SRI AUROBINDO ASHRAM (SAMADHI)

In the heart of the old French Quarter is the ashram of Sri Aurobindo, born in Calcutta on August 15, 1872. He studied in England and on his return to India in 1893, he worked for the princely state of Baroda for 13 years, while also being a university professor. It was during this period that he became involved in the struggle for independence. Returning to Calcutta in 1905, he was the first to openly express the concept of total independence for the country in his newspaper Bande Mataram. He was prosecuted twice for sedition and once for conspiracy. In 1910, he retired from politics and moved to Pondicherry to devote himself exclusively to his spiritual life. During the next forty years, he developed a new method of spiritual practice (integral yoga), which aims at a realization that not only liberates man's consciousness, with the possibility of acquiring a new consciousness, the consciousness of truth, but also an ability to live a perfectly harmonious life. He worked for a long time to welcome this consciousness, which he called supramental, into himself and helped others to understand it. He founded the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in 1926, with the help of the Mother, his disciple and spiritual companion, who came from France. A prolific author, Sri Aurobindo left us works such as The Divine Life or The Synthesis of Yoga and Savitri. He died on December 5, 1950, but the Mother continued his work until his death in 1973.