Sri Aurobindo for All Ages

II

Sri Aurobindo was not a politician in the ordinary sense of the word: he was not interested in position, fame or money and, characteristically, he preferred to work silently from behind the scenes. His outward participation in Indian politics lasted only a few years but his vision of India was his own and by his own genius he projected it into the political sphere. In this way he planted a seed which has taken root and continues to grow. To help you understand this, I shall sketch briefly the background of the political scene of those days.

You must remember that when India entered the last decades of the nineteenth century, Indians had very little say in the administration of their country. After the Revolt of 1857, the East India Company was dissolved. Instead, the British Government directly assumed power over the Indian territories. A new political office was created in London, that of the Secretary of State for India, who became an important minister of the British Government and was put in overall charge of Indian affairs; but he seldom interfered in the internal administration of India. Here the Governor-General, now given the additional title of Viceroy to signify that he was the representative of the British monarch, was supreme. There were two small Councils, with legislative and executive functions, to assist the Viceroy but these bodies had only a handful of nominated members and Indians were not admitted to these Councils. This was the structure at the top. The vast territories over which the British ruled in India were divided into provinces which in turn were divided into smaller districts. Each province was under a Governor who was directly responsible to the Viceroy for the administration of his area. The Governor also had small Councils, again without any Indian members, to assist him; and a powerful secretariat of British officials to oversee the administration. The actual civil administration of the country was carried on through the Indian Civil Service. This was an exclusive cadre of service with immense prestige and authority. Recruitment was made through an open examination held once a year in London. In theory, Indians could become members of this service but the rules were so framed that until 1870 only sixteen Indians had ever attempted the examination and only one had been able to get into the ICS. So you can easily see that Indians had hardly any voice in the government of their own country. There can be no doubt that it was the painful recognition of this fact that prompted Dr. Krishna Dhan Ghose to send all his three sons at such a tender age to England so that they could be equipped to compete with Englishmen in every way.

During the nineteenth century there were two parallel move ments in India. On the one hand, there was an almost continuous growth of British power and domination in the political sphere. On the other, in the social, religious and cultural spheres there were far-reaching changes and reforms. Many a factor contributed to these changes but the most important was the impact of the new ideas and forces from the West as a result of the growth of education and the spread of the English language. At first there was a good deal of blind acceptance and servile imitation of western life but soon a number of powerful thinkers started examining their own ancient heritage in the light of the western impact. Raja Rammohan Roy is generally recognised to be the first of these pioneers and he was followed by many other great men such as Dwarkanath Tagore, his son Debendranath, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, Dayanand Saraswati, Sri Ramakrishna, Keshav Chandra Sen, Bankim Chandra Chatterji, Swami Vivekananda, Balgangadhar Tilak , Rabindranath Tagore, and others. The list is by no means exhaustive and I have given the names of only those who were Sri Aurobindo's precursors or contemporaries. They are outstanding figures and you are surely aware of their great contribution to national life. It will be sufficient here to say that not only did they represent the spirit of resurgent India but each, in his own way, was a link between India's past and her present. What is equally important is that by their integrity and example these great men inspired many others to follow and emulate them with the result that there was a great awakening in the religious, cultural and social life of the country.

It was inevitable that these changes should have repercussions in the political sphere also. The formation of the Indian National Congress in 1885 was an expression of this new political awareness. But the political awakening, when it came, was slow and uncertain in its beginnings. The first generation of Congress leaders, among them M.G. Ranade, Surendranath Banerjee, Pherozeshah Mehta, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, were sincere patriots but they were men of prudence and moderation, who sought to cooperate with the British, not to confront them. Their group came to be known as the Moderates. They had faith in the justice and good intentions of the British and believed that if Indians could prove that their demands were reasonable and just, the British would grant them. So they advocated various economic reforms, sought representation of Indians on the Viceroy's and the Provincial Councils, pressed for increased admission of Indians to Government services, and asked for other similar concessions. At their meetings, the Congress would debate these issues at length and pass eloquent resolutions. The British attitude to all this was simple. So long as British authority and their right to rule over India were not questioned, the Congress could be allowed to act as a harmless safety-valve to keep Indians away from greater mischief. Occasionally some concessions would be announced with much fanfare but nothing much would really be conceded. The overriding consideration for the British was to retain their hold over India and the plea to justify their imperial rule was that the Indians were not yet ready for self-government; only the British could resolve their quarrels and differences.

This, in brief, was the background when Sri Aurobindo returned to India in 1893. Soon after he had settled down at Baroda, Sri Aurobindo was approached by his Cambridge friend, K.G. Deshpande to contribute articles to the Indu Prakash, an English-Marathi weekly, which he was then editing from Bombay. Deshpande was aware of Sri Aurobindo's uncompromising views but he was willing to take the risk of publishing them. Accordingly, Sri Aurobindo wrote a series of nine articles over the period August 1893 to March 1894, under the title 'New Lamps for Old', to imply that these were new thoughts he was presenting to replace the old ideas and views of the Congress. He did not sign the articles because, as a member of the Baroda State Service, he did not wish his own views to cause embarrassment to the Gaekwad.

Sri Aurobindo started on a striking note. He wrote: 'If the blind lead the blind, shall they not both fall into the ditch? So or nearly so runs an apophthegm of the Galilean prophet, whose name has run over the four quarters of the globe.... I myself two years ago would not have admitted that it can truthfully be applied to the National Congress. Yet that it can be so applied... is the first thing I must prove.' He then pointed out that the Congress had failed to fulfil the expectations of the people and went on to comment on the attitude with which it had started: 'There was a little too much talk, about the blessings of British rule, and the inscrutable Providence which has laid us in the maternal, or more properly the step-maternal bosom of just and benevolent England. Yet more appalling was the general timidity of the Congress, its glossing over of hard names, its disinclination to tell the direct truth, its fear of too deeply displeasing our masters.' He conceded however, that this initial posture could perhaps have been the sign of 'amiable weaknesses which would wear off with time'. But then he added with telling effect: 'Those amiable weaknesses we were then disposed to pass over very lightly, have not all worn off with time, but have rather grown into an ingrained habit; and the tendency to grosser errors has grown not only into a habit, but into a policy.'

In his subsequent articles Sri Aurobindo criticised the organisation, policy and aims of the Congress from many angles. He pointed out that the Congress 'was not national... it did not represent the mass of the population'. He wrote that the Congress had not heard 'the distant rumbling of the volcano of the ailing and tortured Indian proletariat', and warned that the volcano might erupt one day. He added: 'The proletariat is... the real key of the situation. Torpid he is and immobile; he is nothing of an actual force, but he is a very great potential force and whoever succeeds in understanding and eliciting his strength, becomes by the very fact master of the future.' Sri Aurobindo was particularly critical of the way in which the Congress relied on legalistic arguments to win its case, as if it was conducting an appeal in a court of justice. He wrote: 'Our appeal, the appeal of every high-souled and self-respecting nation, ought not to be to the opinion of the Anglo-Indians, no, nor yet to the British sense of justice, but to our own reviving sense of manhood, to our own sincere fellow-feeling — so far as it can be called sincere — with the silent and suffering people of India.' But if it was useless relying on the British sense of justice it was equally pointless blaming the individual Englishmen who ruled over India. Sri Aurobindo wrote: 'I cannot really see why we should rage so furiously against the Anglo-Indians and call them by all manner of opprobrious epithets. I grant that they are rude and arrogant, that they govern badly, that they are devoid of any great or generous emotion, that their conduct is that of a small coterie of masters surrounded by a nation of Helots. But to say all this is simply to say that they are very commonplace men put into a quite unique position... they are really very ordinary men, — not only ordinary men, but ordinary Englishmen — types of the middle class or Philistines, in the graphic English phrase, with the narrow hearts and commercial habit of mind peculiar to that sort of people. It is something very like folly to quarrel with them for not transgressing the law of their own nature.' Then, with unerring insight, Sri Aurobindo went to the root of the problem: 'Our actual enemy is not any force exterior to ourselves, but our own crying weaknesses, our cowardice, our selfishness, our hypocrisy, our purblind sentimentalism.'

And his final indictment of the Congress was devastating: 'I say, of the Congress, then, this — that its aims are mistaken, that the spirit in which it proceeds towards their accomplishment is not a spirit of sincerity and wholeheartedness, and that the methods it has chosen are not the right methods and the leaders in whom it trusts, not the right sort of men to be leaders; — in brief, that we are at present the blind led, if not by the blind, at any rate by the one-eyed.'

We have to remember that Sri Aurobindo was only twenty-one when he wrote this. I do not know of a comparable instance of another political writer of any country who had at that age such rare qualities of the intellect, heart and pen.

These articles created a turmoil in political circles. But as to the outcome, I shall give you Sri Aurobindo's own words as he recalled the events to us many years later: When I came to Baroda from England I found out what the Congress was like at that time and I formed a strong contempt for it. Then I came into touch with Deshpande, Tilak, Madhavrao and others. Deshpande requested me to write something in the Indu Prakash. There I strongly criticised the Congress for its moderate policy. The articles were so fiery that M.G. Ranade, the great Maratha leader, asked the proprietor of the paper not to allow such seditious writings to appear in his columns; otherwise he might be arrested and imprisoned. Deshpande approached me with the news and requested me to write something less violent. I then began to write about the philosophy of politics, leaving aside its practical aspect. But I soon got disgusted with it.'

Sri Aurobindo's first entry into Indian politics was marked by an immediate clash with moderate opinion and, although he then withdrew from politics for a time, the fight was renewed in later years. But even at that time those with foresight must have divined that one day he would give the lead to India. There was an interesting sequel to these articles. Justice Ranade was so disturbed at what had appeared in the Indu Prakash that he wanted to meet the author and a meeting did take place at Bombay. This is what Sri Aurobindo wrote about it in his reminiscences of prison life, Karakahini written in Bengali, from which I give a translation. 'I remembered that fifteen years earlier after returning home from England, I had written some bitterly critical articles in the *Indu *Prakash. Realising that these articles were influencing the mind of the young, the late Mahadev Govind Ranade had told me, when I met him, that I should give up writing these articles and take up some other Congress work. He wanted me to take up the work of prison reform. I was astonished and unhappy at the unexpected suggestion and refused to undertake that work. I did not know then that this was a prelude to the distant future and that one day God himself would keep me in prison for a year and make me see the cruelty and futility of the system and the need for reform.'

There was another remarkable series of articles that Sri Aurobindo wrote for the Indu Prakash. These were occasioned by the death of Bankim Chandra Chatterji and appeared between July 16 and August 27, 1894. Each of the seven articles on Bankim Chandra is brilliantly written and worth quoting in detail, but I will have to content myself by giving you only a few examples. Commenting on the versatility of Bankim's genius, Sri Aurobindo summed up: 'Scholar, poet, essayist, novelist, philosopher, lawyer, critic, official, philologian and religious innovator — the whole world seemed to be shut up in his single brain.' Of the student Bankim Chandra, Sri Aurobindo wrote: 'He ascended the school by leaps and bounds; so abnormal indeed was his swiftness that he put his masters in fear of him... and indeed his ease and quickness in study were hardly human. Prizes and distinctions cost him no effort in the attaining. He won his honours with a magical carelessness and as if by accident while others toiled and failed.... [At the Hubli College] he left behind him a striking reputation, to which, except Dwarkanath Mitra, no student has ever come near. Yet he had done positively nothing in the way of application or hard work. As with most geniuses his intellectual habits were irregular. His spirit needed larger bounds than a school routine could give it, and refused, as every free mind does, to cripple itself and lose its natural suppleness.... At the eleventh hour and with an examination impending, he would catch up his prescribed books, hurry through them at a canter, win a few prizes, and go back to his lotus-eating.'

These words are of particular interest because, perhaps unconsciously, they reflect Sri Aurobindo's own genius as a student and, in fact, there is a remarkable temperamental affinity between them in other spheres too of their activities. And here is Sri Aurobindo's concluding assessment of Bankim Chandra: 'When Posterity comes to crown with her praises the Makers of India, she will place her most splendid laurel not on the sweating temples of a noisy social reformer but on the serene brow of that gracious Bengali who never clamoured for place or for power but did his work in silence for love of his work even as nature does, and just because he had no aim but to give out the best that was in him, was able to create a language, a literature and a nation.' Again, we have to marvel at the depth of perception and the mastery of language which found expression in one who was barely twenty-two years of age.

After his initial experience with the Indu Prakash, Sri Aurobindo kept away from any public connection with politics for a number of years, but he continued to study conditions closely so that he could judge and decide on the lines of action he would take at the appropriate time. He also plunged into studies, as you know, so as to understand better the culture and civilization of his country.

Sri Aurobindo's study of history led him to the conclusion that without a revolution no country could win its freedom. He has himself said that his politics ran on three lines. First, revolution: to build up a secret revolutionary organisation and to propagate revolutionary thoughts and ideas. Secondly, a public movement to make people accept the idea of complete independence, for most Indians then believed that to think or speak of independence was a madman's delirium — the British Raj was too powerful. Thirdly, to prepare the common people's mind for non-cooperation and passive resistance by which the government machinery could be paralysed. This anticipated Mahatma Gandhi's movement on similar lines in later years.

When we asked him once how he could even conceive of an armed insurrection against the vast well-equipped British garrisons, he answered: 'At that time, warfare and weapons had not become so lethal in their effect. Rifles were the main weapons, machine guns were not so effective. India was disarmed, but with foreign help and proper organisation, the difficulty could be overcome; and in view of the vastness of the country and the smallness of the regular British armies, even guerilla warfare might be effective, provided that the people gave their support. In the Indian Army, a general revolt was also a possibility.'

Around 1900 Sri Aurobindo made his first move when he sent a young Bengali soldier of the Baroda Army, Jatin Banerji, as his lieutenant to Bengal with a programme for preparation and action which he thought might need thirty years for fruition.

Dinen Roy has given us a vivid picture of how this step was taken. He writes: 'A tall, well-built Bengali youth came to our house one day with a Iota and a long staff in his hand. The visitor told me, "Bengalis are not admitted to the British Army, so I am knocking about from place to place to see if by any good fortune I could enlist myself in the army of a native Prince." Aravinda was much impressed by the young man's courage, ardour and ambition.'

Sri Aurobindo got this young man into the Baroda Army, concealing his identity and passing him off as a Brahmin from the north. After a year's training, he sent Jatin to Bengal to prepare the necessary revolutionary climate and provided him with a programme of action: he should recruit members for the revolution, collect money and equipment, organise the young men into groups and units and give them intensive physical training so that in a future warfare they could play their role as efficient soldiers. Centres were to be established in every town and eventually in every village.

Since his initial visit in 1893, Sri Aurobindo went to Bengal whenever he could and especially during the college vacations. During his visit to Calcutta in 1901 he took an important step in his life. In April, he married Mrinalini, daughter of Bhupal Chandra Bose, a senior official in Government service. Sri Aurobindo was then 28; the bride Mrinalini, 14. She was beautiful, educated and belonged to an aristocratic family. It was an arranged marriage resulting from an advertisement inserted by Sri Aurobindo, which caught the notice of Principal Girish Chandra Bose of Bangabasi College, a close friend of Bhupal Chandra, and it was Girish Babu who negotiated the marriage. The wedding was attended by many distinguished persons of Calcutta, like Jagdish Chandra Bose, Lord Sinha and others. Sri Aurobindo had insisted on the marriage ceremony being performed according to the Hindu rites. And this raised a problem. He was told that he would have to go through prayaschitta, a purificatory ceremony, for having crossed the 'black waters'. Like his father, he refused and also turned down other alternatives which were suggested. Eventually, some money passed into the hands of an obliging Brahmin priest and saved the face of society and shastra! After the marriage Sri Aurobindo reached Baroda along with his wife and sister Sarojini, via Deoghar and Nainital where the Gaekwad was holidaying at the time.

About this time Sri Aurobindo's youngest brother, Barin, also joined him at Baroda. Because of his mother's illness and the untimely death of Dr. K.D. Chose, Barin's education had suffered, but he had managed to pass the entrance examination, then tried various occupations, including running a tea-shop (then a most novel undertaking) at Patna; eventually he decided to try his lot with 'Sejda' at Baroda. He was a young man of valour and exceptional ability but of a volatile, somewhat unstable, temperament. He had already been initiated into a revolutionary coterie at Deoghar and proved to be an eager disciple at Baroda. He soon became friendly with Lt. Madhavrao, Khaserao Jadav's brother, who was in the Baroda Army, and took lessons from him in the use of fire-arms etc. Later, Madhavrao was sent to Europe for further military training. Sri Aurobindo helped Madhavrao meet the expenses from his own resources.

Among Barin's varied interests was spiritualism — experiments with planchette, table-tapping, etc. Sri Aurobindo would join him on some evenings and came across some startling results. Once a spirit assuming their father's name came and said: 'I gave a gold watch to Barin when he was a child.' This was confirmed by Barin who had forgotten all about it. When Dr. Krishna Dhan's spirit was asked what kind of a man Tilak was, the answer came: 'When all your work will be ruined and many men bow down their heads, this man will keep his head erect' — a remarkable prediction about Tilak's political greatness. On another occasion Sri Ramakrishna's spirit was invoked. He said, 'Mandir gado' (make a temple) which was construed to mean that a temple for political sannyasins was to be built like the Bhavani Mandir of Bankim Chandra's Ananda Math.

After training Barin, Sri Aurobindo sent him to Bengal to help Jatin Banerji in the organisation of revolutionary work and himself followed up with a visit in 1902 during the college vacation. He went to Midnapur for the first time accompanied by Jatin and Barin. There he met Hemchandra Das, the revolutionary leader. On his return to Calcutta Jatin arranged a meeting between Sri Aurobindo and Barrister P. Mitter who had started an organisation of young men for revolutionary work under the guise of youth clubs for physical exercises etc. Mitter readily joined hands with Sri Aurobindo who administered the revolutionary oath to him and Hemchandra: holding a sword and the Gita in their hands, they vowed to strive to secure at any cost the freedom of Mother India. It was also resolved to form six centres of revolutionary work in Bengal and to give training in rifle-shooting.

Earlier Sri Aurobindo had learnt of a secret revolutionary society in Maharashtra under the leadership of Thakur Ram Singh, a Rajput prince from the State of Udaipur. Sri Aurobindo joined its Bombay branch and took the oath of the party. The Thakur was actively engaged in winning over regiments of the

Indian Army to the revolutionary movement. Sri Aurobindo paid a visit to Central India and met some regimental officers. He thus forged a link between eastern and western India, with Tilak working from behind in Maharashtra. Here I should also mention that Sri Aurobindo had a long meeting with this great Maharashtrian leader in December 1902 when both were present at the Ahmedabad session of the Indian National Congress. Sri Aurobindo had an exceptional regard for Tilak and their collaboration in the political field was both close and of immense significance for the national movement.

In 1903 Sri Aurobindo paid another visit to Calcutta to patch up differences which had cropped up between Jatin and Barin. Jatin, it appeared, had become too rigid a disciplinarian and was losing his hold on the youth. Sri Aurobindo formed a committee of five consisting of P. Mitter, Sister Nivedita, C.R. Das, Surendranath Tagore and Jatin to be in overall charge of the revolutionary work in Bengal. Although some differences continued, the work under P. Mitter's leadership increased enormously. Hundreds of young people joined the movement and even some government servants lent their secret sympathy and help. And by 1905 the movement received a tremendous fillip as a result of the Government's ill-conceived decision to partition Bengal.

From this time a relationship of firm friendship and cooperation grew up between Sri Aurobindo and Sister Nivedita. It had started when Nivedita visited Baroda in 1902 to give some lectures. Sri Aurobindo went to the station to receive her. She had heard of him as a worshipper of Kali and Sri Aurobindo had appreciated her book Kali, the Mother. Nivedita had an interview with the Maharaja at which Sri Aurobindo was present. She tried to persuade the Maharaja to support the revolutionary movement but he merely said he would send his reply through Mr. Ghose. Of course he had no intention of joining the movement; but he seemed a little surprised that Sri Aurobindo was taking such a keen interest in it.

Sri Aurobindo had great admiration and respect for Nivedita and spoke about her with much warmth. 'She was a true revolutionary leader,' he told us once, 'she was open, frank and talked freely of revolutionary ideas. There was no concealment about her. It was her very soul that spoke. Whenever we met we spoke about politics and revolution. But her eyes showed a power

of concentration and revealed a capacity for going into trance. Her book Kali, the Mother is revolutionary and not at all non-violent.'

‘What about Barin,' we interposed, 'he was also fiery?'

‘But not like Nivedita. She was fire, if you like. She did India a tremendous service.'

With the revolutionary movement gathering strength, Barin hit upon the idea of giving a concrete shape to Sri Ramakrishna's words heard at the spirit sessions, Mandir gado. So he stalked far and wide in the Vindhya hills looking for a suitable place where a temple, along the lines of the Mandir in Ananda Math, could be built. In the course of these wanderings he contracted a 'hill fever', a violent and almost incurable disease, and had to return to his Sejda at Baroda. Now it happened, one day, that a naga sannyasi arrived at the house and, seeing Barin laid up in his emaciated condition, asked, 'Who is that lying there?' When he was given the story, he said, 'Fetch a glass of water.' Then muttering some mantra he cut the water crosswise with a knife and asked Barin to drink it. 'Tomorrow the fever will leave you,' he predicted and truly it did. A fever, which had persisted for days, disappeared as if by magic!

About this striking incident Sri Aurobindo wrote: 'This was a first-hand proof of yoga-power. I thought — if yoga has such powers, why not use them for the country's sake? This was the immediate cause of my turning to yoga. Ramakrishna's message gave the necessary push. That is why I have said that I entered yoga by the back door.'

This brings me to the subject which will assume increasing importance as we go on, viz., Sri Aurobindo's turning to yoga. Actually, Sri Aurobindo was a born yogi. I have already told you of the rare spiritual experience which came to him when he first stepped on the shores of India. Let me give you another instance of an experience he had in the first year of his stay in Baroda, again in a most unexpected manner. Sri Aurobindo had then a very old-fashioned horse-carriage, known as a 'Victoria' carriage. Dinen Roy wrote that the horse was a huge creature but in movement it was the cousin-brother of a donkey and whipping had no effect on it! Anyway, Sri Aurobindo was going through the city streets in this carriage when, suddenly it went out of control. A serious accident was imminent. Sri Aurobindo willed that that must not happen and immediately a Being of Light emerged out of him and took control of the situation. Later in a splendid sonnet, 'The Godhead', Sri Aurobindo recalled this experience and if you read the poem aloud, you will feel its power, extraordinary rhythm and vividness. This was probably Sri Aurobindo's first experience of the Divinity within himself. Nearly ten years later, in 1903, he had another remarkable experience. This was in Kashmir where he had gone with the Maharaja. While walking on the ridge of the Takht-i-Suleman or Hill of Shankaracharya, Sri Aurobindo had an experience which too he expressed in a sonnet, 'Adwaita':

An unborn Reality world-nude, Topless and fathomless, forever still...

Probably in the same year Sri Aurobindo visited a temple of Kali on the banks of the Narmada. This he did on the persuasion of his friends, as he himself had at the time no faith in idols or image-worship. 'With my European mind,' he wrote, 'I had no faith in them and I hardly believed in the presence of God.' But when he looked at the image of the goddess, he found 'a living Presence deathless and divine, / A form that harbours all infinity...' and he writes: 'For the first time I believed in the presence of God.' In an indirect reference to this experience, he wrote afterwards: '...You stand before a temple of Kali beside a sacred river and see what? —a sculpture, a gracious piece of architecture, but in a moment, mysteriously, unexpectedly, there is instead a Presence, a Power, a Face that looks into yours, an inner sight in you has regarded the World-Mother.' We can but wonder at such experiences, rare even amongst those who have dedicated their entire lives to the practice of yoga. I should also remind you of the vivid description given by Dinen Roy of Sri Aurobindo in 1899/1900 — his self-control, detachment, equanimity, compassion for the poor — which are all signs associated with a yogi who is far advanced on the path.

Before he turned to the practice of yoga, Sri Aurobindo had started on certain practices of pranayam having learnt some rules from an engineer friend, Devadhar. Sri Aurobindo said that he practised it 'on my own for five or six hours a day for nearly four years. As a result, the brain became full of light, prakashamaya. The mind worked with great illumination and power. My power of writing poetry as well as prose increased tremendously. Usually I wrote about 200 lines of poetry a month. After the pranayam I wrote pages and pages in a single day and that flow I never lost. I used to feel that an electric energy was all round the brain because of which the mosquitoes did not bite me during the pranayam. My health too improved, even the skin became fair and there was a peculiar substance in the saliva which probably produced these changes. I adopted a vegetarian diet. That gave lightness and some purification. But that was all and there was no farther advance. Besides, politics kept me too busy and owing to irregularity in the practice of pranayam I fell seriously ill. It nearly carried me off.'

However wonderful as these earlier experiences were, 1904 is usually taken to be the year in which Sri Aurobindo actually commenced the practice of yoga. He himself has said that he had no pull towards yoga to begin with. When asked to explain how the conversion took place, he replied, 'God knows how. At Baroda my friends asked me to practise yoga. I didn't care for it; my idea about yoga was that it was a life-denying affair. One has to retire to the hills and become a sannyasi, while my heart's call was to seek for the freedom of the country. But the cure of Barin's fever opened my eyes and I realised my error about yoga. Slowly my mind turned towards it and when I decided to take up yoga I made this prayer: "If You do exist, You know my mind. You know I don't care for liberation; what others want has no attraction for me. I want power so that I may raise this country and serve my dear countrymen."'

In another revealing letter he explained: 'I didn't know what God was. Deshpande was doing Hatha Yoga asanas and other kriyas at that time and as he had a great proselytising tendency he wanted to convert me to his view. But I thought that a yoga which required me to give up the world was not for me. I had to liberate my country. I took to it seriously when I learnt that the same Tapasya which one does to get away from the world can be turned to action. I learnt that Yoga gives power and I thought why the devil should I not get the power and use it to liberate my country.... It was the time of "country first, humanity afterwards and the rest nowhere". It was something from behind which got the idea accepted by the mind; mine was a side-door entry to the spiritual life.' It is evident, then, that there was no conflict in Sri Aurobindo between the practice of yoga and politics and one became a part of the other.

At this time, that is around 1905, Sri Aurobindo visited the Ashram of Swami Brahmananda of Karnali on the banks of the river Narmada, had the darshan of the maha yogi and was greatly impressed. Usually when receiving pranams Swami Brahmananda sat with closed eyes but for Sri Aurobindo he made an exception and gazed at him with his eyes fully open as if some extraordinary person or kindred soul had come. 'He had very beautiful eyes,' Sri Aurobindo said, 'and his penetrating look saw everything inside me.'

In later years Sri Aurobindo made some observations about Swami Brahmananda which were very interesting. There was much speculation about the age of the Swami, some claiming that he was more than 400 years old. Sri Aurobindo wrote: '400 years is an exaggeration. It is known however that he lived on the banks of the Narmada for 80 years and when he arrived there, be was already in appearance at the age when maturity turns towards overripeness. He was when I met him just before his death a man of magnificent physique showing no signs of old age except white beard and hair, extremely tall, robust, able to walk any number of miles a day and tiring out his younger disciples, walking WO so swiftly that they tended to fall behind, a great head and magnificent face that seemed to belong to men of more ancient times. He never spoke of his age or of his past either except for an occasional almost accidental utterance. One of these was spoken to a disciple of his well known to me, a Baroda Sardar, Mazumdar .... [who] learned that he was suffering from a bad tooth and brought him a bottle of Floriline, a toothwash then much in vogue. The Yogi refused, saying, "I never use medicines. My one medicine is Narmada water. As for the tooth I have suffered from it since the days of Bhao Girdi." Bhao Girdi was the Maratha general Sadashiva Rao Bhao who disappeared in the Battle of Panipat [14.1.1761] and his body was never found. Many formed the conclusion that Brahmananda was himself Bhao Girdi, but this was an imagination. Nobody who knew Brahmananda would doubt any statement of his — he was a man of perfect simplicity and did not seek fame or to impose himself. When he died he was still in full strength and his death came not by decay but by the accident of blood-poisoning through a rusty nail that entered into his foot as he walked on the sands of the Narmada.' All this shows that the ordinary norms of age or indeed the usual consideration of everyday life can scarcely be applied to great yogis.

Let me now tell you of the booklet Bhawani Mandir which Sri

Aurobindo wrote at this time. It was Barin who conceived the idea that a temple consecrated to the Divine Mother, invoking Mother India as Bharat Shakti, Bhawani Bharati, would be extremely effective for the propagation of the new revolutionary gospel, and at his request Sri Aurobinclo wrote the booklet. It begins: 'A temple is to be erected and consecrated to Bhawani, the Mother, among the hills.' Bhawani is the Mother, the Infinite Energy that 'looms up in the vision of man in various aspects and infinite forms. Each aspect creates and marks an age.' In our age, the Mother's characteristic aspect is Shakti or masterful strength; in this aspect her name is Bhawani. 'Everywhere the Mother is at work ... remoulding, creating. She is pouring Her spirit into the old; She is whirling into life the new.'

But in India tamas has taken possession of the people. 'We have abandoned Shakti and are therefore abandoned by Shakti. The Mother is not in our hearts, in our brains, in our arms.' So Sri Aurobindo gives the call: India must shake off her lethargy and rise to her full stature. And what is India, our mother-country? Sri Aurobindo's answer is crystal clear: 'It is not a piece of earth, nor a figure of speech, nor a fiction of the mind. It is a mighty Shakti, composed of the Shaktis of all the millions of units that make up the nation, just as Bhawani Mahisha Mardini sprang into being from the Shaktis of all the millions of gods assembled in one mass of force and welded into unity. The Shakti we call India, Bhawani Bharati, is the living unity of the Shaktis of three hundred million people; but she is inactive, imprisoned in the magic circle of Tamas, the self-indulgent inertia and ignorance of her sons.'

Three things are necessary: first, a temple for the Mother; secondly, a new Order of Karma Yogis, 'Men in whom the Shakti is developed to the uttermost extent'; and, thirdly, the message of so-ham, 'the mighty formula of the Vedanta...the knowledge which when vivified by Karma and Bhakti, delivers men out of all fear and all weakness.' And India must be reborn because her rebirth is demanded for the future of the world. Then comes Sri Aurobindo's final call: 'Come then, hearken to the call of the Mother. She is already in our hearts waiting to manifest Herself, waiting to be worshipped, — inactive because the God .in us is concealed by tamas, troubled by Her inactivity, sorrowful because Her children will not call on Her to help them. You who feel Her stirring within you, fling off the black veil of self, break down the imprisoning walls of indolence, help Her each as you feel impelled, with your bodies or with your intellect or with your speech or with your wealth or with your prayers and worship, each man according to his capacity. Draw not back, for against those who were called and heard Her not She may well be wroth in the day of Her coming; but to those who help Her advent even a little, how radiant with beauty and kindness will be the face of their Mother."

Neither the Mandir nor the new Order of Karma Yogins materialized, although later Barin sought to give some shape to these ideas on a small scale amongst the community of revolutionaries who gathered at Maniktolla garden. However, the booklet was a source of inspiration and courage to hundreds of revolutionaries, causing much alarm among official circles. And Sri Aurobindo's call still rings for us to respond to in our hearts, for that is where the Mandir has to be built.

We have now come to the closing period of Sri Aurobindo's stay at Baroda. In March 1905 Sri Aurobindo took over as acting Principal at Baroda College and he held that position until February 1906 when he took privilege leave to go to Bengal. Meanwhile much was happening in that province. On October 16, 1905, the Partition of Bengal had become an 'accomplished fact', the decision of an alien Government in complete disregard of the wishes of the people. This was to have far-reaching consequences. Sri Aurobindo remained in close touch with the situation. In December 1905 he attended the Benares Session of the Indian National Congress to feel the pulse of the nation. Mark how many things he had simultaneously taken up by this time: yoga, revolutionary work, politics, teaching, besides his own literary activity. But we can get a glimpse of his main preoccupation from the letters he wrote in Bengali to his wife Mrinalini at this time. These letters were not meant for publication but expressed only his private thoughts and feelings and were written in order to answer some of her anxious queries. They were seized by the Police when Sri Aurobindo was arrested in May 1908 and were produced before the Court as part of the evidence against him. I shall quote only a few extracts to show how his intense aspiration for the Divine had merged with his ardent love for the motherland without any contradiction between these two urges of his being, and how deeply concerned he was that Mrinalini should understand him and follow him in his path.

In the letter of August 1905, Sri Aurobindo writes: have three madnesses. The first is this. I firmly believe that the accomplishments, talent, education and means that God has given me, are all His. Whatever is essential and needed for the maintenance of the family has alone a claim upon me; the rest must be returned to God. If I spend everything for comfort or luxury, then I am a thief.... The second madness which has recently seized hold of me is: I must somehow see God.... If He exists, there must be ways to perceive His presence, to meet Him. However arduous the way, am determined to follow that path. In one month I have felt that the Hindu religion has not told lies — the signs and hints it has given have become a part of my experience. Now I want to take you along with me.... My third madness is that other people look upon the country as an inert piece of matter, a stretch of fields and meadows, forests and rivers. To me She is the Mother. I adore Her, worship Her. What will the son do when he sees a rakshasa sitting on the breast of his mother and sucking her blood? Will he quietly have his meal or will he rush to deliver his mother from that grasp'? I know I have the strength to redeem this fatten race,. It is not physical strength, it is the strength of knowledge. The power of the Kshatriya is not the only power. There is also the power of the Brahmin, the power founded upon knowledge. This feeling is not new, I was born with it and it is in my very marrow. God has sent me to this world to accomplish this great mission. When I was fourteen, the seed began to sprout; at eighteen the foundation became firm and unshakable.'

In another letter he wrote: 'In these dark days, the entire country is seeking refuge at my door. Among the thirty crores of my brothers and sisters many are dying from hunger and starvation.... They must be helped. This was the secret I wanted to tell you.'

This is but a bare gist of the letters. You have to go through them in full to realise Sri Aurobindo's greatness even in those early days. The letters were perhaps an enigma to Mrinalini — we must remember that she was only 18 at the time, and even for one more mature it would have been difficult indeed to follow the steep and narrow path of austerity and sacrifice that her husband had chosen for himself. But, to her great credit, she faced her ordeals bravely during the years of her husband's incarceration and remained steadfast in her devotion to him.

On completion of his privilege leave in June 1906 Sri Aurobindo returned to Baroda but only to stay for a few days. On June 19 he took one year's leave without pay to go back to Bengal. This marked practically the end of his long association with Baroda. Bengal was in ferment and the agitation had spread to other parts of the country. Sri Aurobindo was to play a crucial role in the momentous hour which was now on the nation.