Twelve Years with Sri Aurobindo

Book excerpt: Readers of Sri Aurobindo might wonder about the Master's external personality. The curiosity is perennial in the mind of the seeker; in the Gita, Arjuna cannot refrain from asking Sri Krishna, How does the sage of settled understanding speak, how sit, how walk? Equality has always been held as the hallmark of the liberated soul and while signs of equality are subjective, sensitive souls cannot help perceiving the spiritual atmosphere of evolved beings. The Person in them is larger than the personality, and this inner largeness overflows into and suffuses their external nature as well. Nirodbaran served Sri Aurobindo as an attendant and literary secretary from 1938 to 1950. This hagiographic classic is an account of that period of intimate personal contact.