Sri Aurobindo and his quest for unity
We are now being encouraged to look back on the horrors of Partition on the eve of Independence Day. But in a message broadcast on All India Radio on August 14, 1947, the day before the country was divided, one of the most prominent philosophers and yogis of his time, Sri Aurobindo, saw hope in the Indian belief in the unity of all things.
Aurobindo was born in Bengal, but educated at a British public school and then later, Kings College, Cambridge. He returned to India and entered the service of the Gaekwad of Baroda. From there, he moved to Kolkata (then, Calcutta) and joined politics because he wanted to establish a movement demanding Independence in place of “the futile ambling Congress methods then in vogue”. He was arrested and jailed. On receiving intimation of another arrest, and this time, deportation, he moved to Puducherry (then Pondicherry), which was a French colony at the time. He spent the last 40 years of his life there, evolving his philosophy through writing and yoga.
In his broadcast message, Aurobindo described five dreams he had for India’s future, which unfortunately was overshadowed by Jawaharlal Nehru’s tryst with destiny speech. I was only reminded of these when I was invited to take part in a webinar this Independence day. It was arranged by Auroville, a universal city in the making, near Puducherry, dedicated to the idea of human unity, based on the vision of Aurobindo and his collaborator known as “The Mother”.
The theme of Aurobindo’s message which struck me was unity. Not surprisingly, bearing in mind the timing of the broadcast, he dreamt first of reuniting India. That has not been fulfilled, and in the present climate, it might be considered anti-national to even think of it. But is it anti-national to dream, as Aurobindo also did, of “increasing recognition of the need for peace concord, and common