Knowledge Tree
Sri Aurobindo
Facts (53)
Sources
Something Rich and Strange: Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941 ... smuralis.wordpress.com Apr 16, 2012 53 facts
quoteSri Aurobindo wrote: 'A one-sided world would have been the poorer for its uniformity and the monotone of a single culture; there is a need of divergent lines of advance until we can raise our heads into that infinity of the spirit in which there is a light broad enough to draw together and reconcile all highest ways of thinking, feeling and living. That is a truth which the violent Indian assailant of a materialistic Europe or the contemptuous enemy or cold disparager of Asiatic or Indian culture agree to ignore. There is here no real question between barbarism and civilisation, for all masses of men are barbarians labouring to civilise themselves.'
quoteSri Aurobindo wrote the following sonnet in his mid-twenties: "I have a hundred lives before me yet / To grasp thee in, O spirit ethereal, / Be sure I will with heart insatiate / Pursue thee like a hunter through them all. / Thou yet shalt turn back on the eternal way / And with awakened vision watch me come / Smiling a little at errors past, and lay / Thy eager hand in mine, its proper home. / Meanwhile made happy by thy happiness / I shall approach thee in things and people dear / And in thy spirit’s motions half-possess / Loving what thou hast loved, shall feel thee near, / Until I lay my hands on thee indeed / Somewhere among the stars, as ’twas decreed."
claimSri Aurobindo argued that Asia and Europe are two sides of the 'integral orb of humanity' and must eventually meet and fuse to achieve the progress sought by the spirit in humanity.
claimSri Aurobindo's early poetry shows a linguistic and semantic freedom that was slowly releasing itself from the influence of nineteenth-century English clichéd phrases and the constraints of coloniality.
claimSri Aurobindo's Integral Yoga is a recognition of a life higher than the mental and serves as a step-ladder toward achieving that higher state.
perspectiveRabindranath Tagore and Sri Aurobindo are described as having aestheticized their political and ideological wills, leaving their work as an invitation for readers to experience their personal travails and traumas.
referenceSri Aurobindo's life is categorized by scholars into three phases: his early Europeanized boyhood and youth, his return to Indian Nationalism, and his retreat into Yoga.
claimSri Aurobindo's poetic corpus evolved from early Europeanised Romantic and Victorian decadent verse into an envisioned epic stature.
claimRabindranath Tagore and Sri Aurobindo viewed education as a framework for the active seeker to discover an essential self that is cosmic and universal.
claimIn Sri Aurobindo's poetics, the combination of 'revelation' and 'inspiration' leads to the rendering of the 'mantra,' which Sri Aurobindo considers the most unique poetic form.
claimIn the poetry of Sri Aurobindo, profound insights into the larger dimensions behind simple being are poetically transformed.
claimBoth Rabindranath Tagore and Sri Aurobindo advocated for a synthetic vision of human unity, moving from nationalism and patriotism toward internationalism and liberal humanism.
claimSri Aurobindo viewed the 'larger self' as a Spiritual entity that is simultaneously immanent and transcendent.
perspectiveRabindranath Tagore and Sri Aurobindo did not consider themselves to be academic or systematic philosophers and would not accept the label of 'philosopher'.
perspectiveThe author argues that the life and works of Rabindranath Tagore and Sri Aurobindo remain relevant in the current era of market capitalism because of their capacity to be sensitive to strong feelings and internalize them into profound poetic experiences.
claimSri Aurobindo resided in Baroda between approximately 1898 and 1902.
claimSri Aurobindo characterizes his worldview as a 'multiverse of happening' rather than a 'universe of limiting', emphasizing the multiplicity and dynamics of all life.
claimSri Aurobindo believed that India needed to integrate Western enthusiasm for manifest action into its own spirituality, which he viewed as an all-transforming dynamic.
claimRabindranath Tagore and Sri Aurobindo were both poets who maintained their poetic spirits throughout their lives and believed that the diversities of the world could only be resolved through poetic experience.
claimRabindranath Tagore and Sri Aurobindo were both essentially poets whose unique poetic sensibilities provided them with a visionary eye for philosophizing.
claimSri Aurobindo envisioned that the involuted Spirit must progress through Matter, Life, and Mind into higher planes including Higher Mind, Illumined Mind, Intuition, and Overmind, ultimately uniting with the Supermind to achieve an all-transforming unity and integrity.
claimRabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) and Sri Aurobindo (1872-1950) were significant figures in the Indian Renaissance who contributed to Indian literary and aesthetic spheres.
claimRabindranath Tagore and Sri Aurobindo, despite perceiving life from unique angles and writing differently, shared a common desire for harmonious, virtuous, and beautiful perfection, which guided them along diverse paths in the same direction.
claimRabindranath Tagore's songs and poems address the immediate present while reaching toward the transcendental, whereas Sri Aurobindo's work traces the immanence of the eternal and spiritual within the present.
reference'Complete Poems, Volume 2' is a publication included in 'The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo.'
referenceSri Aurobindo authored the book 'The Foundations of Indian Culture.'
claimThe author of the source text interprets Sri Aurobindo's early sonnet as revealing an "unsettled poetic psyche" and a "relentless soul" that aimed to transform earthly existence into spiritual becoming.
claimSri Aurobindo was involved in Nationalist politics alongside Balgangadhar Tilak and others as a hard-core activist and extremist.
claimSri Aurobindo identified three separate entities within the human being: the essential self, the self in relation to national selfhood, and the cosmic being.
accountSri Aurobindo's life trajectory evolved from being a Cambridge graduate to a revolutionary, and finally to a reclusive saint at Pondicherry.
claimRabindranath Tagore drew inspiration from folk and rural sources, while Sri Aurobindo drew inspiration from Vedic and Puranic sources for myth, metaphor, and substance.
claimSri Aurobindo posits that the purpose behind and within all life is transcendence and transformation, a concept he describes as 'divine Lila' which excludes nothing, not even the amoeba.
accountSri Aurobindo wrote the poem 'My Life is Wasted' while living in Baroda between 1898 and 1902, when he was in his late twenties.
claimRabindranath Tagore and Sri Aurobindo were both raised in an atmosphere of colonial opulence, though their specific educational experiences differed due to their family backgrounds.
claimThe philosophical vision of Rabindranath Tagore and Sri Aurobindo is rooted in the lineage of the Vedas and Upanishads, characterized as simple, sensitive, impassioned, natural, and non-intellectual.
claimSri Aurobindo defines the creative function of 'Integral Yoga' as the method to hasten the long-drawn purpose of nature, which is the natural evolution or unfolding of the Divine Spirit in all things.
claimRabindranath Tagore was primarily a lyric poet, whereas Sri Aurobindo wrote 'Savitri,' which is described as the longest epic in the English language.
perspectiveThe author contends that while Rabindranath Tagore and Sri Aurobindo pursued various vocations, they were fundamentally poets, and their major vision is essentially poetic.
perspectiveRabindranath Tagore and Sri Aurobindo believed that nationalist politics represented only a small part of human experience, while the larger portion was the desire for a transcendental, ideal selfhood.
referenceSri Aurobindo authored 'A Preface on National Education,' which consisted of two articles published in the journal 'Arya' in November-December 1920 and January 1921.
claimRabindranath Tagore and Sri Aurobindo were acutely sensitive to the dangerous ideologies of their respective times, which they believed were leading the world toward crisis and catastrophe.
accountRabindranath Tagore and Sri Aurobindo expressed their anxiety about the state of the world through various forms of creative and intellectual work, including songs, sonnets, poems, letters, fiction, drama, speeches, and treatises.
claimRabindranath Tagore and Sri Aurobindo differed in their working methods; Tagore worked alongside people, while Sri Aurobindo worked in isolation in an Ashram, though he continued to publish his work for the public.
claimSri Aurobindo's epic poem 'Savitri' was written over a long period and is believed to enshrine the struggles and traumas of an entire generation.
claimThe thematic focus of both Rabindranath Tagore and Sri Aurobindo's work centered on the triad of beauty, love, and truth.
accountSri Aurobindo was a patriot who withdrew from political action to spend forty years of his mature life in isolation in Pondicherry, focusing on a practice of Yoga aimed at total liberation and complete transformation.
claimRabindranath Tagore and Sri Aurobindo both exhibited a 'double voice' in their work, which is recognizable in their treatment of themes, narrative approaches, and semantic and stylistic choices.
perspectiveRabindranath Tagore and Sri Aurobindo desired to build a world where harmony and understanding reigned over hatred and hostility.
claimSri Aurobindo views the 'dance of Siva' as an 'avastha', which he defines as a state of being and becoming simultaneously.
claimRabindranath Tagore's legacy is integrated with the rural, the folk, the commonsensical, and the imaginative, while Sri Aurobindo's vision encompasses a universe conceived in poetic meaning and imaginative aspiration.
claimThe author of the source text asserts that while the narrator in Sri Aurobindo's early sonnet seeks solace "somewhere among the stars," Sri Aurobindo's final philosophical resolution was not found elsewhere, but within the context of his life as a yogi.
accountSri Aurobindo was tutored by Irish nuns during his early childhood and later schooled in Cambridge, where he was educated in the European classical heritage.
claimSri Aurobindo defined a 'true and living education' as one that accounts for three entities: the individual (in commonness and uniqueness), the nation or people, and universal humanity.