Dear Editor,
Except to those enslaved to their bare necessities of life – status,
position, security, etc – the physical organisation called “The Sri Aurobindo
Ashram” has long been materialising Sri Aurobindo’s diagnosis of 19 July 1926 –
before its ‘birth’: “All ashramas have a tendency to degeneration. It is due to
the incapacity of human nature. Whatever it receives from above, it spoils very
soon. As long as the influence of the founder lasts, his teaching remains pure,
but then his disciples, who cannot fully grasp it or can only grasp it
intellectually, deform the whole thing.” [Conversations,
Sri Aurobindo Circle, 1978]
Here is an evocative simile of
how and why – in spite of / because of so many direct disciples with
decades of ‘Ashram life’ as Mother’s child – that Sri Aurobindo Ashram
which was born and organised by the Divine Grace has degenerated to this
extent.
Facilis Descensus
In
highest heavens the Ganges’ course began;
From Shiva’s loftiest brow to the white snows
She
tumbles, nor on the cold summits can,
But headlong seeks the valley and the rose.
Thence
downward still the heaven-born waters ran.
Say
not, “Is this that Ganges? can her place
Be now so low? Rather when man at all
From
heavenly reason swerves, he sinks from grace
Swiftly. A thousand voices downward call,
A
thousand doors are opened to his fall.
Sri Aurobindo [CWSA-5: 318]
In spite of our quarterly
Kumbh-melas and periodical pageants and displays hauling in tourists by the
thousands, in spite of our salesmen churning up speeches and articles and
biographies by the hundreds raking in swarms of parasites seeking free quick-fixes
& reservations in the New Heaven copyrighted by us, we are rushing farther
away than ever from learning Lesson One in Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga: “In the Hour
of God, cleanse thy soul of all self-deceit and hypocrisy and vain
self-flattery that thou mayest look straight into thy spirit and hear that
which summons it.”
Safely ensconced in “all
insincerity of nature” we hold up our direct disciple’s identity-cards,
ignoring Sri Aurobindo’s warning: “…thou sayest God’s hand will be with me and
the Divine Mother near with her gracious smile or succour? And thou knowest not
then that God’s grace is more difficult to have or to keep than the nectar of
the Immortals or Kuvera’s priceless treasures?... Beautiful is the face of the
Divine Mother, but she too can be hard and terrible…. Strive rightly and thou
shalt have; trust and thy trust shall in the end be justified; but the dread
Law of the Way is there and none can abrogate it.” [CWSA-12:156]
Unlike the laws
of our good old human courts: circumvented and abrogated!
One of the direct disciples
And read the following. And from one who has supposedly come from across the wide seas here to do sadhana! And then he travels to a distant place to make such a statement! And for what purpose? And to justify his obnoxious Lives! which neither has historical merit, nor true scholarship, nor literary qualification, and certainly there is nothing spiritual in it, not even a drop of truth of the kind! And falsification calling "Sri Aurobindo" simply "Aurobindo" who does not exist in the Ashram! It seems to be paid news! And with what intentions? Is it because the visa is hanging in the balance? Probably. But the one question that the sponsors should answer is: What is the work for the Ashram he has been doing during the last one year? The rest could be inconsequential.
ReplyDelete"... Heehs sported questions on his book “The Lives of Sri Aurobindo” that created controversy and a furor recently. He said that there is a small dissident group in Pondicherry Ashram which is always interested in discrediting the Ashram Trust and capture power and he being a foreigner with greater access to the archives and records and thereafter writing critically, became an automatic target of this dissident group."
http://www.theshillongtimes.com/2013/02/24/aurobindo-admirer/
Thanks for pointing it out as "paid news" and for the matter-of-fact question:"But the one question that the sponsors should answer is: What is the work for the Ashram he has been doing during the last one year? The rest could be inconsequential."
DeleteThis reminds us how an erstwhile inmate—brought up by the Mother and having been of immense utility to the Ashram throughout his life—had chosen lately to pay for his meals at the Ashram Dining Room; shortly before he died, he was brutally intimated by the Managing Trustee that his presence was "nefarious" at the Dining Room. It was a punitive measure for his condemning the ignominious self-styled "Lives of Sri Aurobindo".
Have you sent it to the Shillong Journal? There is scope to investigate on the Journalist.
-- A comment from a correspondent via e-mail to me