masters of the mental world.

A distinctive feature of traditional yogic systems is that after a certain period of practice, practitioners begin to feel an upward (and not downward, as in Sri Aurobindo yoga) force, which awakens rather roughly at the base of the spine (in the center of the kundalini) and then rises until it reaches crown of the head. This difference in the direction of the current - upward-downward - is explained by the difference in the goals of these yogas. In traditional yoga, the seeker tries to go up, into Peace, ecstasy, but Sri Aurobindo's goal is not only to find eternal peace, but to do this by transforming Life and Matter, descending from the illuminated summit of our being from level to level gently, calmly, irresistibly. When Peace is established, the Divine Power from above will be able to descend and work in us, elevating what should be elevated, creating what should be created. It unites everything, brings it into harmony.

But, both in mastering traditional yoga and mastering Sri Aurobindo's integral yoga, there is a great danger.

Sri Aurobindo warns about this: “The deeper we descend, the higher consciousness we need, a stronger light. And since consciousness is a force as tangible as an electric current, we can imagine what trauma, torment and torment supermental forces and light can create when they plunge, like a waterfall, into a dirty puddle of the physical subconscious (the flow of ether and fire ). The greatest difficulties and dangers lurk here! " You cannot go around the normal development. First of all, you need to achieve spiritual perfection, and the opening of the centers, the strengthening of their activity, the connection with our Higher Self - all this will take place in parallel with the growth of our spirit, without technical techniques. Integral yoga classes without the guidance of an experienced Teacher can disrupt harmonious development, lead to disorders of the nervous system, obsession and even madness.

Sri Aurobindo with his class, Baroda College.

1906

In 1906. Sri Aurobindo Ghosh moves to Calcutta to immerse himself in the heart of the political struggle. Works in a newspaper, creates a party. May 5, 1908 he is arrested on charges of attempted murder of an English judge. Although he was not involved in this, he spends a year in prison. In prison he writes: “I believed that my mission was the liberation of India from the English yoke ... In pride of my heart, I believed that this task would not be completed without me ...” But the words appear in his mind: “I have something else for you, and it is for this reason that I brought you here (ie, to solitary confinement) - to teach you what you could not learn on your own, and to prepare you for My work”.

A cell in the Alipor prison, where Sri Aurobindo received

fundamental realization of Cosmic Consciousness and

Deities (Sri Krishna, Vasudeva) as One in everything.

In prison, in solitary confinement, Sri Aurobindo continues his research and immersion into the higher planes of consciousness, i.e. this is where the next stage of yoga work takes place. Here, in the cell, Sri Aurobindo is experiencing what is called nirvana in Buddhism. He experienced a state of Oneness with the Supreme, Global Mind, in the definition of Sri Aurobindo - Supramental. His consciousness reached the Supramental Consciousness. There was no more personality, there was only Infinity, Eternity, Immortality. He attained the state of samadhi. He broke into other Space and Time, the so-called. the supramental consciousness is another dimension.

Samadhi - (sk) "self-control" - a state of ecstasy, frenzied, a state of ecstasy, which has no equivalents in human speech. One who has attained samadhi is able to exercise absolute control over all his abilities, physical and mental, this is the highest state of yoga. Having reached the supramental plane, consciousness “becomes a mass of continuous light. A general global vision appears ... the human soul, as it were, turns into continuous vision. The universal joy, the universal beauty is cognized. " ...

Now in the vastness I am endless
The body seemed to be a wandering shell ...

It was into this body that Sri Aurobindo wanted to bring down the supramental consciousness, to bring down into every physical cell of his body. This is the goal of supramental yoga according to Sri Aurobindo: to transform matter into consciousness.

That secret enemy that is hidden in the depths of nature,
You must be slain, man,
Or you will not fulfill your highest duty.
You cannot escape this internal battle.

The supramental is, first of all, power, directly the power of Spirit in Matter. Any consciousness is a force, and the higher we grow, the greater our strength, but at the same time we move away from the Earth. Therefore, if we want to apply the power of the Global Mind to the affairs of the earthly world, then we will have to bring it down through all levels before it reaches the bottom. This is the highest Consciousness - Power - Fire, which, going down the chakras of a person, are extremely dangerous, as mentioned earlier.

Sri Aurobindo after his release from

prisons. May 1909

A year later (05/05/1909) Sri Aurobindo is acquitted. He leaves the prison, but the British police continue to pursue him, and he is forced to hide in the French territory of India - in Pondicherry. Here, in 1910, he founded the Ashram, where he continued to work on the transformation of matter. He wanted to change, improve the life of all mankind by changing his consciousness, but starting this work, first of all with himself.

Traveling in his consciousness to the Highest, Supramental plane, Sri Aurobindo was able in this state of nirvana to publish newspapers, attend meetings and even speak at them: "My speech, my handwritten works, my thought and external activity come to me from some source that is above my head."

Sri Aurobindo possessed many abilities not characteristic of mere mortals: 1) he possessed clairvoyance, so strong that he saw fiery substances in the cells of the human body;

2) levitated;
3) healed the disease in a few seconds;
4) could go without food for about 25 days or more, and did not weaken, but continued to work actively. But when the weight of the body, which he still needed, began to be lost, he stopped starving;

5) could sleep once every three nights.
All these phenomenal abilities could only be acquired by the highest spirit. Before starting to write, Sri Aurobindo concentrated for a minute, and then the poems flowed in a stream:

And by the signs of his soul, comprehending everything in the Universe,
He read the writing of the phenomena of the Highest from their inner essence.

This is deeply spiritual and philosophical poetry. Aurobindo himself considered himself primarily a poet and politician, and not at all a philosopher: "I have never been a philosopher, although I wrote philosophical works ... I only had to write down in the language of the intellect everything that I observed and learned during my daily yoga practice, and philosophy was there automatically."

He describes the main milestones of his Yoga: nirvana, plans of superconsciousness (sublime Mind, illumined, intuition, and, finally, the discovery of the Supramental - incomprehensible, lying beyond even the highest levels of mental consciousness).

Sri Aurobindo wrote several poems on Indian subjects, several plays in verse, works on the theory of poetry. His greatest work - the epic poem Savitri, the poet himself considered his main work. He worked on it for about 30 years. This poetic epic consists of 12 books. This poem is the author's spiritual experience. It is like a diary of his yoga, in which he wrote down each stage of attaining a new high level of consciousness, a new plane of subtle worlds, its descent to the physical body, then ascending again, etc.

In modern language, this is a research work on yoga, set out in poetic form. Perhaps, in thousands of years, when the majority of humanity reaches the appropriate level of consciousness and is ready for the transformation of lower matter, this work of Sri Aurobindo Ghosh will serve as a guide in this work. N.K. Roerich said about Sri Aurobindo: "His work is full of knowledge for the future." Sri Aurobindo Ghosh did not seek his personal salvation in the sublime heavens. He came to earth to conquer these Higher plans, to bring them down to Earthly life and, with the help of the almighty Higher Forces, make life on Earth divine.

In 1910, the French writer Paul Richard came to Pondicherry, who was so impressed by the breadth of Sri Aurobindo's views that he persuaded him to state on paper aspects of his views on various issues. And for seven years he published 19 volumes of his writings. But Sri Aurobindo wrote not quite usually: not one book after another, but 4 or 6 books at the same time and on a variety of topics:

Life is Divine;
- Yoga synthesis;
- sketches about the Gita;
- The Mystery of the Vedas;
- Human cycle;

“I did not force myself to write, I just left the Higher Power to work: "I write in the silence of Reason and only what comes from above, and already in a finished form."

Sri Aurobindo in Pandisheri. 1918-1920

In 1920. Mirra Alfassa comes to Sri Aurobindo from Paris to devote his life to the same work that Sri Aurobindo did - work on the transformation of matter. Mirra Alfassa was born in 1878 in Paris. Father is from Turkey, mother is Egyptian. She had spiritual insights from childhood, she saw Sri Aurobindo, knew him long before meeting him. Sri Aurobindo called his co-worker the Mother. Their joint work was a continuation of Sri Aurobindo's idea of ​​spiritual transformation of man. They worked with groups of students who carried out amazing experiments, experienced various states, visions, so-called "miracles." Sri Aurobindo understands that these miracles cannot change the world. And since 1926. he goes into solitude. Only 3-4 days a year in front of him could all come.

Mirra Alfassa, 1897. France

In 1946. Satprem comes to India, where he first saw Sri Aurobindo, but did not stay in his ashram, "... because any walls seemed like a prison to me", where he spent a year and a half during the war - in Buchenwald and Mathausen. During his imprisonment, Satprem experienced deep feelings. Opened to him "Endless inner spaces" and "the strength that helped to withstand."- All this is similar to the experiences of Sri Aurobindo when he was also in prison. Satprem writes about those who strove to pass by Sri Aurobindo: "They did not come to look at him, but so that his gaze could open the door in us through which something can fill us."

“For me he was a thinker, a philosopher. But the one I saw was not a philosopher. It was a kind of being, Being. All vastness is in one Being. "... Of course, this was no longer just an earthly person, but a creature of the distant future. About the attitude of Vl.M. to Sri Aurobindo we read: “Ur., Go through the Teachings openly: the first year in Adyar, then at Aurobindo Ghosh, after that I will send guides.” And again: “Ur., Read the book of A. Ghosh ...”[Ibid, p.51].

Satprem

Satprem So, since 1926. Sri Aurobindo in solitude continues to work on changing his body at the level of consciousness of each cell. But here he faced an insurmountable obstacle so far: transformation is not only an individual problem, but also a universal one. It turned out that it is impossible to carry out individual transformation until at least a minimal spiritual advancement of all mankind takes place. The higher the spheres he reached and tried to pass the Light of these spheres and their energy through himself, the more he suffered from the chaos raised by this light in the lower layers of earthly matter.

Like Orthodox ascetics, they were always subjected to the so-called temptations and attacks of dark forces, as soon as they achieved new spiritual victories. Sri Aurobindo speaks of the unity of each person (microcosm) with the entire Universe (macrocosm). This is a manifestation of one of the Cosmic Laws - the Law of Unity. A person lives in a single spiritual sphere with all of humanity, and a complete purification of consciousness, his deification cannot take place without the spiritual growth of everyone living nearby. "Nothing can be transformed until everything is transformed." Otherwise - just loneliness in a small outlet of light. What's the point of this? What good is it that one person is remade, and all of humanity suffers in its imperfection?

E.I. Roerich, speaking about his Experience, writes: “Many approached this experience, but the conditions were not suitable. Aurobindo Ghosh was now the closest of all, but he still did not have the simplicity of life, he retired from life. It is valuable, without being a medium, without leaving life, to approach the higher paths "..

Sri Aurobindo and Mother.

December 5, 1950 Sri Aurobindo Ghosh leaves his body. For several days it radiated warmth and light. In 1953. Satprem returned to India. The meeting with Mother radically changed his life. For 19 years Satprem was close to Mother and recorded conversations with her. He dedicates his first work to Sri A Aurobindo Ghosh - "Sri Aurobindo, or the journey of consciousness." It is interesting to compare the spiritual insights of Sri Aurobindo Ghosh and other thinkers. Sri Aurobindo about the man of the future: In the process of transformation, the physical organs will be replaced by intensified energy centers (chakras). The new body will consist of concentrated energy, i.e. it will be radiant.

"The human body must be made a fully conscious vessel and instrument, a symbol and seal of the Power of the Spirit." The ideas of the Russian cosmists are similar to this. So Fedorov and V.S. Solovyov talked about bodily transformation and overcoming death. A.V. Sukhovo-Kobylin - a writer, a philosopher, spoke of an "airy, ethereal body."

A.L. Chizhevsky and K.E. Tsiolkovsky - they talked about "radiant humanity." Those. Russian spiritual thought is one with Eastern wisdom.

IN AND. Vernadsky was familiar with the works of Sri A. Ghosh: "Sri Aurobindo entered the field of phenomena, not yet covered by science, but already comprehended by Indian philosophy."

In 1968. on the shores of the Indian Ocean, 180 km. From Madras, the "City of Dawn" - Auroville was founded. Representatives of 124 countries took part in the city's foundation, incl. and the USSR. Over the past decades, a beautiful garden of 2 million trees and a city, the city of the future, have grown on the site of the desert scorched by the sun. Its inhabitants (there are 1,500 permanent and 3,000 temporary) strive to embody the ideal of genuine human unity (beyond any national and religious differences). This ideal is presented in the Teachings of Sri Aurobindo. The creation of this city was initiated by the Mother. She said that Auroville could have been built only in one more country - Russia, because Russia embodies the ideal of brotherhood. The Roerichs put forward the idea of ​​creating the City of the Future in Altai. But at that time, due to the dire situation on the planet, this plan was not implemented. In June 2001, the World Congress “Auroville and Russia - Spiritual Connection” was held in St. Petersburg. The Congress was attended by representatives of the USA, England, many European countries, 20 people from Auroville, the St. Petersburg branch of the International Center of the Roerichs. The participants of the Congress lived in the Znamenka estate - the former summer residence of the Russian imperial family, i.e. the words of Sri Aurobindo's associate that Russia embodies the ideal of Brotherhood are coming true.

Rabindranath Tagore. 1918.

Mother Drawing

Rabindranath Tagore said about Sri Aurobindo: it is "the voice in which the soul of India is embodied." Romain Roland proclaimed him "the greatest thinker of our time." In India, Sri Aurobindo is known as a revolutionary, organizer of the national liberation movement, as well as a great Guru (Teacher) and founder of integral yoga. He was also the greatest poet, the author of many poems, poems and the poetic epic Savitri. And although Vl. M. advised E.I. Roerich to go to Sri Aurobindo, E.I. writes: "For various reasons, understandable only for those who were in the East, I had to refuse a personal meeting with A. Ghosh ..." .

Sri Aurobindo left behind a huge artistic legacy. In 1972. - the year of the 100th anniversary of his birth - 30 volumes of the jubilee "collected works" of the great thinker have been published in India. His thought was multifaceted and large-scale. Many questions of metaphysics, philosophy, history, sociology, psychology are reflected in his work.

In addition, Sri Aurobindo was a remarkable literary critic, publicist, translator of ancient texts, was the author of spiritual and philosophical poetry and works on the theory of poetry. Sri Aurobindo Ghosh is an outstanding spiritual ascetic, Yogi. All the theoretical conclusions presented in his works were made as a result of research work on oneself, with one's own consciousness. Sri A Aurobindo Ghosh continued to develop the ideas of the great Indian philosophers - Ramakrishna and Vivekananda.

Svetoslav Roerich for 30 years was a patron, mentor and friend of one of the schools in Bangalore, named after Sri Aurobindo. This school was founded by the students of Sri Aurobindo Ghosh. Let's finish a brief account of the life of the great Man of the future with lines from his epic "Savitri":

The great supplication has risen again
about perfect life on Earth,
about the enlightenment of the dark mind,
about happiness for suffering hearts,
about Truth in an ignorant world,
about God, who will exalt the dust of death.

Literature

1. Satprem. Sri Aurobindo, or Journey of Consciousness. - L .: publishing house of the Leningrad University, 1989.
2. Agni Yoga, in 3 volumes. - Samara: RC, 1992. "Illumination".
3. Agni Yoga, in 3 volumes. - Samara: RC, 1992. "Call".
4. Agni Yoga, Revelation. - M .: Sphere, 2001.
5. H. P. Blavatsky. Theosophical dictionary. - M .: EKSMO, 2003.
6. V.V.Smirnov... f. Delphis 2001 - №2.
7. Agni Yoga. High Way, part 1 - M .: Sphere, 2001.
8. Helena Roerich. At the Threshold of the New World. M.: MCR, 1994.
9.D. Melgunov, A. Shustova. f. "Delphis" 2001 №3. Helena Roerich. Diary sheets.

In 1893, at the age of 21, Sri Aurobindo returned to India. Over the next 13 years, he held various posts in the administration of the city of Baroda, taught English and French literature at the local university, and in 1906 he moved to Calcutta, where he became the rector of the National College. In addition, during these years he was involved in an active political struggle for the independence of India. The magazine Bande Mataram, published by him, became a powerful voice of the liberation movement, for the first time putting forward the ideal of complete independence of the country, as well as formulating concrete methods of achieving it. At the same time, he continues his poetry, and also immerses himself in the study of the cultural and spiritual heritage of India, masters Sanskrit and its other languages ​​and begins to comprehend its ancient scriptures. Realizing the true power and value of spiritual discoveries that gave life to all of its richest centuries-old culture, in 1904 he decides to step on the path of yoga, seeking to use spiritual strength to liberate his homeland.

In 1908, Sri Aurobindo was arrested on suspicion of organizing an attempt on the life of one of the officials of the British colonial government and was imprisoned on charges that threatened him with the death penalty, but at the end of the investigation, which lasted a whole year, he was fully acquitted and released.

This year became for him the "University of Yoga": he achieved fundamental spiritual realizations and realized that his goal is not limited to the liberation of India from foreign domination, but is to revolutionize the entire nature of the universe, in the victory over ignorance, lies, suffering and death.

In 1910, obeying an inner voice, he left his revolutionary work and retired to Pondicherry, a French colony in southern India, to continue his intense yoga practice. Having realized the highest spiritual achievements of the past on his own experience, Sri Aurobindo was able to surpass them and realized that the final and logical goal of spiritual searches is the complete transformation of a person, down to the physical level, and the embodiment of "divine life" on earth. He devoted himself to achieving this goal, developing his Integral Yoga for this.

From 1914 to 1921, he publishes the monthly philosophical review LArya, where he publishes his main works, in which he examines in detail the main spheres of human existence in the light of the higher Knowledge gained as a result of yoga practice, reveals the true meaning of the ancient scriptures of the N Vedas, Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita , the meaning and role of Indian culture, explores the problems of the development of society, the evolution of poetry and poetry.

Sri Aurobindo left his physical body on December 5, 1950. His literary heritage includes 35 volumes, including worldview works, extensive correspondence with students, many poems, plays and the grandiose epic poem Savitri, which he created during the last thirty-five years of his life and which was an effective embodiment of his multifaceted spiritual experience.

At the center of Sri Aurobindo's unique worldview is the statement that world evolution is a gradual self-manifestation, self-discovery of the Divine, which is latent in Nature as a result of the previous involution. Gradually ascending from stone to plant, from plant to animal and from animal to man, evolution does not stop at man, but, realizing its inner truth, secret Divinity, rushes further towards creating a more perfect, "Divine" species that will surpass man in much more than he surpasses the animal. Man N is only a transitional mental being, whose vocation N is to reach a higher, “supramental” level of consciousness, Consciousness-Truth, and to bring it down into the world, transforming his whole being and his whole life into a direct expression of Truth.

Sri Aurobindo devoted his whole life to the affirmation of this supramental consciousness in our world, the realization of which should lead to the creation on earth of a world of truth, harmony and justice, foreshadowed by the prophets of all times and peoples.

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A chapter from II Garin's book "The Evolution of the Soul: New Consciousness". Notes and references are given throughout the body of the book.

There are only two natural harmonious movements - the unconscious or largely subconscious movement of life, the harmony of which we find in animal creatures and in lower nature, and the movement of the Spirit. The human condition is a stage of transition, effort and imperfection between one movement and another, between natural and ideal life, spiritual life.
Sri Aurobindo Ghosh

One of the most prominent gurus of the 20th century, Sri Aurobindo Ghosh (1872-1950), who combined mysticism, poetry, philosophy and political struggle in one person, became one of the guides of the East to the West and became widely known among the Western intellectual elite. Aurobindo saw his task in the unity of the yoga system with the analytical methods of Western philosophy, which resulted in the doctrine of integral yoga, adapting Hinduism to European consciousness. Prone to the synthesis of Hindu ideas with modern science, Sri Aurobindo Ghosh translated the symbolism of "God in man" into the language of a supermental force of consciousness capable of embracing the truth:

The supermind in its primary source is a dynamic consciousness, and by its nature it is inseparable from the infinite wisdom, infinite will and divine knowledge of the Knower and the Creator. The supermind is the superman. This is the Gnostic superhumanity, reaching earthly nature in its next triumphant evolutionary step. The step from man to superman will be the next achievement of earthly evolution. This step is inevitable, because it is the intention of the inner Spirit and the logic of the very process of the development of nature.
We must view all becomings as events of movement in our true Self, and this Self as dwelling in all bodies, not just in our body. In our relationship with the world, we must consciously be who we really are - this one Self that becomes everything that we observe. We must consider all movements, all energies, all forms and all events as manifestations of our one and true “I” in many existences.

Sri Aurobindo's goal is to achieve the transformation of the world with the help of the cosmic power of Agni. Aurobindo yoga is a yoga of action, a yoga of gaining cosmic power and transforming the world with the help of this power. This, in particular, can be achieved by the technique of expanding consciousness in conditions of "silence of the mind." The most important concept of the mysticism of Sri Aurobindo's revelation is the silence of the mind - a mental state necessary for enlightenment. Silence of the mind, according to Sri Aurobindo, is necessary for capturing energy vibrations that are not perceived by the mind, but fill the world. Therefore, the first step forcing the mind to silence is meditation focused on emptiness - if the process proceeds correctly, then soon you will feel the emptiness of the mind as the first sign of the breaking of the "mental veil" separating the gross and imperfect material world and the world of Spirit. Meditation should not be stopped at this stage - it is necessary to wait for the moment when the inner emptiness begins to fill. The first sign of this is the sensation of the downward flow of the Divine power (will) of shakti.
Filling the consciousness of shakti enlightens it, makes it transparent and receptive ... You begin to feel the previously hidden energy vibrations and the stream of thoughts coming from the outside (from the Higher Mind), uniting all the enlightened ones. It is this state of consciousness that is a sign of complete mastery of the mental plane of the Soul and, at the same time, a step towards a new consciousness.
Unlike many other mystics, Sri Aurobindo does not see power as evil, but puts it on a par with love and knowledge. Will, power, shakti - the mover of the worlds, and whatever it is - Knowledge-Power, Love-Power, Life Force, Power of Action or Body Power - this power “... is always spiritual in origin and divine in quality. It is precisely the application of this Power, which animals, man or titan, use in ignorance, that must be discarded and replaced with its inherent great - even if it seems to us supernatural - an action directed by an inner consciousness that is consonant with the Infinite and Eternal. Integral Yoga cannot drop the Work of Life and be content with only inner experience; it must go inward in order to change the outside. "
Sri Aurobindo's Agni Yoga is focused not on nirvana and sannyasa (renunciation of the world), but on practical action, on perfecting the world and oneself. Nirvana is not the goal of the ultimate quest and the completion of the Path, but only a step to a new vision, to the highest comprehension of being. If the Universe is a multistage scale of different planes of being and consciousness, stretching from the abyss of gross matter to the heights of pure spirit, then the process of evolution includes a long way from external and internal liberation to a new consciousness, or the Supramental mind, covering all planes of consciousness - from the unconscious to superconscious.
Moving to the Supramental, Aurobindo discovered that man is a prisoner of Matter - the Black Egg, which squeezes him from all sides. There are two ways out of this egg: sleep (or meditation) and death. However, the human task is not to leave this shell, but to transform it into a clear and living space. Therefore, in order to penetrate the Supramental, Aurobindo believed, one should master all the plans of one's Subconscious.
“Everything that we become, that we do and endure in physical life, is being prepared behind the veil within us. Therefore, for yoga, which seeks to transform, transform life, it is extremely important to begin to be aware of what is happening inside these spheres, to become a master there and learn to feel, know and handle those hidden forces that determine our destiny, inner and outer growth or fall. ".
Aurobindo viewed the Subconscious as a kind of storehouse of our evolutionary past. Like Rudolf Steiner, he believed that the human soul retains the memory of all its previous incarnations, and believed that all these memories are stored in the recesses of the subconscious. In the subconscious we find the source of love; but it is also a repository of numerous dark forces that a person has overcome in the course of his spiritual progress. Aurobindo called these forces by the common name of the Enemy. In the fight against this Enemy, rooted in the subconscious of mankind, he now saw the main task of his revolutionary activity. “We foresee a spiritual revolution, and the material revolution is only its shadow and reflection,” he once said.
Aurobindo saw in the breakthrough to the Supramental the deepest spiritual transformation, dramatically expanding the spiritual capabilities of a person.
We are talking about the evolution of Life in Matter, about the evolution of mind in Matter; but evolution is a word that simply states a phenomenon without explaining it. After all, apparently, there is no reason due to which Life should evolve only from material elements, and Reason - only from living forms, if we do not admit that Life is already contained in Matter, and Mind - in Life, because Matter, in essence, is a form of veiled Life, and Life is a form of veiled Consciousness. But then no special objections are foreseen against taking the next step in this series and admitting that the mental consciousness itself can only be a form, some kind of external part of higher states that lie outside the Mind. In this case, man's invincible striving for God, Light, Bliss, Freedom, Immortality quite justifiably occupies its clearly defined place in the entire chain, namely, this is the imperious striving, a kind of imperative, with the help of which Nature tries to evolve beyond reason, and it seems to be as natural, true and justified as the striving for Life, which Nature has endowed with the forms of Matter, or the aspiration for Reason, which she has endowed, in turn, with some forms of life. ... An animal is a large laboratory in which nature, one might say, developed a person. Man himself may well become a living thinking laboratory, in which with the help of his now conscious cooperation, nature wants to create a superman, God. Or maybe it is better to say, manifest God?
If the old consciousness is an endless desire, lust, desire for possession, then the new one transfers our desires into the sphere of mastery, spiritual rhythm, and movements of the Soul. The old consciousness separates, the new unites the torn world, transforms time into eternity and flickering into peace.

For truth brings peace as on a great mantle of tenderness, as in the infinity of the sky, where our black birds, our birds of paradise, those sorrows, these sorrows, gray wings, pink wings dissolve. Everything unites, tunes in to that note, and becomes true; everything is simple and flawless, without a trace, without a mark, no doubt, because everything flows from this music, and this small fleeting gesture is consistent with the great swell that will still roll in when we are no longer there.
People searched for the truth in a variety of ways - through religion and science, magic and beauty, enlightenment and meditation, wars and conquests, deep dives and space flights. One can argue for a long time who achieved more: a resident of Thebaid, a builder of the Temple, a Thebaid magician or an American astronaut, but if you look closely into the face of the truth, you cannot but admit that within the framework of the old consciousness, truth did not connect, but separated people. In order for the very search for it to become fruitful and positive, it is not necessary to change the tactics of the search or the truth itself, but a radical change in the consciousness seeking the truth - the transition from what separates us to a radical improvement of our spiritual structures themselves. Some believe that this could be a real leap in evolutionary development.
It is quite clear that we are not talking about improving our laws, our systems or sciences, our religions, philosophical schools or all kinds of "isms" - parts of the old Machinery, and not even about further improving our intellect as such, we are talking about the transition from man reasonable to a spiritual person. According to Sri Aurobindo, "Human imperfection is not the last word of Nature, but his perfection is also not the last peak of the Spirit." Man is not the peak; man is a "transitional being," the great Indian thinker believed, and in this respect he was close to Nietzsche's ideas about the superman, but not to the blond beast, but to messengers, the Sons of God, returning to their Father.

We do not need a superman, but something else that is already cutting into the human heart and which is as different from him as Bach's cantatas differ from the first murmurs of a hominid. And, in fact, Bach's cantatas sound very poor when our inner ear begins to open up to the harmony of the future.
The future belongs to those of us who give ourselves completely to this future and who are ready for an endless search and change of our own consciousness.
A new consciousness is a new way of being, a new beautiful world, it is also a touch of God, a moment of inner shock, a miracle that happened. But any miracle is revealed gradually, and a long way to comprehend it is very important for filling the consciousness with new meanings, goals and values. The new consciousness is an awakening from centuries-old sleep, an ascent to a higher mental plane, a meeting with God in oneself.
Sri Aurobindo and his disciples associate the new consciousness with a radical change in truth, with the transition to a new order of ideas, to the mastery of unity and wholeness:

It is like a solvent of shadows, a conductor of order, a transmitter of peace and harmony, a corrector of rhythms - for in reality there is no evil, there are no enemies, there are no contradictions: there are only poorly coordinated rhythms. And when we tune in ourselves, everything is tuned - but not according to our ideas of good and evil, happiness or unhappiness, failure or success: according to a different order, which gradually and inevitably manifests itself from a long vision - according to the order of truth.
And every minute becomes clear. Each image behind its shadows, each circumstance behind its disorder, each accidental step, each incident, each fall reveals its meaning and, as it were, the core of the pure truth that it seeks to become. Then there are no more judgments, no false reactions, no haste, no tension, no greed, no fear of losing or not having, no vague uncertainty, no quickly exposed certainties: there is this that flows, what is true, that just wants to be everything. more and more true, because truth is the great sweetness of life, the peace of the being, the vastness of the being, the precision of gesture and the perfection of the minute.
We have entered a new consciousness, the consciousness of truth.

A new consciousness is revealed to a person not from the outside, but inside him - on the peaks of the Spirit, clarifying the look and making eternity available. And then, when this happens, "there are neither great things, nor small things: there is an evenness of truth that grows at every step and in every gesture."

This is a great new Fact in the world. This is the new consciousness announced by Sri Aurobindo. This is the microscopic beginning of the land of truth. And since the sages of past years did not see this (or the moment had not yet come), they climbed high peaks in search of heaven. But heaven is among us: they grow under our gaze, they are strengthened through every obstacle, every gesture of truth, every second truly lived; they outline their graceful hills beneath our astonished footsteps and vibrate imperceptibly in the little rift of the creature torn from our great empty lands.
Sri Aurobindo's ideas are developed in the books of his disciple Satprem "My Burning Heart", "Mind of Cells", "Revolt of the Earth", "Divine Materialism", "New Species", "Mutation of Death", "Evolution-2", "On the Way to supermanity ”,“ Notes of the Apocalypse ”,“ Sri Aurobindo, or the journeys of consciousness ”.

"There is God in every person and to manifest Him is the purpose of life.This is what we can all do. " Sri Aurobindo.

"Anyway, who is Krishna? The eternal childforever playing in the everlasting garden. " Sri Aurobindo.

Who is Sri Aurobindo? Rabindranath Tagore talked about him like " the voice that embodied the soul of India". Romain Rolland called him "the greatest thinker of our time." He is known as a participant in the national liberation movement of India, one of the greatest teachers, the founder of integral yoga, poet, philosopher, author of many philosophical and literary works, one of which is the poetic epic "Savitri", which in India is considered the fifth Veda.

Sri Aurobindo was born in Calcutta on August 15, 1872. His father, Krishna Dhan Ghosh, was a surgeon, and his mother, Svarnalata Devi, the daughter of a leader of the movement of the religious reform society Brahmo-samaj.

English culture and education left its mark on the consciousness of Aurobindo. In 1879 he was sent to Cambridge, graduating at the age of 20.

Returning to India, he begins to study Sanskrit and Vedic scriptures, including the Upanishads and Bhagavad-gita, Ramayana. He also begins to practice yoga.

For 13 years he held various administrative posts, and in 1906 he moved to Calcutta and became the rector of the National College. Throughout his stay in India, he follows the development of political events in the country. In 1905, there is an outbreak over the division of Bengal, which forces him to join the national liberation movement. For 8 years, from 1902 to 1910, he was actively involved in political life, was arrested and acquitted several times.

However, he used yoga as a source of strength in the liberation struggle. Unlike many other philosophers, Sri Aurobindo Ghosh did not strive for liberation, for escape from the world, he tried to connect the material and spiritual together, which made him stand out among the other greatest teachers in the history of mankind.

The state of Nirvana, which he reached, Sri Aurobindo used as a springboard for higher evolution. He went through many different mystical experiences.

During his second arrest, he was in Alipore Central Prison in Calcutta, where for 2 weeks he was visited by a spirit Swami Vivekananda, telling him about the higher levels of consciousness that lead to the supermind. He saw in his jailers, prisoners, trees, the prison itself, the judge as a single manifestation of the divinity of Krishna. This gave rise to a new stage in his life.

In 1910 he retired from political life and devoted himself entirely to spiritual work and philosophy.

Sri Aurobindo made a huge contribution to Vedanta. He managed to do what Advaita had failed to do before, combining Indian and European thought. He regarded the spirit as a means of external transformation, so that a person becomes a spiritual being in the material world. To solve the problem of unity and diversity, which Advaita could not solve, Aurobindo introduces a transitional bridge between them in the form Supermind. He rejected the materialistic ideas of Darwin and the Samkhya philosophy, developed the concept of the integral evolution of spirit and matter. It was based on the descent of the Divine force into Matter, which led to the transformation of Matter.

According to Sri Aurobindo the human form of life is not the highest and speaks of its transformation into a spiritual one, thus overcoming the limitations of the material world. This should lead to a state of Supramental existence. This is, according to Sri Aurobindo, Divine life on Earth.

“In order for destruction to disappear from this world, it is not enough that our hands remain clean and our souls unblemished, it is necessary that the root of evil be removed from humanity. In order to heal the world of evil, it is necessary to heal its foundation in man. There is only one way out - this is a change in consciousness.When our eyes, now blinded by the idea of ​​matter, open to the Light, we will find that there is nothing inanimate, but in everything - manifested or unmanifested - and life, and reason, and bliss, and divine power and being. " Sri Aurobindo.

At the heart of his teaching was the purification of the soul, which were neglected by religion, temples and churches, focusing on rituals, as well as the development of love for God, abiding in everything that surrounds.

The main philosophical works of Sri Aurobindo are:

1. Yoga synthesis.
2. Savitri.
3. Foundations of Indian Culture.
4. Human Cycle.
5. Essay on the Geeta. Revelations of ancient wisdom. Vedas, Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita.

Companion of Sri Aurobindo was Mirra Alfassa, also referred to as the Mother. Sri Aurobindo wrote: "The Consciousness of the Mother and my consciousness are one and the same."

After the departure of Sri Aurobindo in 1950, she continued his work.

He devoted his whole life to salvation, spiritual growth, and the improvement of mankind. He was not interested in his own success, he strove to instill peace, purity and joy in all people. And he partially succeeded. His merit is immense and immeasurable. He has many followers, as well as those who sympathize with his ideas to this day. Sri Aurobindo Ghosh is undoubtedly one of the greatest teachers in the history of mankind.

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