From two comments by Rick Lipschutz
(A possible reply to Alok's rebuttal of Julian)

I have read in full Peter Heehs's book, "The Lives of Sri Aurobindo," and met with him when he came to San Francisco giving readings and discussing his work. I found he added to my understanding and appreciation of Sri Aurobindo — not only in his life before Pondicherry, but after his great realizations: the Silent Brahman, the Cosmic Consciousness that he entered in the Alipur jail, the Parabrahman realization, the Overmental Realization and through the entire arc of his earthy life. I have a deeper sense now how Sri Aurobindo, by the power of yoga, transformed a human consciousness into an integral divine consciousness. And in respect to his Integral Yoga, which is my principal focus (I was recently co-facilitating a Synthesis of Yoga study group and plan to resume it) the book afforded me stronger hope that humans like myself can make progress on this difficult and thorny path. Sri Aurobindo struggled with human problems, family problems, national problems; found a way through Integral Yoga to surmount them for himself and even to bring into the world a greater force so that others individually and collectively and the nations and the earth itself have a more certain hope, or at least the main chance, to transform our ignorance and struggling lives into something divine. I venerate Purani's biography, I love and enjoy what I've read of Iyengar's, have deep respect for Van Vrekhem's, but I feel there is room for "The Lives of Sri Aurobindo." I feel his approach to a critical, scholarly work based on a great deal of research, directed to the scholarly and academic community, is a potent form of inoculation against inevitable intellectual attacks to come. After all, Sri Aurobindo and Mother are not only for devotees, and for much-needed karma yogis; they're also for intellectuals, those with a more mental bent — and an integral Yoga must include in it and integrate the heart, the will, the mind and more, in a "methodized effort towards self-perfection."

I am distressed at the personal invective in the attacks on a hard-working scholar and sadhak whose love for Sri Aurobindo shines clearly through the work, if from under the surface. He is a good writer and, I feel, a sound scholar who has done much original research. Peter's work, and that of others, in unearthing and bringing to light the "Record of Yoga" (Sri Aurobindo's own diary of his yogic experience) has shown the world that Sri Aurobindo experimented as much or more than any scientist and attempted to realize (and by his own, remarkably self-consistent account, succeeded in realizing) what he wrote about for the sadhaks and the the public. It is so disappointing, so dismaying to see so many luminaries whom I respect so much attacking a sadhak who has devoted his life to needed scholarship, and attacking him in such a personal un-Aurobindonian fashion. "I could feel my eyes turning into dust/Like two strangers turning into dust." I find it hard to believe what I've been seeing. We need to work through this moment in time as an aspiring Gnostic community, however far from a functioning collectivity we still seem to be. This chaotic episode is an opportunity for us to begin again to try to put forward our opinions in an Aurobindonian fashion, respecting the truth that is expressed in another position, trying with the Mother's help to bring it into harmony with our own positions, or showing with logic, respect and fairness where we believe it falls short. This would be the least we can do, as human beings discoursing with other human beings, as well as followers of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo who aspire for a divine life for the earth, based on liberty, mutuality and harmony.

♦

I do feel that this biography is well-written, is the result of original research over a considerable period of time, and does represent a labor of love on the part of Peter Heehs. Though obviously not to every taste, it seems to me to deserve to be read by certain individuals. Just which individuals do I mean? I'll try to respond to this.

As I imagine myself back into the years before I'd even heard of Sri Aurobindo, before I had read anything of his or anything written by others about him, it seems to me this book could have provided a path where I would have become interested and followed that interest up. I was looking, soneone really looking for something; had tried several others spiritual paths with some sustained intensity. I frankly would, I believe, have been curious. Not only curious — I would have to find out for myself! Sri Aurobindo is presented as a unique individual — I think he stands out, through the lens of this recent biography, as one-of-a-kind, more compelling, to me, than Yogananda, Blavatsky or other theosophical writers, or anyone else, even Ramakrishna, Ramana Maharshi. The book shows Sri Aurobindo as someone who found more than realization, who didn't stop there, that very wonderful place where all the rest had stopped; someone who had found a means and a method to work on changing life, transforming the world — meeting that impossible challenge of the ages, a kingdom of heaven on earth. He also shows just how hard Sri Aurobindo worked and labored on developing his own consciousness and the consciousness of others through this yoga. Heehs presents Sri Aurobindo's own words sufficiently that one is drawn to them; one gets some sense of the commentary on the Isha Upanishad, The Life Divine, The Synthesis of Yoga, other essential books; perhaps not quite so much of Savitri to communicate much about it. I, at least, would probably have thought: Many have talked of the avatar of the age, but this man seems that he may even BE the avatar of the age. I would have thought, well this is an academic book and the writer needs to keep his objectivity, but I am of a different temperament than this writer, who is more careful in his thinking and conclusinos than I am; and I would have wanted to explore for myself.

I feel Peter is actually quite respectful of Sri Aurobindo. He doesn't bring him down to our level — no one could ever do that even before he began his "spiritual life." He does raise provocative questions at times, or raises questions at times in a provocative manner, but if the reader follows to the end the thread what the author is saying, the provocation is answered and Sri Aurobindo emerges vindicated. For instance in the case of some question of instability raised by a former acquaintance of Sri Aurobindo, the author shows that by all accounts Sri Aurobindo was very calm, very poised; he did not evidence any such thing. He was very unusual and extremely stable. The author, since this is being published by an academic press, cannot declare that Sri Aurobindo's realizations were genuine; but he can detail them to a certain extent and show that Sri Aurobindo's writings and statements about these things are remarkably consistent.

What I am saying is that, in this experiment in imagination, I find that this book would have been a valuable first step for someone circumstanced like myself, who was curious, searching, actually in great need for someone, some path not found anywhere. There must be others like myself, who present with probing questions that often are not answered, or answered well, by those on the spiritual path.... A book like Peter's will of great help, I feel, in opening the way to some of us in America and the West. The kind of people who read this book are going to be not so much like sheep, but more like giraffes, craning their necks up around the tall trees and trying to sniff things out for themselves. Peter is more studious and does not show the devotional side of Sri Aurobindo as powerfully as could be, but the reader can open up for herself The Mother and Savitri and gleaming original galaxies implode open deep inside. Also, the book may inspire some academics to be more open to presenting Sri Aurobindo to their students again. This was happening in the 1970s and 1980s, I think, and it would be nice if it starts to happen again. All sorts of people may discover Sri Aurobindo and the Mother speaking to their needs, aspirations, curiosities; scientists, business people, managers, farmers, teachers, counterculturalists. Or people like me who feel that there must, there just must be something beyond human being in store on this Earth, some body of processes and methods that can help us begin to break the habits that bind us to human being. Or, more to the point, people who feel something within them that wants to give to the Divine, but they they don't know where that place is nor do they have contact with the Divine.

The biographer, a good one like Peter, anyway, does not bind readers to his own set of views and limitations, but presents an approach through following which readers discover for themselves the subject of the biography and what he stands for, and the path he opens.

Rick Lipschutz