Resources on Faith, Ethics and Public Life

Sri Aurobindo (Aurobindo Ghose)

This individual is not a direct affiliate of the Berkley Center.

Sri Aurobindo Ghose was an Indian nationalist and spiritual leader. He was born in Calcutta in 1872 and raised and educated in England. He returned to India in 1893 and, after the British partitioned Bengal from India in 1905, he became a militant nationalist and revolutionary leader, founding the underground extremist Jugantar party. By 1907, he was the leader of the growing Indian independence movement, bringing him into conflict with the British Raj. The colonial administration labeled Ghose the “most dangerous man we have to reckon with.” He was tried but acquitted for the attempted assassination of a British judge; during the ordeal he underwent several mystical experiences. Around 1910, he left politics and devoted himself to spirituality, writing mystical and philosophical treatises and founding the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in 1926. He died in 1950.
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