Integral task of The Mother & Sri Aurobindo

The Constitution of India came into effect in the first month of 1950 and Sri Aurobindo passed away in the last month of the same year. He had fought for securing the freedom of the country and had written extensively adverting to her culture and future. His FIVE DREAMS Manifesto broadcast on August 14, 1947 over AIR, Tiruchirapalli on the eve of India's independence stands testimony to his deep concern and love for the motherland. It’s a challenge now, therefore, to relate his views and vision to contemporary complexities despite the fact that he represents a reservoir of insights at present.

Since the Constitution turned India into a definitive entity for guaranteeing its citizens diverse rights under multiple obligations, civilizational aspirations or allied exhortations, simply, aren’t really adequate. Sociological churning and scientific mutation engineer ceaseless change in our lives and so the dream of a Life Divine descending seems to be as distant as ever. A hard-nosed ethical framework as a plausible agent for ushering in such an ideal, nevertheless, is what Sri Aurobindo proposes. By linking the same to the evolutionary inevitability, he clinches a theoretical uniqueness which none has been able to refute or surpass.

Agreed that this is in the domain of hope and Yoga, palpably, an arcane arena. The Mother & Sri Aurobindo, themselves, were wary of occultism, and hence we should strive to steer clear of traces of mysticism sprouting or mythology creeping in. Peddling empty assurances and unproven promises is nothing but quackery and mere textual authority, howsoever ancient or seemingly exalted, must not automatically be deemed as authentic or self-evident. Commentaries and correspondences by The Mother & Sri Aurobindo do privilege certain utterances of the old but their veracity and efficacy are subject to the aptitude and receptivity of the subject and any generalized or regimented administration of the same on collective basis is liable to the hazard of miscarriage.

Fighting against the past is not an easy affair as cultural embeddedness and breathing religious ubiquity is so potent and constant on our part. Hence, we must endeavour to keep away from them “as one separates from a blade of grass its main fibre” with patience and determination. The task of The Mother & Sri Aurobindo is something vast and revolutionary and various perspectives that vie for space elsewhere must converge round their ontology. A divorce between religion and politics is a nonstarter and, therefore, an integral understanding without the burden of atheism must propel our pedagogy as well as public policy. [TNM55]