All Life Is Yoga: Bhagavadgita. Sri Aurobindo

      Publisher’s Note

      This is one in a series of some e-books created by SRI AUROBINDO DIGITAL EDITION and published by AURO MEDIA under the title All Life Is Yoga. Our effort is to bring together, from Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, simple passages with a practical orientation on specific subjects, so that everyone may feel free to choose a book according to his inner need. The topics cover the whole field of human activity, because true spirituality is not the rejection of life but the art of perfecting life.

      While the passages from Sri Aurobindo are in the original English, most of the passages from the Mother (selections from her talks and writings) are translations from the original French. We must also bear in mind that the excerpts have been taken out of their original context and that a compilation, in its very nature, is likely to have a personal and subjective approach. A sincere attempt, however, has been made to be faithful to the vision of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. These excerpts are by no means exhaustive.

      Bringing out a compilation from the writings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, which have a profound depth and wideness unique, is a difficult task. The compiler’s subjective tilt and preferences generally result in highlighting some aspects of the issues concerned while the rest is by no means less significant. Also without contexts of the excerpts the passages reproduced may not fully convey the idea – or may be misunderstood or may reduce a comprehensive truth into what could appear like a fixed principle.

      The reader may keep in mind this inherent limitation of compilations; compilations are however helpful in providing an introduction to the subject in a handy format. They also give the readers a direct and practical feel of some of the profound issues and sometimes a mantric appeal, musing on which can change one’s entire attitude to them.

      The excerpts from the writings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother carry titles and captions chosen by the editor, highlighting the theme of the excerpts and, whenever possible, borrowing a phrase from the text itself. The sources of the excerpts are given at the end of each issue.

      We hope these compilations will inspire the readers to go to the complete works of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother and will help them to mould their lives and their environments towards an ever greater perfection.

      “True spirituality is not to renounce life, but to make life perfect with a Divine Perfection.” – The Mother

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      The translation of the Gita printed here was put together from different sources by Anilbaran Roy, one of Sri Aurobindo’s direct disciples, who lived in the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry from 1926 to 1964. He relied as much as he could on Sri Aurobindo’s translations and paraphrases, which were written as part of the running prose of the Essays of the Gita. Sri Aurobindo sometimes translated whole slokas, sometimes only isolated words or phrases; some slokas he left untranslated. These translations cover about one-third of the text of the Gita. It should be mentioned that Sri Aurobindo did not consider the passages he translated to be parts of a finished translation of the Gita. In 1934 he wrote to a disciple, “The translations in the Essays are more explanatory than textually precise or cast in a literary style.”