The life of Sri Aurobindo is indeed packed with the events and contents of an Avatar. Looking back it is difficult to believe that there actually existed someone in flesh and blood who did so much, achieved so much, gave so much. Even before coming to Pondicherry he was already hailed as a genius, a revolutionary who awakened the sleeping masses to their soul and restored the legitimate pride of a nation. His writings and poetry had already received appreciation in wide circles. His journalistic brilliance was obviously noted by the Empire that felt threatened by his writings. He had already laid the foundations of a national education. Acclaimed as a genius endowed with noble qualities and high sattwic temperament ready to sacrifice everything for the sake of the nation, his yogic experiences and realisations marked him as the centre of a new world transforming spiritual movement which took concrete shape on the 24th November 1926. With Sri Aurobindo taking charge of the the future from Sri Krishna, the Avatar Dwapar to usher the Age of Truth for which the night was a long preparation, the Sri Aurobindo Ashram came into existence. It was not another monastic order but a field of a new collective spiritual evolution. The yoga yogeshwar who had mastered and realised the truths of all the past traditional yogas had opened the path to the future as the Kalki Avatar.
What followed after the 24th November was no less significant. We see the Avataric side of Sri Aurobindo emerge to its fullness. The path of evolution had been opened, the ancient Sanatana Dharma was restored and the new Yuga dharma of integrating the two poles of existence, the spiritual and the material was given to man through the Yoga of Supramental Transformation. But opening the path was not enough. The obstacles on the road to Supramental Manifestation were many. Man was unwilling and nature was not yet ready to receive the New Consciousness. The lower vital world was resisting the Divine Advent lest its hold upon the human consciousness was loosened. The Inconscient Abyss and its Asuric, the home of falsehood and darkness was denying and tried to swallow humanity in its belly through the second world war. The forces of greed, fear, terror, lust for power and gigantic ambition rose up to engulf humanity in the red heat of Hell. Amidst all this chaos and confusion India did become free but its freedom was marred with division and the bloody aftermath and mayhem that followed. The whole world had become a world-wide Kurukshetra. Sri Aurobindo with his spiritual powers was fighting with these forces even as Sri Krishna once steered the armies during the Mahabharata war without raising a weapon. So too Sri Aurobindo and the Mother were conducting the war sitting in one room in Pondicherry, India.
But the Darkness too is seemingly infinite being the shadow of the Infinite. Who else can annihilate it except one who in his body still constituted by materials evolved out of the Inconscient incarnates the Supreme. His body becomes the battleground, he becomes the priest of the cosmic yagna, the fire of the sacrifice and also the offering in the fire. It is the imperative necessity of sacrificing oneself to annul the resistances of the earth nature that led to the event of 05th December 1950 which may well be termed as the last transition in Sri Aurobindo’s life. Each of his transition was made after he had prepared the field and sown the seeds. Each stepping behind was to secure the harvest and ensure the reaping.
Before each transition he had placed in the forefront the soul of the movement that would ensure the victory. When he made the transition from his life as a revolutionary, he had awakened the soul power of India, Bhavani Bharati, the guardian deity of India. The rest was a matter of time. When he made the second major transition on the 24th November stepping behind the outer active life he had installed the Mother in the heart and life of humanity to prepare and carry us sheltered in Her arms of Love towards the Future. Finally, when he made the last transition so to say to work out things from behind for hastening the Supramental Manifestation he placed in the hands of humanity the supreme scripture Savitri vibrating with the Mantra of transformation. His life (and the Mother’s) are indeed examples of what a Divine Life is. Besides their divine example they have left the stamp and signature and seal through their works that will continue to act as a silent powerful influence with the Samadhi as the epicentre of the transforming Supramental Force. Finally of course we have their luminous Words to guide us through the transition from Kali Yuga to the new Satya Yuga. All that is needed for us is to walk with the pilgrim staff of faith and the light born from the fire of aspiration. If we have this or can develop it then we shall find that a supporting Hand of Grace is holding us at each step and the arm of all-victorious Love is carrying us through this journey towards the New Creation.
