"I have practiced all religions -Hinduism, Islam, Christianity- and I have also followed the paths of different Hindu sects. I have found that it is the same God toward whom all are directing their steps, though along different paths".
(Sri Ramakrishna)
Sri Aurobindo spoke with respect of Sri Ramakrishna :
..."in the life of Ramakrishna Paramhans, we see a colossal spiritual capacity...Its object was...to exemplify in the great and decisive experience of a master-soul the truth, now most necessary to humanity, towards which a world long divided into jarring sects and schools is with difficulty labouring, that all sects are forms and fragments of a single integral truth and all disciplines labour in their different ways towards one supreme experience".
"This is the work Sri Ramakrishna came to begin and all the development of the previous two thousand years and more since Buddha appeared, has been a preparation for the harmonisation of spiritual teaching and experience by the Avatar of Dakshineshwar".
..."A new era dates from his birth, an era in which people will be lifted for a while into communion with God and spirituality become the dominant note of human life".
..."A new day is about to break, so glorious that even the last of the avatars(n.d.r. Sri Ramakrishna) cannot be sufficient to explain it, although without him it would not have come"...
..."It is such a synthesis embracing all life and action in its scope that the teachings of Sri Ramakrishna and Vivekananda have been preparing".
most direct disciple of Sri Ramakrishna
The holy Mother Sharada Devi -- the wife of Sri Ramakrishna -- had a vision after the passing away of the Master, in which she saw the form of Sri Ramakrishna entering into the body of Vivekananda, signifying that the Master would thenceforth work in and through his chief disciple.
Sri Aurobindo was very much influenced by the teachings of Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda.
Swami Vivekananda, which had already passed away by then came to him in a subtle body and gave him some important spiritual instruction.
"It is a fact that I was hearing constantly the voice of Vivekananda speaking to me for a fortnight in the jail in my solitary meditation and felt his presence".
Sri Aurobindo also received messages from Sri Ramakrishna, as his diary
entry shows, which indicates that received some guidance from him after
beginning his Yoga.
The words of the second message are lost, but it was a "direction to form the higher being in the lower
self" coupled with a promise to speak once more when the sadhana was nearing its
close.
This is the third message (18 Oct 1912)
"Make
complete sannyasa of Karma.
Make
complete sannyasa of thought.
Make
complete sannyasa of feeling.
This
is my last utterence."
Sri Aurobindo´s vision and philosophy incorporates the earthly life into the spiritual life, restoring the teachings of Vedas and Upanishads to their pristine purity. He was critical of Shankara's philosophy of mayavada, Shankara had said that this world is an illusion and an error.
"World, said Sri Aurobindo, is an integral aspect of God and not removed from God".
"It is the Upanishads themselves and not Shankara's writings, the text and not the commentary, that are the authoritative Scripture of the Vedantin. Shankar's, is only one synthesis and interpretation of the Upanishads. There have been others in the past, and there is no reason why there should not be a yet more perfect synthesis in the future".
(Vedanta literally translated means the end of the Vedas and it comprises Upanishads, Brahmasutras, Bhagavat Gita, Shrutis and Smritis).
(Vedanta literally translated means the end of the Vedas and it comprises Upanishads, Brahmasutras, Bhagavat Gita, Shrutis and Smritis).
Shankara's influence has been so overarching on the Indian system of thought that Vedanta is normally identified with him only, he was the propounder of the Nondualist school and emphasized what is called the nirguna aspect of the Reality, the
Brahman which is formless, indeterminable and
ineffable. He maintained that Brahman alone is real and that
the world is unreal or mithya. But Ramanuja, an exponent of Visishtadwaita, which stressed the saguna aspect of the Brahman four hundred years after Shankara, focussed instead on the world, self and God and they were all real for him. This led to heated debates between
the followers of the nirguna and the saguna facets of
Brahman.
Was Sri Aurobindo who reconcilied the opposed:
"In
a realistic Adwaita there is no need to regard the Saguna as a creation from the
Nirguna or even secondary or subordinate to it, both are equal aspects of one
Reality:
its position of silent status and rest (saguna) and its position of action and
dynamic force (nirguna), the relation between the Purusha and
Shakti exists between the poles of rest and action".
Sri Aurobindo while affirming his realization of the transcendental Brahman,
refutes the idea of the world as an i1lusion and states that the seeker of an
Integral Truth not only
(This article is mainly work of another author of which I lost the name)
aspires
for a static release in the Brahman but also
strives
for a transformation of life, mind and body, and for the conditions on earth.
(This article is mainly work of another author of which I lost the name)
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