Collected Works of Sri Aurobindo
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The Collected Works of Sri Aurobindo (Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library) were published by the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in 1972, on occasion of Sri Aurobindo's centenary. The compilation fills 30 volumes, or close to 16,000 pages.
Contents |
[edit] Contents
Volumes include:
- Bande Mataram: Early Political Writings I (1893-1908)
- Karmayogin: Early Political Writings II (1909-1910)
- The Harmony of Virtue: Early Cultural Writings The Harmony of Virtue
- Writings in Bengali
- Collected Poems
- Collected Plays and Short Stories, Part One
- Collected Plays and Short Stories, Part Two
- Translations: From Sanskrit and Other Languages
- The Future Poetry and Letters on Poetry, Literature and Art.
- The Secret of the Veda
- Hymns to the Mystic Fire
- The Upanishads
- Essays on the Gita
- The Foundations of Indian Culture and the Renaissance in India
- Social and Political Thought
- The Supramental Manifestation and Other Writings
- The Hour of God and Other Writings
- The Life Divine Part One
- The Life Divine Part Two.
- The Synthesis of Yoga Parts One and Two
- The Synthesis of Yoga Parts Three and Four.
- Letters on Yoga Part One
- Letters on Yoga Parts Two and Three
- Letters on Yoga
- The Mother
- On Himself
- Supplement
- Savitri Part One
- Savitri Parts Two and Three.
- Index and Glossary
[edit] The Life Divine
The Life Divine is Sri Aurobindo's major philosophical opus. It combines a synthesis of western thought and eastern spirituality with Sri Aurobindo's own original insights. The Life Divine covers topics such as the human aspiration, the emergence of life in the cosmos from out of a Divine Source, the evolution of matter to spirit in the universe, the division and dualities inherent in human consciousness, the way out of Man's Ignorance though an evolution of consciousness, and the spiritual destiny of life on earth.
Sri Aurobindo also wrote, amongst others -- the 24,000 line spiritual poem Savitri, an exposition of spiritual progress The Synthesis of Yoga; books on ancient Indian spirituality (e.g. Essays on the Gita); various volumes on historical evolution of humanity (The Human Cycle, The Ideal of Human Unity); critiques on literature (e.g. The Future Poetry); as well as hundreds if not thousands of letters on yoga (personal evolution) to his disciples (Letters on Yoga). The thoughts of his partner The Mother are captured in dozens of other volumes, including her conversations on her own personal transformation, The Agenda.
[edit] Summary of the book
In 58 chapters and 2 books, Sri Aurobindo covers a vast array of subjects. In general, though, the book can be summarized as follows:
- Man aspires for God, immortality, truth, delight, and perfection.
- That aspiration remains unfulfilled because Man's nature is divided.
- He can come to fulfill his aspiration when he discovers his higher nature, i.e. his higher consciousness.
- The division and dualities in Man's nature -- i.e. his essential Ignorance -- has its origins in the creation of life in the cosmos.
- Out of a Divine Source emerged divided forms of force/energy.
- The process of the cosmos emerging from a Divine Source is the involution. The emergence of matter to life to mind and to spirit is the evolution.
- The spirit that was the source of creation is involved in, embedded and hidden in matter.
- Because the forms in the cosmos originate in nescience and unconsciousness, man shares that quality. It reflects in his divided and Ignorant nature.
- Through Man's evolution of consciousness, he brings the spiritual essence in matter to the surface of life.
- When Man moves away from the surface of life and discovers his inner being -- to the depths of Soul within -- he is able to rise in consciousness.
- In the depths, he begins to move out of his ego and become unified with the world around him. He loses his sense of division and duality.
- As Man perceives the world from this deeper perspective, he perceives a vast array of truth, which enables him to come out of his fundamental Ignorance. He begins to develop an Integral Knowledge that is in identity with every body of object he pursues.
- At that point, he can begin to fulfill his deepest aspirations in life, and find ultimate delight in being.
- Beyond that, man can open to the transcendent Divine, allowing its force and power to enter his being, so he is uplifted.
- Through an inner effort of rejection of negative qualities, and by opening to the spiritual Force above, Man evolves his mental, vital, and physical nature.
- This culminates in the development of an ultimate consciousness called the Truth Consciousness, or Supermind.
- As a large number of individual go through these transformative stages, there begins the possibility of the emergence of a new Divine Life on earth, fulfilling the Divine Intent in enabling a universe of forms, while also fulfilling man's deepest aspirations in life.
Also:
- By fulfilling his Individual nature though high consciousness, he is also fulfilling the Universal and Transcendent intent.
- As man discovers his true self and highest consciousness, he experiences ultimate Delight of being
- Delight of being was in fact the very reason that the Infinite set in motion the process that enabled a universe to emerge from a Divine Source.
- Through man's evolution and transformation of consciousness, the Divine Intent is fulfilled. When Man becomes fully spiritual in nature, he completes the circle from whose Source he and the cosmos originally emerged.
- The intent of the Infinite is not only to bring about Man's individual evolution, but to bring the spiritual Being into the Becoming of life to raise all existence into its greatest consciousness, power, and perfection.
[edit] Other subjects addressed
In presenting his arguments above Sri Aurobindo delves into a number of related subjects in great detail. They include -- the nature of space and time, good and evil, determinism and free-will; the process of creation in the cosmos and in our own lives; how Supermind through the intention of an ultimate reality created the universe; the limitations of both the materialistic and scientific approach to life; the limits of approaching spirit apart from life; the nature of the ultimate Reality (the Absolute, Brahman); how we can come to realize it; the parts of our being (mental, vital, physical, spiritual); the parts of our inner being (the subconscient, subliminal, and evolving Soul (Psychic being); the gross, subtle, and causal planes through which life operates; a new future view of time experience (simultaneous time vision); the nature of the supramental Force descending into life; the evolutionary process of the involved spirit moving in matter to the surface; the limits of religion; the limits of the mind of the West; the nature of the human mind and its many planes; the nature of intellectuality vs higher thought processes; how we can know truths and knowledge directly (i.e. identity) through spiritualized mind; the planes of spiritual mind (silent, illumined, intuitive, overmental, and supramental); how energy emerged from the original Spirit; how invisible energy is the source of all forms; how that energy emerged from an Original Conscious Force; how the Conscious Force is part of the original Sat-Chit-Ananda (Existence, conscious-force, delight), how Satchitananda moved to render the universe through Supermind, the cause of the Ignorance in Man; the 7 essential forms of his Ignorance; how moving to the depths overcomes the Ignorance; the many details of how the future Gnostic, supramental being will operate in life; the nature of the Divine social existence; and many others.
[edit] Structure of the book
Sri Aurobindo has designed The Life Divine in two books. The first book contains 28 chapters, and the second book consists of two parts, each containing 14 chapters, for a total of 56 chapters.
Book I is essentially an examination of the nature of the spiritual Reality, how the universe came to be from a Divine source, and how Man arrived in this process as a divided, ignorant form, preventing him from fulfilling his deepest aspirations in life. It is also an exposition of how Man can evolve in consciousness, shed his essential Ignorance, overcome his divided nature, and fulfills his spiritual destiny by bringing the spirit to life, ushering in a new stage of human evolution. Along the way, we are introduced to Supermind, which is the power that rendered a universe of forms from a Divine Source. It is also the means of our ascent so that we can fulfill our evolutionary purpose.
In Book II Sri Aurobindo discusses the nature of our Ignorance born of creation and how Man can rise out of it by moving to a deeper consciousness within, culminating in the discovering of our evolving Soul (the Psychic being). As a result, of moving to the depths, we overcome our separative and exclusive consciousness of Ignorance, and move to a many-sided Integral knowledge, which enables us to perceive the oneness, unity, and integration of life, rather than duality, contradiction, falsehood, strife, and pain. Also, as we connect to our True Self and soul within, we open to the spiritual planes above, enabling descents of knowledge in the form of light, intuition, and revelation, while uplifting and purifying the mental, vital, and physical various parts or our being. Beyond that, we can open to the supramental power to enable a permanent transformation of our being, and of life around us, allowing for ultimate fulfillment in life. When a number of such individuals arise, a new Divine Life can appear on earth based on the power of the spirit. It will be the culmination of our evolutionary possibilities, fulfilling the intent of the Infinite consciousness when out of it arose a universe of limited, divided forms.
[edit] Development of the book
The Life Divine first appeared serially in the Arya, in fifty-two original chapters published from August 1914 to January 1919.
In 1939 Sri Aurobindo revised and enlarged these chapters for publication in book form. Volume I was published in November 1939. It included the first twenty seven chapters from the Arya, with an entirely new twenty-eighth chapter. Chapters 19 and 23 also had major revisions. The other chapters were only revised in a minor way.
Volume II, recast and enlarged, followed in July 1940, in two separately bound parts. Of the twenty eight chapters there were twelve that were entirely new: chapters 1,2, 5,6, 10, 14, and 23 through to 28. All the remaining chapters were revised (chapters 18 and 21 thoroughly) and several had been given new titles.
The Arya Publishing House brought out a second edition of Book One (now called "Volume I") in 1943, and of Book Two ("Volume II") in 1947. These incorporate only a few minor corrections and changes. A third edition of Book One was published in 1947.
The first American edition was issued by the Sri Aurobindo Library, New York, as a single volume in 1949 and a comprehensive index provided; this edition was reprinted in 1951.
The Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education in Pondicherry published the fourth Indian edition in 1955, reprinted in 1960; these also were of a single volume.
The India Library Society Edition (New York) came out in 1965, while the sixth Indian edition is part of the deluxe Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library, and appeared in 1970 in two volumes, Book One and Book Two Part I comprising volume 18, and Book Two Part II volume 19 of the Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo.
Three following editions were reproduced by photo-offset from the Birth Centenary Library; the ninth edition included a glossary of Sanskrit terms and two appendixes, and the tenth (1977) was once again a single volume.
[edit] Synthesis of Yoga
The Synthesis of Yoga is Aurobindo's principle work on Yoga, comparing the methods of the various schools of traditional yoga, and providing the comprehensive way for following the true path to Divine consciousness. It is the primary work on Integral Yoga, the system of yoga that Sri Aurobindo developed.
The book originally appeared in serial form in Arya, published between 1914 and 1921.
Synthesis of Yoga is divided into four parts: the Yoga of Divine Works, of Integral Knowledge, of Divine Love, and of Self Perfection. The first three correspond to the threefold yoga of the Bhagavad Gita (i.e. karma-, jnana-, and bhakti-yoga), while the last (incomplete) section gives Sri Aurobindo's own development and synthesis of these three paths.
Sri Aurobindo revised the text of the book during three distinct periods. These are: In the 1920s, mostly minor corrections to certain chapters; a full-scale revision during or around 1932, with a view to publishing The Synthesis as a book; and during the early 1940s, further work on the later chapters of Part I, as well as beginning two new chapters, which he apparently intended to add to this part, but which he abandoned before completion. During the later part of the 1940s, Sri Aurobindo lightly revised the entire first part of the Synthesis while preparing it for publication.
In all, some chapters were extensively revised, others had only minor revision, and some have not been revised at all.
In 1972 The Synthesis of Yoga was published as Volumes 20 and 21 of the Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library (SABCL); a popular edition that was reprinted many times.
The fifth, 1999 edition, includes some material and revisions not previously published.
[edit] Letters on Yoga
Letters on Yoga is a compilation of Sri Aurobindo's letters on all areas of spiritual instruction.
Although he withdrew from public life and from meeting the sadhaks in person, Sri Aurobindo continued to instruct his students by letter, maintaining a voluminous correspondence, especially in the 1930s. Many of these letters were edited and then published. Some of the letters were revised by Sri Aurobindo before publication. Later these became three volumes of the 30 volume Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library edition of Sri Aurobindo's collected works.
[edit] The Mother
The Mother is a brief but important devotional and metaphysical essay written in 1927 on the divine mother, whom he identified with his spiritual co-worker Mirra Alfassa (later known as The Mother).
Later a number of his letters to sadhaks on the subject of the Mother were added, and translations of some of Mirra's Prayers and Meditations.
[edit] Arya
Arya was a 64-page monthly review written by Sri Aurobindo (originally with the help and encouragement of Mirra's husband Paul Richard).
It ran for six and a half years and constituted the appearance in serialised form almost all of his major works except his epic poem Savitri. These included The Life Divine, The Synthesis of Yoga, Essays on The Gita, The Secret of The Veda, Hymns to the Mystic Fire, The Upanishads, The Foundations of Indian Culture, War and Self-determination, The Human Cycle, The Ideal of Human Unity, and The Future Poetry.
The first issue of the Arya appeared on Sri Aurobindo's 42nd birthday (15 August 1914), the last came out in January 1921.
