Sri Aurobindo

Key ideas

1. A real world. Sri Aurobindo takes Brahman to be existence, consciousness and bliss (sat-cit-ānanda) and the world to be its manifestation through līlā, divine play. He does not treat the world as an illusion, and he argues that it can evolve into a divine existence.
2. Involution and evolution. Spirit has first descended, or involved itself, into the apparent unconsciousness of Matter. Evolution, from matter to life and from life to mind, is Spirit emerging again, and for him it does not stop at the human: man is a transitional being.
3. The Supermind. The Supermind, or Truth-consciousness, is the intermediary power between the unmanifest Brahman and the manifest world. Mind is in essence the same and conceals it as a potentiality; the aim of the evolution is to manifest it.
4. Integral Yoga. The aim is not escape from the world but its transformation, by a triple change: psychic, spiritual and supramental. For him all life is yoga, and yoga as practice is a methodical effort at self-perfection.
5. Integral non-dualism. He holds that the Absolute and its creative force are one, with no opposition between them, and criticises Śaṅkara’s Advaita as world-negating. R. Puligandla argues that this misrepresents Śaṅkara.
6. Society and human unity. In The Human Cycle he traces the evolution of human societies and asks where they are going, and in The Ideal of Human Unity he studies the movement of humanity towards closer unification.

Sri Aurobindo (born Aurobindo Ghose, 1872–1950) was an Indian philosopher, poet, yogi and nationalist. After a career in the independence movement in Bengal he withdrew to Pondicherry and developed Integral Yoga, a spiritual philosophy set out in The Life Divine. Its central claim is that the world is not an illusion but a real stage in the evolution of consciousness, which has not reached its limit in human beings.

What was his life?

Born in Calcutta, he was taken to England as a child, educated at St Paul’s School in London and at King’s College, Cambridge, and passed the written examination for the Indian Civil Service, but did not enter it. In 1893 he returned to India to serve the Maharaja of Baroda, teaching and working in administration, and from there took an increasing interest in the nationalist cause. In 1906 he moved to Calcutta and became the first principal of the National College. In 1908 he was arrested in the Alipore bomb case and spent a year in solitary confinement; he was acquitted in 1909. By his own account his view of life changed in jail, and for a fortnight he heard the voice of Vivekananda speaking to him.

In April 1910 he went to Pondicherry. From 1914 to 1921 he wrote for the monthly Arya, in which most of his major books first appeared. In 1926 he and Mirra Alfassa, the Mother, founded the Sri Aurobindo Ashram; after he withdrew into seclusion that year, she ran it. He died in Pondicherry on 5 December 1950.

Is the world an illusion?

For Sri Aurobindo, no. Brahman is existence, consciousness and bliss, and the world is its manifestation as līlā, divine play. That puts him at odds with a common reading of Śaṅkara, to whom he attributed a world-negating philosophy of māyā. Whether that is fair to Śaṅkara is disputed: R. Puligandla thinks it misrepresents him, while U. C. Dubey defends Sri Aurobindo’s critique.

What are involution and evolution?

Sri Aurobindo agreed that evolution describes how life emerges from matter and mind from life, but held that it does not say why. His answer is involution: the Spirit first descends into matter, and evolution is its return. Life is already involved in matter, because all existence is a manifestation of Brahman. Human beings are an intermediate stage.

Above ordinary mind he describes higher levels, called the Higher Mind, Illumined Mind, Intuition and Overmind, that ascend towards the Supermind. He offers this as a thesis grounded in spiritual experience, not as a result of evolutionary biology.

What is the Supermind?

The Supermind, or Truth-consciousness, stands between the unmanifest Brahman and the manifest world, and so between existence-consciousness-bliss and the lower nature of mind, life and body. He found a precedent for it in the Vedas, where the gods embody its powers. Mind, he said, is the same in essence and holds the Supermind within itself as a potentiality. Mind works by dividing and measuring reality, but it can ascend.

What is Integral Yoga?

Liberation from the world is not the whole aim, on his view: the Divine is also to descend into the world and transform it. Integral Yoga therefore aims at a triple transformation: the psychic change, in which the inmost soul takes charge of the nature; the spiritual change, the descent of a higher light and power; and the supramental transmutation. He added that all life is yoga, and that yoga as a practice is a methodical effort at self-perfection. The Synthesis of Yoga sets out the methods.

Where does he sit among philosophers?

He wrote that his philosophy was formed first by the Upaniṣads and the Gītā, and founded on experience rather than on ideas. Even so, scholars have found affinities with the West: Steve Odin compares his evolving Absolute with that of Hegel, though, as Odin notes, Sri Aurobindo argues for a creative and emergent evolution, not a dialectic; and several studies have noted his closeness to Teilhard de Chardin, whom he did not know. His political and social thought is a separate strand. In 1906 he helped to frame the Congress aims of swaraj, swadeshi, boycott and national education, and he later wrote on society in The Human Cycle and on world unity in The Ideal of Human Unity.

How should you start reading Sri Aurobindo?

Start with Essays on the Gita, alongside the Bhagavad Gītā in the library. Then read the early chapters of The Life Divine on the Ashram’s website. The UGC NET syllabus lists him under evolution, mind and supermind, and Integral Yoga; the UPSC Philosophy optional lists evolution, involution and Integral Yoga. See the UGC NET guide and the UPSC guide.