The changes are seen in the world today are intellectual, moral, physical in the ideal and intention: the spiritual revolution waits for its hour and throws up meanwhile its waves here and there. Until it comes, the sense of the others cannot be understood and till then, all interpretation of present happenings and forecast of man'sfuture are vain things. For its nature, power, event are that which will determine the next cycle of our humanity.
?Sri Aurobindo
The book begins by narrating the life story of Aurobindo Akroyd Ghose, the third son of a medical doctor in Calcutta in 1872. Aurobindo, along with his two brothers, was taken to England by the doctor-father and ?Aurobindo spent his formative years totally cut off from the culture of his birth.? After schooling, he passed the ICS but did not join it; instead he joined the Maharaja of Baroda'sservice to work as an employee under him.
The India in which he arrived on return from Great Britain ?must have looked like a cultural desert to Aurobindo Ghose.?
Up until then, ?Aurobindo had been an indifferent agnostic and had not followed up on the few rationally inner experiences he had known. Sanskrit literature, however, opened up for him unexpected vistas?? He had heard of Vivekananda and Ramakrishna Paramahamsa in England but, as he admitted, ?I learned yoga to help in my political work, for inspiration and power and capacity. I didn'twant to give up my activities for the sake of yoga.? He slowly took up pranayama, a yogic breathing technique.
Confined to Alipore jail for defying the British rulers, he learnt nirvanic silence when the Upanishads and the Bhagvad Gita became his guides and inspiration. The author of the book under review makes a pertinent observation here: ?Who would have imagined that this radical politician, considered a very dangerous man and so involved in that busy life of his, was continuously absorbed in inner concentration?? Gradually everyday reality became ?as spiritual reality for him, wherever and whenever,? he was, says the author.
Meanwhile Mirra Alfassa was born in Paris – ?there was a kind of inner light, a Presence, I was born with that?, thus spoke Mirra.
?Between 11 and 13 a series of psychic and spiritual experiences revealed to me not only the existence of God but man'spossibility of uniting with Him, of realising Him integrally in consciousness and action, of manifesting Him upon Earth in a life divine.? In 1914, Mirra visited Pondicherry with her husband Richard and on meeting Aurobindo, said, ?As soon as I saw Aurobindo, I recognised in him the well-known being whom I used to call Krishna.? She soon became the Mother and with Sri Aurobindo ?found themselves and each other?.
Both Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, though from different backgrounds, had had same experiences and the same vision. Sri Aurobindo wrote: ?There is no difference between Mother'spath and mine; we have and have always had the same path, the path that leads to the supramental change and the divine realisation; not only at the end, but from the beginning they have been the same.?
Over time the disciples gathered into what would evolve as the Sri Aurobindo Ashram at Pondicherry. Here the Mother and Sri Aurobindo worked together towards the realisation of their integral yoga and their lives? mission?establishment of the supramental consciousness upon Earth, the spiritual transformation of the world and the coming of a new species?beyond man. ?The first word of the supramental yoga is surrender; its last world also is surrender,? wrote Sri Aurobindo.
From the beginning of 1926, the Mother began to assume more and more responsibilities of Sri Aurobindo ?for the spiritual guidance of the sadhakas (disciples), as if giving him the needed relief.?
Sri Aurobindo went into mahasamadhi in 1950 and left the world ?not the way of all flesh?, i.e. like human beings before him and still do, but in the words of the Mother, ?he was not forced to leave his ?body?; he has chosen to do so.? The Mother continued her work and founded the Auroville in 1968 and it became an international township for those interested in accelerated evolution. In November 1973, she too left her physical body.
They both believed in the dawning of a new era, removal of the veil over the ?outer and inner mental?, ?the vital will take hold on the physical?, the world becoming more united with scientific developments and the rise of persons who wield tremendous influence over large numbers of people.
Taking into consideration all these, Sri Aurobindo had written in his book The Life Divine: ?It must be conceded at once that there is not the least probability or possibility of the whole human race rising in a block to the supramental level.?
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