Sri Aurobindo (born Aurobindo Ghose; 15 August 1872 – 5 December 1950) was an Indian philosopher, yogi, guru, poet, and nationalist. 

He was taken to England for education, when he was just seven. There he studied at St. Paul’s School, London, and the Indian Civil Service at King’s College, Cambridge. Returning to India in 1893, he worked for the next thirteen years in the Princely State of Baroda in the service of the Maharaja and as a professor in Baroda College. In 1906, soon after the Partition of Bengal, Sri Aurobindo quit his post in Baroda and went to Calcutta and joined the Indian movement for independence from British rule

He was one of the first revolutionary Nationalist Leaders who put forth the idea of complete Independence from British Rule in his newspaper Bande Mataram. He took a leading role in secret preparations for an uprising against the British Government in India, and was charged with sedition twice, but acquitted due to lack of evidence.

It was during his brief stay in the jail, that he had mystical and spiritual experiences, after which he moved to Pondicherry, leaving politics for spiritual work. At Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo developed a spiritual practice he called Integral Yoga. In 1926, with the help of his spiritual collaborator, Mirra Alfassa (referred to as “The Mother”), he founded the Sri Aurobindo Ashram.

Although Sri Aurobindo was familiar with the most important lines of thought in Western philosophy, his own writings, were deeply influenced by “the study of the Upanishads and the Gita… They were the basis of my first practice of Yoga.”

His main literary works are The Life Divine, which deals with theoretical aspects of Integral Yoga; Synthesis of Yoga, which deals with practical guidance to Integral Yoga; and Savitri: A Legend and a Symbol, an epic poem. His complete collection of poems (published and unpublished) have been compiled into The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo: Set in 37 volumes, by the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, and can be accessed from the following link

http://sri-aurobindo.in/workings/sa/05/index_e.htm#e_publication

One will need an entire lifetime to understand the depth of his spiritualism and his literary work around the former. Click on the titles below to read his poems

A Tree KrishnaMoon of Two HemispheresRose of God    Shiva – The Inconscient CreatorThe Sea At Night