SCIY.Org Archives

This is an archived material originally posted on sciy.org which is no longer active. The title, content, author, date of posting shown below, all are as per the sciy.org records
Savitra speaks out on The Lives of Sri Aurobindo

Originally posted on sciy.org by Rich Carlson on Fri 23 Jan 2009 08:34 AM PST  

Rich, at Mike Murphy's encouragement, I accept your SCIY invitation to publish a recent letter I sent to a friend in the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. For obvious reasons, personal names will be edited out with minor "splicings" edited in. In fact, I even prefer now to consider it a generic letter to the Ashram. In that sense, I offer it in the same spirit as those letters which we left for the Mother in the box on the wall inside the Ashram's main entrance.

As SCIY represents a different readership than the recipient of my original letter, I also take the liberty to add a personalized "epilogue/postscript" following the letter. This will allow me to express things which motivated and informed my letter but which were not appropriate to include in it. Thank you for extending me this opportunity.

~Savitra
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dec. 6, 2008


Greetings. I fondly recall our meeting in January of 2007. Much has transpired since then, in America, In India and in the world at large. We are passing, as you well know, through difficult and dangerous times in our evolution as a species. Witness the recent events in Mumbai and the contagion of violent intolerance, communalism, reactionary fundamentalism and ideological extremism polarizing our planet.

In view of this resurgent atavism and the resistance that inevitably seems to precede the breakthrough of a more integral consciousness, I have been troubled and saddened to see the way certain members of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram and some devotees in other parts of India and abroad have responded to the recent publication of Peter Heehs' book. For I expect more from those of us who aspire to practice Sri Aurobindo's Integral Yoga. After all, aren't we meant to be nobler examples of a more enlightened humanity that models inclusiveness rather that exclusiveness, expansiveness rather than rigidity, rising above bias and pre-judgment, widening ourselves in the spirit of a truer integrality to embrace the validity and value of cultural experiences and expressions other than those in which we have been conditioned?

In this light, I wish to share with you my own experience and evaluation of The Lives of Sri Aurobindo which I believe is not only an important biographical work but an insightful documentation of India's transition from British Colony to independent Nationhood.

Until recently, I had not actually read Peter's book. So, despite the polarizing atmosphere and escalating polemics surrounding its publication, I refrained from taking a position or passing judgment. For how could I come to conclusions about something that I myself had not personally experienced?

As a published author myself, my own natural writing style tends more toward the creative rather than the academic or scholarly. So to be honest, I was not sure if I could wade through more than 400 pages of biographical details drawn from decades of archival research. After all, I was, I believed, sufficiently familiar with the essential outline and major events of Sri Aurobindo's life. And as a dedicated practitioner of Sri Aurobindo's Integral Yoga as well as a serious student of his own writings since the mid-1960s, having read all of his major works before coming to Pondicherry to meet the Mother, I wondered how I could possibly benefit from pouring through the micro-facts and minutia of such a figure whose Life was so much greater than the sum of its parts. I also had reservations about whether such an academic approach would turn out to be a boring compilation or disconnected series of meticulously-researched historical details which would simply drone on, failing both to hold my attention or hold together as a whole.

I am happy to say that none of my initial hesitations and reservations -- nor any of the biases of others that flooded the air-waves and internet -- proved to be true. On the contrary, once I plunged into the work, restrained and academic as it was, I not only could not put it down but I also learned other dimensions of Sri Aurobindo's life and lives that enriched and reinspired my own.

I was particularly touched by the chapters that took me into the deeper depths of the development of Sri Aurobindo the Revolutionary and the unique catalytic role he played and endured in sustaining the fire of India's will for Independence despite the inertia of more moderate and conservative elements of Indian Society who preferred the comfort zone of British Rule. I am not familiar with any other writing till now which has ever brought to light and life this Sri Aurobindo and all he did and suffered for the liberation of Mother India. 

Speaking personally, this contribution alone justifies this work of Peter's. For it de facto sets aright a more accurate historical perspective which till now -- in India and the world -- has accorded primary credit, attention and gratitude to Gandhi as the father-figure, force and aspiration behind India's Freedom Movement and Her eventual liberation. In this sense, Peter's scholarly research has not only filled in crucial missing pieces in the history of that period but also provided critical documentary evidence that allows historians to update and upgrade Sri Aurobindo's actual role, acknowledging his rightful place in the struggle to liberate India's soul and reforge Her truer cultural identity.

Following this progression of lives within a Life, I particularly appreciated the subtle way in which Peter tracked the metamorphosis from Aurobindo the Revolutionary to Sri Aurobindo the Evolutionary. For the reader could begin to feel his momentum and field-of-focus shifting from political activism to spiritual activism, taking that same Shakti energy and applying it to radicalize Spirituality from a passive static internal quest to an active evolutionary transformative practice.

By tracking Sri Aurobindo's Life as a successive series of lives lived in a single lifetime, and by documenting those lives through an unbroken continuum of historical phases through which he passed, Peter's research begins to resemble the investigation of a post-Darwinian detective. For I believe he fills in missing links in the evolutionary unfolding of Sri Aurobindo, allowing us to catch a glimpse of him in a larger span of time -- a synoptic past-present-future view of Sri Aurobindo as an incarnate human being barrier-breaking through the successive evolutionary cocoons of his humanity, leading us through his own example to the next stage of Evolution.

In this sense, I believe Peter's work can serve as an important bridge to a wider audience, expanding Sri Aurobindo's appeal to a whole new set of seekers -- scientists, historians, academics, secularists -- whose primary portal of entry is through the intellect and critical thinking. For through The Lives of Sri Aurobindo, Peter speaks to this wider audience in a language that they can understand -- the "native" language of Western critical thought. In fact, through my own contact with the literary world as well as with leading-edge research institutes, universities, graduate schools and progressive media, I can already attest to the receptivity and success of this bridge-building.

In conclusion, I wish to express my gratitude for the publication of this work and the labor that went into it. And, in the spirit of maintaining the dignity and integrity of Sri Aurobindo's Ashram through these challenging times, I look forward to a creative and constructive resolution to the cloud of circumstances presently surrounding the book and its author. Toward that end, I offer my active goodwill. 

Sincerely,
~Savitra


Epilogue/Postscript


Until Thanksgiving, I had not actually read Peter's book. Yet I had come to know of the escalating conflict months before. Maintaining a witness/observer role through this extended limbo was very difficult for me. Because at the very outset of the conflict, I had received (unasked) from certain members of the Ashram extensive quotations extracted from The Lives of Sri Aurobindo along with accompanying interpretations. Reading these extracts/interpretations in isolation from the actual text was very troubling and confusing for me. For taken prima facie out of their living context, they placed the publication in a very questionable light, raising doubts in my own mind that left me in a very uncomfortable -- I would say, painful -- ambivalence. For these doubts fed into the terrible feeling that this biography somehow might have diminished if not "betrayed" Sri Aurobindo and his work. 

I truly agonized for months through this unthinkable thought which also left me effectively torn between friendships, sympathies and "allegiances". After all, on the one hand, my relationship with Peter predates his 1971 arrival in Pondicherry; yet, on the other hand, I was receiving these extracts and compelling arguments from Ashram members whom I also knew personally. Nevertheless, my allegiance was to neither party but, as I have been trained for better or worse, to the Truth. So to resolve this painful inner conflict, I had to wait until I could actually read the book for myself. 

After finally reading the book in late November, I could make peace within myself and reclaim my own position in the matter, shifting from silenced witness to follow the call of my conscience. It was from that calling that I wrote the preceding Letter to the Ashram and that I add this Postscript. 

I hope this Postscript will be read respectfully not only by those who have appreciated and supported the publication of The Lives of Sri Aurobindo but by those who have opposed its publication and effectively maligned its author. Because, speaking as one who read the extracts/interpretations first before reading the book, I suffered greatly. In fact, I would say I was unfairly and unjustly injured by them, even if that was not the intention of their authors. In which case, how much greater then has Peter suffered as a result of this approach to the criticism of his work?

I believe it is completely legitimate for fellow sadhaks, disciples and devotees to express their heartfelt criticism or concerns regarding the content of The Lives of Sri Aurobindo. (Or, for that matter, any other work by any of us.) But, speaking as one who was directly accepted by the Mother into the Ashram under the Prosperity system, and later accepted by her into Auroville where I lived for 21 years, I hold us up to a higher standard and "warrior" code of conduct as expressed in my Letter to the Ashram. For I believe that a Warrior Code of Conduct is perfectly consistent and in harmony with our Integral Yoga. Yet it must be lived in the spirit of a nobler hero-warriorhood that the Mother set before us as evolutionaries. In light of this truer, wiser and wider warrior-hood, I pose the following questions which go to the core of my own discomfort and disappointment with the way some of us have conducted ourselves:

1.) How can one draw conclusions, let alone take serious actions against fellow seekers and their work, without actually doing the necessary research to verify the truth for oneself? In other words, in this case, how can individuals and groups, especially those who claim to be students and practitioners of an Integral Yoga, allow themselves to be swayed in their beliefs or incited to action by quotes and second-hand interpretations of a book that they have not even read? And perhaps even more troubling, how can individuals who are looked up to as leaders in the Ashram attempt to influence the opinions and actions of others by such out-of-context quotes and interpretations? If one was genuinely troubled -- in this case, by The Lives of Sri Aurobindo -- wouldn't it be more appropriate to express one's legitimate concerns and then encourage others to read the book for themselves? Speaking personally, I myself am an example of the dangers of the former approach. For I know how different I felt after reading the book as a whole than when I was exposed to a select compilation of extracts pre-interpreted for me.

2.) In this same spirit of research and fairness, why would one conduct a campaign against a fellow seeker and his/her work behind his/her back? Why wouldn't we find some appropriate facilitated forum to transparently air grievances and concerns directly to the author, approaching the matter in a spirit of education, open-minded dialogue and exchange, allowing the author at least the opportunity to respond before conducting such a campaign that not only publicly accuses but effectively convicts and then presumes to execute judgment? Having suffered the past 8 years here in America under a President whose policy was to shoot first and ask questions later, I expect a higher standard of action from us, particularly in this dangerous world which desperately needs new models for addressing and resolving conflict. Thank God, President-elect  Obama represents this evolutionary course-correction, offering new hope and promise for a domestic and foreign policy based on common decency, healing and civil change, employing diplomacy and dialogue before resorting to direct military force against "the enemy".

3.) In view of questions 1 and 2, and in the absence of any apparent goodwill thus far to provide Peter Heehs an opportunity to respond dialogically to the serious questions and charges leveled against him, how can one unilaterally escalate the conflict to the extreme steps of initiating legal action to ban the book in India? of instigating his forced removal from his work at the Archives? of publicly vilifying him through innuendo as a betrayer of Sri Aurobindo, spreading volatile and unsubstantiated rumors that accuse him of being part of unholy alliances, nefarious plots and conspiracies?

I wonder if any of those who have instigated or gone along with such harsh measures and reactionary reprisals against Peter have ever made the effort to identify with him as as a real person -- as a human being like all of us, with feelings, flaws and vulnerabilities like all of us. Or have we simply objectified him into an abstraction, an "enemy" and "foreigner" to be defeated or eliminated? I wonder how any of us -- whatever our race, culture or gender -- would feel if we were suddenly in his place, subject to constant behind-the-back allegations and rumors. Imagine how isolated and insecure we would feel. Especially if this was happening in a community brought forth by the Mother -- an Ashram that was actually meant to be a mutually-supportive safe haven for those of us who have come from East and West in search of our common humanity and our all-embracing divinity. Imagine.

I can imagine. For I have lived in the American South through the mid-1960s, actively engaged in the Civil Rights Movement at that time. I was involved then in the protests and arrests, looked into the eyes of hatred and intolerance, watching demagogues whip up the masses into a frenzy that fed into a lynch-mob mentality. And I have seen and lived through the divisive damage done to Auroville by those who refused to recognize the "civil rights" of AV residents after the Mother's passing. I experienced for myself then first-hand, the harassment, arrest, beating, jail and expulsion at the hands of one party; while being "excommunicated" by another for daring to call him out for the divisive and intolerant behavior he was inciting among his crusaders in Auroville. Yes, I know the damage that can be done when we turn "other" into "enemy" in the name of righteousness or purity or saving us from the infidels that would corrupt "our" Truth.

From this "locus standi", I believe this raw open-warfare approach to excommunicate Peter and ban his book not only brings great harm to him but to us all. For I believe it will not only lead to greater divisiveness, intolerance and narrowness of spirit; but it exposes our own inability as fellow seekers and children of a common Divine Mother to address grievances among ourselves in a truer way that lead to a more harmonious and integral resolution. For what we are presently demonstrating through such actions of internecine court cases, book-banning and excommunication of those whose ideas or actions we find intolerable is itself an action of the very intolerance we claim as offensive. 

After all, aren't we here in these bodies precisely to grow and widen, to become more conscious, more receptive, more loving? to expand and embrace and enlighten what we do not yet understand in ourselves as well as in others, willingly opening to light the dark parts we hide and defend in ourselves? And isn't this effort exactly what is called for in this Moment on this Earth? Of course it is! 

Onward,
~Savitra


Savitra bio:

Cultured in the activist milieu of the 1960s, Savitra hitchhiked from London to India to meet the Mother of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. He received his name from her and eventually shifted from the Ashram to Auroville where he spent the next 21 years (1969-1990) apprenticing "applied spirituality," community-building, and environmental restoration in the interface of first-world/third-world realities.


Actively involved with Auroville's pioneering experiments in self-organization, he helped jump-start the community's internal communication systems as well as liaison with America, getting the first grants to establish the afforestation program, developing exchange programs such as "Peacetrees," planting the seeds for future relations with Russia and other former Soviet bloc States. He relocated in 1990 to America where he currently lives in Ashland, Oregon.


Since the early 1970s, his work and writings have bridged him into a broad network of collaborative relations including Margaret Mead, Michael Murphy, David Brower, Amory Lovins, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Jean Houston and Matthew Fox; as well as organizationally with the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS), where he is an extended research associate under their donor-advised program.


He has been a guest on Michael Toms' New Dimensions Radio as well as a presenter at numerous conferences, universities, and institutes including Esalen, Matthew Fox's University of Creation Spiritualiy, the IONS 30th Anniversary Conference, and What is Enlightenment journal's community retreat center.


In 1999, his first American book, The Savitri Legend, was published by Sigo Press. His latest book, An Evolutionary Agenda for the Third Millennium, was published by White Cloud Press with support from IONS.


His recent trips to Auroville has reignited his earlier liaison role to build collaborative bridges and exchange between Auroville and the States. He may be reached via savitra@earthlink.net.


Attachment: