Sri Aurobindo and the Gita

Abstract

The Gita has been one of the strongest pillars of India’s spiritual journey. It has offered a broad and deep synthesis of the various paths to Reality that ancient Rishis and yogis pursued one-pointedly and with such consummate mastery. No other scripture has gathered in so concise a text the combined essence of Upanishadic Vedanta, of Sankhya, and of Jñana, Bhakti and Karma yogas. This foundation is what enabled the Gita to boldly tackle the perennial challenges of life, and Hindu tradition has produced perhaps no better guide for those who seek to actually live something of that Divine Reality sung by the Upanishads, and live it in the middle of this world’s painful, absurd welter, those who aspire to make sense of their action great or small and who need to know in what spirit, in what light they should act, since, whether we like it or not, we are all condemned to act from the cradle to the grave.