A collection of articles by various authors to provide a counter to the vicious attack on Sri Aurobindo that came in the form of a distorted biography.
This book is a counter to the vicious attack on Sri Aurobindo’s spiritual stature that came in the form of a hostile biography of him by Peter Heehs entitled The Lives of Sri Aurobindo, published by Columbia University Press in 2008.
The main defence of Peter Heehs has been the argument of decontextualisation. Time and again he has accused his critics of quoting extracts from his book without the surrounding context. But did the adding of the context by him in his revised version of the Extracts change anything? No! Readers remained unaltered in their negative assessment of his book. Why? If the Extracts were really decontextualised, then they would have changed their opinion. But let me get into the nitty gritty of this oft-repeated argument of decontextualisation.
Peter Heehs himself quotes the Life Divine where Sri Aurobindo presents the argument of the materialist. Now if you read only this portion, you would certainly be under the impression that Sri Aurobindo was a materialist. But if you read the entire chapter, then you realise that he presents the materialistic argument only to refute it. He does the same with the ascetic denial of the world and thus disproves Shankaracharya’s philosophy. Thus quoting Sri Aurobindo out of context and presenting him as a materialist or an ascetic would be called decontextualisation.
In the case of Peter Heehs, this is not the case. The negative statement remains negative despite the mild palliative it is generally given at the end of the presentation. In fact, the ruse employed by Peter Heehs is that he says things without actually saying it! That is he presents the context in such a way that anybody will deduce or extrapolate the negative statement that he wants to project. For example, he discusses the possibility of Sri Aurobindo’s madness in such way that the ordinary reader will certainly begin to doubt his sanity, even though Peter considers him finally as “eminently sane”. He discusses the relationship of Sri Aurobindo with the Mother in such a way that the reader will certainly presume an
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ordinary romantic relation between them. So he keeps making implications and insinuations without actually saying them! He argues by saying that he is merely presenting the pros and cons of the story and letting the reader decide for himself what is true. But what he actually does is to get away without being caught insulting Sri Aurobindo in the open! This is what has confused so many people, but that is what he has been perfecting from the last forty years of his so-called historical research – the art of spreading confusion on Sri Aurobindo’s life.
10 April 2012
Exchange of Comments on TLOSA Blog between Vladimir Latsenko and Raman Reddy:
Vladimir: Context driven meaning – some thoughts on PH Book.
Mind never works by a thesis alone. It needs an antithesis for its clarification and direction. In the linguistic department of St. Petersburg University we had an anecdote, which may clarify my point here:
“A lecturer presents a book written by X and says at the end of his presentation: “If somebody tells you that this book is written not by X but by Y, you should not believe it! You should be totally sure that this book is by X! Do you have any questions?” And there is a question from the audience: “Is the book written by X or by Y? Tell us straight!”
The context influences and even defines the meaning. It shadows out light in a particular way and gives it a new color, as it were. When something is spoken, the meaning is not exclusively derived from what is said but also from what is not said and mainly from the context in which it is spoken. So Sri Aurobindo’s Life is now given a new context in PH’s book, which is of the western approach to life. And here lies the problem.
So, instead of trying to see our modern life in the context of Sri Aurobindo’s, PH, as a historian, brings Sri Aurobindo into our own western context, and even tries to defend and justify him in
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it, sometimes with a partial success. After such a presentation we discover that Sri Aurobindo is a quite healthy individual, and not some kind of schizophrenic, reasonable poet and writer, a good philosopher (again it’s a matter of opinion) and quite an honest seeker for knowledge, to say the least. In other words: a good guy.
For the Indian mind it is a misplacement of all the issues, for the western it is a true and honest account.
Raman Reddy: The issue is not whether the perspective of Peter Heehs is Indian or Western, but whether it is spiritual or materialistic, and it is obviously leaning towards the latter. The issue is also about which set of values you would like to support and cherish, and put into practice in your own life. Simply putting on a show of wide-mindedness and saying that both Indians and Westerners are right in their own way won’t do. You have to take sides in life, you have to choose between materialism and spirituality. I trust that many Westerners in Ashram and Auroville have made a conscious spiritual choice; otherwise they would not have flown ten thousand miles to settle in a remote corner of Tamilnadu. If they simply wanted to follow the current materialistic trend, they would have remained in the West.
The problem with Peter Heehs is that he wants to please everybody (somewhat like you), please the spiritual-minded by making a few positive statements on Sri Aurobindo and please the academic by deconstructing him from the materialistic point of view. This is plain dishonesty. I don’t mind him being a downright and unpretentious materialist condemning Sri Aurobindo, though I, as well as you, would then object to his staying in a spiritual Ashram and being the chief editor of Sri Aurobindo’s works. But this kind of jumping from one world-view to a diametrically opposite one and then jumping back to the first position can only be termed as theatrics or rather monkey tricks. What this kind of behaviour actually reflects is his inability to do the Integral Yoga, and instead of simply saying that he is not fit for it, he has to bring down Sri Aurobindo to his level to justify his own failure. Well, nobody made Yoga compulsory for him!
I repeat again that this is not an Indians vs Westerners issue as
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has been presented by many supporters of Peter Heehs, because there are Indian materialists and Western spiritual seekers. It is true that Indians take to Yoga more easily and that Westerners are better at material organisation, but there is no essential difference between them. The Integral Yoga is common to both and there are no separate directions for Westerners. The truth is that Peter Heehs has found more supporters on the issue of his deportation from India and not with regard to the actual contents of his book. Westerners are a minority here, so they are obviously going to defend him on this issue because of the underlying concern for their own visas.
Vladimir: When there is a fight of the extreme points of view, then subtleties are not felt anymore. The sarcastic tone of my remarks is lost and I seem to protect PH, according to the general editor’s remarks, which is in fact quite the opposite.
Raman Reddy: “After such a presentation we discover that Sri Aurobindo is quite a healthy individual, and not some kind of schizophrenic, reasonable poet and writer, a good philosopher (again it’s a matter of opinion) and quite an honest seeker for knowledge, to say the least. In other words: a good guy.”
The above text can only be understood as an appreciation of Peter Heehs’s book! “A good guy” cannot become “a bad guy” despite all the subtleties of semantics. If Sri Aurobindo has been portrayed as “a good guy” by Western standards (meaning that he is not a madcap but reasonably cool or “eminently sane” as Peter puts it), then there is nothing more to argue about. My only problem is that many of us think that he is much more than that and that he has something to say with regard to the future evolution of man. So simply proving that Sri Aurobindo is not a madcap does not really add anything to his greatness. You might as well praise somebody by saying that he is not a thief, not a lunatic and not a pervert! Or take somebody to the police station to declare that he is not a criminal! Why take him at all to the police station?
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