Spirituality and Religion in Sri Aurobindo's "The Renaissance in India"

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Assignment on Aurobindo's views on sprituality and religion in his essay "The Renaissance in India"

Name: Dharaba Rayjada
Semester: 1
Roll No.: 8
Paper No.: 4 Indian writing in English (IWE)
Enrolment No.: 2069108420180045
Email id: dharabarayjada021@gmail.com
Year: 2017-18
Submitted to: Department of English Maharaja Krishnkumarsinhji Bhavnagar University

The Renaissance in India by Sri Aurobindo

The thirty-two essays that make up this book were first published in the monthly journal Arya between August 1918 and January 1921. They constitute a defence of Indian civilisation and culture, with essays on Indian spirituality, religion, art, literature, and polity.

The first series of four essays appeared in 1918 under the title "The Renaissance in India" and was formulated as an appreciation of James H. Cousins' book of the same title. Sri Aurobindo explains that a renaissance in India means first the recovery of the past spiritual knowledge and experience in all its fullness, then the outpouring of this spirituality into new forms in all aspects of the country's life, and lastly, an original grasp of modern problems from an Indian temperament and intellect.

Sri Aurobindo

More than a writer, Sri Aurobindo is known as a mystic philosopher. He tried his hand at almost all literary genres and that too with finesse. So his reputation as one of the great Indian writers in English can’t be denied. His prose work “The Renaissance in India” is crown among his works. He attempts to remove the misconception widespread in West about India’s nature of civilization.

There is four essay in “The renaissance in India” and in that he talk about many different things but here we are only focused on his views upon spirituality and religion. Under given topics are discussed by aurobindo in his all four essays.

• Spirituality
• Energy and joy of life and creation
• Intellectuality
• Spirituality and religion
• Past ages of India like
•              Dharma
•              Vedanta
•              Upnishada
•              Puranik
•              Tantrik
•              Bhakti Etc…
• Philosophy and art
• Indian philosophy of spirituality
• Western philosophy and Indian spirituality
• Spiritualty in art, poetry, politics

Brief summary of The Renaissance in India

In the first and the longest essay, Sri Aurobindo discusses the appropriateness or lack thereof of the term “renaissance” for what happened in India .  He refutes some common European misconceptions on the nature of Indian civilization, misconceptions that have been echoed by Westernized Indians too.  In order to do so he outlines three characteristics of ancient Indian society.  He says that “spirituality is indeed the master-key of the Indian mind” that ancient India is marked by “her stupendous vitality, her inexhaustible power of life and joy of life, her almost unimaginably prolific creativeness” and, finally, that the “third power of the ancient Indian spirit was a strong intellectuality”.  He then outlines “three movements of retrogression”  first, a “shrinking of that superabundant vital energy and a fading of the joy of life and the joy of creation”; secondly, “a rapid cessation of the old free intellectual activity” and, finally, the diminution of the power of Indian spirituality. Sri Aurobindo then identifies three “impulses” that arise from the “impact of European life and culture”.  In the second essay, he rephrases them.  The Western impact reawakened “a free activity of the intellect”; “it threw definitely into ferment of modern ideas into the old culture”; and “it made us turn our look upon all that our past contains with new eyes”.  These are a revival of “the dormant intellectual and critical impulse”; the rehabilitation of life and an awakened “desire for new creation”; and a revival of the Indian spirit by the turning of the national mind to its past.  It is this “awakening vision and impulse” that SriAurobindo feels is the Indian renaissance.  Such a renaissance would have three tasks to accomplish:
The recovery of the old spiritual knowledge and experience in all its splendour, depth and fullness is the first, most essential work; the flowing of this spirituality into new forms of philosophy, literature, art, science and critical knowledge is the second; an original dealing with modern problems in the light of Indian spirit and the endeavour to formulate a greater synthesis of a spiritualised society is the third and most difficult.
   
 In the second essay, Sri Aurobindo goes on to outline the three phases of the renaissance:
The first step was the reception of the European contact, a radical reconsideration of many of the prominent elements and some revolutionary denial of the very principles of the old culture.  The second was a reaction of the Indian spirit upon the European influence, sometimes with a total denial of what it offered and a stressing both of the essential and the strict letter of the national past, which yet masked a movement of assimilation.  The third, only now beginning or recently begun, is rather a process of new creation in which the spiritual power of the Indian mind remains supreme, recovers its truths, accepts whatever it finds sound or true, useful or inevitable of the modern idea and form, but so transmutes and indianises it, so absorbs and transforms it entirely into itself that its foreign character disappears and it becomes another harmonious element in the characteristic working of the ancient goddess, the Shakti of India mastering and taking possession of the modern influence, no longer possessed or overcome by it.
                                             
Sri Aurobindo predicts that if the last were to happen, “the result will be no mere Asiatic modification of Western modernism, but some great, new and original thing of the first importance to the future of human civilization”.
   
 In the third essay, Sri Aurobindo offers an overview of some of the movements and figures of the renaissance, all the while pointing to what lies ahead.  Finally, in the fourth essay, he once again stresses that the best course of action to India lies in being herself, recovering her native genius, which is a reassertion of its ancient spiritual ideal.  It only in “the knowledge and conscious application of the ideal” that the future of both India and the world lies.  Whether she can rise up to this task or not is a question that he leaves open.
   
 If we were to evaluate the recent cultural history of India in the light of this essay, we will clearly see that the course of post-independence India has stressed the regaining of material, even military might, not necessarily the reaffirmation of India’s spiritual ideal.  So, to that extent, Sri Aurobindo has been proved both right and wrong.  Right in that the spiritual is realized not in the denial of the material but actually in the robust plenitude of the material subordinated to the spiritual ideal.  We see in present day India a great effort to attain such material prosperity.  But whether the spiritual idea of India remains intact is a question that is not easily answered.  To all appearances, India has gone the way of the rest of the world, worshipping mammon.  Our religion, too, is consumerism.  To say that spirituality is the master key to the Indian psyche these days would seem more the exception than the rule.
   
 When we re-examine Sri Aurobindo’s ideas today, we can even conclude that the true gift of the renaissance was the modern Indian nation.  Despite all its drawbacks and failings, this nation seems to be the best means that we have to preserve our culture and to express our own destiny.  This nation has not only survived the ravages of the partition, but every conceivable threat, both internal and external, its very existence.  But having met and overcome these challenges, it seems to be poised to take our civilization to new heights.  This is not an inconsiderable achievement.
   
The most important contribution of Sri Aurobindo to the discussion on the Indian renaissance is, as is often the case with his work, in what is yet to be realized.  Sri Aurobindo says that the rise of India is necessary for future of humanity itself.  The third and most difficult task for the Indian renaissance has been the new creation that will come from a unique fusion of ancient Indian spirituality and modernity.  This fusion will be instrumental in spiritualizing the world and in brining about what many have called a global transformation.  In our present times of the clash of civilizations, such an idea may seem utopian, but the very survival of the planet depends on a hope and belief that something of this sort is not only possible but inevitable.

His views on spirituality and religion

Aurobindo complained that the spiritual side of India was over-stressed. Western scholars were all gung ho about it and Indians simply imitated them and shouted the same. Indians simply accepted that and expressed the same voice. However, they forgot that in other fields like philosophy, science, technology, logic we also made immense progress. However, we failed to show that side of India. It was not the case that west dominated singlehandedly in such subjects; and India in religion and spirituality. The greatness of India was such that we made multi faceted progress that included subjects other than spirituality.
But due to misconception of Westerners and our ignorance about our own hidden treasure, the error continued. More than that, India imitated and followed the Westerners blindly in all but religion. As a result, there was no significant contribution by them. Then they came to know about their rich past. Sri Aurobindo here cites an example of Germany. The country was considered made up of dreamers, idealists, sentimentalists, docile, intelligent, but politically inept people. Later it was discovered that it was a brutal mistake to think like that about Germany. The same misconception was also true about India but the realization of India’s real strength won’t be the result of destruction. The India will captain the world in terms of knowledge of science and literature.

Indian spirituality saw the power of human being’s capacity much before the western mind could think of. She knew that visible was always surrounded by invisible, finite by infinite. Human can have power that one can ever believe, that is to transcend the human limitation. The spiritual power of India wasn’t grown out of void but her psychic tendency, her creativeness, her vitality, her yoga, her religion and so on. We see the mountaintops. They aren’t created without base, in the dream under the cloud. The same way there is infinite strength of India builds up the powerful spirituality that enchants the world since the time unknown. In Aurobindo’s own words, to describe the worldwide influence of Indian spirituality over the earth,
“The fine superfluity of her wealth brimmed over to Judea and Egypt and Rome; her colonies spread her arts and epics and creeds in the Archipelago; her traces are found in the sands of Mesopotamia; her religion conquered China and Japan and spread westward as far as Palestine and Alexandria, and the figures of Upanishads and the sayings of the Buddhists are re-echoed on the lips of Christ.”

India is the land of Dharma and Shashtra. She worked laboriously to find the inner truth of human and created Shashtra. It wasn’t enough. She made Shashtra that was applicable to human life and helped us to live better. She witnessed three luminous periods in Indian history. First was of the exploration of Spirit, second was of Dharma and third, of Shashtra. From the age of Ashoka down to the Mohammaden epoch, she continued to produce intellectual property; it was as if the volcano of knowledge were bursting forth. We know there was no printing press or techniques to preserve such knowledge except easily perishable palm leaf and memory.

There was no parallel of such high intellectual activity in the world history, which can be compared to that of Indians. It is only recently that the dormant knowledge was found and put forward to the entire world to be benefited by them. What we see is only fraction of what is actually still there untouched, untapped! These works were not confined to theology, yoga, medicine only but all types of practical information from dance forms to how to breed horse. It encompassed all the subjects that were ever thought. Thus, it was fault to over stressed Indian spiritual progress and ignored its intellectual contribution. India has done well-balanced research in all areas.

The westerner and their Indian followers stressed the spiritual growth but it is only possible in ‘opulent vitality’. That, they forgot. Now that Western world has progressed in leaps and bounds in science, they are turning to spirituality. The same was the case with the ancient India. Sri Aurobindo says that India had the tendency to reach to the extreme, whether it’s spirituality or creativity. India’s spiritual progress was due to its excess in exuberance and energy. The west is passing through the same phase, there is excess of science and technology. So the people are concentrating their energy on the real cure of malady that is not physical but mental. Whether it is spirituality or intellectual creativity, India has tried to achieve its summit, where the knowledge ends and she stands on the peak to observe the whole truth or the spirit.

Conclusion

India should cast-off clothes of European thoughts and life and Admit Western science, reason, progressiveness, the essential modern ideas, but on the basis of our own way of life and assimilated to our spiritual aim and ideal.
India can best develop herself and serve humanity by being herself and following the law of her own nature but Religion ruined India as we made ‘the whole of life religion or religion the whole of life’. It Should edit excessive externalism of ceremony, rule, routine, mechanical worship

“India has the key to the knowledge and conscious application of the ideal; what was dark to her before in its application, she can now, with a new light, illumine; what was wrong and wry in her old methods she can now rectify; the fences which she created to protect the outer growth of the spiritual ideal and which afterwards became barriers to its expansion and farther application, she can now break down and give her spirit a freer field and an ampler flight: she can, if she will, give a new and decisive turn to the problems over which all mankind is laboring and stumbling, for the clue to their solutions is there in her ancient knowledge.”



Reference

https://studymoose.com/sri-aurobindos-views-on-spirituality-and-religion-essay#

http://www.makarand.com/acad/TheRenaissanceinIndia.htm