Biography of sri aurobindo

Central University
of Jammu

Department of
Education

Developed by :
SRI AUROBINDO GHOSH
Avinash Thappa --------(1872-1950)
avinash.thappa@gmail.
com “Nothing is impossible for one who is attentive”

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 Life history or Sketch.
 Basic philosophy of Aurobindo.
 Sri Aurobindo on Education.
 Aurobindo Ghosh &Yoga.
 Aurobindo Ghosh & Karam Yoga.
 Conclusion.

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 Born at Calcutta (Kolkata) on August 15, 1872.
 Father Krishnadhan (M.D), Mother Swamlata
 At the age of 5 years, sent to Loretto Convent
School (Darjeeling).
 At the age of 7 years, sent to England for
completing his schooling.
 At the age of 18 years got admission in
Cambridge university and also qualified the
I.C.S exam in 1890 but failed to qualified Horse
riding examination.
 So, not allowed to join the Indian Govt.
services.
 In 1893, returned back to India and became the
vice-principal of the state college in Baroda.
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 During 1893-1903 he studied Sanskrit, Bengali,
philosophy and political science.
 In 1906, during partition of Bengal he resigned
his job and joined the Bengal national college.
 In 1908, joined the Indian freedom struggle and
openly boycotted of British goods, British courts
and everything.
 He was the first political leader in India to
openly put forward, in his newspaper Bande
Mataram, the idea of complete independence
for the country
“ Our actual enemy is not any force exterior to
ourselves but our own crying weakness, our
cowardice, our selfishness, our hypocrisy, our
purblind sentimentalism.”

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 Famous Alipore bomb case proved to be a turning
point in Sri Aurobindo Ghosh life.
 Then later, he shifted from Calcutta to
Pondicherry (1910).
 Rest of the life he had spent in ashram (Sri
Aurobindo International centre of education)
established by him.
 The life divine, The Gita, The Secret of Veda, The
Human cycle, The ideal of Human unity are
popular essays of Sri Aurobindo Ghosh.
 He passed away on December 5, 1950 at
Pondicherry at the age of 78.

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 Based on the concept of “ Reality of being and
consciousness”.
 All being are united in that one self and spirit but divided by
certain separativity of consciousness, reality in the mind.

 He taught people to become aware of their true self and feel
the presence of divinity lying with in the them.

 Feel spirit while spending each and every moment of their
lives.

 If a person wants to experience delight then he must strive to
discover the higher spiritual nature.

 When a person discovers his true self and the power of
divinity lying within it brings about a rise in his level of
consciousness.
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Knowledge
( not to
instruct but
to impart it)

Power Education is Love
( to empower cultivation (love for
with of four nation,
intellect) main things huaminity

Beauty
(beauty is in
the eye of man
to see every
child beautiful

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 He gave concept of integral education
 He emphasized education is combination of all
the “isms”

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The main functions of education can be
summarized as follows.
i. To bring out the real man in oneself.
ii. To build the power of the human mind and spirit
i.e. evoking of knowledge, character and
culture.
iii. To enable the individual to establish a clear
continuity between the past, present and
future.
iv. To enable the individual to establish right
relationship within himself and outside-world.

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 True education, according to Sri
Aurobindo, is not only spiritual
but also rational, vital and
physical.
 Education to be complete must
have five principal aspects
relating to the five principal
activities of human being:
1. physical
2. vital
3. mental
4. psychic
5. spiritual.
This education is complete,
complimentary to each other
and continued till the end of
life‟.
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Perfection of soul

Realization of inner self

Physical development

The development of senses

Development of morality

Development of consciousness

Cultivation of values

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I All life is education. So curriculum is not confined to a
limited syllabus and a few text books.
ii It should include all those subjects which promote
mental and spiritual development.
iii It is a means towards an end, not an end in itself, the
end being the development of integral personality.
iv There should be flexibility to meet individual needs.
v Subjects of curriculum should be able to motivate
children.
vi Curriculum should involve creativity of life and
constructive activities
vii Curriculum should be interesting.

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Aurobindo has prescribed the following subjects in the
curriculum
1. For primary stage: Mother Tongue, English, National
History, Art, Painting, General Science, Social Studies, and
Arithmetic.
2. Secondary stage: Mother tongue, English, French,
Arithmetic, Art, Chemistry, Physics, Botany, Social Studies,
Physiology, Health Education.
3. University Stage: Indian and western philosophy, History
of Civilization, English, Literature, French, Sociology,
Psychology, History of Science, Chemistry, Physics, Botany,
International relations and integration.
4. Vocational Education: Arts, painting, photography,
sewing, sculptural, drawing, type, shorthand, collage
industries, carpentry, nursing, mechanical and electrical
engineering, Indian and European music, and
dramatization.

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I. The first principle is that “nothing can be
taught, but everything can be earned”.
ii. The second principle is that the mind has to be
consulted in its growth. It is wrong to mould the
child into the shape desired by the parent or
teacher ignoring and destroying the divine in the
child.
iii. The third principle of teaching is to work from
near to far, from the known to unknown.
Education should be according to the nature of
the child.

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The following principles of methods of teaching
have been stressed by Sri Aurobindo.
1. Love and sympathy for the child.
2. Education through mother tongue
3. Education according to the interests of the child
4. Education through self experience
5. Emphasis on learning by doing
6. Education through co-operation of teacher and
students in the education process
7. Education according to the nature of child-
considering the divinity in the child and latent
gifts of mind and spirit
8. Freedom of child- free environment to gain
more knowledge through his own efforts.

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 One must be a saint and a hero to become a good
teacher.
 One must be a good yogi to become a good
teacher.
 He should be absolutely disciplined and have an
integrated personality.
 One must have the perfect attitude in order to be
able to exact a perfect attitude from one‟s pupils.
 He should be able to eliminate his ego, master his
mind and develop an insight into human nature.
 The most important thing in a teacher is not
knowledge but the attitude.
 The teacher also should grow along with the
pupils.
 If a teacher is to be respected, he must be
respectable.

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Aurobindo strongly argued for national system of
education. He put forward the following elements.
i. Education does not become national by tagging the
word „national‟ to the system.
ii. Education should pay due attention to sacrifice,
progress and increasing knowledge.
iii. Mere knowledge of science doesn‟t make us
educated in the true sense. This must be related to
powers of the human mind and spirit.
iv. There should be a balanced understanding of the
national and international relationship of universal
relationship.

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 All beings are united in that one self and spirit but
divided by certain separativity of consciousness,
reality in the mind.
 He said it is possible only through psychological
discipline to remove the person of separative
consciousness and became aware of true self, the
divinity within us and all .
 Life is the first step of this release to consciousness;
mind is the second but the evolution does not finish
with mind it awaits a release into something greater
a consciousness which is spiritual and supramental.
 He said education is cultivation of four things:-

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 Man is a transitional being, he is not final. He
have some radiant degrees by which he covers
the journey from man to superman. Example:
the difference b/w man and superman will be
the difference b/w mind and a consciousness.
 The differentiating essence of superman will be
super mind or a divine gnosis (knowledge,
spiritual truth)
 To enable the individual to establish right
relationship within himself and outside world.

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 Meditation means properly
concentration of mind on a single train
of ideas which work out a single
subject.
 The first internal condition necessary
is concentration of the will against the
obstacles to meditation.
 The second is freedom from all
disturbing reactions such as anger,
grief, depression, anxiety etc
 A living of man in the divine and a
divine living of the spirit in humanity
principle and the whole object of an
integral yoga of self perfection
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Integral
education
(strengthening of physical
and mental aspect)

Self expression
(the person should direct his
action of power i.e. power of
spirit and truth to make himself)

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 I mean by work, action done for the divine,
more and more in union with the divine for
the divine alone and nothing else. That is not
easy at the beginning any more than deep
meditation and luminous knowledge are easy
or even true love and bhakti are easy.
 Work action has to be begun in the right spirit
and attitude, with the right will in you, then
all the rest will come.
 One become conscious of his inner being.
 Work, bhakti and knowledge go together and
self perfection become possible – what we call
the transformation of the nature.

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The goal of Sri Aurobindo was not merely
the liberation of the individual from the
chain that fetters him and realization of
the self, but to work out the will of the
Divine in the world, to effect a spiritual
transformation and to bring down the
divine nature and a divine life into the
mental, vital and physical nature and life
of humanity.

“Hidden nature is secret God.”

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Biography of sri aurobindo

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