(A publication of SABDA, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry 605 002)

SABDA Newsletter 4discussed in detail the views of others on the subject.Instead in his words the intention has been "to read bymyself ... the two poet-philosophers and bring out theirresemblances and their differences".The author does not approve of the tendency amongmodern philosophers, initiated by Bertrand Russell, tokeep apart on one hand the theory of the nature ofexistence and on the other "an ethical doctrine as tothe best way of living". He feels that this has alienatedphilosophy from life: "When knowledge is applied tolife it becomes relevant to living rather than remain asterile intellectual occupation divorced from life."Champaklal Speaks— Edited by M.P.Pandit,Revised by Roshan400 pp., Rs.175.00ISBN 81-7058-668-2From the preface:"Champaklal Speaks inspires usto ponder over his extraordinarylife and fills our hearts withreverence for his Lord and theMother. We can see that hisobservations are the expressionsof profound truths revealed to him through experiencesin his daily life...These reminiscences recreate the atmosphere of thedays when Sri Aurobindo and the Mother workedtogether on this earth to transfigure the consciousnessof their disciples and all mankind, as well as to reveal anew future for the entire earth."Champaklal first came to Pondicherry in 1921, andfor good in 1923. He served both Sri Aurobindo andthe Mother as their personal attendant. He passed awayin 1992. This book contains reminiscences,correspondence, notes and other material gatheredduring Champaklal's long period of intimate contactwith Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.This revised and enlarged edition includes manynew episodes in the main section "Recollections andDiary Notes", as well as some material published inChampaklal's Treasures.Consciousness and its TransformationPapers presented at the Second InternationalConference on Integral Psychology.— Edited by Matthijs Cornelissen408 pp., Rs.150.00ISBN 81-7058-657-7The objective of this conference was to build bridgesbetween Sri Aurobindo's work and psychology as anacademic science. The 24 paperscollected here have beengrouped in 6 sections. The firstsection, integral psychology,has an article on the reversal ofconsciousness in yoga (by Dr.A.S. Dalal), an overview ofintegral psychology, and anarticle on the psychocosmologyof Savitri. Thesecond section contains fourdifferent approaches to integralpsychotherapy. The third deals with integral yoga andthe Indian tradition, the fourth with modern psychologyand spirituality, the fifth with epistemology andmethodology (incl. an article by Max Velmans). Thelast section contains the transcripts of two experientialworkshops.A Greater PsychologyAn Introduction to the Psychological Thought of SriAurobindo— Edited by A.S.Dalal426 pp., Rs.225.00ISBN 81-7058-659-3An overview of Sri Aurobindo's psychologicalthought. The first part, comprising three-fourths of thebook, is an anthology of Sri Aurobindo's writings ontopics such as "The nature of consciousness", "Themake-up of the human being", "Self and ego", "Thesubliminal and the subconscient", "The psychic being","Sleep and dreams", "The psychology of faith", "Cosmicconsciousness", "The psychology of collectivedevelopment" and "Growth towards a greaterpsychology". The second part consists of essays by theeditor "that further illuminate various aspects of SriAurobindo's thought and vision". A glossary of termsis included.THIS EDITION IS FOR SALE ONLY IN INDIA.OVERSEAS BUYERS MAY PURCHASE THEINTERNATIONAL EDITION FROM PENGUINPUTNAM, NEW YORK, U.S.A.See review on page 8Great Sir and the Heaven Lady— Maggi Lidchi-Grassi241 pp., Rs.350.00 (hard cover)This is the true story of how a young American soldier,John Kelly, was spiritually and practically guidedthrough World War II by Sri Aurobindo “whom he hadnever heard or seen”. John had visions during the Warof two beings of Light whom he called 'Great Sir' and'Heaven Lady', and whom he identified much later as

5Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. To the voices of theseGuiding Lights "He listens and obeys and is many timessaved from death." After the War John found a copy ofSri Aurobindo's The Life Divine in a library, and laterworked at a Sri Aurobindo Centre in New York. Hevisited Pondicherry in 1966 and met the Mother. Fromthe introduction, "In this age of despair and defect (thisbook) reveals the Light behind the darkness and thepromise of what awaits us when we have, like John,passed through."Health Exercises for Womenand Girls— Pranab Kumar Bhattacharya17 pp., Rs.20.00In the new age of freedom,equality and progress it is beingrecognised "in an increasingmeasure that women too mustequip themselves for theirchanging role; that they shouldbe physically fit, strong andhealthy through regularphysical exercise, proper and adequate food, sufficientrest and sleep, hygienic habits, a regular life and a happy,cheerful disposition." This booklet presents two sets ofexercises especially planned for women, supported bynumerous photographs showing the various positions.Some answers from the Mother on the subject ofwomen's health are also included.An Interview with Nirodbaran— Compiled and edited bySupriyo Bhattacharya23 pp., Rs.10.00This interview was conductedby Prof.Supriyo Bhattacharya in1987. Nirodbaran spoke mostlyin Bengali, occasionally inEnglish. The interview has beentranslated into English byProf.Bhattacharya. In thisbooklet we are acquainted with"Nirodbaran's intimacy with Sri Aurobindo and theMother in a fascinating manner." Nirodbaran relates"the delicious story of his flowering into a poet in thehands of the Master; the ever-fascinating tale of hisrole as a scribe; iridescent memories of his intimatelink with the Master in connection with thecomposition of the poetic marvel, Savitri" and "hisbeautiful experiences providing beyond any shade ofdoubt the living presence of the spirit of Sri Aurobindo;some pregnant hints on the present difficulties and theSABDA Newsletterprerequisites of Sadhana, giving us an inside-view ofYoga...".Perspectives of Savitri —Volume 2Essays by various authors— Edited by R.Y.Deshpande605 pp., Rs.300.00The 2nd part of an anthologyof articles on Savitri. Theaspects covered include thespiritual, occult, mystical,religious, philosophical, literaryand aesthetic. The Mother saysthat Savitri is a book ofrevelation. This means, in the words of the editor, "thatour approach should be supple-intuitive rather thanmental-discursive" and so we should guard against"excessive rational thinking". "Thought has to be there,but thought that has its birth in the silence of the mind.The purpose of this anthology in two volumes is hencespecifically to provide a certain mental support leapinginto intuition while approaching Savitri". The editorgoes on to say that these volumes could "form afoundation to launch on specialised themes in future"and that "we are perhaps moving from general tospecific and distinguishing aspects in our approachtowards the Masterwork that Savitri is".Selected Essays and Talks ofNirodbaran— Compiled and Edited bySupriyo Bhattacharya271 pp., Rs.100.00A collection of essays andtalks published over a longperiod of time in the journal"Mother India". Many of theserelate to Nirodbaran'srecollections of his fellowsadhakasduring the early daysof the Ashram, providing "an intimate picture of theunpretentious dedication of their life to the Masterand the Mother". There are also other articles onmiscellaneous subjects.The editor remarks that upon going through thesewritings when they appeared in "Mother India", he was"thrilled by the sheer beauty of his prose, thecoruscating wit, the rich allusions, the iridescent poetryand the hidden depth of yearning; vision of a worldwithin world, a sweetness that beckoned; and aboveall, his overabounding vitality, his sure eye for asignificant detail, common sense and intuitive flashes;

SABDA Newsletter 6and a fine distillation in prose of the sweetness andlight, of the eternal wonder that is Sri Aurobindo andthe Mother."The Spirit of Auroville— Huta287 pp., Rs.280.00The InternationalTownship called Auroville(The City of Dawn) wasfounded on 28 February1968. The Mother saidregarding this township"Auroville wants to be thefirst realisation of humanunity based on the teachingof Sri Aurobindo. Where men of all countries would beat home."This book contains Huta's conversations with theMother on Auroville and Matrimandir, seen andcorrected by the Mother. There are also letters andmessages of the Mother on Auroville, as well ascorrespondence Huta had with other seekers on thesubject.The first edition of this book was brought out in1974 under the title "Matrimandir — The Mother's Truthand Love".Sri Aurobindo Mandir (Annual) 2001139 pp., Rs.50.00Sing My Soul— Selected Poems and Other Writings— Georgette Coty175 pp., Rs.150.00Poems, in the words of K.D.Sethna "well-conceivedand well-created", comprise the bulk of this book. Othermiscellaneous writings are also included.The Virgin Birth and theEarliest Christian Tradition— K.D.Sethna92 pp., Rs.85.00In this study on the VirginBirth of Jesus Christ, the authorstresses that the focus must benot on the "manner in whichorthodox Christians understandMary's child to have emergedfrom her womb" but on "thenature of the conception bywhich that child is said to have been born virginally".He states, "the more correct term, therefore, would bethe Virginal Conception of Jesus." The study is notfrom a rationalist angle but "to find if the basic Christiantradition itself affords ground for belief in such abeginning of life". The subject is considered throughthe eyes of the scholar and ordained minister of theRoman Catholic Church, Father Raymond E. Brown,because he has given "an admirably many-sidedtreatment to the problem".Other languagesFrenchParoles de la Mère - 3 The Mother 240.00ISBN 81-7058-667-4GermanDie Mutter — Eine Kurzbiographie 75.00ISBN 81-7060-016-2 WilfriedItalianLa Luce Che Trafisse l’Oscuro Abisso 400.00ISBN 88-7183-120-9 Maggi Lidchi-GrassiSpanishLas Fuerzas Ocultas de la VidaISBN 81-7058-655-0 Compilation 90.00El Espiritu Y El Alma Compilation 120.00TurkishSohbetler The Mother 100.00BengaliAgnijuger Agnikatha 1906-1908(Jugantar theke sankalita) Compilation hc 400.00Chintakana O Sutramala Sri Aurobindo 55.00ISBN 81-7058-658-5Ganer ToriSongs by NirodbaranISBN 81-86413-21-9 50.00GujaratiSri Aravindana Sanskrit Tatha SanskritVishayak Lakhano Dr.Rmanalal Pathak 56.00HindiBhavi Samaj Sukhvir Arya 30.00Veda-Chakshu Sukhvir Arya 15.00Vichar Sangraha Sukhvir Arya 30.00Shiksha Par Compilation 25.00Divya Jeevan Ke Path-Sanket 100.00Chhote Narayan SharmaSavitri — Ek Sankshipt Parichaya 22.00Mangesh Nadkarni

7Sundar Jeevan Madhav Pandit 60.00ISBN 81-7509-073-1KannadaNamma Tayi Nimma Tayi Trembakrao Ghantoji15.00Srimata (Vyakhana Mattu Tatparya Sahita) 40.00KO.ChennabasappaOriyaAloka Rashmi The Mother 50.00Sri Aurobindo Asharamara Lakshya O AdarshaCompilation 30.00Yoga Pradeep Sri Aurobindo 20.00SanskritBhavasumam Asha Agrawal 70.00ISBN 81-7058-672-0Surabharati (Part 3) Ed. Narendra 22.00ISBN 81-7058-662-3SABDA NewsletterTamilAnnai — Oru Kannottam (set of 2 books)Compilation 15.00Annaiyin Kuzhandaiyaga Compilation 15.00Annaiyin Arulmalargal Compilation 30.00Annaiyin Parvaiyil Japan (Bagam 1) 15.00CompilationAnnaiyin Parvaiyil Japan (Bagam 2) 15.00CompilationAuroville — Oru Kanavu Vadivam Perugiradhu 50.00Alain G.Madhamum Yogamum Compilation 15.00Rigvedam — Agni SookthangalISBN 81-900979-4-6 Sri Aurobindo 40.00Sollin Shakthi Compilation 15.00Thiruppu Munai Compilation 15.00TeluguBharatiya Sanskruti Punadulu (Part 1) 25.00Sri AurobindoBhuvipai Atimanasa Avirbhavamu 40.00Sri AurobindoSABDA, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry - 605 002, IndiaPhone : (+91-413) 334980, 223328, 334072 Fax : (+91-413) 223328, 334836E-mail : sabda@sriaurobindoashram.org Website: http://sabda.sriaurobindoashram.orgORDERING INFORMATION FOR BOOKSAll payments should be sent through bank draft or money order to : SABDA, Sri Aurobindo Ashram,Pondicherry 605 002.Readers in India may add on 5% of the total value of books as well as Rs.30.00 towards postage and packing.For example, for books workth Rs.240.00, the amount to be remitted is Rs.240.00 + Rs.12.00 + Rs.30.00 =Rs.282.00.Books are sent by registered post immediately on receipt of the order.PARTICIPATION IN BOOK FAIRSIn January-February 2002 SABDA participated in the World Book Fair at New Delhi. The response fromvisitors at the Fair was encouraging and confirmed that awareness of and interest in the works of Sri Aurobindoand The Mother is increasing. A large number of trade orders were also booked.SABDA also participated in various other book fairs in different parts of the country, either directly or throughaffiliated centres. The venues of participation include Calcutta, Allahabad, Ranchi, Nainital, Coimbatore,Salem, Neyveli, Mavelikara (Kerala), among others.There are unique moments in life that pass like a dream. One must catch them on the wing,for they never return.— The Mother

SABDA Newsletter 8REVIEWSTOWARDS A GREATER PSYCHOLOGYA Greater Psychology(An Introduction to the PsychologicalThought of SriAurobindo)(Edited by A.S.Dalal; Publishedby Sri Aurobindo InternationalCentre of Education;Price: Rs.225.00, pp.426)“Yoga is nothing but practicalpsychology”, said SriAurobindo who captured theprofundity of India’s extraordinaryspiritual heritage. Talking about Sri Aurobindo’sgenius, Ken Wilber (“the most comprehensive philosophicalthinker of our times”) in his Foreword to thisbook under review says: “He was the first great philosopher-sageto deeply grasp the nature and meaningof the modern idea of evolution…nobody combinedboth philosophical brilliance and a profoundly enlightenedconsciousness the way Aurobindo did. His enlightenmentinformed his philosophy; his philosophygave substance to his enlightenment; and that combinationhas been rarely equalled, in this or any time.”Having said what is special about Sri Aurobindo,Wilber proceeds to pass on the central message of SriAurobindo’s writings: “…the modern world has irreversiblydiscovered the fact that the world evolves —Matter evolves, life evolves, mind evolves. And Spiritevolves – or, we might say, Spirit is the entire evolutionaryprocess of its own unfolding, from matter tolife to mind to the higher and superconscient realms ofSpirit’s own being. This evolutionary unfolding of Spirit– as it plays out in psychology, anthropology, religion,politics, the arts, and the spiritual practice itself – is thecentral message of Aurobindo’s voluminous writings.”Sri Aurobindo believed that the human being is onewith and inseparable from the Being of the Universe.Therefore in his thought, psychology is part of andintermingled with cosmology. The nature and developmentof the human being find an explanation in thelight of the nature and evolution of the universe. Nowonder that this idea is termed as ‘greater psychology’– “one which includes body, mind, soul, and spirit, inboth ascending/evolutionary and descending/involutionary currents.”Dr.A.S.Dalal, a one time clinical psychologist in theWest and now an authority on Sri Aurobindo’s worksin this very valuable volume has gathered together allthe salient aspects of Sri Aurobindo’s psychologicalthought.The aim of this book is threefold: 1. To present SriAurobindo as a mystic, for whom the ultimate Reality– popularly called God or Spirit – is not an abstract orphilosophical concept but a concrete experience,2. To present Sri Aurobindo as an enlightened onewhose view of the human being is based not on speculativetheory nor on statistical inference but on selfrealization,and 3. To present Sri Aurobindo as a seerwhose delineation of the future of the human beingand of human society is not an ideative dream of whatought to be, but a spiritual pre-vision of what is alreadyin the process of becoming.With the greater intention of highlighting SriAurobindo’s psychological thought, Dr.A.S.Dalal hastried to bring out its experiential basis and its integralnature.The first of this two-part book occupies 300 pagesand contains Sri Aurobindo’s writings pertaining to agreater psychology. The various minds, the differentmodes of Nature, Self, ego and individuality, gradationsof the Higher Consciousness, states of Consciousness,sleep and dream, evolution of mankind are someof the many topics that Sri Aurobindo’s writings dealwith.Readers quite conversant with the writings of SriAurobindo too will stand to gain from this anthology,for, thanks to Dr.A.S.Dalal, it follows a sequential developmentof thought.Part Two of this book is a collection of essays byDr.A.S.Dalal, written as independent articles on variousoccasions. Since these essays, seven in all, runningto a hundred pages are studies on Sri Aurobindo’s psychologicalthought, they are meant to serve chiefly asan aid in understanding Sri Aurobindo’s own writingscontained in the anthology, and aim at bringing outexplicitly the system underlying his thought. They areto a great extent in Sri Aurobindo’s own words, forwhich the author has a valid reason to give. In his ‘Preface’he writes: “Sri Aurobindo’s writings, based on spiritualexperience rather than on intellectual theory canconvey not only their thought content but also some-

9SABDA Newsletterthing of the higher state of consciousness underlying the thought when read in a meditatively receptive way.This is but one reason why I have often chosen to quote Sri Aurobindo instead of paraphrasing him.” Dalal’scomments are meant to provide elucidations and to bring out the integral nature of the thought presented. Theircontents pertain to different levels of understanding for both the student and the scholar were kept in view whilewriting these essays.The glossary appended to this book includes Sanskrit terms, certain proper names and special terms found inSri Aurobindo’s writings. And they are all explained in Sri Aurobindo’s own words. The Index serves as an easyreference.“This book is timely”, avers Arabinda Basu in his introduction, “particularly because during recent years therehas been an explosion of interest in the study of consciousness as evidenced by numerous journal articles andbooks on the subject by writers from several different disciplines.” This invaluable and handy companion thatdeals only with the theoretical aspects of Sri Aurobindo’s psychological thought, is certainly the best introductionto the practical psychology underlying his yoga, and a welcome addition to Aurobindoniana.— P. RajaSri Aurobindo — The LifeDivine: A Brief Outline(By G.N. Sarma; Published byUltra Publications, Bangalore;Price: Rs.200.00 (hard cover),pp.163)The Life Divine is undoubtedlyone of the most powerfulexpressions of consciousness inany language (possibly exceededonly by Savitri). It hasbeen considered Sri Aurobindo’s magnum opus andthere are many for whom it is the one work by SriAurobindo they have heard of. Perhaps for this reasonit tends often to be the book singled out by many unfamiliarwith the rest of Sri Aurobindo’s oeuvre andpromptly dropped after a first and rarely a reluctantsecond attempt at reading. Apart from the forbiddingsize of the book (at 1000+ pages, Sri Aurobindo himselfjocularly called it a “fat elephant”) its prose demandssome openness to philosophical thinking. Eventhis is not sufficient, since there are many who havehappily plodded through the desert landscapes of Kantor Hegel, but find The Life Divine inaccessible. Theovermental density of expression in the book stretcheslanguage to its extreme as a vehicular medium of spiritualrealities. The speculative logic of the conventionalphilosopher needs the enhancement of a considerablysubtler or inner mentality and a stable truth-intuitionto follow and bear witness to the unfolding of the structuredrevelatory sequences of Sri Aurobindo’s writinghere. If The Future Poetry is Sri Aurobindo’s theoreticalpointer to the poetics of the mantra and Savitri ishis practical demonstration of the same, The Life Divinemay justifiably be called Future Philosophy. Thefaculties demanded in the reader for an adequate appreciationof the same are likewise, future faculties,not developed sufficiently in the present mass of humanity.In this regard, the Mother’s advice on how toread Sri Aurobindo is very instructive: “Read a little ata time, keeping the mind as tranquil as one can, withoutmaking an effort to understand, but keeping thehead as silent as possible, and letting the force containedin what one reads enter deep within. This forcewill do its work of light and create if needed the necessarybrain cells for the understanding. Subsequent readingswill become more clear and familiar and understood.Read regularly, each day at a fixed time if possible,this facilitates the brain receptivity.”This much admitted, the question remains if any mundanedevice(s) could be of aid to those who have aninterest in understanding the basics of Sri Aurobindo’sphilosophy, or what may more correctly, following theVedantic lineage, be called his darshana. The reductionof The Life Divine to its basic philosophical ideashas been attempted, and two short treatises which havehelped many in the past, are S.K. Maitra’s The Philosophyof Sri Aurobindo and Joan Price’s An Introductionto Sri Aurobindo’s Philosophy. However, in spite ofthese and similar expositions, The Life Divine has remainedopaque to many, due, as discussed above, to itsfuturistic use of language and principle of development.G.N. Sarma’s attempt at providing a chapter bychapter summary of the philosophical logic of The LifeDivine, is, in this regard, a laudatory, if ambitious undertaking.

SABDA Newsletter 10A summary of some original work, is a representationin the form of miniaturization. It involves a processof creative selection, of inclusions, exclusions andinterpretations. In pictorial art, one may think of fourtypes of miniature representation. In the first instance,there may be a photographic reduction, whose perfectionlies in a technology so exact that the smallestdetails are retained in the scaled down form and maybe recovered through the reverse technological processof enlargement. In the second case, there may bean impressionistic reduction, where emphatic highlightsare rendered with precision while remaining formsand areas are retained only as a graded background ofsuggestions. A third method would be an expressionisticone, where interpretative choices might exaggerate,distort or color aspects of the original and includeor exclude features under the stress of personal affect.Finally, a minimalist miniaturization would take theform of a severe reduction of details down to a simplicityof essential features, relations and proportions.Sarma’s summary is quintessentially of the fourth kind.He manages to represent the 1070 pages of The LifeDivine in a slim 163 pages, each of its 56 dense chapterspared down to an average two pages. A strong, firmand clear line of development is traced in each chapter,surprisingly capturing the philosophical backbone ofSri Aurobindo’s text. Of course, the overmental powerof a simultaneous infinite spaciousness and a packeddensity of content, the presence of the whole in eachsentence which is the wonderful and amazing hallmarkof The Life Divine, making it not merely the explicationof Sri Aurobindo’s darshana but the darshana ofSri Aurobindo, is not to be expected here. Nevertheless,Sarma’s chapters are not the narrow, hard and drystaple of conventional philosophy; they are eminentlyreadable, with the presence of a clear and compact qualityof light.In terms of the accuracy of content, the work islargely impeccable, though not without its questionabledeviations. To give an example, in Sri Aurobindo’stext, the chapter on the Triple Status of Supermind(LD, Ch. XVI) links to the next chapter on The DivineSoul by positing the third poise of the Supermind to beits projected individuation, a necessity if the relationalplay of the One as the Many is to be achieved. Thisthird poise is therefore central to the premise of a DivineLife - it is the supramental poise of the DivineSoul, which Sri Aurobindo distinguishes from the ignoranthuman condition resulting from the lapse intoAvidya, “which takes the Many for the real fact of existenceand views the One only as a cosmic sum of theMany.” Instead, “... the individual Divine would stillbe conscious of itself as a result of the One and of itspower of conscious self-creation, that is to say, of itsmultiple self-centration conceived so as to govern andenjoy manifoldly its manifold existence in the extensionof Time and Space...” (LD, 148). But in Sarma’ssummary, this crucial distinction is completely overlooked:“... in the third poise the One is along with themany, he as well as all others playing their respectiveparts exclusively, separately and egoistically. This isthe stage of Avidya.” (Sarma, 32) Again, the early chapter“The Methods of Vedantic Knowledge” (LD, Ch.VIII) is a very important strategic chapter in SriAurobindo’s text. In talking of Vedantic knowledge, acrucial subtext which emerges is the distinction betweenthe speculative metaphysics governed by rationalitywhich passes for Philosophy in the West, and thepower of a knowledge by identity working as Intuition,which is accepted as a primary method in Vedanticphilosophy. He thus exposes the method of his ownapproach in The Life Divine, drawing its kinship to theVedantic approach. He also discusses the inevitablehistorical slippage from Intuition to Reason and theIndian philosophers’ erection of the dual standards ofthe Sruti and the Reason to arrive at their metaphysicalstructures in a later more rationalistic phase of IndianPhilosophy. In Prof. Sarma’s summary of this chapter,this appears to be the desideratum followed by TheLife Divine and required by us in our study of the same:“The revelations of intuition and the authority of Srutiare therefore accepted as beyond question.” (Sarma,16) However, this is not the reality for Sri Aurobindo’stext; it is only the statement of a historical reality. SriAurobindo’s own method in The Life Divine, allowinga knowledge by identity to express itself directly, isonly hinted at in this chapter as a possibility requiringa special yogic cultivation reserved for the future: “...Intuitionis unable to give us the truth in that ordered andarticulated form which our nature demands. Before itcould effect any such completeness of direct knowledgein us, it would have to organise itself in our surfacebeing and take possession there of the leadingpart.” (LD, 68)Occassional inaccuracies of this nature give toSarma’s summary a somewhat spotty appearance. Still,if one does not treat the summary as a substitute for TheLife Divine and uses it instead as a precursory companiontext to aid in a focus on the central argument of achapter, it may be found to serve a very helpful function.— Debashish Banerjee

11DIVINE PATH-FINDERSABDA NewsletterOn the threshold of a new agewith Medhananda(Fragments of conversations recordedin French by YvonneArtaud; Published by Sri MiraTrust;Price: Rs.250.00 (soft cover);Rs.295.00 (hard cover), pp.199)This is a sequel to the earliervolume entitled WithMEDHANANDA on the shoresof infinity. While the earlier one was autobiographical,in the present one, according to the publisher’s note,Medhananda “remains out of sight, except in the interviewsand his letters to the children of his children.”A polyglot who learned many languages early inlife such as French, Latin and Greek, Medhananda wasa gifted child with an extraordinary access to the worldof nature and totems. With the rise of Nazi persecutionin Germany, Medhananda left his position as a JuniorJudge in Frankfurt. With his wife he went to the Pacificislands of Tahiti and Moorea. In that island paradise hecultivated vanilla and coffee in 200 acres of forest landand brought up their three children.Medhananda began a correspondence with SriAurobindo and in 1949, he was formally accepted asHis disciple. He joined the Sri Aurobindo Ashram formallyin February 1952 and became the librarian. Aftera life of dedicated service, he passed away in 1994. Inthe Ashram, Medhananda led a quiet and withdrawnlife, concentrating on work and contemplation.Divided into eleven chapters, this unusual book,posthumously published, is a tribute to the memory ofthis extraordinary soul. It takes us through a realm ofconsciousness and phenomena normally not within ouraccess and ken. While some chapters such as “IntegralYoga”, “The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo in brief”, “The avatarof Supermind” are relatively easy to grasp, otherssuch as “The new happenings” and “Our vibratoryworld” take us into more esoteric domains. However,regardless of the subject of deliberation, we witness inall the writings, a certain straightforwardness and innertransparency characteristic of a mind in direct communionwith higher domains. The language and stylehere are at a heightened plane and essentially poetic.As Medhananda takes us through earlier experimentsin mysticism and spirituality and links up with theachievements of Sri Aurobindo, one can see an eclecticmind that has grasped the wisdom of the East andthe West. He shows an equal understanding ofPythagoras and Osiris, the Egyptian and the Chaldeancivilizations, Buddha and Lao Tse, Socrates andPatanjali, Vishwamitra and Sri Aurobindo.Above all, Medhananda’s approach to understandingthe mysteries and miracle of the human evolutionare manifest in many parts of the book.The chapter, “In the age of Sri Aurobindo” couldserve as a quintessential example. As he sees it, it isalways the Presence of the Spiritual Being, the Avatarwho makes a difference to human destiny. As he explainsinsightfully:Sri Aurobindo once gave a beautiful example.There was a French Revolution, in 1789. Allthe people there were shouting “Equality! Fraternity!Liberty!” But the reason they wereshouting these words was because a yogi sittingin the Himalayas was bringing these newconcepts down into the consciousness of mankind.That is how you have to see a planet andthe new things which come in. They infiltratefrom somewhere…(p.61)There are other pieces, essentially vignettes writtenin an aphoristic style. They act as useful signposts inthe path of inner quest. Topics like “How to read SriAurobindo”, “Non-attachment and effort” and “Integralyoga in the face of wickedness”, may not containmany original ideas. Nevertheless, even here, a greatcare is shown by the author in developing argumentswith the help of telling examples from multiple sources.Medhananda is particularly effective when he talksabout our approach to the Supermind. He alludes, inthis connection, to a symposium organized in theAshram Library around the visit of Ernst Benz, a Protestanttheologian. As the Mother asked Medhanandapointedly after the meet:“What did they talk about?” There was a smilein her eyes. I replied, trying to stifle the wildlaughter that was overcoming me. “Theytalked about Supermind, Sweet Mother.”Mother simply remarked, “What do they knowabout it?”

SABDA Newsletter 12Medhananda cautions us that while devotion and loyalty to Sri Aurobindo are important, there is always adanger in relapsing into the earlier modes of thought and action. For instance stray passages from Sri Aurobindocould be taken out and used in a partisan manner. The result would be a falsification of His ideals. As he saysaptly, “you can just take a few key words of Sri Aurobindo and there you have a new religion starting.” A timelywarning this.On the threshold of a new age is a volume full of insights and illuminations and should interest all seekers ofthe inner life.— Prof. Sachidananda MohantyPsychic Education — A Workbook(Based on the Writings of SriAurobindo and the Mother)(By Neeltje Huppes; Publishedby Sri Aurobindo EducationSociety, New Delhi;Price: Rs.100.00, pp. 284 + xii)“Formerly, education wasmerely a mechanical forcing ofthe child’s nature into arbitrarygrooves of training and knowledge in which hisindividual subjectivity was the last thing considered,and his family upbringing was a constant repressionand compulsory shaping of his habits, his thoughts,his character into the mould fixed for them by the conventionalideas or individual interests and ideals ofthe teachers and parents. The discovery that educationmust be a bringing out of the child’s own intellectualand moral capacities to their highest possiblevalue and must be based on the psychology of the childnaturewas a step forward towards a more healthybecause a more subjective system; but it still fell shortbecause it still regarded him as an object to be handledand moulded by the teacher, to be educated. But atleast there was a glimmering of the realisation thateach human being is a self-developing soul and thatthe business of both parent and teacher is to enableand to help the child to educate himself, to develop hisown intellectual, moral, aesthetic and practical capacitiesand to grow freely as an organic being, not tobe kneaded and pressured into form like an inert plasticmaterial. It is not yet realised what this soul is orthat the true secret, whether with child or man, is tohelp him to find his deeper self, the real psychic entitywithin. That, if we ever give it a chance to come forward,and still more if we call it into the foreground as“the leader of the march set in our front”, will itselftake up most of the business of education out of ourhands and develop the capacity of the psychologicalbeing towards a realisation of its potentialities ofwhich our present mechanical view of life and manand external routine methods of dealing with themprevent us from having any experience or forming anyconception.”These are the words of Sri Aurobindo on moderneducation in his major work on Social Philosophy, TheHuman Cycle. Here he hints at the possibility of thesoul in man taking up the ‘business of education out ofour hands’. The Mother in Sri Aurobindo Ashram developedthis possibility. The Sri Aurobindo InternationalCentre of Education was started on The Mother’sinitiative with a view to promote the free progress system.The teachers took up their work in the spirit ofSadhana with The Mother herself as their guide.The dominant world-view however continues to bemechanical. Under the circumstances it is very difficultfor a man to go beyond the mainstream and mouldhis life under the influence of the soul. The child-soultoo is shackled by the abnormal stress on career andmoney. The way out for man and society is PsychicEducation. This is the title of the book under review.The purpose of this book is to develop the concept ofpsychic education on the lines suggested by The Motherand Sri Aurobindo in their writings. The book is meantprimarily for teachers and educationists but is boundto have an influence beyond its intended audience.In the Ashram, Yoga is the way of life. But this doesnot hold good for the world at large. The author attemptsto suggest a methodized approach to rescue thespiritual component of the being of man and child andprevent it from being buried under the weight of thevicissitudes of modern life. The book is a workbook.Interspersed with the text are several worksheets, whichhelp to focus on detailed implementation of the numerouscreative ideas suggested.The first part of the book titled Self-Preparation haseleven chapters and aims to introduce the aspiringteacher to a psychology other than the conventional. A

13prior familiarity with the teachings of The Mother andSri Aurobindo will be found helpful for making thebest use of this part. The author is a Sadhika and bringsto her writings her insights on the spiritual path. Thelevel of discourse varies from elementary to intermediate.The Intermediate Zone through which most aspirantshave to pass before reaching the psychic beinghas not been touched upon.The author commences by introducing the psychicbeing in a simple way. No attempt is made to be philosophicallyrigourous yet a sensitive reader will find inthe concept of the psychic being an epitome of thattowards which his deepest instincts have alwayspointed. She proceeds to talk about the great discovery,suggests methods like self-observation to heal thedivisions in one’s being and brings the participantreaderto the threshold where he can commence hisjourney. A word of caution is thrown in; the completediscovery of the psychic may take years. The next twochapters deal with self-purification. A distinction issought to be drawn between purification from withoutand from within. The author does not introduce theidea of reversal of consciousness at this stage, whichone feels is necessary for greater clarity.So long as we are not surrendered to the inner Divinethe need for effort must remain. This is the next thingto be discussed. A major form of this effort is rejectionof all that impedes our progress. The author distinguishesbetween true rejection which leads to spiritualpurification and suppression which is often done outof fear.Human beings are different from animal creation inthat they have a measure of freewill in their actions.When this free choice is used to put us deliberately onthe side of the Divine, change in consciousness occurswhich finally culminates in our will being aligned withthe Divine will. These and allied movements of consciousnessare explored in the chapter Choice andChange.Surrender is the master movement of the progressivepsychic change by which we transform personal effortinto ‘a movement of the Divine force’. The author usesquotations from The Mother and Sri Aurobindo to drivethe point home. The psychic change draws to its culminationwhen being organized around the psycheunifies all the divergent parts of our nature. This isdiscussed in the chapter Unification that brings us tothe close of the first part.SABDA NewsletterThe second half of the book deals with the educationof children. It bears the rather unsuggestive title,The Integral Classroom. The contents however are fullof a wealth of pedagogic detail which are based nodoubt on the author’s considerable experience in thisfield.‘India is a country where the psychic law can andmust rule and the time has come for that here.’ Basingherself on this message of The Mother, the author seeksto introduce Integral Education in the classroom. Thethree principles of true teaching enunciated by SriAurobindo form the kernel of the idea of psychic educationin the classroom. They are:1) The first principle of true education is that nothingcan be taught...(The teachers’) business is to helpand suggest...2) The second principle is that the mind has to beconsulted in its own growth...3) The third principle of education is to work fromthe near to the far, from that which is, to that whichshall be.The practical consequences of these three cardinalprinciples are explored in the next chapter, The LearningProcess. The important issue of deciding the contentsof the children’s education follows this. Severalcriteria are suggested for this purpose — variety, rangeand assortment of material, diversity of learning processes,perfection of the faculties and skills, upliftingmaterial and lastly material that caters specifically tothe psychic needs and that which explores psychicconcepts. The last three chapters deal with evaluationand assessment, the learning environment and attitude(of the teacher).Practically all the essential ideas, which are necessaryto implement the concept of integral education,have been dealt with in this book. The style is simplebut not unsustained. The one conspicuous absence islack of stress on moral education, which has been dealtwith by Sri Aurobindo in his writings.The book is a happy compromise between the Divineideal and the present conditions of progress. It isindispensable reading for teachers and educationistswith a sense of higher values and a willingness to gobeyond the narrow utilitarian aims of present day education.The book is very well produced and moderatelypriced. The significance of the flower on the coveras given by The Mother, Supramental Invocation, sumsup the author’s idealism and commitment.— H. Kapoor

SABDA Newsletter 14THE WORLD OF TEILHARD DE CHARDINTeilhard de Chardin and ourTime(By Amal Kiran (K.D.Sethna);Published by Clear Ray Trust;Price: Rs.150.00, pp.343)“…it is not only apostles of anew type that we require: butindeed (for the use of theseapostles) a Gospel of a type thatis ‘new’. – It is inexact, I am increasinglymore sure, to repeatthat society is de-christianising itself…it is solely anddesperately awaiting to be super-christianised. TheChristianity, presented to us does not satisfy us anymore, because its Christ is not great enough.” That wasTeilhard de Chardin in his letter dated 22 March 1955to André Ravier, a fellow Jesuit, expressing his disillusionmentwith the company of Jesus to which he belonged.Teilhard died on 25 March 1955. Two daysbefore his death he confessed to André: “I owe a lot tothe company: but I would hesitate a lot before invitinganybody to enter it. – Let the counsellors beware!”What Teilhard de Chardin (the French Jesuit theologian,palaeontologist and philosopher best known forhis creative synthesis of nature and religion based onhis field work and fossil studies) wrote at his life’s end,was only a final echo to a downright disillusioned statementhe made twenty-three years before his death. Inhis letter to Valensin, dated 20 October 1932, he said:“In reality, I don’t dare and have never dared to pushanyone to make himself Christian. The weight is becomingtoo heavy to carry.” No wonder that Teilhard’sunorthodox ideas led to a church ban on his teachingand publishing. Yet the world he saw and experienceddidn’t give him the least opportunity to revise his opinion.These frank remarks of his delayed the publicationof his major work, Phenomenon of Man, written1938-40 until after his death by the embargo of hissuperiors.What then was Teilhard de Chardin’s idea of Christianity?To answer this question one has to plungeinto the depths of Teilhard’s writings. To do so it needsthe scholarship and calibre of an eminent man of letters– K.D.Sethna who has nearly fifty books to hiscredit. His earlier work, Teilhard de Chardin and SriAurobindo (1973 - now out of print) showed how boththe writers saw humanity as being in a constant processof evolution, moving towards a perfect spiritual state.His next book The Spirituality of the Future (1981 -now out of print) made a search apropos ofR.C.Zaehner’s study in Sri Aurobindo and Teilhard deChardin. And now the volume under review is an interpretativestudy of that rebellious Jesuit or his ownmulti-aspected writings or else both at the same time.The first of this two-part volume deals with the realreligion of Teilhard de Chardin – his version of Christianityand Sri Aurobindo’s exposé of the ancientVedanta. In the beginning of this part, K.D.Sethna raisesa question “Was Teilhard a pantheist?” and goes aheadto fish for points from Teilhard’s writings only to pressthem into service of his contention that “…he subscribesto panpsychism not only in the sense that life ispresent in all matters even where it is not apparent, butalso in the sense that one single life, an identical vitalpresence, is active in various degrees throughout theuniverse – a sense which would be a natural and logicalstep towards pantheism.” Sethna makes a study ofRoman Catholicism and Pantheism, Christian Pantheism,panpsychism, Christ’s parousia, Vedantic Christianity,Vedantic vision, the Historical Christ and soulevolutionand concludes this section thus: “Whetherwe agree with Teilhard’s arguments or no, hispanpsychism in the one-life sense for the ‘telluric’ (terrestrial)scene is undeniable. And, granted this range, acosmic panpsychism in the same sense is a legitimateimputation in the light of his assertion that matter isintrinsically animate everywhere.”The second part that occupies three-fourths of thebook, discusses in detail the basic Teilhard de Chardinand the modern religious intuition. About the hereticJesuit, K.D.Sethna writes: “He is not only complex butalso puzzling – and he is a puzzle to his own being noless than to others. Just as he is basically an unorthodoxRoman Catholic and cannot be fitted into mereChristianity, as his co-religionist admirers want, so toois he a strange heretic and cannot be fitted into merepantheism, as his co-religionist critics contend. But hehas himself given a handle to either party. Continuallyhe sways between his openly confessed inborn pantheisttemperament and the equally sincere Christian responsesevoked in his heart and mind by early trainingand later discipline. He never quite finds the correctpoise to which, beyond both mere Christianity andmere pantheism, his deepest attempts at self-clarificationpoint. This poise may broadly be termed the modernreligious intuition. And that intuition in its turnmay be defined in general as an evolutionist version of

15what is in essence the original many-sided as distinguished from the later single-tracked Vedanta.”SABDA NewsletterAnd the whole part is an explication of what has gone before. Apart from explaining the fundamentals ofTeilhard’s faith and the true nature of his Christianity, he discusses in detail the basic Teilhardism and the placeof his Christianity in it.Both the parts of this very scholarly and hence heavy book aim to consider Teilhardism from all possible sidesand converge upon a number of primary insights into its authentic heart of vision. And the result is the hereticJesuit emerges with a “sea-change”. By plumbing the deepest, K.D.Sethna brings to light the most hiddenstretches of Teilhard’s wide-visioned genius.— P. RajaSri Aurobindo — Thinker andYogi of the Future(By M.G.Umar; Published by SriMira Trust; Price: Rs.100.00,pp.286)This elegantly brought outbook of a little less than 300pages is a good introduction tothe teachings of the Mother andSri Aurobindo. In the words ofthe author himself, this book isa collection of essays based on the works of the Motherand Sri Aurobindo. It has no pretension of being anexhaustive study. There are ten chapters in this book;the first and third chapters deal with the biographies ofthe Mother and Sri Aurobindo. Though he has not dealtexhaustively with all the details of their lives, he hassucceeded in bringing out their essence and true meaningin simple language; and he has done this by quotingexhaustively from their own writings. The othereight chapters summarize the different aspects of theirteachings. In the second chapter, the author explainsthe philosophy of Sri Aurobindo as spelt out in TheLife Divine. This is an intellectual presentation and isan attempt to convince the modern mind of the validityof the philosophy. The fourth chapter deals with theIntegral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo. The chief referencesare taken from The Synthesis of Yoga, while at the sametime quoting profusely from the writings of the Mother.Here the concentration is on the practical aspects; thestress here is on converting the philosophy into action.The next two chapters deal with the Political and Socialthought of Sri Aurobindo. Unlike most other Yogis,Sri Aurobindo has written extensively on thesetopics. The author deals with the main ideas presentedin these two books. Although not a summary in the realsense, they acquaint the reader with the key ideas of SriAurobindo on these two topics. One gets an insightinto the radically different approach of Sri Aurobindoand this will be of help when the reader goes to theoriginals. The next chapter deals with Education; herehe has touched on the salient features of their visionon education and has referred quite extensively to theMother’s views on education. This has great practicalrelevance today in India.The next chapter deals with the poetry of SriAurobindo. The author discusses Sri Aurobindo’s visionof the future directions that poetry is likely totake; in this he has quoted chiefly from The FuturePoetry. This chapter also gives a good introduction tothe epic Savitri. After describing the tale briefly, he hasselected beautiful quotations from the poem to illustratethe vision of the poet. This is very well done andI am sure that this will induce the reader to go to theoriginal.In the ninth chapter, the author has taken some practicalproblems that every seeker of the Integral Yogafaces. He has given useful hints based on the writingsof the Mother and Sri Aurobindo to overcome theseproblems.In the tenth and last chapter, the author writes aboutAuroville or the City of Dawn. He quotes the Mother’sdream in full, which was the starting point of the project;he then quotes the Auroville charter. In this chapter heexplains how the Sri Aurobindo Ashram and Aurovilleare working for the same collective ideal.This book on the whole can serve as a good introductionto the works of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo.It can be a springboard for a deeper study of their originalworks.— Kittu Reddy

SABDA Newsletter 16The Ascent of Sight inSri Aurobindo’s Savitri(By Jugal Kishore Mukherjee;Published by Sri AurobindoInternational Centre of Education;Price: Rs.70.00, pp.92)Re-reading Savitri is ever anew experience. One may keepreading the epic for half a centurylike Jugalda, and eachreading brings a fresh insightinto the inexhaustible springs of the narrative. The processof ascent from an ordinary seeing to the spiritualvision in the higher ranges of thought and beyond asstated in Savitri is a fascinating phenomenon. Especiallyso, when Jugalda is our Paraclete.As always, Jugalda does not tease us with an impossiblemystic diction. He is the ideal acharya whoswoops down like the eagle in the classroom and thenrises slowly and majestically past the green crests oflife holding the hands of the reader-student. In thecourse of his precise teaching, he jots down points forus to memorise and meditate upon as we go about ourchores. There are the innumerable references to “sight”(also allied terms like gaze, eye) with or without adjectivesin the epic. The physical eye’s co-extensive associationwith the inner eye of consciousness is a marvelthat defies explanation. Eight elements are at play inthis act and no object or thought can be seen in clinicalisolation, for necessarily we have the riches of all ouryesterdays and the possibilties of all our tomorrowsconverging in the present moment of time. The sameobject can be seen from many stances and thus it mayacquire different contours as well. What we see in thephysical is not the same as what we perceive in thesubtle-physical. Such a twy-fold vision (the surfaceand the inscape) is familiar enough for many aspirantsin their spiritual journey. The physical sight is, ofcourse, woefully limited to the “here”: on the otherhand, visions bring the aspirant into “a first contactwith the Divine in his forms and powers”.It was because Sri Aurobindo plunged his spiritualgaze “into the siege of mist” that the lines of Savitriappeared before him. As he wrote in a 1947 letter:“Savitri is the record of a seeing”; hence the Mother’sadvice that reading Savitri is yoga. The reading repeatedlyturns our gaze inward and helps us rise inconsciousness; the rise being in proportion to the aspirationsof the reader.Pointing out significant passages from the epicwhere every rift is loaded with spiritual ore, Jugaldaalso speaks of the pitfalls in taking up the yoga ofconsciousness-probe without a proper guide. By keepingoneself safe from the allure of false visions andtempting sights, it should be possible to stand at thethreshold of sight in the Superconscient, since “thereis a range of being and consciousness far transcendingall these elements of our constitution, which is superconscientto all the other provinces of our existence.”The supramental sight, of course has the capacity tosee “the Eternal’s many-sided-oneness”. It does notmiss any attention to detail, nor does it ignore theWhole. In the supramental seeing, time also gets annihilated,since there is no artificial barrier imposed onwhat needs be understood as an eternal present in an“unpartitioned time-vision”. The Ascent of Sight concludeswith an enormously challenging question: Doesthe Divine have a supraphysical form for being envisioned?Or is the Supreme formless? Jugalda, risingfrom the milky ocean of Aurobindoneana with dropletsof Aurobindonian phrases dripping, gives the answerwith gentle understanding. Form and Formlessnessare not mutually exclusive after all. We are dealingwith “Absolute Existence as a reality” and itsmystery is illimitable. Well, the Flute Player ofBrindaban could not have appeared from a positivezero!There is then the possibility that the supramentaltransformation might change our sense of sight (physical,spiritual) also and give us a natural sense of unitywhich is the need of today’s fractured world. One mayconclude reading The Ascent of Sight; but the conclusionalso begins our own personal endeavour to tuneour physical sight with the psychic and the spiritual.For such is the magic of the teacher in Jugalda who cantransform a student of today into an achiever of tomorrow.— Prema NandakumarLet not thy virtues be such as men praise or reward, but such as make for thy perfection andGod in thy nature demands of thee.— Sri Aurobindo