Originally posted on sciy.org by Debashish Banerji on Sat 16 May 2009 05:32 PM PDT
Manoj, an Aurovilian, has penned a short review of The Lives of Sri Aurobindo which has appeared in The Mirror of Tomorrow website. Since the ideas and feelings expressed here are characteristic of a segment of readers, we have thought fit to reproduce this review with annotations. Manoj praises the book for its empirical data but clears those who see "malicious intentions" in it from "blame" after affirming "These interpretations reveal more of author’s inner workings than the object of investigation." He then points to a number of "active omissions" by the author, but in the process, himself perpetrates the most obvious omission by forgetting to mention that those he "cannot blame" are actively supporting persecution of the author and book banning.
Lives of Sri Aurobindo, a review by Manoj
What is great
The most outstanding feature of the book that beats all other biographies that has been written so far is the sheer mass of research data that made the bibliography a book by itself. This is where the author excels and this is where we see his labor of love that shows his love for Sri Aurobindo who is the very subject of his investigation. No one can persist with such thoroughness, for nearly three decades, collecting huge amount of empirical data from all over the world, without a deep love for the subject. Here is a true researcher excelling in his craft, a lover who persists tirelessly. Any one who wants to investigate Sri Aurobindo’s life in the future will find this an immense treasure. This is the empirical domain, the verifiable data and Peter has done a great job, hats off!
Manoj begins by showering praise on the amount of empirical data collected in the book. In doing so, he also reads a positive motive behind the work of a "labor of love" and "love for Sri Aurobindo" based on the quantity, "tireless[ness]" and "thoroughness" of research. He also indicates this copious collection of data to be the book's main legacy for future researchers. As a start, Manoj’s tone is congenial, though the somewhat exotic and exaggerated flourish of "hats off" may carry a hint of irony.
What is poor
Once you have the data, you have to organize it in such a way some new perspectives emerge and then interpret what one perceives or leave the reader to draw their own conclusions. This is a slippery ground where the subjective judgments step in and we see the researcher in the author stumbling and becoming somewhat like an art critique [sic]and not even a connoisseur; here is where the lover ends and the critique [sic] begin, [sic] here is where the intellect shuts out the heart.
After his short hand-clapping gesture, Manoj quickly turns to the "poverty" of the book. There is no middle ground here. There is a wealth of detail and a poverty of interpretation. The compliment of the first para reveals itself to be a back-handed one - staged to accentuate the old distinction between quantity and quality. The author is praised for his quantity and blamed for his quality. It becomes immediately clear that Manoj has not liked the book. Individuals based on their personal conditioning will undoubtedly have different reactions to a book and the increasing number of positive reviews by professional reviewers and devotees attest to an opinion different from Manoj.' But Manoj expresses his dislike in the form of a psychgological conclusion about the author - a contradiction in the author's inner being between his "heart" and his "intellect." While the "heart" was given to praiseworthy labors of quantity, the "intellect" has usurped the throne of "quality' with its disrespect, "shutting out the heart."
The very opening shot of the book with two photographs illustrates the pattern, which will be followed through out the book. One photo is the original and the other is touched up version of the same thing. This much is fact, putting it together is great to show the difference, it is an excellent view, now the personal preferences and tastes come in when one start interpreting them in one way or other. Here we have already left the empirical ground and entered purely subjective space where any interpretation can claim itself as truth and behind such interpretations we can perceive certain intentions, attitudes etc of the interpreter. These interpretations reveal more of author’s inner workings than the object of investigation.
Manoj exempifies his psychological conclusion with an example from the book's Preface which has by now assumed celebrity status - the illustration of a difference between a hagiography and a biography through the use of two photographs of Sri Aurobindo. The author unmistakably puts his own preference on the side of the historical biographer as against the hagiographer. Manoj is right in that this is a declared "personal preference and taste." But from this he claims that the author has "left the empirical ground and entered purely subjective space where any interpretation can claim itself as truth." It is difficult to see how a hagiography is less "subjective space" than a historical biography; or a historical biography is less "empirical ground" than a hagiography. Historical biographies are subject to certain academic standards of verification; hagiographies to none. Hagiographies may serve the interest of poetic mythmaking with no holds barred; historical biographies situate an integral life in the matrix of space, time and circumstance, so as to establish the physical coordinates of an inner life which is itself a continuous negotiation between varieties of consciousness and experience.
Manoj concludes, again, with a magisterial psychological judgment: "These interpretations reveal more of author’s inner workings than the object of investigation." All written works are interpretations. Nowhere does the author claim that his work is not an interpretation. Different genres of writing subject themselves to different standards and boundaries of interpretation. Academic writing addresses an existing interpretive academic discourse, just as hagiographic writing addresses an existing interpretive hagiographic discourse. Neither occurs in a vacuum. That given, the academic writer has much tighter boundaries to exert freedom of preference than in other forms of writing. The academic writer must assume a persona to address an existing discourse. An effective academic biography can say much less about an author's inner workings than about the existing discourse into which it intends to be an intervention.
If some readers of the book have perceived malicious intentions in it I wouldn’t blame them.
Here comes the magnanimous gesture of absolution. In other words, Manoj considers the reading of “malicious intentions†as legitimate reading practice and ethically/spiritually unblameworthy. This validation of dark designs, asuric intent, leads to its natural consequence, the conversion of the author to fair-game status for persecution, censorship and mental, social and physical abuse. Reading of “malicious intent†into a biography because certain questions have been raised as part of an existing academic discourse and certain preferences for factually restricted interpretations expressed by the author is a reading practice no literate person can be proud of anywhere. And to excuse those who have indulged freely in abuse, persecution and censorship on the grounds of supposed "malicious intent" needs serious ethical and spiritual questioning.
The author is not merely collecting and organizing the data to give some new perspective but he is also bringing in active interpretations and mythmaking based on his personal subjective preferences and taste. If the reader is not careful one is likely to miss where the historical data ends and story telling begins. This is a serious flaw of the book.
Manoj continues to express his opinion without acknowledging that there are innumerable professional and well informed reviewers who do not see at all what he sees. However, Manoj's opinion should certainly be heeded. What is important is that those who read Manoj's review should also read the book to arrive at their own conclusions.
An amazing layer of data is presented through equally luxurious and imaginative layer of interpretations. What makes it poor is when the author claims his interpretations as some sort of greater truth compared to other biographies of Sri Aurobindo which he dump together as hagiographies.
Having read the book, I wonder where Manoj found the author claiming that other biographers of Sri Aurobindo were to be dumped together as hagiographers. In the only place in the book, where the comparison between biographies and hagiographgies is made, the author writes: "Aurobindo has been better served by his biographers than most of his contemporaries have." Where, then, is the "dumping together with hagiographies?"
Writing biography of someone like Sri Aurobindo is like blind men describing an elephant, but when one blind man claims that all others are false, we are dealing with someone who takes his personal views far too seriously and make a religion out of it.
I completely agree with Manoj here. But I hardly see this as a claim of the book. Rather, those unblameworthy people who have read "malicious intent" in the book seem to me to be the ones who cannot tolerate any other representation of Sri Aurobindo than the one which they have "authorized."
A reader should be extremely careful to see through these two layers and take only the facts and leave aside the fiction. But it is not at all easy because the author is an excellent storyteller and he weaves facts and fictions seamlessly like a magician. If you have not read Sri Aurobindo’s own writings or his biographies by other writers you are likely to be mesmerized by Peter’s interpretations and take them to be the truth about Sri Aurobindo.
Manoj's caution here can certainly be heeded if indeed his premise of fictionalizing intent is to be accepted. I do not agree with this, but will honor his view as a possible interpretation. The bottom line however, is to read the book and arrive at one's own conclusions.
The Freudian bug
What makes the book bit silly is when we see the author sniffing around, which looks almost desperate, to find some evidence of sexual dynamics in the lives of Sri Aurobindo. His ‘scholarly research’ to find the reason why Sri Aurobindo married is a case in point. His dive into some selected poetry of Sri Aurobindo to analyze its plot shows a little Freud in the closet. It is laughable to say the least. I wouldn’t say that these adventures have added any depth or credibility to the book; to me it looks rather pathetic. This Freudian bug is evident in quiet many places.
It is true that the author raises certain issues regarding questions of sex in the biography. Such questions already form part of the academic discourse into which the work proposes to introduce itself. I don't see any "Freudian bug" in raising questions regarding sexual motivation which have already been raised by others. These questions are not raised in irrelevant contexts. The appropriateness or effectiveness of the answers provided may be legitimately questioned or critiqued, but hardly the raising of the questions. I myself agree with Manoj regarding the "dive into some selected poetry to analyze" its author. As clear in my critique of Manoj's own method, I believe it is incorrect and poor reading practice to speculate on authorial intent or psychology based on one's written expressions. But that apart, Heehs' analyses can hardly be dubbed "Freudian." Heehs has contested Freudian readings of spirituality in the past and makes it clear in this work too that Sri Aurobindo and the Mother had transcended the sexual motive as yogis and this transcendence was a necessary basis of their practice of the Integral Yoga.
Active omissions
Anyone who is familiar with Sri Aurobindo can see that the author carefully omits quite many well-known aspects of Sri Aurobindo’s life, especially what has been told by the Mother who in my view is the foremost authority who can speak about Sri Aurobindo. The author has no difficulty in using newspaper clippings as documented evidence in his interpretations but when it comes to documented evidence coming from the Mother we see a great reluctance and active omissions. The Mother’s words may not be palatable to an academic audience but to omit them from Sri Aurobindo’s life is not intellectual honesty or historical integrity or academic rigor. Truth is truth, whether it is appealing to the academic world or not and hiding it to please a particular audience may be a good marketing strategy but lowers standards of truth.
Finally the continuation of Sri Aurobindo’s work by the Mother and the supramental descent of 1956 are strangely missing and without it Sri Aurobindo’s life is not complete.
Manoj here demonstrates two areas of "active omission" in the biography, which according to him, make it "incomplete" and lacking in "intellectual honesty or historical integrity or academic rigor." I see these again as authorial choices in responding within a certain academic discourse. When speaking to an uninformed and potentially skeptical audience about Sri Aurobindo, one may see it as more important to get across the message of the possibility of an extension of human horizons demonstrated in the life of one's subject, than introducing far reaching claims which can be more disturbing to some, prior to assimilation and settlement of more basic postulates or possibilities. This is how I read these omissions. But of course, Manoj and others are welcome to their opinions and interpretations, so long as they are not made into the basis of hostile action, persecution and censorship.
Having said all this I repeat, the greatest value of this biography is in bringing together a huge mass of historical data even if he omits actively quite many. Its main weakness is in too much interpretations and judgments colored by personal bias.
And having said all I have, I reiterate that, as omissions go, what I found most surprising was Manoj’s blindness to the elephant in the room – his forgetting to mention that those he "cannot blame" are actively supporting persecution of the author and book banning.
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