Aurobindo

Aurobindo Ghose was an Indian philosopher, poet and yogi, educated in England at Cambridge, who worked in Baroda and was active in the nationalist movement in Bengal before settling in Pondicherry in 1910. There he developed integral yoga and a reinterpretation of Vedanta. He argued that the world is not illusion but a real manifestation of Brahman, and that evolution moves toward the emergence of a higher, supramental consciousness in matter.

Key ideas

• The world is a real self-manifestation of Brahman, not an illusion.
• Spirit involves itself in matter, and evolution is its gradual re-emergence as consciousness.
• A supramental consciousness beyond mind can descend into and transform earthly life.
• Integral yoga aims at transforming the whole of life, not escaping it.

Major works

• The Life Divine
• The Synthesis of Yoga
• Essays on the Gita
• Savitri

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