On the 5th of October, 2012 the Trustees of Sri Aurobindo Ashram filed a writ petition in the High Court of Chennai and got a temporary stay on the probe/enquiry initiated against them by the Collector of Puducherry. The allegations against the Trustees submitted in a memorandum to the Collector on the 13th of August, 2012 by a group of Ashramites and devotees accompanied by MLA Ashok Anand, ranged from “denial of basic constitutional rights of Ashramites, financial mismanagement” to “denial of security for women inmates who have spoken against sexual harassment and victimization” and “illegal sale and lease of Ashram properties”. Shocking, isn’t it, for those who don’t know what is happening at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram!
27 Oct 2012
20 Oct 2012
Laxmidhar Samantray Passes Away
Laxmidhar Samantray was only sixty when he passed away in the afternoon of 18.10.2012 at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Nursing Home, Puducherry. He died of renal failure but he suffered from thyroid cancer, epilepsy, asthma, constipation and what not! Dr Gayatri once told him that everything was wrong with his body except his heart! One could add that his emotional and psychological heart too never failed him. For his faith in Sri Aurobindo and the Mother never wavered and his will to be on the side of the Truth never faltered or gave clever excuses to his mind. “Tell X to keep up the fight with the Trustees! Don’t leave them!” he told a well-wisher during his last months, while he himself fought undeterred with his own body, going through a period of excruciating physical pain during which he underwent thyroid surgery and daily dialysis.
14 Oct 2012
East and West – Sri Aurobindo
The unification of the East and the West is the religion of today. But in this task of unification, if we consider the West as the foundation or the chief support we shall be making a grievous error. The East is the foundation, the chief support. The outer world is established in the inner, not vice versa. Respect and emotion, or inner attitude (bhavā), are the source of energy and activity, one has to be faithful to one's inner attitude (bhāva) and sense of reverence, but one is not to be attached to the application of force and the external forms and means of activity. The occidentals are busy with the outward forms and means of democracy. But the external form is only for the purpose of expressing the inner attitude; it is this attitude that shapes the form, it is one's reverence that creates the means or the instrument. The occidentals are so attached to the forms and instruments that they are unable to notice that in their external expressions the inner attitude and reverence are languishing. These days in the eastern countries the inner attitude and respect for democracy are becoming fast clearer and creating external means and building its outward forms, while in the western countries that feeling is getting dimmed, that respect is much attenuated. The East has set its face towards the dawn, moving towards the light—the West is moving back towards the dark night.
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