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Sri Aurobindo among the Absurd Critics
A Bengali, an Indian of average height with brownish complexion, not at all stylish in dress and habits though brought up in England, Aurobindo Akroyd Ghose became Sri Aurobindo finally. In due course the glow of his body changed entirely, to golden complexion and there was a puff of lotus smell sometimes from the body of a being completely transformed even outwardly; that is what many eyewitnesses testified visiting him after long years. How transformed inwardly he was was beyond the comprehension by any measure of the commoners. He became a Yogi and mystic. So many sides of his personality and genius were beyond the comprehension of an average intelligent man. We get ample proof of his humour, satire and joke sometimes through his writings, letters specially, but outwardly he never rollicked, laughed loudly or perhaps smiled on rare occasions. Usually reticent, such a person might become an enigma to many others. But considering the Himalayan heights of his works and personality those who did not wish to fall in with him paid him respect from a distance and those who did not like his spiritualism without rituals or religious practices, avoided him. Some smelled rat when he suddenly gave up politics, called him ‘escapist’ but they failed to gauge his steps based on his personal development as they lived in dissimilar planes or dissimilar consciousness, as the materialists denied anything spiritual. There were critics among his colleagues and contemporaries like Hem Chandra Kanungo (Das) and Shibram Chakraborty, some were disproportionately zealous of him without a cause for their matching him or competing with him did not arise. Those who tasted his literature or loved him as a patriot and leader or were drawn inwardly by his yoga always moved about him. There were many who revered him to the most for his selfless love and sacrifice for the country, for his tremendous fit in different areas of knowledge, for his journalistic and literary works. His enigmatic life became a mystery to some. He became very popular in his time. A legend. One who so much loved his own idealism like a Raja Rao, fallen in love with Advaita Vedanta, taught and tried to live in its shadow, thought that Sri Shankara’s ideas were at the