Ramanisblog

Tag: Sri Aurobindo

  • Sri Aurobindo’s Sexual Intimacy with Mother,A Denial

    I blogged on Peter Heehs book on The Lives of Sri Aurobindo recently.

    One of the readers referred me to a blog at http://livesofaurobindo.wordpress.com/, where the inaccuracies  contained in the book are listed.

    My earlier blog on this anticipated this  and my view is, as expressed earlier, even if the allegations were true , it hs no impact on the true followers of Sri Aurobindo, for their faith in him is based on his Gnana, Vision ans Anubhuti, not on his mortal frame and its foibles.

    If the facts contained in the Book are slanderous, it deserves  to be   classified as a ‘Sanitary Inspector‘s Report'( as Gandhiji observed about Catherine Mayo’s Book Mother India where India/Hinduism is ridiculed beyond words.

    Now to the denials..

    As long as it is not for sale, the image can b...
    As long as it is not for sale, the image can be used by anyone. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

    ” Sexual Union dignified by Marriage.

    The remark is as follows:

    After Aurobindo entered what he called “the sexual union dignified by the name of marriage,” he seems to have found the state bothersome and uninteresting.

    We are told to accept these sort of remarks because Sri Aurobindo is being “humanized“.   That wouldn’t be a problem if it was actually true.  Has anyone bothered to inquire into the source of this conclusion?  It is derived from the previous page (page 316) where Sri Aurobindo asks his disciple Nolini whether he wishes to engage in “sexual union dignified by the name of marriage”.   That passage is as follows.

    Two of Aurobindo’s attendants, Nolini Kanta Gupta and Saurin Bose, went to Bengal in the summer of 1919. Both ended up getting married. Before Nolini took the step, Aurobindo sent him some tongue-in-cheek advice: Do you really mean to perpetuate the sexual union dignified by the name of marriage, or don’t you? Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you—to quote the language of the spider to the fly?

    If you ask someone a question, does that mean you engaged in the same activity before?   If I ask someone “Are you watching a movie because you are bored?” does that mean I also watch movies because I am bored?  Are all questions I ask derived from my self-experience?  By this criterion, every journalist would be guilty of several heinous crimes.

    The other remark which bears correction is this one, again from page 318:

    According to her father, Aurobindo “lulled her with the hope that someday … he would return to Bengal.” Later he stopped writing, but “Mrinalini never ceased to hope.”

    It is misleading to quote her father verbatim (“lulled her”) without offering any interlocution.  Her father was not fully aware of the changed circumstances under which Sri Aurobindo was living in Pondicherry.  The book should have explicated at this point that there is indeed evidence that Sri Aurobindo did not willfully mislead his wife.  Even after her death, he was still thinking of returning to India, although these plans never came to fruition.   As the following passage from the Agenda indicates, there are letters (see Autobiographical Notes, CWSA vol. 36, p 260) that Sri Aurobindo wrote after his wife’s death hinting at his possible plans to return to Bengal or British India.

    They have found some letters — some old letters — from Sri Aurobindo to Barin and the lawyer[[C.R. Das, Sri Aurobindo’s lawyer in the Alipore bomb case. There are three letters; one dated November 18, 1922, to C.R. Das, and the two others to Barin, Sri Aurobindo’s younger brother, dated November 18, 1922 and December 1, 1922. The letters are included at the end of this conversation. ]] — extraordinary! They are incredible. They give the measure of Sri Aurobindo as a man of action. Even in 1920, he intended to undertake an action. To organize centers all over India, the world, oh!… a plan!… And that was before the liberation of the country!

    He says that he has completely withdrawn to find his yoga, but once he had found it, he is going to start his action[[Even in 1928, when Tagore came to Pondicherry to visit Sri Aurobindo, he repeated his intention to go out of Pondicherry and launch an external action. But probably on the way, Sri Aurobindo realized … just what Mother was discovering. ]]….

    ( Agenda October 20 1971)

    http://livesofaurobindo.wordpress.com/2012/04/05/sexual-union-dignified-by-marriage-page-318/#more-78

    *Thanks, Sandeep

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  • Sri Auorobindo ‘mad’,’intimate with The Mother?’ So What?

    The Biography The Lives of S Aurobindo sparked off a controversy on the Life of Sri Aurobindo,Freedom Fighter,Yogi.Poet ,Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature for his  ‘Gitanjali‘ and a Great Mystic, by Peter Heehs.

    Peter Heehs was himself a follower of Sri Aurobindo and a Member of Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry,India, since 1971.

    The Book was published by the  Columbia University Press.

    There are passages quoted from the Book that suggest sexual intimacy between Sri Aurobindo, and Mirra Alfassa, The  Mother who is also a Spiritualist .

    The passages referred to suggest that Sri Aurobindo had illicit relationship with The Mother ,he is a terrorist and was also mad.
    Peter Heehs has clarified that he has taken two years to research the Book and the said portions of the Book are being quoted out of context.

    The Book is not  even available for Sale in India!

    To those who criticise the Book.

    1. The Book is not even available in India nor can you read it in full in Google Books.

    How does one object to a Book that is not available  and without reading it in full?

    (those who raised the issue are from India)

    2.While attempting to unravel a multi faceted personality as Sri Aurobindo,some facts might come to light that were unknown hitherto. They have to be checked for veracity and if found to be true is to be accepted.

    Let us assume what Peter Heehs has stated in the Book is true.

    It does not change our respect and reverence for Sri Aurobindo.

    He was a Freedom Fighter for us, the Indians; but for the British he was a terrorist,it all depends on which side of the fence you are.

    He had’ sexual relations with The Mother’

    So what?

    Does that change his Philosophy,his stature as a Poet or his thoughts or his Great work on Mysticism and Tantric Sastra as explained by him in his book ‘Savitri’?

    Yogis like Sri Aurobindo can not be equated with us ordinary mortals.

    “He was mad’

    Well, from our stand point, he was mad!

    Let me tell you the Great Saint Sundarar calls Lord Siva as ‘Mad‘?

    பித்தா பிறை சூடி பெருமானே அருளாளா”

    ‘The one who is mad and who wears the Moon on  His Head’

    And Lord Siva himself  is believed to have suggested this first line to Sundarar!

    Sri Abirami Bhattar, in his Abirami Andhadhi, a great work on Goddess Abirami,Thirukkadayuyr( it should be spelled as Thirukkadavoor) states,

    “‘விரும்பித் தொழும் அடியார் விழி மல்கி நீர் மல்கி .மெய் புளகம்

    அரும்பித் ததும்பிய ஆனந்தமாகி  ,அறிவிழந்து

    சுரும்பிர்க்  களித்து,மொழி தடுமாறி  முன் சொன்ன எல்லாம்
    தரும் பித்தர் ஆவர்  என்றால்  அபிராமி சமயம் நன்றே “
    Abirami Andadhi 94
    Abirami!  Those worship you with passion,Tears swell in the eyes,body shudders,they are lost in Bliss,discrimination fails,more happy
    than a drunk,Speech falters,all these contribute to one being mad!
    Even so Worshipping You  is the Best’
    Such is the Bliss of Yogins.
    Sri Aurobindo is one of the most respected fre...
    Sri Aurobindo is one of the most respected freedom fighters from Bengal and also a poet, philosopher, and yogi. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
    We are not qualified to comment.

    ‘Since his death in 1950, Sri Aurobindo Ghose has been known primarily as a yogi and a philosopher of spiritual evolution who was nominated for the Nobel Prize in peace and literature. But the years Aurobindo spent in yogic retirement were preceded by nearly four decades of rich public and intellectual work. Biographers usually focus solely on Aurobindo’s life as a politician or sage, but he was also a scholar, a revolutionary, a poet, a philosopher, a social and cultural theorist, and the inspiration for an experiment in communal living.

    Peter Heehs, one of the founders of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Archives, is the first to relate all the aspects of Aurobindo’s life in its entirety. Consulting rare primary sources, Heehs describes the leader’s role in the freedom movement and in the framing of modern Indian spirituality. He examines the thinker’s literary, cultural, and sociological writings and the Sanskrit, Bengali, English, and French literature that influenced them, and he finds the foundations of Aurobindo’s yoga practice in his diaries and unpublished letters. Heehs’s biography is a sensitive, honest portrait of a life that also provides surprising insights into twentieth-century Indian history.’

    http://www.cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-14098-0/the-lives-of-sri-aurobindo

     

    The latest biography by Peter Heehs, himself an ashram member since 1971 and one of those persons who painstakingly organised the Aurobindo archives there, was objectively commended by another noted historian Ramachandra Guha, as a product of “lifetime scholarship”. It had the added authenticity for “Heehs knows the documentary evidence on and around Sri Aurobindo’s life, better than anyone else,” wrote Guha hailing it.

    “I wrote the book from 2002 to 2006 and it took two years to get the book accepted (for publishing),” Heehs told Deccan Herald in an extensive interview in Pondicherry, a few days before the Home Ministry extended his visa by a year from April 15 that set at naught several uncertainties for now.

    But shortly after the book came hot from the Columbia University Press in August-September 2008, Heehs found the satisfaction from his long years of labour in presenting Aurobindo’s many-sided life “to a very serious audience” to be so short-lived as a “small coterie” of people connected to the ashram soon began a relentless campaign against Heehs, dubbing it “blasphemous”.

    Apparently, some passages in the book–one allegedly suggesting a romantic ring to the Auro­bindo-Mother relationship, and some discussions of an “element of lunacy” that ran in Aurobindo’s family–triggered a full-scale tirade against the biography even before it could be published in India.”

    http://www.deccanherald.com/content/243840/blasphemy-tag-strains-aurobindo-ashram.html