Sri Aurobindo's philosophy and thought can encompass materialism and Fruedian thought. I agree that materialism cannot be taken as the standard for weighing spirituality but there is definitely a need for debate on spiritual matters and there are more chances that a few teachers of yoga can mislead the gullible simple minded people. Of course, debate is not the way to reach higher states of consciousness which is more of an individual intuitive effort but when it comes to social sphere one needs to question the expounders of Sri Aurobindo's philosophy which includes Peter and other teachers of Integral yoga. There is no need to take spiritual things for granted because they come from a high pedestal or from people who have more seniority in the Ashram or somewhere else. There is no contradiction between spirituality and intellectuality. The more we know about what other scholars objections and find their limitations, the more we have enlarged and refined our understanding of spirituality. Knowing nothing is not a mark of spirituality. For that matter to say the truth Peter has written in the forward that he does not represent the Ashram and his views are his own. We should not read more into his book when there is no such a thing even if we are trying to defend our views. We need to be honest even in our criticisms or they end up doing the opposite of our intentions. As Ned has pointed out there are many ways of dealing with the situation and for someone who has resided in the Ashram for several years and a fellow sadhak the more so. I agree with her. The Extracts are misleading and I do not shy from saying that there are many pages in the Lives that have no objectionable matter unless we read into them. Let us be honest and I agree there are many misrepresentations. If there is no critique and if everybody only flatters us we always live in the illusionist word of perfection when indeed there are people suffering under our nose. This can be for an individual or for a community like an ashram. We need people who criticize but in a constructive way and not vilify for the sake of it or based on a personal agenda. And sensible people need to take into account the criticism and see if there is indeed such a deficiency in the organization. If there is none good for us but if there is we have to be grateful to the one who has shown our mistakes. If someone dissents and we punish them without giving them a chance to debate or explain their point of view it can be called fundamentalist and this can happen easily in collective scenario. We need to be wary of the Falsehood's mask in our self proclaimed righteous actions. I am not saying that we do not have to defend ourselves if wrong allegations are made on us. That is the psychic call to perceive the truth from falsehood when they are intermingled and defend it. The question is whether there is a personal agenda behind Peter's critique or can some of his criticisms be constructive? We have to look into this too if our criticism of his book be impartial. One line of defense is that it has opened up avenues of dissent within an organization whatever the consequence maybe.