The surest sign of the profundity of a philosophical idea, in any tradition, is that it permits and stimulates repeated reinterpretations which are themselves of philosophical value. Of no idea can this be more fittingly said than of the Upanisadic doctrine of Brahman and its identity with Atman (cf. the Introduction to this section on Indian philosophers). In essence, the philosophy of Aurobindo is a modern reinterpretation of this belief, in which it is combined with an optimistic version of evolutionism:1 Aurobindo argues that history has a direction, and is the unfolding of an evolutionary manifestation of Brahman which will end in universal perfection. Behind this assertion there is more than logic: Aurobindo was a yogic adept, whose thought is firmly based on his own repeated religious experiences in meditation. These experiences furnished the ground of a philosophy which aims to do no less than explain why there is a universe at all, and the significance of human existence within it.
The works in which this philosophy is expounded are all written in excellent English, a fact explained by Aurobindo’s education. Aurobindo Ghose2 was born on 15 August 1872 in Calcutta, the sixth child of a doctor who had been trained in England. Aurobindo’s father had his son brought up in ignorance of Indian tradition, and sent him to England to be educated. At St Paul’s High School and later at King’s College, Cambridge, Aurobindo acquired an excellent knowledge of contemporary western ideas, together with mastery of Latin, Greek, French, German and Italian. He returned to India in 1893 after fourteen years in the West. The effect of the return was to trigger at once the first in a long series of spiritual experiences, ‘a feeling of the Infinite pervading material space and the Immanent inhabiting material objects and bodies’.3
After his return, Aurobindo occupied a number of college teaching posts, and became closely associated with the cause of Indian nationalism. He also began to practise yoga, and in so doing had further spiritual experiences of an Advaitic Vedantic kind. He later commented that these experiences ‘made me see with a stupendous intensity the world as a cinematographic play of vacant forms in the impersonal universality of the Absolute Brahman’.4 These experiences continued during the year Aurobindo spent in jail following his arrest by the British in 1908 for suspected complicity in a fatal bomb plot. Finally acquitted, Aurobindo briefly rejoined political life, but inner voices urged him to move instead to Pondicherry to devote himself to the religious life, and this he did in 1910.
There he established his ashram or religious community, and soon underwent the third of the four major spiritual experiences of his life, a vision of the Supreme Reality as both one and many. This began the period of his greatest literary productivity, corresponding roughly to that of the First World War in Europe. During these years, as well as the first version of his major philosophical work, The Life Divine, Aurobindo published The Synthesis of Yoga, The Ideal of Human Unity, The Human Cycle, The Future Poetry, Essays on the Gita, The Secret of the Veda and essays on the Upanisads.
In 1914, Aurobindo had met the Frenchwoman Mira Richard. She returned to Pondicherry in 1920 and took over the running of the ashram, leaving Aurobindo free to seclude himself. The fourth great spiritual experience of Aurobindo’s life occurred on 24 November 1926. This he described as the descent of the Overmind (a term clarified below), a state in which all other points of view can be experienced as one’s own. The rest of Aurobindo’s life was spent in meditation in his ashram. He died there on 5 December 1950.
The ambitious philosophical framework which underlies the whole of Aurobindo’s thought is set out in The Life Divine. His aim in this book is no less than ‘to discover what is the reality and significance of our existence as conscious beings in the material universe and in what direction and how far that significance once discovered leads us, to what human or divine future’.5 To do this involves answering the profoundest of philosophical questions: why there is a universe at all; why it has the properties it has; and what is the place of human existence within it. To each of these questions Aurobindo has an answer.
He begins with his view on the nature of reality or what there is, and this, following the Upanisadic tradition, he calls Brahman, the omnipresent, ultimate pure being, a predicateless unity, beyond all conceptual description: ‘pure existence, eternal, infinite, indefinable, not affected by the succession of Time, not involved in the extension of Space, beyond form, quantity, quality – Self only and absolute’.6 Many thinkers in the Indian tradition would accept such a view, but Aurobindo develops this idea in an unusual way, which can be made clear by contrasting his view with the Advaita (nondual) Vedanta of Sankara. Accepting the reality of Brahman, Sankara argues that it must follow that the material world and ordinary self must be an illusion (maya) brought about by ignorance (avidya). Put in traditional philosophical language, Sankara holds that only Being (Brahman, the one) is real, and that Becoming (the material world of mutable individuals, the many) is unreal. Aurobindo, by contrast, interprets differently the Upanisadic doctrine ‘All This is Brahman’7 which is usually held to justify the Advaitin position. If All This is Brahman, then in Aurobindo’s view, it follows that Matter too is real, and Matter too is Brahman. A right understanding of the universe must not only include a belief in the reality of spirit but must also ‘accept Matter of which it [i.e. the universe] is made’.8 It is this insistence that Matter as well as Spirit is real which shapes much of Aurobindo’s thought, and which generates a number of the profound difficulties he has to face.
The first of these is the question of why Brahman chose to manifest itself at all. The major option facing a metaphysician at this point is to contend either that the universe is in some sense a necessary manifestation of the one, or that it is the result of what, in the human context, we would call free will. The first option entails that the one is not free to do other than manifest itself, and this Aurobindo rejects on the grounds that Brahman cannot lack the property of freedom. He is then faced with the corresponding difficulty facing those who opt for the thesis that the universe is the result of a free act, i.e. why should the one, self-sufficient, perfect, free, lacking and desiring nothing, choose to manifest itself at all? Aurobindo’s answer is a traditional one in Indian thought:
If, then, being free to move or remain eternally still, to throw itself into forms or retain the potentiality of form in itself, it indulges its power of movement and formation, it can be only for one reason, for delight. (S: ananda)9
Brahman delights in realizing the infinity of possibilities inherent in its nature.10
Having established the reason for the existence of the universe, Aurobindo must now explain its most pervasive feature, i.e. mutability or change, a second aspect of the classic philosophical problem of relating one and many in metaphysical systems which include these concepts. If Brahman is a pure, eternal, changeless existent, how is temporal change possible? His answer is again a traditional one in Indian thought. Brahman not only has the aspects of pure immutable being (S: Sat) and of delight, but also of Consciousness-Force (S: Cit or Chit), and this Force underlies all change. It is to be stressed that Being, Consciousness-Force and Delight are not distinct properties of Brahman, for Brahman is beyond all conceptual distinctions. Only the forms of our language necessitate that we divide up these aspects which in reality are one and the same. Aurobindo combines the Sanskrit terms for these aspects into the form Sachchidananda, a synonym for Brahman,
a Triune Existence-Consciousness-Bliss . . . In everything that is, dwells the conscious force and it exists and is what it is by virtue of that conscious force; so also in everything that is there is the delight of existence and it exists and is what it is by virtue of that delight.11
The stress on delight, combined with his acceptance that all there is is Brahman, entails that Aurobindo has to face a particularly acute form of the problem of evil: ‘If the world be an expression of Sachchidananda . . . of existence that is also infinite self-delight, how are we to account for the universal presence of grief, of suffering, of pain?’12 The acuteness of the problem for Aurobindo is a consequence of his assertion that absolutely all that exists is Brahman, and so pain and evil must, it seems, be predicable of Brahman also: ‘how came the sole and infinite Existence-Consciousness-Bliss to admit into itself that which is not bliss, that which seems to be its positive negation?’13 An analogous problem arises with respect to ignorance, since it is initially difficult to see how perfect knowledge (Brahman) can man ifest itself in a form which involves less than perfect knowledge. These are serious difficulties to which Aurobindo devotes a great deal of attention.
With regard to evil, Aurobindo adopts one of the classic philosophical positions, one which has close analogies in, for example, Christian responses to this question. He contends that our ideas of good and evil are consequences of our extremely limited viewpoint with regard to the universe. The ethical point of view is a human construction, and is simply inapplicable to Brahman or the universe as a whole. It will be transcended as evolution proceeds, and is merely an inevitable step in the progress of Sachchidananda towards universal delight.14 Again, concerning pain, Aurobindo argues that its apparent contrariety with universal bliss is a product of human limitation:
pain is a contrary effect of the one delight of existence resulting from the weakness of the recipient, his inability to assimilate the force that meets him . . . it is a perverse reaction of Consciousness to Ananda, not itself a fundamental opposite of Ananda: this is shown by the significant fact that pain can pass into pleasure and pleasure into pain and both resolve into the original Ananda.15
The question of the possibility and nature of ignorance (avidya) is a further area in which Aurobindo’s belief in the reality of matter necessitates a sharp divergence from the Mayavada of Sankara. Since he accepts that the material universe is real, Aurobindo cannot hold that all perception (and so perceptually-based knowledge) is an illusion (maya). Instead, in Aurobindo’s epistemology, the common-sense picture of the world as composed of discrete spatio-temporal individuals has a real if extremely limited validity:
Each form [in the universe] is there because it is an expression of some power of That [i.e. Brahman] which inhabits it; each happening is a movement in the working out of some Truth of the Being in its dynamic process of manifestation. It is this significance that gives validity to the mind’s interpretative knowledge, its subjective construction of the universe.16
As with evil and pain, ‘ignorance’ is a term whose ground is not a contradiction in reality, but human limitation:
what we call Ignorance is not really anything else than a power of the one divine Knowledge-will; it is the capacity of the One Consciousness similarly to regulate, to hold back, measure, relate in a particular way to the action of its Knowledge.17
Moreover, Aurobindo argues that evil, pain and ignorance are only temporary features of the universe, destined to vanish as time passes. His thought is profoundly optimistic, in a philosophical sense, and this is a consequence of another of his most striking beliefs, namely that the universe is evolving in a direction whose goal he has identified. The manifestation of Brahman we call the universe has evolved from a state which Aurobindo calls subconscient to its present state in which ordinary human and animal consciousnesses are present. The direction of its future evolution is towards ‘the Infinite and the Supreme’.18 What we now regard as human nature will be transcended, replaced by ‘a supreme consciousness and an integral awareness’,19 and those who will live in this way will live what Aurobindo calls the Life Divine. This belief is the ground for Aurobindo’s central moral imperative. Even with our limited consciousness we can so conduct ourselves as to live in alignment with the direction of Brahmanic evolution. To do this we must seek a ‘complete and radical transformation of our nature . . . [to make] spirit our life-basis’.20 What this means is explained by Aurobindo in some detail.21
The complete transformation of human nature takes place in three major stages, with some further subdivisions. Though practice may speed up this evolution, Aurobindo contends that none of its steps can be omitted.22 The first stage is the psychic transformation, a formulation in which the term ‘psychic’ is used in a technical sense. In common with many eastern thinkers, Aurobindo contends that the ego of ordinary experience is a superficial construct, often baneful in its influence.23 Behind it, as it were, is the real self or ‘subliminal psychic entity, a pure power of light, love, joy and refined essence of being’.24 This true or psychic self is ‘that which endures and is imperishable in use from birth to birth, untouched by death, decay or corruption, an indestructible spark of the Divine’.25 The psychic transformation is a major shift in consciousness such that direction of the individual passes from the surface ego to the psychic or true soul. This event has two major consequences: it results first in a complete harmonization of all aspects of our being and, secondly, permits a free inflow of spiritual experience of all kinds.26
Great though the psychic transformation is, it is only the first step on the path to the Life Divine. The next stage is the spiritual transformation, which Aurobindo epitomizes as follows:
What we see by the opening of vision is an Infinity above us, an eternal Presence or an infinite Existence, an infinity of consciousness, an infinity of bliss – a boundless Self, a boundless Light, a boundless Power, a boundless Ecstasy.27
Generally, such experiences have to be repeated until the whole being lives in them, as it were, normally and habitually. In such a case, awareness of the Eternal in everything is normal. No limit can be set to this change, ‘for it is in its nature an invasion of the Infinite’.28
Even this, in Aurobindo’s view, is not the ultimate spiritual condition. Beyond this lies what he calls the supramental transformation or descent of Supermind, a condition not attainable by the exercise of human will.29 No language is adequate to describe this condition, and Aurobindo attempts to hint at its nature by describing the stages of spiritual evolution discernible between the spiritual and supramental transformations. The first of these stages is Higher Mind, which is still a mode of conceptual awareness, ‘a mind of spirit-born conceptual knowledge’.30 It also has will, the exercise of which prepares us for the next stage, Illumined Mind, ‘a Mind no longer of higher Thought, but of spiritual light’.31 Both thought and vision are derived from what Aurobindo calls Intuition, and the third stage on the ascent to Supermind he calls Intuitive Mind, ‘a power of true automatic discrimination of the orderly and exact relation of truth to truth’.32 When Intuition is stabilized, what Aurobindo terms Overmind begins to emerge, and it is at this point that our ordinary sense of selfhood disintegrates:
When the Overmind descends, the predominance of the centralizing ego-sense is entirely subordinated, lost in largeness of being and finally abolished; a wide cosmic perception and feeling of a boundless universal self and movement replaces it.33
Finally comes the supramental, or, as Aurobindo alternatively terms it, the gnostic transformation to which conceptual description is entirely inadequate. The gnostic being is free from our current form of individuality, which presupposes barriers between the self and others. Rather, at each moment, the gnostic being will have ‘the sense of the whole movement of an integral being and the presence of its entire and integral bliss of being, Ananda’.34 Gnostic life involves an entirely new relation of mind and body, the latter being filled with the energy of the Consciousness-Force, banishing pain and bringing instead pure delight. Again, our present mode of conceptual knowledge would be replaced by an intuitive awareness ‘able to see and grasp things by direct contact and penetrating vision’.35 Such awareness is beyond the need for what we term morality. Morality is a consequence of our ignorance. The gnostic being has perfect knowledge and for such a being no conflict of good and evil can arise. To use a Kantian term for what Aurobindo is describing, the gnostic being has a holy will; i.e. such a being will spontaneously and with delight do what is ‘right’. In Aurobindo’s view, the future belongs to the gnostic beings who will inevitably evolve. Few at first, their numbers will grow. Though no indication of time-scale is given, Aurobindo is certain that human nature as we know it will be transcended as the Brahmanic evolution takes its unalterable course towards universal perfection.
This philosophy involves a number of unresolved difficulties. Aurobindo does not show conclusively why Brahman chose a manifestation which would involve so much suffering; nor can the view that evil, suffering and ignorance are a consequence of our frailty and ultimately destined to disappear be of much consolation to those presently in their grip. One cannot doubt, however, the grandeur and evident sincerity of Aurobindo’s thought, nor its grounding in a wealth of genuine spiritual experience. And his philosophy has the enormous merit of taking head-on most of the deepest of metaphysical problems. This is no technical exercise, but a genuine attempt to solve the profoundest riddles of existence.
Unless otherwise stated, references to Aurobindo’s works are to the relevant volume of the Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library, 30 vols, Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1970–1972.
1 This is an instance or a repeated phenomenon in the history of philosophy, i.e. the impact of scientific ideas. Behind the thought of Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz is the profound influence of mathematics, the successful science of the time, just as behind that of Locke, Berkeley and Hume lies that of Newtonian experimental science. Analogously, evolutionism made a deep impact on thought at the time of Aurobindo’s education in the West, cf. the ideas of Bergson, Dewey, William James and Whitehead.
2 The title ‘Sri’ (‘Lord’) indicates that Aurobindo is regarded as an incarnation of the divine.
3 Letters on Yoga, Vol. 22, p. 121.
4 On Himself, Vol. 26, pp. 83–84; quoted in Joan Price, An Introduction to Sri Aurobindo’s Philosophy, Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1982, p. 9.
5 The Life Divine (LD) 1 vol. edn, p. 1015.
6 op.cit., pp. 77–78.
7 cf. e.g. Mandukya Upanisad, vs 2: ‘All This Universe is the Eternal Brahman’, in Aurobindo’s The Upanisads, Vol. 12, 1988 edn, p. 319.
8 LD, p. 6.
9 op.cit., p. 91.
10 op.cit., p. 110.
11 op.cit., p. 92.
12 op.cit., pp. 92–93.
13 op.cit., p. 95.
14 op.cit. pp. 95–99.
15 op.cit., p. 497.
16 op.cit., p. 646.
17 op.cit., pp. 497–498.
18 op.cit., p. 626.
19 op.cit., p. 627.
20 ibid.
21 The practical means by which the transformation described by Aurobindo can be achieved is a special system of yoga, which lies outside the scope of the present work. It is described in great detail by Aurobindo in The Synthesis of Yoga, Vols 20–21, and Letters on Yoga, Vols 22–24.
22 LD, p. 931
23 cf. e.g. the Zen concept of ‘original self’ in Dogen and Hakuin.
24 op.cit., p. 220.
25 op.cit., p. 225.
26 op.cit., pp. 907–908.
27 op.cit., p. 911.
28 op.cit., p. 913.
29 Aurobindo’s philosophy contains a number of terms with the prefixes ‘super-’ or ‘supra-’, e.g. ‘-mind’, ‘- nature’, ‘-consciousness’ and their cognates. The prefix is meant to indicate that the nouns they modify denote states or entities of nature entirely other than those denoted by the unmodified nouns. Thus supermind is not to be conceived of as like, though more powerful than, a human mind; but rather as something as far beyond ordinary consciousness as it in turn is beyond and other than unconsciousness. Aurobindo faces the common difficulty of all mystics, namely that there is no vocabulary adequate to their experiences.
30 LD, p. 939.
31 op.cit., p. 944.
32 op.cit., p. 949.
33 op.cit., p. 950.
34 op.cit., p. 977.
35 op.cit., p. 924.
(limited to works of primarily philosophical interest)
Essays on the Gita
The Life Divine
The Secret of the Veda
The Supramental Manifestation and Other Writings
The Upanisads: Texts, Translations and Commentaries
Badarayana, Sankara, Ramanuja, Madhva, Vivekananda, Gandhi, Radhakrishnan
Unless otherwise indicated, references to works by Aurobindo cite their volume number in the Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library, published by the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, 1970–1972, in thirty volumes.
Sri Aurobindo, Essays on the Gita, Vol. 13
Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga, Vols 22 and 23
Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, 1 vol. edn
Sri Aurobindo, The Supramental Manifestation and Other Writings, Vol. 16
Sri Aurobindo, The Upanisads, Vol. 12; repr. with additional material, 2nd edn 1981, same publisher
Bruteau, Beatrice, Worthy is the World: The Hindu Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo, Rutherford, Madison & Teaneck, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1971
Chaudhuri, Haridas and Spiegelberg, Frederic (eds), The Internal Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo: A Commemorative Symposium, London, Allen & Unwin, 1960
McDermott, Robert (ed.), Six Pillars: Introductions to the Major Works of Sri Aurobindo, Chambersberg, PA, Anima, 1964
Price, Joan, An Introduction to Sri Aurobindo’s Philosophy, Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1977, repr. 1982