A Short Review by a Disciple

The biography is craftily written to fulfil an objective born out of the author’s misguided objectivism. The general reader by and large is prone to be misled by such misdemeanours in literature and becomes an easy prey unless he/she is intelligent enough to decipher and discriminate between what is real and what is not real and maintain the right balance in his/her opinion. Interestingly, PH has tried to show his intelligence by acknowledging almost the whole staff of the Archives Dept. individually by their names and show to the world that his work is an authentic document while he blatantly misused his position as a member of the Ashram and spied on the available information. There is a case in history where a woman resorted to an intimate relationship of love in order to know the secrets of the other side. The present case is akin to that and therefore is a culpable act of spying.

Hence for the sake of his own honesty, PH has to take a clear stand in this game and play the ball accordingly. He can then articulate freely on Science, Materialism, Spirituality, Religion, Politics, Literature or any other topic the way he likes and as he deems fit without mincing his words. As of now he is not a flag-bearer of the Truth the Ashram stands for after the Master and the Mother have physically left the scene. Therefore, being an insider and a follower of the ideal they showed to humanity, he must not evaluate their work as if he were an outsider. He can however proclaim to the world from his own pulpit that he has greater and higher knowledge and power than Sri Aurobindo and draw his inspiration from Freud, Nehru, etc.

PH somewhere writes regarding Sri Aurobindo that “Some of his arguments now seem rather quaint.” This means that he has the temerity to suggest that he stands on a higher platform than Sri Aurobindo. Again he highlights a situation saying that Sri Aurobindo was a “coward and a liar” and immediately brings in Barin’s statement that “fear was unknown to him” to soften the public mind or, perhaps, to tone down the gravity of his first statement. In another case, he quotes Jawaharlal Nehru saying that “most of the people of my generation who were immersed in political aspects of our struggle did not understand why he [Sri Aurobindo] did so (retired from politics)”. As if the “founder-member” of the Archives Dept. could not make out the mystery of it even after decades of association with Sri Aurobindo’s writings!!!

Beside these, there are several other equally grave and serious errors in the book and they have already been discussed threadbare by people who understand the hypocrisy and stupidity of human behaviour, and so there is no need to mention them here. All said and done, and devotee or no devotee, Sri Aurobindo now belongs to all humanity and even at the human level is worthy of the highest and deepest regard. To say, for example, that he was not a good husband is an utter falsehood. Rama was an avatar of the mental being who established the mind in the earth’s consciousness. PH may say he was a cruel husband as he caused his wife to go into exile and undergo tortures for years in her forest life. But that will be his one personal opinion like that of the washerman in the Ramayana episode.

I will give only one advice to PH, though I don’t think he will understand it. The Mother said that “to come closer to the Truth, you must often accept not to understand.”

A Disciple