Adi Sankara and Sri Aurobindo

‘Adi Sankara and Sri Aurobindo’ reads closely between, the philosophies of the two great thinkers of their times. Both of them considered the mystery of the universe as supra-rational and transcendental. Both talked about the Spiritual Man and the Superman. But despite this, Sankara is called an Illusionist and Sri Aurobindo a Prophet of Integration. One shows the path of liberation and the other of transformation and total change. Sankara’s dauntless exposition of the nature of the Ultimate Reality strengthens in us the belief that man is in essence spirit and it is the forgetfulness of this truth that causes all his miseries. Sri Aurobindo argues out a case in favour of collectivity, progress and perfection on the one hand and existence of supra-rational awareness or consciousness on the other. In short, the present attempt is a seeker’s quest to know the base-lines of teachings of the two masters against the background of Buddha’s popular teachings of the Boddhisatva and Jeevanmukta.