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Sri Aurobindo Ashram

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The Term 'ashram'

For years after his arrival in Pondicherry in 1910, Sri Aurobindo was unwilling to speak of his household as an Ashram. Not that the term would have been inappropriate, for an Ashram is simply "the house or houses of a Teacher or Master of spiritual philosophy in which he receives and lodges those who come to him for the teaching and practice."* It is true that in the early days Sri Aurobindo took no disciples as such. He once wrote, "With the three or four young men who accompanied me or joined me in Pondicherry, I had at first the relation of friends and companions rather than of a Guru and disciples; it was on the ground of politics I had come to know them and not on the spiritual ground. Afterwards only there was a gradual development of spiritual relations." But even as more and more aspirants gathered around Sri Aurobindo specifically to practise yoga under his direction, the grouping remained informal, and was not referred to as an "ashram".

It was only after the Mother finally settled in Pondicherry in 1920 that an attempt was made at collective organisation. "The number of disciples then showed a tendency to increase rather rapidly." And as thus "the Ashram began to develop, it fell to the Mother to organise it." She had to see to the outward lives of the disciples, whose "numbers began so much to increase that it was thought necessary to make an arrangement for lodging those who came, and houses were bought and rented according to need forthe purpose.

Arrangements [also] had to be made for the maintenance, repair, rebuilding of houses, for the service of food and for decent living and hygiene" and so forth. At the same time the guidance of the disciples' inner lives began progressively to pass into the Mother's hands, so that, when Sri Aurobindo retired into seclusion on 24 November 1926, "the whole material and spiritual charge" of what had now come to be called Sri Aurobindo's ashram "devolved on her". It was in this way that "the Ashram was founded or rather founded itself in 1926", the informal grouping of seekers taking "the form of an ashram more from the wish of the sadhaks who desired to entrust their whole inner and outer life to the Mother than from any intention or plan of hers or of Sri Aurobindo's". The Sri Aurobindo Ashram is thus more a spontaneous growth than a deliberate creation

 
For More Details about Sri Aurobindo Ashram Visit
http://www.sriaurobindosociety.org.in/

"ARISE, TRANSCEND THYSELF.
THOU ART MAN AND THE WHOLE NATURE OF MAN
IS TO BECOME MORE THAN HIMSELF."

Sri Aurobindo

For more details pleaseClick Here .

INTRODUCTION

A dynamic application of spirituality to life and all it's activities is what we are trying to achieve at Sri Aurobindo Society.

Sri Aurobindo Society is a registered society with its chief administrative office at Puducherry. It has about 350 centres and 75 branches across the world. The Mother is the founder and the permanent President of the Society.

Sri Aurobindo Society was started by the Mother in 1960. She is its guiding force and its permanent President. She has nurtured the small instrument that was created over 35 years ago and has made it an international organisation working in diverse fields of life. The community of consciousness has kept growing worldwide.

It is necessary for us, from time to time, to remind ourselves of the source and intent that brought the Society into existence, so that we may remain open to that guidance and rededicate ourselves to the work of transformation, taken up by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.

Through the many ups and downs, the many challenges and the apparently insurmountable obstacles, the Society's history has been a living testimony to the working of the Grace. At each step one has remembered Sri Aurobindo's words:

"The Grace of the Divine Mother is the sanction of the Supreme... Its touch can turn difficulties into opportunities, failure into success and weakness into unfaltering strength."

It is the Mother's love and action which have sustained the Society from the beginning.. The material published in the section on the history and origin shows the Mother's involvement at every level of the Society's work, as also several rare documents containing the Mother's directions and signature as our Executive President. Some of these have been brought together here which we offer to our browsers worldwide.

On 1st January 1972, the Centenary year of Sri Aurobindo, All India Radio had broadcast a message of the Mother :

"Today is the first day of Sri Aurobindo's Centenary year. Though he has left his body he is still with us, alive and active.

Sri Aurobindo belongs to the future; he is the messenger of the future. He still shows us the way to follow in order to hasten the realisation of a glorious future fashioned by the Divine Will.

All those who want to collaborate for the progress of humanity and for India's luminous destiny must unite in a clairvoyant aspiration and in an illumined work.."

The message puts beautifully in a nutshell the purpose and work of the Society.

We invite you to join us in our efforts to work towards an integral perfection of man, both as an individual and a collectivity. It is the Society's aim to bring together all those who want to contribute to the advent of a new world where human unity will blossom in the midst of a harmonious and organised diversity.

Sri Aurobindo came to tell us: "One need not leave the earth to find the Truth, one need not leave the life to find his soul, one need not abandon the world or have only limited beliefs to enter into relation with the Divine. The Divine is everywhere, in everything and if He is hidden, it is because we do not take the trouble to discover Him." - The Mother

Spiritual Discipline,

As in all spiritual communities, life in the Sri Aurobindo Ashram is centred around the practice of a discipline for the attainment of the goal common to all yogas and religions - Spirit, Self, God, divinity, perfection. But in the Ashram the discipline does not follow any fixed method, but is "an inner practice conducted under the spiritual guidance and influence of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother". The guidance, given by them in innumerable talks and letters, is now available in numerous books. The influence is something that can be felt inwardly by all who have an opening. This self-opening is one of the three main leverages of the yoga, the others being a progressive surrender to the spiritual force within and a rejection of all that opposes its workings. Itself chiefly an inward movement, the rejection assumes outward formulation in three rules - no smoking, drinking or drug-taking, no sex, and no politics. These prohibitions, the only regulations the Ashram imposes on its members, are meant to exclude activities contrary to the right practice of yoga by persons who have consecrated their lives to it.

The way of yoga practised at the Ashram is "a living thing, not a mental principle or a set method to be stuck to against all necessary variations". Sri Aurobindo has amplified on this in his letters: "The general principle of self-consecration and self-giving is the same for all in this yoga, but each has his own way of consecration and self-giving." For "the technique of a world-changing yoga has to be as multiform, sinuous, patient, all-including as the world itself." It is because of this that "the sadhana of this yoga does not proceed through any set mental teaching or prescribed forms of meditation, mantras or others." Meditation is of course a powerful tool; through it one learns to quieten the mind and open to the higher influence, and also to contact the divine presence in the heart. Some form of meditation or concentration is used by most Ashram members in their individual practice. Collective meditations also are held regularly; these are open to all - visitors as well as Ashramites - who wish to attend. But "meditation can deal only with the inner being"; and since Sri Aurobindo's yoga includes as part of its aim the transformation of the outer consciousness, "meditation alone is not enough". Devotion to a form or embodiment of the Divine is another important aid, but this too is not in itself sufficient. For Sri Aurobindo's is an "integral yoga, that is, a turning of all the being in all its parts to the Divine.... It is not only the heart that has to turn to the Divine and change, but the mind also, so knowledge is necessary, and the will and power of action and creation also, so works too are necessary." Likewise essential for the complete change of the instrumental nature - mind, life and body - is "a seeking for perfection, so that the nature too may become one with the nature of the divine". The integral yoga practised in the Ashram includes all these approaches. It is thus a synthesis of the methods of the four principal paths of traditional yoga - the path of knowledge, the path of devotion, the path of works, and the path of perfection.

In ashrams where liberation from worldly existence (moksha) is the sole object, there is a tendency for members to withdraw from outward life - to become sannyasis or ascetics. But in accordance with the comprehensive goal of Sri Aurobindo's teaching, members of his Ashram "are not sannyasis; [for] it is not moksha that is the sole aim of the yoga here". Liberation is of course necessary; but it is an inner freedom and equanimity and not an outward renunciation that is required.

From the inner poise, outward activities can and indeed must be carried out; for, as Sri Aurobindo once explained, "What is being done here is a work - a work which will be founded on yogic consciousness and Yoga-Shakti [the divine power], and can have no other foundation. Meanwhile every member here is expected to do some work in the Ashram as a part of this spiritual preparation."

 
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