Sri Aurobindo

Autobiographical Notes

and Other Writings of Historical Interest

Part One. Autobiographical Notes

2. Sri Aurobindo’s corrections of statements in a proposed biography

Early Spiritual Development

Beginnings of Yoga at Baroda [10]

We do not quite know what exactly happened to Sri Aurobindo during the first four years of his retirement in Pondicherry. This was a period of “silent yoga”. . . . Sri Aurobindo experimented earnestly and incessantly in the delectable laboratory of his soul; he presently outgrew the instructions that had been given to him by Lele and his predecessors.

That was done long before the sojourn in Pondicherry.

There were no predecessors. Sri Aurobindo had some connection with a member of the governing body of the Naga Sannyasis who gave him a mantra of Kali (or rather a stotra) and conducted certain Kriyas and a Vedic Yajna, but all this was for political success in his mission and not for Yoga.