Tales of Prison Life

The year of 1908, Friday, first of May. I was seated in the 'Bande Mataram' office, when Shrijut Shyamsundar Chakravarty handed me a telegram from Muzaffarpur. It contained information pertaining to a bomb explosion in Muzaffarpur that had killed two European ladies. I further gathered from the day's issue of the "Empire" newspaper, that the Police Commissioner had claimed knowledge of the identity of the people involved in this murderous act and assured of their imminent arrest. I was not aware at the time that the prime suspect was none other than me and the Police investigation featured me as the chief accused as well as the initiator and secret leader of the young Nationalist revolutionaries. Nor did I know at the time that this day would mark the end of a chapter in my life, that there stretched before me a year's imprisonment, during which all bonds of a normal human life would be rent asunder and that for a whole year I would have to live, not as part of the civilized human society but like a caged animal. And that my return to the field of action would not be as the familiar Aurobindo Ghose of old but as a transformed being with a transformed character, a transformed intellect, a transformed life and a transformed mind, who would emerge from the Ashram at Alipore to continue the work on new lines. Though I have described it as 'imprisonment' for a year, it was, in effect, like a year's seclusion as in an Ashram or hermitage.

I had made strenuous personal efforts for a sakshat darshan (a direct vision) of Narayana, the Lord of my heart and nurtured an intense aspiration to realize Purushottam (the Supreme Person), the Preserver of the world, as friend and master. But due to the pull of worldly desires, attachment to various activities, and the thick veil of ignorance, I had not been able to make sufficient progress. Finally the Compassionate, Sarva-Mangalamaya Shri Hari (All-Good Lord) removed, at one stroke, all obstacles on my path towards him, brought me to a yogashram and Himself stayed as Guru and companion in that tiny Sadhan-kutir (seat of spiritual discipline). This yogashram happened to be the British prison. I have often noted this strange contradiction in my life that my 'enemies' - I still refer to them as 'enemies' although it is no longer possible for me to consider anyone as such - have ended up helping me far more than even my well-wishers. Their intention is to cause harm but the actual result is its very opposite. The British Government's wrath had but one significant outcome: I found God.

This essay was not meant to be a historical record of my inner life during imprisonment; I merely wished to describe some of the outer events. However I thought it fit to begin the essay with a mention of the real essence of the prison-experiences - lest readers mistake suffering as the summary of my prison-life. Although it cannot be said of suffering, that there was none, the period, on the whole, passed in self-existent bliss.