After winning fame as a nationalist revolutionary, Aurobindo suddenly retired to an ashram at Pondicherry not because he had abandoned the cause of Indian independence but rather to work out a spiritual philosophy which would give substance to the nation when it won its freedom. As he saw the situation, man necessarily evolves through three stages. First comes an infra-rational period in which men act principally on the basis of their instincts, impulses and vital intuitions. The society they build is thus primarily the canalisation of responses to these needs and crystallised in a variety of social institutions. During this conventional age society tends to fix and formalise a system of rigid hierarchies.
Education becomes bound to a traditional and unchangeable form.
Authorities claim to be infallible. Hence the Westerner's longing for the Middle Ages or the Hindu's admiration for the Vedic period. But behind splendid facades such times were harsh ages with hidden evils. For Aurobindo, the medieval period in Europe and the Vedic age in India were stagnating societies floundering in the iron grip of conventionalism. Revolution was thus inevitable.