Part Four Public Statements and Notices concerning Sri Aurobindo's Ashram and Yoga 1927 ­ 1949     Section One   Public Statements and Notices concerning the Ashram 1927 ­ 1937

'Autobiographical Notes and Other Writings of Historical Interest' by Sri Aurobindo - Page 1 of 10 Note on the Texts Note on the Texts   AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOTES AND OTHER WRITINGS OF HISTORICAL INTEREST consists of notes, letters, telegrams and public st

Letters Written as a Probationer in the Indian Civil Service, 1892   To Lord Kimberley   [1]   To the Right Hon the Earl of Kimberley Secretary of State for India. 6 Burlington Rd Bayswater W Monday. Nov. 21. 1892 May it please your Lordship I was selected as a probationer for the Indian Civil Service in 1890, and after the two years probation required have been rejected on the ground that I failed to attend the Examination in Riding. I humbly petition your Lordship that a farther consideration may, if possible, be given to my case.

Incomplete Life Sketches   Incomplete Life Sketch in Outline Form, c. 1922   Born 1872. Sent to England for education 1879. Studied at St Paul's School, London, and King's College, Cambridge. Returned to India. February, 1893. Life of preparation at Baroda 1893 ­ 1906 Political life — 1902 ­ 1910 [The "Swadeshi" movement prepared from 1902 ­ 5 and started definitely by Sri Aurobindo, Tilak, Lajpatrai and others in 1905. A movement for Indian independence, by non-cooperation and passive resistance and the organisation (under a national Council or Executive, but this did not materiali

'The Renaissance in India and Other Essays on Indian Culture' by Sri Aurobindo - Page 1 of 50 VII   Indian Spirituality and Life   I HAVE described the framework of the Indian idea from the outlook of an intellectual criticism, because that is the standpoint of the critics who affect to disparage its value. I have shown that Indian culture must be adjudged even from this alien outlook to have been the creation of a wide and noble spirit. Inspired in the heart of its being by a lofty principle, illumined with a striking and uplifting idea of individual manhood and its powers and its possible perfection, aligned to a spacious plan of social architecture, it was enriched not

The Twenty-First Hymn to Agni   A HYMN OF THE DIVINE FLAME IN HUMANITY   [The Rishi invokes the divine Flame to burn as the divine Man in humanity and to raise us to our perfection in the seats of the Truth and the Bliss.]     1. As the human1 we set thee within us, as the human we kindle thee; O Flame, O Seer-Puissance, as the human offer sacrifice to the gods for the seeker of the godheads.     2. O Flame, thou burnest in the human creature when thou art satisfied with his offerings; his ladles go to thee unceasingly, O perfect in thy birth, O presser out of the running richness.

SAVITRI THE CREATOR   The result of the procession of the shining dawns, of the divine returns of Surya, of the increasings of Pushan and his leading on the Path is summed up in the creation of Savitri the luminous Creator. It is the god Savitri who sets us there where the ancient doers of the Work have preceded us; that is the desirable flame and splendour of the divine Creator on which the seer has to meditate and towards which this god impels our thoughts, that the bliss of the creative godhead on the forms of which our soul must meditate as it journeys towards it. It is the supreme creation in which the goddess undivided and infinite speaks out

The Seventh Hymn to Agni   THE DIVINE WILL, DESIRER, ENJOYER, PROGRESSIVE FROM THE ANIMAL TO BLISS AND KNOWLEDGE   [Agni is hymned as the divine Force that brings the bliss and the ray of the truth into the human being and light into the night of our darkness. He leads men in their labour to his own infinite levels; he enjoys and tears up the objects of earthly enjoyment, but all his multitude of desires are for the building of a universality, an all-embracing enjoyment in the divine home of the human being. He is the animal moving as the enjoyer by the progressive movement of Nature, as with an axe through the forest, to th

Part One   Chapter IV   The Foundations of the Psychological Theory   A HYPOTHESIS of the sense of Veda must always proceed, to be sure and sound, from a basis that clearly emerges in the language of the Veda itself. Even if the bulk of its substance be an arrangement of symbols and figures, the sense of which has to be discovered, yet there should be clear indications in the explicit language of the hymns which will guide us to that sense. Otherwise, the symbols being themselves ambiguous, we shall be in danger of manufacturing a system out of our own imaginations and preferences instead of dis

Chapter  X Chapter  X   The Image of the Oceans and the Rivers   THE three Riks of the third hymn of Madhuchchhandas in which Saraswati has been invoked, run as follows, in the Sanskrit:   Pāvakā naḥ sarasvatī vājebhir vājinīvatī; yajñam vaṣtu dhiyāvasuḥ. Codayitrī sūnṛtānām, cetantī sumatīnām; yajñam dadhe sarasvatī. Maho arṇaḥ sarasvatī, pra cetayati ketunā; dhiyo viśvā vi rājati.   The sense of the first two verses is clear enough when we know Saraswati to be that power of the Truth which we call inspiration.