Theos-Talk Archives (December 2000 Message tt00043)

According to sources available on-line Aurobindo began his 
Yoga sadhana in 1904 ...this was followed by four years of 
silence and finally in 1914 he beagn writing about Yoga:


During all his stay at Pondicherry from 1910 onward he 
remained more and more exclusively devoted to his spiritual 
work and his sadhana. 

In 1914 after four years of silent Yoga he began the publication of 
a philosophical monthly, the Arya. Most of his more important 
works, The Life Divine, The Synthesis of Yoga, Essays on the 
Gita, The Isha Upanishad, appeared serially in the Arya. These 
works embodied much of the inner knowledge that had come to 
him in his practice of Yoga. Others were concerned with the spirit 
and significance of Indian civilisation and culture (The 
Foundations of Indian Culture), the true meaning of the Vedas 
(The Secret of the Veda), the progress of human society (The 
Human Cycle), the nature and evolution of poetry (The Future 
Poetry), the possibility of the unification of the human race (The 
Ideal of Human Unity). At this time also he began to publish his 
poems, both those written in England and at Baroda and those, 
fewer in number, added during his period of political activity and 
in the first years of his residence at Pondicherry. The Arya 
ceased publication in 1921 after six years and a half of 
uninterrupted appearance. Sri Aurobindo lived at first in 
retirement at Pondicherry with four or five disciples. Afterwards 
more and yet more began to come to him to follow his spiritual 
path and the number became so large that a community of 
sadhaks had to be formed for the maintenance and collective 
guidance of those who had left everything behind for the sake of 
a higher life. This was the foundation of the Sri Aurobindo 
Ashram which has less been created than grown around him as 
its centre. 

Sri Aurobindo began his practice of Yoga in 1904. At first 
gathering into it the essential elements of spiritual experience 
that are gained by the paths of divine communion and spiritual 
realisation followed till now in India, he passed on in search of a 
more complete experience uniting and harmonising the two 
ends of existence, Spirit and Matter. Most ways of Yoga are paths 
to the Beyond leading to the Spirit and, in the end, away from life; 
Sri Aurobindo's rises to the Spirit to redescend with its gains 
bringing the light and power and bliss of the Spirit into life to 
transform it. Man's present existence in the material world is in 
this view or vision of things a life in the Ignorance with the 
Inconscient at its base, but even in its darkness and nescience 
there are involved the presence and possibilities of the Divine. 
The created world is not a mistake or a vanity and illusion to be 
cast aside by the soul returning to heaven or Nirvana, but the 
scene of a spiritual evolution by which out of this material 
inconscience is to be manifested progressively the Divine 
Consciousness in things. Mind is the highest term yet reached 
in the evolution, but it is not the highest of which it is capable. 
There is above it a Supermind or eternal Truth-Consciousness 
which is in its nature the self-aware and self-determining light 
and power of a Divine Knowledge. Mind is an ignorance seeking 
after Truth, but this is a self-existent Knowledge harmoniously 
manifesting the play of its forms and forces. It is only by the 
descent of this supermind that the perfection dreamed of by all 
that is highest in humanity can come. It is possible by opening to 
a greater divine consciousness to rise to this power of light and 
bliss, discover one's true self, remain in constant union with the 
Divine and bring down the supramental Force for the 
transformation of mind and life and body. To realise 
thispossibility has been the dynamic aim of Sri Aurobindo's 
Yoga. 

excerpted from his biography found at 
http://www.miraura.org/bio/sketch-a.html

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