Aurobindo had no sat-guru. He did have a Vaishnava yogi as a upa-guru who gave
him a most important technique. I paraphrase from memory from his Letters on
Yoga.
*This will be easy for you since you are a poet and are used to watching
thoughts form out of stillness. Sit and watch these thoughts but this time
recognize that they are not you nor are they part of you. See them as
happenings that are outside of you. Then reject them as something other than
what you are. Throw them out when they come to intrude on your awareness. Then
leave them outside, having nothing to do with you whatsoever.
*I did as he said and in three days was free.
I was enveloped in complete silence that expanded to encompass everything.
>From that day on I was drowned in that silence. All mental and physical
activity occurred outside of this vast stillness on the boundary of this world.
Awakened to the Divine Mission
The famous Alipore Bomb Case was the turning point in Sri Aurobindo’s life. For
a year Aurobindo was an undertrial prisoner in solitary confinement in the
Alipore Central Jail. It was in a dingy cell of the Alipore Jail that he dreamt
the dream of his future life, the divine mission ordained for him by God.
Aurobindo bore the rigours of the imprisonment, the bad food, the inadequate
clothes, the lack of light and free air, the strain of boredom and the creeping
solitariness of the gloomy cell. He utilized this period of incarceration for
an intense study and practice of the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita.
Chittaranjan Das defended Sri Aurobindo, who was acquitted after a memorable
trial.
His Practice of Yoga
Sri Aurobindo began his Yoga in 1904. He had no helper or Guru in Yoga till he
met Lele, a Maharashtrian Yogi in Baroda; and that was only for a short time.
Meditating only for three days with Lele, Aurobindo followed the Yogi’s
instructions for silencing the mind and freeing it from the constant pressure
of thought.
Sri Aurobindo himself once wrote in a letter about his practice of Yoga: "I
began my Yoga in 1904 without a Guru. In 1908 I received important help from a
Mahratti Yogi and discovered the foundations of my Sadhana". He started Yoga by
himself, getting the rule from a friend, a disciple of Brahmananda of Ganga
Mutt. It was confined at first to assiduous practice of Pranayama, for six or
more hours a day. Aurobindo practised and meditated on the teachings of the
Gita and the Upanishads.
