A Prison, A Courtroom And Oneness

In 2003, I happened to borrow a book from a friend and discovered Sri Aurobindo. The book was Satprem's 'Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness.' Since then, Sri Aurobindo has become my refuge, someone to whom I turn, when life confuses or threatens me or whenever I have questions to ask. He is the Guru, through whom Vasudeva speaks to me.

I reach out across a hundred years to where he sits alone in his tiny, windowless cell in Alipore jail. Arrested for conspiracy, in May 1908, he has been awarded the most horrific of punishments, the solitary confinement. But, then it is here that he has found God, his beloved Sri Krishna. The tiny cell has metamorphosed into a serene ashram in a forest.

He speaks to me of his experiences there. "I looked at the jail that secluded me from men and it was no longer by its high walls that I was imprisoned; no, it was Vasudeva that surrounded me. I walked under the branches of the tree in front of my cell but it was not the tree, I knew it was Vasudeva, it was Sri Krishna whom I saw standing there and holding over me his shade. I looked at the bars of my cell, the very grating that did duty for a door and again I saw Vasudeva. It was Narayana who was guarding and standing sentry over me. Or I lay on the course blankets that were given me for a couch and felt the arms of Sri Krishna around me, the arms of my Friend and Lover... I looked at the prisoners in the jail, the thieves, the murderers, the swindlers and as I looked at them I saw Vasudeva, It was Narayana whom I found in these darkened souls and misused bodies."

The trial lasts six months. Sri Aurobindo is locked everyday, in an iron cage in the middle of the courtroom. It is from here, that his voice echoes across time , "when the case opened... I was followed by the same insight. He said to me,"When you were cast into jail, did not your heart fail and did you not cry out to me where is Thy protection? Look now at the Magistrate, look now at the Prosecuting Counsel."I looked and it was not the Magistrate whom I saw; it was Vasudeva, it was Narayana who was sitting there on the bench. I looked at the Prosecuting Counsel and it was not the Counsel for the Prosecution that I saw;it was Sri Krishna who sat there and smiled. "Now do you fear?" He said,"I am in all men and I overrule their actions and their words."

Throughout his trial, Sri Aurobindo sits silently, his head bowed, not uttering a word.

God is not outside His world. He did not 'create' the world, He became the world.The Upanishad says: "He became knowledge and ignorance, He became the truth and the falsehood... He became all this, whatsoever that is." In Sri Aurobindo's words, "The dumb and blind and brute is That and not only the finely mentally conscious human or animal existence. All this infinite becoming is a birth of the Spirit into form."

On May 6,1909, after a year spent in jail, Sri Aurobindo is acquitted. The main witness against him, whose testimony would have resulted in a death penalty, is shot dead in jail by two revolutionaries.

But the Voice still speaks to him: "Remember never to fear, never to hesitate. Remember, it is I who am doing this, not you or any other. Therefore, whatever clouds may come, whatever danger and sufferings, whatever difficulties, whatever impossibilities, there is nothing impossible, nothing difficult.

It is I who am doing this."