Sri Aurobindo's birthday

"Sri Aurobindo has come on earth not to bring a teaching or a creed in competition with previous creeds or teachings, but to show the way to overpass the past and to open concretely the route towards an imminent and inevitable future."

Today, 15th August, is Sri Aurobindo's birthday, and hence one of the Aurobindo Ashram "darshan days".  

Although considered a philosopher, and on the surface dense and intellectual, Sri Aurobindo's writings go beyond the academic intellectual approach, because the physical mind cannot access the spiritual truths.  They go beyond the New Age spiritual supermarket, where the Revelation of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo can easily be overlooked among the clamour of systems, some genuine, many misleading or superficial. And they go beyond religion with its dogmas and literalism.

The strength in Sri Aurobindo and the Mother's teachings lies in the fact that they truly are "integral", both in the inclusive sense, because they include all other teachings, like the parable of the Buddha's teaching being like the elephant's footprint that can contain the footprints of all the other animals, and in the Transformative sense, because they taught the way by which the entire individual being that is to be transformed, and ultimately the Earth as a whole.

It is this vast and all-encompassing vision that constitutes a powerful appeal of the Integral Yoga teaching.  There is also the strength of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother's spiritual presence, which is especially felt on "darshan days".

Through heroic deeds, the Divinisation of even physical mundane reality may be brought about!


(i wasn't sure whether to post this entry here or on my Integral Transformation blog so i decided to do it on both)