Subject: an appreciation rather than condemnation
Date Sent: September 29, 2008, 10:17 PM
From: Steve Webman <steve...>
To: Manoj Das Gupta <manoj...>

Dear Manoj,

I know that you are overloaded with messages and petitions about Peter and his book. I would just like to throw in my two cents for the record:

I have read the book in its entirety and thoroughly enjoyed doing so. I don't know how people are reading into it that Peter is trying to denigrate Sri Aurobindo. I certainly don't find that. In fact, after reading it, I thought this is the book that I should give to some of my old friends and relatives in America who have been asking about Sri Aurobindo. They are not the types of people who would be interested in reading from the devotee's perspective, but they are people of good will. I thought Peter's book would give them a real view of Sri Aurobindo as a person and historical figure as well as give some glimpse of the force within his spiritual vision that brought people like me to dedicate our lives to his work.

I have read some of the things being written against Peter, and heard some terrible rumors floating around the ashram. Just to feel the tone of these, we know that they do not come from any place of Truth. I felt uplifted and closer to Sri Aurobindo after reading Peter's book. I felt sick to my stomach after reading less than a paragraph of most of the "critics" that have been sent to me. That these are given currency in the Ashram is a very sad thing for me.

Steve