Dear Angiras,

While I am overall agreed with you that the way the controversy has been handled does not bode well for our community's record, and am very glad that you have refuted lots of the false allegations floating around against Peter (one of the more ridiculous ones I read was that Peter is an agent of the Vatican *rolls eyes* ), I just want to (as a balancing argument) express a couple of counterpoints.

Why is it necessary for him to consider other critics’ negative comments about Sri Aurobindo’s poetry? Why is it necessary to speak of the “delusiveness” of Sri Aurobindo’s spiritual experiences?

Heehs has exercised “the right of reply and rebuttal” admitted by R&R themselves in item 7 above. This cannot be done if one is barred from even mentioning these criticisms. Heehs himself does not present Sri Aurobindo’s spiritual experiences as “delusive,” but argues against such a view.

If you are referring to the section that starts after Peter's summary of the Record starting on p. 245 of the biography, certain objections to the style and even some of the content in the section could be legitimately raised.

For one thing, there is quite a lot of literature in transpersonal psychology now that sees yogic states as being (unlike schizophrenia and similar mental disorders) characterized by extremely high levels of self-control and self-mastery. Readers who think that Sri Aurobindo's experiences resemble schizophrenia simply haven't been reading -- no schizophrenic can produce anything with even a fraction of the lucidity found in Sri Aurobindo's writings, poetry, and his day-to-day record of yoga.

If there are mystical states that resemble schizophrenia, they pertain much more to certain archaic techniques of shamanism than to yoga. Shamanism certainly involves things like psychic "splitting", or possession, which resemble schizophrenia. But by contrast yogic phenomenology is completely different, leading to integration, self-control and internal coherence. The transpersonal psychologist Roger Walsh published some papers doing this sort of phenomenological comparison and he argued these points quite forcefully.

It did seem strange to me to see a sadhak of the yoga not being more forceful about these points. We in the IY community should be fighting against the ignorance in mainstream psychiatry and psychology, not pandering to it. Consider the damage that mainstream psychiatry/psychology does by medicating people going through actual psychospiritual emergencies. I can testify to it -- I was put through it myself when I was having my first real spiritual awakenings.

The attitude reflected in Heehs’s remark is by no means unknown in the Indian spiritual tradition. Swami Nikhilananda writes in his biography of Vivekananda: “For five years Narendra closely watched the Master, never allowing himself to be influenced by blind faith, always testing the words and actions of Sri Ramakrishna in the crucible of reason. It cost him many sorrows and much anguish before he accepted Sri Ramakrishna as the guru and the ideal of the spiritual life. But when the acceptance came, it was wholehearted, final, and irrevocable. The Master, too, was overjoyed to find a disciple who doubted, and he knew that Naren was the one to carry his message to the world.”

Sri Aurobindo himself in the Synthesis of Yoga encourages a certain degree of skepticism, without which we could easily fall into infrarational mysticism rather than suprarational mysticism. I think all of us who are serious about yoga have dealt with doubts and fully expect to deal with doubts along the way. As far as testing the Guru goes, I personally, after my first introduction to this yoga, did not see Sri Aurobindo and the Mother as my Gurus without first rationally and experientially testing what they were saying.

The only difference is that everyone else who doubts or tests the Guru isn't publishing their ignorance for all to see. I keep my personal doubts or questions of the Masters private, sharing them only with advanced sadhaks who might be able to help me process/resolve them, offering them to the Masters as a prayer, and basically working on some sort of inner resolution of these doubts. So in my opinion, Vivekananda's testing of Sri Ramakrishna is more of a private affair between guru and disciple which is entirely kosher by orthodox Vedantic standards. That's not the same thing as publishing your doubts in a peer-reviewed academic community that is largely hostile to nonmaterialistic explanations of reality anyway.

R&R claim to speak on behalf of all members of the Archives. But their impressions about Heehs would be disputed by others in the department and elsewhere. Before the controversy started, several readers of his book wrote to him expressing reactions such as “one can feel your love for Sri Aurobindo.” In any case, sadhaks of the Integral Yoga have never been required to be devotees in the Indian bhakti tradition. Sri Aurobindo and the Mother did not use the word “devotee” for their own disciples. As Sri Aurobindo reminds us, “men differ in nature and therefore each will approach the sadhana in his own way – one through work, one through bhakti, one through meditation and knowledge – and those who are capable of it, through all together. You are perfectly justified in following your own way, whatever may be the theories of others – but let them follow theirs. In the end all can converge together towards the same goal.” (Letters on Yoga, pp. 532-33)

Maybe you can correct me here if I am wrong, but my impression was that while everyone starts off doing this yoga with a different approach, and everyone has their own individual, quirky way of really building up the momentum, eventually, without surrender to the Divine Mother progress becomes quite difficult. My personal temperament is also intellectual, and it took a couple of experiences of being attacked by anti-divine forces before my vital arrogance was broken down and bhakti started to feel more "natural" for me. I have seen Sri Aurobindo repeatedly saying that without the Mother's Force transformation is impossible.

I am totally against thought-policing or bhakti-policing of any sort (who among us can claim to be pure enough to have the right to criticize others? if Mother and Sri Aurobindo criticized a disciple it was because they had the power to dissolve the impurity as well) -- and of course everyone is where they are, and that's not really my problem. Also, someone could be a very loud bhakta but be totally insincere. Better to be a sincere agnostic than an insincere bhakta -- I believe Haridas Chaudhri said this once in an essay on Sri Aurobindo and Mother's theory of education. But my point is, at some point, without a relationship developing with the Supreme Mahashakti, I don't see how the actual growth of consciousness is possible. It's too hard. Our egos are too finite, too miniscule, and the webs of karma, hypocrisy and forces of universal Nature far too powerful for us. Only the Mother can remake the instrument and lift the veils -- at least this is what I have experienced in this yoga so far.

Again, I think we are overall in agreement. I personally have not found the biography defamatory. At worst, it is a sympathetic but neutral biography written in a rationalist skeptical mode. For defamation, one could see Sil's biography of Vivekananda or Geoffrey Falk's "Stripping the Gurus" -- those are excellent examples of what defamation looks like. "The Lives of Sri Aurobindo" may be seen as misleading at times, and certainly there are quite a few worthy criticisms of it being made on the Mirror of Tomorrow blog which should be made public, but I think calling it defamatory is a bit farfetched.

I just wish that instead of things getting to this point there had been an open, public debate on this biography from day one, without personal prejudices coming into play, so that we could have had a healthy, rigorous and balanced exchange of views on the pros and cons of this biography. At this point things are too emotionally polarized for a balanced perspective to emerge.

Ned:

We in the IY community should be fighting against the ignorance in mainstream psychiatry and psychology, not pandering to it.

There is no justification for speaking of "pandering". But this is not what I want to address here. Elsewhere you wrote

I'd hate to see integral yoga associated with things like that.

I suppose by "integral yoga" you mean members of the IY community, for otherwise I don't see how there can be an association. So the question arises, at least in my mind, who or what is the "IY community"? What are the criteria for membership? I am reminded of Arjuna pestering Sri Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita about the signs by which a yogi can be recognized. Krishna's answers are evasive in that he mentions signs of yogic conditions that cannot be recognized by the outer eye. By the same token, I believe that you cannot put down criteria for membership in that club, as you do when you tell us what the IY community should be fighting against or not be associated with. Otherwise you are making the same mistake as RR&RR, who want to impose on the members of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram a code of conduct way beyond what Sri Aurobindo or the Mother demanded from them.

I perfectly understand your wish to join a group of like-minded people, but I'm afraid that anything deserving to be called "IY community" has to be a group of like-souled people, which is something rather different from like-minded. As Arthur Deikman wrote in "Evaluating Spiritual and Utopian Groups" (see AntiMatters 2-4),

we are social beings and derive benefits from joining with others. Groups can provide a gratifying sense of belonging, support and purpose.... these aims may be important and valuable but they are not spiritual, no matter how pious their outward presentation. Correspondingly, our motivations for joining a spiritual or utopian group may be other than we realize or wish to know.

Hi Ulrich,

I suppose I should retract these two statements as they might be betraying my own emotional needs more than anything else.

The previous statement was more about my perception of the Intelligent Design movement as involving some unethical political maneuvering which may or may not be true, for all I know, but it's what I gathered from watching a few documentaries on the movement as well as reading news articles on it.

As for the second statement, let me remove the IY label in its entirety and just say that we who are serious about helping the world evolve beyond materialism should -- in my personal opinion -- take a tougher stance against ignorance in psychiatry/psychology.

Your point is well-taken.

Hi Ned, thank you for being so understanding. We who are serious about helping the Divine carry his/her world beyond materialism should certainly take a tough stance against ignorance wherever we find it (particularly in ourselves). Given my past focus on physics and philosophy of science, I find it there; you find it in psychiatry and psychology. Materialism is also rampant among the media, which is why I follow ID blogs to see what the other side has to say. My conclusion is that the ID folks aren't half as bad as they are made out by the media. Berlinski, for one, is simply brilliant (and outrageously funny, particularly if you love science bashing, as I do.)

Of course, what you are saying is precisely what I see as the problem with the demonization of Peter in this controversy. Finding like-souled people requires highly-developed occult vision, total equality and freedom from all moral prejudices. I don't know if anyone who has accused Peter of being such a terrible person can claim to have that kind of inner sight.

I should probably add that on a personal level, I intend to keep a very, very safe emotional distance from the IY community, mostly as a result of this controversy. ;-) Group egos tend to stunt the emotional growth of individuals.

That shouldn't be too difficult, considering that a community that cannot be defined doesn't even exist. ;-) But why only this community?

It is a lesson of life that always in this world everything fails a man − only the Divine does not fail him, if he turns entirely to the Divine. – Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga, p. 1639

"But why only this community?"

Well, any community in general I suppose, but I will admit that initially I was very impressed by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, and had romantic notions about the IY community (mainly referring to Auroville and the Ashram here), so this controversy has been a good reality check for me. ;-)

"The soul that can live alone with itself meets God." -- Sri Aurobindo, Savitri

So you are judging Sri Aurobindo and the Mother by the actions of a bunch of individuals who in some way or other relate to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother??? Anyway, that's what you seem to imply.

In one of her talks the Mother tells the story of a lady who was initially very impressed by the people in the ashram but after some time got quite disillusioned. (I had a rather similar experience.) The lady then blamed the Mother for having made her conscious of people's faults! The Mother replied to the lady that she ought to get more conscious still!

So you are judging Sri Aurobindo and the Mother by the actions of a bunch of individuals who in some way or other relate to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother??? Anyway, that's what you seem to imply.

Not at all!

I was judging the community by what I had read in Sri Aurobindo's and Mother's writings. I was kind of hoping it would be broad-minded, full of rational, emotionally mature people, committed to using mental and cultural tools to fight against obscurantism and hatred in this world ... ;-)

Ah, I see the source of the misunderstanding: I should have said that because I was so impressed by Mother and Sri Aurobindo I naively assumed that everyone who claims to follow them must also be dedicated to mental and emotional wideness.

I was kind of hoping it would be broad-minded, full of rational, emotionally mature people, committed to using mental and cultural tools to fight against obscurantism and hatred in this world ...

A very common mistake. Sri Aurobindo and the Mother came precisely because mental and cultural tools are insufficient to fight against obscurantism and hatred in this world. They said and wrote in so many words that what is needed is not a better humanity but a new species altogether with a new consciousness and the powers that come with it. Humans are not better than monkeys because they can climb trees better. By the same token, the next species isn't going to be better by human standards.

By the same token, the next species isn't going to be better by human standards.

Yes of course ... but as a starting point for yoga, to give a good foundation or substrate on which the Mother's Force can work, aspirants of the integral yoga can at least try to be stronger human beings. The chapter on the power of the instruments in The Synthesis of Yoga comes to mind. To do a perfect yoga, you need to be a good instrument.

Ned and Ulrich,

This is really some fine interesting dialog going on that touches on things I’ve been thinking too. It’s true, as Ulrich says, that “mental and cultural tools are insufficient to fight against obscurantism and hatred in the world,” but true also as Ned brings out that through the workings of this yoga our instruments can develop -- and the soul and Supermind require more-fit instruments to work more purely and also effectively. I tend to see the SCIY site partly as a tool to try to connect Sri Aurobindo’s action to the academic, scientific, intellectual communities. It’s a difficult task as these communities seem often stuck in and with their faith in reason, wanting perhaps to go beyond it but not finding acceptable means. It’s not made any easier also because reason can be and is so much or so often a tool of vital preferences we’re barely conscious of.

That’s partly why some of the developments in the controversy surrounding Peter’s latest book are so disconcerting: here’s a person, unusually rational himself, who is trying to reach out to these communities and like all of us facing his own internal conflicts. I was under the impression that both Mother and Sri Aurobindo had said, on multiple occasions, that practitioners of this yoga (I think they were referring specifically to ashramites and hope I am not extending this too far to include all truly called to this yoga) were types, representative of types of humans who were “impossibilities to be solved” or at least “difficulties to be solved.” That it was equally or more important even than being a "good sadhak" perhaps that we submitted to the processes of this yoga so that others “like ourselves,” those of our type or bearing strong affinity with us, could also be transformed. One of the many ways in which we are all connected. So that, for instance, if Nolini were transformed, others like Nolini would have a smoother, straighter path, or at least a greater likelihood of success in their transformation. And that all types needed to be included so that they could be transcended! If this is the case, then casting someone out, like Peter, who is admittedly an extreme minority impossibility to be solved, not like most of the rest of us at all, would be imposing our old-world human standards on a process of new creation, such that we may be impeding the necessary transformation of all types for their inclusion in a new way of being. We need a fair sampling of the full spectrum of humanity. There are many sides of this issue that may be equally or more relevant, but to me this aspect bears consideration.

Rick

To "be stronger human beings" is one thing, to "be a good instrument" is quite another. The two may not be altogether incompatible but aiming for one certainly complicates aiming for the other as well.

Hi again, Ulrich ... let me try to be clearer ... I guess I mean the "dharana-shakti", the power of the instrument. I just mean that having a good base is very helpful as far as manifestation goes, and the integral yoga is, after all, a yoga of manifestation and not one of escape into the inner planes. A quote from Sri Aurobindo to illustrate:

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Do not be over-eager for experiences; for experiences you can always get, having once broken the barrier between the physical mind and the subtle planes. What you have to aspire for most is the improved quality of the recipient consciousness in you, discrimination in the mind, the unattached impersonal Witness look on all that goes on in you and around you, purity in the vital, calm equanimity, enduring patience, absence of pride and the sense of greatness — and more especially, the development of the psychic being in you — surrender, self-giving, psychic humility, devotion. It is a consciousness made up of these things, cast in this mould, that can bear without breaking, stumbling or deviation into error the rush of lights, power and experiences from the supraphysical planes. An entire perfection in these respects is hardly possible until the whole nature from the higher mind to the subconscient physical is made one in the light that is greater than the mind, but a sufficient foundation and a consciousness always self-observant, vigilant and growing in these things is indispensable — for perfect purification is the basis of the perfect Siddhi.
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I feel he is spot-on here. For example in my own spiritual experiences, I have inner openings, but the instrumentation is not able to "contain" them or stabilize them, and I always burn and crash. I need to develop a more resilient vital, a wider mind, a stronger body, and so on. Otherwise I always feel I am in danger of losing my stability and "breaking" under the pressure from the higher planes of consciousness.

Hi Ned – I can't recall Sri Aurobindo not being spot-on. But what has this to do with experiences? The question is whether one wants to develop as a human being, which is a development of and by the ego, or wants to develop beyond the human and the ego, which is a development of the psychic being. Experience can be useful as well as harmful either way. The "power of the instrument" can be used safely and productively only by someone who actually is an instrument. A "good base" in human terms, which are always based on moral and social judgments, is less of a help than a hindrance.

"But what has this to do with experiences?"

How will you stabilize an experience unless you have prepared the foundation? Experiences can break people, even make them go psychotic, if they haven't prepared the foundation sufficiently. This is what Sri Aurobindo and Mother themselves say.

"A "good base" in human terms, which are always based on moral and social judgments, is less of a help than a hindrance."

I only mean "good base" in Mother and Sri Aurobindo's own terms ("good base" doesn't mean getting a PhD or something) ... which is what Sri Aurobindo himself describes here. Wide mind, disinterested vital, etc. etc. The original point was just that people doing yoga need to cultivate these qualities. But of course if someone starts to define "good base" in regular human terms, i.e. being a well-settled, well-off human being with academic degrees or whatever, that's more of a hindrance and an illusion than anything else.

Okay, I think we've stretched this topic to its limits now. ;-)

People doing yoga need to do yoga, period.