Know the Master - SRI AUROBINDO

Sri Aurobindo, Indian nationalist, poet, philosopher and Spiritual Guru was born in Calcutta on 15th August 1872.
Sri Aurobindo spent his formative years in England studying at St Paul’s and Trinity College where he excelled in the study of Literature and the Classics. In 1892 he returned to India where he became heavily involved in the Indian independence movement, he was a natural leader and one of the most radical nationalist politicians. Because of his radicalism, in 1908 Sri Aurobindo was arrested on suspicion of being involved in a bomb plot and was remanded in Alipore jail. It was here in jail that Sri Aurobindo had significant spiritual experiences, he became aware of a divine inner guidance and also realised the omnipresence of God even in a darkened prison cell.
Due to the commitment of Sri Aurobindo’s lawyer C.R.Das, Sri Aurobindo was released without charge. However this experience had changed Sri Aurobindo’s outlook. Henceforth he retired from politics and focused his energies on spirituality.
Sri Aurobindo travelled to Pondicherry, South India where he could practise yoga undisturbed. In 1914 he was later joined by a french women, Mira Richards who would later became known as the Mother of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. Together they founded the Sri Aurobindo ashram, which began to attract disciples attracted to their dynamic reinterpretation of yoga.
As well as being a spiritual Guru to many disciples Sri Aurobindo was a noted poet, philosopher and writer. His main works were The Life Divine, The Synthesis of Yoga, Essays on the Gita and Savitri. Savitri was an epic work of poetry that he worked on for over 20 years.
Sri Aurobindo did not negate the world like Indian yogis of the past. Instead Sri Aurobindo affirmed that all life is Yoga; through a conscious aspiration it is possible for man to evolve into a higher consciousness – a consciousness of truth and inner harmony. Sri Aurobindo called this new consciousness the Supramental.


"Arise, transcend Thyself,
 Thou art man and the whole nature of man
  Is to become more than himself."            - Sri Aurobindo

“The Fire of Transformation - OSHO”

Imagine the body being consumed by flames, and discover that you still remain.Focus on fire rising through your form from the toes up, until the body burns to ashes, but not you.

Why is there so much fear of death? We are afraid of death not because of death – because we don’t know it. How can you be afraid of something you have never encountered? At least you must know it to be afraid of it. So you are really not afraid to death; the fear is something else. The fear comes because you are not living, so you are afraid.

The fear of death comes only to those who are not really alive. If you are alive, you will welcome death. Then there is no fear. You have known life; now you would like to know death also. If you want to enter this technique you must be aware of this deep fear. And this deep fear must be through away, purged, only then can you enter the technique.

This will help; pay more attention to exhalation. The body has its own wisdom; if you deeply exhale, the body will take a deep inhalation by itself. You need not interfere. Then a very deep relaxation will spread all over your consciousness. The whole day you will fell relaxed, and an inner silence will be created.

You can deepen this feeling more if you do another experiment. Sit in a chair or on the ground, exhale deeply, and while exhaling close the eyes. When the air goes out, you go in. And then allow the body to inhale, and when the air goes in , open the eyes and you go out. It is the opposite: when the air goes out, you go in; when the air goes in, you go out.

Lie down and with closed eyes conceive of yourself as dead; the body is just like a corpse. Now bring your attention to your toes and feel that the fire is rising from there upwards, everything is being burned. As the fire rises, your body is disappearing. Why start from the toes? It will be easier, because the toes are very far away from the ego which exists in the head. Feel that the toes are burned; only ashes remain, and then move slowly, burning everything that the fire comes across. Every part – the thighs – will disappear.

Go on upwards, and lastly the head disappears. Everything has fallen unto dust….until the body burns to ashes but not you. You will remain just a watcher on the hill. The body will be there – dead, burned, ashes – and you will be the watcher, you will be the witness. This witness has no ego.

This technique is very good to reach the egoless state because it appears simple; it is not so simple. The inner mechanism is very complex because your memories are part of the body. Memory is matter; that’s why it can be recorded in the brain cells. They are material, part of he boy. Your brain cells can be operated on , and if certain brain cells are removed, certain memories will disappear from you.

If really you go deep in the feeling that the body is dead, burning, and the fire has completely destroyed it, you will not have any memory in that moment. In that moment of watching, there will be no mind. Everything will have stopped – no movement of thought, just watching, just seeing what has happened.

And once you know this , you can remain in this state continuously. Once you have known that you can separate yourself from the body….. This techniques just a method to separate yourself from the body, just for a few moments to be out of the body. If you can do this, then you can remain in the body and you will not be in the body. You can go on living as you were living before, but you will not be the same again.

This technique will take at least three months. Go on doing it. It is not going to happen in one day, but if you go on doing it every day for one hour, within three months, some day suddenly your imagination will have helped and the gap will be created, and you will actually see the body gone to ashes. Then you can watch.

In that watching you will realize a deep phenomenon – that the ego is false entity. I was there because you were identified with the body, with the thoughts. With the mind. You are neither – neither the mind not the body. You are different from your periphery.

The technique seems simple, but it can bring you a deep mutation.


Material excerpted from the book “The Book of Secrets”
by Osho.. published by Osho International.. grateful acknowledgements .. edit-team