Saturday, August 16, 2014

History of Indian culture and the place of Sri Aurobindo

History of Indian culture and the place of Sri Aurobindo in it is likely to attract more and more attention in the days to come and many superficial observations are sure to add to the confusion. A few points, therefore, need to be borne in mind in order to cut the clutter away.

Sri Aurobindo has almost been firmly appropriated as a co-progenitor of Hinditva ideology which is not correct. He is also accused of introducing an Anglicised or Westernised version of Hinduism by some. But Sri Aurobindo was not interested in any reform movement of Hindu Religion. Further, aligning Sri Aurobindo's name with other great men of the period presents a twisted picture of him. In fact, most of Sri Aurobindo's writings were meant to be motivational or expository and hence can hardly represent his firm opinions.

Despite all these difficulties, certain lines of argument should be treated as the central thread of his thought. For instance, a conscious Evolutionary Force guiding world-action and a Psychic Being driving individual endeavor. This is the basic Ontological truth by which he transforms Religion into Spirituality and binding Sri Aurobindo to any specific Religion or Nationality, therefore, becomes untenable. Besides, discarding familiar categories of the past to understand and accept the future becomes an inevitability. [TNM55]

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