Sri Aurobindo is quite "liberal"

Would some of you enlighten me on the worldviews of Aurobindo, as in spite of an extensive reading of his magnum opus, 'The Life Divine', I am not able to understand what constitutes the philosophy of Aurobindo, what is his liberating knowledge? What I am able to glean from his masterly language is that reality admits of varieties, it being integral not admitting of the possibility of the Advaita worldview alone. Aurobindo says that the Advaitic approach towards freedom, is a selfish one, as though self-knowledge were an individual affair.

Further, Aurobindo says that reality subsumes both the realms of Being and Becoming, and that it must not exclude the latter, which he says is the fatal error perpetrated by the Advaitins. As once you understand the Being, where is the question of the reality or unreality of Becoming, which is the affair of the Maker, being unrelated to the liberating knowledge. Further, the concepts of Supramental, Overmind, etc talked about by Aurobindo, are too purplexing to admit of even an intellectual comprehension. Aurobindo talked about the entire world being divinized, and the achevement of immortality for the body, which the Vedanta philosophy has not advocated. I am able to understand all the teachings of the world, including the ones of maverick philosophers like U.G.Krishnamurthy; but I am not able to understand the teachngs of Aurobindo. Would somebody please elucidate me on this. With warm regards, Sankarraman Philosophy of Aurobindo #59518 - 10/30/05 03:04 AM patanjali_20

The goal of this Yoga is to realize a divine life which implies the physical immortality, an ideal that dates back at least to the vedic rishis according to him.***A goal which He himself failed to attain, i believe. So? Neither any scripture nor experience suggests physical immortality. What is manifest at a point of time vanishes at another point of time. Only, the akala is the eternal.With all regards to the great sage, I personally feel, that desire for immortality of the physical self, was due to inabilty to attain yuktatma state -- which is probably also true for many other gurus who only preach the saguna Brahman. Atanu Banerjee #61002 - 01/16/06 02:39 PM

Nevertheless one must not forget that the Integral Yoga from Sri Aurobindo is quite "liberal", special, heterodox (and westernized) among the indian spirituality. And we are on the Advaita forum but it can not be defined as some Vedanta though there is a strong influence of it. Philippe* #61037 - 01/17/06 11:28 AM

The scriptures can be interpreted in the way one wishes to. Even Sankara distorted some dualistic ideas presented in the upanishads to suit his monistic philosophy; while Ramanuja and the others distorted the monistic statements into dualistic ones...The mother had acheieved supramentalisation, in some degree, atleast...Comparing Aurobindo to worshippers of Saguna Brahman is a gross mistake....according to him the supreme is above both saguna and nirguna brahman..even Swami Vivekananda never remarked that the nirguna was highest, and nothing could be beyond it, his only contention like other advaitics was nirguna is higher than saguna azygos #61059 - 01/18/06 10:54 AM Advaita Philosophy >> Advaita Discussion