Sri Aurobindo was a Terrorist, says Peter Heehs – by Krish Patwardhan

Sri Aurobindo was a Terrorist, says Peter Heehs, in his book Nationalism, Terrorism, Communalism – Essays in Modern Indian History, published by Oxford University Press in 1998. The fourth impression of the book was published in 2011 and the present administration of Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Pondicherry, has been quietly sitting back enjoying the vilification of Sri Aurobindo by an American inmate of the Ashram. 

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Introducing "Being Different" by Rajiv Malhotra

[Being Different by Rajiv Malhotra (published by Harper Collins, 2011) is a must read not only for young Indians of modern India, especially those who are ashamed of being Hindus, but also for the followers and disciples of Sri Aurobindo, who have sometimes the misguided notion that Sri Aurobindo rejected Hinduism. The first effect the book has on you is that it makes you proud of being a Hindu, of Being Different from what the West wants you to be. One of the frequent accusations of Westerners on India is that it is a Chaos not only materially but also spiritually, and that there is no Order, which is so prominent in the West. Rajiv Malhotra brilliantly explains this point and analyses the nature and reason for this difference between Westerners and Indians. The Chaos, he says, is only apparent for people who look only for one Order whereas Indians have learnt to live with multiple orders from times immemorial, and have therefore acquired a far greater complexity of mind and attitude than Westerners. I reproduce below an excerpt from Being Different by Rajiv Malhotra. -- by Krish Patwardhan]

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Sri Aurobindo and Hegel (1) – Krish Patwardhan

Situating Sri Aurobindo – A Reader, edited by Peter Heehs and published by Oxford University Press in 2013, is one of those arid unreadable books, the heavy metaphysical content of which simply puts you off. The book is almost entirely a compilation of articles by professors in American Universities who evaluate, analyse, dissect, compare, and situate Sri Aurobindo within the framework of their disciplines. Though most of the essays are surprisingly favourable assessments of Sri Aurobindo, considering that they have been chosen by Peter Heehs, one still gets the impression (except in a few cases) that the professors are straying beyond their legitimate and natural boundaries. Understanding Sri Aurobindo certainly needs some spiritual empathy, and that comes from a little inward opening, even if it be only a drop of genuine spiritual experience. Otherwise one commits not only spiritual but intellectual errors such as some of these professors have made, despite the expertise in their own fields. I bring to the notice of our readers one such major misunderstanding by Professor Steve Odin of the University of Hawai’i, which should be set right before it spreads further in the academic world. I quote below his conclusion with regard to Sri Aurobindo and Hegel:

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Sri Aurobindo’s Accident in November 1938 ― by Krish Patwardhan

In the paragraph below from the Lives of Sri Aurobindo (pp. 381-82), Peter Heehs not only misrepresents Sri Aurobindo’s relation with the Mother but gets one of the most basic facts wrong in the life of Sri Aurobindo, namely, the fracture of his right leg in the early hours of 24 November, 1938. Heehs, disregarding the factual accounts of Nirodbaran and Champaklal (the two disciples who personally served Sri Aurobindo during his last twelve years), writes that it was “a fracture of the left thigh close to the knee”! I wonder how he got his facts so wrong despite all the hagiographic fanfare about his 40 years of research on Sri Aurobindo.

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The Book that Bombed -- by Krish Patwardhan

On reading the Lives, you get the impression of a monkey who plays to the audience by constantly jumping from one branch of learning to another without assimilating anything. The monkey often breaks some of the branches in a fit of rage, sometimes the very branch on which it was sitting a few minutes ago, and is so restless that it cannot settle anywhere on the tree!

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Is This History or Speculation? -- by Krish Patwardhan

But where are the solid facts and well-documented evidence? All that we come across is speculation after speculation, and one speculation pitted against another speculation in order to create problems! And if there are a few hard facts, Heehs is more keen on artificially creating problems than solving them. There is as it were a deliberate “problematising” of Sri Aurobindo’s life and a deliberate denial of the right perspective to create the impression of a so-called “balanced” view which caters more to the materialistic point of view than the spiritual, so that Sri Aurobindo is often presented as a bundle of opposites!
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On Sri Aurobindo’s Childhood, Anger and Riding Test—by Krish Patwardhan

Another unpardonable case of bad taste! I wonder whether those who support the book have at all understood this sentence: “Well, if you take the clothes away there remains little to distinguish one human radish from another.” It is a reference to the male sexual organ! And if this is passable, then I wonder what is not passable, and you might as well start writing for a porn magazine. [extract]

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Sri Aurobindo’s Horse Riding Test—by Krish Patwardhan

Where is the evidence of “the series of lies” Sri Aurobindo told when he was called to the office of the Civil Service Commission? Deliberately missing appointments or going late to them, not receiving letters and not promptly replying to them is more evasive tactics than telling lies (see Appendix 1), which any lawyer would be familiar with. [extract]

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The Writings of Sri Aurobindo: Comments Apropos of Extracts from the Lives of Sri Aurobindo—by Krish Patwardhan

The crux of the difficulty that Heehs faces is the age old antagonism between spirituality and materialism and his wanting to please both parties in order to promote his book. On the one hand, he is supposed to expound the larger spiritual point of view of Sri Aurobindo, which does not reject Matter but explains it in spiritual terms. On the other hand, he has to reflect the ignorance of the materialistic critic, who does not understand spirituality at all, for otherwise how could he expect the latter to take him seriously? This could have been done by first presenting the materialistic point of view and countering it with the larger spiritual truth, as Sri Aurobindo has done in the Life Divine. But Heehs does the reverse; he presents the spiritual truth and counters it with the materialistic view, so that he ends up downplaying Sri Aurobindo’s philosophy and criticising his works in a hostile manner for the sake of gaining sympathy from the materialist. [extract]

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