RY, That disciple had joined the Sri Aurobindo Ashram for the purpose of becoming immortal. When some ashramites started dieing, he and others revolted. This is when he started going to Tiruvannamalai, reporting such delusions to the Maharshi. As for the Mayavada theory of illusion, I have been writing for the past 26 years that it comes from Adi Shankara’s guru, not Adi Shankara! Adi Shankara died at the age of 33 after having toured India thrice by feet, written most fantastic books, won debates with the greatest living scholars. Can you find someone else more fully into the body than he? Same story with Ramana Maharshi. After lunch, instead of resting like his devotees, he used to do construction work together with his attendant Swami Lakshamana, who also got Self-realisation. Ramana was happy to have to walk quite a distance to go to the bathroom; he cleaned daily his room and made his bed, saying that the body has to be exercised! This is part of the gems I got from Swami Lakshmana, aged 85, dressed only with a kaupina like his Master; he proudly showed me his body, repeating a sentence of the Maharshi, “The body of a jnani shines like a golden mango”. It is also well known that the best darshan of Ramana was… at 4 in the morning, in the kitchen, cutting vegetables with him! I wish that ashramites and Aurovilians get such type of ‘illusion’, so that they do construction work, clean their house, do their beds, cut their vegetables – instead of hiring workers and servants! In Purani’s journal, Sri Aurobindo says different things about Ramana. But in one conversation, speaking about the descending Force, he replies that Ramana is not aware of the descending [supramental] Force (which Purani puts into square brackets), because it has already settled in the heart. Adi Shankara and Ramana Maharshi are two examples for which I refrain from reading gurus commenting on other gurus. I could go on with Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda but… Sri Aurobindo’s quote regarding the avatars and vibhuti explains everything, and for me this is the end of any discussion on this subject. By the way, another hard worker is Mata Amritanandamayi. And what about the present Kanchi Shankaracharya, who used to walk 25 Kms a day, and his previous guru 40? Yet all of them are Advaitins! For your information, Romain Rolland gave Freud to read works by Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda, after which Freud revised completely his concept of libido and primal drive. But I don’t know what Jung did with Sri Aurobindo’s books, I know only the reasons he had for not meeting Ramana Maharshi, because he wrote about directly. My subject at the university was history and I have no intention to lucubrate on something on which I know nothing. But one thing seems obvious to me: it must have been a personal initiative by Jayantilal, betraying the typical enthusiasm of a young man. It’s hard to believe that Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, or any great guru, would send disciples around to propagate their books – moreover when Sri Aurobindo himself did refuse categorically any type of propaganda and proselytism. Patrizia Norelli did send me her autobiography, out of the blue… another lady, much active between the Ashram and Auroville, sends around letters and bottles and makes phone calls… But such initiatives are very gross, in no way I can imagine a true guru behaving so. As for Jung, I just checked with David. All that Jung wrote was based on his own experience and that of his patients; he had a monumental knowledge of millennia of Eastern and Western wisdom and spirituality, but did not enter into the specific path of any contemporary guru and/or spiritual leader, and never met any. It was his path, with his own findings, and this has to be respected, as the path of all gurus and leading spiritual personalities is to be respected. Individually, we can draw comparisons and make our own synthesis; but this too is our way, which is legitimate and good as long as we don’t impose it on others, who too have their way and freedom. Paulette