Sri Aurobindo for All Ages

I: Family Background and Childhood (1872-1879)

ON FEBRUARY 6, 1893, a young man, not yet twenty-one years of age stood on the deck of a ship gazing at the far horizon where he could see faintly the shores of his motherland. He was coming back to India after having spent fourteen years in England. As he was returning home, a darkness which had entered his being when he was a small boy in India and had hung on to him alt through his stay in England, fell off him like a cloak. And when the ship touched Apollo Bunder, Bombay, and he stepped at last on Indian soil, he had a strange experience. A vast cairn and quiet descended on him and remained with him for months thereafter.

This young man was Aurobindo Ghose and he had this profound spiritual experience the moment he reached India. He told us later that it was the experience of the calm and silent Self, a realisation attained by yogis after years of sadhana. Yet it came to Sri Aurobindo, unbidden and without his seeking it. He was not a yogi at the time; in fact, he knew nothing about yoga then, and was not even interested in it. Nonetheless the experience came. It was as if Mother India was welcoming the return of her son by giving him, unasked, her spiritual treasures for a greater rebirth in him of her ancient glory.

This incident illustrates how the unusual and the unexpected are an inseparable part of Sri Aurobindo's life. Indeed I shall be telling you the story of a life that is immensely strange and wonderful. It is a most fascinating life, rich in its many-sided splendours. Sri Aurobindo is pre-eminent in more ways than one: poet, philosopher, interpreter of Indian culture and spirituality, patriot and revolutionary; but, above all, a supreme Seer and Yogi. He integrated Life and the Spirit, visualizing the transformation of the vast field of all existence through the power and light of spiritual Truth. Our ideal is not that spirituality which withdraws from life, but the conquest of life by the power of the Spirit', he said, and his own withdrawal from politics in search of this transforming power of the Spirit, was but an extension of his love of the motherland to all mankind. His most precious gift to humanity is a knowledge of this Truth-Consciousness and the opening of a path for its attainment and its action upon the world.

Let me now take you to the beginning of our story. Sri Aurobindo was born on August 15, 1872, the third son of Krishna Dhan Ghose and Swarnalata. Krishna Dhan, known in his lifetime as Dr. K.D. Ghose, was then posted as Civil Surgeon at Khulna. Sri Aurobindo was born at Calcutta in the house of Mono Mohun Ghose, a well-known barrister and a great friend of Dr. Ghose. Just as they were friends, so were their wives who had the same name, Swarnalata. The name given to the child by the father — 'Aravinda' — was new at the time and hardly borne by anyone else. The word in Sanskrit means lotus and its spiritual significance is that it symbolises divine consciousness — a singularly appropriate and prophetic name for the child.

Dr. K.D. Ghose was a remarkable person, a spirited man who was in many ways in advance of his time. After graduating from the Calcutta Medical College he went, in the year 1869, to Aberdeen in Scotland for further medical studies. He was one of the first Bengalis to do so. To cross the 'black waters' in those days, in defiance of orthodox injunction, was to lose caste and invite social ostracism, but Krishna Dhan had no hesitation in running the risk. Even earlier, as a student of the Medical College, he had broken away from orthodoxy by marrying Swarnalata, the daughter of Rajnarayan Bose, in accordance with Brahma Samaj rites. Rajnarayan himself was an outstanding product of the new India that was then rising. A contemporary of Bankim Chandra Chatterjee and Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, and a close friend of the poet Michael Madhusudan Dutt, Rajnarayan represented in himself the composite culture of his time — Vedantic, Islamic and European. He was also among the first patriots of the country, the organiser of a National Exhibition of swadeshi products, called the Hindu Mela, which roused great enthusiasm. Moreover, because of his piety and consecrated life, he was known as Rishi Rajnarayan.

Swarnalata, Sri Aurobindo's mother, was also unusually gifted. Rajnarayan had seen to it that she was well educated. She used to write poems, was endowed with the social graces and was very beautiful — her husband's Indian and English friends at Rangpur used to call her 'The Rose of Rangpur'. But unfortunately her life was blighted in later years by mental illness, a tragedy that not only cast its shadow on the family but particularly affected Krishna Dhan who was deeply attached to her.

After completing his medical studies in England, Krishna Dhan returned to India in 1871 and joined the civil medical service of the Government, serving with great distinction as a Civil Surgeon at Bhagalpur and then at Rangpur and Khulna. He came back to India a 'pucca sahib', determined to model himself on the British and throw away all Indian ways of life, customs and manners. Krishna Dhan admired the English; at the same time, he had a very strong aversion to the inertia, blind orthodoxy and general degradation which were so prevalent in the Indian society of the time. On his return, he refused to undergo any form of expiation for his 'sins'. He was an iconoclast, not so much a breaker of idols as one who was contemptuous of superstition and foolish beliefs. He had also no regard for conventional religious worship — Sri Aurobindo once said of his father that he was a tremendous atheist'. But because he admired the English, you should not think he was servile to them. It was because of his independence of character that he could earn many English friends, and he did not hesitate to criticise the Government for its misdeeds or Englishmen for their arrogance. Moreover, Krishna Dhan had a deep love for the poor of his country and his door was always open to the sick and the needy. With money, medicines and in many other ways, he helped the common people — in fact, he was generous to a fault. Wherever he was posted he was very popular and highly respected. At Rangpur, a drainage canal was laid as a result of his initiative and it was called 'K.D. Canal' by the people. Later at Khulna a school was also named after him. Indeed the poor people at these places almost worshipped him as a demi-god and such popularity was not always to the liking of his British masters. So there were clashes at times and despite his admiration for the British the relationship was not always happy. Bepin Chandra Pal, Sri Aurobindo's contemporary and colleague in the political field, has paid a remarkable tribute to Dr. K.D. Ghose in his book, Indian Nationalism: Its Principles and Personalities. He writes: 'Keen of intellect, tender of heart, impulsive and generous almost to recklessness, regardless of his own hurts, but sensitive to the sufferings of others — this was the inventory of the character of Dr. Krishna Dhan Ghose.'

As a child Sri Aurobindo grew up in the Anglicised atmosphere of the house. Bengali was not allowed to be spoken, only English or Hindustani, and in food, dress and manners the English pattern was strictly followed. When he was five years old, the father packed off the three brothers to Loreto, a convent school in Darjeeling. It was a missionary institution where almost all the children were British. The little boy spent two years in this alien corner in his own country. The education he received was nominal but the magnificent natural beauty of Darjeeling, with its view of the valleys and snow-capped mountains, its abundance of trees and flowers, must have left its impress on his growing mind. And it was at Darjeeling that Sri Aurobindo had the experience I have mentioned earlier. Many years later he spoke about it. 'I was lying down one day,' he said, 'when I suddenly saw a great darkness rushing into me and enveloping me and the whole universe. After that I had great tamas — darkness — hanging on to me all along my stay in England. It left me only when I was coming back to India.'

Very little is known about Sri Aurobindo during these childhood years but, occasionally in a reminiscent vein, he would mention an incident or two and some of the anecdotes have survived.

One night the children had gone to sleep in the dormitory of their school at Darjeeling. Sri Aurobindo's elder brother, Manmohan, had his cot beside the door. A boy was late in returning and began to knock at the door. There was no response from anyone, and the knocking continued. At last Manmohan, enraged, called out, 'I cannot open the door — I am sleeping!'

Another incident concerns Rajnarayan, Sri Aurobindo's grandfather. The three brothers used to visit his house at Deoghar during their holidays. One evening they had gone for a stroll with him. As they went ahead merrily at their own pace, they forgot all about the old man. Suddenly they looked back and found him nowhere in sight. There was not a soul to be seen in the darkness. Retracing their steps they began to shout and, then suddenly, they found him — sleeping in a standing position!

On another occasion, young Auro found his eldest maternal uncle shaving before a mirror. The uncle had a fund of good humour. He called Auro and, putting the mirror in front of him, said, 'Look — there is a little monkey.' Perhaps he wanted to tease the boy because, as usual, he was in European dress. But Auro was not prepared to take defeat so meekly. He took the mirror, and holding it before his uncle's face, said, 'barn mama, baro bandar! (Look, big uncle, big monkey!)'. Sri Aurobindo always had a happy relationship with his uncle Jogendra Bose, Rajnarayan's eldest son, who was a fine man with a genial temperament.

Krishna Dhan cherished great hopes about the future of his sons, particularly of Auro, and to give shape to these hopes he made a second voyage to England with his family in 1879. Auro was just seven. Benoybhusan, the eldest son, was twelve years old and Manmohan, the second, nine. Soon after arriving in England, Swarnalata gave birth to her youngest son. He was named Barindra.

Dr. Ghose's decision to educate his three sons in England all at the same time was not only unusual but even daring for those days. He could carry out his plans because, during his posting at Rangpur, he had become friendly with the English magistrate there, a Mr. Glazier, and the latter had arranged with his cousin, Rev. Drewett, a minister at Manchester, to take charge of the boys. Accordingly, Dr. Ghose took his boys to Manchester to live with the Drewetts.