Amal Kiran on Sri Aurobindo's Adesh

Sri Aurobindo, Parthasarathy Iyengar and Pondicherry

A Note Towards Clarifying Their Connection

[For those who have publicly displayed their spiritual insensitivity and ignorance of the facts relating to Sri Aurobindo’s life, Amal Kiran’s article should be an eye-opener. The article was first published in the Mother India issue of May 1988, pp. 305-310 and later in Aspects of Sri Aurobindo (2000), pp. 196-204. It is a rejoinder to Peter Heehs’ interpretation of the Adesh (divine command) that Sri Aurobindo received in 1910 to go from Calcutta to Chandernagore, and then from there to Pondicherry. The discussion is subtle and abstract and even Amal Kiran says that at first he “was inclined to agree broadly” with Heehs. But he changed his mind “on a closer inspection” when he realised the deeper implications of the author’s presentation of the event in the Archives & Research issue of December 1987. For the consequences of whether you agree or not with Heehs’ presentation (as also in the recent case of his book) are tremendous. Either you conclude that Sri Aurobindo ran away in fear of being arrested by the British police or that the Divine commanded him to escape in order to make him undertake in Pondicherry the much greater work of the supramental transformation, of which he was not aware at that point of time. In both cases, the outer actions remain the same, but the motivations behind are totally different. The result of our silence with regard to such mischievous interpretations is that instead of dispelling the impression that Sri Aurobindo ran away from the revolutionary scene, we have reinforced it with further evidence.]

IN the issue of Sri Aurobindo Archives and Research for December 1987 the “Archival Notes” are partly aimed at setting certain queries raised by some statements of the writer two years earlier in the same periodical. His new statements too have come in for criticism. It may be that his true drift has failed to be caught, but the cause of the failure, if any, must lie at his own door. For, whatever his intentions, a persistent trend in his way of putting things has led to an impression of inaccuracy and of hazing the real posture of some extraordinary events.

This is rather unfortunate, for in his article the dissatisfying portions are in the midst of much admirable analytic matter – acute comparative evaluation, pointedly phrased, of documents and of the various shades of historical fact. There should be no question of disqualifying all his work or doubting in general his talents. That would be sheer injustice to him as a researcher. We are now concerned only with one particular theme of his, which calls for serious reconsideration: “What role did the man named Parthasarathy Iyengar play in Sri Aurobindo’s connection with Pondicherry?”

Parthasarathy belonged to a group of patriots which includes his brother Srinivasachari and Subramania Bharati. They had established an office in the French enclave of Pondicherry for a Tamil weekly, India, in order to carry on more securely their anti-British work as well as their work of regenerating Indian Culture. Previously Parthasarathy was the Secretary of the Swadeshi Steam Navigation Company which the Iyengar family was financially supporting for patriotic reasons. During his tour in Northern India in that capacity he met Sri Aurobindo in Calcutta and discussed the nationalist and cultural activities in which both the parties were engaged, mentioned the group of patriots in Pondicherry conducting India and suggested that Sri Aurobindo might find Pondicherry more congenial for his mission than British India where he suffered constant harassment from the foreign government. Sri Aurobindo’s meeting with Parthasarathy is confirmed by his own diary note of Tuesday, 20 July 1909, which was meant to remind him of the appointment.

Some time after Sri Aurobindo had gone to Chandernagore in French India he sent through Suresh Chakravarti a letter to Pondicherry requesting the friends there to make arrangements for his stay in that town. The letter was received by Srinivasachari, but he has himself reported that it was addressed to “S. Parthasarathy Iyengar, ‘India’ Press”. As Parthasarathy was away at the time, Chakravarti, on learning that Srinivasachari was connected with India, gave it to him and asked him to read it and do the needful. The fact that Sri Aurobindo remembered Parthasarathy more than half a year later than the meeting in Calcutta shows the significance of that meeting for him in relation to Pondicherry.

The readers’ queries raised by the earlier Archives issue seem to centre on a passage which is reproduced now as a point de départ for, among other matters, a defence against a charge of minimising the role of the ādesh (divine command) Sri Aurobindo had received about going to Pondicherry:

“We have seen that Sri Aurobindo came to Pondicherry at the suggestion of no one, but in obedience to a divine command. But by speaking to Sri Aurobindo about Pondicherry, Parthasarathy may have played an instrumental role in his coming.”

The opening sentence in the above makes it clear that the writer does not support what M.A. Narayana Iyengar, who had no idea of the ādesh which Sri Aurobindo had obeyed, wrote in his Foreword to Parthasarathy’s posthumously published Bhagavad Gita: A simple Paraphrase in English. After recounting, apparently from information supplied by his friend and relative Parthasarathy himself, the interview with Sri Aurobindo in which Pondicherry had been recommended to him and the story of the letter addressed to “Parthasarathy Iyengar, c/o India, Pondicherry” and opened by Srinivasachari in the addressee’s absence from the place, Narayana ends: “It may thus be seen that a suggestion from Sri S. Parthasarathy Iyengar lay behind Sri Aurobindo’s visit to Pondicherry, which led in turn to the establishment of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram.” In fact, the Archives article says that Narayana “was evidently giving his relative’s meeting with Sri Aurobindo more significance than it deserves”. But the writer also tells us that, as a historian, his acceptance of the ādesh as the cause of Sri Aurobindo’s coming to Pondicherry does not oblige him “to suspend all considerations of the political and other circumstances surrounding his departure” from British India. He bases himself on Sri Aurobindo’s view in a letter of 1936 that the divine Force does not act independently of cosmic forces. Sri Aurobindo has written: “The Force does not act in a void and in an absolute way… it comes as a Force intervening and acting on a complex nexus of Forces that were in action and displacing their disposition and interrelated movement and natural result by a new disposition, movement and result.” It seems to the Archives writer that an ādesh operates also within the same nexus and he concludes: “I think it at least plausible that the ādesh that directed Sri Aurobindo to go to Pondicherry operated within a nexus of forces that included the attempts of the British to have him arrested, and the recently established contact between him and the revolutionaries of Pondicherry.”

The writer’s impression is not unnatural at first sight. I was myself inclined at one time to agree broadly. But a closer look should lead us to doubt if one can equate the action of the divine Force with that of an ādesh like Sri Aurobindo’s. As far as we can gather, the latter has nothing to do, as the former has, with a nexus of other forces. It acts exclusively in the consciousness of one individual alone and it acts but once: there is no continuity of action as with the divine Force which may be concerned with several circumstances outside an individual, circumstances on which it goes on exerting itself. The ādesh such as Sri Aurobindo received is also described by him in a letter of 5 January 1936 as “imperative”: “it is clear and irresistible, the mind has to obey and there is no question possible, even if what comes is contrary to the preconceived ideas of the mental intelligence.” The divine Force of which Sri Aurobindo has written does not seem quite like this single absolute momentary stroke from the Supreme within only one person. Its comparison with the ādesh would hold simply in both having their source outside the common natural world: the modus operandi of each appears to be different. But we can grant that the situation in which the imperative ādesh occurs may include political factors. The Archives writer demonstrates easily the impossibility of overlooking these factors in the case of Sri Aurobindo, but his summing-up is challengeable: “I have no difficulty in accepting that Sri Aurobindo came to Pondicherry as the result of an ādesh, and at the same time accepting that there were political factors behind his departure.”

What does the last phrase mean? Does it just mean that the ādesh operated in the midst of politics and with an awareness of their trends? If it does, there can be no quarrel, for here we have plain history and its call for attention. But the word “behind” gives us pause. It prompts the notion that “political factors” were pushing Sri Aurobindo towards what actually transpired. To put the matter in an extreme form: we may start thinking that even without the ādesh Sri Aurobindo would have gone to Pondicherry out of political considerations. Surely, the writer could not have meant this, though such an interpretation is possible on the ground of the unfortunate preposition “behind”. A more likely interpretation would be that the ādesh operated for political reasons. If such was the idea, the writer has failed to plumb the depths of the spiritual intervention.

Among the documents quoted before the “Archival Notes” we find Sri Aurobindo saying in a talk of 18 December 1938: “I heard the ādesh ‘Go to Pondicherry.’ …I could not question. It was Sri Krishna’s ādesh. I had to obey. Later on I found it was for my yogic work that I was asked to come here.” A variant of the closing words of this record by Nirodbaran is Purani’s version: “I found it was for the Ashram and for the work.” In either instance Sri Aurobindo takes us clean beyond any political causes for the ādesh. The divine command came in the midst of a political situation and must have had its current posture in sight but its drive was wholly spiritual. If Sri Aurobindo’s own gloss is to be credited, no political factors can be taken to lie behind his departure in answer to Sri Krishna’s ādesh.

One may protest: “You are bringing in ‘teleology’ and explaining an event by what lay ahead and came later: you should act the historian and give weight to what went before.” But should we not ascribe to the ādesh its own vision, its own aim? Although we may not know the goal it had in view, we should be certain that it did not come purposelessly. Hence its purpose was definitely in play before Sri Aurobindo went to Pondicherry. Once a historian admits the ādesh he has to judge things in terms of it. To cry “Teleology!” in such a case is a hasty move.

Besides, we are now looking backwards to 1910 and seeking explanations. We are not writing in that year itself, ignorant of the motive of Sri Krishna’s command. With our present knowledge of it we cannot write of 1910 as though we knew nothing. From our coign of vantage today, all talk of “teleology” would be inapposite.

If the ādesh brought Sri Aurobindo to Pondicherry for only his Yogic work, there is little point in being told after Narayana’s exaggeration of the significance of Parthasarathy’s meeting with Sri Aurobindo has been countered: “Still, it is not at all far-fetched to suppose that when Parthasarathy spoke to Sri Aurobindo about Pondicherry… he dwelt on its political advantages. After all, the India, with which Parthasarathy was connected, was being brought out from Pondicherry for political reasons.” Whatever Parthasarathy had said was irrelevant in relation to the ādesh. We also perceive the oddity of the opinion expressed on the heels of the declaration about Sri Aurobindo’s coming to Pondicherry at the suggestion of no one, but in obedience to a divine command: “But by speaking to Sri Aurobindo about Pondicherry, Parthasarathy may have played an instrumental role in his coming.”

Apart from the causative irrelevance of politics to the ādesh concerned, the opinion I am discussing is couched in a questionable turn of language. Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary (1979), p.680.col.2, defines “instrumental” as “acting as an instrument or means: serving to promote an object: helpful.” The word “instrument” in the context of “coming” would imply either that Sri Aurobindo came to Pondicherry because of Parthasarathy had put the idea into his mind at an earlier time, thus serving to promote the coming, helping to bring about the transition – or else that Parthasarathy was used by some causative agency other than himself to send Sri Aurobindo to Pondicherry at a later date. The first alternative is impossible to entertain when it has been unequivocally said at the very start that Sri Aurobindo came to Pondicherry at no one’s suggestion but in answer to an ādesh. There is a patent self-contradiction here. The second alternative makes Parthasarathy a “means” in Sri Krishna’s hands, the mouthpiece of a plan by the Supreme Being to hint to Sri Aurobindo in advance at what was to happen. It is as if Sri Krishna played secretly in modern Calcutta a variant on his great declaration to Arjuna at Kurukshetra in remote antiquity: “The Kauravas have already been slain by me in my mind. Be you only my instrument to slay them now.” In our context we may imagine Arjuna’s Charioteer (called “Parthasarathy” in the Gita) to have brought Sri Aurobindo to Pondicherry already in his mind and was using his namesake of the Iyengar family as his instrument to let Sri Aurobindo know the advantages of settling there. However, there are a number of snags to this highly poetic picture.

Sri Aurobindo went to Pondicherry on the afflatus of a divine injunction and not on a hint from Parthasarathy: a special message from Sri Krishna himself had to be received. And this injunction differed radically from the hint: whereas the hint was in connection with politics as the moving power, Sri Krishna’s message turned out, according to Sri Aurobindo, to have had nothing to do with them in its purpose. If we have to think of Parthasarathy as influencing Sri Aurobindo by acquainting him with the advantages of Pondicherry, we must seek a different light in which to look at him.

Before we do that, let us trace from another angle the incongruity we are trying to focus. How does Parthasarathy figure at all when the town outside British India to which Sri Aurobindo went from Calcutta, the sphere of the harassment by the British Government to which Parthasarathy had referred in his meeting with Sri Aurobindo, was Chandernagore in French India and not Pondicherry? In a letter of 15 December 1944 which the Archives quotes, Sri Aurobindo recalls the situation in the Karmayogin office in Calcutta where a search by the police was expected: “While I was listening to animated comments from those around on the approaching event, I suddenly received a command from above in a Voice well known to me, in three words: ‘Go to Chandernagore.’ In ten minutes or so I was in the boat for Chandernagore… I remained in secret entirely engaged in Sadhana… afterwards, under the same ‘sailing orders’, I left Chandernagore and reached Pondicherry on April 4th 1910.”

The original ādesh, taking Sri Aurobindo away from the obstructed political field mentioned by Parthasarathy, did not concern Pondicherry. Thus his advice to Sri Aurobindo had no direct relation to the latter’s move out of British India. Surely, we cannot plead the general fact that Chandernagore no less than Pondicherry was a non-British French enclave? Their common Frenchness does not blur their geographical difference. Nor can we say that Chandernagore was obviously a stepping-stone to Pondicherry. The divine command did not tell Sri Aurobindo: “Go to Pondicherry via Chandernagore.” Chandernagore alone held the stage at the time: Pondicherry was completely off it. Even when Sri Aurobindo reached Chandernagore we cannot claim to discern an involvement of Pondicherry in his thoughts. He continued to stay there as if there were nothing further to do or at least as if he had no notion of any future step. In the talk of December 1938, Purani adding to Nirodbaran’s transcript makes Sri Aurobindo say: “some friends were thinking of sending me to France.” In Nirodbaran’s transcript we read simply: “and there as I was thinking what to do next, I heard the ādesh ‘Go to Pondicherry.’”

It was after this second ādesh that, recollecting what he had learnt from Parthasarathy over six months earlier, Sri Aurobindo wrote the note to which we have already alluded. Apropos only of this note we have to set Parthasarathy in our picture. And he emerges in a role quite other than that which the Archives writer with unconscious self-contradiction surmises for him. The true role is to be spotlighted by the request Sri Aurobindo made to him from Chandernagore. Through Parthasarathy’s group in Pondicherry about which he had learnt in the interview at Calcutta, Sri Aurobindo wanted arrangements to be made for, as Srinivasachari has put it in his memoirs, “a quiet place of residence… where he could live incognito without being in any way disturbed”. While his coming to Pondicherry was due exclusively to the ādesh, his getting privately accommodated in that town was the result of his meeting with Parthasarathy.

Not that Parthasarathy actually arranged for Sri Aurobindo’s residence. He was not present to do so. Srinivasachari and Bharati, accompanied by Suresh Chakravarty, made the proper arrangements. Direct credit in the concrete sense goes to them. But inasmuch as Sri Aurobindo’s memory of Parthasarathy led him to write the letter given to Suresh Chakravarty to take to Pondicherry where the addressee was supposed to be, Parthasarathy formed a link between the ādesh at Chandernagore and Sri Aurobindo’s finding a suitable residence in Pondicherry among solicitous friends. And as such he has a significance in Sri Aurobindo’s life at an important turning-point.

In an earlier issue of Archives – Vol. IX, No.27 – we read: “Sri Aurobindo came to Pondicherry in April 1910 with no intention of staying more than a few months. He remained in the French colony for the rest of his life.” This confirms that he had never thought of following Parthasarathy’s suggestion of establishing his political headquarters in Pondicherry and acting from there. The indefinite prolongation of stay was due exclusively to his discovering Sri Krishna’s far-reaching spiritual plan for him that was implicit in the ādesh to go to Pondicherry. But in the years after his arrival the patriotic group which included Parthasarathy, Srinivasachari and their associates contributed to his welfare. Srinivasachari’s family is known to have been in intimate relation with him up to 1926.

K.D.Sethna (Amal Kiran)

Aspects of Sri Aurobindo (2000), pp 196-204

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R Y Deshpande's analysis: Ascent to Supermind (Pp 311-346)

The Ascent to Supermind
Apropos of The Lives of Sri Aurobindo by Peter Heehs
RY Deshpande

I’ve just gone through the chapter entitled The Ascent to Supermind: Pondicherry 1915-1926, the first of Part Five: Guide, of The Lives of Sri Aurobindo by Peter Heehs, and find it rather hastily written. It is also crude and easily popularistic-journalistic in its approach and attitude when seen in the context of the grand theme it purports to present, its quite a few inadequacies very glaring, its spiritual perceptions wanting in their penetration, in insight as much as in substance. The decidedly selective handling of the researched material much amounts to insensitive and blundering representation of Sri Aurobindo’s yogic siddhis, his realisations and his remarkable achievements. In fact the biography is doing enormous injustice to the spiritual things we value so deeply, so observantly and feelingly, injustice in more than one way. I may touch upon a few of them here.

Actually the title of the chapter itself is awfully misleading: the period 1915-1926 cannot be called “Ascent to Supermind”. Sri Aurobindo already had the knowledge of the Supermind, had it long ago—perhaps the first indication being when he was an undertrial prisoner in Alipore jail. At that time almost for two weeks the spirit of Vivekadanda would visit him and point it out to him, a bright golden star in the far above sky. And, remarkably enough, the Mother also spoke of the Supermind as early as on 15 December 1911, in Paris, much before she met Sri Aurobindo. Hers is a prayer soliciting the Sun of Truth, the Supreme Light to “pervade us entirely and illumine with its great brilliance our minds and hearts, all our thoughts and actions.” It is the Mantra of Transformation she received, the invocation being to the Sun of Truth, the Light of the Supreme, parasya jyotih of the Gayatri Mantra given to us later by Sri Aurobindo himself. Therefore what was happening during the period 1915-1926 was not the ascent but something radically different than that. It was the period of supramentalisation of the various grades of the lower consciousness. First it was the supramentalisation of the mental, during the Arya period, and then the supramentalisation of the vital. This finally paved the path for the overmentalisation of the physical, marking the siddhi on 24 November 1926, what he later called the descent of Krishna consciousness in the physical. Sri Aurobindo’s next concern was the supramentalisation proper of the physical itself. For that he put in a God’s labour, digging the dark grounds of inconscience. The result was, the Great Light, the Light of the Sun of Truth, started descending into his physical, the first definite experience coming on 8 August 1938. He has recorded it in his sonnet The Golden Light. We’ve nothing of this in The Lives of Sri Aurobindo.

But let me promptly illustrate. The chapter runs into 36 pages and has at the end 120 references, with a very large number of them as archival documents. Unfortunately these documents are inaccessible to the researchers who might like to look into them with another viable perspective or might like to verify the contextuality of the quotations. The quotation from the Record about the anandamaya-vijnanamaya vision of universal beauty makes a very beautiful beginning of the chapter, but immediately it slips into the mundane, into life at 41 François Martin St, and the daily connected things. In fact it slips further down, down into the terrible mud. We’ve thus: “Paul [Richard] spent his time looking for a job that would take them [he and Mirra] from France. At the same time, and with Mirra’s approval, he formed a sexual liaison with another woman who bore him a child.” (p. 314) The source of information is not indicated, something unpardonable for a work that claims to be based on research. But we should be concerned with another aspect, a deeper aspect. We know very well that the Mother never wanted to make a mention of her personal or private life anywhere, never. Instead, what we have here, and in any number of places in the biography as I cursorily see it, is something obnoxious, most repugnant, despicable. Imagine such a description in a chapter dealing with the Ascent to Supermind! Where is our sense of propriety, in these matters? Has that good sagacity taken leave of us?

And the chapter goes on, Sri Aurobindo drinking wine, and smoking cigars, and holding the Mother’s hand after the dinner parties, he not disclosing the death of his wife Mrinalini while talking to Mukul Dey, the painter who did his paintings in 1919. And then we have at his instructions his younger brother Barin collecting funds in Calcutta, first in hundreds and then in thousands, all this to run the growing household at Pondicherry. Interspersed with such narratives are brief references to the Seven Chatusthayas, as if to give the flavour of spirituality to them; but they don’t.

Let us however go on with the Lives. “Aurobindo continued to write regularly for the Arya, though for the first time since the launching of the journal he sometimes found himself in arrears. Nevertheless, he began the seventh year (1920-1921) on a confident note, asking subscribers to renew without delay. By then he was writing most of the matter directly on a typewriter… When he had finished the day’s work, a dozen or more people—members of the household, the Richards, visitors from out of town—came to his study for talk and meditation…” (p. 326) This is all we have about the seventy-seven issues of the journal, with its “4600 pages of philosophy, commentary, translations, and essays”.

But these statistics also come with a slant. The biographer says that Sri Aurobindo’s major prose writings first came out in the Arya but he adds that, that mode of presentation itself imposed a constraint on his writing, that “he was unable to restructure while writing.” This resulted in some of the works becoming “unbalanced: one part of The Synthesis of Yoga is too long, another too short. Aurobindo hoped to revise the works before reissuing them as books, but he rarely found time for it.” (p. 327) And his style: it is “involved and, by modern standards, frequently obscure.” (p. 328) If it is so, one wonders and asks: where has gone that organ music of The Life Divine so highly praised by Georges van Vrekhem? the power of getting the Inexpressible in words, with their sound of music?

Not only that; nowhere we’ve the presentation of the contents and substance of the Arya writings, not even a summary introduction for a reader new to Sri Aurobindo. Nor is there any mention of his other literary compositions, his vibrant-massive Ilion in sweeping and authentic quantitative hexameter and the first existing draft of Savitri running into some 900 lines. Debashish Banerji says, we must judge Sri Aurobindo by his “visible works” and not go by what the Mother tells about him, that he was an Avatar, etc; but, bizarrely enough, here in the biography all the “visible works” have been blanked off. When the Mother came back in 1920, she said that all this while Sri Aurobindo was busy bringing down the Supramental in the successive mental domains of consciousness, and that he was soon busy to bring it into the vital consciousness. Of this our biographer has no inkling at all; indeed one wonders he’ll ever have it if he goes by pseudo-psychology and pseudo-historical formulations of matters spiritual. About the Arya and the post-Arya period up to 1926, we’ve about 200 pages of material in KR Srinivasa Iyengar’s monumental biography Sri Aurobindo published by the Ashram. Perhaps in the opinion of the author of The Lives of Sri Aurobindo this is Indian religiosity and sentimentalism disdainful to the modern rational mind, and that he was writing his work precisely for such a modern rational mind. But he should also understand that cutting up Sri Aurobindo in this manner is plain falsifying his vision, his mission and his occult-spiritual work. It will be a sad day for us if we should blink our eyes towards such a strange thing coming from a modern rational mind, from one who also claims to be the practitioner of the Integral Yoga of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo.

Instead of a comprehensive and meaningful introduction to the Arya, what do we have here, in The Lives of Sri Aurobindo? To wit, Paul Richard asking Sri Aurobindo about his relationship with Mirra! (p. 327) and his reply, effectively, whatever she wanted. That’s Ascent to Supermind! Manuscripts of Purani’s talks are given as references in the endnotes. But we’ve no idea about what is actually present in these archival documents, to what extent these have been contextualized-decontextualised in these quotations. In fact the entire hush-hush manner in which these documents are referenced makes them highly suspect. That cannot be called history, hiding the papers from the prospective researcher’s eyes. It is the fundamental principle of any archival organization that the papers be organized for use by others and made available to whosoever would like to study them. That facility does not exist presently in our Archives whose main and energetic builder is the present author himself, as if he deliberately intending to keep it away from others. When once I went to the Section for some details about Savitri, I was rudely asked if I wanted those details for making a court case! The information was not given. In any case, in the present instance,—regarding Paul Richard, Sri Aurobindo, Mirra,—there seems to be a report from Dilip Roy about his meeting Paul Richard in 1927 according to which he seems to have relented regarding his earlier encounter with Sri Aurobindo and his relation with Mirra. It is also said that he spoke of him as the one who will save the world. If this is factually correct then, it is disappointing that it is not present in the Lives’s present discussion. It could also be that the author was totally unaware of it, which I don’t believe.

And then, what else do we have in the chapter we are looking into? There are many things of a minor nature, about political matters and about fund raising for his daily household activities. But let me make a reference to the “pomp” with which Sri Aurobindo’s birthday was celebrated during those days, 1923 and around. On these occasions the disciples were “filled with emotion”. And it was as if Sri Aurobindo and the Mother patronized the whole affair. “He may have regarded such customs [bowing down and gestures of devotionalism] as examples of those ‘ancient ideas and forms’ that Indian had such difficulty getting beyond. But if Aurobindo was indifferent or opposed to ceremony, Mirra thrived in it. She was happy to see the sadhaks spending hours stringing garlands and preparing special dishes, and later, during the darshan, bowing down at Aurobindo’s feet.” (p. 343) And what did follow from this—the author might ask to himself? blind people doing things blindly.

“To the sadhaks, as perhaps to the reader [of The Lives of Sri Aurobindo], what Aurobindo was doing remained a mystery.” (p. 344) And yet the author says that by 1925 the progress made by Sri Aurobindo was “slight”. If it’s a mystery, how can one say anything about the degree of progress made? a little funny logic—but that’s not uncommon here. The book is full of such amusing, such weird gawky things. The book is also quite misleading, in several respects. I fail to understand the following, for instance.

This is after the great 24 November 1926 event. “For the members of the household, the exact nature of the experience was less important than its immediate consequences. Three days after the descent, Aurobindo asked Barin to tell the sadhaks two things. First: ‘the power has descended into the unconscious’, but it was necessary to work things out in detail ‘by the help of that power.’ Second: ‘Mirra is my Shakti. She has taken charge of the new creation. You will get everything from her. Give [your] consent to whatever she wants to do.’ What this meant in practice was that he would not see the sadhaks any longer. The door of his room remained closed, and no one but Mirra could enter. It was she who would guide the sadhaks in their spiritual and practical affairs.” (p. 345) The endnote says that it is an oral remark.

If Sri Aurobindo withdrew on 24 November 1926 from all outside contacts, then how did he give instructions to Barin after three days, on 27 November 1926? Was he still in contact with him to tell him a few things? If so, when did he cut off even that contact with him? Or did he give instructions to him in writing? If so, does that piece of paper exist with the Archives? But it seems that these were oral remarks (whose?) and they were recorded by Haradhan Bakshi whose papers are in possession of the Archives. But how did he get them?

We have not been given any background about Haradhan Bakshi nor any indication is there about the veracity of his records, particularly so if based on oral communication. Purani in his Life of Sri Aurobindo (p. 217 ed. 1978) has given a list of 24 disciples who were present on 24 November 1926. Haradhan Bakshi’s name does not figure in it. Is there any mention of this statement by Barin in his Sri Aurobindo as I Understand Him? Quoting him directly from that would have been more authentic, instead of something coming from oral communication. The whole affair in The Lives of Sri Aurobindo therefore seems to be rather perplexing. This needs further checking. Would Sri Aurobindo have given oral instructions to Barin three days after his withdrawal? Can someone throw light on this?

In my view, apart from such technicalities, the greatest defect of The Lives of Sri Aurobindo is the general absence of spiritual ambience in it. From that perspective the biography is just trash. It might be claimed that it is meant for an academic audience, but then when the yogic-spiritual Sri Aurobindo is gone what will be left will be a false image of him. In that case it will be ironic if we should fail to recognize this aspect, fail to take appropriate action to dissolve this falsification. It is necessary that steps are taken towards this and also towards correcting the system to have the Archives documents available to the researchers studying the Mother and the Master’s works. This is the expectation and due consideration should be given to it, and given to it promptly.

12 October 2008

[First posted: November 6, 2008 1:18 AM]   ...full text...

Archetypal Images and Symbols—by Paulette

Here is a personal e-mail from Paulette which is significant in more than one respect. I therefore thought it gainful to post it for the benefit of the perceptive readers of the Mirror of Tomorrow, particularly the aspiring souls of the Aurobindonian or what is called the Integral Yoga Community. I thus approached the writer whether it would be all right if I should make the letter public. I’m glad she readily consented to it and my sincere thanks to her for the splendid gesture. There’s no doubt that it will bring a fresh look at the controversy that is raging on the latest biography of Sri Aurobindo which is rather unfortunate on several counts. Paulette adds: “I hope this will help to disentangle some of the mess, so that we can at last move forward and look where the real problems are—using this controversy to remind all of us that there is something deeply missing, to be found again! Everything, truly everything is a chance to progress.” How wonderful! But will we avail the chance? go into the depth of our soul and our heart, in the true spirit of the Aurobindoinan ethos, of progressive spirituality? The problem is, essentially, we are looking at things with our idée fixe, with our entrenched formulations and formations, the ancient samskāras,—also as much as with our idée reçue—without realizing the fundamental fact that we are approaching a Yogi par excellence, a spiritual giant, a Master, one from whom we are seeking spiritual guidance. We go to him for that spiritual guidance because there is something in us which tells us that our deepest soul’s aspirations and urges would find fulfilment in it. Should that ‘something’ be lacking, and then it would be immaterial with what else we might be occupied in our life. Those who have a call for that spiritual life, a kind of an imperative for it, they only will find it rewarding; any attempt in our zeal to take him to the spiritually raw or uneducated or illiterate, that is, those who have not received the ‘call’, whatever might otherwise be their great academic or professional standing, is likely to prove much frustrating. In fact spirituality is not a commodity which can in the manner of a Capitalist be freely promoted or exported to others. Such notions of promoting spirituality are a falsification, a gross unpleasant falsification, and therefore it becomes shocking when we see that they are held by those who claim themselves to be members of a spiritual group or an Ashram. That is unfortunately the kind of thing which one sees in the latest biography, The Lives of Sri Aurobindo. What have academia to do with spirituality at all, if they have no compulsion of any sort, of them being drawn towards it? Nothing, really nothing. When we say that we belong to the IY Community, then let us not forget its principal element, its foundational aspect, the ‘Yoga’-aspect of it, never—the rest being of little importance or consequence. “Self-realisation is the one thing needful,” says Sri Aurobindo; “to open to the inner spirit, to live in the Infinite, to seek after and discover the Eternal, to be in union with God”—that is the essential sense of spirituality. The “dynamic following after the highest spiritual truth” has to be the only consideration if we are to hold that we belong to the IY Community. The rest is gross and unpleasant falsification which must be eschewed. I’m glad that Paulette brings out some of these aspects in her e-mail in a very forceful manner, and that is why I thought of making it public. ~ RYD

Thank you for sending me the main page of Mirror of Tomorrow, dated May 9, along with the picture of those beautiful owls. Thanks, too, for the uplifting quotes. You might, however, agree that we have to honestly face things at the level of our existential reality, as we are not living in a supramental world but in a still largely infrarational one. As it always happens with archetypal images and symbols, the owl—much like the crow—in folklore, religion and fairy tales has an enormous range of interpretations, eventually clashing with each other. The fact that you picked an ambivalent symbol like the owl, for which the symbolic significance varies according to epoch and tradition, [1] and to which someone refers on your web page [Please see the endnote] with that striking quote from the Mother on the subconscient and, lastly, that this happens in the context of the controversy regarding Peter Heehs, is an amazing synchronicity. [2]

Atavism
Having been closely associated to Indians, not only here but in other ashrams too, I am aware of what a certain aspect of Indian mentality can accept and what it has difficulty accepting or it rejects, which may eventually differ greatly from what a certain category of Westerners can or cannot accept. It is one’s upbringing and inherited set of values, deeply imprinted in the subconscious, which strongly conditions one’s response. This is why humans, like those owls, may seem invariably the same, as the Mother’s comments indicate in the quote posted in your blog. This leads to what the Mother designates as atavism. Sigmund Freud uses the term ‘superego’ as a pivotal concept in his map of the human psyche. Both terms stand for an almost indelible blueprint programming people for life, based on education and systems of beliefs and values one receives from family, teachers, environment etc., which powerfully shapes the individual’s image of the world and, in the case of spiritual adepts, by reflection, of the guru and avatar.

Atavism and the subconscious aspect of the superego are extremely difficult to come to terms with, as objective understanding of such mechanisms requires great discernment and the need for detachment. Both terms reflect the established values of cultural groups and sub-groups of society, and may be completely one-sided. Conversely, in its optimal form the superego can constitute the individual’s highest and noblest part, although still limited and collective inasmuch as society is the mirror of what we are. The superego is typically a mental affair, with subconscious aspects, that has a large influence on the vital. Whether or not it is influenced by the psychic being depends on each person’s level of individualization, which is a major task of the psychic being. To illustrate this point I attach herewith some extracts from the Mother on atavism. To illustrate this point I attach herewith some extracts from the Mother on atavism. As with the clashing symbolism of the owl, I am afraid that, in the case of The Lives of Sri Aurobindo controversy, there is no dialectical third point unless both camps are willing to rise above their respective superegos and sincerely attempt to listen to views of their opponents as well. Only then a dialogue can commence.

A God’s Labor: Alchemical Uroborus
The foregoing said as a preamble, I am amused at the sometimes ‘irreverent’ tone used by Peter Heehs although, at other times, I feel irritated by his penchant for dissecting and analyzing, as if he had the key to objective understanding. Heehs digs out things that may repel a certain mentality but, to my sensibilities, he paints a picture of Sri Aurobindo which I see as unique and which makes me cling to him even more forcefully as the one sole guru, at the exclusion of anyone else. Without the avadhuta qualities of young Aurobindo Ghose, and without acknowledging, at the same time, the role he played as a revolutionary, this portrait would remain incomplete. A true avatar, Sri Aurobindo embodied both eternal wisdom in all its manifold, even extreme aspects and the dawning of a new age. The battlefield is the entangled web of society as expressed in the activities of everyday life. Heehs pays tribute to all of these aspects of Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo, nonetheless, remains forever elusive and above all possible definition; there are no words to describe him, there is only consciousness. The silence of the Spirit. And Compassion.

I don’t remember if Heehs uses this term, but what I refer to as the avadhuta passages constitute to my eyes a major attraction of his book. They present Sri Aurobindo in a way that captures not only the academician, but the rebel and iconoclast and radical thinker—because of his anti-rhetoric and anti-hagiographic contents, sometimes presenting the guru as almost the anti-guru. This is as Sri Aurobindo may have been seen by his disciples in the early years, prior to the Mother’s coming; he made no mystery of it and this needs to be acknowledged. While embracing the concept of avadhuta, let’s also be aware that one of the highest texts of Advaita Vedanta, traditionally considered the summit of Hindu spirituality, is the Avadhuta-Gita. [3] As with the alchemical uroborus, the extremes meet. It is only natural that the avatar, who is the incarnated Divine, as an alchemical vessel takes upon himself the most divergent aspects of human nature for the specific purpose of the transformation of the prima materia into pure gold—the divinization of human life and matter.

Weren’t the youth who gathered around Sri Aurobindo relating to him mainly as an older brother, that is until the Mother came and showed to that odd lot how to bow to the guru’s feet, teaching by example the most integral and unconditional surrender that Sri Aurobindo said he had ever encountered? Are we going to censor what Sri Aurobindo wrote to his brother Barin, joking about himself as the anti-Christ etc., in a passage which is often edited out while reproducing this letter? What kind of guru-bhakti is this, which is unable to embrace and adore the guru in his infinite complexity, which includes the human element as well? Isn’t this the avatar’s greatest sacrifice: taking on human form by the power of oceanic love and compassion, showing us that everything, absolutely everything must turn divine—and it will, by the grace of God, and A God’s Labor? This is what Sri Aurobindo, the pūrņa-avatār, represents. Nothing less than a picture as complete as it can be presented will do, yet knowing beforehand that the true essence will keep eluding us. No one can speak about the Divine per se. We can only toil to grow, by the Mother’s grace, into a distant image of It; without expectations, content with daily-self-offering and consecration—until the illusion of separation vanishes and we merge into the One Reality.

Integral Yoga: the shadow and ‘evil persona’
My inner bond was with Nolinida and Parichand, but the one who irreversibly oriented my quest was Kishor Gandhi, whom the Mother had appointed as the only editor of Sri Aurobindo’s Letters on Yoga. It is Kishor who introduced me to the concept of the shadow in Integral Yoga and in CG Jung, and to him I have inwardly dedicated my last book, Becoming One—The Psychology of Integral Yoga. He submitted to Sri Aurobindo a passage from Jung, on which the Master commented:

What you say about the “Evil Persona” interests me greatly as it answers to my constant experience that a person greatly endowed for the work has, always or almost always,—perhaps one ought not to make a too rigid universal rule about these things—a being attached to him, sometimes appearing like a part of him, which is just the contradiction of the thing he centrally represents in the work to be done. Or, if it is not there at first, not bound to his personality, a force of this kind enters into his environment as soon as he begins his movement to realise. Its business seems to be to oppose, to create stumblings and wrong conditions, in a word, to set before him the whole problem of the work he has started to do. It would seem as if the problem could not, in the occult economy of things, be solved otherwise than by the predestined instrument making the difficulty his own. That would explain many things that seem very disconcerting on the surface. [4]

It is this—the acknowledgement of the ‘evil persona’ (in French, le double mauvais)—that allowed me to accept unexplainable patterns of behaviour I faced at the Ashram, in Auroville, and at other ashrams, as an intrinsic necessity within the yogic path. As stated in The Problem of the ‘Evil Persona’ in Sri Aurobindo and in Western Psychology, the striking article by Raymond De Becker that Gandhi published in the Sri Aurobindo Circle [5], and to which I reacted as to an illumination:

In The Riddle of This World, Sri Aurobindo observes that the fall into the darkness, the ignorance and the inconscience was the only thing unknown to the original being of light, and as one of the infinite possibilities of the Divine himself. For him, it is only by this fall that ... could a certain manifestation of the Supreme Truth be effected—by a working out with its phenomenal opposites as the starting point of the evolution, as the condition laid down for a transforming emergence. [6]

De Becker concludes his article with these words:

The problem, which one is thus forced to face may sometimes present an almost intolerable burden. However, it seems to me that I have noticed that a person who assumes such responsibilities is helped to an equal degree by some¬thing which we might be permitted to call grace. It is at the very moment at which we find the answer to the enigma of the Sphinx that it dissolves itself. The integration of the Shadow results in the disappearance of the Shadow. It is true that this integration is never complete or definite. For the Shadow which we bear is in proportion to the world as much as is our light. It is at each stage of our ascent or of our descent that we meet it. That is why the task to which we are called seems sometimes to be endless: it has continually to be begun again with each of the beings, who, in fact, belong to the same centre of energy as ourselves, whom we must carry with us into the light or follow into the darkness and whose enigmatic form is a symbol of each stage in our lives and the inverted sign of our illusions. [7]

And Nolini Kanta Gupta writes:

…man is a divided dual being; on one side he is a soul, on the other he is predominantly a body complex. By his soul he is akin to the gods, by his external being he is neighbourly to the Asuras. [8]

Two precedents: Bande Mataram, Sri Aurobindo His Life Unique

It is a fact that over the years there has been a consistent attempt by a certain category of people to bypass or altogether suppress all that does not fit into an artificially constructed image of the guru-avatar. A most disquieting example was the fight to prevent the publication of Vol.1 of the Centenary Edition, Bande Mataram. The person defeating all such attempts was Jayantilal Parekh: a sensitive artist whom the Mother had turned into the guiding force behind the publication of the Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library. As you certainly know, Jayantilal was also the founder of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Archives in 1973, assisted by a team of which young Peter Heehs too was a member. One day, at the Archives, I was shown two huge files containing the full documentation of the controversy whom Jayantilal withstood and won. It was one of the darkest days in my life. I was shown that there was a movement to suppress Sri Aurobindo’s own writings, the very same writings which had made of him a national hero about whom all Indian children learn in their schoolbooks, and because of which he was considered the enemy number one of the British Empire and charged with sedition. I had already been informed about the same in Auroville when, before quitting the Laboratory of Evolution of which I was a member, I came up with a last stenciled compilation about the ‘nationalist’ Sri Aurobindo—like the previous ones, to be distributed for free to the community.

What about Rishabchand’s Sri Aurobindo His Life Unique? In a SABDA Review issue one reads, “This biography of Sri Aurobindo was serialised in the Bulletin of Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education from 1960 to 1971, and thus carries the Mother's ‘seal and sanction’. It tells the story of Sri Aurobindo's life from his birth to the earliest days of the Ashram.” When I first came to Pondicherry in 1973, every day I used to type poignant extracts from Rishabhchand’s manuscript on his typewriter in his room. When I returned to Italy there was a demand to publish a book with all this material, along with excerpts from Sri Aurobindo’s political writings. But I did not have the courage to carry on, fearing I would run into trouble… It took eleven years for the Sri Aurobindo Ashram to publish the manuscript in a book form, although since then it has been reprinted over and over again.

A critical approach to The Lives of Sri Aurobindo controversy. Sanatana dharma!
All this and more has to be taken into consideration in an attempt to understand the ‘historical’ and ‘psychological’ background behind the controversy on The Lives of Sri Aurobindo, Peter Heehs’s last book. Thirty-six years in India, at the beginning bathing in the atmosphere of some of the greatest sadhaks at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram who at the time were still alive, and exploring several major yogic paths, has encouraged me to embrace a synthesis of East and West, while striving to assimilate the noblest and highest aspect from each, as Sri Aurobindo expects from his sadhaks. I got certain things from Peter’s book and discarded other aspects of it. Personally, I would have written that kind of a biography with different criteria than Peter Heehs, as I told him in November. He agreed with me in that he said that had the book been destined for a purely Indian audience, he would have written it differently; he was busy making many changes to it for that purpose. I replied that there is no need for two separate books; and that whenever the topic is controversial it is enough to quote Sri Aurobindo or the archive material directly, without any personal comment. Moreover, in my opinion, no one should ever entertain discussions about any yogi’s state of consciousness and sadhana (beginning with Ken Wilber, whom I stopped reading the very moment I perceived his pretensions).

The point now is: how can we move forward to save the book which, had it been written in a more sensitive way, would have opened to Sri Aurobindo a whole layer of people whom hagiography repels, at the same time without hurting the feelings of many Indian devotees who, because of powerfully embedded values and beliefs, have been deeply wounded? Only in the Supermind do all opposites melt into a unity in diversity; but we live far from that. Being contained in the sanatana dharma is the highest we can achieve, as long as we are not fit to receive the supramental Truth-Force, Consciousness and Gnosis. Can we accept that, instead of the clash between two opposite superegos and in fact more, all people have the freedom to apprehend the guru and the avatar according to their perceptive capacities, which is directly proportional to each person’s subjective consciousness? What appeals to one person won’t appeal to others, yet individuals can do no more than relate to the guru according to their capacity for understanding. Hinduism recognizes this truth in its definition of svabhāva (one’s true nature) and adhikāra (one’s inner predisposition). Our path is inscribed within these subjective realities and therefore nobody can chart the path and relationship to the guru for another.

God speaks all languages, even atheism can be a path!
When the soul is ripe, everything is a tool for psychic and spiritual growth. I know someone who, after many years in Auroville, claims he can relate to Sri Aurobindo for the first time because of that book! One’s perception of the guru is a matter of personal evolution. If people open up by reading The Lives of Sri Aurobindo—people who without this book would have no relationship at all with Sri Aurobindo—who are we to take away the only instrument they have found? A biography is not a treatise on yoga, but at least it is the beginning of something. Any follow-up to it depends on the emergence of the psychic being; but this is a strictly personal affair between oneself and the Divine. Didn’t Sri Aurobindo and the Mother stress that even atheism can be a path? It was in my case the study of existentialism during high school that led me, twenty years later, to Advaita Vedanta! Countless are God’s ways, and to each their own. And, let’s not forget, the more we forbid something, the more it attracts people. Even if we ban and burn books, people will make photocopies of them, or put their name on waiting lists.

God speaks all languages. Swami Vivekananda stressed the need to speak to the Muslim as a Muslim, to the Christian as a Christian, and to the Hindu as a Hindu. What’s wrong, then, in addressing an academic audience, using a format suiting that specific mentality, which is the explanation Peter has personally given me? Didn’t Swami Vivekananda say that he was ready to go to hell if only he could save one single soul? Ramana Maharshi—the purest Advaitin!—took the trouble to explain yoga in terms of Rajayoga to a man who had come with that booklet by Swami Vivekananda and could not relate to anything else! Who can define the guru or the avatar? We can only relate to him from the height of our limited being, while recognizing the same right to all others. After all, what matters is how we each relate individually to Sri Aurobindo; not how Peter Heehs or someone else does. Overall this discussion reminds me of the blind men who each, on touching one part of the elephant only, claimed that ‘this’ is the whole elephant! Everything can turn into a tool for greater consciousness when we are open to the Higher Force. The Divine takes countless forms, as many as are needed to suit the billion external personalities in existence. The Divine will use everything and everyone, even the Asura or a hostile force; just look how far the Mother went in this regard! Anything will do. But when the decisive moment comes, then the soul knows by way of feeling discernment.

I belong to neither one camp nor the other and, frankly speaking, I believe that the present war is only the tip of the iceberg. The issues at the stake are far deeper than one’s reaction to the contended book. We should seize this tragic opportunity to address them all—I have mentioned only a few—instead of feeding a fratricidal war that leaves the real issues, cumulating over the years, untouched. Let’s put an end to the horrendous fight where no one can win and everybody loses and delve instead into the real nature of what divides us.

Thank you brother for having taken the time to read what I have tried to convey, as one human being to another human being. It took me so long to write this because we have never met, while there is so much to say. And yet, even amidst all darkness, at the end of the tunnel there is again light.
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References
[1] In the West the owls occupy a special place because the Athene noctua was sacred to Pallas Athena, the goddess of wisdom, whom Sri Aurobindo also celebrates; they are seen as symbols of wisdom in many fairy tales as well. The owl is an ambivalent symbol, with divergent and even clashing interpretations according to culture and epoch. This phenomenon corresponds to the ‘collective unconscious’ (the repository of legends, epics, myths, fairy tales etc. as recorded by Jung, and which the Mother and Sri Aurobindo also point out, in their own language) that, the closer it comes to the present age, the more gets diversified according to the countries and regions, although at the origin everything is clubbed together. In case you are interested, I am attaching you a few considerations and articles on the owl’s symbolism.
[2] There is a book of letters between CG Jung and the Nobel-prize winning physicist, Wolfgang Pauli, where they explore the nature of synchronicity, which indicate that inner and outer events coincide meaningfully, superseding the causal principle. The Mother had already pointed out this as well.
[3] This masterpiece is attributed to Dattatreya, the mythic sage born out of the Trimurti of the Hindu pantheon, the three great gods who each fell in love with the beautiful Anusuya.
[4] Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga, p. 1660
[5] Sri Aurobindo Circle, Vol. X, 1954
[6] Sri Aurobindo, The Riddle of This World, p.103. First Edition.
[7] Sri Aurobindo Circle, Vol. X, 1954
[8] Nolini Kanta Gupta, Collected Works Vol. 4, The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo, pp. 399-403
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Here’s the link. Mother’s Agenda, August 2, 1961: “Every night, you know, I continue to see more and more astounding things emerging from the Subconscient to be transformed... For example, some people are intermingled there... . Already when I lived in Japan there were four people I could never distinguish during my nighttime activities—all four of them (and god knows they weren't even acquainted!) were always intermingled because their subconscious reactions were identical.”
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Anonymous Posting on Savitri Era Open Forum

I am compelled to make a statement here. I have been somewhat following articles in SCIY and this blog. I am simply surprised that the supporters do not recognise the very elementary common sense fact that this is NO case of fundamentalism with the people who are against this book. It is because it is written by one IN THE ASHRAM. THIS IS THE BETRAYAL. Please realize that WORSE has been written and expressed by outsiders on Aurobindo on which NO ban or censorship had ever been sought. Mr Carlson also writes:

“Having no other knowledge of Heehs history at the Ashram how do you think that sounded? An author having property, and body attacked before throwing a court case on him for writing a book?”

“I can’t apologize for what Heehs is accused of over the past 30 years in the community, I have no idea of those events. But the fact is if this matter would have been dealt with in a civil manner in your Ashram, I would not have spent so much valuable time moderating post on this issue, Frankly the situation is disgusting and - court cases or not - I hope it is resolved soon so I never hear about it again!!!”

Clearly Carlson has a lot of sympathy for Heehs’ property and body. You would think he would have paused to consider the emotional and psychological violence that has been inflicted upon the devotees and disciples unless of course all the reactions of all of them are a concoction and a fabrication. One may compel and prevent and decry the physical act of violence but can he undo or understand the mental violence that led to the physical acts? Accepted that he had no idea of the past acts of Heehs but he is surely not oblivious of the current deep discontent and hurt that this has caused people. NOT A WORD on that at all from the supporters save Kepler (which too I am not sure. He seems to be playing both sides and trying to be ingratiate himself with both. His response to Sraddhalu betrays his lack of sympathy for the devotees that have been hurt). Those who have experienced the psychological violence are also the followers of Aurobindo many of whom have dedicated their lives or at least drawn to the Mother and Aurobindo deeply enough to take residence there and happily accept the travails and hardships of that life unlike Carlson who prefers to pass judgement - on their intellectual acumen - ensconced in the comforts of America. Shame on you, thrice shame on you.

I am sorry to have to say this, you have shown coldness of heart, a total apathy and a dismal lack of understanding. The author (according to SCIY) has at least rendered an apology for the hurt sentiments. Carlson is worse than he is, for there has not been ONE WORD in SCIY that has empathized with those who have felt hurt and offended and disgusted by this representation of Aurobindo. By being silent on that and constantly harping on the damage to the author, he has shown utter contempt (perhaps not intended) for Aurobindo’s followers, and mind you their number is not small. Mr Carlson I would suggest you pause and reflect if you believe this would go well with Aurobindo and the Mother.

Quite frankly it has been a revelation to me as to how the intellect bereft of the motive-force of service to the divine can be so ruthlessly, judgmental, totally closed to the interjections of the sentient and humane side of our personality. I am sorry to say Carlson betrays an abysmal ignorance and arrogance in spiritual matters. For how can he say “But the fact is if this matter would have been dealt with in a civil manner in your Ashram”. The Ashram was started by Sri Aurobindo and is an attempt to evolve and embody a divine life in a divine body. It does not necessarily have to conform to Carlson’s standards of ethics and morality- though it does not necessarily have to abandon them. But there seems to be an arrogance that this ought to have been handled in a certain way and his posts reveal that attitude.

There are certain principles of life on which one does not compromise and one such is the relation with ones spiritual Master. This is held in the highest regard more so in India and for sound spiritual reasons. I don’t really think we westerners can understand or appreciate that spirit. Let me only ask him this. Has he ever come across a similar portrayal of a Master by a disciple? If so please put this up on SCIY. I would be very eager to see a parallel. Alok, Sraddhalu, in fact the majority in the Ashram have been very patient with all his and others’ diatribes. They have not attacked Carlson. They are residents and members of a community called the Aurobindo Ashram and so is the author. If they feel the author’s actions undermine the stability and sanctity of the Ashram why should it be his business. Is he a self-proclaimed savior of mankind, or the author’s evil guardian? Mr Carslon’s arrogance and ignorance gets more audacious as he continues in the same vein.

“But the fact is if this matter would have been dealt with in a civil manner in your Ashram, I would not have spent so much valuable time moderating post on this issue, Frankly the situation is disgusting and -court cases or not- I hope it is resolved soon so I never hear about it again!!!”

Oh I suppose the Ashram must render an immediate apology to Mr Carlson for the inconvenience caused to him and the time lost to Mr Carlson as a result of its inability to deal with this in a civil manner! And yes don’t forget Mr Carlson’s time is “valuable”. In fact the Ashram ought to thank Mr Carlson’s kindness and compassion for giving the Ashram an extension of time to resolve this “soon” so that he may “never hear about it again”. And yes the Ashram ought to not forget that it exists for and because of Mr Carlson and to serve Mr Carlson. To Carlson its “infinite gratitude”. May it not forget even for a moment all it owes to Mr Carlson.

Didn’t he offer to step down? But one feels just like all else he says, its all talk and quite frankly its cheap and un-inspirational. In fact many of his statements on Aurobindo are alarming to say the least and it is a suprise that the others have nothing to say or oppose. What a shame.

This book is uninspiring and a travesty of the Master and no seeker who is even a little serious about the Yoga will consider this as anything less than a mockery of a Master-seeker relationship.

Posted by Anonymous to Savitri Era at 12:51 PM, May 07, 2009

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Sraddhalu's Open Letter to Auroville and Centres

Open Letter to Auroville and Centres dated 1^st May 2009

Dear All,

The recent circular titled "Integral Yoga Fundamentalism" (IYF) dated 16^th April 2009 signed by David Hutchinson, Debashish Banerji and Rich Carlson has come to my notice. It is unfortunate that these three have resorted to a campaign of character assassination rather than academic response and refutation of differences.

Since you have read their letter and have very likely been inflamed by their allegations, I request you in the interest of fairness to take some time to read my response in detail and go over the facts that I have to offer in place of their wild allegations. As will become clear, their allegations are false and their circular and website totally misrepresent my views and attack me on issues that I have no concern with while completely ignoring the main concerns and criticisms that I have raised.

This note is somewhat long because it must cover all the issues that the IYF circular has raised in its accusations. While reading my response, you will come across many surprising facts, some of which might even shock you. Do keep in mind throughout, that I have factual evidence for every statement that I make here, even though I cannot present it all in this note for reasons of space. In case you need substantiation or further elaboration of any of these statements, I will be happy to provide additional facts and evidence as necessary.

Cause of Differences

The cause of my differences with the IYF group is the recent biography of Sri Aurobindo by Peter Heehs (referred to as The Lives). The book relies entirely on three decades of meticulous research conducted by dozens of researchers of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram's Archives. Heehs was only one among these researchers, although in his book he takes exclusive credit for the whole research. Unlike other researchers, Heehs had full and free access to the entire body of this research as well as to all the internal and unpublished documents which most biographers of Sri Aurobindo have never seen or even known of. Hence there are several factual details in The Lives which have been published for the first time – mostly of trivial interest and of no major significance. In addition The Lives is meticulously documented, as any scholarly work should be. But this is as far as the scholarship goes.

The content of the book has been arranged and slanted to force-fit Sri Aurobindo's life and work into a Freudian framework to win accolades from Freudian scholars. For this purpose, Heehs has chosen to sacrifice fundamental norms of scholarship including a) factual accuracy, b) honesty, and c) completeness in representing facts. All three norms have been compromised not on some occasions but all through the book, consistently and deliberately. Note that I do not criticise The Lives on grounds of objectivity, even though it seriously fails this criterion also – the book is in fact biased against Sri Aurobindo. I do not criticise his objectivity because any biography is necessarily an author's perspective, and I see nothing wrong with Heehs or anyone else presenting their own viewpoint or interpretation of Sri Aurobindo. Everyone is free to hold his views and to express them in his own way. In spite of Heehs' claim to objectivity, his biography too (as all others before his) is highly subjective. And I do not criticise him for that.

My primary opposition to The Lives is on grounds of a) misrepresentation of facts out of their historical and social context, b) presentation of Heehs' speculations and imaginations as actual facts, c) deliberate distortion of actual quotations, d) factually incorrect and fallacious criticism of Sri Aurobindo, his views and his actions, e) factually wrong statements about the Mother, the Ashram, Sri Aurobindo's yoga, and life in the Ashram, f) deliberate bias towards criticising Sri Aurobindo and intentionally concealing facts or accounts to the contrary.

In essence, my criticism of his book is on account of its deliberate distortion of facts and nothing more. Where is the fundamentalism in this? Factual accuracy should be the foundation of any scholarly work; otherwise it must be withdrawn or reclassified as a work of fiction. And that is all that I and others have demanded.

More seriously, these factual distortions are intended to lead readers to conclusions which seriously damage the reputation and the integrity of Sri Aurobindo and his message. Some of the damaging conclusions promoted by The Lives include:

• that Sri Aurobindo was a frequent liar, and, among other things, that he lied about his supramental experiences,
  
• that he was sexually desperate and frustrated,
  
• that his spiritual experiences are questionable and ultimately irrelevant,
  
• that he had a streak of inherited madness,
  
• that there is nothing new in any of his writings, and what little is new is a) unacceptable or b) outdated or c) incorrect,
  
• that his poetry is expressive of sexual frustration, and its style outdated,
  
• that his relationship with the Mother was of a romantic nature,
  
• that he was negligent of Hindu-Muslim divisions and hence responsible for India's partition.
  

Deliberate Deception

Had any of these views been supported by real facts, no one would have complained. My criticism is that Heehs brings the reader to these views dishonestly by factual distortion, deception, innuendo and fallacious logic. Moreover, if these distortions were unintended, accidental or out of sheer ignorance, one might still forgive them, and possibly Heehs himself might have offered to withdraw the book. But the body of evidence consistently points to deliberate intent in promoting these distortions.

True to the style of scholarly writing, every paragraph or major statement in The Lives has an endnote with a reference. Readers naturally assume that the reference will justify the statement, although most readers do not or cannot verify each reference for accuracy. But The Lives has entire passages which are completely a product of Heehs' speculative imagination, where the references do not support the statements he has made! This is unacceptable abuse and betrayal of readers' trust, and combined with other factual distortions amounts to academic fraud. Yet, this fraud is justified by Heehs on grounds that he has to make compromises in order to reach out to "Western scholars" in "non-hagiographical", "new" and "objective" "interpretations". In my understanding, factual distortion cannot be justified under any circumstances, and it speaks poorly of Heehs' understanding of the Western mind and its needs.

Let me restate my position on the book: I have no criticism of Heehs publishing any new facts, viewpoints or interpretation of Sri Aurobindo for any particular type of audience; but I unhesitatingly criticise any kind of fraudulence published in the name of academic research, and I consider it the responsibility of all who respect Sri Aurobindo and genuine scholarship to actively expose factual distortions irrespective of whether they are used to promote Sri Aurobindo or to demote him. In cases of fraud, one cannot remain neutral as some have attempted, because silence or neutrality in the face of a crime amounts to acceptance and support of the crime. We can only differ on what actions we should take to expose and undo the fraudulence.

On the positive side, the book also has some passages which are factually accurate and well presented. Supporters of Heehs conveniently quote these portions to "prove" that Heehs has praised Sri Aurobindo and raised his stature in public eyes. But the numerous deliberate distortions on major issues are sufficient in themselves to damage the integrity of the entire book. Even if these are changed, the rest of the book is still found to be replete with innuendo and negative bias on minor issues that leave the well-informed scholar with a bitter after-taste. On the whole the entire book is suffused with a dishonest bias and is factually unreliable.

(Quick example: Manoj Das, the renown historian and scholar of Sri Aurobindo's life and thought, and winner of several of the most prestigious literary awards, had identified over 60 offensive and harmful passages from The Lives that he read out to the Ashram Trust board in October 2008.)

Perceived East-West Divide

The reason why many readers from the West (and fewer from the East) have praised the book and have been unable to see through these distortions is that they simply do not know the facts and have trusted Heehs' representations and presumed that his statements and references are factually accurate. Their blind trust in the author has misled them. It is not their fault, as it is normal for readers to trust an authoritative writer especially when he claims to be "founder" of the Ashram Archives and "editor" of Sri Aurobindo's writings.

This difference in awareness is the main reason why there are extreme and opposite views on the book. Those who already know the actual facts are appalled at the distortions; those who do not know better are carried away by the engaging style of narration and blindly accept every statement of the author. There are no in-between views. This is why there is far greater criticism of the book:

1. from Indians (because most readers of Indian origin already know the historical details of India's freedom struggle and of Sri Aurobindo's role in it);
   
2. from devotional readers than from the purely intellectual admirers of Sri Aurobindo (because devotees have already read several other biographies of Sri Aurobindo – those very books that Heehs condescendingly rejects as "hagiographies", but which most of them certainly are not!)
   
3. from scholars of Sri Aurobindo's life as distinct from scholars of Sri Aurobindo's writings alone, who often have little interest or awareness of historical details of his life.
   

The only readers who immediately and unconditionally praise the book are those people who are coming in touch with Sri Aurobindo's life for the first time, for whom every little detail they read in The Lives is new and therefore unverifiable.

(Quick example: François Gautier's review of 13 April 2009 declares with great excitement that Heehs has shed "new light" when he finds that the Congress was originally founded by an Englishman. But this fact is known to every 8^th Standard student in India for the last 50 years! When I asked Gautier how many other biographies of Sri Aurobindo he had read, Gautier frankly admitted that The Lives is his first biography of Sri Aurobindo, and he only vaguely remembers reading "something about his life long ago".)

This difference in factual awareness of readership groups and their cultural profiles has been exploited by Heehs' propagandists to invent the twin fictions of "East-West divide" and "a cultural misunderstanding" in order to obfuscate the real issues. In fact the division is only between those who already know the facts and those who do not.

Long-Term Consequences

If Heehs' deliberately distorted conclusions are accepted by academia and the general public as facts, then in the long run it would cause enormous harm to Sri Aurobindo and his work, and would eventually threaten the survival of the Ashram and Auroville. For, if Sri Aurobindo lied about the supermind and the supramental transformation, then we would all be chasing a pipe dream which is destined to fail!

Fortunately for us, Heehs' "proof" that Sri Aurobindo lied about his supramental experiences rests on factual misrepresentation and deceptive quotations. What is more serious is that Heehs uses suggestion and innuendo to lead a first-time reader to the impression that Sri Aurobindo never even reached the supermind!

(Quick example: Julian Lines narrates by letter dated 15 October 2008:

"Another scholar who had not read Sri Aurobindo in depth was eager to know after reading Lives if he had attained the Supramental Consciousness before his passing. She became engaged not in history or biography, but his spiritual life in a positive way from reading this book."

The lady Julian has written about is no ordinary reader, but an established scholar with a trained mind. Her comment illustrates the perverse impression that The Lives creates for the first-time reader – doubt about whether Sri Aurobindo ever "attained" the supermind. In fact, Sri Aurobindo had already attained the supermind when he wrote about it well before 1920. There were further degrees and finer distinctions of grades that he subsequently mapped out in detail, all of which he fully attained and wrote about from his own experience. Do you think The Lives really helped Julian's scholar-friend to better understand Sri Aurobindo? Most certainly it did her a great disservice by creating the very opposite impression of what happened to Sri Aurobindo on a matter of utmost importance.)

Heehs' claim to present Sri Aurobindo to the "Western" and "scholarly" mind is untenable on account of his many factual distortions. Rather, the practical result of The Lives is to seriously harm Sri Aurobindo's reputation and put in question the spiritual foundations of the Ashram and Auroville.

Impersonation as "Founder" of Archives

The damage is further exaggerated because Heehs promotes his book on the falsely claimed authority of being "one of the founders" of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram's Archives, giving his distorted views the seal of the Ashram's authenticity.

In their promotional campaigns, Heehs and his supporters prominently claimed his authority as "founder" for nearly eight months. In January this year, soon after a case of impersonation was filed in Orissa courts, Heehs made an abrupt volte-face and publicly announced that he had never claimed to be "founder" and that the designation was affixed by "a writer at the publisher's publicity department, who based herself on a biographical sketch I [Heehs] had submitted". Heehs wants us to believe that he is not responsible for the false claim, even though the claim is taken from a bio-sketch that he has himself submitted. Even so, Heehs only reveals a half-truth. The other half of the truth is that CUP published this claim in the book's blurb and its publicity campaigns with Heehs' full knowledge and approval.

Heehs not only commits academic fraud in The Lives, but then he goes on to promote it by impersonation. His lie has been widely publicised to promote the book, to exaggerate its authority, and to seal with finality its conclusions; his lie misuses the public's goodwill and trust in the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in order to harm Sri Aurobindo himself. Heehs turns around and bites the very Person and Institution from whom he draws his claim to authority! If not for the cases in court, his lie would never have been exposed.

Academic Refutation

The simplest way out would have been for the Ashram Trust to publicly dissociate itself from the book and its conclusions. All the confusions and ongoing controversies would have been avoided had this been done early enough. But for internal reasons, the Ashram Trust did not make a public statement, although it privately expressed its "displeasure" and even disgust at the contents and conclusions of The Lives. Consequently the responsibility came upon devotees and disciples of Sri Aurobindo to expose its distortions so that they would not pass unchallenged into wider academia.

Several scholars and writers felt impelled to contribute, and going beyond the basic criticism of factual misrepresentation, each one wrote also of derived and related issues, developing a richly diverse discussion and criticism of The Lives. The scholars that I am associated with (including Alok Pandey, Ananda Reddy, R Y Deshpande, Raman Reddy, Ranganath Raghavan and Sachidananda Mohanty) have limited their criticism to the book and its contents in a dignified language, writing mostly within the framework of academic refutation in all their public statements which were circulated by emails and are now placed on a dedicated website. They also wrote freely of their feelings of hurt and anguish in personal or private correspondence, some of which was subsequently made public by Heehs' group and unfairly exploited for crude personal attacks on grounds of "sentimentality", "devotionalism" and "religiosity". None of us has ever criticised Heehs or his group on a personal level in dignified recognition of our human differences, and out of respect for those that we continue to view as co-travellers on the Way.

But in return, Heehs' supporters have retaliated not by academic response but with ad hominem personal attacks of ridicule and character assassination for all these months. Their latest circular dated 16^th April 2009 and their hate-filled website called "IYFundamentalism" is only their latest desperate move in a seven-month-long hate-campaign. While our writings have sought to academically expose factual distortions, their emails have been classic examples of well-orchestrated slander spanning multiple email groups and blogs, shouting down and insulting anybody who differs from them, threatening authors and deleting posts that expose Heehs' academic fraud. Their latest website claims to offer "annotated" copies of our early letters to the Ashram Trust. But their annotations are ad hominem, self-contradictory, factually incorrect, and sidetrack the discussion into irrelevant issues and personal abuse.

Instead, I invite you to visit our website www.TheLivesOfSriAurobindo.com which is dedicated to an academic critique of The Lives and is "committed to objective, academic, respectful and honest discussion". You will find that it focusses on real issues and exposes factual distortions in a clean atmosphere free of personal attacks and hate-mongering. The site is still under development as we add more critiques and expose more distortions with factual refutations every week.

Freedom of Speech

Heehs' group (and IYF in particular) have accused me of suppressing freedom of speech, censorship, etc. From all of the above, you will appreciate that I have never questioned the right to free speech, opinion or interpretation. Even as Heehs has the right to publish his views, we also have the right to expose his distortions – all in a civil, objective and academic exchange. But, freedom of speech does not mean license to commit academic fraud. Even if we stretch our standards of tolerance and offer Heehs the "right" to commit fraud, he remains publicly accountable for his fraud and his impersonation, and must face the natural consequences of his actions. In this case the demand for accountability is that much more grave because the fraud has put the entire communities of the Ashram and Auroville at risk.

Recall that when the BBC had broadcast a program alleging paedophilia by Aurovillians, we did not keep quiet in the name of "freedom of press". We went ahead and made all attempts to compel them to withdraw the program on grounds of factual inaccuracy. Consider how much more serious the situation would have been if the program was promoted as being authored by "one of the founders" of Auroville and researched by the Working Committee! Would we have tolerated such fraudulence? Would we have allowed the impersonator to continue in the Committee or even within Auroville? This hypothetical example should give you some idea of the seriousness of Heehs' fraud and the anguished reaction within the Ashram community. There was a spontaneous and widespread surge of disgust and even anger at Heehs for having betrayed the entire community's trust simply to win a few dubious personal accolades.

Track Record

The reaction was all the more firm because this is not the first time that Heehs has committed such a fraud. Heehs has a track record of academic fraud and deliberate misrepresentation of Sri Aurobindo going back at least 30 years, which is well-known to all within the Ashram community, although few people outside the community are aware of this background. Heehs himself has enjoyed his notoriety, and cultivated the image of a rebel and renegade by frequently making provocative and controversial statements both in public and in private. Twenty years ago he publicly branded Sri Aurobindo a "terrorist" in his published writings, and proudly declared to his critics that he was "here" to break the "myths", "idols" and "devotionalism" of the Ashram community.

Over three decades he has persisted in writing numerous articles doubting, questioning, and "debunking" Sri Aurobindo's written statements regarding his own life, by misrepresentation, fallacious logic, presumption, crude psychoanalysis, and presenting personal opinions and speculations as actual facts – the very same patterns of academic fraud that he now repeats and amplifies in The Lives.

(Quick example: In one such piece of "research" in 1984, Heehs lists six occasions when Sri Aurobindo consistently made the same statement in writing over a period of several years. Heehs then counters it with an opposite statement from a private diary note of a sadhak written from his memory of an oral interaction. Heehs then spends all of his "scholarly" creativity to try to "prove" how Sri Aurobindo's repeated assertions in writing must be wrong, and the single diary note of a secondary source relying on his memory of an oral interaction must be right! After a crude attempt to psycho-analyse Sri Aurobindo, Heehs offers us his "authoritative" conclusion: Sri Aurobindo either lied in order to "conceal" something or he suddenly "forgot" the facts about his own life. This piece of creative Freudian research was published by Heehs way back in 1984 in the Ashram's own Archives journal! Can you spot the many similarities between the article then and the distortions in The Lives now? Little has changed through the intervening 24 years. Incidentally when the discrepancy was shown to the sadhak, he simply stated that he had made a mistake and that "Sri Aurobindo's words were not recorded correctly"!)

Heehs also has a track record of impersonation going back at least 20 years. He has creatively impersonated himself variously as "Director" and "Curator" of the Ashram Archives, "Director of Historical Studies", etc, all of them printed and signed on the official letterhead of the Ashram. These were intended to gain personal privileges with various public and private institutions all over the world, and to misuse his fake authority to get his articles published more easily in their journals on the strength of the Ashram's reputation. Heehs' such actions have legal implications that have repeatedly put the Sri Aurobindo Ashram's public goodwill at risk.

Over three decades, there have been many controversies, debates and discussions within the Ashram community over Heehs' subversive tendencies and his abuse of the Ashram's goodwill and patience. Through all these years, Heehs was repeatedly scolded, rebuked and seriously warned by Jayantilal Parekh (the real and only founder of the Archives) as well as by the Ashram management.

You may ask why his misbehaviour was tolerated for so long. I can only offer this as proof of the patience, indulgence, compassion and forgiveness of the Ashram community which, until recently saw Heehs as merely a rebellious and ambitious personality struggling with his own inner problems, and let him be. But with The Lives, Heehs has made his most "comprehensive" and direct attack on Sri Aurobindo so far, and the 30 years' patience of the community has worn thin. It is obvious to all that Heehs has made no effort to change his ways; that he is indifferent to the sensitivities of his community; that he has little respect for the Mother and Sri Aurobindo around whom the Ashram life is organised; and that he intends to insult and harm.

For those of you unfamiliar with his 30-year track record, the sharp reaction in the Ashram community may have appeared extreme. But when you review now the situation in the light of Heehs' repeated excesses and the numerous warnings he was served over three decades, you will surely appreciate the patience and tolerance of the community; and then it will become clear that the present (re)actions towards The Lives emerge from a much wider context than just this one book.

For those of you who have called for Heehs to be forgiven and reinstated at the Archives, we can only ask, "how many more times?" Earlier in March 2009, on suggestion of the Ashram management, an informal poll was conducted within the Archives to see how many wanted Heehs back. The "overwhelming majority", comprising both Westerners and Easterners, rejected his return and deemed his presence unnecessary for the work.

Larger Conspiracy

The situation gets still more serious when we consider the interests of the main promoters of The Lives. Heehs is promoted by Jeffrey Kripal who is none other than the author of the infamous Kali's Child, in which Kripal "proves", with years of meticulous "research", that Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa was a paedophile and homosexual having perverse relations with Swami Vivekananda and other disciples. When the book first came out, the Ramakrishna Mission treated it as an aberration and kept silent expecting it to fade away. Kripal's promoters arranged for the book to receive the "History of Religions Prize for the Best First Book of 1995" and overnight it spread into every college and university library in the USA. Subsequently right-wing religious groups backing him prevailed on these colleges to discard Ramakrishna's books to "protect" students from a "proven" "paedophile". Eventually, Kali's Child was listed as the only piece of recommended reading on Ramakrishna in Microsoft's Encarta encyclopaedia for years, and as recommended reading on Hinduism in general. The damage caused by that one book to the spiritual Master's reputation and teaching is unimaginable and will take decades more to undo. The Ramakrishna Mission has only now woken up to the seriousness of its impact and plans to issue a formal academic refutation some time during this year – fourteen years too late!

More recently Kripal has been assigned by Michael Murphy to study Sri Aurobindo's Record of Yoga under the overall umbrella of funding from Esalen. Michael Murphy's interest in Sri Aurobindo may be genuine, but he has seriously erred in choosing Kripal as his research-head for studying Sri Aurobindo, considering that Kripal is a Freudian reductionist whose only field of specialisation is "comparative erotics and ethics of mystical literature" and who proudly claims, "All of my books are about sexuality and spirituality".

There is evidence to show that Kripal is attempting to do to Sri Aurobindo what he did to Ramakrishna. To this end, Kripal has engaged Peter Heehs and Richard Hartz of the Ashram's Archives and is financing them to research specific themes centering on Sri Aurobindo's Record: Heehs has been asked to correlate experiences in the Record with those of other saints (for which he has already slanted many passages in The Lives), while Hartz has been asked to find correlations between the Record and Sri Aurobindo's other published works (in particular to show differences as this better serves Kripal's thesis). Both Heehs and Hartz have formally denied receiving finance for this work, when in fact Murphy has publicly declared it twice. You will find a brief expose of this nexus in my original note to the Ashram Trust on our website www.TheLivesOfSriAurobindo.com. That note only outlines Kripal's connection with Heehs. More detailed evidence is available and, if necessary, can be brought out in a more elaborate expose.

It is my opinion that Heehs and Hartz are being used by Kripal, and that, in his desperation for academic fame, Heehs may not fully realise his limited role as pawn in Kripal's larger game-plan. Kripal's alliance with Heehs and Hartz has already gained him access to unpublished raw materials from the Archives for his study, including certain unpublished passages from Sri Aurobindo's Record of Yoga. This alliance is presumably the most significant influence in Heehs' decision to give a Freudian twist to The Lives.

Heehs has been in touch with Kripal since Kali's Child was published 14 years ago and has been working very closely with him for the last few years. The two have been exchanging notes in close coordination both for Kripal's latest work on Esalen and for Heehs' work on The Lives. Many passages in The Lives reveal the distinctive influence of Kripal's language and his pet ideas. On Kripal's request, Heehs revised and made corrections to an entire chapter of Kripal's book on Esalen, all of which Kripal "accepted". Heehs considers that chapter to be "quite inoffensive" and a "good summary of some aspects of Sri Aurobindo's teachings". And yet, that very chapter declares that Sri Aurobindo's "doctrine" of the supermind consists of "exaggerated public 'overbeliefs'" where "mythology has overtaken phenomenology" and that "the descent of the Supermind appears to be a mythologization of the phenomenology of shakti-pata … whereby a palpable occult (and often erotic) force is felt to 'descend' into the devotee's body…". I cite this text to show you that Heehs' association with Kripal is not innocent, and that Heehs shares in many of Kripal's perverse beliefs, including his rejection of the supermind. This nexus of interests and beliefs explains why Heehs needed to "prove" that Sri Aurobindo lied about the supermind; most of his other distortions also align perfectly well with Kripal's thesis.

Kripal's thesis centres on the idea that Ramakrishna taught differently from what he himself practiced, and that his "secret" practices were all sexual and tantrik in nature. Kripal views Sri Aurobindo similarly as a "right-handed tantrik". There are numerous passages in The Lives which appear strange, unnecessary or even digressive to the informed reader as they serve no purpose in the narration of Sri Aurobindo's biography. When seen in the context of Kripal's thesis, they suddenly acquire immense value. From this point of view, The Lives appears designed to serve as a first-level database of raw material and references upon which Kripal and others will subsequently construct further layers of "studies" to justify their insidious theories. Layering of such research is a normal process in academia, and is used by groups such as Kripal's to strengthen their ground when attempting to discredit established spiritual figures.

This is a serious issue with dangerous long-term consequences for the Ashram and Auroville. Unfortunately, for lack of space, I am able to offer here only an outline of how The Lives relates to Kripal's larger designs on Sri Aurobindo. This issue is quite independent of the issues of academic fraud and impersonation, although it complements them by revealing some of Heehs' motivations to compromise facts. But all three issues are factually independent of each other.

Legal Issues

There is a fourth serious issue: that of Heehs' violation of international copyright and intellectual property laws in publishing The Lives. This also, like the earlier issues, is found to be deliberate.

Columbia University Press (CUP) has strict requirements regarding copyright permissions which Heehs has violated. Heehs has illegally published numerous passages from personal diary notes of Ashram sadhaks to which he had exclusive and free access at the Ashram Archives, and which are absolutely not intended for publication. With this single action Heehs has violated a) international copyright laws, b) CUP's copyright regulations, and c) the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust's copyright permission. By this triple breach, Heehs legally pits CUP against the Ashram without himself taking direct blame, because he has already handed over copyright ownership of The Lives to CUP which is now placed in direct violation of the Ashram's copyright permission!

Heehs is also in violation of international intellectual property rights (IPR) conventions. The entire body of the Ashram's research database developed by many researchers over decades has been utilised without permission of the Ashram which is the legal owner of this intellectual property. Worse still, Heehs has claimed personal ownership of this entire research database. Practically, this amounts to theft of the Ashram's intellectual property. As an equivalent example consider what happens if a software engineer sells the entire research database of his employer as his own work for personal profit and for personal academic accolades. That such theft has taken place from the Ashram Archives and relates to the life of Sri Aurobindo, does not in any way diminish its gravity.

In 2003, the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust put out a circular refraining all those working at the Archives from publishing any internal documents without specific written permission of the Trust. With The Lives Heehs has violated this circular in letter and spirit on multiple counts. In consequence, the Ashram management issued a new circular in October 2008 with even more stringent regulations for the Archives staff and formed a special committee to review internal security issues; but the damage is already done.

IYF's Charges

With the above background covering four major issues compromising The Lives, we can quickly go through the main charges that Heehs' group and IYF authors have raised against me and my colleagues.

Court cases: Neither Alok nor I have the competence or the resources to handle court cases. Contrary to IYF's claims, neither of us is responsible for them, and neither do we have a say in their withdrawal. The IYF campaign to slander us as "initiators" of court cases is another attempt to misdirect attention from Heehs' multiple crimes of academic fraud, impersonation, copyright and IPR violations.

But if Heehs has broken international laws, should he not face the consequences of his actions? And, even if not now, the consequences will eventually catch up with him one way or another. Or are we to consider Heehs to be somehow above the law? On the other hand, if he has not committed any crimes at all (as IYF claims) then what does he have to fear, and why is IYF suddenly so desperate to have the cases withdrawn? Why not instead factually validate himself and prove that he has done no wrong – in academia as well as in court.

Having said that, I personally am open to support any effort to stop publication of The Lives in India and assist its withdrawal in the USA, primarily because of its academic fraud, and secondarily for the other three issues cited above. My main objective in such support would be to ensure that the factual misrepresentations about Sri Aurobindo should be publicly exposed, and should not pass unchallenged in academia. I am also acutely aware that with the publications of The Lives, the damage to Sri Aurobindo's reputation is already done (as with Kripal's book) and the false conclusions have already entered the public domain. Any efforts on our part can only minimise the harm but cannot undo it.

Scholarship of Heehs: Heehs exposes his intentional academic compromise in The Lives by his letter of October 2008:

"The charge that I have insulted Sri Aurobindo comes mainly from certain critical remarks I made about some of Sri Aurobindo's literary works, political life, etc. … I made these minor critical remarks to show my (academic) readers that I (as author of the book, not as a human being, a sadhak etc.) was not devoid of critical balance. This concession permitted me to praise Sri Aurobindo's later poetry and philosophy at great length."

Through a roundabout play of words, Heehs accepts that his critical remarks were not warranted, but that he needed to abuse Sri Aurobindo in order to improve his own "academic" credentials. Crudely stated, he raises his own stature in academia by abusing Sri Aurobindo! Even more shocking: Heehs wants us to believe that by abusing Sri Aurobindo extensively on all aspects of his life and work he somehow earns the right to praise him on some limited parts of his life. What a perversion of academic standards!

It is the content of one's work that makes for a scholar, and not the number of publications he can produce. In view of his track record of academic fraud, impersonation, copyright violations and intellectual property violations, Heehs has forsaken the right to claim himself either a scholar or a historian. Heehs is a fine writer with an engaging and sometimes entertaining style. He would surely have made a good writer of fiction. In my opinion, The Lives had the potential to serve as an interesting biography with a different approach, but Heehs' many distortions and compromises have wasted that opportunity and gifted us instead with a serious problem. I share with you here the most perceptive review of The Lives that I have come across, and which is highly rated on Amazon:

"Touted as an academic biography, this book fails on both expectations: academic and biographical.
It does not stand as a faithful biography because it misses the very things that made Sri Aurobindo a giant of our age. It disregards some of the most important incidents and achievements of Sri Aurobindo's life, and instead overwhelms the reader with irrelevant and peripheral historical information.
The book fares even worse on its claim to scholarship. The author's declared bias to discount anything that exceeds material and sensory data leaves us with the hollow shell of Sri Aurobindo's outermost form. The inner and real Person is forcefully and sometimes crudely discarded leaving the reader with a bitter aftertaste.
All in all, a boring read. The only purpose the book might serve is as a limited database of historical references to Sri Aurobindo's life.
[Bhaskar11] [Review logged 18/10/2008 14:50]"

Religious fundamentalism: My colleagues and I have only criticised the deliberate distortion of facts and quotations in The Lives with factual evidence to support our criticism. There is neither religion here nor fundamentalism. We have invited dialogue and debate in a spirit of academic discussion. In return we have only received ad hominem abuse and insult from Heehs' group, IYF, SCIY, and through every possible internet forums that Heehs' abusive friends have got on to.

The choice of SCIY as their main platform to promote and defend Heehs is revealing. Consider that SCIY ridicules Sri Aurobindo's vision of physical transformation as "naïve" and "post-romantic" and therefore obsolete using exactly the same misleading arguments as Heehs in The Lives in an article written by none other than Rich Carlson, signatory of the IYF circular! Not one among Heehs' group on SCIY – including Debashish Banerjee, Richard Hartz or Ulrich Mohrhoff – has refuted those charges or exposed their deception (in fact Debashish Banerjee praises it highly!), implying their full acceptance and participation in such ridicule of Sri Aurobindo through factual and logical misrepresentation. It is therefore not surprising that these very people are now desperate to defend Heehs' academic fraud and will go to any extent of indecency and more lies to
protect their own compromise.

The newly created IYF front has taken their earlier campaigns of character assassination to new lows by raising the bogey of "religious fundamentalism" – globally the popular flavour of the season. Ask yourself who is muzzling academic debate by targeting people and ignoring real issues and refusing debate. Ask yourself why at all they need to resort to personal attacks when they could easily have offered academic responses and settled the issues factually. The harsh reality is that they are unable to justify Heehs' academic fraud, and hence in desperation can only attack us personally and spread outrageous rumours to divert public attention away from their fraud.

In the early phase of the controversy, last year, Heehs informed the Ashram Trust by letter dated 13 October 2008 that he had "heard" "reports" that "Vijay Poddar all but threatened to take over the Ashram if you do not do his will, perhaps using a Bajrang Dal type of organisation and methods." He further demanded that the Ashram management should support the "rule of law prevailing in India". Although he began with such hysterical and bizarre allegations, his group's latest charge is no less fanciful: IYF's threat of "religious fundamentalism in the Integral Yoga community" is only part of their continuing strategy to promote fear and hysteria by outright fabrication in order to gather sympathy for Heehs, and to cover up his indefensible fraud through creative diversions.

IYF claims to want to save the IY community from fundamentalism. Step back for a moment and reconsider who the real fundamentalists are!

"Conflict" with Ashram Management: IYF wants you to believe that I am in some kind of conflict with the Ashram management, but that Heehs has its full support. They deceive you with more lies and get away with it by concealing the enormous amount of documented criticism against Heehs which was in circulation most of last year.

Here are the facts through selected extracts (with my highlights) of statements of the Ashram Trust board-members and other respected and senior Ashram inmates:

• Manoj Das Gupta, Managing Trustee of Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust (SAAT), by letter dated 5^th October 2008 writes: "[Heehs] was so obsessed with the antihagiography idea that in order to prove his credentials to be an "objective" (does such a thing really exist!) biographer, he has at several places crossed all limits of simple decency!"
  
• Dilip Datta, Trustee, SAAT (overseeing legal affairs), by letter dated 11^th November 2008 writes: "…we had talked to the author [Heehs] and informed him about our displeasure regarding certain aspects of the book and had taken adequately the necessary disciplinary steps…"
  
• Dilip Mehtani, Trustee, SAAT, in January 2009 declared: If you abuse me for one hour and then praise me for two hours, that does not change the fact of the abuse. The quotations in circulation are factually incorrect, and they are damaging to Sri Aurobindo.
  
• Matriprasad, Head of SAAT's legal cell, and Trustee of Udyog Trust of SAAT, twice approached Heehs on instructions from the SAAT at first requesting him to "withdraw from the Archives" and later, on 13^th October 2008, to "withdraw from the Ashram".
  
• Manoj Das, former Trustee, SAAT, and Sahitya Academy Award winner, in October 2008. After reading the entire book he identified 60 of the most offensive passages which he read out to the Ashram Trust Board, recommending that the Ashram dissociate publicly from the book and take all steps to withdraw the book.
  
• Manoj Das Gupta, Managing Trustee, representing the entire SAAT Board, informs several departments of the Ashram by an internal circular dated 7^th October 2008:
  

  "Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust does not approve and has nothing to do with the book entitled "The Lives of Sri Aurobindo" written by Mr Peter Heehs, and Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust is not in any way responsible for the contents or the interpretations of the material contained therein.
  "No inmate of the Ashram having access to any privileged material in relation to the work assigned to him/her by the Ashram, should make use of that material for any other work whatsoever except for the one assigned to him/her by the Ashram."
  

  Note that the second paragraph relates to Heehs' theft of intellectual property.
  

• Pranab Kumar Bhattacharya, Director of Physical Education, by public notice dated 10^th October 2008: "Peter Heehs has brought Sri Aurobindo down to a very low level … The distribution and sale of this book must be stopped." Subsequently Heehs was expelled from the PED on 30^th October 2008.
  
• Vijay Poddar, Board Member of Sri Aurobindo Society, in a letter to the SAAT Board dated 30^th September 2008:
  

  "I asked myself a very simple question: 'Would I be happy to offer this book to the Mother, would the Mother be happy to receive it, with all that has been written in it about Sri Aurobindo and Her?' My personal answer was a very emphatic No. In fact, after reading some of the things which are written, being only human, my personal reaction was of sadness, of great pain and hurt, even disgust and anger….
  "The only solution, I believe, is for the Ashram to openly and publicly dissociate itself from the book, to declare that it does not convey the right picture, that no permission had been sought for and given for printing many of the privileged documents, including the personal diaries of the sadhaks, that there are several errors of facts, presentations and interpretations. Once such a bold decision is taken, with full conviction, then with a combined effort we have to block completely the printing of the Indian edition and explore what can be done to stop the distribution of the American edition.…
  "Another point to be noted is that this is not something which has happened all of a sudden and for the first time. If we look at the history of the last twenty years, there have been enough indications and warnings which were given. But as no actions were taken, each time the things got worse leading to the most unhappy situation in which we find ourselves now."
  

• Huta (well-known to all of you) in a letter to SAAT dated 15^th September 2008: "I request you all to stop Peter's publications and ask him to leave the Ashram before he does more harm to the Ashram and its reputation."
  

Do you find any differences between my stand and that of the Ashram management and its senior members? Does Heehs really have their support? Ask yourself why IYF is promoting ideas of an imagined conflict between me and the Ashram management. The answer will surprise you. Some time in early December 2008, an anonymous online petition appeared on the Internet attacking the Ashram Trust. The petition was subsequently taken down by activism from the Ashram school's alumni. The IYF group ran a nefarious campaign of rumour and innuendo to convince the SAAT that I had initiated the petition in order to harm the Ashram. By the time I came to know of their campaign in late January 2009 the damage was done and they had successfully sown seeds of doubt within the Trust against me. Ultimately their attempt failed when I showed the Trust an email that I had circulated in December 2008 criticising and warning against that very same online petition within days of its appearance.

I have described this incident in detail to show you how the IYF group has made, and continues to make, deliberate attempts to engineer conflicts and divisions between me and the Ashram Trust. Their latest circular to Auroville and the USA Centres targeting Alok Pandey and I is similarly intended to create divisions and misunderstandings within the community of devotees, a) by dividing the Ashram from Auroville, b) by dividing Westerners from Indians, and c) by dividing the USA Centres from each other, all this by deliberately mis-stating our position and misrepresenting our actions.

Heehs' Shifting Grounds of Defence: Heehs' group (SCIY/IYF/others) has sought to defend him on shifting grounds. Over the last six months their defence of the book has drifted through the following paraphrased positions (with my parenthetical annotations of each):

• Position 1: Heehs is a "nice guy"; he could not have done any wrong; so any criticism of his book must be wrong. (This position barely held for a week.)
  
• Position 2: The quotations being circulated are out of context. There is nothing wrong with the book when they are read in context.
  (After reading within the context as offered by Heehs, most people remained unconvinced. R Y Deshpande, the most senior contributor of SCIY was threatened and forced out for not falling in line with the SCIY "fundamentalist" view. All his blogs were deleted. Many other contributors of SCIY left. Critical comments were deleted from all blogs and only a sanitised pro-Heehs version survives today with no significant voice of opposition.)
  
• Position 3: To understand the actual context you have to read the entire book, any partial reading will still remain out of context.
  (A ridiculous claim because the context should normally be clear within a paragraph. Heehs himself did not feel the need to quote anything more than a line before or after to set the context. This strategy was adopted to promote the book's sales and to overwhelm new readers with a mass of facts in which the offensive passages were diluted and submerged. Some fell for it. But most people returned with more criticism after reading the full book.)
  
• Position 4: The book represents a "viewpoint" and an "interpretation" aimed at the "Western mind" and is not meant to be read by "devotees" in general or by Indians in particular. If someone cannot understand or appreciate it, he should not read it.
  (A rather arrogant position to take. Not surprisingly it was hastily abandoned as damaging to Heehs' public relations.)
  
• Position 5: The problem is that readers from India do not understand nuances of English, and literary devices such as irony.
  (A climb-down from the earlier arrogance, but still a very colonial viewpoint.)
  
• Position 6: The problem is of differences between the "Western mind" and the "Indian heart", between the "intellectual" approach of the West and the "sentimentality" of the Indian people.
  (Still a colonially biased view. Many were carried away by this theory of the East-West divide. But as I have shown earlier in this note, the divide is not cultural but one of a difference in awareness of facts regarding Sri Aurobindo's life.)
  
• Position 7: The book had to be critical of Sri Aurobindo in order to be acceptable to Western academia.
  (Do Western academic standards accept factual distortions? Do they need to pervert Sri Aurobindo in order to find him more easily acceptable?)
  
• Position 8: Heehs needs to criticise some points in order to gain the right to praise other points. It is a technique of "strategic concession".
  (Does scholarship require bargaining as in a business deal? Cannot positive facts stand on their own without needing equal or greater negative criticism? Does the criticism have to be factually incorrect?)
  
• Position 9: Heehs uses the strategy of purvapaksha and uttarapaksha (argument and counter-argument) which Sri Aurobindo himself uses in The Life Divine.
  ("Argument and counter-argument" applies to philosophical positions which are debated by logic. It does not apply when countering one opinion with another opinion as Heehs does through most of the book.)
  
• Position 10: Heehs will prove that he has done no wrong and will win all the court cases.
  (This lasted barely a week. When Heehs' group studied the accusations, they found them undefendable and quickly dropped this claim. They then focussed almost entirely on ad hominem attacks and character assassination.)
  
• Position 11: Courts are a bastion of falsehood. No one should go to court against another co-disciple. The cases must be withdrawn. Heehs' reputation has been tarnished.
  (Rather, should not the book be withdrawn for its falsehood? Has not Heehs tarnished Sri Aurobindo's reputation in the first place? And what about Heehs' earlier demand that the Ashram should support the "rule of law prevailing in India"?)
  
• Position 12: The problem is one of a "cultural misunderstanding".
  (Vague enough to mean anything.)
  
• Position 13: The problem is one of "fundamentalism in the Integral Yoga community. This can only be countered by preventing Alok Pandey and Sraddhalu Ranade from stepping onto American soil which remains the last bastion of "freedom of speech, religious tolerance, democracy and pluralism" and the "Free World". They should not be allowed to speak at the AUM Conference. Their visas should be cancelled, and all American Centre should boycott them.
  (This is where we stand now. Can you spot how they are promoting censorship and division in the name of freedom and by appealing to nationalist sentiments!)
  

While Heehs' defence has shifted through over a dozen different positions, all along our stand has been consistent: factual distortion to abuse Sri Aurobindo is unacceptable. I personally could go so far as to say that Heehs is free to abuse Sri Aurobindo if he does find a genuine and factually verifiable cause for such abuse. But we cannot stand by passively and watch him falsify facts and quotations in order to misrepresent and defame Sri Aurobindo.

Summary and Conclusions

The Lives misrepresents Sri Aurobindo, his life and his teaching by factual distortions amounting to academic fraud. Had it been published by some unknown writer, we might have ignored it entirely. But it has been widely promoted by impersonation as representing the authority of the "founder" of the Ashram's Archives. Heehs' alliance with Jeffrey Kripal is dangerous and has already influenced The Lives in a harmful way. The Lives has violated copyright agreements both with CUP and with the Ashram Trust, and its publication involves theft of the Ashram's intellectual property.

IYF authors and the Heehs-group in general have concocted false charges against us by deliberately misrepresenting our position and then criticising it. They have not yet offered any academic refutation of our factual criticism of Heehs' academic fraud, and have instead shifted through more than a dozen untenable excuses to cover up his fraudulence. Their campaign of character assassination is unfortunate and is intended to sideline discussion from the real issues. They have sown seeds of division in the IY community by false charges and have orchestrated hate campaigns for nearly eight months. They claim support of the Ashram management but are in fact in direct conflict with the Ashram Trust's position on The Lives.

If not for IYF/SCIY's ad hominem campaigns of character assassination, there would have been no divisions, conflicts or confusions, and right now all of us would have been discussing the factual errors in the book in a clean academic framework.

We have nothing personal against Heehs. He is free to pursue his own career interests with any kind of compromises that he chooses to make (although he can never evade public accountability for them). But in the light of his 30-year track record of consistent factual abuse of Sri Aurobindo, we would all be relieved if he turned his sights to some other area of interest. Until then, it is our responsibility to expose factual distortion in the spirit of academic refutation.

You are invited to visit our growing website www.TheLivesOfSriAurobindo.com for more information, for more examples of distortions in The Lives, and for academic discussion and debate.

Having read this note I hope you will better appreciate our perspective regarding The Lives. There is much that will be new and possibly shocking to you from the revelations here. You may wish to re-read the entire text to better assimilate the full range of facts and the complexity of the situation. May I also request you to forward this email to all those who would have earlier received the IYF mail (from you or from others) to help set the record straight in their mind also, and to help reunite the Integral Yoga community.

As mentioned earlier, I will be happy to clarify any of the statements above and offer further factual elaboration as necessary.

Thank you for your time.

Sraddhalu Ranade

(May 1^st, 2009)

P.S. For your reference, I have attached below the full text of the IYF circular.

****************** Text of IYF circular – Page 1 ****************

>> Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2009 08:33:55 -0700
>> To: centers @aurobindo.org
>> From: dbhutchinson @ucdavis.edu
>> CC: rcarlson @olypen.com; debbanerji @yahoo.com
>> Subject: [Centers] Integral Yoga Fundamentalism - new website
>>
>> Dear Centers --
>>
>> Because Sraddhalu Ranade and Alok Pandey have been invited to the US for
>> the AUM conference this year, we wish to place certain facts about them
>> before those who may be considering support or sponsorship of these people
>> or their projects. These facts concern their involvement in what we regard
>> as promotion of religious fundamentalism, censorship, distortion of truth,
>> and defiance of Ashram rules and authority carried out by Ranade and Pandey
>> recently, so that you may assess any possible support for them.
>>
>> To make people aware of the misleading activities of Ranade, Pandey, and
>> others, and to increase awareness of an unfortunate growing trend among
>> some who claim to be followers of Sri Aurobindo, we have started a
>> website, http: //iyfundamentalism.info.
>>
>> In May 2008, Peter Heehs, a well-known historian and long-standing member
>> of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, published a detailed biography of Sri
>> Aurobindo, titled "The Lives of Sri Aurobindo" (Columbia University Press).
>> Heehs has written acclaimed scholarly books and articles on Sri Aurobindo,
>> India's freedom struggle, and other subjects, and has worked in the Ashram
>> Archives since its inception in 1973. "The Lives of Sri Aurobindo" has
>> been very well-received in the US both by academic readers and reviewers
>> and by followers of Sri Aurobindo. As a result, the message of Sri
>> Aurobindo, most urgently relevant to the world today is entering the
>> academic mainstream.
>>
>> Since September 2008, however, a few persons from India have begun a
>> full-fledged campaign against the book and its author, claiming that it
>> offends religious sentiments, and calling for the book to be withdrawn from
>> publication and all future editions to be banned. In addition they have
>> pressed for the author to be removed from his post at the Archives and
>> expelled from the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. They have succeeded so far in
>> dislodging Heehs from his irreplaceable work at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram
>> Archives (where he was one of the main editors of the Complete Works of Sri
>> Aurobindo); suspending publication of the Indian edition of the book; and
>> fostering widespread ill-will and hatred that has even resulted in
>> violence. The movement against the author has created an atmosphere of
>> spiritual intolerance that has cast a shadow on the Ashram, threatens to
>> polarize the Integral Yoga community, and distort the legacy of Sri
>> Aurobindo, who sought to establish harmony in the world.
>>
>> Ranade and Pandey have been among the main architects and leaders of this
>> continuing campaign to oust Heehs. Their activities have included the
>> sending of emails and letters to a large number of people, most of whom
>> have not read Heehs's work. These emails contain demonstrable distortions
>> of the original text, false insinuations against the author, and fabricated
>> conspiracy theories. Viewed more broadly, these emails and letters
>> represent a fundamentalist approach to the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo,

****************** Text of IYF circular – Page 2 ****************

>> which includes a campaign promoting censorship of the book. In the website
>> http: //iyfundamentalism.info, we present, among other content, the widely
>> circulated original letters by the leaders of the movement against the book
>> and its author, with explanatory annotations. You may read Ranade's charges
>> and Pandey's letters at this site by going to the Annotated Documents and
>> the Further Documents sections.
>>
>> Ranade in one of his first letters denouncing the book urged his audience
>> to work toward banning the book in India. There is good reason to believe
>> that Ranade is behind a Writ Petition submitted to the High Court of Orissa
>> in the name of Gitanjali Bhattacharya, the wife of Ranade's school
>> classmate and friend Jayant Bhattacharya. This writ is intended to block
>> the publication of Heehs's book in India. All substantive portions of this
>> Writ are taken bodily from an email written by Ranade in September 2008. It
>> is most likely that the rest of the Writ also is the work of Ranade.
>>
>> There have also been two criminal cases initiated against Heehs in
>> district courts in Orissa related to the banning of the book, intended
>> merely to impede the publication of its Indian version, and to harass its
>> author. The first one was deliberately launched in the remote and
>> conservative Keonjhar District, best known as the site of the brutal murder
>> of the Australian Graham Staines and his two young children by members of
>> the Bajrang Dal, a Hindu fundamentalist group, in 1999.
>>
>> Ironically, Ranade has been representing himself at large as a spokesperson
>> and champion of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, when in fact, he has long been in
>> conflict with the Ashram Trust and has challenged the Managing Trustee and
>> other administrators of the Ashram using unconscionable language. Ranade,
>> Pandey and their cohorts do not, in fact, have the support or sympathy of
>> the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust in the activities outlined above.
>>
>> In regard to Heehs biography, we three (who have each been devoted to Sri
>> Aurobindo's teaching for several decades), have not found any reasonable
>> support for the assertions made by Ranade and Pandey that the book insults
>> Sri Aurobindo, the Mother, or their legacy in any way.
>>
>> We sincerely feel that it is important for you to take the time to inform
>> yourself accurately regarding the activities of Ranade and Pandey. We
>> believe their actions should be a matter of grave concern to those who
>> care about the work of Sri Aurobindo, his ashram and civil and spiritual
>> society in general. We will continue to detail their activities and those
>> of their supporters at http: //iyfundamentalism.info, and in other public
>> forums, including but not limited to websites, journals, newsletters, books
>> and conferences. It is hoped that at least in the US, which stands for
>> freedom of speech and expression and for religious tolerance, democracy and
>> pluralism, such rampant obscurantism and dangerous attitudes will be met
>> with unambiguous discouragement.
>>
>> Sincerely,
>>
>> David Hutchinson (dbhutchinson @ucdavis.edu)
>> Debashish Banerji (debbanerji @yahoo.com)
>> Rich Carlson (rcarlson @olypen.com)ru

****************** End of IYF circular ****************

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