A GROSS MISUNDERSTANDING OF SRI AUROBINDO 1. A LETTER FROM PRADIP BHATTACHARYA Here is something for the Editor of Mother India: I have been in correspondence with Dr. K. K. Nair (Krishna Chaitanya), the eminent philosopher and litterateur, apropos his comment apropos the Peter Brook film on the Mahabharata, "Anticipating Buber, he (Vyasa) saw history as the encounter of the temporal and the eternal, the empirical and the transcendental; and anticipating Berdyaev, he saw in history a divine programme for divinising human existence." I had asked Nair why he had to refer to Berdyaev when India's very own Sri Aurobindo h

A PERPLEXING QUESTION ABOUT SRI AUROBINDO AND ITS ANSWER While reading Sri Aurobindo's Bengali book of jail-reminiscences Karakahini (Tales of Prison-life), many readers have been puzzled by certain passages depicting the distressed state of mind in which Sri Aurobindo found himself. Knowing that already before going to jail he had the experience of Nirvana shortly after his meeting with the Maharashtrian Yogi Lele in Baroda, one is apt to wonder how the distressed state could ever occur. The answer can be derived from a statement of Sri Aurobindo's in the course of the talks which Nirodbaran has recorded. On Dec

-014_Two lines from sri Aurobindo's savitri.htm TWO LINES FROM SRI AUROBINDO'S SAVITRI AN EXPLANATORY LETTER May I proceed as in a classroom, taking nothing for granted? The lines you wish me to explain in brief — Akin to the march of unaccomplished Powers Beyond life's arc in spirit's immensities1 — occur in a passage where the soul of Aswapati (Savitri's royal father) is released from Ignorance and his mind and body undergo their "first spiritual change" by a Knowledge drawn from above and within. What pours down from the overhead planes is called "a wide self-knowledge" and what broadens out from the subliminal and the psychic depths is termed "a new

MR. ALVARES AND SRI AUROBINDO WEIGHING IN THE BALANCE OR RUNNING AMUCK? ( This article, which is a rejoinder by the editor of Mother India to an attack published in the Bombay bi-monthly Quest, was originally offered to that very periodical. Professor A. B. Shah, co-editor of Quest, had been eager from the beginning to have a counter-attack by a member of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. But he wanted it to be about

-008_Sri Aurobindo's Interpretation of the Rig-veda.htm SRI AUROBINDO'S INTERPRETATION OF THE RIG-VEDA A CRUCIAL QUESTION AND ITS POSSIBLE ANSWER Sri Aurobindo has given a symbolic interpretation to the Rigveda with a great deal of penetrating analysis, showing it to be a powerfully imaged story of the soul's adventure towards Light, Freedom, Infinity, Immortality — a mystical adventure in which Gods are helpers and Demons hinderers. Objects of the physical world are spoken of in such a way that to the initiates they represent realities of the inner life while to the common herd they appear in a literal sense. This sense is associated with a ritualistic reli

-017_The Mind of light In sri aurobindo's Philosophy and yoga.htm "THE MIND OF LIGHT" IN SRI AUROBINDO'S PHILOSOPHY AND YOGA " AN ATTEMPT AT A SCHEMATIC SUMMARY 1)"The Mind of Light" is a coinage of Sri Aurobindo's, applicable not to all the levels of mental being where Light (Divine Knowledge) has open play in various degrees, but only to the human mental level — which we may designate broadly as the physical-mental — when its ignorance essentially ceases and it becomes a plane in which, even within all measures and limits, withholdings and gradualities, there is no obscurity at all: everything is a self-chosen process of Light. 2)Ignorance of the human physical-mer

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ON SAVITRI (With acknowledgements to Srinvantu, August 1986) (A few of us have been trying to read and study Savitri in a group. We requested Amal Kiran (K. D. Sethna) to kindly give us a guide-line, so that our u nderstanding as well as enjoyment of Savitri might be enhanced and enriched. We put some specific questions which would show him the trend of our mind. Given below are the first two of them along with his answers. — Ed. Srinvantu) Q. One may approach Savitri (1) with a devotee's attitude as the spiritual autobiography of the Master, (2) as a book or st

OUR DESTINY HUMAN AND DIVINE LETTER TO A LAY NUN Your account of your new life in Bihar is a bit of an eye-opener to us. Your own eyes too must have opened somewhat — but it must have been a good thing for all around you to receive so much of their fine blue in the midst of a rather grey existence. I am sure you have managed to adjust yourself as a soldier of God is bound to do. The only thing which may keep you unadjusted is the absence of a typewriter! Well, this absence will help keep my presence actively remembered — if at all I am in danger of being swallowed up In the dark backward and abysm of Time, as Shakespe

A MASTERPIECE OF DISTORTION AN ANSWER TO A READER'S REQUEST FOR LIGHT ON A CRITICISM OF SRI AUROBINDO AND HIS YOGA The Reader's Letter I am enclosing extracts, translated by me into English, from a Hindi book by an author of some repute in circles appearing to be of spiritual seekers — Rajneesh. I came across it recently and found serious misconceptions about Sri Aurobindo and his work. Would you care to set right such blatant misrepresentations of what the Master was and worked at? The Answer You have sent me a veritable masterpiece of distortion. I wonder how Rajneesh, who claims to have an ins

AN AUROBINDONIAN CHRISTIAN A LETTER Your extremely friendly letter and the enclosed fine-feeling'd articles of Bede Griffiths have been lying in front of me for quite a time. Now at last I have sufficient leisure to give them the lengthy consideration they deserve. Let me at the very start tell you that I remember our meetings in the Ashram with great warmth and also that I have never wavered in my general admiration for Bede Griffiths ever since I came across a pamphlet of his on Hinduism. Recently I went through his Return to the Centre, marking several passages of keen insight which go beyond the conventional and traditipnal in