PH is a good case study for a psychoanalyst. I am reminded of a psychopath. When he was shown a square and asked what did it remind him of? He said, “sex.” He said the same for a circle, a triangle, a hexagon and the picture of a goat. When the doctor was perplexed by his single word answer, he asked the patient if the latter was a maniac. The patient was annoyed. He barked back, “What else you expect me to say when you show me such lewd images?” (extract)
Dr Anand Kumar's Letter to the Trustees
Dear Sirs,
I, on my first visit to Sri Aurobindo Ashram in early nineties, was impressed by a rule on the notice board which read, “If you do not have anything good to say about a fellow Ashramite, the least you could do is to keep silent. That would be a service to the divine.” Please pardon me, I do not recollect the exact words.
Criticism is the autobiography of a critic; Oscar Wilde wrote somewhere. Evolved beings, who experience Divine, write hagiography; the beings of night can muster their own darkness only. The writing reflects the inner nature, dispensation and consciousness of the writer. An event rewritten by Peter Hees out of the book of AB Purani, illustrates this difference. The original source creates a feeling of divinity and reverence, while the retelling of the same event by Peter Heehs gives a sense of degradation to the reader. In one, you experience the meaning of divine surrender, the other is mawkish. Great beings can only see greatness in others.
I felt shocked to see the excerpts from a book by an Ashramite, by implication a follower of The Mother and Sri Aurobindo. In navadha bhakti, hatred for the divine is also a means for salvation. But the hatred of Peter Heehs for The Mother and Sri Aurobindo, Aurobindo in his language, has no such thought in it. PH seems to be a split personality who is a devotee and an enemy at the same time. He could be many more things.
The carry home message from his recent book is as follows:
1. He questions the mystical experiences of Sri Aurobindo. “Perhaps they are only hallucinations or signs of psychotic breakdown? Even if not, do they have any value to anyone except the subject?”
He has quoted a few persons at several places to show that Sri Aurobindo had a tinge of lunacy. Even his spiritual vision of Krishna in jail, was rubbished by his associates in Uttarpara speech. What does PH want to communicate?
2. Sri Aurobindo, “was a coward and liar … by his own account.” How deviously PH misquotes Sri Aurobindo. The statement was obviously the mannerism of a self-effacing personality. PH further writes to prove his intent, “Aurobindo failed to pass his medical examination the first time on account of ‘something found wrong with his urinary organs’. … Aurobindo told a series of lies. … He was rejected because he did not pass the riding examination.”
He questions the truthfulness of Sri Aurobindo in a letter that he wrote to a disciple. I quote PH, “Years later Aurobindo observed in a letter that his advise was in effect, “the order that led to the breaking of the congress.” This gives too much importance to a single factor in a complex chain of events. .. Even without Aurobindo’s “order”, Tilak’s stance and the attack against him would have led to a free-for-all.”
PH suggests in his book that Sri Aurobindo had not much impact on India’s freedom struggle. This is in contravention to the address of Sri Aurobindo on the Independence of India. Has he not read India Wins freedom By Maulana Azad who writes that he was inspired by leaders like Sri Aurobindo, and the famous statement of CR Das in the court? Subhas Chandra Bose too admitted that he drew inspiration from Sri Aurobindo. Tagore wrote an inspired poem on him. Many other revolutionaries in later days were influenced by him.
He insinuates that Sri Aurobindo was for Hindu communalism, and that he did not do enough for Hindu Muslim unity. He says, “Still, partition and the bloodletting that accompanied it were the movement’s principal failings, and Aurobindo and his colleagues have to take their share of the blame.” I really wonder!
At a place PH clubs Sri Aurobindo with Extremist.
3. Sri Aurobindo married for “The usual desire for gratification…” PH implies that Sri Aurobindo’s knowledge of ordinary maithuna ananda was experiential. Sri Aurobindo has somewhere, I do not exactly remember where, has said that he lived as a brahmachari in his wedlock.
PH creates distorted scenes on the basis of his own imagination quoting Nolini Kant, AB Purani and Romain Rolland. He suggests that Sri Aurobindo was willing to marry Mirra, had she wanted that. He holds that Sri Aurobindo’s interest in Mirra was responsible for the break-up of her marriage with Paul Richard.
I have mentioned above the difference between the visions of a hagiographer and a pornographer.
Paul Richard’s statement to Romain could hardly be accepted as sufficient proof to justify PH’s conclusions. Was Paul more truthful than the Mother and Sri Aurobindo? Granted his suggestion, what evidence has he produced regarding PR’s truthfulness? Are subjective and emotional statements of piddlings sufficient proof for an objective researcher? What the men of eminence and character and the personal attendants of the Masters say, holds no water for PH. That is not objective. Gullible will be misguided by PH’s book. They may believe him to be truly objective. That is my fear.
Regarding academic vs nonacademic approach, research etc, I must say that even hard and experimental sciences are gripped with the problem of bias and confounding influences. Theories keep changing with newer paradigms. Research Methods in Psychology and Consciousness are on worse footing. Therefore till the time their Research Methodology is refined and defined and freed of individual bias, we must not attempt to demolish faith and phenomenon which surpass human comprehension, lest we destroy a great movement in our pettiness and ignorance.
At another place PH calls The Mother in a very ordinary sense a “partner” of Sri Aurobindo.
PH comments on the Viziers of Bassora, “In the imaginary world of his dramas, his protagonist was never without a partner.” It is not difficult to understand his insinuation.
Let us remember that Sri Aurobindo was the first to call Mirra, The Mother. She fended Him as Her own Child. Sri Aurobindo described in his letters, that sometimes his meditation was to become a baby in the lap of The Mother.
PH is a good case study for a psychoanalyst. I am reminded of a psychopath. When he was shown a square and asked what did it remind him of? He said, “sex.” He said the same for a circle, a triangle, a hexagon and the picture of a goat. When the doctor was perplexed by his single word answer, he asked the patient if the latter was a maniac. The patient was annoyed. He barked back, “What else you expect me to say when you show me such lewd images?”
4. PH ridicules Sri Aurobindo through out. Sri Aurobindo was an ugly man (PH found that in his photographs), lusting after girls in youth (comments on Song to Myrtilla), was looking for a life partner (Sri Aurobindo was psychoanalysed on the basis of his translation of Vasavadatta) a less than mediocre poet (PH quotes one Ranjee Shahani in TLS) and a sort of philosopher whom members of philosophical profession “would loath to admit him to their club.”
His description of The Defence of Indian Culture by Sri Aurobindo as “a polemic from start to finish” is hurting.
5. He calls pranams and darshans as “theatrical” and compares the commonplace godmen of India with Them in his objectivity. He ridicules Indian customs as did his predecessor, William Archer.
Is it for the Ashramites to compare their Master and objectively evaluate Sri Aurobindo and the Mothers in the light of the statements of a few unsympathetic outsiders? What signal will it send to the outsiders? It will only give them a wrong feeling that the things here are murky from the beginning to end. The message that this Ashram was started by psychopaths who claimed mystical experiences, will diminish the respect for the Ashram and Ashramites in public eye. History, psychology, philosophy, spirituality are the subjects which are read and understood by lay people with the ease of a specialist.
PH has only studied the Appearance and not the Reality. Despite his claim of objectivity, he has no method at hand. Therefore his study of appearances could prove to be a damaging influence on serious academicians, it may permanently bias them. It is only an attempt to pull down and humanise suprahuman lives. It is easy to describe one’s surface life and misinterpret it. That was why Sri Aurobindo had warned about the attempts to write his biography. He lived beyond appearances.
I feel that the people working in the Archives should sign a legal bond for a million dollars to the effect that they will never publish a book on their name or any other name. They will do the job as selfless sadhana. Only those with such purity and dedication should be allowed in the portals of the Archives.
PH in his ambition to win some award had earlier belittled the role of Sri Aurobindo in India’s freedom struggle. He won that award. I fear still worse from him. Why did he not publish his work in India? Because he leads a double life: one, as a sadhak of integral yoga to gain access to materials in the Archives, and the other as an ambitious worldly man to earn fame and money.
The book has demolished the divine persona of The Mother and Sri Aurobindo, and all what they stood for.
I am certain that PH has written his book with full preparation to bid farewell to the Ashram and gather fame and money outside. He should be allowed that.
Sirs, kindly consult all the senior sadhaks who have abundant goodwill and remain in touch with The Mother and Sri Aurobindo about this matter.
Sirs, The Mother and Sri Aurobindo have handed over their own Ashram to your hands. They have reposed their full trust in your wisdom. Has either of them allowed such things to be printed about the other by an Ashramite? Mother herself used to recommend the deletion of lines and passages from the publications which could be mocked by the men of lower mentality.
Sirs, you have fought tooth and nail to preserve the dignity of the Ashram and its members on TV channels. I consider you the trustees of our Gurus, and the guardians of their legacy. I have full faith that your action will reflect Their action.
Yours at the Lotus feet of The Mother and Sri Aurobindo,
Anand Kumar MD
Professor and Head
Department of Reproductive Biology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences
New Delhi 11002
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