The evolutionary philosophy underlying Aurobindo’s integral Yoga is explored in his main prose work, The Life Divine (1939). Rejecting the traditional Indian approach of striving for moksha (liberation from the cycle of death and rebirth, or Samsara [material world]) as a means of reaching happier, transcendental planes of existence, Aurobindo held that terrestrial life itself, in its higher evolutionary stages, is the real goal of creation. He believed that the basic principles of matter, life and mind would be succeeded through terrestrial evolution by the principle of supermind as an intermediate power between the two spheres of the infinite and the finite. Such a future consciousness would help to create a joyful life in keeping with the highest goals of creation, expressing values such as love, harmony, unity and knowledge and successfully overcoming the age-old resistance of dark forces against efforts to manifest the divine on earth.
Aurobindo’s voluminous literary output comprises philosophical speculation, many treatises on Yoga and integral Yoga in the form of poetry, plays and other writings. In addition to The Life Divine, his major works include Essays on the Gita (1922), Collected Poems and Plays (1942), The Synthesis of Yoga (1948), The Human Cycle (1949), The Ideal of Human Unity (1949), Savitri: A Legend and a Symbol (1950), and On the Veda (1956).
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