Dear Ned and Rakesh, Due to a certain limitation of time and in case this exchange of views is dragged farther than necessary, I will deal briefly with the main points of your replies. One thing that both of you insist on is a certain forbearance towards the book, which I perfectly agree with – I was only explaining sympathetically the reactions of some of my companions. We are all learning to be inwardly strong, thanks to the sheer force of circumstances, and this will surely do good to us. Secondly, the court cases have not been filed by us at the Ashram. They have been filed by ex-students of the Ashram school and devotees in Orissa. If some people have wrongly given you the impression that we have filed them, then please do not believe them. There is a certain group of Westerners, close friends of Heehs, who are spreading all sorts of rumours in this regard – Inquisition, Ex-communication, etc, – but as you can read in the SCIY, there is never any mention about the defects of the book itself. Of course, for them, the book is above all critique. Thirdly, Heehs is being treated with Yogic tolerance by the authorities of the Ashram. No other Ashram would have stood the denigration of its Guru. Sri Aurobindo’s universality, as a matter of fact, has been taken as an excuse to attack him. (I will one day delve on this aspect more in detail.) As you know, they have distanced themselves from the book and there was never any great appreciation for it. The Ashram community is also bearing with his physical presence without any problem despite their hurt feelings. Barring a couple of incidents, he is roaming about freely in Ponducherry. So where is this mass hysteria that is being projected about on the SCIY? In any case, I am quite happy with this intellectual defence that we are putting up against Heehs’s book. Lastly, do come to Pondicherry. America is hardly the place for a first-hand acquaintance with spirituality. I would like to close this chapter with best wishes for both of you, who have at least given me a good hearing. Raman Reddy