Sri Aurobindo has claimed divine sanction

Sri Aurobindo has claimed a divine sanction for his work, and he has written thousands of pages of primarily metaphysical and psychological statements based on a firm foundation of fundamental concepts and assumptions, such as an evolving cosmological order of distinct principles and planes of consciousness, and the prophetically revealed knowledge of supramental truth-consciousness, immanent and yet destined to be realized by human beings. Moreover, he has prescribed a process of psychological transformation based on bakti (devotion to a divine person), tapas (personal yogic effort), and shastra (study of sacred texts).

The first things that have to be said about Sri Aurobindo’s work, as he would agree, are that these texts are characteristically foundational and contain all of the classical elements of a religious system. It will there be very difficult to avoid facing the fact that the evolving social context and doxa that contextualize this work are not characterized by impartial critical or academic discourse, but by religious faith and practice. What other meaning could the phrase “Sri Aurobindo’s master-idea” possibly have? by Rod on Thu 26 Oct 2006 06:29 AM PDT Permanent Link