The substance of the two paragraphs from the Lives might at first seem quite acceptable, but, on a closer scrutiny, you find that Peter Heehs undermines the very foundations of Sri Aurobindo’s Integral Yoga by downplaying the importance of the psychic being. The underlying suggestion is that the psychic transformation can be dispensed with and replaced by a mental Yoga, which Sri Aurobindo himself had practised. It is further implied that he never taught the latter method to his disciples because they were not ready for it, and therefore the Mother had to guide them on the facile path of the psychic. Not only is this conclusion absurd, but it shows an ignorance of the very fundamentals of spirituality. [extract]
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20 Sept 2011
A Non-Psychic Integral Yoga! -- by Vishwas Patel
5 May 2011
Sri Aurobindo's Avatarhood -- by Vishwas Patel
The occasion for a rebuttal came up when Peter Heehs attempted to ridicule the private beliefs of the disciples of Sri Aurobindo and argued that he was not an Avatar because he had “never made any such claim on his own behalf”. It would have been absolutely fine, I repeat, had Peter Heehs said that he did not believe in the Avatarhood of Sri Aurobindo, because there was never any question of forcing upon others such a sacred and personal conviction. It is only when he had a nasty dig at the faith of the concerned disciples in what he claimed to be the “first objective biography on Sri Aurobindo” (while still pretending to be a disciple of the same Guru), that a reply became necessary. It is this duplicity that had to be exposed in public. For it is understood that as far as institutional propriety is concerned you are either outside an institution or inside it. You cannot be both in and out, that is, enjoy the privileges of an insider and at the same time have the unrestricted freedom to criticise the founder of the institution that an outsider generally has. (Extract)
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