With all due respect, I'd like to mention that the situation is not as clear-cut as "Heehs supporters" vs. "Heehs detractors". Personally I always had certain issues with The Lives of Sri Aurobindo, but I was appalled at the way its publication has been handled -- through emotional vitalism, violence, taking the author to court, etc. All of this has struck me -- personally, at least -- as completely unnecessary drama which underscores the true need for critiques of the biography. Many of us, while critical of the biography, are also critical of the obvious reactionary sentimentalism in the response to it. Secondly, while I found myself agreeing with many of the points made in Mr. Reddy's critique here: http://www.mirroroftomorrow.org/blog/_archives/2008/12/21/4029920.html ... I can't say I'm convinced by this defense of the Extracts that were circulated. What could possibly be achieved by circulating extracts like that apart from stirring up people's baser emotions? "Now the disciples who have been deeply pained by reading the Extracts have reacted spontaneously with this part of the being, though the anger and revulsion which have followed in its wake need not be taken as such. They have lost sleep the day they have read these passages, or have been terribly disturbed for a few days, and, in a few cases, have taken ill." Honestly, you cannot seriously be suggesting that such reactions have anything to do with maintaining yogic pose and equanimity, something all of us have to constantly endeavour to attain. "If this is supposed to be only emotion, so be it, but then I would call it “spiritual emotion”, and it is our bounden duty to respect it and not dismiss it as mere religious sentiment." I find this totally unconvincing. I too adore Sri Aurobindo and the Mother but I recognize the difference between the exhibitionist bhakti of the vital, and the silent inner adoration of the psychic being that persists even in the worst outer circumstances. We need to cultivate the silent, humble psychic bhakti, not vital bhakti which is just emotional narcissism. "The Extracts have in fact hit the life of the common uneducated disciple harder than the more vocal intelligentsia, who have put up a mental defence and have countered them with logical arguments." I agree that those of us with intellectual capacities have a spiritual responsibility to use that intellect as an instrument for harmony. It could be argued that Peter Heehs is irresponsible on this count at times. Nevertheless, this is the integral yoga. If someone isn't committed to developing their intellectual abilities then this yoga is probably not right for them. Moreover, our faith should not be dependent on the creation and maintenance of intellectual constructs (as opposed to the inner development of the psychic being), such that the slightest threat to our preferred mental constructs constitutes a threat to our faith. On a personal level, I have dealt with such threats to my faith, and I dealt with them, essentially, the way all such threats have to be dealt with -- the hard way, through inner growth. When I first came to this yoga, I was surrounded by atheist friends, who essentially jumped on me when I described my newfound spirituality (I had myself been an atheist previously). At the time, my atheist friends' barbs felt like I had been punched in the gut. I too had many sleepless nights. But I stuck it out, surrendering and offering as best as I could. I also developed my mental capacities so that I could match my atheist friends' arguments without ill-will or fear. Now that it's over and a certain amount of inner growth has taken place that has removed my fears, looking back, I laugh at my reactions and think: "What in the world was I so worked up about?" Isn't that what true surrender does? Enlarge us? Who said yoga was easy? Attacks are inevitable, and we ought to be grateful for them because they propel us to grow. At the end of the day, when we suffer, it is because our surrender to the Mother is not perfect. There is no other reason.