stripping the gurus - Brahma Kumaris Info

NORMAN EINSTEIN 199
Mother smiled sweetly and said: yes.
Champaklal: Mother, it seems this [painting] is yours?
Mother: Yes, do you not see the resemblance? (Light, 2003).
Evidently, then, not only was Aurobindo allegedly the reincarnation
of Leonardo da Vinci, but his spiritual partner, the Mother,
claimed to be the subject of the Mona Lisa portrait.
“Since the beginning of earthly history,” the Mother explained,
“Sri Aurobindo has always presided over the great
earthly transformations, under one form or another, under
one name or another” (Paine, 1998).
For my own part, however, statements such as that—not to
mention conjectures as to which individual is the “greatest living
Realizer,” etc.—remind me of nothing so much as my own growing
up with a hyperactive cousin who could not stop arguing about
which was the “strongest dinosaur.” My own attitude to such conversations
is simply: “Please, stop. Please.”
In any case, even such “great earthly transformers” as Aurobindo
still evidently stand “on the shoulders of other spiritual giants”:
It is a fact that I was hearing constantly the voice of Vivekananda
speaking to me for a fortnight in the jail [in 1908]
in my solitary mediation and felt his presence (Aurobindo,
1953).
Aurobindo and his Mother again claimed to have singlehandedly
turned the tide of WWII, and asserted that the former
sage has “presided over the great earthly transformations” for time
immemorial. If one believes that, the impressiveness of the spirit of
Vivekananda allegedly visiting him in prison would pale by comparison.
The same would be true for the idea of Aurobindo being
“the world’s greatest philosopher-sage.” For, the yogi made far
more grandiose claims himself, and indeed could therefore have
easily taken such contemporary recognition of his greatness as being
little more than “damning with faint praise.”
But then, that only goes to show the importance of differentiating
between the “greatest Exaggerator” of all time—where Vivekananda
himself, “a true master of hyperbole” (Kripal, 1995), merits
consideration—and the “greatest living Exaggerator.”