Autobiographical Notes

Beginnings of Yoga at Baroda

Sri Aurobindo was preoccupied, even when he was but a conscientious teacher or an accomplished poet ... with the problem of service and of sacrifice.... From the very first the idea of personal salvation or of individual felicity was utterly repugnant to him.

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This is a little too strong. It was rather that it did not seem anything like a supreme aim or worth being pursued for its own sake; a solitary salvation leaving the world to its fate was felt as almost distasteful.

Sri Aurobindo had acquired a measure of intellectual pre-eminence as a result of his stay in England; but that was not enough, and he was certainly not happy. His deeper perplexities remained; he did not know what exactly he should do to make himself useful to his countrymen or how he should set about doing it. He turned to yoga so that he might be enabled to clarify his own floating ideas and impulses and also, if possible, perfect the hidden instrument within.

There was no unhappiness. "Perplexities" also is too strong: Sri Aurobindo's habit in action was not to devise beforehand and plan, but to keep a fixed purpose, watch events, prepare forces and act when he felt it to be the right moment. His first organised work in politics (grouping people who accepted the idea of independence and were prepared to take up an appropriate action) was undertaken at an early age, but took a regular shape in or about 1902; two years later he began his practice of Yoga—not to clarify his ideas, but to find the spiritual strength which would support him and enlighten his way.

Thus it may be said that Aravind Babu started taking interest in Yoga from 1898-99.

No. I did not start Yoga till about 1904.

Such guidance as he received from his earliest gurus and such partial realisation as he was then able to achieve only reinforced his faith in yoga as the sole cure for his own "rooted sorrow" and for the manifold ills of humanity.

[Sri Aurobindo put a question mark against the word "gurus", and wrote:] There was no resort to Yoga as a cure for sorrow;

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there was no sorrow to cure. He had always in him a considerable equanimity in his nature in face of the world and its difficulties, and after some inward depression in his adolescence (not due to any outward circumstances, and not amounting to sorrow or melancholy, for it was only a strain in the temperament), this became fairly settled.

Aravind Babu used to attend the lectures of the Swami [Paramhansa Maharaj Indraswarup] with much interest ... and personally met him and learnt about āsanas and prāṇāyāma.

Only heard his lecture at the Palace, did not go to see him, did not practise Pranayam till long afterwards.

He met the saint Madhavadas at Malsar on the banks of the Narmada and learnt about Yoga-āsanas.

Visited, probably with Deshpande, one or two places on the banks of the Narmada, but no recollection of Malsar or Madhavadas, certainly no effect of the meeting, if it happened at all.

Sri Aurobindo met, one by one, Sri Hamsa Swarupa Swami, Sri Sadguru Brahmanand and Sri Madhavadas....

He had momentary contacts with Brahmanand, but as a great Yogin, not as a Guru—only darshan and blessing. There was no contact with the others.

[He met Brahmananda on the banks of the Narmada for advice on national education activities.]

Sri Aurobindo saw Brahmananda long before there was any question of national education activities. Brahmananda never gave him any counsel or advice nor was there any conversation

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between them; Sri Aurobindo went to his monastery only for darshan and blessings. Barin had a close connection with Ganganath and his Guru was one of the Sannyasins who surrounded Brahmananda, but the connection with Ganganath was spiritual only.

As yet, however, Sri Aurobindo was wavering between Yoga and public life.... He established some connection with a member of the Governing Body of Naga Sannyasis....

All this was before he left Baroda, some years before he met Lele.

We do not quite know what exactly happened to Sri Aurobindo during the first four years of his retirement in Pondicherry. This was a period of "silent yoga".... Sri Aurobindo experimented earnestly and incessantly in the delectable laboratory of his soul; he presently outgrew the instructions that had been given to him by Lele and his predecessors.

That was done long before the sojourn in Pondicherry.

There were no predecessors. Sri Aurobindo had some connection with a member of the governing body of the Naga Sannyasis who gave him a mantra of Kali (or rather a stotra) and conducted certain Kriyas and a Vedic Yajna, but all this was for political success in his mission and not for Yoga.