First issue of the Arya is published (age 43)

With the outbreak of the First World War, Paul soon returns to France with Mirra to join the military service. Prior to their departure, Paul and Mirra proposes to Sri Aurobindo that a new journal be started to present to the world a synthesis of Knowledge and Yoga experience developed by him in terms of modern thought. It is proposed to be edited jointly by Sri Aurobindo, Mirra and Paul. The name chosen for this Philosophical Review is ARYA; it is to have a French version under the title Revue de la Grande Synthese. Sri Aurobindo accepts the proposal, envisaging it as “the intellectual side of my work for the world.”

Sri Aurobindo states the ideal and their search in the Ayan: “Unity for the human race by an inner oneness and not only by an external association of interests; the resurgence of man out of the merely intellectual and aesthetic into the glories of the spiritual existence; the pouring of the power of the spirit into the physical mold and mental instrument so that ma may develop his manhood into that supermanhood which shall exceed our present state as much as this exceeds the animal state from which science tells us that we have issued. These three are one; for man’s unity and man’s self-transcendence can come only b living in the Spirit.”

With the return of Mirra and Paul to France, Sri Aurobindo carries on alone, writing all the 64-pages each month.

1915 – A rare interview published in “The Hindu”

“We are a nation of three hundred millions inhabiting a great country in which many civilisations have met, full of rich material and unused capacities. We must cease to think and act like the inhabitants of an obscure and petty village.”

Question to Sri Aurobindo: “If you don’t like our political methods, what would you advise us to do for the realisation of our destiny?”

Click here to read : Sri Aurobindo’s Response

July 1918 – Sri Aurobindo’s shares his plan for the Arya (age 46)

Our idea was the thinking out of a synthetic philosophy which might be a contribution to the thought of the new age that is coming upon us. We start from the idea that humanity is moving to a great change of its life which will even lead to a new life of the race,– in all countries where men think, there is now in various forms that idea and that hope,– and our aim has been to search for the spiritual, religious and other truth which can enlighten and guide the race in this movement and endeavour. The spiritual experience and the general truths on which such an attempt could be based, were already present to us, otherwise we should have had no right to make the endeavour at all; but the complete intellectual statement of them and their results and issues had to be found. This meant a continuous thinking, a high and subtle and difficult thinking on several lines, and this strain, which we had to impose on ourselves, we were obliged to impose also on our readers.

Click here to read: Sri Aurobindo’s complete plans