ARABINDA BASU

AN UNPUBLISHED FOREWORD BY PROF.DR. ARABINDA BASU ON ‘ARUT PERUM JOTHI & DEATHLESS BODY”

( Director of Sri Aurobindo Research Academy and Professor of Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo International Center of Education, Pondicherry)

 

It is with great pleasure, that I write these few words by way of introducing this book to students of spiritual philosophy and yoga. Thiru Thulasiram, an accountant by training, is a life long student of the writings of Sri Aurobindo and Ramalinga Swami. This weighty volume embodies the results of his comparative study of the respective visions, experiences and realizations of these two yogis. He says that there is a great similarity, even unity, between their spiritual outlook and achievement. It must be said that he has made a strong case for his thesis.

 

It is well known that the aim of the integral yoga of Sri Aurobindo is the integral realization of the Divine Reality, both beyond and in the world. It can also be described as a realization of the Divine in such a way that Sachchidananda can be manifested in life, in both individual and collective existence. This means a radical transformation of consciousness, which arranges itself in different levels, from the spiritual to the physical. The means of this transformation is what sri Aurobindo calls the supermind and which he defined as the Divine’s self-knowledge and world-knowledge. The Supermind is both Knowledge and Will. The Supramental transformation has two aspects. The first is that in which all is supramentalised in the Gnostic consciousness. This means, as I understand it, the knowledge of God by the supermind and also of everything in the universe. The attainment of this knowledge leads on to the beginning of the transformation of the mind, life and body. The essential idea of the transformation of matter is that the physical consciousness itself in it becomes capable of knowing and enjoying God. The complete transformation would accomplish the transcendence of the law of matter and death and a lack of restriction to the physical frame. The actual physical survival of a supramentally transformed body will be terminable at will and only a temporary sign of the victory over death in matter.

 

Sri Aurobindo has said that the supramental transformation of consciousness, and the beginning of the transformation of mind, life and body has been achieved by some yogis but that they maintained it by personal yoga-siddhi and not as a dharma of nature. I understand this to mean that the great yogis who attained to these high-realization did not establish the supramental principle and power as an evolutionary and transforming force in the earth nature. This would mean that they had not opened a way to a collective spiritual fulfillment in this world.

 

Ramalinga Swami has written of ‘Arut Joti’, which our author has translated as ‘Grace-Light’. This is an aspect, rather an activity of the supramental force. Ramalinga also has described some changes in his body which may be described as physical transformation. The reader will judge whether this transformation can be taken as complete. The author asserts, on the basis of the Swami’s own writings, that he had a vision of a collective fulfillment also. Whether or not Ramalinga achieved complete transformation of the body, it cannot be denied, that the changes that occurred in his body were most remarkable and deserve a most careful study.

 

I am not competent to judge the poetry of Ramalinga Swami. But those who assure me it is of a high quality and caliber. Sri Thulasiram has done the English reading public a great service by translating some of Ramalinga’s poetry into English. It is to be hoped that he will make available to the Tamil reading public some of the poems of Sri Aurobindo by translating them into Tamil.

 

I am not competent to judge the poetry of Ramalinga Swami. But those who assure me it is of a high quality and caliber. Sri Thulasiram has done the English reading public a great service by translating some of Ramalinga’s poetry into English. It is to be hoped that he will make available to the Tamil reading public some of the poems of Sri Aurobindo by translating them into Tamil.

 

I commend this book to all earnest students and practitioners of yoga and hope that a close perusal of it by them will convince them that God is not only not disappointed with man, however degenerate he is at the moment, but that he is a chosen instrument of God for founding the Life Divine on earth.