This section contains all signed (Real Name) reviews of The Lives of Sri Aurobindo at Amazon (as of January 16, 2010).

Are there parallels for the United States and its past attempts at global stewardship to be found in The English Empire's dominance of India at the turn of the 1900's? Not a subject one expects to encounter when reading about a spiritual teacher, that is unless you read Gandhi. But clearly when reading The Lives Of Sri Aurobindo the complexity of such an issue is masterly explored in Peter Heeh's in-depth portrait of one of India's giants of the 20th century. In Heeh's meticulous research we find a revolutionary spirit that is played out as a formidable struggle using the Gita as Sri Aurobindo's inspiration to achieve for the Divine Mother India the grandeur of presence that it now just beginning to experience. The world has come to recognize Gandhi's achievements often mythologized to engender western approval — as the Guru of India's Nationalism — and his non-violence philosophy as a model for compassionate engagement. What is of major significance in The Lives is ... that it isn't sanitized for the western reader but shows the level of intensity and daring that Sri Aurobindo invested in delivering India from the yoke of Britain through any means when necessary — violent or otherwise.

Peter Heehs is too good a biographer to simply let Sri Aurobindo's vision for India be a nationalistic one; Heeh's draws on those years of the revolutionary Aurobindo to craft the sage Aurobindo and his belief that the human spirit is the enfoldment of the struggle that mankind undergoes and is the work of a conscious stewardship that planetary citizens now are finding as they struggle in the 21st Century. Not unlike the Bhagavad-Gita's uncompromised message of karmic responsibility the Lives of Sri Aurobindo guides the reader through a rich tapestry of engaged consciousness which in our own current struggles are beyond stewardship and are for healing — a vital reminder that it is the work of the spirit and the seeker that transforms one's being and possibly a nation. In threading the chapters of The Lives of Sri Aurobindo Heehs brings to the forefront of Aurobindo's life his extensive life's works into yogic philosophy and into his remaining chapters on Aurobindo the guide.

A final treat for readers of The Lives of Sri Aurobindo is its rich storehouse of references into Sri Aurobindo's extensive body of works as well as Heehs's (as the devotee/an insider) awareness in the mapping of Sri Aurobindo's progressive journey into a rich living tradition unbound by the constraints of isms and fully actualized by the Divine.

Jose S. Osio

This painstakingly researched and expertly written biography is a perfect antidote to the many hagiographies on Sri Aurobindo. While the latter may be inspiring and uplifting to some, they can also be disappointing, even infuriating to someone looking for a well-documented, fact-based biography that meets contemporary standards of historical research. Not only does an Avatar have a human side, his human side is precisely what makes him one of us and proves that we can follow the path he has cut through the subliminal and supraconscient jungle of human nature. Sri Aurobindo's human side therefore deserves to be treated with the same respect as his unparalleled spiritual achievements, and The Lives of Sri Aurobindo is the first book that does this. As co-founder of the Sri Aurobindo Archives, historian Peter Heehs has been eminently equipped for this task, having had full access to a vast resource of original letters, diaries, and other primary sources. Despite his strong influence on the founders of some of today's most significant spiritual movements, including the human potential and integral movements, in the West Sri Aurobindo has never gained the recognition he deserves. Heehs and Columbia University Press have done the world a great service with the publication of a book that may finally make Sri Aurobindo and his work accessible to a broader audience.

Ulrich Mohrhoff

As an academic, and a long-time reader of Sri Aurobindo's works, I was thrilled to discover this fine biography. It is high time that such a work be written, one that lends the seriousness to the life and writings of Aurobindo that they deserve. Too much of the literature about him so far has been, at best, hagiographical.

Heehs writes from a deep knowledge of his subject. His rendering of this remarkable man's complex, often conflicted life is tremendously sensitive and at the same time intellectually honest. Aurobindo was a politician, a philosopher, a seer, and a poet. Heehs is a gifted writer, and while his work is scholarly, it is almost a page-turner as he skillfully weaves together Sri Aurobindo's multi-faceted life.

The photographs are marvelous.

All in all, the "Lives" is an important publishing event. Those interested in Indic religions, in the history of India and India's long struggle for independence, in philosophy and yoga, will welcome Heehs's book, and I trust will give it the attention it deserves.

P. M. Greer, PhD

This readable biography of Aurobindo Ghose (1872-1950) written by a seasoned archivist unafraid of applying scholarship to a life hitherto treated as hagiography performs a valuable service by introducing this life to a critical readership in the West. Greatly revered as a political, literary, and spiritual giant - especially in India - Sri Aurobindo here emerges undiminished, but more detailed and realistic as a human figure. Instead of the typically airbrushed, retouched, and idealized icon of the visionary genius or avatar, this portrait zooms down closer to earth, casting a sharper light on its subject. Peter Heehs does not shrink from dangerous areas like sexuality, insanity, and terrorist violence, nor does he hesitate to criticize Sri Aurobindo's writing style. Far from sensationalist, this academic biography remains within the bounds of its genre. However, some devotees have taken offence and tried to have the book banned in India. Interested readers could combine this book with some original writings by Sri Aurobindo (Isha Upanishad and The Mother are short; The Life Divine and Savitri are long) and perhaps Adventure in Consciousness by Satprem.

Christine Rhone

The best biography of Sri Aurobindo written so far. No comparison whatever with controversial personage Satprem's "An Adventure of Consciousness" (even though this last book is also good). Why the fear from some of the Indian followers? This scholarly work not only does not diminish the great Sage and Avatar, but throws detailed light on very important passages of his life, of great significance for many of his followers and admirers, mainly on realizations along the spiritual path and specific practices, such as the early Pranayama exercises, and the details of the crucial interaction with Yogi Vishnu Bhaskar Lele, and the results of it. Peter Heehs has done a great service by writing this book.

Alfredo Delregato

The Lives of Sri Aurobindo looks at the different stages of Sri Aurobindo's life while he progressively develops into one of India's most groundbreaking spiritual leaders. Peter Heehs, who has been part of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Archives for decades, did extensive research on Sri Aurobindo which took him also to England and France. His straightforward style of writing is based on elaborate and detailed facts; it opens a marvelously surprising window on Sri Aurobindo, as well as on the historical and political landscape of India under British rule with the harsh challenges for Indian opposition leaders trying to liberate the country.

Whereas Sri Aurobindo was determined to fight for the freedom of India - an effort in which he eventually succeeded - his personal spiritual orientation and insights would in the end take him to address the roots of all humanity's un-freedom. To view this gradual shift from the political to the spiritual field, The Lives of Sri Aurobindo is not only unique but a genuine treasure of information, giving factual details of Sri Aurobindo as a man in society dealing with the most mundane facts of life as well as progressively revealing his spiritual destiny to discover the supramental consciousness and establish the Integral Yoga.

The book is a gem for many reasons. For its close view of India struggling with the British colonists until gaining full independence on August 15, 1947, the day when Sri Aurobindo celebrated his 75th birthday. For its comparative and critical analysis of the literature and poetry of that time period. And most of all, for the way the book looks at his different "Lives", in this manner revealing the outstanding character of Sri Aurobindo.

Through all the stages of his life, from child to student, adult to scholar, married man to political leader, from being a prisoner to finally becoming a spiritual leader, his "goodness" stands out as a tall pillar in a wild sea. He does not show hatred against the British colonists, he just wants full independence. He does not hate his prison guards, prosecutors, and judges, he sympathizes with them. From childhood on he felt a genuine love for his country and his fellowmen and insisted that India becomes free.

Once he had the insight that true change takes more than political change, he turned to yoga to find the force that transforms human nature. On discovering this unique transforming supramental consciousness he dedicated the rest of his life to make it accessible to all. And for doing so, a second person came to the front who aided him in exploring and developing not only the yoga but also the small community that had formed around Sri Aurobindo. When he withdrew and went into active retirement, as it is called in the book, Mirra Alfassa, a spiritual collaborator who had joined him in 1920 and who was introduced later as The Mother, began to take care of the personal guidance of each community member, eventually accepting also women and children to this rapidly growing yoga collective, while joining in Sri Aurobindo's efforts to manifest the supramental consciousness. How this further develops would take an additional book with an as fascinating story, as The Mother, after Sri Aurobindo's passing in 1950, continues with the exploration of the supramental consciousness as well as starts alternative yoga communities.

What we see in The Lives of Sri Aurobindo is the life story of a being of intense determination, having deep compassion for the struggle of humanity and ... doing something about it.

One note: although this is not a hagiography, the writer's admiration and love for the subject he writes about shines through every page of this remarkable book.

August Timmermans

The Lives of Sri Aurobindo, by Peter Heehs, is a definitive biography, and combines his life story and history in a meticulously researched and well-written narrative. No other historian today has the depth, breadth, and intimate understanding of Sri Aurobindo. This book is an expansion of Heehs' earlier book, Sri Aurobindo: A Brief Biography, published in 1989, and was well worth the wait. (For those who don't have the patience to go through the Lives, this earlier work is excellent as well). On publication the Lives became an instant classic. As a friend noted who has read virtually every biography of Sri Aurobindo (and all of his works), the Lives is a page-turner, and reads like a novel.

Any biography of a spiritual figure is immensely difficult to achieve, but Heehs has deftly tied together the threads of Sri Aurobindo's life such that by the end even previously unfamiliar readers will have a solid understanding of the man, his times, and his yoga. Even from the first pages there are revealing insights and details. "Years later he still considered two of the Platonic dialogues he read at Cambridge, the Republic and the Symposium, to be among humanity's `highest points of thought and literature.'" (p. 24)

Although Sri Aurobindo is a founding figure in both Indian politics and in yoga, many who know of him learn only a few catchphrases or concepts. For a man whose life intersected in one way or another with Gandhi, Churchill, Mountbatten, Tagore, Nehru, who was nominated for both the Nobel prize in peace and in literature, and who was appreciated by contemporaries such as Aldous Huxley, Maria Montessori, Albert Schweitzer, and Gabriela Mistral, this is a pity. Thanks to Heehs' decades-long immersion in Sri Aurobindo's thought and writings, the Lives integrates even the most obscure works and events into a comprehensive picture.

The political years are especially fascinating, as we watch the man developing into a master strategist among the often wildly disparate and unfocused groups struggling to free India. A quarter of the Lives is devoted to his years as a revolutionary. Key events are illuminated, such as the year he spent in jail on trial for sedition. "On their way to and from the court, the prisoners were handcuffed two by two and fastened to a chain in the van. All the way, they sang and joked and laughed." (p. 177)

Heehs was a project leader in the groundbreaking team that published The Record, Sri Aurobindo's unique journal during the first twenty years of his yoga. During the eighties and nineties Heehs wrote several important essays on connections between the Record and Sri Aurobindo's more familiar writings, such as The Life Divine or The Synthesis of Yoga. The forty pages of the Lives devoted to these major works should be read by every student of Sri Aurobindo; even though there have been innumerable commentators on these writings, none have placed them so well in context.

One important virtue of the Lives is that it humanizes a spiritual teacher who became, even in his own lifetime, "a legend and a symbol." Of the early meetings between Sri Aurobindo and the woman later known as The Mother, who was a singular spiritual figure in her own right, we see the reality of their time together. "They spent much of their time at Aurobindo's place, particularly in the evenings when there was a regular gathering for conversation. Sometimes these sessions became `full of a natural silence verging on meditation.' Every Sunday Aurobindo and members of his household went to the Richard's for dinner. Mirra [The Mother] prepared some of the dishes herself. Afterward they all went to the terrace for talk and relaxation." (p. 321)

Probably the greatest value of the Lives is the full 200 pages that Heehs devotes to Sri Aurobindo's time in Pondicherry, when he became the towering yogic figure that is recognized today, and when the major works were written. Partly because he was in seclusion for twenty-five years, this period is prone to rumors and simple inaccuracies. For most of that period, `no one except the Mother and one or two attendants had any idea of how he passed the day." (p. 363)

There are important insights into Sri Aurobindo's method as a spiritual teacher. In speaking of how he approached his own brother Barin, he said "'I am letting him develop according to his own nature... I do not want to fashion everybody in the same mould... Everyone grows from within: I do not wish to model from outside." (p. 322) And again, "he `did not impart instructions or give initiation through a mantra,' or provide a fixed method such as pranayama, or breath control. Those who came to him `were free to pursue any method or all methods - or no method at all.'" (p. 332)

Every biography is really about two people: the author and the subject. Boswell and Johnson, van Doren and Franklin, Clark and Einstein - in every case, inescapably, we learn almost as much about the author's mind as we do about the subject's life. This is true in the Lives as well, and though some would prefer a more deferential approach to such a great figure, his greatness shines through the details. Many who have read the Lives have found true inspiration and encouragement in their pursuit of yoga, an outcome that cannot fail to take place when one encounters such a transformative figure in all his spiritual, intellectual, and living wideness.

David Hutchinson