"Our yoga is not a retreading of old walks, but a spiritual adventure." ~Sri Aurobindo
Our mission at the Sri Aurobindo Learning Center is to provide a spiritual knowledge center that offers an environment and activities dedicated to the study and realization of the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.
Our Offerings
SATSANG
Savitri Solar Dome
"A formless spirit became the soul of form"
"A constant touch of sweetness linked all hearts"
"The silent Soul of all the world was there"SAVITRI RETREAT-SEMINARS 2024
Readings and Commentaries on Sri Aurobindo's Savitri by Rod Hemsell
SAVITRI AND THE FUTURE POETRY 1.1
https://rodhemsell.substack.com/p/savitri-and-the-future-poetry-11
SAVITRI AND THE FUTURE POETRY 1.2
https://rodhemsell.substack.com/p/savitri-and-the-future-poetry-12
SAVITRI - MYSTICAL TRUTH AND YOGIC EXPERIENCE 2.1
https://rodhemsell.substack.com/p/savitri-mystical-truth-and-yogic
SAVITRI - MYSTICAL TRUTH AND YOGIC EXPERINCE 2.2
https://rodhemsell.substack.com/p/savitri-mystical-truth-and-yogic-64f
SAVITRI - MYSTICAL TRUTH AND YOGIC EXPERINCE 2.3
https://rodhemsell.substack.com/p/savitri-mystical-truth-and-yogic-8c3
SURYA SAVITRI - THE CREATIVE WORD 3.1
https://rodhemsell.substack.com/p/surya-savitri-the-creative-word-31
SURYA SAVITRI - THE CREATIVE WORD 3.2
https://rodhemsell.substack.com/p/surya-savitri-the-creative-word-32
SURYA SAVITRI - THE CRATIVE WORD 3.3
https://rodhemsell.substack.com/p/surya-savitri-the-creative-word-33
About Us
The Sri Aurobindo Learning Center
Our mission is to provide a spiritual knowledge center that offers an environment for the study and realization of the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. As an Integral Yoga community, we aspire to become open and receptive instruments for the transformational work of the Divine Shakti.
The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo envisions the possibility of a “new humanity” based upon a spiritual and material transformation of the human being exceeding its current limitations of mind, life and body. The path toward this transformation proceeds through the finding of the soul, the spiritualization of the mind, and ultimately through the descent of the supramental Truth-Consciousness into matter.
The Savitri Solar Dome, located at the site of the Sri Aurobindo Learning Center, is a sanctuary for meditation and the invocation of the Divine Consciousness-Force embodied in Sri Aurobindo's mantric poem Savitri. In addition, SALC maintains a retreat house and library where the community of devotees of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother is warmly invited to participate in the activities of the Center, or to visit for a quiet mountain retreat.
The rich history of the land along with the many spiritual communities in the area make this residence a perfect retreat facility and special refuge for silence and renewal.
The Sri Aurobindo Learning Center makes its space available to the public for a variety of events, workshops, and retreats during the year, and is a 501(c)(3) non-profit, tax exempt foundation.
About the Founder
Seyril Schochen (1915-2006) originally initiated the Sri Aurobindo Learning Center in Crestone, familiarly known as Savitri House, in 1986, as an educational foundation. Her vision for the Center was inspired by her love of Savitri and her devotion to the Mother, nurtured during her long stay in Auroville, the City of Human Unity located in southern India, where she lived for 8 years and participated in the construction work on the Matrimandir. When she returned to the United States, Seyril came to Crestone, at the invitation of Hanne and Maurice Strong, to continue the work of spiritual transformation .
About Crestone
Located in Saguache County, Crestone is a small but unique town at the base of Kit Carson Mountain in the Sangre de Cristo Range. With sweeping views of the San Luis Valley, Crestone was named for the 14,000 foot peaks that lie east of town: Crestone Peak and Crestone Needle. This village is nestled up against forests and peaks at an elevation of almost 8,000 feet, with Mount Blanca and the Great Sand Dunes National Park to the south. The valley is known for its tremendous watershed beneath the dry valley floor and for the hot springs in the area.
Traveling just 40 miles north of Alamosa on Colorado Highway 17, and another 10 miles to the east, you will find yourself at the doorstep of the small and charming town of Crestone. There is a gas station, a health food store, a convenience store, a hotel or two, restaurants, a hardware store, lumberyard and a variety of lovely gift shops. Activities include sightseeing, hiking, climbing, fishing, camping, cultural events and plenty of festivals. The Fourth of July parade is not to be missed! The Crestone area, including the Baca Grande, is home to several Tibetan Buddhist centers, the Haidakhand Universal Ashram, the Crestone Mountain Zen Center, and the Shumei International Institute, among a wide variety of spiritual organizations and cultures represented here.
- SRI AUROBINDO'S and the MOTHER'S
INTEGRAL YOGASelections
From The Synthesis of Yoga
YOGA-SIDDHI, the perfection that comesfrom the practice of Yoga, can be best attained by the combined working of four great instruments. There is, first, the knowledge of the truths, principles, powers and processes that govern the realisation — sastra. Next comes a patient and persistent action on the lines laid down by this knowledge, the force of our personal effort — utsaha.There intervenes, third, uplifting our knowledge and effort into the domain of spiritual experience, the direct suggestion, example and
influence of the Teacher — guru. Last comes the instrumentality of Time — kala; for in all things there is a cycle of their action and a period of the divine movement.The supreme Shastra of the integral Yoga is the eternal Veda secret in the heart of every thinking and living being. The lotus of the eternal knowledge and the eternal perfection is a bud closed and folded up within us. It opens swiftly or gradually, petal by petal, through successive realisations, once the mind of man begins to turn towards the Eternal, once his heart, no longer compressed and confined by attachment to finite appearances, becomes enamoured, in whatever degree, of the Infinite.
Workshop Video, November 2022
https://rodhemsell.substack.com/p/introduction-to-yoga (1)
https://rodhemsell.substack.com/p/introduction-to-yoga-e77 (2)
From Savitri, BK 2, Canto V
In the sealed hermetic heart, the happy core,
Unmoved behind this outer shape of death
The eternal Entity prepares within
Its matter of divine felicity,
Its reign of heavenly phenomenon.
Even in our sceptic mind of ignorance
A foresight comes of some immense release,
Our will lifts towards it slow and shaping hands.
Each part in us desires its absolute.
Our thoughts covet the everlasting Light,
Our strength derives from an omnipotent Force,
And since from a veiled God-joy the worlds were made
And since eternal Beauty asks for form
Even here where all is made of being’s dust,
Our hearts are captured by ensnaring shapes,
Our very senses blindly seek for bliss.
Our error crucifies Reality
To force its birth and divine body here,
Compelling, incarnate in a human form
And breathing in limbs that one can touch and clasp,
Its Knowledge to rescue an ancient Ignorance,Its saviour light the inconscient universe.
And when that greater Self comes sea-like down
To fill this image of our transience,
All shall be captured by delight, transformed:
In waves of undreamed ecstasy shall roll
Our mind and life and sense and laugh in a light
Other than this hard limited human day,
The body’s tissues thrill apotheosised,
Its cells sustain bright metamorphosis.
This little being of Time, this shadow soul,
This living dwarf-figurehead of darkened spirit
Out of its traffic in petty dreams shall rise.
Its shape of person and its ego-face
Divested of this mortal travesty,
Like a clay troll kneaded into a god
New-made in the image of the eternal Guest,
It shall be caught to the breast of a white Force
And, flaming with the paradisal touch
In a rose-fire of sweet spiritual grace,
In the red passion of its infinite change,
Quiver, awake, and shudder with ecstasy.
As if reversing a deformation’s spell,
Released from the black magic of the Night,
Renouncing servitude to the dim Abyss,
It shall learn at last who lived within unseen,
And seized with marvel in the adoring heart
To the enthroned Child-Godhead kneel aware,
Trembling with beauty and delight and love.
But first the spirit’s ascent we must achieve
Out of the chasm from which our nature rose.
The soul must soar sovereign above the form
And climb to summits beyond mind’s half-sleep;
Our hearts we must inform with heavenly strength,
Surprise the animal with the occult god.
Then kindling the gold tongue of sacrifice,
Calling the powers of a bright hemisphere,
We shall shed the discredit of our mortal state,Make the abysm a road for Heaven’s descent,
Acquaint our depths with the supernal Ray
And cleave the darkness with the mystic Fire.
Workshop Audio, November 2023
https://rodhemsell.substack.com/p/the-processes-of-the-gods-1
https://rodhemsell.substack.com/p/the-processes-of-the-gods-2
About Sri Aurobindo
Sri Aurobindo was born, Aurobindo Ghose, on August 15, 1872, in Calcutta, India. He was educated in England from the age of seven, along with his two brothers. A brilliant student in the classics, he won a scholarship to King's College, Cambridge, where he excelled in his studies. He returned to India in 1893, where he worked for the Baroda State in various departments, as secretary to the Maharaja, as professor of English at the Baroda College and then as Vice-principal. In 1905, he left Baroda and became Principal of the Bengal National College in Calcutta. By 1902, Sri Aurobindo’s passion had focused on the liberation of India from British rule and his move to Calcutta enabled him to fully engage in political work. He first began the practice of yogic spiritual discipline in 1905 and with the help of a yogi, named Lele he achieved a decisive spiritual realization in 1908 while actively working in the political arena. After being jailed for a year, he was acquitted and released, and yet, under continual pressure from the British, in 1910 he went to live in Pondicherry, a French settlement where he remained for the rest of his life. He realized that his outer role in political work had ended, and that his future work lay in the spiritual field. It was there that the Mother joined him for that spiritual work. He left his body on December 5, 1950.
Sri Aurobindo was a prolific writer, and ultimately produced what we have now in 37 large volumes of The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo. Some of his most well-known offerings include The Life Divine, Letters on Yoga, The Synthesis of Yoga, The Secret of the Veda, and Savitri, the longest poem in the English language.
Their Legacy
Both Sri Aurobindo and the Mother did not wish that people emphasize their outer lives and they did not wish to draw attention to themselves as spiritual personalities to be worshipped. Especially they did not want to found another religion. What they did emphasize was the development of consciousness of both individuals and societies, and were supportive of all such efforts towards this end.
Most of the information above was taken from the book, Transforming Lives, An Introduction to Sri Aurobindo’s Integral Yoga by Larry Seidlitz and published by the Sri Aurobindo Centre for Advanced Research in 2014.
About The Mother
“I am not eager to be the Guru of anyone. It is more spontaneously natural for me to be the universal Mother and to act in silence through love."
The Mother, Mirra Alfassa, was born on February 21, 1878 in Paris, France to affluent parents who had come from Egypt only one year earlier. At the age of 5, the Mother began to have psychical and spiritual experiences that then continued all through her life. Between 18 and 20, she achieved a “conscious and constant union with the Divine Presence”.
In 1914, she met Sri Aurobindo in Pondicherry, recognizing him to the spiritual teacher that had been coming to her in her dream experiences since childhood. In 1920, she permanently settled in Pondicherry and ultimately took charge of the Ashram and its sadhaks in 1926. The work was extensive, including hundreds of sadhaks, an ashram school for the children, a printing press, vegetable and flower gardens, orchards, hand-made paper, weaving, and clothing production and many other departments.
Ultimately, she birthed the international community called Auroville, not far from the Ashram in Pondicherry, for the purpose of realizing human unity. Both Sri Aurobindo and the Mother worked tirelessly on their spiritual practice as well as supporting sadhaks and centers all over the world. The Mother passed at the age of 95 on November 17, 1973.
About Integral Yoga
Sri Aurobindo along with his spiritual partner, Mirra Alfassa, brought to the world a spiritual path, not yet seen, that they called the Integral Yoga. This path is based in part on an integration of ancient methods, but is original in other respects, especially in its aim of a thorough transformation of our minds, our life energy/emotions and even our physical bodies. Their vision also included a wider, long term aim of the establishment of the next stage in the earth’s evolution – a new species of supramental beings – that would be a complete divergence from the “thinking animal” that we currently are. They were also unique in that they combined an exceptional inner spiritual attainment with a powerful outward creativity and accomplishment. This outward work included a vast and detailed intellectual explanation and expression of their spiritual experience and vision in writings and talks; the establishment of a spiritual community in Pondicherry, India; the founding of Auroville, an international city of human unity based on their core spiritual principles; as well as their support of other centers and institutions internationally that were committed to their work.
The aim of the Integral Yoga is to enable the individual to attain conscious identity with the One Reality, the Self, and to transform the mind, life and body so they become fit instruments for a divine life on earth. The Integral Yoga utilizes various yogic practices of India’s cultural heritage and synthesizes them with its own unique methods; however, there is no one set method or practice that its practitioners follow. Many guidelines and basic approaches have been described but for each individual the specific path will differ.
The central guiding principle of this Yoga is a complete surrender to the Divine Mother. For this reason, the conscious activation and identification with the soul is considered a preliminary step to its workings so that the Divine’s influence can shape the aspirant’s inner and outer life. Sri Aurobindo has characterized the discipline to be followed as a “triple labor of aspiration, rejection and surrender.” It is through a completeness of surrender that the individual will experience the Divine taking up the being and working in it, pouring into it its own higher powers of peace, wisdom, harmony, force, beauty and delight.
Several approaches or lines of spiritual discipline are emphasized including the yoga of works; the yoga of knowledge; the yoga of love and devotion; and the yoga of self-perfection. Each of the four feeds into the others and assists in their development and perfection. Though one approach may be emphasized in the beginning eventually all are developed so as to include all the parts of the inner realization and the outer transformation of the being.
