2-21-98 SRI AUROBINDO AND THE MOTHER

These two sages, the latter being a "divine consort" of the former, had a tremendous influence in transforming what had become other-worldly, life-denying doctrines of later Hinduism into practical, life-affirming Vedic teachings suitable for modern people. Single handedly, they restored the understanding of the delicate balance between absolute and relative aspects of existence (Shiva and Shakti).

Sri Aurobindo was educated in the west and clearly saw all the evils of British colonialism. He became so active in the cause of freeing India from British rule that he was imprisoned in India for over a year. When threatened with imprisonment once again, he fled to French protected south India where he spent the rest of his life (Pondicherry) after being joined by "The Mother", a French woman whom he stated was an incarnation of the Divine Mother.

Aurobindo was a prolific writer who sought to express his spiritual experiences in books such as "The Life Divine", "Synthesis of Yoga" and poetic works such as "Savitri." His writing style fascinates some and bores others, but there can be no doubt as to the depth and breadth of his contributions to our understanding of the spiritual life, the Veda and the disciplines derived from it. The Mother also wrote a number of works on "Integral Yoga", the name Sri Aurobindo gave to the applied aspect of his teaching.

However, not all have accepted the spiritual genius of this man and woman. Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh was particularly adamant in suggesting that Sri Aurobindo was no more than a Vedic scholar and hardly an illumined saint. Yet, who can read the works of Sri Aurobindo or The Mother and not sense the great spiritual presence which lie behind and within them.

An analysis of the lives of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother through the principles of The Art of Multi-Dimensional Living suggests that both of them taught out of the spiritual stream of evolution known as Bhakti Yoga, the path of devotion. This explains their ability to restore a proper emphasis to the more personal, relative values of creation, the value of the Shakti force within human and planetary evolution. The role of the Divine Mother and those who follow in her footsteps is to bring Spirit into matter and to show that Spirit is not just transcendent but also immanent in every fabric of creation.

At the same time, although he himself was in the stream of Bhakti Yoga in a liberalized form, Aurobindo was only too aware of a fundamental principle of The Art of Multi-Dimensional Living: that people are different from one another and that no one way of spiritual practice is suitable to everyone. Thus, he emphasized a comprehensive Integral Yoga which combined the classical yogas of devotion, work and knowledge. He taught that anything we do in life can be a part of our yoga or spiritual practice.

What his teaching failed to emphasize is that, even though all people need to approach yoga in an integral way, each person also needs to find out his or her chief strength of personality and corresponding yoga (of the eight primal possibilities), so that this yoga can then be used to organize and integrate all the others. Furthermore, he never mentioned the possibility of a spiritual science which could provide a technology for accomplishing this very task.

Without this understanding, Sri Aurobindo's teaching tends to turn everyone into Surya Yogins, those souls (one out of eight people on average) who are meant to simultaneously develop heart, mind and will, as well as all the other aspects of personality: the physical body, the senses, the intellect and the iconoclastic factor. Surya Yogins do not emphasize one particular path for integrating all the others, which is exactly what is required of the other seven types of seekers. A failure to make these kinds of distinctions is a great defect in his teaching, but one readily apparent after considerable study of the principles of The Art of Multi-Dimensional Living.

I also feel that Sri Aurobindo's descriptions of the various states of consciousness, including the higher transpersonal ones, are more clearly stated by sages such as Rudolph Steiner, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and Paul Brunton, although scholars like Ken Wilber have lauded Aurobindo's descriptions.

Despite these reservations, there is much in Aurobindo which deserves recognition: his clear explanation of the Vedic "myths" in terms which westerners can appreciate, his catholicity in approaching the spiritual life, his restoration of the balance between Shiva and Shakti or spiritual transcendence and immanence, his emphasis on the need to integrate spiritual practice with dynamic activity, his artistry in expounding spiritual principles, his emphasis on the principle of "ananda" and its incorporation into every fabric of existence, and finally his and the Mother's creation of a model spiritual community which could serve as a beacon to others.

Aurobindo's life destiny was closely related to the field of physicality and how to bring Spirit into matter in a way which would eventually bring physical immortality. To what degree and in what way he achieved this destiny is debated even today. In the final analysis, like all great men, Aurobindo remains somewhat of an enigma. The same holds true for The Mother, who so dutifully carried out his vision in their ideal community. At their core, they were both teachers in the tradition of Bhakti Yoga, and those readers who contemplate this cosmological fact in a serious way will unlock many puzzles regarding the life and teaching of these two great souls.