The Integral Knowledge Study Center -- Peacock Pages

A.B. Purani (1894-1965)

A.B. Purani was a prominent member of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram from its earliest days, having moved to Pondicherry from Gujarat in 1923 to take residence with the small group then living aroundA.B. Purani 1930s Sri Aurobindo. He began his service to Mother India in Gujarat, where he organized a gymnastic and youth movement in response to India's rising demand for self-reliance and political independence. Following a spiritual call to join Sri Aurobindo — who had himself abandoned political for spiritual revolution — he worked tirelessly in the Ashram for decades towards the inner change that results in outer transformation. Having served Sri Aurobindo as a greatly trusted attendant from 1938-1950, he passed away in Pondicherry as a world-renowned author and sage.

Significantly, Purani prepared the first biography of Sri Aurobindo, The Life of Sri Aurobindo — a pioneering work still cited today. And Purani's remembrances of conversations held by Sri Aurobindo with small groups of disciples were eventually collected into a remarkable three-volume set called Evening Talks with Sri Aurobindo. They contain seminal insights.

Purani gave up his perch in Pondicherry and moved out to spread his teacher's message during a lengthy world tour, and so he came to visit the United States in 1962. He gave more than eighty luminous talks at the Crescent Moon Center in Sedona, Arizona (the first Sri Aurobindo Center in America), many of which were published as Sri Aurobindo's Life Divine: Lectures Delivered in the U.S.A. Other titles in English are Sri Aurobindo's Savitri: An Approach and A Study, Studies in Vedic Interpretation, Sri Aurobindo's Vedic Glossary, and Sri Aurobindo: Some Aspects of His Vision. Fifty titles have been published in Gujarati.

We present here two of Purani's 1962 lectures in Sedona on the subject of the Bhagavad Gita:

The Gita Part 1 (72MB)

The Gita Part 2 (72.4MB)