I give a brief history of the Extracts for the benefit of the reader who is not familiar with the circumstances in which they were compiled.

The Lives of Sri Aurobindo by Peter Heehs was published by the Columbia University Press in New York in April 2008. A couple of months later, a few copies of the book turned up at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, of which Peter Heehs is a long standing inmate. Heehs, who works as an editor at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Archives and Research Library, had taken many years to write this biography. But the book could hardly be said to have been written in the spirit of a disciple and inmate of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, which is a spiritual institution and not a debating centre where you can question its very founder. A murmur of protest arose when a review of the book was published in Auroville Today in August 2008. Soon there was a demand and curiosity to know what exactly was objectionable in the book. There was the practical question of whether the book could be put up for sale in the Ashram’s official bookshop and the more serious consideration of taking administrative action against the author. It was under these circumstances that the Extracts were compiled, so that the reader at once knew the worst that Heehs had written. The compiler never intended them to be representative extracts of the book in order to get a brief introduction to it.

The Extracts caught on and before long most of the Ashramites were seething with anger, for, all said and done, they were Heehs’s own words, and he had dared to denigrate Sri Aurobindo in his own Ashram. Had he written the same book as an outsider and not as a member of the Ashram, nobody would have cared for it. But Heehs had written in his position as a senior editor and researcher of the Ashram Archives, which is the repository of the most valuable documents written by Sri Aurobindo. Not only was there a lack of basic allegiance to the institution that had fed him for 37 years and facilitated his research in every way, but his cursory dismissals of Sri Aurobindo’s works and denigrating statements on him were detrimental to the very spiritual well-being of the Ashram. People began circulating the Extracts by making Xeroxes, sending emails and posting them on the Net, and soon the whole Sri Aurobindonian community was convulsed with waves of anger. Thenceforth the discussions that followed between Heehs’s critics and supporters often referred back to the Extracts, as still not many copies of the book were available.

Around this time a strange theory was put forward by Heehs’s supporters who said, “Yes, if you read only the Extracts, you get a bad impression of the book. But read the whole book, and you will not feel that the book is so bad. In fact, you will not only start appreciating it, but find it wonderful.” Heehs himself argued that the Extracts were decontextualised and provided a corrected version of them. He filled in the footnotes, phrases and sentences passed over in the Extracts and claimed that he had restored the original content to its full glory. The objectionable portions suddenly became unpalatable but true statements on Sri Aurobindo and his denigration came to be termed as the human side of the Avatar. Heehs’s unwarranted criticism became academic objectivity and Sri Aurobindo’s disciples had to be taught the superiority of his intellectual assessment over what they felt deeply in their hearts about the greatness of their Master. It is then that I felt it was necessary to write a Defence of the Extracts, extracts which have so well exposed the mischief behind Heehs’s biography. For mischief it is, and there is no point in saying that he insulted the Master only a few times, or arguing that there is plenty of good research in his book in order to spare him the severe reprobation he deserves.   more »

The way Sri Aurobindo had drafted his epic Savitri with utmost care and precision is what is to be first appreciated, and therefore to try to read with our mental faculty his “intentions” while editing it will only be foolhardy, imprudent, rash. If we think that there are defects in Savitri the wise thing to do is to leave them as they are. What is it that we can judge about it? Nothing, really nothing.

However, in the context of editorial revisions of Savitri the overall picture as emerges is that of conflicting viewpoints in certain cases. Either at times it hurts insensitively the sentiments of devotees or else brings frustration to genuine researchers of the poem who are not given the relevant details. It is necessary that we take due care of the complexities and the many possible dimensions that are present in the entire work. In this regard perhaps the best procedure for the editors of the Savitri-text could be to take the first complete version that appeared in two volumes in 1950-51 as the basic reference. Part One of the epic was published in September 1950, before Sri Aurobindo’s passing away in early December of that year, and Part II and Part III as the second volume within months of that day, in May 1951. To take care of the “slips and oversights” that might have occurred in this edition, extensive research notes and references can be provided in a supplementary archival document; these might include several readings as we have in different drafts. Presentation of data should be the main concern in any objective editing. It is well appreciated that carrying out such an exhaustive job can never be an easy archival task; but then, possibly that is the only kind of an undertaking which would do some justice to the poem as well as to the poet—if at all we can talk of justice. This entails an enormous amount of labour but the gain is a certain scientific documentation that can stand permanently as reference material for generations to come who may have another approach towards the epic. For an alert or perceptive reader of tomorrow this archival data will prove to be a help of immense value. When followed, it will also have the advantage of avoiding the charge of introducing in the edited text one’s own likings and dislikings, one’s natural subjective notions regarding matters poetic or spiritual or metaphysical. By presenting such “factual” details of research on the Savitri-drafts a new chapter of study can open out to enter into its spirit in another way. It is believed that this procedure will be in tune with the spirit in which the Savitri-chapter appears in Nirodbaran’s Twelve Years. But in the truest sense these are perhaps issues of a minor kind and generally might have relevance only in their academic contexts. What is significant is the authenticity as well as the validity of the Word of Savitri in its pristine glory and the power that can give expression to the Real-Idea in our life. That is the true value of its poetry and that will always remain faultless and free,—because behind it is the yogic force of its creator.   more »

We know that the national leaders did not think that Sri Aurobindo could advise them since he had left the field of active politics long before this incident. They may have imagined that a man who was immersed in his spiritual pursuits would not have understood the complexities of the issues at stake. Possibly they dismissed Doraiswamy’s visit and his verbal message as totally irrelevant to their work and this is why the whole incident has been lost from public memory…

Sri Aurobindo sends a telegram to Sir Stafford on 31st March: “I have heard your broadcast. As one who has been a nationalist leader and worker for India’s independence though now my activity is no longer in the political but in the spiritual field, I wish to express my appreciation of all you have done to bring about this offer. I welcome it as an opportunity given to India to determine for herself and organize in all liberty of choice her freedom and unity and take an effective place among the world’s free nations. I hope that it will be accepted and the right use made of it putting aside all discords and divisions. I hope too that a friendly relation between Britain and India replacing past struggles will be a step towards a greater world union in which as a free nation her spiritual force will contribute to build for mankind a better and happier life. In this light I offer my public adhesion in case it can be of any help in your work.”

Sir Stafford the very next day, 1 April 1942, sends a telegram to Sri Aurobindo: “I am most touched and gratified by your kind message allowing me to inform India that you who occupy unique position in imagination of Indian youth are convinced that declaration of His Majesty’s government substantially confers that freedom for which Indian nationalism has so long struggled.”…   more »

...The Mother’s main work was to bring down the supramental consciousness in the material world, so that the physical transformation of the body could take place.

She did it. Now it is this supramental consciousness which will go on acting supramentally; it will bring about the transformative change. That is the absolute certainty of the expected result. That is the significance of the Mother’s passing away, justifying also the significance of Sri Aurobindo’s passing away. For the work of transformation he had to go, and it was she who had to do it. The Mother’s failure would have implied the failure of Sri Aurobindo’s move. That would have meant their failure. They would have come and done all in vain.

If we have to mark a few important stages in the process of physical transformation, we could briefly put these as follows: Sri Aurobindo’s descent into death, 1950; supramental manifestation in the earth’s subtle physical, 1956; realisation of the surhomme (overman) consciousness, 1958; consent for collaboration from the material Nature, 1958; the descent of the surhomme (overman) consciousness in 1969; the psychic being itself getting materialized, 1970; supramental body, 1972. It is the psychic being which will materialize itself and become the supramental being, she told on 1 July 1970. It is precisely the psychic being which survives death; so, if it materializes itself, it means the abolition of death. That is the central importance of the psychic being. Whatever is not in accordance with the Truth that disappears. Materialisation of the psychic being gives continuity to evolution. In the material world immortality thus means the materialization of the psychic being. The New Body makes it possible. Perhaps that is the process. Now it is the New Body which will do whatever is to be done. It is not an inert lump of matter, but is charged with luminous dynamism of the Truth-Force itself. It is going to exert pressure upon the physical in the evolutionary process...   more »

“This is a temple not a place of cheap thrills. This is where Saraswati resides. Not a street corner where you whistle as a beautiful lady passes. Please pay our rich culture the respect it deserves.” This is Zakir Hussain—exhorting cat-whistlers in the auditorium. It is an aspect of refined culture to preserve the sacred spaces wherever these be, including of course the psychological spaces, preserve not in a fundamentalist but in a refined and noble sense. ~ RYD   more »

Record of Yoga has a few entries about the past lives or associations of some of the early companions of Sri Aurobindo. It may be noted that The Lives of Sri Aurobindo which vouches so much about the Record is altogether silent regarding these entries and such matters. While it is difficult for us to get into the spirit of Sri Aurobindo’s occult knowledge of things and events, it is also perhaps necessary to get some idea in relation to it, notwithstanding the objections of the rationalist academic scholars. The Mother has spoken a propos of these aspects here and there, but a completer presentation will be rewarding in several respects. ~ RYD   more »

Pakistan Customs’ seizure on Friday of two Buddha statues bound for China once again brings to light the recurring issue of historical artefacts’ smuggling out of the country. The statues were reportedly booked from Islamabad and intercepted, mercifully, at the international mail office in Karachi on a tip-off. Though the museum authorities have yet to authenticate the items as genuine antiques, it can be safely argued that for every illegal shipment of historical relics thus stopped, there will be many that make it to their destinations abroad. Gandhara antiquities of the 2nd century BC to 6th century AD and those of the pre-historic Indus Valley, in particular, form the mainstay of this illicit trade. With every one piece of national heritage smuggled out, the country is poorer. Yet, there is little visible effort made to safeguard historical treasures, whether they are housed in museums or left exposed to the elements at excavation sites across the land. Why this neglect of a heritage that is the envy of the whole wide world is the question...   more »

Many an Aurobindonian has reacted sharply to the controversial biography of Sri Aurobindo titled The Lives of Sri Aurobindo penned by Peter Heehs where he has denounced the fact that Sri Aurobindo was an Avatar. His own belief has led him to this conclusion and therefore he has completely ignored what the Mother has said about Sri Aurobindo in her numerous messages. It is true that Sri Aurobindo never declared himself as an Avatar but if one goes through the features of an Avatar, he would easily recognize Sri Aurobindo as the Avatar who had come to carry forward the process of evolution. But Peter Heehs chose to follow his own instincts, convictions and intuition; he preferred to give his own explanation for, after all, he is the self-proclaimed authority on Sri Aurobindo, the Mother and the Integral Yoga. His own words “…because I…know a lot more about him [Sri Aurobindo]…” reflect his true self. Through his book, Peter Heehs has tried to nullify the greatness of Sri Aurobindo…   more »

Peter Heehs’s Lives of Sri Aurobindo is a recent arrival in the thriving genre of biographies and professes itself to be founded on researched material. It essentially treats the subject as a human person, one in our nature, and not really as an exceptional yogi or a spiritual stalwart, and in the least as an incarnate. The book has been recently published by the Columbia University Press and appears to be rough on the sentiments of the devotees of the Mother and the Master. The author claims himself to be a meticulous professional historian and wants to present the life, howsoever remarkable it be, strictly as it should emerge from the documentary material. The approach is, holds the author, firmly rational and is grounded in the principles of research, eschewing goody-goody emotionalism of the hagiographic presentations of such themes. This may have certain merit, free of easy shallowness, but there are things also that lie far beyond the reach of such scientification of occult and spiritual matters. In fact, it should be axiomatically understood that it is not possible for reason to grasp the issues connected with them, although to some extent it could open to its own deeper intuition; this is perfectly true, for the obvious reason that “things occult and spiritual are never on the surface for men to see them”, for reason with its limitations to enter into them. On the other hand, with a degree of spiritual experience and realization, there is a chance of presenting them to the rational mind as well. This spiritual experience and realization should come first before one attempts to speak about those who live in the richness of the spirit, in its multi-dimensionality and in its multi-glowing wisdom and widenes. If this basic fact is not recognized, then the work will fail to carry in it the substance or essential conviction of the higher principles. Not only that; such a work could be at once dismissed as an inchoate or garbled attempt, dismissed without any further consideration—because of the wrong premises with which it begins...   more »

Great stories make sure you read them both. They are surprisingly informative and very interesting—as if there is something occult in them.   more »

Gauri told me that she was born Judy Ann Pinto on 16 November 1937 to Mona and Laurence (Udar) Pinto. They had just had their first darshan of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo a few months earlier. The Mother had requested that the baby should be born in the hospital in Bangalore where Udar’s aunt was a doctor, as there were no good hospitals in Pondicherry at that time. After six weeks in Bangalore, she was brought home to Pondicherry, but was fragile and prone to sickness. There was much concern over the new baby’s health, as she was not taking her food properly and was underweight. She did not sleep well during the night and kept her parents awake and concerned. Doctors were consulted and Udar and Mona entered into correspondence with the Mother regarding the matter. Gauri Pinto is a teacher in the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education.   more »

Peter Heehs has a crisp and racy style; he comes straight to the essential points and there is a masterful weaving of historical data which hitherto has never been done in a biography of Sri Aurobindo. But that is about all that can be appreciated in this book, for he sets the ball rolling in the wrong direction right from the Preface. The reader is soon stunned at the innate hostility behind his clever presentation, or rather, misrepresentation of facts…

But here is a letter from Sri Aurobindo’s written to Dilip Kumar Roy in 1930: “What matters in a spiritual man's life is not what he did or what he was outside to the view of the men of his time (that is what historicity or biography comes to, does it not?) but what he was and did within; it is only that that gives any value to his outer life at all. It is the inner life that gives to the outer any power it may have and the inner life of a spiritual man is something vast and full and, at least in the great figures, so crowded and teeming with significant things that no biographer or historian could ever hope to seize it all or tell it. I see that you have persisted in giving a biography—is it really necessary or useful? The attempt is bound to be a failure, because neither you nor anyone else knows anything at all of my life; it has not been on the surface for men to see.”    more »

This was during the World War II when the Japanese bombing had penetrated deep into India. There were mandatory stipulations to see that all windows are closed and no light streaked out on the streets. Nirodbaran reports the following:

One day, putting a dark shade over Sri Aurobindo's table lamp, the Mother said with a smile, "Your lamp lights up three streets, Lord." "So I should be darkened?" he asked smiling. In truth, I do not think that any Japanese aeroplane flew over Pondicherry. I was very much amused at the sight of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo taking this human precaution against any possible threat.   more »

…It is not at all unnatural that the anger brought back peace and harmony; for this anger was a form of loyalty to the Divine and that put you in touch with your psychic consciousness again. Sri Ramakrishna was quite right about anger. The hostile powers are proof against gentleness and sweetness and non-resistance and soul-force, but a current of righteous anger often sends them flying…    more »

The end of March and the beginning of April 1942 are memorable for one of the very few interventions of Sri Aurobindo in India's public affairs. World War II was in full swing and Japan had joined hands with Hitler and posed a threat to Burma and even India, both of which were then under British rule. There was considerable discontent in India and a great reluctance to join the war effort of the British Commonwealth. India could not see much difference between German Nazism and British Imperialism. Most people forgot that the latter was the gradually fading remnant of an old turn of the human political mind, which had once played a necessary role in history but had lost its raison d'etre in the modern age of national freedom, whereas the former with its dogmas of master race and absolute dictator and merciless regimentation was a current contrary to the drive of human evolution with its many-sided variation both individual and collective.

Churchill was England's Prime Minister at the time. He had been known as a die-hard Imperialist. All of a sudden he appeared to have felt that in the war he was conducting against Hitler the cause of civilisation was at stake and that to serve it at all costs was more important than to preserve the sanctity of the British Empire. He wanted India to give up her distrust of the British and throw in her lot whole-heartedly with Britain's own valiant effort to fight the barbarism that was on the march from Germany under the emblem of the Swastika. He gave ear to the advice of liberal thought in England which was in favour of conceding greater freedom to India that had been agitating for independence, especially since the days when Sri Aurobindo had become for a few years the leader of the Nationalist Movement. The well-known liberal thinker, Sir Stafford Cripps, was prominent as a spokesman of this advice. Churchill chose him to carry to India certain proposals meant to meet her basic demands and induce her to join the united front of Britain and her allies against Hitler and his associates. In connection with what came to be known as the Cripps Proposals it may be interesting to put together all the documents relating to Sri Aurobindo's intervention.

***
Apropos of the rejection of Cripps’s Proposals, we have an account in Nirodbaran’s Twelve Years with Sri Aurobindo; he draws our attention to a report about the Mother's stand on the Cripps-question. Her ardent request to India was that she should not reject it. She must not make the same mistake that France had done recently and that had plunged her into the abyss. But the Proposals were rejected. “Now calamity will befall India,” she said. Subsequent events proved so.

***
In spite of such an unequivocal and clear advice from Sri Aurobindo, and his action pertaining to it, he kind of seeing an imperative in it, we have the following statement from the author of The Lives of Sri Aurobindo: “Such judgments after the fact have to be taken with a grain of salt; but the possibilities that might have opened if the Cripps proposal had been accepted are among the great unanswered questions of modern Indian history.” But this itself is an act of judgement, and quite frankly not very flattering to Sri Aurobindo; it does little justice to his concerted efforts to have the Cripps’s offer accepted. For a historical study having the benefit of Aurobindonian vision it comes as a surprise that the “ifs” and “buts” of the Proposals should remain great unanswered questions of modern Indian history. But that itself an act of judgement, and quite frankly not very flattering to Sri Aurobindo; it does little justice to his concerted efforts to have the Cripps’s offer accepted. More critically, how are we to square the assertion that such judgements “have to be taken with a grain of salt” in the wake of the Mother’s stating unequivocally that “there would have been no division” had the proposal been accepted? Historical presentation from the inner Aurobindonian circle has yet scope to put all these in the right historical perspective. Let us hope that one of these days this will happen—unless one says that it is the credulous who believes in what the Mother had said; that would be the end of the course of the perceptive thought itself. …   more »

Throughout centuries, the fortunes of China's ancient kingdoms rose and fell with monsoon cycles, a new study suggests.

The discovery is based on a nearly 2,000-year-old record of monsoon activity recently discovered in a cave.

Monsoon winds carry rain-laden clouds through China every summer, providing nearly 80 percent of the annual precipitation in some parts of the country.

When the winds are weak, little to no rain reaches large expanses of China, often plunging those areas into drought.

The new study "is a brilliant analysis of the problematic coincidence of abrupt climate changes and changes in political organization," said Harvey Weiss, an archaeologist at Yale University who was not involved in the study...   more »

September 1993, AVT 56: For me the September issue was a very special issue. Nirodbaran was the first speaker from the Ashram who spoke to us and it was the beginning of Auroville's opening up towards the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry. ~ Franz

On 14th August 1993 Nirodbaran, one of Sri Aurobindo's personal attendants for many years, gave a talk in Pitanga Hall in which he shared his memories of Sri Aurobindo.

Nirodbaran had formed a living bridge between the Ashram and Auroville which, it is felt,—and I am sure perceptive others will also share this view,—must be re-established as a collective effort for growth in the vision and ideals of the Mother and the Master...   more »

After fabrics named after places, methods, and materials used in the manufacture of cloth, it’s time to look at colour words that denote or refer to fabrics.

Purple is one of those colour words the root of which can be traced to a type of cloth. Beige, for example, originally was not the name for a pale shade of brown, but the French name for a type of woollen fabric usually left un-dyed. Nor was scarlet, a type of high-quality cloth that may have been made first in Persia, and could have been blue or green, though it was commonly dyed red. Purple has a fascinating lexical history. The semantic changes this colour word went through were neither amelioration (words losing their original sense for a milder sense) nor pejoration (words developing a sense of disapproval), yet it reached English by a circuitous route…    more »

Of late, the view that Sri Aurobindo has to be presented either intellectually or with faith and devotion, historically or hagiographically, is fast catching up among the admirers and devotees of Sri Aurobindo. The idea behind is that faith is per se anti-intellectual and intellectuality necessarily anti-faith. The extrapolation of this stupid view into the realm of nationalities will one day land us into deep trouble, for one can politicise this view to drive a wedge into the nascent world unity that is taking shape here in the Ashram and Auroville and, hopefully, in other spiritual centres across the world. The conclusion that could be drawn is that, Indians are generally good for yoga, which can hardly be done without faith, devotion and surrender, and Westerners are only good for intellectuality and practical work, which does not make them fit for yoga. Though this might be true in certain respects—nobody would deny that Westerners have a certain advantage of coming from an organised and mentally developed society or that the age-old spiritual civilisation of India enables Indians to take up Yoga as naturally as fish takes to water—but if you overstress these cultural inclinations, I wonder how further progress would be possible. We all have to rise beyond personal and national barriers, learn from each other, and not insist on each other’s deficiencies, and definitely not make matters worse by aggressively pitting Western intellectuality against Indian devotion. The personalities of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother are the best examples of a perfect blend of these two aspects and it is precisely because of this that they have touched the hearts as well as the minds of so many people all over the world…   more »

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 plentiful 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…

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.” 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? …   more »