Tuesday, October 12, 2010

The Life Divine is the crest jewel of human thought and hope

The Life Divine is a definitive work of philosophy as well as prophecy. Religious scriptures and various theological texts of the same genre are in currency from the dawn of the human civilization. But The Life Divine is the most modern treatise that easily substitutes all the rest. Even grand philosophical tracts of great sophistication turn pale before the Himalayan heights of The Life Divine. Its monolithic ontological architectonic stands supreme and unsurpassed even as its evocative prose congeals a transformative atmosphere.    

The Life Divine borrows extensively from the ancient Hindu literature, but it cannot be termed strictly as Hindu philosophy. Sri Aurobindo, with his background of Western education, has executed a deft amalgamation with speculative metaphysics as well as scientific inferences. The result is an integral body of knowledge which the mankind was in search of in fits and starts. Disengaging philosophy from specific religious anchorages, he sets forth a universal explication of being and becoming as a fountainhead to quench man’s perennial thirst for knowledge.

There is no dearth of people who give lectures on Sri Aurobindo’s teachings without going through The Life Divine. There have also been attempts in the past to distort its profundity and parody its message, thus confusing the gullible. Overall, the book has been a target of religious antipathy, political conspiracy, and intellectual arrogance. There are sympathizers too, but few take the trouble of reading more than a thousand pages. The Life Divine is the crest jewel of human thought and hope and hence each one of us must read this essential work. [TNM]  
[The Life Divine Sri Aurobindo

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