Celebrating Sri Aurobindo's 144th Birth Anniversary

The Inner Chamber of the Mother's Temple as constructed in The New Way, Vols. 1 & 2, respecting the Mother's original vision of the Temple featuring the Vedic symbols of  Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.

[The] transformation to be effected ... [is] an integral transformation of all that we now are or seem to be, by the joining — Yoga — of the finite being in Time with the Eternal and Infinite. All this difficult result can become possible only if there is an immense conversion, a total reversal of our consciousness, a supernormal entire transfiguration of the nature. There must be an ascension of the whole being, an ascension of spirit chained here and trammelled by its instruments and its environment to sheer Spirit free above, an ascension of soul towards some blissful Super-soul, an ascension of mind towards some luminous Supermind, an ascension of life towards some vast Super-life, an ascension of our very physicality to join its origin in some pure and plastic spirit-substance. And this cannot be a single swift upsoaring but, like the ascent of the sacrifice described in the Veda, a climbing from peak to peak in which from each summit one looks up to the much more that has still to be done. At the same time there must be a descent too to affirm below what we have gained above: on each height we conquer we have to turn to bring down its power and its illumination into the lower mortal movement; the discovery of the Light for ever radiant on high must correspond with the release of the same Light secret below in every part down to the deepest caves of subconscient Nature. And this pilgrimage of ascension and this descent for the labour of transformation must be inevitably a battle, a long war with ourselves and with opposing forces around us which, while it lasts, may well seem interminable. For all our old obscure and ignorant nature will contend repeatedly and obstinately with the transforming Influence, supported in its lagging unwillingness or its stark resistance by most of the established forces of environing universal Nature; the powers and principalities and the ruling beings of the Ignorance will not easily give up their empire.  

‒ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga, CWSA Vols. 23-24, p. 132 [Bold emphasis added] 

15 August 2016 is not only the 69th Anniversary of India’s Independence, it is also the 144th Anniversary of Sri Aurobindo’s birth in 1872. I have wondered all year if and how India would celebrate his extraordinary life, yoga and teachings on this special anniversary. Looking at the news today, there is no evidence of such a national celebration of the Light that he cast into the Darkness of our present mental-egoic consciousness. It is understandable given the truth of the above quote and given the extraordinary effort and reversal in consciousness India will need to make to be able to meaningfully recognize and acknowledge Sri Aurobindo’s accomplishments regarding the recovery and restoration of the truth of India’s and the world’s Sanatana Dharma (Eternal Truth/Law of Being and Becoming), which is inseparable from the recovery of the true Tropical/Solar measure and essence of the 12-month sacrificial year (yajna) of the Vedic Rishis as made fully apparent by the Mother and Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet. As is, India at large holds on to and perpetuates a mis-measure of the yajna which according to Sri Aurobindo and the Vedic Rishis is the sole basis for the recovery of the Lost Sun or Soul of the Sanatana Dharma from the cave of darkness/ignorance (Vala) which humanities present fragmented egoic-mental consciousness. For more information on the importance of re-establishing the true, solar measure of the Earth's year (as opposed to the un-Vedic sacred calendar which is based on the constellations) see Patrizia's articles on the subject at www.aeoncentre.com.

It is in the revolution of the year that the recovery of the lost Sun and the lost cows is effected, for we have the explicit statement in [Rig Veda] X.62-2… “by the truth, in the revolution of the year, they broke Vala”…’  

– Sri Aurobindo, The Secret of the Veda, p.177 

A few nights ago I had a fantastically vivid, colorful and beautiful dream of dynamic slivers and forms of light dancing about a dark cave. The quality of the light was unusual, it was similar to a ray of golden sunlight, but more defined, more colorful, more liquid or plasma-like. The light seemed alive in the sense that it made delightful choices about how it manifested. With the delightful light was a sense of blissful awe and the feeling that it was the beginning of the end of the darkness in the cave. 

This is how Sri Aurobindo’s work and the work of the Mother and Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet (who have helped to bear forth the seed of his Light in the world) occurs to me. It is the beginning of the end of rampant, world-wide and age-old distortions, mis-measures, mis-understandings, mis-perceptions regarding the Sanatana Dharma as shared with the world Vedic Rishis some 5,000 years ago. Sri Aurobindo's yoga ‒ which has turned out to be a collective yogic effort ‒ occurs to me as the dawn of the true Divine Light or Gnosis of the Individual and World-Soul, rising out of the darkness of our ideas, superstitions and religions which have in essence occulted or eclipsed the light or higher truth and potential of our Earthly birth, manifestation and evolutionary journey. 

I am perpetually delighted by the Light and Consciousness-Force of Sri Aurobindo and to celebrate his birth and yoga I will share some quotes below from Sri Aurobindo’s book The Secret of the Veda which emphasize the Vedic theme of the recovery of light of all-unifying Gnosis from the cave of mental ignorance. The context/path of this journey of recovery and victory is solely the 12-month Vedic Year. Via gnosis of this mahas pathah (great path of the Truth) according to the Rishis, we recover living gnosis of the unified field of Time and Space. As long as the sacred solar year and solar world (Swar) of the Rishis continues to be widely mis-measured in India, the Rishis great path of Truth remains largely in dis-use, as do the transformative and unifying teachings of Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo and other sages, including Vivekananda, have written about India becoming a world-Guru (Vishwa Guru) and many Indians intuit and cherish this destiny as well. The truth is, this destiny and great yoga is absolutely and irrevocably linked to the recovery and re-establishment of the true measure and proper understanding of the sacred year (yajna) of the Vedic Rishis, which at present does not seem to be on the Indian population's radar or its collective or national ‘to-do’ list. As is, sadly enough, few in India and subsequently in the world seem to be aware that the true origin and essence of yoga is the Vedic yajna. 

Those who sacrifice for ten months are the Dashagwas, seers of the ten rays who enter with Indra into the cave of the Panis and recover the lost herds [of light]. – Sri Aurobindo, The Secret of the Veda, p. 242 

“They who travel towards the goal and attain that treasure of the Panis, the supreme treasure hidden in the secret cave, they, having the knowledge and perceiving the falsehoods, rise up again thither whence they came and enter into that world. Possessed of the truth, beholding the falsehoods they, seers, rise up again into the great path,” mahas pathaḥ, the path of the Truth, or the great and wide realm, Mahas of the Upanishads. – Ibid., p. 181-182

[T]he Night of the Veda is the obscured consciousness of the mortal being in which the Truth is subconscient, hidden in the cave of the hill; that the recovery of the lost sun lying in this darkness of Night is the recovery of the sun of Truth out of the darkened subconscient condition …. – Ibid., p. 202 

[The] rising of the Sun which was lost in the obscurity—the familiar figure of the lost sun recovered by the Gods and the Angiras Rishis—the sun of Truth … the higher light, the gold of the Truth, … this [is the] treasure … for which the Vedic Rishis pray to the Gods. – Sri Aurobindo, The Secret of the Veda, , p. 130 [The] light which is its substance and constituent reality, is the light of Truth. But at present it is enough to emphasise this point that it is a heaven concealed from our vision by a certain darkness, that it has to be found and made visible, and that this seeing and finding depends on the birth of the Dawn, the rising of the Sun, the upsurging of the Solar [light out of its] secret cave. – Sri Aurobindo, The Secret of the Veda, p. 152 ‘It is when enriched in light and force of thought by the Angirases that Indra completes his victorious journey and reaches the goal on the mountain; “In him our primal fathers, the seven seers, the Navagwas, increase their plenty, him victorious on his march and breaking through (to the goal), standing on the mountain, inviolate in speech, most luminous-forceful by his thinkings” …. It is by singing the Rik, the hymn of illumination, that they find the solar illuminations in the cave of our being, … It is by the stubh, the all-supporting rhythm of the hymn of the seven seers, by the vibrating voice of the Navagwas that Indra becomes full of the power of Swar … and by the cry of the Dashagwas that he rends Vala in pieces (I.62.4). For this cry is the voice of the higher heaven, the thunder that cries in the lightning-flash of Indra, and the advance of the Angirases on their path is the forward movement of this cry of the heavens … It is by the satya mantra, the true thought expressed in the rhythm of the truth, that the hidden light is found and the Dawn brought to birth. … For these are the Angirases who speak aright … they are able to hold the seat of illumined knowledge, to mentalise the supreme abode of the sacrifice ….  – Ibid. p. 185 

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Bonus Content: Sri Aurobindo’s commentary on India’s independence:

On a Savitri Era blog entitled THE FREEDOM OF INDIA I found the following predictions by Sri Aurobindo regarding India’s independence.

Since 1907, we are living in a new era which is full of hope for India. Not only India but the whole world will see upheavals and revolutionary changes. The high will become low and the low high. The oppressed and the depressed shall be elevated. The nation and humanity will be animated by a new Consciousness, new thought and new efforts will be made to reach new ends. Amidst these revolutionary changes, India will become free. (Sri Aurobindo :  The Hope of Man, P. 350, originally published in a weekly paper called India, 1910.) 

You can take it from me, it is as certain as the rising sun of tomorrow.  The decree [of India’s independence] has already gone forth, it may not be long in coming. (Evening Talks with Sri Aurobindo, p. 19, 1918)   

According to this post, he later said independence would be established on his birthday. 

Below is message Sri Aurobindo prepared at the request of All India Radio, Tiruchirapalli, India, for broadcast on 14 August 1947, the eve of India’s independence.

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.

August 15th is my own birthday and it is naturally gratifying to me that it should have assumed this vast significance. I take this coincidence, not as a fortuitous accident, but as the sanction and seal of the Divine Force that guides my steps on the work with which I began life, the beginning of its full fruition. Indeed, on this day I can watch almost all the world-movements which I hoped to see fulfilled in my lifetime, though then they looked like impracticable dreams, arriving at fruition or on their way to achievement. In all these movements free India may well play a large part and take a leading position.

The first of these dreams was a revolutionary movement which would create a free and united India. India today is free but she has not achieved unity. At one moment it almost seemed as if in the very act of liberation she would fall back into the chaos of separate States which preceded the British conquest. But fortunately it now seems probable that this danger will be averted and a large and powerful, though not yet a complete union will be established. Also, the wisely drastic policy of the Constituent Assembly has made it probable that the problem of the depressed classes will be solved without schism or fissure. But the old communal division into Hindus and Muslims seems now to have hardened into a permanent political division of the country. It is to be hoped that this settled fact will not be accepted as settled for ever or as anything more than a temporary expedient. For if it lasts, India may be seriously weakened, even crippled: civil strife may remain always possible, possible even a new invasion and foreign conquest. India’s internal development and prosperity may be impeded, her position among the nations weakened, her destiny impaired or even frustrated. This must not be; the partition must go. Let us hope that that may come about naturally, by an increasing recognition of the necessity not only of peace and concord but of common action, by the practice of common action and the creation of means for that purpose. In this way unity may finally come about under whatever form—the exact form may have a pragmatic but not a fundamental importance. But by whatever means, in whatever way, the division must go; unity must and will be achieved, for it is necessary for the greatness of India’s future.

Another dream was for the resurgence and liberation of the peoples of Asia and her return to her great role in the progress of human civilisation. Asia has arisen; large parts are now quite free or are at this moment being liberated: its other still subject or partly subject parts are moving through whatever struggles towards freedom. Only a little has to be done and that will be done today or tomorrow. There India has her part to play and has begun to play it with an energy and ability which already indicate the measure of her possibilities and the place she can take in the council of the nations.

The third dream was a world-union forming the outer basis of a fairer, brighter and nobler life for all mankind. That unification of the human world is under way; there is an imperfect initiation organised but struggling against tremendous difficulties. But the momentum is there and it must inevitably increase and conquer. Here too India has begun to play a prominent part and, if she can develop that larger statesmanship which is not limited by the present facts and immediate possibilities but looks into the future and brings it nearer, her presence may make all the difference between a slow and timid and a bold and swift development. A catastrophe may intervene and interrupt or destroy what is being done, but even then the final result is sure. For unification is a necessity of Nature, an inevitable movement. Its necessity for the nations is also clear, for without it the freedom of the small nations may be at any moment in peril and the life even of the large and powerful nations insecure. The unification is therefore to the interests of all, and only human imbecility and stupid selfishness can prevent it; but these cannot stand for ever against the necessity of Nature and the Divine Will. But an outward basis is not enough; there must grow up an international spirit and outlook, international forms and institutions must appear, perhaps such developments as dual or multilateral citizenship, willed interchange or voluntary fusion of cultures. Nationalism will have fulfilled itself and lost its militancy and would no longer find these things incompatible with self-preservation and the integrality of its outlook. A new spirit of oneness will take hold of the human race.

Another dream, the spiritual gift of India to the world has already begun. India’s spirituality is entering Europe and America in an ever increasing measure. That movement will grow; amid the disasters of the time more and more eyes are turning towards her with hope and there is even an increasing resort not only to her teachings, but to her psychic and spiritual practice.

The final dream was a step in evolution which would raise man to a higher and larger consciousness and begin the solution of the problems which have perplexed and vexed him since he first began to think and to dream of individual perfection and a perfect society. This is still a personal hope and an idea, an ideal which has begun to take hold both in India and in the West on forward-looking minds. The difficulties in the way are more formidable than in any other field of endeavour, but difficulties were made to be overcome and if the Supreme Will is there, they will be overcome. Here too, if this evolution is to take place, since it must proceed through a growth of the spirit and the inner consciousness, the initiative can come from India and, although the scope must be universal, the central movement may be hers.

Such is the content which I put into this date of India’s liberation; whether or how far this hope will be justified depends upon the new and free India.