4th April 1910 Sri Aurobindo/s arrival in Pondicherry

Sri Aurobindo was sitting in the Karmayogin office at 4 Shyampukur Lane in Calcutta. It was the evening of 14 February in 1910. His young associate Ramachandra Majumdar brought the information that the police have issued an arrest warrant for Sri Aurobindo. “Go to Chandernagore” was the quiet voice he heard. Sri Aurobindo stayed in the French colony of Chandernagore from 15 February to 31 March 1910. But the place was not safe enough. He again heard the voice telling him: “Go to Pondicherry.”

Sri Aurobindo received the divine command to go to Pondicherry and soon he was there in the afternoon of 4th April 1910. This was the place chosen for him as the Cave of Tapasya to carry out the spiritual mission he had come to fulfil. It became also a foreordained meeting place when from Paris the Mother arrived here four years later. It was the high Destiny that had guided them and brought them together. They had a task to do and the calling was upon the possibilities of the spirit entering into the dynamics of life. About it Sri Aurobindo wrote in an early letter that it was a severe and painful work. But it is to that that he had committed himself, unmindful of any hardship or difficulty. God-given and God-won was his strength and in it he attempted all and achieved all. He did what he had come to do.

Two great events had preceded this arrival of Sri Aurobindo here in Pondicherry. He had just in one year experienced both the passive and active aspects of the Brahman, something that takes years and years of yogic sadhana. The first was during his brief visit to Baroda in January 1908 when he was actively engaged in the independence movement of India. Here the Yogi Vishnu Bhaskar Lele gave him some instructions about silencing the mind. Within three days he had the realization, of the static Brahman. The other happened not too long afterwards in Alipore Jail. Sri Aurobindo was charged for acts of sedition and from May 1908 was an under-trial prisoner for one year. In the Jail he had experience of the dynamic nature of the Brahman. During the same period something more remarkable happened. The spirit of Vivekananda would visit him for a fortnight and point out at a bright star up in the sky. Sri Aurobindo came to know the working of the Higher Consciousness leading to Supermind.

It was in the Jail that Sri Aurobindo saw Vasudeva everywhere, in trees, plants, men, in the prisoners, in the court, in all. Here the Gita was placed in his hands and here he received the spiritual guidance. This incarceration had for a while shaken his faith in the protection he believed he unfailingly had while he was in the midst of his political activities. But an assuring voice advised him to wait and see. In truth, however, there was something else that was foreseen and planned for him. He grew calm in that reassurance. He was to renounce all self-will and become the Divine’s passive and faithful instrument. It is in that total submission that his tapas-will began to grow. It became an intense flame blazing in the day as much as in the night. The course of his life was now chartered for a different purpose altogether.

Not too long after his arrival in Pondicherry, and perhaps before 16 January 1912, a detailed programme of Yoga was given to him. This was called Sapta Chatushtaya or the Seven Tetrads,—a system consisting of twenty-eight elements put in seven groups. In their natural and logical order these Chatushtayas are the Chatushtayas of Samata (Equality), Shakti (Force or Power), Vijnana (Truth-Knowledge), Sharira (Body), Karma (Action), Brahman (Reality), and Siddhi (Accomplishment or Perfection). Later in the Arya these seven Chatushtayas were briefly presented in the Yoga of Self-Perfection forming the fourth part of The Synthesis of Yoga. But as the Yoga-Tapasya of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother started to arrive at the nitty-gritty of the physical transformation, the Will of the Divine in the active dynamics became more and more luminously assertive. However, there was always the sense of robust pragmatism in the whole approach. For instance, in his noting dated 13 November 1913 of the Record we have rather a baffling statement of far reaching consequences. While on the one hand it clearly foresees great possibilities of the Avataric work, on the other there is also an unambiguous definition with regard to the results. Sri Aurobindo writes:

A clear distinction must now be made between the vidya-avidya-siddhi [Siddhi of Knowledge-Ignorance] which is constituted by the seven chatushtayas and the higher Amrita [Immortality] in which all limitation is removed and Death etc entirely cease. Only the first will in this life be entirely accomplished.