Preparing for the Miraculous

the development of Sri Aurobindo’s thought 271908 was an axis year in his life. In the beginning of thisyear he met the yogi Vishnu Bhaskar Lele and had withhim his first great spiritual experience, the realization ofthe silent Brahman. Later he was imprisoned in Alipore Jailunder accusation of revolt against the Crown, which couldcost him his life. But the jail, where his cell is now a shrine,turned into his “cave of tapasya,” and when, after one year,he came out of it he was no longer the agnostic. His politicalwork for Bharat Mata had turned into a spiritual Workfor humanity. As he said in his Uttarpara speech soon afterhis release: “There is a word to speak and a work to do,”but nobody understood him at the time.From the time of his imprisonment in Alipore Jail, SriAurobindo was constantly in the company of Sri Krishnaand guided by him, and it was in obedience to Sri Krishna’sadesh (command) that he left Calcutta for Chandernagore,and soon afterwards for Pondicherry. In this French enclavein South India he took up his study of the Vedas and discoveredthe secret of their esoteric contents. He now livedexclusively for his spiritual mission, as we know from hisnotebooks, published under the title Record of Yoga. (Thereare some striking correspondences or resonances in thelives of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. For instance, bothbegan their yoga in the same year; as the Mother said: “Ibegan my conscious yoga in 1908.” And both began to notedown their practice of yoga in 1912, Sri Aurobindo in hisRecord of Yoga, the Mother in her Prières et Méditations.)Soon, in 1912-13, Sri Aurobindo started formulating hisThoughts and Aphorisms in a students’ notebook that was decipheredand published almost half a century afterwards. Therelevance of these concise formulations, and of the Thoughtsand Glimpses, is that they provide an insight into the giganticmetamorphosis that was taking place in him. They illustratethe confrontation between his overwhelming spiritual