Manoj
Das and Sraddhalu Ranade
Dear
Manoj-da (Das*),
Thank you
for your letter dated 28 June 2010. I have since come to know that your letter
is being widely circulated from Manoj Das Gupta’s office as representing his
views. Hence I am compelled to write this response to put in context certain
erroneous assumptions in your note. In what follows, your entire letter is
quoted in bold followed by my remarks. My reply is long because the issues you
have raised are complex and central to the Ashram’s future well-being. You have
been frank and so will I be.
[*Clarification
for those unfamiliar with these names: Manoj Das Gupta (MDG) is
the present Managing Trustee of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, while Manoj Das
is the scholar and journalist in answer to whom this letter is written. Manoj Das
was a Trustee of the Ashram from the period 1992 to 1994 when he resigned from
this post after differences with Pranab-da who was Director of Physical
Education of the Ashram.]
Dear Sraddhalu,
At first I wondered if your letter was
not meant for some other ‘Manoj’, for I expected you to address Shri Manoj Das
Gupta as Dear Manoj-da; not as Dear Manoj, for that goes so well with your
courteous nature. I must confess that your address unpleasantly surprised me at
first, but on reading the full letter I realised that it was in keeping with
the spirit and tone of your text which I found rather unfortunate.
Dear
Manoj-da (Das), you have written me a 4-page essay because you are upset that I
did not add two small letters (“da”) to Manoj Das Gupta’s name. Can you imagine
the pain and anguish that 400 pages of Peter Heehs’ abuse of Sri Aurobindo have
caused the entire Ashram community! Have you written at least a 1-page letter
to him? Your words would surely have made a difference, and still might.
You may
also recall that soon after your serious differences with Pranab-da in 1994,
you started referring to him simply as “Pranab” choosing to drop the “da” as an
expression of your loss of respect towards him.
As you can remember very well, my agony
on Peter’s book was no less than yours or anybody else’s and I went through the
entire book listing out more than ninety objectionable observations or factual
lapses.
Yes, I
remember how disturbed you were in September/October 2008. As a former Trustee
you exercised your privilege with the Ashram Trust by calling for a special
meeting in which Manoj Das Gupta, Dilip Dutta, Matriprasad and Vijay Poddar
were present (as best as I recall), wherein you read out to them the numerous
passages that you described as “highly objectionable”, “factually wrong” and
“harmful to the Ashram”. You explained to them why it was necessary to urgently
and publicly dissociate the Ashram from the book and take immediate steps to
withdraw the book. After the meeting Dilip Dutta exclaimed to people at the
Dispensary, “Every page of the book has poison in it!” Based on their reactions
and promises, you came back from this meeting convinced that the Ashram Trust
would take immediate action.
Subsequently
a special meeting of the Trust Board was called one afternoon. MDG informed the
Board that he would not be party to the decision-making process but would
accept whatever the Board decided, and then left. After a brief discussion, the
entire Board unanimously resolved to a) publicly dissociate from the book, b)
take immediate steps to stop the book, and c) expel Peter Heehs (PH) from the
Ashram. Dilip Dutta came back to the Dispensary and gave this news to all
present. By evening the news had spread like wildfire and the entire Ashram
community was relieved that after two months of pain and pleading, at last the
Trustees had exercised their conscience. Next morning when Manoj Das Gupta
(MDG) heard of the Board’s decision from an Ashramite he shouted in anger, “I
will not accept this decision!” He rushed over to Dilip Dutta and prevailed
upon the entire Trust Board to withdraw its unanimous decision. News of this
was a most painful shock to the entire Ashram community, plunging it in
despair.
I remember
meeting you after this event. You were flabbergasted and flailed your hands in
helplessness and incomprehension. I suggested that you should write a
commentary exposing the numerous perverse passages of the book for the benefit
of the Ashram community and the public at large. Coming from a scholar such as
you, the write-up would have changed the course of subsequent events. But at
that time you refused saying, “I cannot take a public stand on this matter
anymore. I hope you understand.” I nodded, only partly understanding. I
understood that you had chosen to place your loyalty to MDG above all else. But
I could not understand how a scholar such as you could betray your loyalty to
Sri Aurobindo. After all, is not your scholarship His gift to you, and meant to
be fulfilled in His service?
I
requested you to give me the notes you had prepared, so that at least I could
share them with the public under your guidance. You declined to help, and would
not even give me your notes because they were in your handwriting. Finally
after much pleading you gave me limited time in which you hurriedly dictated
references to the first 30 objectionable passages, and then abruptly closed the
meeting saying you had no more time. We have since not met with regard to this
matter.
Manoj-da
(Das), your subsequent public silence on this issue has actually been
“dignified”. Unlike MDG who chose to take sides to support and protect PH in
his continuing misuse of the Ashram’s Trust and his abuse of Sri Aurobindo, you
genuinely kept out of all public pronouncements and actions, with the exception
of one article in Auroville Today in
which you mildly expressed your discomfort with certain trends in modern
writing. Your continuing silence on PH’s abuse of Sri Aurobindo is a matter
between you and Sri Aurobindo, and I am not concerned with it.
What does
surprise me though, is the inconsistency of your standards. Recall that in 1994
a young boy was not admitted by Pranab-da to membership of the PED (because of
rules framed by the Ashram Trust in the first place). You were so upset that you resigned from the Sri Aurobindo Ashram
Trust Board. This painfully contrasts with your present stand when for the
last two years Sri Aurobindo has been abused and wronged in a “highly
objectionable” manner “harmful to the Ashram” by your own admission, yet you
choose to maintain silence only because MDG finds it unacceptable to protect
Sri Aurobindo’s reputation!
Manoj-da
(Das), there need be no conflict of loyalties in this matter. If you only make
public your scholarly comments on these objectionable passages from the book
and do nothing else, you can serve Sri Aurobindo and still retain your personal
loyalty to MDG or other Trustees. Unless of course exposing PH’s “factual
lapses” involves conflict of interests with the present Trustees.
I surely wished at least the Indian
edition, if at all it comes out, to be a corrected version and if the foreign
publishers go for a reprint, it should be a corrected and revised edition.
Your
comment surprises me. Can “more that ninety” “highly objectionable” passages be
corrected with minor textual adjustments? The book presumes a divided
personality in its very structure and splits Sri Aurobindo’s life into five
unconnected personalities; it claims that Sri Aurobindo began his ascent
to the Supermind only after 1926 (when in fact he had reached it before 1914!);
its pervasive factual distortions build towards the final conclusion that Sri
Aurobindo never even reached the supermind. Can you disengage these errors from
the overall structure of the book without a major rewrite?
Moreover,
PH himself has refused to make any meaningful changes. In his letter to the
Ashram Trust dated 22 September 2008, he rebelliously declares, “it should be
understood that I have no intention to revise every passage” that is found
wrong. He is only prepared “to alter a half-dozen or more passages that seem to
have caused unnecessary offence”, but “the changed text will have to occupy
precisely the same amount of space as the original text”. He only commits to
minor cosmetic changes and refuses to set right the many “factual lapses” that
you have identified.
Your
suggestion of a “corrected and revised” edition is meaningless in the face of
PH’s non-cooperation and your own discovery of the magnitude of distortions in
the book.
There were ways of achieving this
without going public through large scale distribution of quotes from the book
through internet and distributed printouts, or going to the court thereby
inevitably attracting the press that was bound to pounce on the sensational
aspect of the case. Thus, ironically, those who took such steps became
(unwittingly?) the largest forum for spreading a virus against which they had
launched their mission.
Your
criticism of the legal intervention to stop the book is inconsistent with your
criticism of the contents of book. If you criticise the contents of the book
and want it revised, then you must necessarily support all efforts to stop
it first. Or did you expect that revisions would take place after
the Indian edition was released?
Your
blaming the Ashram community for negative publicity is in bad taste. Things
went public not because of our actions, but because first of all PH abused Sri
Aurobindo in public by publishing his book, and then actively instigated
controversy for quick publicity. But the second important reason for publicity
was the inexplicable silence of the Ashram Trust Board.
You will
remember how hard the Ashram community tried to convince the Trust Board to
take internal action precisely so that things do not go public!
You were a part of this effort in the early stages. Please tell us what efforts
we did not make to avoid public exposure. Yet, we all failed when MDG
went back on his word, hijacked the Trust Board and forced it to withdraw the
unanimous decision of its conscience. Worse still, he has since held the entire
Ashram community to ransom, imposing his personal interests on the conscience
of all of us. By these actions he compelled devotees from outside the Ashram to
intervene by the only means left to them: legal action.
With the
Indian edition of the book imminent, and only at the last minute when the Trust
Board refused to act, did devotees take legal steps to stop PH’s book barely
within two days of its public release in India. Even then these devotees
took great care to keep the Ashram Trust and the Press out of the picture and
out of the legal proceedings. All requests from the local and national media
were politely turned down.
Imagine
what would have happened if the Ashram inmates had sold their conscience and
gone along with MDG. Do you think the public at large would have remained
silent? The Ashram as an institution would have faced the wrath of all devotees
and admirers of Sri Aurobindo, not to mention the wrath of Kali and the Karma
and shame of having betrayed one’s own Guru. Devotees and well-wishers have
seen how hard the entire Ashram community tried to stop the book, and that is
why their anger is limited only to the Trustees who have knowingly betrayed Sri
Aurobindo.
Even in
subsequent legal actions by devotees, the public exposure was carefully restricted
by design. It was PH who instigated a public scandal by organising a
worldwide smear campaign on the Internet against all the critics of his book,
as his strategy to sell more copies and gain personal financial benefit. He
gave public interviews to national newspapers and magazines and paid for
articles to be planted in the local newspapers praising his “selfless service”
to the Ashram!
Manoj-da
(Das), do you really believe that PH wrote this book to introduce Sri Aurobindo
to academia in the West? His entire promotional trip in the
Even in
the face of their ad hominem attacks,
we kept our focus exclusively on the book, and that is why, in spite of PH’s
best efforts, the matter has still not hit national headlines. I hope that some
day you will be able to appreciate the dignity and maturity with which critics
of the book in the Ashram community and devotees outside have worked to expose
it and to stop it.
I deeply appreciated your advising
Manoj-da against expelling Peter.
In this
matter your appreciation is misplaced. In my first letter to the Ashram Trust I
exposed the sinister nexus between Peter Heehs (PH), Richard Hartz (RH) and
Jeffrey Kripal (JK) funded by Michael Murphy’s (MM) Esalen Institute for
studying Sri Aurobindo’s Record of Yoga.
I had explained how PH had structured the book’s publicity to identify it as a
product of the Ashram, and why it was necessary for the Ashram Trust to
urgently dissociate from the book. In September 2008, I wrote: “When those who
love Sri Aurobindo rise to respond, their attack will not be able to
distinguish between Peter and the Ashram [Community]. Other interested groups
will also step in to add confusion and extract their advantage.” In hindsight I
hope you will value these words more.
I had
listed five steps that the Trust must immediately take to protect the Ashram’s
interests. None of these involved PH. At the end of this I added, “To be
effective, these steps would involve disowning or discrediting Peter and
withdrawing his privileged access to documents at the Archives. In what form
and to what degree this needs to be done is not too important as long as something
concrete is done in congruence with the five steps above.” Since
then I have remained consistently in this view. I have never advised MDG
“against expelling PH” as you and he now claim. He misquoted my letter to claim
this lie in an abuse of simple literary ethics. You have objected to my missing
a “da” in his name; but will you object to his misquoting me which is
surely a much more serious offence? By not saying “da” I expressed the truth of
my present sentiments; by misquoting me, MDG turned a simple truth into a
dangerous falsehood.
We all are creatures of ignorance and we
are prone to commit blunders in different ways. The question is whether one is
open to realising one’s mistake and alter one’s attitude for the better. Peter
seems to have done that. No one can see the inner working of his mind.
Strange
that you should say this now. After reading the book, you were convinced that
PH had written it with deliberate intent to harm Sri Aurobindo’s reputation.
Why the posture of doubt now? I had dealt with the question of PH’s intention
in my first letter to the Trust precisely to protect against such false
platitudes as you now spout here. I had analysed four passages which proved
that the perversions in the book are not accidental or from ignorance. Let us
not fool ourselves: PH has deliberately distorted facts throughout the
book with intent to harm.
To see
inside PH’s mind you need only view his track record of the last forty years
during which he has openly declared his intentions. Some time in the early
1990s, soon after publishing his first book labelling Sri Aurobindo a
“terrorist”, he declared proudly that he had come here “to break all the false
icons of the Ashram”.
Your claim
that PH has realised his mistake and has altered his attitude “for the better”
is a lie. Having personally heard your decisively stated views in 2008, I
wonder what has caused you to reverse them now. Do you find any hint of regret
in PH’s rebellious stand in refusing any meaningful change in the book? Had PH
recognised his mistake, he would surely have taken some steps to undo
the damage he has caused. Instead he continues to refer to Sri Aurobindo as a
“terrorist”, continues to work with Jeffrey Kripal to pervert the Record of Yoga, continues even to claim
himself founder of the Ashram Archives misusing the Ashram’s credibility to
continue abuse of Sri Aurobindo—but now with the blessings and support of MDG
and the Ashram Trust Board.
If his regret is not genuine, the law of
Karma will take care of that.
Why not
then simply accept that the present mess is the Karmic result of our Trust
Board supporting PH’s abuse of Sri Aurobindo! Or is that too inconvenient a
truth to face?
And if you
trust the law of Karma to take care of everything, then may I ask why you
resigned in protest against Pranab-da? Could you “see the inner working of his
mind”? Did you not trust the law of Karma then? And why has the Trust Board
taken harsh action to issue a legal notice to Abala for having criticised MDG?
Should not MDG say of her too that “no one can see the working of her mind, and
the law of Karma will take care of things”? And why did MDG initiate subversive
action against critics of PH’s book? Does he not trust the law of Karma to deal
with them? Unless of course the principle of Karma works only to serve MDG’s
vested interests and steps in only when he needs to justify his selective
inaction with PH.
In any
case he is out of the Archives.
This is
another lie that MDG has used to deflect public pressure. MDG has maintained
from the beginning that PH is only “temporarily” out of the Archives and that
once things cool down, he will return. This is one of the few things that he
has been consistent about.
But how
does removal of PH from the Archives—temporary or permanent—change the reality
of the book out there and the continuing damage that it is causing in
global academia and to devotees even as we speak? The real problem starts
with the book, and if we are serious about solving the problem, we should withdraw
the book first. When devotees outside the Ashram had brought Columbia
University Press to the negotiating table and were on the verge of having the
book withdrawn, it was MDG who sent the memo (on behalf of the Ashram Trust!)
that gave them the legal basis to break off these negotiations. In other words
MDG and the Trust Board have now joined PH in misusing Sri Aurobindo Ashram’s
name to support abuse of Sri Aurobindo. What a shame!
But the chief purpose of my writing this
letter to you is different. I have trusted you as a young man who has gained
over the years a wide sense of perspective. I hope you will appreciate my
observations even if you do not accept them.
Do you really believe that the
reputation of Sri Aurobindo or even of the Ashram depended on a book? Peter was
tempted by an urge to take recourse to some uncanny novelty in his approach to
the biography and probably wished to be acknowledged as a so called academic,
but books have been written earlier with pure hostile motive and hardly anybody
bothers to remember them today as time rolled over them.
Manoj-da
(Das), I cannot believe that you are so naïve. All those earlier hostile books
were written by unknown writers with no credible authority. That is why the
Ashram community has never bothered itself with them. This book by PH alone in
the whole world comes from the claimed “founder of the Sri Aurobindo
Ashram Archives” and “editor of Sri Aurobindo’s Collected Works” who has
exclusive access to “rare primary sources” and “unpublished letters” from the
Ashram’s private and unpublished collection, and he alone was assisted by the
bulk of the Archives staff to write the most authoritative biography of Sri
Aurobindo! These claims make the book and its conclusions as good as an
official public statement from the Sri Aurobindo Ashram itself. Moreover,
the author is now morally, legally and financially supported by the Ashram
Trust Board which is working with him to bring out an “edited” Indian version
of the book which will be “published and sold through the Ashram outlets only”.
(All quote marks and claims are from the book in question and from PH’s
correspondence with the Ashram Trust in 2008.)
PH’s
perverse book is therefore the only “authoritative biography” of Sri Aurobindo
authorised and supported by the Ashram Trust, while all previous ones are now
discarded as mere “hagiographies”. Note well that the “hagiographies” have all
been published by the Ashram Trust for “sentimental”, “ritualistic” and
“devotional” Indians, whereas the “authoritative biography” is published by a
reputed publisher Columbia University Press for global academia. In case of
disputes regarding facts of Sri Aurobindo’s life, it is the “academic” biography
which will be held as final arbitrator. In this biography, the latest
“research” by PH with the most extensively documented conclusions has “proved”
that Sri Aurobindo never reached the Supermind and that he lied about his
supramental experiences… Oh, and by the way, his spirituality was the result of
an inherited schizophrenia and suppressed sexuality, etc. (For the record, the
above comments are sarcastic and should not be misquoted by MDG a year hence to
“prove” that I supported PH’s conclusions!)
Let us
remind ourselves that it is not Peter Heehs the taxi driver and high school
dropout who is declaring these great new discoveries; rather it is the single
most authoritative academic expert on Sri Aurobindo, none other than the
“founder” and “editor” of Sri Aurobindo Ashram Archives with full legal backing
of the Ashram Trust! Inmates of the Ashram such as you, who know of PH’s
perversions, may not give serious regard to the book. But academics in the
West, and eventually in
Manoj-da
(Das), nobody can stop you from choosing to turn a blind eye to the
glaring distinctions that this biography has over all other scurrilous ones.
But please do not expect the rest of us to be fooled by superficial
comparisons. Among all hostile biographies of Sri Aurobindo, this one alone
comes with the unique stamp of credibility of the Ashram itself—a feat
far surpassing Jeffrey Kripal’s similar deception at Ramakrishna Mission. If
not for this one fact, the Ashram community would not be concerned with it at
all.
Let us
also be clear of the distinction between Sri Aurobindo and his reputation.
Sri Aurobindo sits free and unassailable above all human stupidity. But his reputation is a formation of the
human mind and is inherently vulnerable to human treachery and factual
perversion. You will be shocked to know that on reading this biography most
Westerners actually believe that Paul Richard left because of romance between
the Mother and Sri Aurobindo. They have no way of knowing that the romantic
episode PH narrates (with quotations!) is entirely a figment of PH’s
imagination and in complete contradiction to Paul Richard’s own statements
which PH deliberately does not include in the book. Are we still to
believe that Sri Aurobindo’s reputation is intact in the minds of these
Western readers? The same readers now believe that Sri Aurobindo began his
ascent to the Supermind more than 10 years after he wrote of it, and
therefore his writings on the supermind are entirely theoretical with no
experiential basis or validation. Are we to believe that Sri Aurobindo’s Work
has been forwarded in the world by seeding such falsehoods in readers’ minds?
One Western reader summarises the book thus:
For me, it was a page-turner; it was better
than Harry Potter.… Sri Aurobindo … was throwing dice in
What a
Harry Potter-ly simplistic view of Sri Aurobindo’s life and yoga this Westerner
now has—and how wrong! Since Sri Aurobindo’s life is meant to inspire others by
example, we don’t have to feel bad about living an aimless life full of
problems from boredom, gambling and poverty because one day, by magic, suddenly
the supermind might dawn upon us, as it did on Sri Aurobindo! The Integral Yoga
and the supramental realisation are now reduced to a magical and chance event
unrelated to what we do or how we live our life. Of course, this Westerner
missed the crucial piece of fiction that PH teaches us, that Sri Aurobindo
married for lust yet mistakenly chose one too young and consequently had to
delay consummation, leaving him frustrated for life—a viewpoint that emerges
straight out of Jeffrey Kripal’s (JK) thesis that Sri Aurobindo’s spiritual
realisations were the outcome of sexual frustrations and the supermind itself
is only an “exaggeration” and “mythologisation” representing the “descent of an
erotic force”! (All quotes from JK’s chapter on Sri Aurobindo as corrected and
approved by PH.)
PH’s book
is deeply influenced by Jeffrey Kripal (JK) and is structured around his views
on Sri Aurobindo because JK has been funding PH and his colleague Richard Hartz
(RH) for years. The entire book was thoroughly checked and revised by JK (even
as PH checked and made suggestions for JK’s chapter on Sri Aurobindo in his
last book). Ask yourself why PH kept the contents of this book secret from all
his colleagues in the Archives (including RH), yet had it fully checked and
corrected by JK whose only field of specialisation is “comparative erotics
and ethics of mystical literature” (by his own admission), and who proudly
declares, “All of my books are about sexuality and spirituality.” This takes us
to the heart of PH’s motives in distorting Sri Aurobindo’s life and teaching to
give them a perverse sexual twist.
Worse
still, funded by JK, PH’s colleague Richard Hartz (RH) has already declared
that Sri Aurobindo’s own practice of the Integral Yoga was different from
what he taught. RH’s article presenting this perverse conclusion has
already been published in the Ashram’s official magazine Mother India with MDG’s support. This conclusion is also the
essence of JK’s first thesis regarding Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. One small step
remains to prove JK’s second thesis: that the critical but secret ingredient in
Sri Aurobindo’s practice was the element of tantric sexuality. This has already
been written about by JK, PH and RH, and is part of the internal documentation
of Esalen Institute but “not for public release as yet” as stated by Michael
Murphy. The biographical source-material to “prove” this thesis is inextricably
woven into PH’s perverse biography. (If you are interested, I would be
happy to present the extensive evidence that we have in all its gory details.)
The answer
to your question “does the reputation of Sri Aurobindo depend on a book?” is an
unequivocal “Yes”, especially when the book is written by the claimed founder
and editor of the Ashram’s Archives and therefore represents the Sri
Aurobindo Ashram’s official views.
To your
second question, the answer is obvious: if Sri Aurobindo’s reputation is
tarnished, the Ashram’s too will be, for the Ashram has no separate existence
from Him.
The actual
damage is far worse because this biography is intended to become reference
material in colleges and universities all over the world—again on the
strength of the Ashram’s name and support! Jeffrey Kripal had already arranged
for it to receive a literary award in the
With the
help of PH and RH of the Ashram’s Archives, JK and MM have already taken up Sri
Aurobindo’s Integral Yoga for revision and “improvement” with the introduction
of “tantric sexuality”. It is a matter of time before these growing perversions
are presented to Western academia as the future of the Integral Yoga with PH’s
book as the officially sanctioned source and reference material.
In the
long run, when you and I are long dead and gone, the common mass of humanity
might perhaps lose interest in Sri Aurobindo’s alleged romances. But for all
you know, in our next birth, we may grow up studying Sri Aurobindo’s life with
PH’s biography as our textbook! The first step towards this is already in
place. PH has recently been appointed Visiting Professor for Sri Aurobindo
Studies at
Surely you
realise how significant this single book is for all organised efforts to
pervert Sri Aurobindo’s life and teaching. The damage is already done
with the book’s release in 2008. We can only try to minimise it by a)
publicly dissociating the Ashram from the book, b) publicly exposing its
distortions, and c) ensuring its withdrawal. If the first of these steps had
been taken by the Ashram Trust Board right at the beginning, none of the
following controversy would have occurred. But when it refused to act, the Ashram
community and devotees were compelled to take the other two steps, but now
mired in the controversy that PH and his group instigated with the support of
Trust Board.
The Divine Genius of Sri Aurobindo is
going on conquering ever expanding grounds of recognition and reverence plainly
because of his revolutionary and epoch-making vision of human destiny and
Peter’s book, like so many other articles, essays, newspaper reports and
gossips will be nothing more than dead leaves scraping by or squirrels scratching
a rising Himalayan peak.
It is
passages like this that PH condescendingly dismisses as hagiographical! Do you
actually see this happening in some inner prophetic vision? Or are you merely
spouting platitudes to soothe your own guilty conscience?
Perhaps
your statement is true in some higher spiritual world. But the ground reality
of the material world today is quite the opposite. I can say from experience
(and will happily give you supporting evidence), that in much of the Western
academic world there is little or no
growth in appreciating Sri Aurobindo (a few anecdotal exceptions do not
count). On the contrary, modern Western thinkers are taking his ideas,
presenting them as their own with subtle twists, and then deprecating Sri
Aurobindo for being too “religious”, “devotional”, “out of date”, “irrelevant”,
“Hindu fundamentalist”, etc., precisely the criticisms that PH promotes with
detailed documentation in his biography. I have seen and heard shocking
things being said and done in the name of Sri Aurobindo or the Integral Yoga at
formal Sri Aurobindo Centres, originally abroad, and now even within
So far as the Ashram’s reputation is
concerned, it entirely depends on the community’s spiritual poise and not on
its agitated behaviour on any issue of this nature—even if it comes to
protecting God against infamy.
Is the
spiritual poise of the community different from its actions? If so, then surely
we are not practising the Integral Yoga, which seeks precisely to express in
life the truth of the Spirit. Are we once again to sit back in prayer while
the Somnath temple is desecrated? Recall Sri Aurobindo’s advice to Sahana-di on
this very problem. She narrates a situation exactly the same as ours today, and
I quote the text in full:
[Sahana-di:]
I was faced by the question: “If we find someone standing against a truth and
attacking it by using falsehood as his means, what in that case should be the
mental attitude of a sadhak? Should he, practicing his yogic equality, be
indifferent to it or lift his sword against the falsehood?” The question came
up because some person wrote a letter attacking the Mother and Sri Aurobindo.
We were much excited by it and hotly discussed what our attitude should be
towards such persons—should we at all keep any contact with them? I was in two
minds—perhaps there should not be so strong a feeling of hostility or contempt.
One of us asserted very forcefully that far from keeping any contact with such
persons, if even any kind of conciliation would
ever be possible. So I wrote to
Sri Aurobindo all about it in order to know his opinion. He wrote back to me
the following, fully supporting the sadhak’s view:
[Sri
Aurobindo:] “No doubt, hatred and cursing are not the proper attitude. It is
true also that to look upon all things and all people with a calm and clear
vision, to be uninvolved and impartial in one's judgments is a quite proper
yogic attitude. A condition of perfect samatā
can be established in which one sees all as equal, friends and enemies
included, and is not disturbed by what men do or by what happens. The question
is whether this is all that is demanded from us. If so, then the general
attitude will be of a neutral indifference to everything. But the Gita, which
strongly insists on a perfect and absolute samatā,
goes on to say, “Fight, destroy the adversary, conquer.” If there is no kind of
general action wanted, no loyalty to Truth as against Falsehood except for
one's personal sadhana, no will for the Truth to conquer, then the samatā of indifference will suffice. But here there is a work to be done,
a Truth to be established against which immense forces are arranged, invisible
forces which can use visible things and persons and actions for their
instruments. If one is among the disciples, the seekers of this Truth, one
has to take sides for the Truth, to stand against the forces that attack it
and seek to stifle it. Arjuna wanted not to stand for either side, to
refuse any action of hostility even against assailants; Sri Krishna, who
insisted so much on samatā, strongly
rebuked his attitude and insisted equally on his fighting the adversary. ‘Have samatā,’ he said, ‘and seeing clearly
the Truth, fight.’ Therefore to take
sides with the Truth and to refuse to concede anything to the Falsehood
that attacks, to be unflinchingly loyal and against the hostiles and the
attackers, is not inconsistent with equality. It is personal and egoistic
feeling that has to be thrown away; hatred and vital ill-will have to be
rejected. But loyalty and refusal to compromise with the assailants and the
hostiles or to dally with their ideas and demands and say, ‘After all, we can
compromise with what they ask from us’, or to accept them as companions and our
own people—these things have a great importance. If the attack were a physical
menace to the work and the leaders and doers of the work, one would see this at
once. But because the attack is of a
subtler kind, can a passive attitude be right? It is a spiritual battle inward
and outward; by neutrality and compromise or even passivity one may allow the
enemy forces to pass and crush down the Truth and its children. If you look
at it from this point, you will see that if the inner spiritual equality is
right, the active loyalty and firm
taking of sides is as right, and the two cannot be incompatible.
I have, of
course, treated it as a general question apart from all particular cases or
personal questions. It is a principle of action that has to be seen in its
right light and proportions.” [13 September 1936; highlights added]
On reading
Sri Aurobindo’s advice, one feels as if the question and His answer are
describing exactly the present situation we are in. After His clarification,
need we say more? (As an aside, MDG frequently quotes from dozens of letters of
Sri Aurobindo and the Mother—always out of context—to justify passivity and
inaction in the face of falsehood. Curiously, he never refers to this one.)
Let me add
another quotation from the Mother to complete this discussion on the need for
action. On 20th January 1964, She told Huta:
There are, of course, a number of
people who have good will, good purpose, good aspiration and the rest; but in
spite of all that they still live in falsehood because they have not the
strength to fight for the Truth. And if you let yourself go without
reacting with a constant vigilance you are bound to live in Falsehood because
this world is a world of Falsehood.” [The Mother, from Mother You Said So…, highlight added]
In
summary, the Ashram’s reputation depends not just on its spiritual poise as you
claim. It depends equally on the external expression of that poise in
the forms of “right” action, “taking sides with the Truth” and being
“unflinchingly loyal” to Sri Aurobindo. Each one of us must introspect
to see on which side of the Truth we stand —with Sri Aurobindo or with Peter
Heehs. We must then ask ourselves what right action—inner and outer—we
are taking in this matter.
If we make a little introspection, it
will be obvious that as a community we have ceased, at least temporarily, to
live any inner life. That alone explains this huge hullabaloo on a book, with
hardly anyone of the agitating multitude reading it, and their taking recourse
to actions that can never go with an institution that claims itself to be
spiritual.
Your views
are relevant only to an ascetic world-renouncing spirituality in which a silent
passivity is acceptable. They are contrary to Sri Aurobindo’s world-affirming
and life-transforming spirituality, as already explained by Sri Aurobindo in
his reply to Sahana-di.
But you
make another serious mistake: the inner life of the community is not measured
by how many people read the book. That would be the criteria to apply to an intellectual
community. A spiritual community should be assessed by its psychic and
spiritual development. In fact, it is because the community was inwardly
sensitive to the falsehood of the book that most people did not need
to read it cover to cover to recognise its perversions. Most sensitive people
could not even bear to read more than a few pages of the extracts in
circulation. One Aurovillian found himself vomiting when he read certain
extracts. By standards of psychic and spiritual sensitivity, our community
seems to have done quite well. Only the hardened and insensitive need to read
the whole book, and having read it all, can still not feel something
wrong.
Rather
than criticising the community for lacking inner life, why not first look at
the present Trustees that you so revere and see how they fare. As it turns out,
the majority of the present Trustees have not read Sri Aurobindo! Three out of
five are known to make crude jokes ridiculing spirituality and mocking sadhaks
for “trying to be too spiritual”. This in itself goes a long way in explaining
the ease with which they could guiltlessly suppress their conscience.
You also
refer to an “agitating multitude … taking recourse to actions that can never go
with an institution that claims itself to be spiritual”. Pray tell me what
action the Ashram community has taken so far that is incompatible with
spirituality? Is standing up for what is true an unspiritual act? Is writing a
letter to highlight a wrong and asking to set it right contrary to our ideals?
You seem deeply confused between Sri Aurobindo’s yoga and other ascetic and
world-renouncing teachings.
On the
contrary, many senior sadhaks here have found the Ashram community far too
passive and complacent to protect itself from the increasing dilutions and
cleverly formulated attacks on the Ashram and on Sri Aurobindo. Our excessive sattva has tended towards weakness,
cowardice and tamas from lack of
sufficient dynamic and expressive strength.
I am really shocked that some senior
Ashramites started showing signs that could be expected only of mobsters—promoting
signature campaigns, enrolling even innocent and unsuspecting visitors into it
bewildering them in the process, and sending letters of allegations—unverified
and mostly consisting of hearsay and utterly venomous rumours, to different
wings of the government.
By your
standards our respected Pranab-da is the first of the Ashram’s “mobsters”. But
since when do mobsters sign petitions? We have always been taught that
petitions were the most civil way for a group to express solidarity in its
views. Had the Ashramites taken to mobstering, the problem would have been
solved long ago! It is truly sad that the Trust Board views the common
Ashramite with such disdain. If Ashramites remain silent, they declare that
“only a minority” is affected so no action need be taken; if Ashramites sign a
collective petition, they are labelled “mobsters” and are not acknowledged.
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t—how convenient!
When the
Trustees continue to reject the anguished pleas of Ashram inmates, is it any
surprise that over time the community has become more assertive? Manoj-da
(Das), you have been at the grassroots of the communist movement in
The pity of pity is, lately some of them
inspired a certain sickly lady, I do not know whether she is a mental case or
one who is possessed, but who had proved her notoriety for using vulgar
language against anybody who incurred her displeasure or envy for reason that
were often inexplicable, to go on heaping abuses against Manoj-da and, as if
that was not enough, instigating her to report to the police that her life was
in danger!
You speak
with such deep contempt for this simple woman, yet you sympathise with
PH and are profoundly hurt when someone does not use a two-letter suffix for
MDG! I find it strange, but am not surprised. When you dare not “look into the
inner working” of Peter Heehs’ mind, how have you managed to look so deep into
Abala’s mind that you declare her a “mental case” or “possessed”?
You are so
disturbed by her “vulgar language” towards MDG that you are willing to justify
legal action against her. Yet you expect the Ashram community to remain silent
while PH showers abuses on Sri Aurobindo! You are free to place your loyalty to
MDG above your loyalty to Sri Aurobindo, but it is unfair to expect the entire
Ashram community to follow in your footsteps.
From what
little I have heard of Abala, she is only known to abuse those who criticise
Sri Aurobindo or work against the interests of His Ashram. If her frustration
is presently directed to MDG, it is only for this reason. Have you ever felt
the pain of hearing one’s Guru abused and defiled in public and being tied down
and unable to defend Him? Many in the Ashram have wept before the Lord in anguish
and helplessness. Some day, if you ever know what that feels like, you may
understand why this simple woman that you so disdain is closer to Sri Aurobindo
than some of the proud “intellectuals” who merely pontificate their love for
the Guru but abandon Him at the first call of self-interest.
I also
wonder why MDG found it necessary to send Abala a legal notice and then remove
her from the work appointed by the Mother as his “disciplinary action”, when a
simple dialogue across the table would have resolved any misunderstanding.
Unless of course the Trust finds it acceptable that PH should abuse Sri
Aurobindo, but Abala should not abuse MDG.
I wish someone could make this
self-righteous host of signature-campaigners, letter-writers and elements
behind the aforesaid weird lady understand that they are the destroyers of the
Ashram’s reputation—a thing they
imagined endangered and for which they profess their concern.
It seems
to me that your priorities have got inverted somewhere along the way: when Sri
Aurobindo is abused you pretend as if nothing significant has happened, but
when people rise to stop the abuse, you blame them for soiling Sri Aurobindo’s
reputation! In your worldview, Pranab-da is a mobster for signing a petition to
protect Sri Aurobindo’s honour, and Abala is weird, sickly, mad and possessed
for feeling pain when Sri Aurobindo is abused. In my worldview, the sick person
is the one who abuses Sri Aurobindo, promotes His abuse, or withdraws into
silence when his Guru is abused. Methinks it is PH who is “sickly”, a “mental
case”, “possessed” and “weird” (to quote you). Methinks MDG has lost his
bearings, and you have mixed up your priorities.
Where is
the “self-righteousness” in our position? We have not criticised flaws in PH’s
character or his right to free-speech. We have only said that abuse of Sri
Aurobindo by an inmate of Sri Aurobindo Ashram or in the Ashram’s name is not
acceptable and is harmful to the Ashram community.
If you set
your priorities right, back to what they were only two years ago, you will
surely realise that the real “destroyers of the Ashram’s reputation” are those
“self-righteous hosts” of PH who are willing to spend all of the Ashram’s
financial capital and public goodwill to support and protect PH in his abuse of
Sri Aurobindo.
You have asked Manoj-da to resign if he
could not act according to your suggestion. I certainly did not expect this
from you.
The
suggestions he has been asked to follow are not mine alone – they were yours
too, only two year ago! The same suggestions have been made to MDG by hundreds
of people orally and in writing. That he should resign if he cannot act is also
not my suggestion alone. Hundreds of people have said this to him for the last
two years, although in more polite words. I have only expressed bluntly what
others have said diplomatically. The community is asking MDG to act or step
down not on some trivial issue, but for a matter that concerns the Ashram’s
long-term future and survival. It asks him to step down only to save the Ashram
from consequences that would be far worse if he continues to exercise his
vested interests.
Let me
assure you that I have no personal interest in whether PH stays or leaves, and
whether MDG sits on his chair or resigns. In fact until a year ago I, like many
other Ashramites, considered MDG to be merely a victim of his Machiavellian
advisors. It was only when MDG initiated a campaign of blackmail against me
that my eyes opened to the fact that the ring-leader surrounds himself with
people who share his own values. Subsequently MDG himself confirmed to me that
it is always he who initiates all action and his “advisors” are merely
executives of his orders, and that he knows everything that they are doing.
The only
reason I ask him to step down now (if he cannot act), is that his
continuing protection of PH has pushed the Ashram into a crisis that is
reaching dangerous proportions. The matter is more serious than you seem to
realise. You too should distinguish between your loyalty to MDG and loyalty to
Sri Aurobindo and his Ashram before it is too late.
The trustees are not elected by a body
of voters; they are in the board following the principles and procedure laid
down by the Mother, the founder of the Trust and of course they have to be from
mortals like us.
The Mother
did not lay down any procedures for selection of subsequent Trustees other than
the first Trustee to replace her. In any case the question is not of procedures
but of values and interests. I care a whit what procedure is followed as long
as the selection of Trustees is by the highest standards of conduct and wisdom.
But this has not been the case at all. Every Trustee selected after the Mother
has been chosen purely on grounds of personal loyalty, obedience and servitude
to entrenched interests. We are already in the third generation of Trustees
after the Mother—the servile of the servile to vested interests. Is it any
wonder that the entire Trust Board withdrew the unanimous decision of its
conscience on command from MDG! If you see nothing wrong in this, then you are
only pretending to be short-sighted.
Imagine a time when the trustees must
resign because they cannot act according to the wish of a group or the wish of
even a large body of people. Any action by the Trust can be unpleasant to a
section or sections of people. This unhappy reality cannot be helped until the
arrival of the golden age when we all would be victors over our ego.
Vedprakash-ji,
until recently a Trustee, was bullied into resigning by MDG because he had an
independent mind and refused to “act according to the wish” of MDG’s “group”.
The time that you ask us to imagine is already here and has been ushered in by
the very people you seek to defend!
But the
question that the community is presently concerned about is not of the
interests of one group over another—we are concerned with Sri Aurobindo’s
interest alone. When Sri Aurobindo is at stake, we are all expendable
in His service. Nobody in the Ashram has so far bothered the Trustees even when
they have taken outright ridiculous or stupid decisions under the influence of
personal interests. The entire Ashram community has been patient and respectful
not only of the Trustees but of PH too. But the present situation is
non-negotiable for the Ashram community as a whole because Sri Aurobindo is
non-negotiable.
Like most
inmates of the Ashram, I too hardly care who sits on the Trust chairs, and have
no personal interest in the management of the Ashram or its services or
departments, choosing to stay as far away as possible from administrative and
political matters. Like most, I too always respect the Chair and by extension
whichever “fool” sits on it. But if the Chair-man promotes abuse of Sri
Aurobindo or puts the Ashram’s future in danger, then all of us in the
community must raise our voices, even if that lands us in trouble with the
powers that be. You should understand this purely in terms of “right action”
and “unflinching loyalty” to Sri Aurobindo as demanded of us in His letter to
Sahana-di.
You ask us
to wait passively until suddenly “we all would be victors over our ego” by some
magic. What a bizarre idea—and so contrary to Sri Aurobindo’s evolutionary teaching!
We need not wait for the “golden age” to be operationally free of the
rule of dictators, vested interests or the merely incompetent. The Mother chose
Trustees around her not for their administrative skills—that she left to the
department heads; She chose them for their wideness of vision and openness
of mind and heart. In the declining steps of interested appointments, each
subsequent Trustee has been chosen for smallness and narrow
subservience bringing us to the present sorry pass. This can still be
reversed. Human problems will remain, but the vested interests and blatant
favouritisms can easily be avoided even now, without needing to wait for
the golden age. And I can assure you that the golden age will be greatly
delayed as long as the repressive rule of vested interests continues to
suffocate the life of the Ashram community.
Instead of
justifying the rule of autocrats, you should more usefully direct your energies
in helping our present Trustees to broaden their minds and hearts and open to a
higher intuitive vision. Otherwise, it is better to limit the tenure of
Trustees to a fixed number of years so that absolute power does not corrupt
absolutely, and vested interests do not entrench themselves to the detriment of
the Ashram.
The
trustees must be guided by their own wisdom…
The
question we ask today is: do you see any signs of wisdom? Is sending legal notices
to inmates of the Ashram an act of wisdom? Was calling the police to the
Ashram’s Dining Room to drag away the five sisters inspired from spiritual
insight?
It is
conventional to associate Trustees with some superior wisdom. Jugal-da’s
letters exposing PH’s abuse of Sri Aurobindo in 1987 ended with “Let the elders
decide. … I humbly leave it to the wise discretion of the Trustees.” If there
had been wisdom or foresight among our Trustees at that time, we would not be
in the mess that we are in now. In fact Pranab-da had wanted to take over the
Archives by force in 1989 and throw out PH right then. Had he done it, none of
this or the numerous Savitri-related
court cases would have happened. In retrospect he showed more foresight than
the Trustees then.
If the
Trustees are ordinary “mortals like us” (as you have said) who get selected for
personal loyalties, how do they mysteriously gain greater wisdom after their
appointment? Did you find yourself infused with new wisdom when you were made a
Trustee? Did you lose that wisdom when you resigned? In what way have MDG or
other Trustees become more wise than others merely from sitting on their
chairs? On the contrary, absolute power is heady, and very likely they have
lost the little wisdom they might have had from the unavoidable exaggeration of
their egos. A long tenure in absolute power has an intoxicating effect. I have
seen one of our Trustees take technical engineering decisions when he was not
capable of a simple sum. Another recently declared, “Ashramites should be
grateful to us because we give them food”. A dose of normal life as an
Ashramite without political privileges will surely do them good.
As a rule,
the collective wisdom of a community is superior to the wisdom of an entrenched
oligarchy because entrenched interests fear competence and so push
out capable people from the centre of community life. The only exception is
when the oligarchy is selected for wisdom and not for personal loyalty
or other interests. Therefore our present Trustees must learn to be humble
before the community and seek guidance constantly from its best minds and most
compassionate hearts. To claim superior or sufficient wisdom amounts to
hypocrisy, self-deception and betrayal of their responsibility to the Ashram
community.
… though they must discuss issues with
whoever is relevant for a particular issue, and pray for the Mother’s guidance.
The
present Trustees have neither discussed this issue with the community, nor paid
heed to the hundreds of letters offering rational justification for specific
action, nor even have they been allowed by MDG to follow their own
conscience as might surely have been guided by the Mother. The entire scene has
been hijacked by one man’s interests. When Sri Aurobindo’s Ashram (“house of the
Guru”) is being hijacked, the common Ashramite can sit quiet and suffer in
silence (as you ask), or he can raise his voice and warn against imminent
danger, or perhaps even take what steps he can to prevent the harm—it is for each one to
choose freely according to his conscience and in tune with the Mother’s
guidance to him.
Yes, our
Trustees too should pray to the Mother and follow Her guidance. But how
many of them do you think care to even attempt this? Their meetings start and
end more casually than even a business’ Board meeting. As already stated
earlier, three of them at least are known to ridicule spirituality. I have
heard one coarsely declare, “I don’t understand all this spirituality thing”.
When Kittu, Ranganath and Sumita met MDG, he said to them mockingly, “I don’t
hear Mother’s voice as some people claim to do” and laughed crudely at his own
joke. He was referring to Kumud-ben, the Mother’s personal attendant for
decades, who had shared with him a specific guidance that she had received on a
serious matter recently. When a person so mocks guidance from the Mother, do
you think he would even bother to ask Her for guidance? Is it then any wonder
that he rules by self-interest alone.
When the
four Trustees withdrew the unanimous decision of their conscience, did they ask
for the Mother’s guidance? Had they actually followed Her, or at the very least
the guidance of rationality and logic, we would not be in the mess that we are
in today.
The same applies to an Ashramite. One
may convey one’s pleasure or displeasure on any matter to the Trust, but
thereafter one must leave it to
You make
two errors here. First error: if the Trustees are as ordinary as any other
Ashramite, should we all silently suffer their foolishness or self-interest
simply because they wield legal power over Ashram finances and properties?
Second
error: you identify the actions of the Trustees with “
If at all
there is a hierarchy of authority and responsibilities, it is thus:
1.
First and foremost are Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, above
all else. There is no Ashram without Them and all are individually and
collectively answerable to Them alone. If someone cannot accept Their
authority, he should not be in Their Ashram.
2.
Second are the Ashram community members—all equally
children of the Mother; none superior, none inferior; all serving and working
for Them alone. (The day you can meet Abala as your sister and respect her for
her commitment to Sri Aurobindo, you will be closer to the Mother and to the
Truth of what the Ashram represents.)
3.
Third are the coordinators of activities, the so-called
“heads” of services and “departments”. They were chosen by the Mother not for
their amenability to the Trust Board, but because of their competence and
commitment to the work. Their working is decentralised, and attuned to the
specific needs of their domain of responsibilities. Sri Aurobindo once
corrected an official notice striking out the word “department” and replacing
it with “service”. If we recognise the profound import of this word, we will be
able to act more closely to what He intended.
4.
Fourth comes the Trust Board as a legal entity. The Board
does not rule over the Ashram or its inmates, and has no spiritual authority.
Its only task is to hold the Trust properties in service of the objects of the
Trust as decreed in the Trust Deed formed by the Mother. The Board must
interface with the Government for statutory requirements and functions only.
The actions of the Board should not depend on the personalities or
vested interests of its Board members.
5.
Last come the Trustees, “mere mortals” as any, whose only
responsibility is to serve Sri Aurobindo and the Mother by serving Their
children, the inmates of the Ashram community. They do not represent Sri
Aurobindo and the Mother. They should not rule over the Ashram or its
inmates. Ideally, sadhaks of wide minds and open hearts, they should serve the
interests of the Ashram community as a whole. If they do not have the requisite
wideness, humility and spirit of service, they are unfit for this function.
As long as
the Trustees appointed by the Mother were alive, this was largely the working
of the Ashram Trust and the Ashram community-life. Did you, for example, ever
see Nolini-da or Dyuman-bhai dictating authority to the community, or
interfering in the internal administration of any of the departments or
services? They were like elder brothers to the community because the Mother
selected them for their wideness of vision and compassion. It was only when
they were replaced by nepotism that the distortions began to creep in. Out of
respect for tradition, the Ashram community treated even the unworthy with the
same regard with which they held the original nominees of the Mother. Over
time, this generosity of the community has been misinterpreted by the
undeserving as evidence of their superiority!
Notice
also that the services/departments heads that She had appointed were originally
managing their units with a healthy autonomy in a practical decentralisation of
power. The error of subsequent Trustees lacking vision and compassion was to centralise
all the Ashram’s activities and to put themselves as heads of all its affairs.
As the original departmental heads that the Mother had chosen passed on, our
narrow-minded rulers appointed their stooges and minions, deliberately
sidelining the more competent and committed. But mediocrity breeds further
mediocrity because it fears the more capable. The end result today is a
widespread mediocrity in the administration of departments/services, and a
complete loss of autonomy and freedom in their working. Today nothing moves
without sanction from the one man who has placed himself at the centre of the
entire Ashram’s working, in place of the Mother. The Mother herself, although
holding absolute power, was never as autocratic: she empowered people,
encouraged personal initiative, and cared for each one’s
feelings. Even Sri Aurobindo went out of his way to try and keep the sadhaks
happy as is evidenced from Nirodbaran’s correspondence with him.
Today
favouritism and nepotism are rampant, and few appointed heads are respected for
their competence. We have already crossed the threshold of the danger zone. The
warning signs are most obvious when we consider that practically all the
commercial units which were vibrant and creative centres barely twenty years
ago are either shut down or in the doldrums. The rapidly declining condition of
the Ashram school is painful to see, more so because it was once at the
forefront of innovative education, and its decline was entirely preventable
because it was foreseen by many who warned of it but who were sidelined and
silenced.
One must not behave like a member of any
commonplace institution, raising vociferous demands and taking recourse to the
most deplorable tactics of pressure.
Strange
that you should say this. It was MDG’s office that tried to blackmail me by
asking a former student to write scurrilous accusations. It was MDG’s office
that blocked Alok Pandey’s admission to the Ashram, cancelled Ananda Reddy’s classes
in the school, leaked internal Cold Storage records of the Ashram Archives to
try to embarrass Raman Reddy, sent a legal notice to Abala to silence her, then
removed her from her work. It was MDG who personally ordered my removal from
the Ashram Archives. All these “most deplorable tactics of pressure” simply to
stop us from exposing PH’s lies and abuse of Sri Aurobindo! But you did not
raise your voice then.
Neither
did you raise your voice when “the most deplorable tactics of pressure” were
adopted by PH and his supporters, including Richard Hartz (RH), who organised
personal attacks and smear campaigns on the Internet through SCIY/IYF websites
declaring the Ashram community to be fundamentalists, religious bigots,
intellectually inferior, etc. Their entire campaign had tacit and overt support
from MDG’s office which provided them with confidential documents to use
against the Ashram community. Neither you nor MDG reined in RH while he
publicly abused and insulted the entire Ashram community under the pseudonym of
“Angiras” in public forums on the Internet. You are confusing the perpetrators
of the crime with its victims.
You claim
that the Ashram community made “vociferous demands” when all of the early
letters to the Trust Board were only requests and pleas. The Trustees
disdainfully rejected these appeals, and instead chose to harass all those who
wrote to them. Is it then any surprise that over time the tone of letters has
grown more firm? In fact, it is a tribute to the patience and restraint of the
Ashram community that none has so far crossed the line to “mobstering”. Even if
one person had crossed over, perhaps there would be no problem left for us to
discuss.
The primary reason for our stay here is
our relation with the Divine Mother and the Master, and our progress to the
best of our receptivity by their unlimited Grace.
Manoj-da
(Das), this is the first statement of yours that I find myself in agreement
with! Our unflinching loyalty must be to Them alone and certainly not to the
Trustees or any other personal interests. Let us then apply this point to the
case at hand. If a person does not accept Sri Aurobindo or the Mother as his
spiritual Gurus or expresses enmity to them, or if a person rejects Their
teaching and practice of yoga, then surely he has no place here in the Ashram.
Under the circumstances why is MDG so keen to keep PH in the Ashram? Twice PH
gave his resignation and chose to leave the Ashram in October 2008. Each time
MDG prevailed upon him to stay. And if MDG is so keen to protect PH’s right to
abuse Sri Aurobindo, should he not also leave along with PH? For, by condoning
the abuse he too participates in it.
Nobody can say that the Ashram
management does not facilitate our aspiration in that regard.
Oops! We
are back to disagreement. It is not the responsibility of the Ashram management
to facilitate our aspiration or oversee our spiritual progress. Yet, they try
constantly to cover their own interested actions with a spiritual veneer by
convenient use of out-of-context quotations. I personally have heard a
department head admonishing someone against whom disciplinary action was taken
by the Trust Board saying, “the Trustees have told me that you have a big ego
and they have decided to cut you down to size!” When the first of the five
sisters was expelled from the Ashram for dubious reasons, one of the present
Trustees declared arrogantly, “We have decided to make an example out of her!”
When her sisters stood by her, they too were expelled.
Being as
ordinary as any other Ashramite, the Trustees should stay out of management of
the Ashram as well as out of the spiritual progress of its inmates. By
pretending to “facilitate our aspiration” they seem to be trying to establish a
new religious hierarchy, placing themselves between Ashramites and The Mother
and Sri Aurobindo, imposing their dubious “wisdom” on all and threatening
expulsion when they are not obeyed.
In spite of that if I feel dissatisfied,
it is for me to quit, not for me to ask anybody else to quit his position. I should
not conclude that I alone am right and the other one, unless he agrees with me,
should abdicate.
Your
statement is pragmatically wrong. Let us take the hypothetical extreme case
when an idiot (or a criminal) gets selected for the Trust Board. By your logic
the entire community would have to quit in dissatisfaction, leaving the idiot
or criminal free to drag the Ashram to ruin! Should one man’s limitation be
cause for the entire community to fall apart? This would be the easiest recipe
for Asuric forces to disband the Ashram!
Let us
note that the problem starts when our Trustees reject humility and compassion
and then justify their arrogance by saying it is human and so we have to wait
for the golden age to get free of it! Instead, if the Trustees act with
humility and compassion, their individual and collective limitations would
easily be filled in by the strengths of others in the community. This is a far
better solution to the problem.
Let us
also remind ourselves that everyone is here for Sri Aurobindo and the Mother
and not for the Trustees. The Trustees do not own this place that they can
command someone to obey them or leave. Yet, they are trying hard to enforce
their personal fiefdom over the entire community. This is a dangerous trend.
It is a
perversion of spirituality to declare that we must continue to suffer in
silence, until the day when some miraculous intervention of God will
automatically set everything right. This kind of thinking is in complete
contradiction with the evolutionary logic and the affirmative spirituality of
Sri Aurobindo’s teaching. I am surprised to hear such arguments from you.
When you
say, “not for me to ask anybody else to quit his position”, this principle
should apply equally to the Trustees, since they are ordinary mortals as any.
Why then have they evicted Abala from her work? Or the five sisters, or Ambi?
When you
say, “I should not conclude that I alone am right”, should this not also apply
to the Trustees? But our Trustees behave as if one man’s position is alone
right and all of the two thousand Ashramites together are wrong. You set
different standards for Trustees in spite of claiming that they are mere
mortals like all of us!
The trustees have their commitment to
the Mother.
The entire
community has its commitment to the Mother. Is a Trustee’s commitment more
important for some reason? Should the entire community sacrifice its commitment
for the dubious claim of commitment by one person in authority? Are you trying
to institute a religious hierarchy in the Ashram community? Your keenness to
supplicate to the Trustees is distressing!
Does the
Trustees’ commitment to the Mother absolve them of commitment to the community?
If so, then surely the community’s commitment to the Mother should absolve them
of any respect for the Trustees. The greater truth is that the Trustees must
serve the Mother in and through their service to the community also.
It will be a sad day in the calendar of
courage if they bow down to populist demand.
Sir, it
does not take courage to be a dictator or despot. History is replete with these
types, and they are often the most cowardly. It does not take courage to be
obtuse, unyielding or irrational. Rather it takes courage to recognise one’s
own mistakes; it takes courage to invite those who disagree with you and to
listen to them with an open mind; it takes courage to say “sorry” and change
one’s decision when an error is exposed. In the present patterns of behaviour
of our Trustees we find only cowardice, insensitivity, and petty self-interest.
Not one of the four objected when MDG imposed his vested interests on the Board
and on the community on a matter so vital and emotionally surcharged for all.
None cared for Sri Aurobindo, none cared for the community – each saw only his
own servile loyalty to individual interests. We are reminded of the conflict of
dharmas before the great war of the
Mahabharata. Even if one of the Trustees had courage, he would have
demanded a satisfactory explanation and taken the community into confidence; or
if dissatisfied he would have demanded right action; or failing all options, he
would have resigned from the Trust Board following the example that you have
set before all in 1994.
No doubt they are responsible to us, but
their ultimate responsibility is to the Mother and the Mother alone.
Even more
importantly, the “ultimate responsibility” of each sadhak in the Ashram “is to
the Mother and the Mother alone”. Sadhaks do not and should not owe any
personal responsibility to the Trustees; rather, it is the Trustees who owe
responsibility of compassionate service to the members of the community in the
spirit of service to the Mother in each one. In the event of conflict of
interests, the interests of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother automatically override
all other interests.
It is the duty of all Ashramites of
goodwill to help them remain faithful to this ideal.
I’m
shocked that our Trustees now need help to remain faithful to the Mother! What
a travesty of spirituality—or rather, what an abuse of spiritual truths to justify
petty self-interests!
As for
duty to help anyone, it is rather the duty of all Trustees of goodwill to serve
the Ashramites, not the other way round. You confuse the tail with the head.
Coming from a communist revolutionary background, your persistent efforts to
establish oligarchic or religious rule in the Ashram is baffling and alarming.
The truth of how some people are
dominated by the delusion that they had the right to decide on other’s destiny
became glaringly evident to me some time ago and let me share that experience
with you. One day the Ashram Trust received a regular legal notice asking it to
expel me from the Ashram forthwith or face the consequence. It was served
through a costly lawyer by a dhoti-clad innocuous-looking gentleman who sat at
the Ashram gate in the evening and I had never known him to be anything more
than that in his outer life. But,
strangely indeed, he had been assured by some fellows that he was the President
of some association and that position had bestowed on him the right to decide
who should be retained or expelled from the Ashram he could dictate the Ashram
Trust his decision. His advisers decided that the first blow of his axe of
authority ought to fall on my neck. My
fault? He had heard that at the Krishnanagore court where a case had been filed
against the revised version of Savitri, the Ashram lawyer said that the Mother
did not read or understand the epic and even though I was present in the court
I did not shout out my protest against our lawyer’s statement. The aggrieved
gentleman’s mother tongue is Oriya as is mine. He could have very well asked me
if what he heard was a fact. I could have informed him that whether it would
have been possible for me to shout in the open court is a different matter, but
such a situation never arose; the lawyer had no occasion to make any statement
in regard to the Mother vis-à-vis Savitri.
I wondered, why did this elderly
gentleman, on the basis of just a flying rumour, got ready to try his hand at
wrecking the spiritual destiny of a gurubhai? Why did he not ask me before
paying a handsome fee to a lawyer? I realised by and by that had he talked to
me, he and the people behind him would have missed a great chance to proclaim
themselves as hero-warriors coming to the rescue of the Mother’s prestige
imperilled in a court room at Krishnanagore. (They circulated this imaginary
situation and my silence through printed leaflets.)
Manoj-da
(Das), I have not met the gentleman you refer to. But I too have heard that the
Ashram’s lawyer declared in court that “the Mother did not understand Savitri”. I recall that this led to a
bit of a scandal at that time. The question I ask you is why the Ashram Trust
did not take people into confidence immediately by disclosing all relevant
papers. Surely there should be nothing to hide in its position on the matter.
In fact, in my view, most of the over one hundred legal cases against
the Ashram Trust Board were avoidable from the start by simply meeting
the aggrieved parties with compassion and with transparency. If you expected
this gentleman to meet you and sort out his problems, is it not reasonable that
the Ashram Trust also should meet anyone who has a problem and resolve it
in-house, instead of fighting in courts at great expense of Mother’s money
and public funds?
In fact
almost all those who wrote to the Trust in regard to PH’s book asked to meet
the Trust Board or offered to provide further inputs or clarifications. None
were called. I asked to meet the Trustees to provide details of Jeffrey
Kripal’s funding nexus with Peter Heehs and Richard Hartz. I was never called.
When I phoned MDG to speak to him privately as a last resort before things went
public, he refused to meet me. But when I wrote a note to him in the absence of
any other means, he misquoted from it a year later.
When
inmates express their concern, you call us mobsters. But when Trustees misuse
funds to send legal notices to inmates and multiply court cases, you declare it
their loyalty to the Mother! You glibly ignore the “handsome fees” the Ashram
Trust Board has paid lawyers for the over one hundred entirely avoidable and
needless cases. This does not include travel-related expenses and the massive
pay-offs to ensure outcome in their favour.
Further I realised, how deceptive, alas,
could be the Sadhu-like façade of a man! (For me personally it was an occasion
to wonder if I really deserved to be in the Ashram but for Her Grace.)
By the
same token, consider how deceptive the Sadhu-like façade of a man sitting on the
Trustee’s chair can be, and with far greater potential for damage because he
wields absolute power with zero accountability! You should beware of the
Sadhu-Trustee far more than the Sadhu-Ashramite, for the Sadhu-Trustee has the
power to bring the Ashram to ruin, the other can only harm himself.
But if you
find yourself deceived so easily by the Sadhu appearance, beware even more of
those who put on the “I-am-not-Sadhu” façade, for they can get away with much
more damage in the name of not having to live up to the Sadhu’s
standards of conduct!
Perhaps
you do not know that the Mother once chided MDG saying, “Manoj, don’t act; be!”
Another time She admonished him with, “Manoj, don’t pretend to be a yogi when
you are not!” Still another time, She gave him the role of Polydaon, the high priest of evil, in Sri Aurobindo’s play Perseus the Deliverer. After he played
it vividly and convincingly, She called him aside and warned him saying, “It is
dangerous to identify with the Dark force.” Perhaps were these warnings
prophetic. (All incidents as narrated by the Mother’s personal attendant.)
In dealing
with others, it is unfair to rebuke one man’s façade while supplicating to
another’s. It is more useful to remind ourselves that everyone wears a
façade. What matters is that each one of us should work to unmask himself so
that only the divine Presence may reveal itself from within unobstructed.
A general air of irreverence has invaded
the atmosphere of the Ashram through our lack of caution in our written or spoken
words. This must not be. When we circulate a letter meant for the trustees, we
should see to it that the language is dignified and confined to principles.
Bitter words will necessarily invite more bitter words and there will be no end
to the process.
While I
agree with the principle of what you say, this approach cannot be unilateral.
The Trustees, even more than the common Ashramite, must speak and act by higher
standards. But the standard of dignity (which you invoke) is inferior to
the standard of truth. To rephrase your statement by the higher
standard: Falsehood will necessarily lead to more falsehood and there will
be an end to the process in a general destruction.
Have our
Trustees spoken and acted by standards of truth? Hardly. Their withdrawal of
the unanimous decision of their conscience was an act of falsehood. Their
continued silence on the matter is most undignified and a dangerous lie. Their
attempts to silence critics of the book are perverse. Even after forcefully
imposing his will on the Trust Board to protect PH, MDG continues to claim that
he holds the position of a witness on this matter. In the face of such
hypocrisy, can you expect anything other than “irreverence” towards them?
There are
also numerous petty lies that they resort to constantly. Until three days
before Kittu, Ranganath and Sumita met MDG, he told everybody, “I have never
signed for PH’s visa renewal. Where is the evidence? Show me!” But then three
days later he admitted to these three that he had signed twice and would sign
again soon. MDG has lied to many saying it was Pranab-da who stopped him from
expelling PH from the Ashram. MDG lied to Pranab-da saying PH had apologised
for writing the book. The list of lies goes on, often with bigger lies used to
cover up smaller ones, until the Trust Board finds itself spending Mother’s
money to defend utter falsehoods such as PH’s book. In such circumstances do
you expect respect for Trustees to grow?
May I also
ask you why only our letters to the Trustees should be “dignified and
confined to principles” but their letters and actions against the Ashram
inmates can carry legal threats, scurrilous rumour-mongering blackmail, or more
commonly outright lies? By their most undignified recent actions and inactions
they have forsaken the trust and high respect that the Ashram community always
held them in. If “a general air of irreverence has invaded the atmosphere of
the Ashram” it is with good reason, and the cause is the arrogant misuse by the
Trustees of their absolute power, working in secrecy, refusing transparency and
accountability.
I am happy that the Ashram Trust
exercises the maximum restraint.
The
“restraint” that you refer to is only an expediency—they wait to hit back at
the first opportune moment. The stories of petty personal vengeances of MDG
going back five decades are lore in the oral history of the Ashram. Our
community is full of highly creative and widely experienced people who have
been sidelined by petty political machinations. Their elimination from the
centre of the community’s life and their replacement by mediocre stooges has
been a great loss to the vibrancy of the Ashram’s community life and is a
significant cause of its many declining trends.
We, the inmates of Sri Aurobindo Ashram,
enjoy a range of freedom that cannot be imagined by the members of any other
Ashram or spiritual community in
Even as
the inmates enjoy “a range of freedom”, the Trustees have been granted absolute
freedom with absolute power and zero accountability, by the
inmates. If the Trustees tamper too much with the limited range of the inmates’
freedom, you can be sure that eventually the inmates will withdraw the absolute
freedom and power that they grant to the Trustees.
You have
mentioned earlier that “the trustees are not elected by a body of voters”. This
in itself is a great privilege that the Ashram community bestows upon them,
and which the Trustees must strive to be worthy of, but which they have
over time increasingly abused. In all other “normal” institutions that you
refer to, the selection of a powerful post involves detailed background checks,
years of vetting for competence and intentions, long-term training and tests,
and their exercise of power includes continuing checks and balances to prevent
abuse of power. Our Trustees have to suffer none of these inconveniences! As an
old Ashramite quipped recently, “Any damn fool can become a Trustee if he licks
the boots of existing Trustees long enough!” Most people would agree with the
content of the message if not with the language.
The misuse
of absolute freedom by the Trustees can harm the entire community while an
individual’s misuse can only harm himself. Therefore the Trustees need far
greater vigilance in the exercise of their power and freedom. As I have pointed
out earlier, this Trust has initiated campaigns of blackmail, vengeance and
threat in order to rule by fear. Ambika Mallick was arrested and beaten up in
jail on advice of MDG’s office simply to settle old personal scores. These are
real issues that the entire community is deeply concerned about but has no
means to express. That is why we are witness to novel responses and
expressions that you have conveniently dismissed as mobstering. If you can
claim that the Trustees have “exercised maximum restraint”, be sure that the
Ashram community has exercised much more restraint than them even in a matter
as grave and urgent as PH’s book.
Manoj-da
(Das), since you keep trying to place the Trustees on a special pedestal, let
me concede this possibility to you momentarily. If at all the Trustees are to
have a special position of authority in the Ashram, then surely being a
spiritual institution first and foremost, their selection should be primarily
by standards of spiritual development. In other words, only a more spiritually
developed person should be selected to the Trust Board. Do our present Trustees
even remotely fit this standard? Have any of their actions expressed a higher
spiritual truth, insight or inspiration?
In the
absence of a “certified” spiritual person, nobody can claim spiritual judgment,
neither the Trustees nor others. But it is important that the community sets
for itself some standards, whatever they be, and ensures that our
Trustees and heads of services meet those criteria, along with suitable checks
and balances. We have already lost too much from the entrenchment of
vested interests.
We must respect this exclusive privilege
and should not allow our freedom of action or word to discredit this privilege.
This freedom has far nobler purpose to serve in our life.
The
freedom we enjoy is not a gift of the Trustees. This framework of freedom was
created by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother from the very beginning for the
practice of the Integral Yoga. The Trustees have enjoyed it just as much, nay,
much more than the common Ashramite. But in the last 20 years, this gift of
freedom has been increasingly abused by the Trustees as regards themselves,
even as it has been curtailed by them with regard to others. The freedom that
the Mother established is rapidly being replaced by a growing
authoritarianism and rule by fear—conditions that are the very
opposite to what They wanted for the spiritual growth of sadhaks.
It is
interesting to note that in proportion as the freedom of the Ashram community
is being replaced by rule of fear, all over the world we find Governments
curtailing civil liberties and instituting fear in the name of safety and
security. In this Ashram, intended to be the laboratory of a supramental
evolution, it is imperative that we reverse these negative trends and make all
efforts to recover the higher and freer atmosphere that the Mother had
established by the rule of her Love. It is the most direct and concrete
contribution we can make to bringing about a similar change in the whole world.
In a sense
it is an act of Grace that our decline has been rapid, because there are still
enough people alive who have seen and experienced the best and highest of the
early days of the Ashram. They could still play a significant role in the
attempt to recover something of that age. But if we let things decline long
enough, the situation may soon become intractable and beyond repair, and with
the dissolution of the Ashram’s Spirit the world will have lost one of the
greatest gifts of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo to humanity.
I have avoided being involved in any
chain of correspondence and I will stick to my position. I wrote this only
because I hold you in affection and I hope my words will receive whatever care
they deserve. You need not take the trouble of replying.
With best wishes,
Manoj Das
Manoj-da
(Das), I and all the inmates of the Ashram hold you not only in affection but
also in respect as a scholar and literary figure. While we disagree with your
decision to remain silent on PH’s book, we respect your freedom and choice in
the matter. But your latest letter justifying the actions of the Trustees and
their right to misuse their authority is not in good taste. Although politely
stated, you have asked the entire Ashram community to bow down with you in
supplication to our Trustees and accept their dubious “wisdom” in place of the
Mother and Sri Aurobindo. This is not acceptable to anybody. It would be a
gross error and betrayal of the most fundamental spiritual principles to follow
your advice.
On the
other hand, the tenor and content of your note goes a long way in explaining
the double standards of our present Trustees and their indefensible actions in
recent events.
I am
deeply saddened to see that insulting Sri Aurobindo in Sri Aurobindo’s own
Ashram has now become acceptable and gains praise, protection and promotion
from our Trustees; but criticising MDG’s actions provokes instant rebuke and
violent retaliation. As an old Ashramite recently said in deep sadness, “We came
here to serve in Sri Aurobindo’s Ashram and not in Manoj Das Gupta’s Ashram.”
Manoj-da
(Das), I too have no interest in being involved in any chain of correspondence,
nor in facing the brunt of crude smear campaigns and petty blackmail. But the
matter here is not of my convenience or yours, but that of Sri Aurobindo’s
alone. Since we have no separate existence from him, we should all be prepared
to sacrifice our personal convenience to His. You are prepared to write four
pages in defence of MDG and his subordinate Trustees; will you write at least a
few pages to share with the world the “more than ninety objectionable
observations or factual lapses” that you have found in PH’s perverse book? You
owe it to Them as your personal contribution to defend Sri Aurobindo’s
reputation; and you owe it as your obligation to the Ashram community for being
one of its prominent scholars of public repute.
With warm
regards and respects,
Sraddhalu
PS: I
would be happy to continue dialogue with you on any or all of these issues.
Disclaimer:
The views expressed here are entirely the author’s and the Mirror of Tomorrow
is not responsible to them in any way.