Twelve Years with Sri Aurobindo

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 sign 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.

This book is written mainly for the disciples and devotees Of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. They have been very eager To know something about the outer life of the Master, Which, because of his seclusion for many years, remained Behind a veil. The Mother was not so far willing to let us lift that veil. But either because of Sri Aurobindo’s Centenary Year of for other reasons, when I proposed to write an account of our historic personal association with the Master during the last twelve years of his life, the Mother Warmly approved of it. Not only so, she very graciously listened to the whole story.

An “outsider” may find the book filled in places with Devotional outpouring, miraculous phenomena and mystical Overtones. But I have tried to the best of my power to give a faithful account of what I have seen and heard and what part we played in the great drama with the Master as the principal actor. Naturally, subjective impressions could not be quite left out, for it was not my purpose to draw an entirely detached description of my experience. Yet those who are interested in having an objective picture Of the most sublimely enigmatic Person of the modern age, one whom thousands have felt to be a veritable God Man, will have, I believe, sufficient food to satisfy their seeking.

For the rest, his own works are there in which to dive and gather the treasures of his supreme vision and unparalleled realization.