Sri Aurobindo: A Brief Biography
The first biography of Sri
Aurobindo to be based entirely on primary sources, this short but complete
narrative gives equal attention to all sides of Sri Aurobindo’s personality –
politician, philosopher, poet, and spiritual leader.
Publisher’s description
Thinker, spiritual leader, mystic, poet
and nationalist, Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) was perhaps modern India’s most
fascinating and enigmatic leader. Educated at Cambridge where he was a
brilliant Classics scholar, he refused a career in the civil service and
returned home to become a fiery Extremist nationalist. In jail for conspiring
to “wage war against the king,” Sri Aurobindo turned to meditation and, finding
refuge in the French enclave of Pondicherry, perfected there his practice of
yoga. His ashram in Pondicherry continues today with a huge international
following.
Sri Aurobindo’s life and writings (which range over spiritual discourse,
philosophy, cultural history, poetry, linguistics and literary criticism) have
hitherto been written about by devotees. The present biography, while
sympathetic, attempts a detached look at Aurobindo’s career and thought.
Exploring Aurobindo the nationalist as
well as the spiritualist and seer, Peter Heehs’s book is an informed and
accessible biography of modern India’s most important spiritual figure.
Reviews
Deserves commendation for packing, in
orderly layer after layer, so much information in so little space. . . . It is
gratifying that Mr. Heehs’s biography, for all its professed scholarly
character and archival support, has been able to avoid dry-as-dust
lifelessness. He has mastered his mass of material, and told his story
sustaining the reader’s attention throughout.
K. R.
Srinivasa Iyengar, The Hindu
(Chennai)
Unlike many biographers Heehs does not
present Aurobindo either as one hundred percent yogi and philosopher, or as merely
a political and revolutionary leader who remained active even after he retired
to Pondicherry, but as a multifaceted personality. . . . Peter
Heehs’s work is neither overtly subjective nor too impersonal, nor even
devotional in tone. Although brief, it is cast in a scholarly mould and needs
to be studied both for its contents and style.
Satish
K. Kapoor, The Tribune (Chandigarh)
Heehs’s book has great strength . . . in
distilling this documentation [concerning Aurobindo’s spiritual life] into as
easily manageable and comprehensible story as could be imagined that Aurobindo
himself would endorse. Students of world mysticism will find much of interest
in these chapters. . . . This is an excellent introduction to Aurobindo as a
nationalist, mystic, and religious figure.
Stephen
H. Phillips, Philosophy East and West
(Honolulu)
This is the first biography of Sri
Aurobindo to be based entirely on primary documents. To discover the
extraordinary personality that Sri Aurobindo was – nationalist, poet, philosopher,
prophet of the New Age, and lover of France – you must read the biography
written by Peter Heehs.
François
Gautier, France Ouest
(Rennes)