Sri Aurobindo - An Introduction
Sri
Aurobindo does not offer any strict or prescribed set of spiritual
disciplines. Sri Aurobnindo's "Integral Yoga" is a synthesis
of the forms of yoga discussed in the  Bhagavad
Gita: Jnana (knowledge), Karma (action), Bhakti (devotion or love),
and a fourth one, developed by Sri Aurobindo, The Yoga of Self-Perfection,
to focus on physical transformation. However, emphasis does not lie only
in striving for individual liberation; he states that one's spiritual
aspiration should be to transform the "spiritual, mental, vital and
physical orders of existence." Moreover, "The first necessity
is the inner discovery by which one learns who one really is behind the
social, moral, cultural, racial, and hereditary appearances." Emphasis
is placed on directing one's attention on one's own divine nature, and
devoting oneself to selfless service.
Aurobindo Ghose was born in Calcutta, India, in 1872. He was the son of
wealthy Bengali parents who sent him to a private grammar school in England,
and then to Kings College, Cambridge, where he was awarded a number of
scholarships for academic achievement. At the age of twenty he returned
to India to begin a career of teaching at Baroda College, where he became
politically active in India's nationalist movement against the British
colonial regime. In January 1908, Aurobindo met Vishnu Bhaskar Leie, a
Mahashtrian yogi, in Baroda, from whom he learned to silence his mind
and experience the spaceless and timeless Brahman.
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