object:1960_10_24
book class:On Thoughts And Aphorisms
author class:The Mother
subject class:Integral Yoga
class:chapter
1960 Mon 24 October
Aphorism - 46
46When I was asleep in the Ignorance, I came to a place of meditation full of holy men and I found their company wearisome and the place a prison; when I awoke, God took me to a prison and turned it into a place of meditation and His trysting-ground.
Is Sri Aurobindo speaking here of his own experience in prison during his political life?
Yes. Sri Aurobindo is referring here to his experience in Alipore jail.
But what is interesting in this Aphorism is the contrast he points out between the material prison where only his body was confined, while his spirit, unfettered by social conventions and prejudice, free from all preconceived ideas and all doctrinaire limitations, had a direct and conscious contact with the Divine and a first revelation of the integral Yoga; and, on the other hand, the mental prison of narrow rules which excludes life and within which people often confine themselves when they renounce ordinary existence in order to devote themselves to a spiritual life based on traditional dogmatic ideas.
So Sri Aurobindo is here, as always, the champion of the real freedom beyond all rules and limitations, the total freedom of perfect union with the supreme and eternal Truth.
24 October 1960
***
Aphorism - 45
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