Sri Aurobindo Quotes
Sri Aurobindo was an Indian philosopher, yogi, poet, and anti-colonial revolutionary. After studies at Cambridge and early activism in the Bengali nationalist movement, he withdrew in 1910 to Pondicherry, where he developed an elaborate philosophical system known as integral yoga and lived in relative seclusion for the rest of his life. The quotes below are attributed to Sri Aurobindo, organized by topic.
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Sri Aurobindo on Freedom
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“The whole world yearns after freedom, yet each creature is in love with his chains.”
Thoughts and Aphorisms
Sri Aurobindo on God
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“The meeting of man and God must always mean a penetration and entry of the divine into the human and a self-immergence of man in the Divinity.”
Thoughts and Glimpses (1916-17) -
“The Hindu religion appears … as a cathedral temple, half in ruins, noble in the mass, often fantastic in detail but always fantastic with a significance — crumbling or badly outworn in places, but a cathedral temple in which service is still done to the Unseen and its real presence can be felt by those who enter with the right spirit.”
Letters , Vol. II (1949) p. 53; also in The Soul of India (1974) by Satyavrata R Patel
Sri Aurobindo on Knowledge
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Attributed to Sri Aurobindo:
“True knowledge is not attained by thinking. It is what you are; it is what you become.”
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“Aurobindo, from a letter of Sri Aurobindo that C.R. Das was reading out while defending him in the Alipore Bomb Trial. C.R. Das Speech in defence of Aurobindo Ghosh in the Maincktala Bomb Case. The judgement was issued in 1909. Source: Collected Works of Deshbandhu.”
If it is suggested that I preached the idea of freedom for my country and this is against the law, I plead guilty to the charge. If that is the law here I say I have done that and I request you to convict me, but do not impute to me crimes I am not guilty of, deeds against which my whole nature revolts and which, having regard to my mental capacity, is something which could never have been perpetr -
“Thoughts and Aphorisms (1913)”
Evolution is not finished; reason is not the last word nor the reasoning animal the supreme figure of Nature . As man emerged out of the animal , so out of man the superman emerges. -
“Thoughts and Glimpses (1916-17)”
What I cannot do now is the sign of what I shall do hereafter. The sense of impossibility is the beginning of all possibilities. Because this temporal universe was a paradox and an impossibility, therefore the Eternal created it out of His being. -
“Thoughts and Glimpses (1916-17)”
The meeting of man and God must always mean a penetration and entry of the divine into the human and a self-immergence of man in the Divinity. -
“Hinduism , which is the most skeptical and the most believing of all, the most skeptical because it has questioned and experimented the most, the most believing because it has the deepest experience and the most varied and positive spiritual knowledge, that wider Hinduism which is not a dogma or combination of dogmas but a law of life , which is not a social framework but the spirit of a past and ”
The Ideal of the Karmayogin (1921), p. 9
Sri Aurobindo on Life
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Attributed to Sri Aurobindo:
“All life is yoga.”
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Attributed to Sri Aurobindo:
“By your stumbling, the world is perfected.”
Sri Aurobindo on Mind
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“Evolution is not finished; reason is not the last word nor the reasoning animal the supreme figure of Nature . As man emerged out of the animal , so out of man the superman emerges.”
Thoughts and Aphorisms (1913)
Sri Aurobindo on Nature
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Attributed to Sri Aurobindo:
“Hidden nature is secret God.”
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“What I cannot do now is the sign of what I shall do hereafter. The sense of impossibility is the beginning of all possibilities. Because this temporal universe was a paradox and an impossibility, therefore the Eternal created it out of His being.”
Thoughts and Glimpses (1916-17)
Sri Aurobindo on Truth
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Attributed to Sri Aurobindo:
“The supramental is a truth and its advent is in the very nature of things inevitable.”