Aurobindo Ghosh's philosophy of culture: From barbarism, civilization and culture to the spiritual transformation of man

The main purpose of the article is to reconstruct the theory of culture of the most famous Indian thinker of the 20th century, Aurobindo Ghosh (1872-1950), whose work in recent years has again aroused increased interest among philosophers from different countries. Modern authors consider different aspects of Aurobindo's work, but the philosophy of the thinker's culture remains a little-explored problem. Aurobindo Ghosh in the «Human Cycle» offers his original personal-psychological concept of culture as a transitional stage from the lowest state of the ordinary human mind to the highest levels of the mind. Thus, everyday consciousness goes through several phases of development: barbarism, civilization, culture and spiritual transformation of man. The whole problem is what a person identifies himself with, what he considers his true Self, because in reality he is a multi-complex being. A person can absolutize his body and achievements in the sphere of material life or identify himself with vital power and pleasures, or he can recognize pure reason as the supreme force. The essence of barbarism is reduced to the identification of consciousness with the body, the material world and well-being. At the second stage, civilization, we are already talking about the intellectual structuring of society, about achieving some kind of harmony for comfort and general prosperity. In the third phase, culture, pure reason becomes the ideal. However, the question boils down to moving on to the fourth stage of development – the spiritual transformation of a person. If the spiritual principle is brought to the fore by a person, becoming the only sovereign «master» of his nature, then a person will fill his life with divine meaning and harmony. Humanity will turn into a Gnostic society.