The last set of Sri Aurobindo’s prose writings appeared
in the Bulletin d' Education Physique
(Bulletin of Physical Education) beginning with 21 February 1949. The Mother
approached Sri Aurobindo and requested him for a message for the newly started
periodical to be brought out on the occasion of each Darshan, four times in a
year. The message was dictated for it on 30 December 1948 and published in the
inaugural issue of the Bulletin. The
title of this quarterly bilingual journal was altered in 1959 to Bulletin du Centre International d'Éducation
Sri Aurobindo (Bulletin of Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education)
and it continues to appear so to this day.
It seems that Sri Aurobindo took this as an opportunity to disclose some of the aspects of his occult-yogic work connected with the supramental descent and manifestation upon earth. We should indeed be thankful to the Mother for this wonderful request of hers without which, we are not sure, if Sri Aurobindo would have come out at all. He had already established dynamically in his physical the supramental light and force and now it had to become a part of the vaster terrestrial manifestation. One of the primary conditions for that to happen was the opening of the physical’s mind to the supramental which he called as the Mind of Light. It is this Mind of Light which will become the formative power to effect the first desired change. The process and the details were detailed out in the articles. The Mother’s important and celebrated but arduous work of the cellular transformation began with it.
Sri Aurobindo’s writing career began with a series of
eight articles he contributed to Indu
Prakash from
I take the opportunity of the publication of this issue
of the Bulletin d'Éducation Physique
of the Ashram to give my blessings to the Journal and the Association—JSASA
(Joneses Sportive de I' Ashram de Sri Aurobindo). In doing so I would like to
dwell for a while on the deeper raison d’être of such Associations and
especially the need and utility for the nation of a widespread organisation of
them and such sports or physical exercises as are practised here. In their more
superficial aspect they appear merely as games and amusements which people take
up for entertainment or as a field for the out-let of the body's energy and
natural instinct of activity or for a means of the development and maintenance
of the health and strength of the body; but they are or can be much more than
that: they are also fields for the development of habits, capacities and
qualities which are greatly needed and of the utmost service to a people in war
or in peace, and in its political and social activities, in most indeed of the
provinces of a combined human endeavour. It is to this which we may call the
national aspect of the subject that I would wish to give especial prominence.
In our own time these sports, games and athletics have
assumed a place and command a general interest such as was seen only in earlier
times in countries like Greece, Greece where all sides of human activity were
equally developed and the gymnasium, chariot-racing and other sports and
athletics had the same importance on the physical side as on the mental side
the Arts and poetry and the drama, and were especially stimulated and attended
to by the civic authorities of the City State. It was
But of a higher import than the foundation, however
necessary, of health, strength and fitness of the body is the development of
discipline and morale and sound and strong character towards which these
activities can help. There are many sports which are of the utmost value
towards this end, because they help to form and even necessitate the qualities
of courage, hardihood, energetic action and initiative or call for skill,
steadiness of will or rapid decision and action, the perception of what is to
be done in an emergency and dexterity in doing it. One development of the
utmost value is the awakening of the essential instinctive body consciousness
which can see and do what is necessary without any indication from mental
thought and which is equivalent in the body to swift insight in the mind and
spontaneous and rapid decision in the will. One may add the formation of a
capacity for harmonious and right movements of the body, especially in a
combined action, economic of physical effort and discouraging waste of energy,
which result from such exercises as marches or drill and which displace the
loose and straggling, the inharmonious or disorderly or wasteful movements
common to the untrained individual body. Another invaluable result of these
activities is the growth of what has been called the sporting spirit. That
includes good humour and tolerance and consideration for all, a right attitude
and friendliness to competitors and rivals, self-control and scrupulous
observance of the laws of the game, fair play and avoidance of the use of foul
means, an equal acceptance of victory or defeat without bad humour, resentment
or ill-will towards successful competitors, loyal acceptance of the decisions
of the appointed judge, umpire or referee. These qualities have their value for
life in general and not only for sport, but the help that sport can give to
their development is direct and invaluable. If they could be made more common
not only in the life of the individual but in the national life and in the
international where at the present day the opposite tendencies have become too
rampant, existence in this troubled world of ours would be smoother and might
open to a greater chance of concord and amity of which it stands very much in
need. More important still is the custom of discipline, obedience, order, habit
of team-work, which certain games necessitate. For without them success is
uncertain or impossible. Innumerable are the activities in life, especially in
national life, in which leadership and obedience to leadership in combined
action are necessary for success, victory in combat or fulfilment of a purpose.
The role of the leader, the captain, the power and skill of his leadership, his
ability to command the confidence and ready obedience of his followers is of
the utmost importance in all kinds of combined action or enterprise; but few
can develop these things without having learnt themselves to obey and to act as
one mind or as one body with others. This strictness of training, this habit of
discipline and obedience is not inconsistent with individual freedom; it is
often the necessary condition for its right use, just as order is not
inconsistent with liberty but rather the condition for the right use of liberty
and even for its preservation and survival. In all kinds of concerted action
this rule is indispensable: orchestration becomes necessary and there could be
no success for an orchestra in which individual musicians played according to
their own fancy and refused to follow the indications of the conductor. In
spiritual things also the same rule holds; a sadhak who disregarded the
guidance of the Guru and preferred the untrained inspirations of the novice
could hardly escape the stumbles or even the disasters which so often lie thick
around the path to spiritual realisation. I need not enumerate the other
benefits which can be drawn from the training that sport can give or dwell on
their use in the national life; what I have said is sufficient. At any rate, in
schools like ours and in universities sports have now a recognised and
indispensable place; for even a highest and completest education of the mind is
not enough without the education of the body. Where the qualities I have
enumerated are absent or insufficiently present, a strong individual will or a
national will may build them up, but the aid given by sports to their
development is direct and in no way negligible. This would be a sufficient
reason for the attention given to them in our Ashram, though there are others
which I need not mention here. I am concerned here with their importance
and" the necessity of the qualities they create or stimulate for our
national life. The nation which possesses them in the highest degree is likely
to be the strongest for victory, success and greatness, but also for the
contribution it can make towards the bringing about of unity and a more
harmonious world order towards which we look as our hope for humanity's future.
30 December 1948