LIFE BY SRI AUROBINDO

INTRODUCTION

“The Life” poem by Sri Aurobindo, is one of those poems which you feel blessed to have come
across. You never stop appreciating the literary beauty of his geniality. A poet at heart and Yogi by
nature, he eases through very difficult concepts with poetic, but logical excellence.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Sri Aurobindo had written series of articles in Arya magazine during 1914-1919. The essays from
those articles were collected, rearranged and rewritten by Sri Aurobindo himself for his books and
poems. It has a massive scope, covering the entire compass of Indian philosophical thought. The
language of the poem is tough with rich vocabulary and many of the sentences taking a whole
paragraph. At times, you get overwhelmed by the number of new concepts introduced and some
other time, you get mesmerized by the beauty of excellent prose. Sri Aurobindo directly uses his
concepts in evolved form and the reader needs to continue reading until he explains those concepts
very later in the poems.

THEME

The central theme throughout the poem revolves around his theory of involution followed by the
evolution of human life. Sri Aurobindo begins his thesis with a discussion of disparate approaches
taken by materialist and ascetic, and noting the usability and important contributions of the two, he
discards both. The great descent, he calls, starts from the Conscious Force, which is like an ocean of
energy, with its power of truth consciousness becomes the universal forms of life.

ANALYSIS

Sri Aurobindo, essentially affirms different planes of consciousness and consequently various grades
of reality, where our current consciousness is not necessarily the highest. Man must ascend himself
from Mind to Supermind and achieve the status of Gnostic Being, or live The Divine Life. For this
ascent, he has to go through a psychic, spiritual, and supramental transformation. This
transformation will break the shackles of ignorance and will lead to sevenfold knowledge. Along with
this theory, he also explains duality, intuition, materialistic attitudes, and nature of desire. His
explanation goes deep into the subject and becomes a necessary building block of his theory. He
carefully clears out notions about ignorance, rebirth, death, life, and otherworldly planes and
perfectly fits those into his framework. At times, it is difficult to believe in his explanation and stated
possibilities. And like every other great Indian thinker, Sri Aurobindo does not merely want you to
accept it. He believes in realizing and living the ultimate truth than just to know it. The divine life is
the inner and outer existential transformation. For this, he has developed certain yogic practices,
which he calls ‘Integral Yoga’ in his other works. They are designed to help a man in his spiritual
journey. The poem does not explain those, but these can be found in his other works.

Sri Aurobindo sets exacting standards for his reader and does not allow passive reading of this
material. You have to allow yourself to permeate and then flow with it. There is a repetition of
certain concepts at some places and occasionally verbose sentences make you lose grip over the
main subject. But a second visit to the paragraph makes things more comprehensible. My
understanding of this poem is not great, but still, it changed my whole perspective of looking
towards life. His insights into the common problems of life and his analysis of the nature of mind,
helped me organize as a better person. His detailed explanation of many of the Indian philosophical
concepts assisted me in understanding other great books like Gita.

CONCLUSION

Essentially this poem details the spiritual journey and makes a very valuable resource for someone
embarking on one. As I said, it is not an easy read and not a one-time read. But if you do put in your
efforts, this will be your life-changing experience.