The great Yogi Maharishi Aurobindo (Born 8-15-1872 Samadhi: 12-5-1950) was very emphatic in stating that only he could truly write about himself. And therefore, we have to read his writings, letters from him, etc. to know about him.
Swami Vivekananda guided him in his yoga practice in Alipore jail.
Aurobindo himself revealed: “In Alipore jail I had the Gita and the Upanishads with me, I practiced the Yoga of the Gita and meditated with the help of the Upanishads; these were the only books in which I found guidance; the Veda which I first began Reading much later in Pondicherry rather confirmed the experience I already had than a guide for my Sadhana.Sometimes I turned to the Gita for light, when there was a question or a difficulty, and usually I received help or an answer from he. It is a fact that I was constantly listening to the voice of Swami Vivekananda speaking to me for fifteen days in jail in my solitary meditation and I felt his presence. The voice spoke only about a special and limited but very important field of spiritual experience and it ceased. so soon as he had finished saying all he had to say on that subject.”
He himself has answered the question “How to do Yoga”.
He says: “One (not a disciple, I had no disciple in those days) asked me how to do Yoga. I said: first make your mind still.” He did, and his mind became quite silent and empty. Then he was quick to tell me: “My brain is empty of thoughts, I can’t think. I’m becoming an idiot.” He did not stop to look and see where these thoughts he uttered were coming from! He, too, did not realize that he who is already an idiot cannot become one. Anyway I had no patience in those days and let him go and let him lose his miraculously achieved silence.
The usual way, the easiest if one can handle it, is to call silence from above into the brain, mind and body.”
Aurobindo’s mind was filled with eternal silence in one day. It was always with him.
The great rishi has written the classic Savitri for the sake of humanity. He had to write it and rewrite it ten or twelve times!
Disciples have been wondering why he would have to write and rewrite his poetry so many times when he had all the inspiration at his disposal and does not have to receive it with the difficulty that budding yogis like them face.
Aurobindo replied, “That’s very simple. I used Savitri as a means of ascension. I started with it at a certain mental level, every time I could reach a higher level, I would rewrite from that level. Also, it was particular, if part seemed to me. coming from any lower level, I was not content to leave it because it was good poetry. They all had to be, as far as possible, of the same mind. In fact, Savitri has not been considered by me as a poem to be written and finished, but as a testing ground to see how far you could write poetry from your own yogic awareness and how you could make that creative.I did not rewrite Rose of God or the sonnets, except for two or three verbal alterations made in the moment. .”
From this we could easily understand that in Savitri we can find her yogic consciousness. Savitri will guide a true aspirant to Yoga.