Merch
News
Panchangam
Apps
Downloads
For Teachers
Resources
About
PEOPLE
IDEAS
PLACES
CULTURE
CREATE
STORIES
GAMES
Sri Aurobindo
श्री अरबिंदो
The revolutionary who became the yogi of Pondicherry
Years
1872 – 1950
Known as
The philosopher-yogi and revolutionary
Birthplace
Calcutta; the Ashram at Pondicherry
Field
Saints & Sages
“Bhārat is the guru of the world — her mission is to give the world its spiritual soul.”
— Sri Aurobindo
The Story
Born in Calcutta and educated entirely in England — at St Paul's School and King's College, Cambridge — Aurobindo returned to Bhārat a brilliant classicist. He joined the freedom struggle and became the most radical voice of Bengal, editing Bande Mataram and organising the revolutionary movement — until the Alipore bomb case of 1908 sent him to prison.
In prison, awaiting trial for his life, he had the transforming spiritual experience he later described in his Uttarpara speech — he saw the divine presence in everything. Acquitted, he withdrew from politics and sailed secretly to the French territory of Pondicherry, where he spent the remaining forty years of his life in yoga, writing, and teaching.
His philosophy, integral yoga, seeks not escape from the world but the transformation of matter and life by the divine — a 'life divine' on earth. His epic poem Savitri, of some 24,000 lines, is one of the longest poems in English, and his essays on culture and freedom of Bhārat, including The Mother and The Synthesis of Yoga, are classics. He died in 1950; his ashram, with the Mother's guidance, became the township of Auroville, a city devoted to human unity.
Core Ideas
The Revolutionary
The fiery editor and organiser of Bengal's struggle.
The Prison Vision
His transformation came in an Alipore cell.
Integral Yoga
Transformation of life, not escape from it.
Savitri
His 24,000-line epic poem of the divine.
Auroville
The city of human unity born of his vision.
Why it matters today
Sri Aurobindo's birthday, 15 August — Bhārat's Independence Day — is observed at his ashram with special celebration. He is remembered as the thinker who said Bhārat's freedom was not an end but a beginning — the mission of the spirit to the world.