The Sri Aurobindo Ashram Reaps what it has Sown

Robert E. Wilkinson ©

In an attempt to discourage someone from writing his biography, Sri Aurobindo once wrote that he  did not want to be murdered in cold print by his disciples; yet, this is exactly what has happened. In an April 6, 2012 report by CNN/IBN, American historian Peter Heehs, author of the controversial book, 'The Lives of Sri Aurobindo’ is quoted as making the authoritative statement that'…Sri Aurobindo was a spiritual leader, not an Avatar.’

In response to the recent furor in Pondicherry over Peter Heehs’s controversial book, ‘The Lives of Sri Aurobindo’, the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trustees have issued the following statement:

‘The considered view of Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust is that it does not project itself in the role of dictating to readers and followers of Sri Aurobindo, as to what they should read and what they should not read. Each person is at complete liberty to decide for himself whether he finds any book to be meaningful and useful, or whether he does not find it to be so, and Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust respects and has full faith in the intellectual and spiritual discernment of the readers. No one should or needs to force his personal opinions on any other reader in general, and more particularly on the followers of Sri Aurobindo.’  (bold emphasis mine)

Anyone who has bothered to follow events in the Pondicherry Ashram since the Mother’s passing in 1973 will find this statement by the Trustees to be the absolute peak of hypocrisy. Not only have members of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram dictated to their students what they should and should not read and think, Ashram Press employees have even destroyed an important manuscript in their possession to prevent students of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother from having access to knowledge that would expose the inexcusable incompetence of their own leaders. In 1978 the manuscript of The New Way,^1. Vols. 1 & 2’ by ‘Thea’, Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet was sent to the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press for printing under a agreement between Thea and the Ashram Trustees. As many will know, this book chronicles the history of the Mother’s Temple plan from its inception until its willful destruction by the Mother’s own disciples on January 17^th, 1970. More importantly The New Way gave forth the indisputable proofs and objective cosmic credentials of Vishnu’s Evolutionary Avatars.   

‘It is the Vedic Divine Measure alone that provides the objective key which allows the Avatar to have his mission confirmed not by the sentimental, emotional and subjective experiences of his devotees, but rather the Cosmos becomes his credentials. God supports His supreme REALISER by the cosmic harmonies of His universal manifestation, the script written in his very body. Indeed if this is veritably the Supramental Manifestation, which is the ultimate reconciliation of Spirit and Matter, that ‘spirit’ must unveil itself unquestionably in the workings of the material kingdom which is the extension of its own truth-essence. The coming of the Evolutionary Avatars is itself the means for this unveiling.’ ‘Thea’, Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet, The Vishaal Newsletter, December, 1987 

Owing to petty conflicts and ego disputes with Thea an Ashram Press employee named, Shanti, intent on halting publication of The New Way, filed a bogus complaint with the Press manager, Rob Ganguly who then refused to print the manuscript. Together they proceeded to shred all copies of the then 2/3 completed book. While most people may find it incredible that such an important book could be destroyed over a personal vendetta, it is necessary to go deeper into the nature of the forces behind these extraordinary events. Then as now, the Sri Aurobindo Ashram was not exclusively populated with highly evolved spiritual types, it also contained individuals representing the most irredeemable evolutionary forces of resistance and denial - a collective entity that the Mother called the ‘Lord of Nations’. In an encounter with this Vital Asura on the subtle plane he told her, "…I know you will destroy me, but before being destroyed I will wreak just as much havoc as I can, you can be sure of that." (The Mother's Agenda, Jan. 12, 1965). The Mother went on to explain that certain individuals are unconscious that they act for this asuric force, genuinely believing that they are doing the right thing. Sri Aurobindo was in complete agreement with the Mother, writing that some of his biggest disciples were Asuras - anti-divine forces vehemently dedicated to the suppression of the truth and a denial of the light. Few will appreciate that owing to their petty jealousies and personal vendettas, Shanti and Rob Ganguly made themselves unwitting pawns of these retrograde forces dedicated to the suppression and destruction of Sri Aurobindo’s, the Mother’s, and Thea’s work. Today, after decades of ruthless censorship, connivance, and lies these anti-divine forces acting through Pondicherry’s mental elites have succeeded in concealing from aspiring students throughout the world the descent of a Supramental Knowledge unparalleled since the Vedic age. With this malicious act of censorship Ashram authorities formalized an ongoing policy of suppression and distortion that finally culminated in the complete deconstruction of Sri Aurobindo’s work and mission by Peter Heehs in the pages of his controversial book.

Today in Pondicherry there is growing outrage among many of the sadhaks over the disrespectful caricature of their beloved guru presented in the Heehs book. There have been protests, demonstrations, lawsuits and calls for the resignation of the entire board of trustees for approving such an offensive biography. But in the final analysis and owing to the persistent exclusion of the true knowledge of who and what Sri Aurobindo was, the Heehs book was simply a logical and entirely predictable example of the decontextualization, gossip, and lies that could only emerge given the complete absence of any higher understanding of Sri Aurobindo’s life and mission.  And while Heehs is clearly guilty of perpetuating a disrespectful and fraudulent caricature of Sri Aurobindo, the sadhaks themselves are equally as guilty in the outcome for allowing Ashram authorities to tell them what they should or should not read and think instead of pursuing the truth and deciding for themselves. And while one does not expect devotees to understand the complex question of avatarhood, in spite of everything Sri Aurobindo and the Mother have written on the subject, it is expected that the Trustees of their legacy would object to a founding member of the Ashram Archives Department writing emphatically that Sri Aurobindo was NOT an emanation of Vishnu. It would be their duty to raise a protest against such an ‘authoritative' statement from a person who, it would appear, is expected to be privy to information that others ignore. However, we find the contrary to be the case: Peter Heehs’s book receives the support of the Ashram Trust while the only authoritative book on earth confirming empirically Sri Aurobindo’s avatarhood,  is shredded to pieces so that devotes and disciples would not have access to the truth. This alone identifies the Board as being hostile to the very thing they pretend to uphold, confirming Sri Aurobindo’s statement that his biggest disciples were asuras. And while they will never admit it, this entire Heehs affair is about the Sri Aurobindo Ashram and its sheep-like followers reaping exactly what they have sown.   

In terms of Sri Aurobindo’s true identity the matter could not be clearer. He had warned us years before that the true meaning of his life was not on the surface for men to see. 

‘What matters in a spiritual man's life is not what he did or what he was outside to the view of the men of his time (that is what historicity or biography comes to, does it not?) but what he was and did within; it is only that that gives any value to his outer life at all. It is the inner life that gives to the outer any power it may have and the inner life of a spiritual man is something vast and full and, at least in the great figures, so crowded and teeming with significant things that no biographer or historian could ever hope to seize it all or tell it. I see that you have persisted in giving a biography – is it really necessary or useful? The attempt is bound to be a failure, because neither you nor anyone else knows anything at all of my life; it has not been on the surface for men to see.’    SABCL, Vol  22  p.  428 (bold emphasis mine)

The Mother added to his comments saying that  ‘What Sri Aurobindo represents in the world’s history is not a teaching, not even a revelation; it is a decisive action, direct from the Supreme…Sri Aurobindo is an emanation of the Supreme who came on earth to announce the manifestation of a new race and a new world: the supramental. Let us prepare for it in all sincerity and eagerness.’

The common and willful error for both Heehs and the Ashramites is their failure to listen to the Mother; to acknowledge who Sri Aurobindo was and the evolutionary context of his appearance on the earth at this particular time and no other. In his book, Heehs actively rejects the evolutionary significance of Sri Aurobindo’s unique incarnation and in spite of the Mother’s unequivocal statements, encourages in his readers a complete disinterest in Sri Aurobindo’s ‘Avatarhood’, an omission that he excuses as a distracting hagiographic idealization in which he had no real interest. 

'...What about the assertion that Aurobindo was an avatar? I can’t say that the question interests me very much. Aurobindo never claimed the distinction for himself, ^2. and I don’t think anyone alive is in a position to say one way or the other...' (Peter Heehs, from the Columbia website)

^3. (It should be noted that in an April 2012 interview reported by CNN/IBN Heehs’s ‘disinterest’ has taken a significant leap with him now being quoted as saying: 'Sri Aurobindo was a spiritual leader, not an Avatar.’  (bold emphasis mine)

For persons of knowledge, the arrogance of this statement is simply breathtaking. Unfortunately it reflects a long standing attitude of many of the so-called wise-men who claim to ‘adore Sri Aurobindo and the Mother’. It is as if the Vedic tradition of the Avatar is meaningless, even though it is sanctified by the Gita in Sri Krishna's own words, and Sri Aurobindo's and the Mother’s as well. Moreover, Heehs’ contention that no one alive today is in a position to say one way or another reveals a stunning lack of research on his part or, more likely, a calculated decision to ignore the volumes of objective proofs that have been published by Thea  and accepted and catalogued by the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Archives; an organization which lists Heehs as one of its founding member. Given the volumes of non-speculative proofs of Sri Aurobindo’s Avataric credentials on file in the Ashram Archives and Heehs ready access to this material, his only reason for making such a disingenuous statement is that he, like his Ashram cronies, know that the Supramental proofs of Sri Aurobindo’s avatarhood also include the irrefutable details of the third stage of the Supramental Descent as well as the details of Sri Aurobindo’s rebirth as the Fourth.  Moreover they know that any acknowledgement of these objective proofs would mean an immediate end to the rule of orthodoxy and its stultifying dogma that has reduced this most important spiritual work of the age to an arrogant, fundamentalist and elitist cult. It is just as if a cadre of hard line Tibetan Buddhist fundamentalists had taken over the Potala Palace and suppressed the knowledge of the rebirth of the next Dalai Lama so they could continue to indulge their self-important pretentions as the unchallenged leaders of their faith.   

Today in Pondicherry the Asuras are dancing. The forces of falsehood are thumbing their noses at the protesters and demonstrators made impotent by the deprivation of real knowledge. They have succeeded beyond their wildest hopes in rejecting the light and destroying its message in, of all places, their own printing house. HE who the Mother acknowledged as an emanation of the Supreme, unique in the history of the world, has been deconstructed and decontextualized into simply another spiritual teacher and no longer an Avatar. Peter Heehs has been allowed to stay in India and is now lauded by the press as, ‘…someone who knows the documentary evidence on and around Sri Aurobindo’s life better than anyone else, and who has deep knowledge of the political and spiritual worlds in which his subject moved and by which he was shaped…’  With the complicity of the naive Indian media the deception has become complete. Every official communication issued by the Sri Aurobindo Ashram especially the literary heresy by Peter Heehs has become a de facto negation of Sri Aurobindo’s and the Mother’s work and mission.  In a letter to the Ashram Board of Trustees Thea explains:

‘It is a fact that every publication issued from Ashram and Auroville sources, Heehs’s included, passes on to the public – though the intention appears to be other – that both Sri Aurobindo and the Mother failed in their missions. Not one publication can factually prove otherwise; and since there is no one in your circles who can state the contrary and receive the accepted “imprimatur”, this is the result: both Sri Aurobindo and the Mother failed “to deliver”. Or if they did, we mortals are not qualified to prove what stands beyond human comprehension. And since this is your belief, you must accept full responsibility for spreading the idea that they seemed to have failed.

‘Nothing could be farther from the truth. Not only did they complete their missions, they did so beyond our wildest expectations. You can be sure that Supermind would not leave the fulfilment of its descent and establishment on Earth to the “belief” of anyone: it is its own irrefutable proof.

‘This has been fully documented, the only existing book [The New Way] to not only prove the victorious completion of their missions but also it is the only irrefutable documentation of the fact that they are Vishnu’s Emanations – i.e., Evolutionary Avatars who come yuge, yuge, just as the Gita states, proven as only the Truth-Consciousness can do.’ ‘Thea’, Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet Letter to the Board of Trustees, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, December, 2008. 

As I write this article, there are thousands of sadhaks throughout the world who, owing to the deception of the Pondicherry elites, have virtually no understanding of who Sri Aurobindo was, the evolutionary importance of his life and mission, let alone his rebirth as the fourth in the Solar Line. Nevertheless, and without their knowledge, the success of Sri Aurobindo’s, the Mother’s and Thea’s work goes on. An understanding of the Supermind and objective evidence of its deployment has been developed to extraordinary levels and applications of this Supramental knowledge have led to major breakthroughs in areas as diverse as Yoga, Cosmology, History, Geopolitics, and Science to name just a few. Those who have been deprived of this knowledge for so many decades must finally come to understand that protests, demonstrations and lawsuits will do nothing to redress their grievances. What is required for Sri Aurobindo’s, the Mother’s and Thea’s message to rise, take hold and endure is the final unmasking and expulsion of these retrograde forces from the occult seat of their work. And this can only be done with Knowledge. As Thea write: ‘It is the Vedic Divine Measure alone that provides the objective key which allows the Avatar to have his mission confirmed not by the sentimental, emotional and subjective experiences of his devotees, but rather the Cosmos becomes his credentials.’ Let us begin this important work as the Mother commanded,… in all sincerity and eagerness.   

Footnotes:   

1.) Destruction of The New Way manuscript

The original manuscript of The New Way was shredded in the offices of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press because it gave out indisputable proofs that the revised architects’ version of the Mother’s temple plan was not what she had originally intended. Anyone who doubts this need only read ‘The Matrimandir Dialogues’ ( http://www.aeongroup.com/momtem.htm ) Out of her original seeing which was utterly destroyed by the architects, the Mother recorded not only the arrangements of the elements of the room, but its fundamental measurements as well. It is a womb of Supramental Gnosis from which it is possible to receive the most essential information about the earth's journey into the future. The keys to Time are contained in the inner room, and the secret formula given in its sublime measurements. It records the descent of the Supramental consciousness and the actual dates of birth of Vishnu’s Evolutionary Avatars, which are in fact recorded in the measurements of the Temple. This is why it has generated such hostility in those who would usurp Sri Aurobindo’s authority and mission.

The New Way was later published in its entirety by Aeon Books along with numerous other volumes by Thea. A list of these titles may be found at: http://www.aeongroup.com/bks-art.htm

The New Way Vol. I & II: A study in the rise and the establishment of a gnostic society, Volumes 1 & 2, by ‘Thea’ Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet, at $45.00, from Æon Books, ISBN: 0945747063. The preeminent symbol of a new consciousness now manifesting upon the Earth is a cosmological structure known as the Mother's Temple. This sacred structure is a living manifestation of the descending Truth-Consciousness into Earth's atmosphere and symbolizes Earth's emerging Soul. Written into its architectonic structure are keys to the harmonies of the cosmos and the secrets of Supramental Time. ‘Thea’ explains the origins of this contemporary temple design and its occult measurements which define the evolution of consciousness on this planet.

The New Way and other titles may be ordered through Aeon Books, P O Box 396, Accord, NY 12404, USA, or Aeon Trust,  P O Box 11, Kodaikanal, Tamil Nadu, India. If you wish to contact Aeon Group the email address is aeongroup@msn.com

2.) Regarding Avatarhood.

In an April 20 letter to her students Thea discusses Heehs’s specious claim that Sri Aurobindo never claimed to be an Avatar.

‘I realise that this issue of avatarhood cannot be appreciated by westerners because it is not in their culture. But living in India since 1971 makes Heehs's position unforgivable. He has no contact with the soul of this civilsiation - of which the axis is the Dasavataras. I realise though that others cannot vibrate to the importance of highlighting this aspect of his mission. For me, there is nothing of greater importance for India and for the world.
    And when Heehs writes and states that Sri Aurobindo never claimed the title for himself, this is absurd! He described the function of each Avatar since Sri Ram - the mental man; Sri Krishna, the overmental; and the next (skipping over the Buddha) would be Kalki, the Supermind. Kalki would come to correct the error of the Buddha. Who, pray tell, has been the pioneer of Supermind if not Sri Aurobindo? Where was Heehs living all those years?
    I had to come along to put each thing in its place. Thank God for that, but I doubt any of you realise what this means...Thea ‘

3.) Vishnu’s Line of Ten Avatars

Given the critical importance of Vishnu’s appearance in our present Aquarian age, there can be absolutely no mistakes about his identity, his position in the Line of Ten Avatars, and his evolutionary mission. But due to the suppression of Sri Aurobindo’s irrefutable Avataric credentials by Heehs and the Pondicherry elites, pretenders have emerged claiming the title for themselves, further clouding the issue and delaying the restoration of the Sanatana Dharma. The most prominent of these pretenders was the Indian god-man,  Sathya Sai Baba. For a detailed account of Sai Baba’s empty Avataric claims and his lies concerning Sri Aurobindo made believable by the treachery of Sri Aurobindo’s own disciples see:   http://circumsolatious.blogspot.com/2011/06/sathya-sai-baba-counterfeit-avatar.html

OPEN LETTER TO THE AUROBINDONIAN COMMUNITY

By Harish Kumar

Sri Aurobindo dedicated his life to bringing about the manifestation of the truth-conscious Supermind on this planet, so that it would become the governing principle of life on Earth. His Integral Yoga was aimed at the establishment of a Divine Life and the divinisation of matter by dethroning Mind and making Supermind the primary instrument of the new creation.

Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet (known as Thea to her students) has in her works given a complete exposition of the descent and action of Supermind in this world. She has given the keys (by way of number-power, zodiacal tradition and the sacred sciences) to understand the action of Supermind and how one can consciously participate in the evolution (supramentalisation) of humankind and the establishment of a gnostic society. By unveiling the secrets of the ancient zodiac, she has objectively established the fact that India is the Guru amongst nations, whereas others make this claim merely out of nationalistic fervour and by way of repeating the old formulas.

Thea's cosmology has proven empirically that Sri Aurobindo is Vishnu's 9th Avatar according to rigorous Vedic prescriptions, she has proven that Sri Aurobindo's most conclusive victory was the process of his death and return, what exactly that means in the Supramental Manifestation, and why it was necessary. She has presented the Formula he cemented in his own symbol and shown how it has worked meticulously in India particularly through two Lines, Solar and Lunar, and how the entire development of the new independent India has taken place according to His Formula.

Yet, we neither see an enthusiastic acceptance nor an informed criticism of her works. Why exactly are her prescriptions wrong? What exactly is the mechanism of the operations of Supermind, if not the one explained by Thea? We do not hear anything on these lines. Instead all we hear is mindless accusations levelled against her, ad hominem attacks, false charges and accusations of self-glorification from self-styled spokespersons of the community.

Scientific progress happens through a process of developing a hypothesis and testing it against observable phenomenon. If the observed phenomenon does not correspond to the hypothesis, it is discarded and a new one is propounded which explains the reality around us.

Occultism, as the Mother opined, is also a science since it is reproducible. Occult experiments have a universal validity and can be tested. Nobody accused Einstein of self-glorification when he proposed The Theory of Relativity to explain the orbital eccentricity of Mercury. Rather it was tested against observable data and on this strength it was accepted or rejected. Those who put their faith in Newtonian Mechanics and disagreed with Einstein gave valid reasons for doing so and did not spend their time making ad hominem attacks against Einstein.

If Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet is wrong, what exactly is the view and tested hypothesis of the Aurobindonian Community regarding the mechanism of the Supramental Descent and its establishment as the governing principle on this planet? What exactly is the mechanism and its time-frame, if any, for its descent and demonstrable action? What is their opinion on the Return of Sri Aurobindo and the role he would play in the creation of a gnostic society? If he would be the prototype of the Gnostic Being, would the descent of Supermind be initiated by his return and if so, how and when would this take place?

Sri Aurobindo stated that India is conscious of her mission in the world and is waiting for the exterior means of its manifestation. What is the Aurobindonian Community doing to facilitate those means? In what way has its failure to rise to this momentous occasion negatively affected conditions in India and delayed its promised renaissance?

THE SUPRAMENTAL JNANA

By: Robert E. Wilkinson
26 May, 2010

Any serious student of Sri Aurobindo’s life and yoga will agree that his work represents a radical departure from all previous spiritual paths. It challenges thousands of years of traditional wisdom that regards a transcendence of the physical world to be the highest possible attainment. In an epochal reversal of direction, Sri Aurobindo and his line have presented humanity with a New Way, an entirely new direction that foresees the possibility of a material union with the Divine, one that takes us into the core of this world of matter and the innermost mysteries of time. In his 1915 letter to the Mother, Sri Aurobindo discusses this new creation which derives from, ‘... the union of the “Earth” of the Veda with the divine Principle, an earth which is said to be above our earth, that is to say, the physical being and consciousness of which the world and the body are only images’. The principal feature that unites these two realms within a single Integral Vision is a New System of Measure, a non-speculative formula that reveals the utter perfection of a Supramental Consciousness as it deploys itself on the Earth. In order for us to perceive the workings of this new consciousness, one that unites the Spiritual and Physical in a seamless view, the Mother commanded that we abandon the old paths in their entirety. She insisted that there could be absolutely NO MIXTURE with the partial and incomplete teachings of the past that might contaminate the new way. What we see instead, from people claiming not only to be devotees of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, but leaders of their cause, is a complete dismissal of some of the most critical aspects of their teachings and a willful disobedience of their most inviolable commands. Nowhere is this more evident than in the veritable orgy of MIXTURE now taking place on the Deshpande blog, ‘Mirror of Tomorrow’ http://www.mirroroftomorrow.org .

For the past several months ‘Mirror of Tomorrow’ has published a serialization of David Johnston’s articles on the works of the famous Swiss psychologist, Carl G. Jung. In this series, Johnston, who claims to be first and foremost a disciple of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, makes every possible effort to insinuate Jung into their work to justify his own intellectual theories which place Jung's experiences on an equal footing with Sri Aurobindo’s. He does this in spite of Sri Aurobindo’s letter to Dilip Kumar Roy in 1932, in which the master characterized Jung together with other Western psychologists, as: ‘children scrutinizing spiritual experiences with the flicker of their torch-lights’. Not content with Sri Aurobindo’s unequivocal statement on the matter, Johnston condescendingly opines that the reason the Avatar was so mistaken about Jung was that he was pre-occupied with his own journey and had no time to devote to a serious study of Jung’s works. Johnston’s outrageous presumption provides a perfect example of someone desperately trying to Mix the old with the New in order to justify his own pet theories. He has become so completely invested in Jung’s psychology that he cannot rise above the dogmatic mental filter that prevents anything from entering that does not reinforce his old and limited point of view. This is MIXTURE in its most insidious form, and like his cronies in Auroville, Johnston is only too willing to misrepresent and distort Sri Aurobindo’s and the Mother’s teachings in order to flatter his ego and prop up his grossly unfounded beliefs.

One of David Johnston’s most glaring errors in judgment is his belief that Jung’s Individuation process is in some way equivalent to, or a preparation for the Aurobindonian transformation. From what he writes, he wants us to believe that ‘Self’ in Jungian terms is the same realization that Sri Aurobindo and the Mother identify as the ‘Psychic-Being’. This is clearly impossible since Jung and his followers seek the Self through a psycho-mental process designed to take one downward, just below the threshold of consciousness. The ‘Psychic-Being’ as Sri Aurobindo describes it is not simply the unconscious psyche but the foundation of the Supermind and its realization demands a process of Centering that may only be achieved through a long and rigorous yogic sadhana.

‘There are in fact two systems simultaneously active in the organisation of the being and its parts: one is concentric, a series of rings or sheaths with the psychic at the centre; another is vertical, an ascension and descent, like a flight of steps, a series of superimposed planes with the supermind-overmind as the crucial nodus of the transition beyond the human into the Divine.
First, there must be a conversion inwards, a going within to find the inmost psychic being and bring it out to the front, disclosing at the same time the inner mind, inner vital, inner physical parts of the nature. Next, there must be an ascension, a series of conversions upwards and a turning down to convert the lower parts.’ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga, p.251

In the Jungian context, Self is merely an idea, an archetypal hypothetical center of the unconscious. But for Sri Aurobindo, ‘Self’ is Agni, the individualized Absolute giving to the being Knowledge, Vision, and Stability of Purpose. The realization or unveiling of this Divine presence may only be achieved through an act of Surrender and the practice of an integral yoga, not psychotherapy as Johnston prefers to believe. I am in complete agreement with Thea who writes, ‘…Western psychology no matter how evolved cannot be equated with Indian systems of Yoga’.

This distorted Jungian view of Self Realization is being hotly debated on the Deshpande blog between David Johnston and Paulette Hadnagy, an Aurovillian ideologue. By their own admission, neither of these individuals has actually realized the Self, yet they go on and on arguing about what the ‘Psychic Being’ is and how to achieve it. The sad fact is that neither has any understanding about the true nature of the Soul and this is precisely why they have been denied the realization. They cannot understand it because they are using instruments and seeking old paths that cannot comprehend it. As the Mother wrote, ‘...It cannot be understood: It must BE. When you become it, then you will be it, that’s all, there will no longer be a problem.’ But how does one become the Self? What turn of awareness can bring about such a profound existential shift that one realizes immortality, eternity, and infinity as immediate qualities of consciousness? Clearly it is not something new to be obtained because one already is the eternal Self. It is simply the REALIZATION of something that one already is. So what can one do or perhaps un-do to bring about this realization? Is it possible to realize the Self, as David Johnston believes, through the pursuit of a Jungian ‘Individuation’? Unquestionably NO! Carl Jung’s discoveries, grounded as they are in the old ‘Anatmic’ schools of dissolution, are not designed nor are they able to provide the inner alignment from which genuine Self-Realization can arise. The very pursuit of Jung’s psychology is a deviation from the principles of Jnana designed to bring about the Soul’s realization and moreover creates a binding for consciousness that leads the seeker into a further accumulation and compounding of that ignorance. In Paulette’s case, which applies to all of the so-called Auroville elites, a similar problem arises due to an outright rejection of the Supramental Jnana. Having abandoned the contributions of the Cosmic and Individual powers of the Supramental Line, they are left with only a fragment of the Supramental formula and virtually no way to access the Psychic Being. Simply put, they have locked themselves out of the house of the Spirit and have thrown away the KEYS. Both have denied the natural lineage of the Solar Line from the Transcendent to the Cosmic and finally to the Individual Soul where the mysteries of Self Realization are given out in full. David seeks to substitute Jung and his colleague Marie Louise Von Franz for the Third member of the Line while Paulette vehemently denies even that there is a Third. In each case there is a distinct absence of Jnana which bars the way to any real progress. The consequences of this arrogant rejection of legitimate guidance and knowledge is that both are destined, to quote Emerson, ‘…to live on the brink of mysteries and harmonies into which they can never enter, and with their hand on the door-latch they die outside.’ But for those more mature seekers who have the wisdom and humility to obey the Mother’s commands and rise above the old and partial systems of knowledge that obscure the Supramental vision, let me lay out the lines of the New Jnana prescribed by Sri Aurobindo the Mother and Thea for the realization of the Psychic Being.

Anyone familiar with Sri Aurobindo’s work must agree that Jnana, the Yoga of Knowledge, is an indispensable element of the Integral Yoga. It is based upon the understanding that Realization comes with the full conformity of the mental mode with reality itself. In other words, the more the mental mode conforms to the eternal truths of reality – Sanatana Dharma, the more organic and spontaneous the realization. One might even say that the whole of realization is based upon Alignment, and one of the most important areas of this alignment, one that contributes directly to the realization of the eternal Self, is an awareness of the mysteries of Time. In fact, the Bhagavad Gita affirms that it is Mahakala, the Time-Spirit who holds the grandest truths and its realization is the highest accomplishment that the seeker can aspire to in his or her lifetime. But what can Time have to do with the Psychic Being or Self and what has Sri Aurobindo written about this supremely important subject?

To better understand this unbreakable bond between Time and the Soul we must listen to the voices of the ancient Sages letting their words sink deep into our being. We can begin with the writer of the Katha Upanishad who tells us:

“A being, the size of a thumb, like a flame without smoke, dwells deep within the heart. He is the lord of time, past and future, the same today and tomorrow. Having attained him, one fears no more. He, verily, is the immortal Self.” Katha Upanishad

In this brief but revealing passage the sage tells us that the Self, located in the lotus of the Heart, is the ‘lord of time, past and future, the same today and tomorrow’. What exactly does he mean? Sri Aurobindo explains that one of the primary attributes of the Soul is the triple time knowledge ‘Trikaladristi’, held of old to be a supreme sign of the seer and the sage, not as an abnormal power, but as its normal way of time knowledge. It is precisely through this triple time knowledge that one acquires an irrefutable consciousness of Unity and the capacity of changing the individual destiny into a higher spiritual destiny and eventually extending that capacity towards the change of the destiny of the collectivity and the race. Do we find any mention of this extraordinary yogic capacity in the teachings of Carl Jung? Absolutely not!

Let us move on then to the Rig Veda where the Rishi reveals the ‘secret of secrets’, a Time Jnana that leads the seeker to the realization of ‘Swar’ or the Truth Consciousness.

‘Certain eternal worlds are these which have come into being, their doors are shut to you or opened by the months and the years. Without effort one world moves in the other, and it is these that Brihaspati has made manifest to knowledge’ Rig Veda (II.24.5)

Again we find a promise of an eternity of Time opened to us by the ‘months and the years’. This is a familiar refrain in the Vedic hymns that speak of the fruits of a ‘sacrificial year’. In his ‘Secret of the Veda’ Sri Aurobindo explains the occult symbolism of these revolutions of time through which the victory is won:

‘...when the nine-months’ sacrifice is prolonged through the tenth, it is when the Navagwas become the ten Dashagwas by the seven-headed thought of Ayasya, the tenth Rishi, that the Sun is found… but what is meant by the figure of the months? For it now becomes clear that it is a figure, a parable; the year is symbolic, the months are symbolic. It is in the revolution of the year that the recovery of the lost Sun and the lost cows is effected, for we have the explicit statement in X.62-2… “by the truth, in the revolution of the year, they broke Vala”…’

‘The expression in the hymns, daso maso ataran, indicates that there was some difficulty in getting through the full period of ten months. It is during this period apparently that the sons of darkness had the power to assail the sacrifice; for it is indicated that it is only by the confirming of the thought which conquers Swar, the solar world, that the Rishis are able to get through the ten months…’

‘I hold for you in the waters the thought that wins possession of heaven by which the Navagwas [nine] passed through the ten months…’ (V.45-11)

‘This victory is won in twelve periods of the upward journey, represented by the revolution of the twelve months of the sacrificial year, the periods corresponding to the successive dawns of a wider and wider truth, until the tenth month secures the victory…What may be the precise significance of the nine rays and the ten is a more difficult question which we are not yet in a position to solve.’ Sri Aurobindo, The Secret of the Veda, pp. 176-177.

In this passage, perhaps one of the most recondite in the Vedic texts, Sri Aurobindo explains the Cosmological process by which Vala, an Asura of the Rig Veda, in the form of a stone cave, was broken to liberate the cows (light) hidden in the cave of the Panis. To my knowledge, no one in Auroville or the Ashram, least of all David or Paulette, has been able to address the supreme knowledge contained in this commentary on the Veda. Even Sri Aurobindo himself admits in the text that he is not yet in a position to solve this riddle of time. He would later write, ‘the tail of the Supermind is descending… my formula is working out rapidly…now I have the hang of the whole hanged thing…like a very Einstein I have got the mathematical formula of the whole affair and am working it out figure by figure’. His Supramental Time Vision was to have been explained in the last chapter of the ‘Synthesis of Yoga’ but, as we know, it was never finished. The ‘formula’ remained a mystery until 1975 when Thea, Third in the Line unveiled the Supramental knowledge contained in the Mother’s plan for her temple and published her discoveries about the nature of Time (the months and the years) in a cosmological framework known as the ‘Gnostic Circle’. The immensities of knowledge that open to the touch of this cosmological key are simply breathtaking and yet almost none of Sri Aurobindo’s many devotees have bothered to read this groundbreaking text that reveals the connections of Time with the Soul. On the contrary, Paulette has even boasted of burning Thea’s books.

The cosmological ideas in the Veda that Thea has revealed have eluded some of the greatest spiritual figures of all time. Even the great Swami Vivekananda was compelled to admit his non-comprehension of Vedic cosmology. But it is abundantly clear that in our new age, the Supermind, in order to be intelligible, demands a system of measure capable of embracing, measuring and limiting, one which moulds forms in the formless, psychologises and makes knowable the Unknowable, geometrises and makes measurable the Limitless. And Thea’s Gnostic Circle is the ruler by which we can now measure what has been previously considered un-measurable because of its otherworldly ‘location’. As Thea explains:

‘The cosmological model used in this exposition is the same known in ancient Vedic times. Hence so much importance was given then, as we note from the Hymns and Scriptures that have been handed down, to the phenomenon of the seasons, the measure of the Day and of the Year. Particularly revered was the shortest day of the year, or the beginning of the Winter Solstice, Capricorn (Makar). A scrutiny of the Shastras discloses various formulae specifically for determining this special point in time. We can safely say that the ancient Rishi was obsessed with Time, for Time regulates these movements which find their perfect harmony in the figure of the Year. Thus the sacrifice is known to be experienced in twelve stages, culminating in the Tenth, which is the 10th month, Capricorn, the period of the victory of the Aryan Warrior. Capricorn from most ancient times has been considered by all schools of astrology to rule India. It is this same tenth-month victory that we celebrate this year, 1999, as the culmination of the centenary Navaratri. In the Map we see that the hieroglyph of the tenth (month) zodiacal sign whose origin is so ancient that it is lost in the mists of time, can be accurately superimposed on the body of Akhand Bharat. This superimposed symbol is the seal of the Supreme.’ Thea, The Nine Nights of Durga – the destiny of India across the century in a new Cosmological Paradigm. November, 1999.

The student will find specific examples of the application of Thea’s cosmology in her blog, Puranic Cosmology Updated (http://puraniccosmologyupdated.blogspot.com/).

If we will simply follow the accomplishments of the Solar Line, they form a self-evident descent of Knowledge and Force out of the subtle planes and into the physical. Sri Aurobindo spoke of, a UNION with ‘the “Earth” of the Veda, said to be above our earth...the physical being and consciousness of which the world and the body are only images’ His words echo the Mother’s statement that, ‘…the whole earth and everything it contains is a kind of concentration, a condensation of something which exists in other worlds invisible to the material eye. Each thing manifest here has its principle, idea or essence somewhere in the subtler regions.’ Both acknowledge that behind the apparent reality there exists a more essential occult reality that defines the true context of external events and organises their outcome in accordance with a kind of formulaic super-logic moving always toward greater order and harmony. Sri Aurobindo called this super logic ‘The Mind of Light’, a consciousness that pierces the veil of appearances and SEES into the underlying web of causality that manifests as our individual and collective life. It is not a vision that seeks the transcendence of Time and Space but one that embraces them in a ‘New Way’ revealing an unerring Divine ‘plan’ in the cyclic patterns and cosmological measurements that accompany the Supramental Creation. In her Feb. 5^th, 1969 Agenda, the Mother spoke of the supramental descent as a force ‘imposing itself and commanding the action on earth’. She described this supramental action in terms of ‘numbers, groups of figures and planets’. And perhaps most importantly, she goes on to say, ‘...Not only does it express this thing (the supramental action) but it has a power for realizing it’. Within a year after her Feb. 5^th discussion, the Mother incorporated her realizations in the sacred geometry of her Vedic temple, a structure that she defined as, ‘a symbol of the Future Realization’. It fully contains the Time Jnana that Sri Aurobindo described in his ‘Secret of the Veda’, a knowledge that Thea has revealed in its entirety in her numerous books and articles. The knowledge given out in her temple not only expresses the dynamics of the supramental manifestation but, as she said, IT INCLUDES THE POWER FOR REALIZING IT.  Contained in the sacred geometry of the Mother’s Inner Chamber is the cosmological formula that Sri Aurobindo, like a very Einstein, was working out figure by figure, and this is the key to the realization of the Soul or Psychic-Being. Is there anything comparable to this supramental cosmology in the psychology of Carl Jung? Absolutely not.  Neither David nor Paulette has even the slightest understanding of Supramental Time and yet they go on representing themselves to the community of devotees as credible authorities on Sri Aurobindo’s and the Mother’s work.  

This simply cannot go on. For those serious students of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother who wish to see their work come out of the shadows and take its proper place in the world, the time has come to take a stand. We can no longer tolerate the hypocrisy of those self appointed authorities who make the hollow claim of loving Sri Aurobindo and the Mother and who then go right on distorting their teachings and disobeying their commands. They must be called to account. If they believe that they are in possession of some advanced level of realization, let them speak up and answer the points I have made in this article in particular Sri Aurobindo’s unequivocal statements about the role of Time in his yoga.

"...Time is the remaining aid needed for the effectivity of the [Supramental yoga].

Time presents itself to human effort as an enemy or a friend, as a resistance, a medium or an instrument. But always it is really the instrument of the soul.’...‘To the ego it is a tyrant or a resistance, to the Divine an instrument. Therefore, while our effort is personal, Time appears as a resistance, for it presents to us all the obstruction of the forces that conflict with our own. When the divine working and the personal are combined in our consciousness, it appears as a medium and condition. When the two become one, it appears as a servant and instrument ..." Sri Aurobindo; The Synthesis of Yoga, p. 61.

When we see pundits like David or Paulette boldly putting themselves forward as authorities on Sri Aurobindo’s work and message while, at the same time conflating their teachings with whatever strikes their fancy, you can be absolutely sure that they are mired in Mixture and have no idea what they are talking about. It is simply not possible to speak authoritatively about Sri Aurobindo’s work while, at the same time, ignoring the importance of Time, the Mother’s Inner Chamber or Thea’s updating of Vedic Cosmology. Indeed, the goal of this work is not an Individuated psyche or a rigid evolutionary ideology as David or Paulette would have us believe, it is Gnosis grounded in a New Seeing capable of transforming both the Individual and the World. To suggest anything less, to quote Thea is, ‘ignorance, pretension and empty words’.

Commentaries on the Supermind vs. CG Jung’s Overmental Psychology

Response to: David Johnston's - 'Jung’s Psychology of the Living God and Transformation of Individual and Community.' Part III

Having read David Johnston’s presentation on the Mirror of Tomorrow blog (http://www.mirroroftomorrow.org/blog/_archives/2010/2/1/4438893.html) there can be no doubt that he is one of the more erudite students of Carl Jung’s work. I think it is fair to say that his exposure to Sri Aurobindo’s knowledge, as far as he has taken it, has provided unique insights into the structure of Jung’s vision that one cannot glean from Jung alone. There are however a number of fatal flaws in his analysis of Jung in the light of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother’s teachings on the Integral Yoga, flaws that proceed from a ‘partial’ view of the lines of that yoga and a truncated vision of the Supramental Descent.

In an earlier posting I mentioned that one of the critical differences between Sri Aurobindo and Jung was that Sri Aurobindo came to fulfill a divine ‘evolutionary action’, an action that the Mother described as being ‘direct from the Supreme’. In his paper David Johnston has provided us with a means of insight into that ‘action’ by including the legendary dialogue between Osiris and Maria Prophetissa which reveals the central axiom of Alchemy; "One becomes Two, Two becomes Three, and out of the Third comes the One as the Fourth". This alchemical formula, grounded in the quaternion model, precisely describes the stages or octaves of the Supramental descent through a living bridge made up of the four members of the Solar line; Sri Aurobindo, the Mother, Thea and the Fourth, Kalki, who is Sri Aurobindo returned - ‘the One as the Fourth’. This formula describes, among other things, the descent of the Transcendent Divine into what Thea calls the ‘Absoluteness of Immanence’ or hidden foundation of the Supermind. It is also the formula which clarifies the occult process by which Spirit becomes Matter; how Brahman, ‘THAT in its transcendent form’ becomes the Vedic Skambha ‘THIS in its immanent form’. Thea’s recovery of this Vedic knowledge lost for millennia has given us the means of connecting Spirit and Matter in a seamless continuum which resolves for all time, the paradoxes and irreconcilables of an old spirituality. It is this very formula that provides the basis of a Supramental Gnosis - a knowledge Sri Aurobindo described as being, ‘…free from doubt, self-evident, self-existent, irrefragable and absolute’.

We can follow this process of descent and unveiling in the lives of each member of the Solar Line. One may observe, for example, that Sri Aurobindo's actual work on the spiritual plane is almost never revealed. The Mother's work on the occult planes is somewhat clearer yet even she was not inclined to explain the details of what she did and saw. It isn't until the Third level of the descent that these details become revealed in their entirety because that is the nature of the Third – ‘precision in truth’. With Thea’s level of the work, we are able to perceive this precision in its myriad aspects. Take for instance the Supramental Time Vision that Sri Aurobindo introduced in the last chapter of ‘Synthesis of Yoga’. While he knew that Time was the remaining aid needed for the effectivity of the Supramental yoga, it was not until the Third level that the details of this synthetic Time Vision are finally revealed. The ability to see with such detail at this level comes about because the action is observed from the most intimate dimension the human consciousness can experience, the 'center' or individual Soul. But this is most certainly NOT the Soul postulated in the psychology of Carl Jung, nor can it be obtained through his Individuation process.

What I find lacking in David Johnston’s presentation is a realistic view of the Becoming. Search as we may, there is nothing of the New knowledge and precision in detail to be found in Jung’s work. It is primarily a product of the Overmental Plane, full of Gods, Archetypes and speculative Visions, incapable of providing access to a genuine integral experience. Moreover, it leaves the student stranded ‘up there’ on the Transcendent/Mental-Cosmic planes and unable to link the Vedic Truth-Consciousness to the Earth where it must finally be grounded if any meaningful transformation of Matter is to occur. When I read postings by David Johnston or RY Deshpande, erudite as they may be, they do not even begin to acknowledge or describe the sublime purpose and perfect control in the unfolding of events accompanying the Supramental Creation. And perhaps worse, even though they have been given indisputable evidence to the contrary, they continue to mislead their readers by suggesting that there are no Third and Fourth levels of the Supramental Descent. Clearly these wisemen would prefer to talk and sleep but for those who are tired of playing in the antechambers of the higher mind and aspire to a more satisfying non-speculative realization, I will leave you with this quote from Thea’s New Way:

‘May we not seek miracles…let us rather have Realization. This is the solid way. Let us not see visions or lights or etheric forms…let us BE light, let us SEE IN UNDERSTANDING, let us be the ‘new seeing’.Thea, Preamble to The New Way, Vol. 1 & 2

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In the last few days, a friend and colleague, Lori Tompkins, posted an extraordinary essay entitled, ‘The Infinite and the Detail’ (http://circumsolatious.blogspot.com/2010/01/infinite-and-detail.html) I would highly recommend this essay to those interested in learning more about the Supermind and the details of its manifestation.

The Inadequacy of Jung's Psychology in the Realization of the Soul

Response to:  David Johnston's - 'Jung’s Psychology of the Living God and Transformation of Individual and Community.'  

Let me begin by saying that David Johnston has made an admirable presentation of the psychology of CG Jung. As I read it, time and again I found myself saying, ‘yes… but’. Many of the concepts employed in Jung’s thought reflect well respected metaphysical propositions some of which touch upon certain Supramental truths but in the final analysis, when Jung’s thought is used in an attempt to clarify the deeper principles of Sri Aurobindo’s, the Mother’s and Thea’s work, it falls miserably short of the goal. To his credit David has included the appropriate caveats that he is not attempting to synthesize the work of Carl Jung and Sri Aurobindo, but my sense is that he believes, as some have written, that Jung's psychology is capable of preparing the ground for the Gnostic experience. In fact it has even been said that the Jungian Individuation is a pointer, a stepping stone to the Aurobindonian transformation. I do not agree with this proposition for a number of reasons but I understand why many of Sri Aurobindo’s devotees would embrace Jung’s work with this expectation, especially those living in the West.

Anyone familiar with Sri Aurobindo’s work will understand that it represents a radical departure from the goal of an old spirituality which sought in its entirety an escape from birth and death through a transcendental experience which dissolved the nexus of consciousness that held the individual in the world. But very few appreciate that the success of Sri Aurobindo’s yoga turns upon that same nexus of consciousness or Soul only realized more profoundly as the foundation and support of the Supermind. In the Vedic age this point or nexus was known as 'Skambha' (the 'pillar', 'support') of the Veda and it was considered to be the Supreme Principle or ‘fulcrum of creation’ but with the advent of a transcendental spirituality bent on escape from a so-called illusory world of becoming, knowledge of ‘Skambha’ fell into obscurity and was soon considered irrelevant. No one since the Vedic Age has actually realized Skambha but we find mention of its supreme importance in the writings of the renowned Indian guru Ram Chandra. In his Complete Works, in a chapter entitled “The Final State”, Ram Chandra writes of the final stage of yogic practice:

“the final approach…where we are nearest to the Super-active Center, or Zero, which is the primeval cause of the entire manifestation. …This can best be expressed as the state of Tam – “no light and no darkness.” This is what takes us along now and there is no end to it. We may go on and on but this will remain with us forever. If there be a great soul of caliber who may be able to comprehend what lies beyond, he may be able to discover that there is a point, rather a ring, there. The conception of a ring around a centre is indispensable. Such a one as is capable of having an experience of the central point is very rarely born. Still let me reveal something about it. Suppose there be such a great soul in existence who wishes to discover what exists within, tries to peep into the ring around which all the powers of Nature originate, then he is pushed back from it. Anyhow, if after undergoing all shocks he is finally able to make out something of it then words would fail to express it. This is the final limit of human approach and none so far has been able to go beyond. Advancement even up to this point is well nigh impossible”

In this extraordinary passage, Ram Chandra confirms that the realization of what he calls ‘Tam’ is well nigh impossible. That such a one as is capable of having an experience of this central point is rarely born. For me his statement parallels the statement of the Mother when she wrote that, ‘… at each great epoch there has been one great being capable of adding one more step to the ladder and reaching a place where the ordinary consciousness has never been… and this is the work of the Avatar...’ But what few have understood is that ‘adding one more step’ was not just limited to Sri Aurobindo’s realization of the Supermind. Each of the members of the Solar Line, Sri Aurobindo, the Mother and Thea, have realized what heretofore has been considered impossible or unattainable. For Sri Aurobindo it was the transcendent heights of the Supermind, exceeding Krishna’s Overmental consciousness. For the Mother it was the highest realization of the Cosmic Divine and its expression in Her Vedic temple as the greatest feat of sacred architecture ever conceived. And for Thea, it is the realization of the Soul, Skambha, the sacred ‘Point’ whose attainment Ram Chandra reserved for the rarest of individuals. It is this very same Point that is expressed in the translucent globe that captures the descending light of the Supreme in the Mother’s Inner Chamber.

This extraordinary realization is recorded in Thea’s book, The New Way, Volume 3. She made the following comments on that realization for the Vishaal Study Group on 26 September, 2006: 

‘As most of you know, the essence of my contribution to the work of the Solar Line has been that POINT and penetration into a special ‘zone’ where alignment can come into being. … Ram Chandra had attained something solid of the ancient Way, and knew it to be that. But he held that one could not enter that Point. He got to its portals – what he calls the ‘ring’ (around the Point – which of course describes the symbol of the Sun, the Supermind). He held that one could not enter that tam, as he called it – or darkness, absolute ‘ignorance’, or unknowing; actually it is the Absoluteness of Immanence; and he himself never did. He got to its portals, but since he did not go into the Point, he did not find the Golden Seed which that darkness hides; as Sri Aurobindo explained it, the Sun of Light, the luminous Zero, not emptiness but Light. Not having the Supermind, he could not make that passage. But he knew that was IT. How extraordinary. The most remarkable ‘coincidence’ is that the supreme realisation I had and which began on 17 April 1983, is what Ram Chandra-ji stated was only for very rare individuals. Two days later he left his body, 19 April 1983.’

In the November 1969 Agenda (at age 91) the Mother confirmed the utmost importance of this realization writing that '...this new world is nothing other than a rapid convergence upon the knowledge of the point and the whole (i.e. the One and the Many).‘The whole is brought with lightening speed toward the consciousness that will be this Consciousness of the point and the whole at the same time.’

For those of us who appreciate the indispensable role of the Soul as the solid foundation of the Supermind, it is patently obvious that Carl Jung’s discoveries, grounded as they are in the old Anatmic schools of dissolution, do not even approach being able to provide the inner alignment that Sri Aurobindo insists be sought out first before any ascension into vertical dimensions can begin:

“FIRST, there must be a conversion inwards, a going within to find the inmost psychic being (Soul) and bring it out to the front, disclosing at the same time the inner mind, inner vital, inner physical parts of the nature. Next, there must be an ascension, a series of conversions upwards and a turning down to convert the lower parts.” Sri Aurobindo - Letters on Yoga, December 2, 1946, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, India, 1946, Planes and Parts of the Being. p. 251

In the final analysis, I am compelled to agree with Sri Aurobindo who described psychology, including Jung’s, as, ‘…an infant science, at once rash, fumbling and crude, which has the universal habit of the human mind to take partial or local truths, generalize them unduly and try to explain the whole field of human nature in its narrow terms.’  In fact, the only reason Jung is mentioned at all in conjunction with Sri Aurobindo’s yoga is through a misguided attempt by some to fill the void left by Auroville’s rejection of Thea as the Third member of the Solar Line. This inappropriate substitution has been a predictable failure given the lack of realization among the Auroville elite.

The Lack of Yogic Progress in Auroville

The lack of progress in the yoga described by Raman Reddy in his recent posting to Aurora Mirabilis Blogspot* is an unfortunate but predictable situation. What else would you expect when the Auroville elites refuse even to consider two thirds of the yogic formula given forth as an aid to securing the Integral Realization. Having rejected the contributions of the Cosmic and Individual powers of the Supramental Line, they are left with only the Transcendent realization and virtually no way to achieve it. Simply put, they have locked themselves out of the house of the Spirit and have thrown away the KEYS to the Kingdom. Perhaps they should re-consider what Sri Aurobindo wrote about this path of yoga:

“…The distinction between the Transcendental, the Cosmic, the Individual Divine is not my invention, nor is it native to India or to Asia -- it is, on the contrary, a recognised European teaching current in the esoteric tradition of the Catholic Church where it is the authorised explanation of the Trinity, -- Father, Son and Holy Ghost…
In the practice of yoga there is a great dynamic difference in one's way of dealing with these three possible realisations. If I realise only the Divine as that, not my personal self, which yet moves secretly all my personal being and which I can bring forward out of the veil, or if I build up the image of that Godhead in my members, it is a realisation but a limited one. If it is the Cosmic Godhead that I realise, losing in it all personal self, that is a very wide realisation, but I become a mere channel of the universal Power and there is no personal or divinely individual consummation for me. If I shoot up to the transcendental realisation only, I lose both myself and the world in the transcendental Absolute. If, on the other hand, my aim is none of these things by itself, but to realise and also to manifest the Divine in the world, bringing down for the purpose a yet unmanifested Power, -- such as the supermind, -- A HARMONISATION OF ALL THREE BECOMES IMPERATIVE. I have to bring it down, and from where shall I bring it down -- since it is not yet manifested in the cosmic formula -- if not from the unmanifest Transcendence, which I must reach and realise? I have to bring it into the cosmic formula and, if so, I must realise the cosmic Divine and become conscious of the cosmic self and the cosmic forces. BUT I HAVE TO EMBODY IT HERE, -- OTHERWISE IT IS LEFT AS AN INFLUENCE ONLY AND NOT A THING FIXED IN THE PHYSICAL WORLD, AND IT IS THROUGH THE DIVINE IN THE INDIVIDUAL ALONE THAT THIS CAN BE DONE.”          Sri Aurobindo, -- Letters on Yoga, SABCL Vol. 22/24, p. 509-10


Indeed, the Individual SOUL is the KEY to the Integral Realization. It must be sought out FIRST and established as the proper foundation before any ascension into vertical dimensions can begin. As Sri Aurobindo explains:

“FIRST, there must be a conversion inwards, a going within to find the inmost psychic being (Soul) and bring it out to the front, disclosing at the same time the inner mind, inner vital, inner physical parts of the nature. Next, there must be an ascension, a series of conversions upwards and a turning down to convert the lower parts.” Sri Aurobindo - Letters on Yoga, December 2, 1946, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, India, 1946, Planes and Parts of the Being. p. 251

But how is this ‘conversion inwards’ to the Psychic Being or Soul to be achieved? What kind of yogic process would take us on this inner spiral, this centripetal movement into a ‘center that holds’? Is there perhaps a cosmological formula given out by the Vedic Rishis that might give us access to these hidden dimensions within? Yes of course, says Sri Aurobindo:

‘It is when the nine-months’ sacrifice is prolonged through the tenth, it is when the Navagwas become the ten Dashagwas by the seven-headed thought of Ayasya, the tenth Rishi, that the Sun is found… but what is meant by the figure of the months? For it now becomes clear that it is a figure, a parable; the year is symbolic, the months are symbolic. It is in the revolution of the year that the recovery of the lost Sun and the lost cows is effected, for we have the explicit statement in X.62-2… “by the truth, in the revolution of the year, they broke Vala”…’

‘The expression in the hymns, daso maso ataran, indicates that there was some difficulty in getting through the full period of ten months. It is during this period apparently that the sons of darkness had the power to assail the sacrifice; for it is indicated that it is only by the confirming of the thought which conquers Swar, the solar world, that the Rishis are able to get through the ten months…’

‘I hold for you in the waters the thought that wins possession of heaven by which the Navagwas [nine] passed through the ten months…’ (V.45-11)

‘This victory is won in twelve periods of the upward journey, represented by the revolution of the twelve months of the sacrificial year, the periods corresponding to the successive dawns of a wider and wider truth, until the tenth month secures the victory…What may be the precise significance of the nine rays and the ten is a more difficult question which we are not yet in a position to solve.’   Sri Aurobindo, The Secret of the Veda, 1915.

The fact of the matter is that Sri Aurobindo never did solve this question because it was not in the job description of the Transcendent Divine to unveil the particulars of the Individual SOUL. It is exclusively the work of the Individual Divine who has given out in impeccable detail the Vedic formulas for the realization of the Soul or Psychic Being. Of course the Auroville elites have rejected out of hand anything Thea has to say on the matter. As Paulette declares:

“I refuse to read anything coming from Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet, Wilkinson or their few associates… and I have been instructed by the Auroville Working Committee, as well by the Auroville Outreach Media, not to entertain with such people any discussion whatsoever, on any topic.”

Preferring an intractable ignorance to the Keys to the 'Future Realization', Paulette and those she presumes to lead will wander aimlessly in the pursuit of a yogic ideal that they cannot possibly attain. She has provided us with an excellent example of this confusion in her postings to the ‘Mirror of Tomorrow’ and ‘Aurora Mirabilis’ blogs where she discusses what she believes to be her realization of the Soul or ‘Psychic Being’. In these postings, entitled ‘I was left free to grow at my own pace and rhythm’, Paulette has put herself forward as an authority on these matters presumably to promote her books and guide others on the path of realization. But from what she writes, it is clearly evident that whatever she has realized, beyond her own imaginings, is NOT the Psychic Being and will only add further confusion to the Auroville and Ashram communities. It is yet another example of the blind leading the blind straight into the ditch of an erroneous and impotent orthodoxy.


Raman Reddy's posting to Aurora Mirabilis Blogspot:  http://auroramirabilis.blogspot.com/2009/11/barin-ghose-dilip-kumar-roy-and-anna.html#comment-form

Stop Scapegoating Peter Heehs

Alok Pandey’s thoughtful article about the Heehs imbroglio brought up a number of important points but his burning questions about HOW and WHY this dispute occurred in the first place remain unanswered. To understand the HOW and WHY behind the Heehs controversy, one must be willing to stop the scapegoating and go deeper into the origins of the ignorance and confusion from which Heehs' literary heresy came into being.

Since the Mother’s departure in 1973 both Auroville and the Ashram have suffered and continue to experience the eroding effect of incompetent leadership. Instead of forming around a common Soul and a Supramental knowledge, which was the Mother’s avowed intention, Auroville and the Ashram have formed around a Collective Ego. Instead of a true spiritual community guided by Realized Beings, the seat of Sri Aurobindo’s work was taken over by the Indian government and is now run by Philosophers and Politicians who, the Mother warned us, would be the very last to be transformed. This is the polluted soil from which Heehs' book emerged and the noxious influence that nursed his iconoclastic attitude.

The most important causal factor behind the Heehs’ controversy, completely absent from these discussions, and apparently quite unknown to Alok and others, is the existence of and the occult effect of a true collective Center or Soul. In the parlance of the Integral Yoga it is called the ‘Psychic Being’. It is the ordering and unifying principle of any collectivity and if it were truly present in the Auroville and Ashram community, the bitter controversies, legal disputes and polarization of devotees upon racial and other lines would have been a virtual impossibility. The community of devotees would know this if they had bothered to acquire a direct lived experience of the Yoga and the Vedic ‘Skambha’ instead of the lifeless mental orthodoxy that has been offered in its place. Indeed, one need only look at the ongoing disharmony and chaos in Auroville and the Ashram to know TO A CERTAINTY that there is NO CENTER. William Butler Yeats, himself a realized being, eloquently describes this occult phenomenon in the first lines of his poem, ‘The Second Coming’.

‘…Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.’

You could not find a better description of how Alok Pandey and others have experienced Peter Heehs’ destructive influence but what they fail to realize is that Heehs is not the CAUSE of this ongoing controversy but merely one of the SYMPTOMS of the CENTERLESS condition that exists today in Auroville and the Ashram. To someone who SEES, the situation and its errors have an almost formulaic precision to it producing a mathematical result when something essential is left out of the mix. It may be compared to G.W.H. Hegel’s famous three part dialectical formula known as Hegel’s law. If you apply the principles of Thesis and Antithesis but reject the Third principle of Synthesis, the formula is fractured, true unity cannot be achieved and an integral understanding becomes impossible.

The same principles apply to the Supramental formula. Sri Aurobindo explained to us that the Divine is not only Transcendent but also Cosmic and finally Individual – Purusha, Prakriti and the Individual Soul. Its power and force must be brought down into the world in order to effect any real transformation in the earth-consciousness. As we know, Sri Aurobindo’s work dealt exclusively with the Transcendent Plane. The Mother’s work and her Vedic Temple is an incomparable translation of the Occult-Cosmic Plane. But it isn’t until you get to the Third Level and Thea’s work that you come upon the Synthesizing principle of the Psychic Being or Individual Soul. Naturally her field is represented in the Mother’s temple architecture as the GLOBE or CENTER of the entire structure that unites the Transcendent and Cosmic planes in an integral perfection. But as we know, the Philosophers and Politicians who rule Auroville and the Ashram have rejected the Third along with her knowledge of the Mother’s Inner Chamber. As a consequence, they have consigned themselves and innocent students like Alok to a partial, dis-integrated and order-less mental dogma which cannot be brought down and applied in the earth-field. Through this disgraceful and deliberate act of omission, the usurpers in Pondicherry have reduced Sri Aurobindo’s work to what he called ‘a pompous farce’.

In my opinion, Alok has unfairly placed the Heehs’ controversy at the feet of the Ashram trustees who he believes chose to ignore the signs of an impending disaster. He does so while crediting others like Amal Kiran, and R Y Deshpande for raising a timely alarm. But what he fails to understand is that they too are complicit, if not more so, in creating the long-standing foundations of this problem. I have discussed Amal Kiran’s shameful behavior in another article* so I will not repeat my comments here. But I would like to extend this discussion of a Soulless Centerless cosmos to R Y Deshpande and his Mirror of Tomorrow blog. Here again we find with mathematical precision, the cause of the errors and shortcomings in Deshpande’s commentaries on Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri. For what is Savitri but a story of IMMORTALITY and the SOUL? How on earth can anyone presume to put themselves forward as an authority on Savitri without a lived experience of the Soul and the Vedic scriptures upon which this epic is based? Absent this, Deshpande’s authoritative musings and imaginings of Sri Aurobindo’s poetic verses are simply misleading speculations which serve only to divert the students’ attention from the real and essential purpose of this epochal work. Moreover, because he presents only a dismembered or partial view of the line of Supramental descent from the Transcendent to Cosmic, leaving out entirely the Individual Soul, Deshpande consolidates the erroneous view that Sri Aurobindo and the Mother failed in their mission. It cannot be otherwise. As Thea explains:

‘It is a fact that every publication issued from Ashram and Auroville sources, Heehs’ included, passes on to the public – though the intention appears to be other – that both Sri Aurobindo and the Mother failed in their missions. Not one publication can factually prove otherwise; and since there is no one in your circles who can state the contrary and receive the accepted ‘imprimatur’, this is the result: both Sri Aurobindo and the Mother failed ‘to deliver’. Or if they did, we mortals are not qualified to prove what stands beyond human comprehension. And since this is your belief, you must accept full responsibility for spreading the idea that they seemed to have failed.
Nothing could be farther from the truth. Not only did they complete their missions, they did so beyond our wildest expectations. You can be sure that Supermind would not leave the fulfillment of its descent and establishment on Earth to the ‘belief’ of anyone: it is its own irrefutable proof.
This has been fully documented, the only existing book [The New Way] to not only prove the victorious completion of their missions but also it is the only irrefutable documentation of the fact that they are Vishnu’s Emanations – i.e., Evolutionary Avatars who come yuge, yuge, just as the Gita states, proven as only the Truth-Consciousness can do.’ Thea, Letter to the Board of Trustees, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, December 26, 2008.

This then is the HOW and WHY that eludes Alok Pandey and others who concentrate on the EFFECTS instead of the CAUSE. If they are ever to resolve the underlying problem, they must embrace the Third and the SOUL within which She is. Only then will their vision clear to reveal the true meaning of Sri Aurobindo's birth and rebirth as the apotheosis so exquisitely described in his epic poem.

Robert E. Wilkinson

*AuroExpose - Reflections on the emerging 'Aurobindonian Orthodoxy', it consequences, its antidote, Robert E. Wilkinson, April 2006 - http://www.quantumyoga.org/AuroExpose.htm

Alok Pandey’s original article may be found at: http://seof.blogspot.com/2009/10/trustees-chose-to-ignore-this-issue-and.html