The Sri Aurobindo Ashram Reaps what it has Sown

Robert E. Wilkinson ©

In an attempt to discourage someone from writing his biography, Sri Aurobindo once wrote that he did not want to be murdered in cold print by his disciples; yet, this is exactly what has happened. In an April 6, 2012 report by CNN/IBN, American historian Peter Heehs, author of the controversial book, 'The Lives of Sri Aurobindo’ is quoted as making the authoritative statement that'…Sri Aurobindo was a spiritual leader, not an Avatar.’

In response to the recent furor in Pondicherry over Peter Heehs’s controversial book, ‘The Lives of Sri Aurobindo’, the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trustees have issued the following statement:

‘The considered view of Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust is that it does not project itself in the role of dictating to readers and followers of Sri Aurobindo, as to what they should read and what they should not read. Each person is at complete liberty to decide for himself whether he finds any book to be meaningful and useful, or whether he does not find it to be so, and Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust respects and has full faith in the intellectual and spiritual discernment of the readers. No one should or needs to force his personal opinions on any other reader in general, and more particularly on the followers of Sri Aurobindo.’  (bold emphasis mine)

Anyone who has bothered to follow events in the Pondicherry Ashram since the Mother’s passing in 1973 will find this statement by the Trustees to be the absolute peak of hypocrisy. Not only have members of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram dictated to their students what they should and should not read and think, Ashram Press employees have even destroyed an important manuscript in their possession to prevent students of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother from having access to knowledge that would expose the inexcusable incompetence of their own leaders. In 1978 the manuscript of The New Way,^1. Vols. 1 & 2’ by ‘Thea’, Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet was sent to the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press for printing under a agreement between Thea and the Ashram Trustees. As many will know, this book chronicles the history of the Mother’s Temple plan from its inception until its willful destruction by the Mother’s own disciples on January 17^th, 1970. More importantly The New Way gave forth the indisputable proofs and objective cosmic credentials of Vishnu’s Evolutionary Avatars.   

‘It is the Vedic Divine Measure alone that provides the objective key which allows the Avatar to have his mission confirmed not by the sentimental, emotional and subjective experiences of his devotees, but rather the Cosmos becomes his credentials. God supports His supreme REALISER by the cosmic harmonies of His universal manifestation, the script written in his very body. Indeed if this is veritably the Supramental Manifestation, which is the ultimate reconciliation of Spirit and Matter, that ‘spirit’ must unveil itself unquestionably in the workings of the material kingdom which is the extension of its own truth-essence. The coming of the Evolutionary Avatars is itself the means for this unveiling.’ ‘Thea’, Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet, The Vishaal Newsletter, December, 1987 

Owing to petty conflicts and ego disputes with Thea an Ashram Press employee named, Shanti, intent on halting publication of The New Way, filed a bogus complaint with the Press manager, Rob Ganguly who then refused to print the manuscript. Together they proceeded to shred all copies of the then 2/3 completed book. While most people may find it incredible that such an important book could be destroyed over a personal vendetta, it is necessary to go deeper into the nature of the forces behind these extraordinary events. Then as now, the Sri Aurobindo Ashram was not exclusively populated with highly evolved spiritual types, it also contained individuals representing the most irredeemable evolutionary forces of resistance and denial - a collective entity that the Mother called the ‘Lord of Nations’. In an encounter with this Vital Asura on the subtle plane he told her, "…I know you will destroy me, but before being destroyed I will wreak just as much havoc as I can, you can be sure of that." (The Mother's Agenda, Jan. 12, 1965). The Mother went on to explain that certain individuals are unconscious that they act for this asuric force, genuinely believing that they are doing the right thing. Sri Aurobindo was in complete agreement with the Mother, writing that some of his biggest disciples were Asuras - anti-divine forces vehemently dedicated to the suppression of the truth and a denial of the light. Few will appreciate that owing to their petty jealousies and personal vendettas, Shanti and Rob Ganguly made themselves unwitting pawns of these retrograde forces dedicated to the suppression and destruction of Sri Aurobindo’s, the Mother’s, and Thea’s work. Today, after decades of ruthless censorship, connivance, and lies these anti-divine forces acting through Pondicherry’s mental elites have succeeded in concealing from aspiring students throughout the world the descent of a Supramental Knowledge unparalleled since the Vedic age. With this malicious act of censorship Ashram authorities formalized an ongoing policy of suppression and distortion that finally culminated in the complete deconstruction of Sri Aurobindo’s work and mission by Peter Heehs in the pages of his controversial book.

Today in Pondicherry there is growing outrage among many of the sadhaks over the disrespectful caricature of their beloved guru presented in the Heehs book. There have been protests, demonstrations, lawsuits and calls for the resignation of the entire board of trustees for approving such an offensive biography. But in the final analysis and owing to the persistent exclusion of the true knowledge of who and what Sri Aurobindo was, the Heehs book was simply a logical and entirely predictable example of the decontextualization, gossip, and lies that could only emerge given the complete absence of any higher understanding of Sri Aurobindo’s life and mission.  And while Heehs is clearly guilty of perpetuating a disrespectful and fraudulent caricature of Sri Aurobindo, the sadhaks themselves are equally as guilty in the outcome for allowing Ashram authorities to tell them what they should or should not read and think instead of pursuing the truth and deciding for themselves. And while one does not expect devotees to understand the complex question of avatarhood, in spite of everything Sri Aurobindo and the Mother have written on the subject, it is expected that the Trustees of their legacy would object to a founding member of the Ashram Archives Department writing emphatically that Sri Aurobindo was NOT an emanation of Vishnu. It would be their duty to raise a protest against such an ‘authoritative' statement from a person who, it would appear, is expected to be privy to information that others ignore. However, we find the contrary to be the case: Peter Heehs’s book receives the support of the Ashram Trust while the only authoritative book on earth confirming empirically Sri Aurobindo’s avatarhood,  is shredded to pieces so that devotes and disciples would not have access to the truth. This alone identifies the Board as being hostile to the very thing they pretend to uphold, confirming Sri Aurobindo’s statement that his biggest disciples were asuras. And while they will never admit it, this entire Heehs affair is about the Sri Aurobindo Ashram and its sheep-like followers reaping exactly what they have sown.   

In terms of Sri Aurobindo’s true identity the matter could not be clearer. He had warned us years before that the true meaning of his life was not on the surface for men to see. 

‘What matters in a spiritual man's life is not what he did or what he was outside to the view of the men of his time (that is what historicity or biography comes to, does it not?) but what he was and did within; it is only that that gives any value to his outer life at all. It is the inner life that gives to the outer any power it may have and the inner life of a spiritual man is something vast and full and, at least in the great figures, so crowded and teeming with significant things that no biographer or historian could ever hope to seize it all or tell it. I see that you have persisted in giving a biography – is it really necessary or useful? The attempt is bound to be a failure, because neither you nor anyone else knows anything at all of my life; it has not been on the surface for men to see.’    SABCL, Vol  22  p.  428 (bold emphasis mine)

The Mother added to his comments saying that  ‘What Sri Aurobindo represents in the world’s history is not a teaching, not even a revelation; it is a decisive action, direct from the Supreme…Sri Aurobindo is an emanation of the Supreme who came on earth to announce the manifestation of a new race and a new world: the supramental. Let us prepare for it in all sincerity and eagerness.’

The common and willful error for both Heehs and the Ashramites is their failure to listen to the Mother; to acknowledge who Sri Aurobindo was and the evolutionary context of his appearance on the earth at this particular time and no other. In his book, Heehs actively rejects the evolutionary significance of Sri Aurobindo’s unique incarnation and in spite of the Mother’s unequivocal statements, encourages in his readers a complete disinterest in Sri Aurobindo’s ‘Avatarhood’, an omission that he excuses as a distracting hagiographic idealization in which he had no real interest. 

'...What about the assertion that Aurobindo was an avatar? I can’t say that the question interests me very much. Aurobindo never claimed the distinction for himself, ^2. and I don’t think anyone alive is in a position to say one way or the other...' (Peter Heehs, from the Columbia website)

^3. (It should be noted that in an April 2012 interview reported by CNN/IBN Heehs’s ‘disinterest’ has taken a significant leap with him now being quoted as saying: 'Sri Aurobindo was a spiritual leader, not an Avatar.’  (bold emphasis mine)

For persons of knowledge, the arrogance of this statement is simply breathtaking. Unfortunately it reflects a long standing attitude of many of the so-called wise-men who claim to ‘adore Sri Aurobindo and the Mother’. It is as if the Vedic tradition of the Avatar is meaningless, even though it is sanctified by the Gita in Sri Krishna's own words, and Sri Aurobindo's and the Mother’s as well. Moreover, Heehs’ contention that no one alive today is in a position to say one way or another reveals a stunning lack of research on his part or, more likely, a calculated decision to ignore the volumes of objective proofs that have been published by Thea  and accepted and catalogued by the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Archives; an organization which lists Heehs as one of its founding member. Given the volumes of non-speculative proofs of Sri Aurobindo’s Avataric credentials on file in the Ashram Archives and Heehs ready access to this material, his only reason for making such a disingenuous statement is that he, like his Ashram cronies, know that the Supramental proofs of Sri Aurobindo’s avatarhood also include the irrefutable details of the third stage of the Supramental Descent as well as the details of Sri Aurobindo’s rebirth as the Fourth.  Moreover they know that any acknowledgement of these objective proofs would mean an immediate end to the rule of orthodoxy and its stultifying dogma that has reduced this most important spiritual work of the age to an arrogant, fundamentalist and elitist cult. It is just as if a cadre of hard line Tibetan Buddhist fundamentalists had taken over the Potala Palace and suppressed the knowledge of the rebirth of the next Dalai Lama so they could continue to indulge their self-important pretentions as the unchallenged leaders of their faith.   

Today in Pondicherry the Asuras are dancing. The forces of falsehood are thumbing their noses at the protesters and demonstrators made impotent by the deprivation of real knowledge. They have succeeded beyond their wildest hopes in rejecting the light and destroying its message in, of all places, their own printing house. HE who the Mother acknowledged as an emanation of the Supreme, unique in the history of the world, has been deconstructed and decontextualized into simply another spiritual teacher and no longer an Avatar. Peter Heehs has been allowed to stay in India and is now lauded by the press as, ‘…someone who knows the documentary evidence on and around Sri Aurobindo’s life better than anyone else, and who has deep knowledge of the political and spiritual worlds in which his subject moved and by which he was shaped…’  With the complicity of the naive Indian media the deception has become complete. Every official communication issued by the Sri Aurobindo Ashram especially the literary heresy by Peter Heehs has become a de facto negation of Sri Aurobindo’s and the Mother’s work and mission.  In a letter to the Ashram Board of Trustees Thea explains:

‘It is a fact that every publication issued from Ashram and Auroville sources, Heehs’s included, passes on to the public – though the intention appears to be other – that both Sri Aurobindo and the Mother failed in their missions. Not one publication can factually prove otherwise; and since there is no one in your circles who can state the contrary and receive the accepted “imprimatur”, this is the result: both Sri Aurobindo and the Mother failed “to deliver”. Or if they did, we mortals are not qualified to prove what stands beyond human comprehension. And since this is your belief, you must accept full responsibility for spreading the idea that they seemed to have failed.

‘Nothing could be farther from the truth. Not only did they complete their missions, they did so beyond our wildest expectations. You can be sure that Supermind would not leave the fulfilment of its descent and establishment on Earth to the “belief” of anyone: it is its own irrefutable proof.

‘This has been fully documented, the only existing book [The New Way] to not only prove the victorious completion of their missions but also it is the only irrefutable documentation of the fact that they are Vishnu’s Emanations – i.e., Evolutionary Avatars who come yuge, yuge, just as the Gita states, proven as only the Truth-Consciousness can do.’ ‘Thea’, Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet Letter to the Board of Trustees, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, December, 2008. 

As I write this article, there are thousands of sadhaks throughout the world who, owing to the deception of the Pondicherry elites, have virtually no understanding of who Sri Aurobindo was, the evolutionary importance of his life and mission, let alone his rebirth as the fourth in the Solar Line. Nevertheless, and without their knowledge, the success of Sri Aurobindo’s, the Mother’s and Thea’s work goes on. An understanding of the Supermind and objective evidence of its deployment has been developed to extraordinary levels and applications of this Supramental knowledge have led to major breakthroughs in areas as diverse as Yoga, Cosmology, History, Geopolitics, and Science to name just a few. Those who have been deprived of this knowledge for so many decades must finally come to understand that protests, demonstrations and lawsuits will do nothing to redress their grievances. What is required for Sri Aurobindo’s, the Mother’s and Thea’s message to rise, take hold and endure is the final unmasking and expulsion of these retrograde forces from the occult seat of their work. And this can only be done with Knowledge. As Thea write: ‘It is the Vedic Divine Measure alone that provides the objective key which allows the Avatar to have his mission confirmed not by the sentimental, emotional and subjective experiences of his devotees, but rather the Cosmos becomes his credentials.’ Let us begin this important work as the Mother commanded,… in all sincerity and eagerness.   

Footnotes:   

1.) Destruction of The New Way manuscript

The original manuscript of The New Way was shredded in the offices of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press because it gave out indisputable proofs that the revised architects’ version of the Mother’s temple plan was not what she had originally intended. Anyone who doubts this need only read ‘The Matrimandir Dialogues’ ( http://www.aeongroup.com/momtem.htm ) Out of her original seeing which was utterly destroyed by the architects, the Mother recorded not only the arrangements of the elements of the room, but its fundamental measurements as well. It is a womb of Supramental Gnosis from which it is possible to receive the most essential information about the earth's journey into the future. The keys to Time are contained in the inner room, and the secret formula given in its sublime measurements. It records the descent of the Supramental consciousness and the actual dates of birth of Vishnu’s Evolutionary Avatars, which are in fact recorded in the measurements of the Temple. This is why it has generated such hostility in those who would usurp Sri Aurobindo’s authority and mission.

The New Way was later published in its entirety by Aeon Books along with numerous other volumes by Thea. A list of these titles may be found at: http://www.aeongroup.com/bks-art.htm

The New Way Vol. I & II: A study in the rise and the establishment of a gnostic society, Volumes 1 & 2, by ‘Thea’ Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet, at $45.00, from Æon Books, ISBN: 0945747063. The preeminent symbol of a new consciousness now manifesting upon the Earth is a cosmological structure known as the Mother's Temple. This sacred structure is a living manifestation of the descending Truth-Consciousness into Earth's atmosphere and symbolizes Earth's emerging Soul. Written into its architectonic structure are keys to the harmonies of the cosmos and the secrets of Supramental Time. ‘Thea’ explains the origins of this contemporary temple design and its occult measurements which define the evolution of consciousness on this planet.

The New Way and other titles may be ordered through Aeon Books, P O Box 396, Accord, NY 12404, USA, or Aeon Trust,  P O Box 11, Kodaikanal, Tamil Nadu, India. If you wish to contact Aeon Group the email address is aeongroup@msn.com

2.) Regarding Avatarhood.

In an April 20 letter to her students Thea discusses Heehs’s specious claim that Sri Aurobindo never claimed to be an Avatar.

‘I realise that this issue of avatarhood cannot be appreciated by westerners because it is not in their culture. But living in India since 1971 makes Heehs's position unforgivable. He has no contact with the soul of this civilsiation - of which the axis is the Dasavataras. I realise though that others cannot vibrate to the importance of highlighting this aspect of his mission. For me, there is nothing of greater importance for India and for the world.
    And when Heehs writes and states that Sri Aurobindo never claimed the title for himself, this is absurd! He described the function of each Avatar since Sri Ram - the mental man; Sri Krishna, the overmental; and the next (skipping over the Buddha) would be Kalki, the Supermind. Kalki would come to correct the error of the Buddha. Who, pray tell, has been the pioneer of Supermind if not Sri Aurobindo? Where was Heehs living all those years?
    I had to come along to put each thing in its place. Thank God for that, but I doubt any of you realise what this means...Thea ‘

3.) Vishnu’s Line of Ten Avatars

Given the critical importance of Vishnu’s appearance in our present Aquarian age, there can be absolutely no mistakes about his identity, his position in the Line of Ten Avatars, and his evolutionary mission. But due to the suppression of Sri Aurobindo’s irrefutable Avataric credentials by Heehs and the Pondicherry elites, pretenders have emerged claiming the title for themselves, further clouding the issue and delaying the restoration of the Sanatana Dharma. The most prominent of these pretenders was the Indian god-man,  Sathya Sai Baba. For a detailed account of Sai Baba’s empty Avataric claims and his lies concerning Sri Aurobindo made believable by the treachery of Sri Aurobindo’s own disciples see:   http://circumsolatious.blogspot.com/2011/06/sathya-sai-baba-counterfeit-avatar.html

Have Auroville’s Failures made it a Danger to India and the World?

   

 

By Robert E. Wilkinson © 

‘Thousands of years ago we were already being promised the advent of a new consciousness, a new world, something divine that would manifest on Earth, but all that was really said was, “it will be, it will be.” [Well]… the Miracle has happened... A new world, yes, a completely new world is born and here. Yet even now, there are very few people who are aware of its birth and of the difference it brings into the world.’   The Mother  

As the Age of Pisces drew to a close the Mighty God Vishnu, preserver of the universe, took human birth as the 9^th in his Line of Ten Avatars. Under the impeccable control of Mahakala, the Time Spirit, his Avatar was born in Calcutta, India on August 15^th, 1872. The birth of Sri Aurobindo, as he was later known, marked the beginning of the most important series of events in the history of our planet. It was, said the Mother, ‘a decisive action direct from the Supreme’ heralding the advent of a new consciousness and a completely new world.

During their time on earth, Sri Aurobindo and the Mother worked tirelessly to bring down this new consciousness and create appropriate forms for its physical manifestation. The most important of these forms was the Mother’s plan for a Vedic Temple which was to be built according to the ancient science of ‘Vaastu Vidya’ at the center of the microcosmic world, which Sri Aurobindo and the Mother had founded in Pondicherry; the point where its axial power could establish itself and bring harmony to the earth. But owing to the ignorance and bad faith of her disciples the Mother’s plan for her temple was systematically destroyed. One by one the elements of its sublime design were altered until not one was left intact. ^1. And when this abomination began to take form in concrete and steel, its mutilated dimensions began to produce calamitous effects in the field of its occult influence generating disunity and a palpable distortion of consciousness that continues on to this very day. The disciples who rejected the Mother’s plan and those who continue to live under the toxic influence of the aberration built in her name, express an almost blind resistance to the new Supramental consciousness. And because of the tamasic intransigence of these so-called devotees who have usurped control of Sri Aurobindo’s work and message, Vishnu’s Line remains unrecognized and unacknowledged and its incomparable influence on the earth’s evolution is virtually unknown.

Today the ‘City of Dawn’, named for Sri Aurobindo and designed by the Mother to be the living embodiment of this new consciousness, has failed utterly to live up to its promise. Rather than being a microcosm of human unity under the governance of the Divine, Auroville has become a botched experiment, a ward of the State and a stronghold of dogma and orthodoxy working at cross purposes to Sri Aurobindo’s and the Mother’s express commands. What was intended to be the soul of their New Creation and cradle of the Supramental Being has instead become a wasteland of consciousness radiating confusion, distortion and disunity throughout India and the World. And if Sri Aurobindo has said, ‘whenever a single soul is realized, there is a tendency to an extension of the same divine self-consciousness in other individual souls of our terrestrial humanity’,  what kind of extended terrestrial effect might we expect from Auroville’s obfuscation of the Gnostic realization for the last 43 years?  Anyone familiar with the occult principles which the Mother observed throughout her life, and of which she was the greatest adept, will immediately recognize why Auroville’s continuing failures have made it a danger to the world and a willful impediment to Indian unity.

As we explore the genesis of Auroville’s failures we find that it follows an old and familiar pattern found in many spiritual communities. It is a well known fact that lesser mortals rush to fill the void and absence of authority once the guru departs. What inevitably follows is the formation of a cult that seizes the guru’s teachings and crystallizes them into a rigid mental dogma over which they preside as ‘owners’ of the new truth. It is widely known that this is exactly what took place after the passing of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. What was intended as a place for the realization of human unity, unending education and an aspiration for the highest truth quickly became a closed camp. Realization soon gave way to dogma and instead of the hierarchy of consciousness that the Mother envisioned, rule by the many of the lowest calibre became the norm. Qualities of goodwill, sincerity, a constant aspiration to know the truth and a willingness to submit to it, aptitudes demanded by the Mother of those living in Auroville, were supplanted by a rigid mental tyranny stamping out any opposition to the orthodoxy imposed by the usurpers. ^2. Under this cultish oppression all discussion stopped, thoughtful challenges to the ills of orthodoxy were rejected out of hand with the added insult that whoever disagreed with them was ‘deluded’, ‘schizophrenic’ or worse.

To illustrate just how intolerable this situation has become, one of Sri Aurobindo’s more thoughtful devotees, Harish Kumar, wrote an Open Letter to the entire Aurobindonian community asking why there is such a lack of meaningful discourse among serious students of Sri Aurobindo’s life and Yoga. Citing an article by Thea (Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet) regarding the revelation of the Supramental Formula contained in Sri Aurobindo’s very own symbol, Kumar writes:

‘…Thea's cosmology has proven empirically that Sri Aurobindo is Vishnu's 9th Avatar according to rigorous Vedic prescriptions, she has proven that Sri Aurobindo's most conclusive victory was the process of his death and return, what exactly that means in the Supramental Manifestation, and why it was necessary. She has presented the Formula he cemented in his own symbol and shown how it has worked meticulously in India particularly through two Lines, Solar and Lunar, and how the entire development of the new independent India has taken place according to His Formula.

Yet, we neither see an enthusiastic acceptance nor an informed criticism of her works. Why exactly are her prescriptions wrong? What exactly is the mechanism of the operations of Supermind, if not the one explained by Thea? We do not hear anything on these lines. Instead all we hear is mindless accusations levelled against her, ad hominem attacks, false charges and accusations of self-glorification from self-styled spokespersons of the community…’

To read the Full Text of Harish Kumar’s ‘OPEN LETTER TO THE AUROBINDONIAN COMMUNITY’

http://www.the-mountaintop.blogspot.com/

To date, there has been no response to Harish Kumar’s letter. His important observations and questions have been answered by the Aurobindonian community with a stunning silence. Of course, having rejected the existence of a Supramental empiricism and its attendant symbol language the community of devotees has NO UNDERSTANDING and NOTHING TO REPLY. This is the pathetic state of those claiming to be at the forefront of the most important spiritual work in human history. Yet these same people continue to hold themselves out as the final authority on Sri Aurobindo’s work and message. ^3. Their unexamined self-importance proceeds from an arrogant intellectual egoism that sees nothing yet thinks it knows all. It is the same brand of mental hubris that provoked the Mother to write the following about the disciples who rejected her temple plan:  

  “…what they see is all mental, They do not know. Who is there that knows? It is only when one sees. There is not one of them who sees...’ The Mother, Matrimandir Dialogues

It goes without saying that nothing has changed since January 1970 when the Mother made this remarkable observation. Today, no one in Auroville SEES and to disguise this self-evident fact, they have closed ranks and adopted a strategy of stonewalling and denial. And since the takeover by the Indian government in 1988, they are now accountable to no one. But the predictable fate of any ‘closed system’, as Auroville has now become, is a terminal collapse. Like a stagnant pond, its atmosphere has become toxic and grows more poisonous every day. And without the constant aspiration for and vibrant exchange of knowledge that the Mother demanded, it is simply impossible to keep the surrounding environment alive.  The most poignant example of this stagnation malaise is revealed through Auroville’s failure to its children. In a 2010 report written on the youth of Auroville by Carissa Devine, a Fulbright-Nehru scholar, we find the following statement:

'...Auroville has not reached where it is supposed to be, and despair is a constant threat to its citizens, especially to its own children. Children are amenable; they are curious and teachable. That being said, they are a vivid reflection of the living culture in which they grow. But instead of having faith in Auroville, it seems that most of its offspring are barely holding on to hope… The old won’t let go, they won’t let the youth make their mistakes...Workshops and dialogue seem futile, we have done this. It is something bigger. We have gone through this process and the stubborn dogmatic attitudes stay....Even if you have six months training [to join an influential committee], they dogmatize you; if you don’t understand like them, you’re out!” Instead of feeling empowered and encouraged to express their creative will, they are feeling the weight of bureaucracy, a deadly stagnation for any society.’

‘Losing faith in faith: A brief examination of the youth in Auroville’, Carissa Devine - Fulbright Nehru scholar, 2009‐2010 [bold emphasis mine] 

The thoughtful comments of this exceptional scholar testify to the unhealthy atmosphere in Auroville that is afflicting its children with hopelessness and despair. But Ms. Devine’s honest and objective appraisal of the situation barely scratches the surface of the underlying problem because the author does not have the keys to that Gnosis which would allow her to understand the situation at its core. For the most thorough analysis of Ms. Devine’s observations I have included a link to Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet’s commentary for students of the New Way.

 

 A Commentary for students of the New Way on:

LOSING FAITH IN FAITH:

a brief examination of Carissa Devine’s report on the youth in Auroville 

To read the Full Text of Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet’s commentary

    http://pnb-questions-answers.blogspot.com/2011/07/auroville-gropes-in-dark-after-having.html

 

One could go on and on cataloging the problems of Auroville, its lies, fraud, and disobedience but the basic facts remain that after the passing of the Mother in 1973, there was a complete breakdown of order. Unremitting conflict between the SAS (Sri Aurobindo Society) and other factions led to charges of fraud, misuse of funds and lawsuits that finally concluded with the management of Auroville being taken over by the Indian government through a 1988 act of Parliament. This was against the explicit wishes of the Mother who had written earlier: 

‘I do not know who told you that – but there is a misunderstanding somewhere because to hand over the Management of Auroville to any country or any group however big it may be is an absolute impossibility.’ The Mother, in a handwritten note, 1970, Chronicles of the Inner Chamber, p. 10. 

But by this time, the Mother’s wishes were routinely ignored and Auroville was fully under the control of forces of deception, distortion, and misdirection that had lodged themselves at the heart of her new creation. In the years that followed every publication that issued from the Ashram or Auroville misrepresented the epochal work that Sri Aurobindo and the Mother had come to achieve. And because it represented such a dire threat to their pretentions of authority, Auroville’s new rulers vehemently denied the continuation of Sri Aurobindo’s line and fostered the perception that He and the Mother had failed in their missions. In spite of their irrefutable bona fides, any mention of a Third and a Fourth in their line were and continue to be denied, suppressed or ridiculed by the Auroville elites. With only the blind to lead the blind the ignorance and toxicity of the community grew progressively worse. This fact was recently highlighted by the controversial book written in 2008 by Peter Heehs entitled The Lives of Sri Aurobindo.  In the pages of this shameful text the author reduces his Guru to a ridiculous caricature and de-contextualizes his life and work in virtually the same manner that the Mother’s disciples systematically destroyed her temple. ^4. This has made it abundantly clear that nothing of truth or value can emerge from the black hole of consciousness that Auroville has now become.

On February 28, 1968, over 5000 people from 121 countries and 23 Indian states assembled in what was then the outskirts of Pondicherry and listened to the Auroville Charter being read out by the Mother. Today, the utopian township that was designed for 50,000 citizens has now dwindled to an adult population of barely 1,700 residents. ^5. We must ask ourselves WHY has a community that began with such promise failed so miserably? WHY are the children of Auroville suffering from hopelessness and despair? WHY were the disciples of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother who so generously supported their work defrauded of over 35 crores of rupees ($8 million USD) poured into the construction of a Matrimandir which was knowingly misrepresented to the public as faithful to the Mother’s original design? And WHY were the repeated attempts by persons of knowledge to correct this travesty and hold open and transparent hearings on the sacred dimensions of the Mother’s temple stonewalled and denied by the Auroville elites; people with vested interests who feared having their deceitful activities exposed to the light of day? The unavoidable answer to these questions is that for 43 years Auroville has been under the influence of ignorant forces hostile to the success and fulfillment of the Mother’s vision. If it were otherwise, given the incomparable wisdom that Sri Aurobindo and the Mother brought into the world, Auroville would be the most successful spiritual center on earth. But the facts do not lie, what we see in Auroville today is the truth of WHAT IS. And this leaves us no option but to agree with the Mother’s disgust and the statement she made about Auroville shortly before her passing.

‘Auroville will become what it must be: only if and when the people living there will stop lying.’ The Mother, Mother’s Agenda, 1973. 

One of the great Sufi teachers of our time made a prescient statement that goes to the very heart of the issues raised in this paper.  Describing the complex challenges of our times, Bulent Rauf, known to his students as Hamid wrote: 

‘...It is those who have reached the knowledge of their essential unity with God who will forge the way and build a new world. Before this new world can be brought into being, however, it is said that there are to be two confrontations. The first confrontation will be between those who know and those who do not want to know and the second will be between those who know and those who will have to know.’ Hamid [bold emphasis mine]

                   

The first of Hamid’s confrontations between those who know and ‘those who do not want to know’ is going on now with Auroville and the Aurobindonian community. The second confrontation, with those ‘who will have to know’ must be with the leaders of India.  

As one of the greatest seers of all time, the Mother had a unique insight into the occult realities of India and the godhead that it represents. India is the natural habitat of Vishnu’s avatars and, as the center of our Aquarian age, the one place on the earth that could extend their yogic achievements out into the world. Looking deeply into India’s soul the Mother wrote the following: 

‘INDIA is a divinely chosen country with a unique spiritual heritage. She is not the earth, rivers and mountains, nor simply the collective name for the inhabitants of this land. India is a living being, conscious of her mission in the world and waiting for the exterior means of its manifestation… India alone can lead the earth to peace and a new world order.’ The Mother:  Words of the Mother. [bold emphasis mine]     

But for India to realize this unique destiny and embrace her mission as light of the world, her leaders must be willing to open themselves to the incomparable wisdom that Sri Aurobindo and his line have unveiled. They must also discover the truth of India’s more esoteric realities and apply this knowledge toward the recovery of her true dharma. The first step of this journey must begin with a clear understanding that the origin of India’s destiny and the means of its external manifestation is written in her ancient Soul. As Thea, third in Sri Aurobindo’s line explains:  

‘The destiny of India is guided by a power that descends directly from the world of the Truth-Consciousness; but unless the nation recognises this, it can only respond to a leadership of a lesser force and suffer the ensuing consequences.’ Thea, The New Way, 1981. 

An indispensable part of the recognition that Thea mentions is an appreciation of the principles of a new Indo-centric Cosmology by which India is revealed as the Soul of the Earth. When the dynamics of this New Cosmology are understood, Auroville and the Ashram will immediately be recognized as microcosmic examples of the disunity and corruption that presently afflicts India herself. Moreover, they will be SEEN as a cautionary tale of the fate that befalls an individual, state or nation who rejects the truth and imperatives of their own Soul. If this degradation is to be corrected, Auroville must be brought into line with the demands of Truth and the needs of Indian Unity. There must be an immediate end to the obstruction and lies and full and open hearings must be held on the Matrimandir that has been so disingenuously put forward as true and faithful to the Mother’s original Vedic plan. The consequences of continuing inaction in these matters raises the spectre of a wider calamity for Auroville, India and the World. As the Mother warned: 

‘Before dying, falsehood rises in full swing. Still people understand only the lesson of Catastrophe. Will it have to come before they open their eyes to the truth? I ask an effort from all so that it has not to be. It is only the truth that can save us; truth in words, truth in action, truth in will, truth in feelings. It is a choice between serving the truth or being destroyed.’ A message issued by the Mother on 26 November, 1972  

Any thoughtful person cannot help but recognize that we have reached a major evolutionary turning point. We are living through the terminal stages of an old and dying world. But the New World is born and here, just as the Mother said, only it remains unknown, unrecognized and unattainable for most because the obscurantists in Auroville have suppressed the very knowledge that makes that New World visible. What is required for its realization is a determined effort from all to secure this new knowledge and move joyously into the future as conscious collaborators with Earth's emerging Soul. 

******

 

For a full and comprehensive analysis of the New Cosmology, India’s unique role in the world and the means of its global manifestation, I have included a link to my article:

INDIA & The New Cosmology

    An Analysis of Critical Present Events in the Light of Gnosis

To read the Full Text of Robert E. Wilkinson’s essay:

http://indiacosmology.blogspot.com/

  

Notes & Comments: 

1.  The Matrimandir and the History of its Deformation: - The Matrimandir Dialogues 31.12.69-17.1.70:  http://www.aeongroup.com/momtem.htm While the facts of the destruction of the Mother’s Vedic Temple plan are beyond dispute, her devotees continue to hide behind a wall of impenetrable dogma refusing to discuss the issues that are indispensible for and provide access to the entire Supramental revelation. 

 

2.  Tyranny of Orthodoxy: In 1971 Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet moved from Rome to Pondicherry where she worked in close proximity to the Mother absorbing the supramental knowledge that She was giving out and that finally culminated in the plan for Her Temple. Patrizia was an active member of the Ashram, writing books, teaching classes, contributing articles to Mother India magazine and developing important relationships with many of the older sadhaks involved in Sri Aurobindo’s work. After the Mother’s passing in 1973, Patrizia became intimately involved in the activities surrounding the construction of the Matrimandir and in 1977 she wrote a 48 page memorandum for Ashram circulation only entitled ‘What is wrong with Matrimandir – A survey of its first six years, the effects it has produced and their world wide implications’. This memorandum detailed the entire Matrimandir saga from its inception with the Mother’s explicit instructions as to its meaning and construction as well as a chronology of Her followers systematic destruction of the Mother’s plan. Patrizia’s refusal to accept the distortions to the Mother’s true design earned her the enmity of the Auroville elites who, to this day, have done everything in their power to eliminate any mention of Patrizia from the ‘official’ historical record. In spite of her 16 books and hundreds of articles on Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, the Supramental Cosmology, Sacred Architecture and the Vedic scriptures, many of which have been warmly received by the Ashram Trustees and made part of the permanent record of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Archives, you will find no mention of Patrizia on any of the Sri Aurobindo websites or the lengthy historical record of Sri Aurobindo’s and the Mother’s work carried on Wikipedia. After numerous attempts to correct the Wikipedia record and cite Ms. Norelli-Bachelet’s indispensible and ongoing contributions to their work, her students discovered that their carefully documented and respectful postings were systematically deleted by Wiki editors. In discussions that followed it was learned that members of the Auroconference group openly hostile to Ms. Norelli-Bachelet and her work had influenced much of this dismissive activity with regard to postings about Ms. Norelli-Bachelet.

 
 

3.  Example of Authoritarian Hypocrisy: In 2007 Lynda Lester, president of the Sri Aurobindo Association and a member of the All USA Meeting (AUM) Continuity Committee co-hosted a panel discussion at the California Institute of Integral Studies entitled ‘Facing the Challenge of Integral Yoga Fundamentalism’. Her opening remarks read as follows, ‘Sri Aurobindo and [The] Mother did not want to found a new religion… but we do see a few examples of fundamentalism …’. Lester then proceeded through a list of four offenders the last of which is ‘a small but aggressive group of people following Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet who are into esoteric numerology and claim the Matrimandir is a temple of falsehood because the measurements are wrong.’ A conference billed by AUM as an opportunity for greater transparency to heal divisions, and build bridges of trust became yet another occasion to demean, denigrate, and deny anything that would reveal their long standing incompetence and bad will. Ignoring the Mother’s own criticisms that her followers, ‘… do not know... There is not one of them who sees’, Lester continued in that tradition by glibly rejecting an entire field of knowledge that the Mother singled out in her Agenda as essential to making the Supermind knowable. When the Mother wrote in her Agenda of the Supermind being intelligible through ‘Number, Planets and Principles’, she was referring of course to the ancient language of cosmology. But today, those of us who have bothered to study Plato and Pythagoras and appreciate how PNB has raised this sublime knowledge of measure to the level of a non-speculative Supramental empiricism, are considered by Lester and her cronies to be ‘fundamentalists’ and outside the bounds of Aurobindonian orthodoxy. It should also be noted that Number theory, while important as the Mother suggested, does not constitute the whole of PNB’s work as Lester tries to imply. Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet is the most prolific and widely published author on the subject of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother in the world today. She is one of the world’s leading authorities on the Rig Veda and has published 16 books and hundreds of articles on Yoga, Myth, Time, Cosmology, Geo-politics, Sacred Architecture and the Vedic scriptures, many of which have been carried in India’s most prestigious newspapers and journals. She has been a keynote speaker at conferences around the world and also at a number of Indian national conferences on Vedic Culture and Cosmology, most recently the 2010 First National Conference on Panchanga Ganitam, sponsored by the Hindu Dharma Archarya Sabha. This is hardly the CV of a fundamentalist as Lester would have us believe. For Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet’s full curriculum vitae see: http://patrizianorellibachelet.com/TNWblog/?page_id=42  

 

4.  The Heehs Betrayal: In an attempt to defend the shoddy scholarship behind The Lives of Sri Aurobindo, Peter Heehs excuses himself from what should have been the only genuine concern of his biographical research by claiming that the revelation of Sri Aurobindo as the 9^th Avatar of Vedic tradition was a distracting hagiographic idealization in which he had no real interest.

 

‘…What about the assertion that Aurobindo was an avatar? I can’t say that the question interests me very much. Aurobindo never claimed the distinction for himself, and I don’t think anyone alive is in a position to say one way or the other…’ (Peter Heehs, from the Columbia website) 

For persons of knowledge, the arrogance of this statement is simply breathtaking. Unfortunately it reflects a long standing attitude of the Auroville Brahmin who claim to ‘adore Sri Aurobindo and the Mother’ while simultaneously suppressing their work. It is as if the Vedic tradition of the Avatar is meaningless, even though it is sanctified by the Gita in Sri Krishna’s own words, and Sri Aurobindo’s and the Mother’s as well. Moreover, Heehs’ contention that no one alive today is in a position to say one way or another belies an embarrassing lack of research on his part or, more likely, a calculated decision to ignore the volumes of objective proofs that have been published by Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet and accepted as part of the permanent record of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Archives; an organization which lists Heehs as one of its founding members.

Given the voluminous and non-speculative proofs of Sri Aurobindo’s Avataric credentials on file in the Ashram Archives and Heehs ready access to this material, his only reason for making such a disingenuous statement is that he, like his cronies in Auroville, know that the Supramental proofs of Sri Aurobindo’s avatarhood also include the irrefutable credentials of the Third in the line as well as the details of Sri Aurobindo’s rebirth as the Fourth. Moreover, they know that any acknowledgement of these objective proofs would mean an immediate end to the rule of orthodoxy and its stultifying dogma that has reduced this most important spiritual work of the age to an arrogant, fundamentalist and elitist cult.

It is as if a cadre of hard line Tibetan Buddhist fundamentalists had taken over the Potala Palace and refused to acknowledge the rebirth of the next Dalai Lama so they could continue to indulge their self-important pretentions as the unchallenged leaders of their faith.  

It is clearly time for this ignorance and hypocrisy to come to an end. For a detailed introduction to Sri Aurobindo’s Avataric credentials, see: http://circumsolatious.blogspot.com/2011/06/sathya-sai-baba-counterfeit-avatar.html  

5.  Census: - Auroville population June 2011 - http://www.auroville.org/society/av_population.htm

Response to Sameer Thakkar’s ‘The Max-Muller Syndrome: Distorting Hinduism’

By Robert E Wilkinson

Debate and discussion of spiritual and esoteric philosophy is a time honored and established tradition in India and throughout the world. Its goal is to question, dispute, and continually challenge established dogma in order to arrive at a greater, more current, and integral truth. As someone who regularly participates in these debates and discussions I am used to the rough and tumble dialogue that arises from people with strongly held opinions and beliefs, but Sameer Thakkar's article goes beyond the bounds of intelligent discourse into fear mongering, misrepresentation, and lies. Instead of responding to issues of knowledge made in my original article, Sathya Sai Baba: the Counterfeit Avatar, Thakkar has introduced passages from my older articles, quoted completely out of context, in order to make Thea (Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet) and not me, the true focus of his attack. Why he would wish to do this becomes evident as we examine his claims.

Beginning with the title of his article, ‘The Max-Muller Syndrome: Distorting Hinduism’ Thakkar seeks to invoke the spectre of a colonial Christian missionary agent bent on the abuse and distortion of the Hindu religion. But curiously he makes no mention of Max Muller in his article. He immediately shifts his attention to a woman, Wendy Doniger, the controversial writer and Indologist who, according to Thakkar, is out to distort and demean the Hindu scriptures. He compares Ms. Doniger’s scholarly work to that of Christian missionaries and pseudo-mystics who wish to ‘exploit the tolerance of Hindus, deceive, manipulate, instill inferiority complexes, psychological slavery, hate, and the abuse of Hindu literature’. His attempts to cultivate an attitude of fear and distrust of foreigners was at first confusing but in the pages that followed It becomes clear that his intention is to associate in his reader’s mind Doniger’s unspeakable treason to Hinduism with another foreign woman, Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet who he also wishes to demonize. While this may serve to inflame his readers, it is a specious comparison made by someone with no appreciation of the profound differences in consciousness that distinguish a scholar from a sage, let alone the quality of their work. But in either case Thakker, is plainly threatened by ideas and interpretations that run counter to his own rigid dogma and has an abhorrent distrust of foreigners and women in particular especially those in positions of authority.

Contrary to Thakkar’s backward beliefs, Hinduism is not a rigid monolithic system. It is a multi-faceted, constantly evolving, many staged quest of the human spirit seeking new and more complete aspects of the Divine consciousness. ‘It rejects nothing’, said Sri Aurobindo, ‘but insists on testing and experiencing everything and when tested and experienced turning it to the soul’s uses.’ This process is the very heart of Yoga and an indispensable necessity of the evolution. Indeed the whole edifice of Hinduism was built on the sacrifice, testing, realization, and experience of impeccable souls like Shankara, Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda, Sri Ramana Maharshi, Paramahansa Yogananda, Ram Chandra and more recently Sri Aurobindo, the Mother and Thea. Each of these great realizers have produced numerous volumes of written works describing their discoveries and new application of their knowledge. What, we might ask, has Sameer Thakkar produced?

It is clear however, especially with regard to Vedic knowledge, that there is more to be done. The evolution continues and there are many more discoveries to be made, as Sri Aurobindo explains:

‘…because we do not understand the Vedas three-fourths of the Upanishads are a sealed book to us. Even of the little we think we can understand, much has been insecurely grasped and superficially comprehended.... For want of this key profound scholars have fumbled and for want of this guidance great thinkers gone astray.’ Sri Aurobindo, India’s Rebirth

For those of us who have bothered to study Thea’s works on the Veda and applied her incomparable knowledge to our own lived experience, it becomes self-evident that her cosmological discoveries will be the crown jewel of future spiritual realizations. She has unveiled that ‘Key’ to the mysteries of the Veda and opened the door to its greatest treasures. Because of this she speaks with the same confident authority and power as Swami Vivekananda did when he was challenged by a Madras pundit objecting to something he said that went beyond the teachings of Shankara. Vivekananda shot back, saying to the pundit, ‘Shankara does not say so, but I, Vivekananda say so’. Sri Aurobindo later pointed out that, ‘…what to the ordinary eye may seem as the Himalaya of egotism is not what it seems. It is the truth of Vivekananda’s spiritual experience, and the attitude of the fighter who as the representative of something great cannot allow himself to be put down or belittled.’

Religious fundamentalists like Sameer Thakkar who live in fear and suspicion, nursing old hatreds and prejudice find this kind of authority both threatening and infuriating. They believe that by attacking a Sage with accusations and ridicule they can undermine their authority and somehow elevate themselves. Producing nothing of their own, they find a kind of perverse power in the suppression, distortion and destruction of the achievements of others. Over the years I have come to think of these kinds of people as living reflections of our own darkness and negativity to be given no quarter and no basis for existence. Like the legendary vampires they hide in the shadows where they can wreak their havoc unobserved, but drag them out into the light of day and they will sputter and spit and burst into flames.

Moving on to Thakkar’s charges that my articles constitute a battery of assault on Lord Buddha, Sathya Sai Baba, Ken Wilber, Deepak Chopra, and David Frawley, it is evident from his comments that he has not bothered to read any of them. What we see instead throughout Thakkar’s article are unfounded accusations and innuendos that seek to discredit anything I might write and excusing anyone from actually reading it. But for those who insist on facts and want to make up their own minds about Thakkar’s veracity, here are the links to the articles on Deepak Chopra, Sathya Sai Baba, and David Frawley. Read them and draw your own conclusions. I will be happy to respond to any serious questions about their knowledge content. Contrary to Thakkar’s accusation I have written nothing that can be construed as an attack on the Buddha and my conversations with Ken Wilber took place on the pages of his own magazine, ‘Quest’. It was hardly an assault but rather a discussion of Wilber’s misunderstanding of Sri Aurobindo and his epochal work.

The Error of the Buddha - http://www.quantumyoga.org/ErroroftheBuddha.html

Sathya Sai Baba: the Counterfeit Avatar - http://www.rigvedacos.blogspot.com/

Reply to David Frawley’s “Call for the Intellectual Kshatriya” - http://www.quantumyoga.org/David-Frawley.html

Perhaps one of the most glaring examples of Thakkar’s limited knowledge is his treatment of a passage from one of my postings about the objective cosmic credentials of the Avatars. His complete lack of understanding of what was written about Time and Number is a perfect example of how certain higher truths can appear unintelligible to the uninitiated. Most scholars familiar with the writings of Plato and Pythagoras are aware of their profound discoveries in Number theory. ‘Numbers’, said Plato, ‘are the highest degree of knowledge’. Pythagoras went a step further saying that ‘Numbers constitute the true nature of things and set a limit to the limitless’. Thakkar, on the other hand, ridicules this knowledge as ‘exotic magic formulas of numbers, contrived theories and fancy terminologies ripped off from Sri Aurobindo’s work, designed to make his [rw’s] theories look intelligent’, and he makes this appalling statement with such unabashed authority. He appears to have no understanding whatever of the deeper function of number and their relation to the very structure of creation. Like Pythagoras and Plato before them, Sri Aurobindo and the Mother both acknowledged the symbol powers of Number and their relation to Sacred Geometry and Vedic Architecture. The basis of their Supramental Formula; the numbers 3-6-9, were also discussed by the scientific genius Nicola Tesla who once wrote, ‘If you only knew the magnificence of the 3, 6 and 9, then you would have a key to the universe.’

When you weigh the wisdom of Plato, Pythagoras, Sri Aurobindo, the Mother and Nicola Tesla against Thakkar’s statement that the numbers 9-6-3 are ‘nothing but an absurd formulae to predict the nature of the inconceivable Brahman’, you may begin to understand the depths of his ignorance. He has been through no initiation, engaged in no practice of yoga and yet he considers himself a credible authority equal to the greatest souls in human history.

Throughout the pages of his article Sameer Thakkar has viciously attacked and slandered Ms. Norelli-Bachelet and her work. I will not address his comments as she is quite capable of responding to this and has done so herself. Her reply may be found on: http://circumsolatious.blogspot.com in a posting entitled ‘An Interview with Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet regarding accusations that she is 'Distorting Hinduism'

Finally I would like to comment on Mr. Thakkar’s unsupported and erroneous claims about Sai Baba’s age and the reputed prediction of his own death. Any astrologer worthy of the name can look at Sai Baba’s true horoscope based on the date of birth in his original school records (October 4^th, 1929) and see the correspondences to his actual life. In astrology this process is known as ‘rectification’. In his true horoscope Baba had the planet Saturn at 24 degrees Sagittarius, a placement that indicates a problem with the bones of the hip and thigh, the part of the body ruled by Sagittarius. It is well known that Baba had a serious hip injury on August 9, 1988 when he slipped on the soap in his bathroom. On that day, the transiting planets Saturn and Uranus were both conjunct Baba’s natal Saturn, an event that only happens once every 28 and 84 years respectively. On June 4^th, 2003 Baba fell in his bathroom once again, this time breaking his hip in three places and requiring a surgical hip replacement. Once again, transiting Saturn and the progressed position of Uranus were in a malefic aspect to his Natal Saturn indicating further problems with the bones and hip. When you can see these kinds of events (not one but both) within the context of measurable astrological transits, there can be no question that October 4^th, 1929 was Baba’s actual birthday. You see none of these indications in a chart dated November 23, 1926. In addition you can also see the deaths of Baba’s siblings in the October chart as well as his own death in 2011 when Pluto, the planet of Death progressed into an exact conjunction with his natal Sun. Thakkar will no doubt dismiss this as simply another contrived theory but it clearly and scientifically establishes Sai Baba’s age at 81 instead of 85 and refutes the mind-boggling claim in a recent Chakra News article that his 85 solar years map out at 96 lunar years fulfilling Baba’s prediction of his own death.

I could go on and on pointing out the errors and inconsistencies in Mr. Thakkar’s article but I believe that I have given his readers more than enough information to expose his hidden agenda and counter his lies and misrepresentations. His article does not rise to the level of even mediocre scholarship. It is rather a fundamentalist tantrum, a disrespectful rant, full of denial, ignorant opinions, faulty logic, and unexamined prejudices. He offers no knowledge, no facts, no clarity yet he expects his readers to accept him as a credible scholar. This evidently is what now passes for the new level of philosophical spiritual discourse. When opinion is taken for wisdom and sensationalism poses as scholarship, when religious pathology becomes the accepted norm, and psychological projection is welcomed as objectivity, when slander and ridicule become the new standard of journalistic integrity, you may know without the slightest doubt that a great reckoning is at hand.

July 2, 2011

Notes:

For those who may be unfamiliar with the controversy surrounding Sai Baba’s age I am including the relevant passages from my article, ‘Sathya Sai Baba: the Counterfeit Avatar’. A copy of his original school records may be found at: http://77.170.120.22/ex-baba/engels/articles/schoolrecord.html

‘…After predicting that he would live for 96 years as his present avatar, Sai Baba died in April, 2011 at 81 years of age. This was the last of a mind boggling web of lies spun by Sai Baba to convince his followers that he was the living embodiment of Vishnu and the Avatar of the Age...

Sai Baba never missed an opportunity for self-aggrandizement. He took great delight at playing an Avatar, appropriating their sacred symbols such as Kalki’s White Horse and Shesha, the Aeonic serpent which he had made into a bed. But his most outrageous stunt by far was deceitfully insinuating himself into one of the most important events in Indian spiritual history. On 24 November, 1926, after a lifetime of yoga, Sri Aurobindo and the Mother sent word to their sadhaks asking them to assemble in the upper verandah of the Library House in their Ashram in Pondicherry to hear about something of supreme importance that had happened in the history of the Earth and Universe. On what was later to become known as ‘Victory Day’ or the day of Siddhi, Sri Aurobindo announced that Krishna, the Overmental Godhead had descended into the physical, meaning Sri Aurobindo himself. As the Mother explained, ‘…Krishna consented to descend into Sri Aurobindo’s body – to be FIXED there. Then I saw him – I saw him with my own eyes (inner eyes, of course), join himself to Sri Aurobindo’.

With the integration of the Overmental consciousness begun by the 8th Avatar Krishna, Sri Aurobindo could now retire to his rooms and begin the establishment of the Supramental Consciousness-Force. This event marked the true beginning of his mission, the platform from where he could carry the evolution to greater heights. Sri Aurobindo’s Siddhi Day coincides with the close of the Age of Pisces and the beginning of the Aquarian Age that year. It was a victory for the whole world, because without it transpiring right on time, the Avatar could not have begun his transformative mission to bring down the Supermind. Upon learning of this momentous event many years later, Sai Baba changed the date of his birth from 4 October, 1929 to 23 November, 1926 and claimed that Sri Aurobindo was obviously referring to Baba who was supposedly born on the previous day (Nov. 23), and that he (Sri Aurobindo) had taken voluntary retirement after handing the reins over to the new God incarnate. While his followers continue to insist that November, 23, 1926 was Baba’s true birthday, a horoscope cast for 4 October, 1929, the birth date on Baba’s original school records, removes all doubt by indicating his passing in 2011 when Pluto, the planet of death, moved by progression into a conjunction with his natal Sun.’

The supporting charts mentioned in the article above may be found at:

http://www.quantumyoga.org/images/SaiBabaHip1.jpg

http://www.quantumyoga.org/images/SaiBabaHip2.jpg

http://www.quantumyoga.org/images/SaiBabaDeath.jpg

Sathya Sai Baba: the Counterfeit Avatar

By Robert E. Wilkinson

With the recent death of India’s most controversial ‘godman’, Sathya Sai Baba, it was not at all surprising to see Tina Sadhwani’s articles on the Chakra News (http://www.chakranews.com), eulogizing her guru in the most superlative tones. The passing of someone that one believes to be the physical incarnation of God is an understandable blow to an individual who has become identified with the worship of such a vital and charismatic being. Barely a week had passed before Ms. Sadhwani began to publish the lines of a complex mythology and dogma that would encourage the faithful to turn their unquestioned devotion to Sai Baba into a religion. This kind of embellishment often happens following the death or departure of one’s spiritual teacher, but Ms. Sadhwani’s excessive and idealized account of Sai Baba’s importance and her liberal use and distortion of Sri Aurobindo’s words to support her contention that her guru was one of Vishnu’s final Avatars demands to be answered in the most specific and unequivocal terms, for it is one thing to mythologize one’s guru out of all proportion from an abundance of devotion but quite another to deceive the public on matters of indisputable knowledge in the hope of converting them to a common belief.

Given the critical importance of Vishnu’s appearance in our present Aquarian age, there can be absolutely no mistakes about his identity, his position in the Line of Ten Avatars, and his evolutionary mission. Tina Sadhwani’s unsupported claims that Sai Baba is an Avatar simply do not rise to that level of knowledge and cheapen the meaning and purpose of the Dasavatars and their inextricable link with the Sanatana Dharma and its renewal. In order to fully understand who and what the Avatar is, we must return to the font of Indian myth and spirituality and, like scientists, explore the irreducible principles that give rise to such a preeminent legend.

Indian Myth and Legend of the Avatar:

India is the only nation in the world that can lay claim to a recurring history, eternally relevant and faithful to her ethos and cosmic culture, and the Vedic tradition of the Avatar is one of the most important symbols of her periodic renewal. Her Gods, Goddesses and creatures of the Vedic pantheon contain a profound knowledge of the dynamics of creation, beyond even the comprehension of modern science. Her principle deities, Brahma, the Creator, Vishnu, the Preserver and Shiva, the Destroyer, are the very embodiments of the cosmogonic forces behind the operations of the universe and their myths tell us how reality came to be. Vishnu is the preservation aspect of the trinity and represents that all-pervading power which maintains the universe and the cosmic order. He is the personification of goodness and mercy and periodically intervenes in terrestrial evolution by descending to earth in a human incarnation known as the Avatar.

When and Why Vishnu takes human birth is a matter of supreme cosmic importance involving vast cycles of time and profound archetypal influences. His periodic appearance not only punctuates the stages of our collective becoming, but radically alters the course of human events. In the 4^th chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna explains to his student Arjuna some of the external circumstances surrounding his periodic appearance:

‘…Knoweth thou this, O Prince, that whenever the world declineth in virtue and righteousness; and vice and injustice mount the throne - then cometh I, the Lord, and revisit my world in visible form, and mingleth as a man with men, and by my influence and teachings do I destroy the evil and injustice, and re-establish virtue and righteousness. Many times have I thus appeared; many times hereafter shall I come again.’ Lord Krishna to Arjuna, Bhagavad Gita, Part IV, Spiritual Knowledge

In her articles, Ms. Sadhwani has quoted this familiar passage to support her contention that Sai Baba was an Avatar but can she make that distinction simply on the basis of a predicted return during a time of social disequilibrium? If the term ‘Avatar’ is ever to become anything more than a meaningless honorific given indiscriminately to anyone’s guru, as Ms. Sadhwani has done with Sai Baba, it must be defined by an infallible and integral knowledge that allows us to identify Vishnu’s incarnations beyond any shadow of a doubt. In chapter 11 of the Gita, Lord Krishna reveals his ‘Supreme Countenance’ to the trembling Arjuna giving him a glimpse into the nature of that higher knowledge and the means by which it might be attained:

'The greater Form that thou hast seen is only for the rare highest souls. The gods themselves ever desire to look upon it. Nor can I be seen as thou hast seen Me by Veda, or austerities or gifts or sacrifices; it can be seen, known, entered into only by that bhakti which regards, adores and loves Me alone in all things.' Lord Krishna to Arjuna, Bhagavad Gita , Part XI, 52-54, The Universal Manifestation

In this passage it is made abundantly clear that a vision of Krishna’s ‘greater form’ is only for the rare highest souls, Initiates who have entered into that most coveted knowledge through a process of identity or ‘Gnosis’. Only those with eyes to see, said Sri Aurobindo, ‘can bow down and confess the Avatar’. Initiatic knowledge cannot be attained through logic, reasoning, diligent study, or scriptural interpretation, it is based on Self knowledge gained through the revelation of a lived spiritual experience. Its most fundamental feature is a consciousness of Unity, forged in the fires of a life-long tapasya, that allows us to rise above the separative consciousness of our present mental species and see from a poise that casts no shadows. Part and parcel of this Self-knowledge is the nature of one’s relation to the Cosmic Harmonies and the innermost mysteries of Time. This is the highest truth, the truest perception, the Vision of visions reserved only for those rare highest souls, because it is Time itself which reveals the cosmic credentials and true identity of Vishnu’s Evolutionary Avatars.

The Scheme of Avatarhood:

In the Bhagavad Gita Lord Krishna says to Arjuna, ‘I appear millennium after millennium’, but exactly when in these millennial cycles does he take birth? The matter is made clear in the Rig Veda 1.154 with Vishnu Trivikrama’s three steps to measure the universe. According to the Veda, his first step is like a Lion (Leo); the second step is a Bull (Taurus); and his third and highest step is the Friend (Aquarius). For those with eyes to see, Vishnu’s strides take him through the Fixed signs of the Cosmological Ages. Being the Preservation ‘Guna’ of the Trimurty, these are Vishnu’s own zodiacal signs and represent the exact points/ages in the cosmic cycle when he descends to Earth as the Avatar. What is truly remarkable is that Vishnu’s steps are given in a backward moving order which parallels the Earth’s backward movement through the signs in a phenomenon known as the Precession of the Equinoxes. This is a clear indication that the Vedic Rishis had a far more advanced understanding of cosmology than was previously believed. By measuring the Earth’s movement through the 25,920 year Precessional cycle, we discover that Vishnu intervenes in terrestrial evolution every 6,480 years by descending to earth in the form of the Avatar. He incarnates on the earth in the signs of Taurus, Leo, Scorpio and our current Age of Aquarius and comes at a time when the earth is under the influence of dark and evil forces.

When the scheme of Avatarhood is observed from these millennial heights it becomes apparent that Vishnu’s incarnations mark out meaningful points of progression in the Earth’s consciousness, a ‘parable of the evolution’, to quote Sri Aurobindo. But how does this evolutionary design correspond to the Line of Ten Avatars and what determines the order of their appearance? In order to fully appreciate this evolutionary parable, one must first understand the nature of the ‘INVOLUTION’ and, most importantly, exactly what is involved in the first place.

Involution, the Supreme Mystery:

We are told by a seer of impeccable credentials that the greatest mystery of creation, the means by which the Unmanifest enters into the Manifestation of itself is through a process of contraction and compression to a Seed, that precious bija, that miraculous Hiranyaretas known in the Veda as Agni. All of the attributes that we can conceive of in the Transcendent Divine are drawn, by its own power of manifestation, into the Seed of Itself. Because of this and from the beginning, writes Sri Aurobindo, ‘the whole development [of the universe] is predetermined in its self-knowledge and at every moment in its self-working - it is and moves to what it must be by its own original Truth, and will be at the end that which was contained and intended in its seed.’ This involutionary principle which all things must obey from literally the first instant of creation is none other than TIME as it evolves in our material universe from the seed of itself.

The process of human birth follows this very same principle with all life evolving from an original seed or embryo. The gestation of the human being occurs over a period of nine (9) months culminating with the birth of that which was originally involved. We find this same pattern of correspondences described in the Vishnu Purana in the form of the ‘Nine Creations’. And if we look at the Line of Ten Avatars within this context, we can easily see that the evolution of consciousness follows the same pattern. As Sri Aurobindo tells us, ‘Evolution is an inverse action of the involution…what was original and primal in the involution is in the evolution the last and supreme emergence’.

The Vedic Yoga:

The nature of Evolution in Time is an indispensable knowledge for those who would plumb the deepest mysteries of the Veda. Its secret wisdom, obtained through practice of an ancient yoga, reveals that the initiatic journey of the Rishis is not a journey through Space as many believe, but a journey in Time through the Year and its Twelve Months, the central figure of the Veda around which the Sacrifice is conducted, and it too follows the pattern of a nine month labor with a victorious birth in the tenth, as Sri Aurobindo explains:

‘...In other words, it is when the nine-months’ sacrifice is prolonged through the tenth, it is when the Navagwas become the ten Dashagwas by the seven-headed thought of Ayasya, the tenth Rishi, that the Sun is found… but what is meant by the figure of the months? For it now becomes clear that it is a figure, a parable; the year is symbolic, the months are symbolic. It is in the revolution of the year that the recovery of the lost Sun and the lost cows is effected, for we have the explicit statement in X.62-2… “by the truth, in the revolution of the year, they broke Vala”…’

‘The expression in the hymns, daso maso ataran, indicates that there was some difficulty in getting through the full period of ten months. It is during this period apparently that the sons of darkness had the power to assail the sacrifice; for it is indicated that it is only by the confirming of the thought which conquers Swar, the solar world, that the Rishis are able to get through the ten months…’

‘I hold for you in the waters the thought that wins possession of heaven by which the Navagwas [nine] passed through the ten months…’ (V.45-11)

‘This victory is won in twelve periods of the upward journey, represented by the revolution of the twelve months of the sacrificial year, the periods corresponding to the successive dawns of a wider and wider truth, until the tenth month secures the victory…’ Sri Aurobindo, The Secret of the Veda, 1915.

The Vedic sacrifice, as Sri Aurobindo reveals it, follows the same line as the Avataric parable because each of Vishnu’s incarnations represents an unveiling of a particular involutionary stage; ‘their periods corresponding to the successive dawns of a wider and wider truth’. Since the journey of the Individual and the appearance of the Line of Ten are both interrelated expressions of the same transcendent Being, it is through the lived yogic experience that one is initiated into the mysteries of the Avatars and by Usha, the Dawn Goddess.

Once possessed of this higher knowledge of Time and Divine Alchemy, the identity of the Avatars is no longer a matter of speculation and guesswork. Just as a competent scientist knows the position of each element in the Periodic Table based on its atomic properties, electrons and protons, and can even predict the discovery and proper position of new elements, the seer has realized a greater face of truth which of itself sets each piece in its rightful place. With this realization we are able to identify the time of the Avatars appearance, his position in the Line of Ten and the details of his evolutionary mission. Moreover, it becomes abundantly clear who is and who is not an Avatar.

The Cosmic Order of the Avatars:

If we apply this knowledge to the most renown of Vishnu’s emanations, Lord Rama and Lord Krishna, it is clear that they are the 7^th and 8^th Avatars of Vedic tradition. Lord Rama was born in the 7^th Manifestation some twelve thousand years ago in the Age of Leo. He was what is called a ‘Solar’ manifestation and details of his epic, the Ramayana, reveal him to be the IDEAL or Sattvic man. Lord Rama’s purpose was to fix for the future the possibility of an order proper to the sattvic civilized human being who governs his life by reason, the finer emotions, morality, and higher Mental ideas. The story of the Ramayana Epic revolves around Rama’s love and devotion to his wife Sita, an unmistakable theme of the 7^th zodiacal sign, Libra. The plot of the epic involves the abduction of Sita by the demon king Ravana. In his pursuit to rescue Sita, Rama assembles an army of allies who attack Ravana’s army, slay the demon king and reunite Sita with her loving husband, thus restoring balance and order to the world.

Lord Krishna, the 8^th Avatar was the Overmental Superman. He was born in the 8^th Manifestation around 3,100 BCE in the Age of Taurus. He was a ‘Lunar’ manifestation as the meaning of his name ‘the dark one’ implies. The most important document of Sri Krishna’s teaching is the Bhagavad Gita, revealed during the battle of Kurukshetra. The discourse between Krishna and his student Arjuna centers around War, Duty and Death, an essential knowledge for the ‘Kshatriya’ or Divine Warrior. As all initiates know, the subjects of War and Death are the preeminent themes of the 8^th zodiacal sign Scorpio, a sign ruled by Mars, the God of war.

Following this progression of Time and Archetype we would naturally expect the 9^th Avatar of Vedic tradition to appear in the 9^th Manifestation in the Age of Aquarius. He would be a Solar manifestation and the overarching theme of his life and mission would correspond to the 9^th sign Sagittarius, which represents a body of higher knowledge. Since we are told by a member of Sri Aurobindo’s own line that Vishnu’s 9^th Avatar would immediately return as the 10^th, in keeping with the Rig Veda injunction, we must view their appearance in the context of the culmination of the Vedic journey. What makes these final incarnations so absolutely unique is that they represent the last and supreme emergence of that original involutionary principle, Time. While Ram and Krishna prepared the soil for the conquest of Time, it is not until the concluding members of the Line that we see the complete apotheosis of Time as the ultimate feature of an integral Gnosis. We must expect therefore that their teachings would represent a radical reversal of an old transcendental spirituality whose strategy involved a complete denial of Time and Matter in order to reach the opposite pole, Spirit. Moreover we would expect Vishnu’s final Avatars to open an entirely new path for humanity, one that can at long last resolve the ancient paradoxes and unite the poles of Spirit and Matter through the instrumentality of Gnostic Time.

Our expectations of the 9^th Avatar are overwhelmingly realized in the person of Sri Aurobindo. He was born in the 9^th Manifestation and ushered in the Aquarian Age. He was the epitome of the Solar manifestation, born under the sign Leo which is ruled by the Sun. Considered to be one of India’s greatest sages, not simply of this age but of all ages, Sri Aurobindo fulfilled his Sagittarian mission by producing hundreds of volumes of an all-embracing and profound philosophy that has been described as a contribution to human thought the equivalent of which has not been attained by any other known thinker. Any serious student of Sri Aurobindo’s life and yoga will immediately recognize that his work represents a radical departure from all previous spiritual paths. It challenges thousands of years of traditional wisdom that believes a transcendence of the physical world to be the highest possible attainment. In an epochal reversal of direction, Sri Aurobindo and his line have presented humanity with a New Way, an entirely new direction that foresees the possibility of A MATERIAL UNION WITH THE DIVINE, one that takes us into the core of this world of matter and the innermost mysteries of time. The principal feature that unites these two realms within a single Integral Vision is a New System of Measure, a non-speculative formula that reveals the utter perfection of a Supramental Consciousness as it deploys itself on the Earth.

The coming of the Avatar, the sole purpose of his birth, is to renew the eternal truths and restore the Cosmic Order. That ‘Order’ is unmistakable in the lives and missions of the 7^th, 8^th and 9^th Avatars whose epic adventures reveal a seamless progression in consciousness from the Mental, to the Overmental, and finally to the Supramental Creation. With each of Vishnu’s ‘steps’ dawns a wider and wider truth revealing that the ‘spiritual evolution’ follows the same principles of the ‘biological evolution’, a progressive unfolding in time revealing new and more complete aspects of the Divine consciousness. Because of this orderly clockwork, each Avatar was bound by the constraints of the Time Spirit and could only complete his mission within the context of a stage in a larger evolutionary plan. As Sri Aurobindo explained, ‘…the whole development [of the universe] is predetermined in its self-knowledge and at every moment in its self-working’.

Rectification of the Ages:

Knowledge of this progressive unveiling of consciousness is invaluable when applied to the differentiation of historical spiritual teachings loosely defined as the ‘Perennial Philosophy’. It allows us to sort through what has been lumped together under the heading of ‘Enlightenment’ and put these disparate realizations in their proper category and order. This also permits us to follow the vector of the evolution and locate the dimensions of being under the greatest pressure for change. The great majority of Hindus, for example, believe that the Buddha was the 9^th Avatar. But we know that he was not and could not have been one of Vishnu’s sequential incarnations because he was born around 560 to 550 BCE near the beginning of the Age of Pisces. In the early centuries of that age the evolving consciousness of the race was founded on three rather than four pillars of being; the Physical and Emotional in the service of the Mental. The highest, (Spiritual) was completely lacking or dormant. At this ‘station’ of development, the great sages of the Piscean era including the Buddha were limited in their higher perceptions by the vibrational limitations inherent in the Mental consciousness. Despite their sincere aspirations, their discoveries could never admit of anything higher than a dissolution of the nexus of consciousness which held them in the world. Buddha called his experience of dissolution ‘Nirvana’ - a state of pure Being, equanimity and peace; an emptiness without form that grants liberation from this so-called ‘illusory world of becoming’. Lao Tze, the Chinese sage who lived around the same time, expressed his realization in much the same vein calling it, ‘The Nothing that is All’, and we find this same transcendental language later on in the teachings of Shankara, founder of the Advaita Vedanta school, who described ‘Moksha’ as a realization where one does not feel oneself any longer to be an individual with a name or form, but an infinite, eternal, space-less consciousness. From the limited evolutionary perspective of these renowned sages, life has no meaning or purpose. It is an illusion – ‘Maya’ that can only be remedied through a strategy of escapism based on a denial of oneself, the soul and the world. According to these teachers, Salvation, if it exists at all, may only be found in the transcendence of the world in some after-death ‘Heaven’, Advaitan ‘Moksha’ or ‘Nirvanic’ Void. When Sri Aurobindo was asked to comment on the efficacy of these paths of dissolution he replied, ‘…A great extinction is not God’s last word…[Nirvana] is not as many believe the ending of the path with nothing beyond to explore, it is the end of the lower path and the beginning of the higher evolution’. Kalki, said Sri Aurobindo, will come to correct the error of the Buddha.

As we move forward in time some 2,000 years we come to the Age of Aquarius, Vishnu’s ‘highest step’ and the appointed time for the appearance of the 9^th Avatar. With the continuing evolution of our species new and greater spiritual heights have opened to our view, The Mental has given way to what Sri Aurobindo and his line have called the ‘Supra-mental’. But our global society is still dominated by the nihilistic religions formulated in the Age of Pisces and because of the burdens of these past beliefs, our modern world teeters on a razor’s edge between madness and catastrophe. Each passing day bears witness to a world arrested by the atavistic beliefs of religions long past, with many still locked in some form of convert or kill mentality. It is clearly time for Vishnu to mount the throne and restore the eternal truths that will re-establish the dharmic path of virtue and righteousness. But, says Krishna, ‘…as the years have passed, the noble teachings have declined and their light has grown dim’. Who is it that can SEE the bringers of the light and how do we recognize them?

The Counterfeit Avatar:

As the Age of Pisces came to a close some of India’s most impeccable souls took birth to usher in the new age. Two of her brightest spiritual lights and forerunners of Sri Aurobindo’s own mission were Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and his student, Swami Vivekananda. Together with the likes of Sri Ramana Maharshi and Paramahamsa Yogananda they inspired a vibrant renewal of Indian spirituality that literally circled the globe. It was a period of palpable light and energy that renewed the Age and paved the way for Vishnu’s final Avatars. But where there is extraordinary Light, there are also extraordinary Shadows and those who would usurp these emerging energies for their own dark designs. The Veda calls them, ‘…sons of darkness who have the power to assail the sacrifice’. And for Victory to be assured, these pretenders must be brought out of the shadows and into the light where they may be exposed for who and what they really are. This brings us full circle and back to the matter of Sathya Sai Baba, the supreme poser and usurper of the light. After predicting that he would live for 96 years as his present avatar, Sai Baba died in April, 2011 at 81 years of age. This was the last of a mind boggling web of lies spun by Sai Baba to convince his followers that he was the living embodiment of Vishnu and the Avatar of the Age. In order to discover the truth or falsity of his unsupported claims, let us examine his life and teachings in the light of gnosis.

Unlike the iconic spiritual teachers listed above, Sai Baba presented himself as a gaudy caricature of an Indian godman. From the age of 13 he began to make the most outlandish claims about his incomparable divinity as well as his past and future lives. By his own account, he is the God Avatar of an entire Aeon, the embodiment of Brahma, Shiva, Vishnu, and Shakti all in the same body, and there has never been another like him. Being a consummate showman, Sai Baba never missed an opportunity for self-aggrandizement. He took great delight at playing an Avatar, appropriating their sacred symbols such as Kalki’s White Horse and Shesha, the Aeonic serpent which he had made into a bed. But his most outrageous stunt by far was deceitfully insinuating himself into one of the most important events in Indian spiritual history. On 24 November, 1926, after a lifetime of yoga, Sri Aurobindo and the Mother sent word to their sadhaks asking them to assemble in the upper verandah of the Library House in their Ashram in Pondicherry to hear about something of supreme importance that had happened in the history of the Earth and Universe. On what was later to become known as ‘Victory Day’ or the day of Siddhi, Sri Aurobindo announced that Krishna, the Overmental Godhead had descended into the physical, meaning Sri Aurobindo himself. As the Mother explained, ‘…Krishna consented to descend into Sri Aurobindo’s body – to be FIXED there. Then I saw him – I saw him with my own eyes (inner eyes, of course), join himself to Sri Aurobindo’.

With the integration of the Overmental consciousness begun by the 8th Avatar Krishna, Sri Aurobindo could now retire to his rooms and begin the establishment of the Supramental Consciousness-Force. This event marked the true beginning of his mission, the platform from where he could carry the evolution to greater heights. Sri Aurobindo’s Siddhi Day coincides with the close of the Age of Pisces and the beginning of the Aquarian Age that year. It was a victory for the whole world, because without it transpiring right on time, the Avatar could not have begun his transformative mission to bring down the Supermind. Upon learning of this momentous event many years later, Sai Baba changed the date of his birth from 4 October, 1929 to 23 November, 1926 and claimed that Sri Aurobindo was obviously referring to Baba who was supposedly born on the previous day (Nov. 23), and that he (Sri Aurobindo) had taken voluntary retirement after handing the reins over to the new God incarnate. While his followers continue to insist that November, 23, 1926 was Baba’s true birthday, a horoscope cast for 4 October, 1929, the birth date on Baba’s original school records, removes all doubt by indicating his passing in 2011 when Pluto, the planet of death, moved by progression into a conjunction with his natal Sun.

The Danger of Miracles:

According to The Hindu, one of India’s leading newspapers, Baba’s early reputation was built on a series of miracles. He is reputed to have had the ability to produce vibhuthi (holy ash) or rings or miniature Shivalings out of thin air. An occasional wrist-watch was also ‘manifested’ for his more generous worshipers, each curiously bearing a factory-imprinted serial number. Baba never tired of telling his followers: ‘My power is immeasurable; my truth is inexplicable, unfathomable. All of the conceivable powers of the universe are resident in this palm’. But whether he had an actual siddhi or produced these so-called miracles through sleight of hand as the watches suggest is a moot question. Every genuine realized being since Patanjali, (c. 250 BCE - founder of the Yoga system of philosophy), has warned against the ostentatious demonstration of miracles as a dangerous distraction to both the performer and his followers. Sri Ramana Maharshi said that ‘powers’ such as these were ‘below the plane of Self-realisation’ and warned that they were more likely to inflate the ego than eliminate it. And Swami Vivekananda ruthlessly looked down upon so-called miracles as the greatest stumbling block in the way of truth. When the disciples of a genuine realized being told him of a man who had performed a so-called miracle and showed him the bowl he had produced, he took it, crushed it under his feet and told them never to build their faith on miracles again, but to look for truth in everlasting principles. From these examples, we can see that there is universal agreement among genuine enlightened beings that there is a plane of consciousness, a dangerous zone of transition between the ordinary consciousness and the realization of true yogic knowledge. Sri Aurobindo called this the ‘Intermediate Zone’ and describes in detail the pitfalls that can befall the unsuspecting traveler:

‘…Overwhelmed by the first rush and sense of power of a supernormal condition, they get dazzled with a little light which seems to them a tremendous illumination or a touch of force which they mistake for the full Divine Force…[one] feels himself freed from the normal limits…filled and enlarged and exalted; what comes associates itself with his aspirations, ambitions, notions of spiritual fulfilment and yogic siddhi; he is carried away by the splendour and the rush, and thinks that he has realised more than he has truly done, something final or at least something sovereignly true…one may take up one's abode in this intermediate zone, care to go no farther and build there some half-truth which one takes for the whole truth or become the instrument of the powers of these transitional planes’. Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga

Anyone who has followed the career of Sai Baba cannot escape the conclusion that he is wholly a creature of the Intermediate Zone and has become an instrument of vital beings whose sole purpose is to usurp the higher truths of the Supramental age through a process of distortion, misrepresentation, and lies. It is additionally known by experienced occultists that one of the costs of maintaining one’s power on that vital plane is a huge increase in one’s sexual appetites. The heated controversy surrounding Sai Baba’s alleged pedophilia has been taken up elsewhere but it bears pointing out that when the United Nations, the British Parliament and the U.S. State Department all issue warnings of inappropriate sexual behavior involving youths and children by a prominent local religious leader at an ashram located in Andhra Pradesh, these charges are undoubtedly true. But owing to a timid Indian media, cowed by Baba’s wealth, power and influence, the facts of these appalling events, including the 1993 murder of four young boys in his bedroom, were either suppressed or explained away as if they never happened. The children, who had come to confront Baba on the matter of their sexual abuse, were summarily executed by a hail of bullets from the Puttaparthi police. Immediately following this tragic event, the entire murder investigation was closed down by a confidential government order with no charges registered and no official report. One can only wonder how a man like this has managed to convince tens of millions of people that he was Vishnu’s highest manifestation, the God Avatar of an entire Age.

Gurus and Pretenders:

Spiritual personalities are complex and difficult to understand. Their claims of divinity, knowledge and power come from such a subjective level of experience that they confound all objective proofs. Only those at the same or a higher level of development can know the total pattern of their behavior. But according to Sai Baba, he is utterly unique and there has never been another like him, so how can we evaluate the validity of his claims? For most devotees this is an impossible dilemma and they are forced to fall back upon unquestioned belief which results in the loss of identity, personal power, and ultimately, responsible consciousness. Given the powers of conviction that arise from the unconscious projection of one’s own divinity onto an external god figure and the peer pressure of other members of the cult, the unwitting devotee finds himself overpowered by a commitment en masse that overrules all common sense. The result is blind obedience and a complete identification with the myth of the group. We can see an example of this devotional fervor in Ms. Sadhwani’s recent articles that glorifies Sai Baba out of all proportion without a shred of evidence to support her dogmatic claims.

For persons of vision however there is a tried and true method of evaluating the competence and spiritual bona fides of someone claiming to be God. The evidence lies in the quality of their teachings and the profundity of their knowledge. But to find the unvarnished truth, the architecture of their philosophy must be examined with the precision of an engineer, dismantling layer after layer until the core of their realization stands revealed. Only then can it be understood within the context of an integral spectrum of knowledge. When we apply this test to the written works of Sai Baba, we can see that his teachings are broken down into two subcategories; fully half of his message falls in the category of meaningless self promotion, with the balance being an eclectic mix of Advaita Philosophy and a patchwork metaphysic reminiscent of the age of Pisces. There is nothing new, nothing original and absolutely nothing that might justify the title of Vishnu’s Avatar.

Time and the Supermind:

In an earlier part of this article the Line of Ten Avatars was discussed in relation to the evolution of consciousness on earth. Sri Aurobindo had told us that the Evolution was simply an inverse action of the Involution. Since Time was the original element and factor in the involution, it would be, in the evolution, the last and supreme emergence. Indeed, the 10^th and last of Vishnu’s Avatars is known as Kalki, a name that derives from the Sanskrit root word ‘Kal’ which means Time. There can be absolutely no question that an identifying hallmark of the Supramental Avatars would be a new revelation of Time. We see nothing of this newness in the teachings of Sai Baba. His discussions of Time hearken back to the realizers of the Piscean era who saw it as an illusion and an impediment to spiritual liberation. But for Sri Aurobindo, Time was an obsession which he pursued until his passing in 1950. He was seeking the consolidation of a formula which might reconcile the Timeless Infinite and the Time Spirit deploying itself and organizing all things in time. He carried us to the portals of this discovery in his epic text, The Synthesis of Yoga and closed the book with a chapter entitled, ‘Toward the Supramental Time Vision’. What Sri Aurobindo ultimately revealed was that the last and supreme emergence of the Time spirit, its final unveiling, was the basis of a Supramental Gnosis.

‘The nature of Supermind is that all of its knowledge is a knowledge by identity and oneness. The Spirit is one everywhere and always. It knows all things as itself and in itself and therefore knows them intimately, completely, in their reality as well as their appearance. By concentrating on anything whatsoever, we are able to know that thing and make it deliver up its concealed secrets. This is the faculty of Essential Cognition, it always cognizes the essence, the truth. There is not even a trace of false knowledge.’ Sri Aurobindo

To the eye of Gnosis, the whole creation in its act of becoming reverberates with meaning and purpose and it is Time that makes this vision intelligible. Contrast this with the nihilistic teachings of Sai Baba:

‘…the world is maya (illusion), The cycles of birth and death are all fanciful weavings, illusory agitations and unreal appearances…. The ultimate refuge for man, the goal he ought to seek, the thing that I have come to give you is liberation itself…man will at last endeavor to know the secret of permanent joy and peace, that is to say, of moksha, liberation from the cycle of birth and death’. Teachings of Sathya Sai Baba

According to Sai Baba, there is no meaning and purpose in the world. The highest goal of human life is spiritual liberation, known by such names as moksha, nirvana, and mukti. These phrases which characterize Baba’s entire realization have been lifted word for word out of the age of Pisces some 2,000 years ago. And because of his ignorance of Time and the cosmic harmonies, his teachings on the Veda are irredeemably flawed. While he extols the Veda as the highest possible knowledge and a direct path to God, he cannot tell you the first thing about how to follow that path.

‘…Mother Veda has been kind to her children - the human race. To sanctify its cravings and to uplift the race, she has posited the concept of Time - and its components, the years, months, days, hours, minutes and seconds. Even gods were declared to be bound by Time. The individual or Jiva is caught in the wheel of Time and Space and rotates with it, unaware of any means of escape. But, really he is beyond the reach of Time and Space. The Veda is bent upon the task of making him know this Truth, and liberating him from this narrowness.’ Sathya Sai Baba, Eternal Truths

The Vedic Calendar:

Another indication of Baba’s immature realizations about time and the Veda may be seen in the ashrams and temples that bear his name and the errors in their ritual Calendar. According to the Rishis, the Vedic truth-consciousness is grounded in an experiential awareness of the sacrificial year and its twelve months:

‘Certain eternal worlds are these which have come into being, their doors are shut to you (or opened) by the months and the years. Without effort one world moves in the other, and it is these that Brihaspati has made manifest to knowledge’ Rig Veda (II.24.5)

The sages carefully prescribed ritual celebrations that were designed to bring about an experiential awareness of the cosmic truths through a process of repeating and reliving precise points in the sacrificial year. The most important of these points in the ritual calendar, the heart of the Vedic mysteries, is the ‘Makar Sankranti’, a time when the gods and goddesses can touch our world and revitalize our very souls. The true cosmological point of the Makar Sankranti begins with the change of the Sun’s direction from the Lower Hemisphere (Daksinayana) to the Upper Hemisphere (Uttarayana) and its movement into the 10^th sign Capricorn and house of the 10^th month victory. The Makar Sankranti is also the Winter Solstice, the perihelion of the Earth’s annual orbit of the Sun and the shortest day of the year. It is an astronomical fact, known by every school child, that the Winter Solstice falls on December 21, yet most celebrants, including Sai Baba and his followers, observe the Makar Sankranti on January 14^th some 23 days after the fact. If Sai Baba is the fullest manifestation of the Time-Spirit and has come to reset the cosmic clock, why did he adhere to a discredited Nirayana calendar system which has literally dissolved the sacred and eternal truths of the Veda into the mists of Sidereal time? He may boast that he is the very incarnation prophesied to restore the Sanatana Dharma, but he has, in fact, led his millions of followers on a path of Adharma.

Sai Baba’s complete lack of understanding of the Vedic yoga and its deepest cosmological mysteries bears testimony to one of Sri Aurobindo’s most revealing statements about the limitations of the Piscean realization : ‘...for some two thousand years at least no Indian has really understood the Veda.’ His statement confirms what has been written here about the unveiling of the Veda’s highest truths being an event that can only begin with Vishnu’s Aquarian Avatars and their Supramental realization.

In Conclusion:

From the preponderance of the evidence presented here, even the most skeptical reader must agree that there is simply no possibility of Sathya Sai Baba being one of Vishnu’s Evolutionary Avatars. Despite Ms. Sadhwani’s specious claims, he bears none of the identifying qualities unique to the Line of Ten. On the contrary, he bears all of the qualities of a poser, usurper, and denier of the light. Sai Baba lied about his birth, lied about his death and almost everything in between. While the real Avatar was in the thick of an evolutionary yoga designed to bring down the Supramental light, Baba was busy building a cult following of millions of people through which he amassed a fortune of billions of dollars. His extraordinary success was the result of decades of shameless self promotion to easily impressed, superstitious and disillusioned people desperate for an experience of cheap grace. Now that he is dead, his millions of followers have to come to terms with an uncomfortable truth: if Sai Baba was not who he said he was, or perhaps even worse, did not know who he truly was; who is this person that they have projected their hopes, dreams and indeed their own divinity upon? To their own terror many will soon discover that they have been led down a centerless Piscean path leaving them vulnerable to the play-out of an old and dying world. There will be no ‘Prema Sai’, or third incarnation of the ‘Sai avataric lineage’ prophesied to uplift mankind in the dawning of a new golden age. In the light of Gnosis this prediction is a complete and utter fantasy designed to distort and obscure the New Supramental Creation that has already descended. In his 824 page Epic poem, Savitri, which is to the Aquarian Avatars what the Ramayana and Mahabharata were to the 7^th and 8^th, Sri Aurobindo describes something of this extraordinary event.

‘In Matter shall be lit the spirit's glow,

In body and body kindled the sacred birth;

Night shall awake to the anthem of the stars,

The days become a happy pilgrim march,

Our will a force of the Eternal's power,

And thought the rays of a spiritual sun.

A few shall see what none yet understands;

God shall grow up while the wise men talk and sleep;

For man shall not know the coming till its hour

And belief shall be not till the work is done.’

Savitri -- A Legend and a Symbol), Page: 55

Indeed God has grown up while ‘wise men’ like Sai Baba talked and slept. And those of us who SEE are bound by a sacred trust to maintain the purity of Sri Aurobindo’s and the Mother’s truth by exposing the forces of deception, distortion, and misdirection who would usurp the descending light and drag the world back into a medieval darkness.

It is doubtful that the true believers of Sai Baba will be open to any criticism of him no matter how well intentioned or carefully documented. Like the Indian newspapers who published glowing obituaries, they prefer instead to focus their attention on Sai Baba’s philanthropic works and his simple spiritual homilies. Indeed, how could a man like this be anything other than what he claims? It never occurs to them that behind the miracles and powers taken on their face as divinity, there is a dark vital force in revolt against the truth, although they have been given ample and frequent confirmation. But having chosen belief over real knowledge, like all cults, they have become enchanted by their own projection and can see only what will support and enhance the illusion. Baba’s well documented lies, perversions and distortions are brushed aside, dismissed as unacceptable distractions to the always just out of reach promise of Liberation. Had they chosen knowledge over mere belief, they would recognize the obvious contradictions in Baba’s teachings. For how can someone who claims time and again to have come to bring us the final goal of life, the ultimate refuge; liberation into a permanent joy and peace beyond the snares of time, space and form, also claim that he is here to restore the Sanatana Dharma. The two statements are mutually exclusive. Sanatana Dharma literally means ‘Eternal Law, Truth and Order which holds everything together’, a definition that begs the question; law, truth and order of What? It is obviously not a formless truth beyond the portals of time and space. Sanatana Dharma deals with the truths of this world and can only be restored as an expression of Time, Form and Measure. As Sri Aurobindo reminds us in his commentaries on the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, ‘…it is time alone that makes the ordering of the universe in space possible’. These eternal laws and principles are encoded in India’s ancient DNA and form the ‘Core’ or Soul of her being. Any talk of a glorious Indian Renaissance must begin with the recovery and renewal of her Dharma and Soul. But how is this ever to occur through Sai Baba’s nihilistic strategies of Liberation and ‘moksha’? This is the supreme lie, the greatest falsehood, and the root of all of India’s problems for the last 2,000 years of her history. A true renaissance cannot arise from a center-less Piscean void. To the eye of gnosis Sai Baba’s teachings are full of these half-truths and errors willfully designed to pervert and distort the very foundations of the Dharma. And yet we see Baba’s followers mindlessly parroting his baseless claims that he came to accelerate the long overdue restoration of the Sanatana Dharma. But if the world is Maya or illusion as Baba claims, what is the point?

Most of Baba’s devotees are likely to ignore the issues of knowledge made here, dismissing them as meaningless philosophical rhetoric overshadowed by personal feelings, visions and illuminations gained through their guru’s presence. But with Baba’s recent death the object of their worship and center of their spiritual universe is no more. What they will soon come to realize is that they have followed Baba’s path of Liberation at the forfeit of their own souls. Without the physical presence of the guru to sustain the projection of their own divinity, belief will give way to doubt and their faith and confidence will begin to crumble. In her articles Ms. Sadhwani tries to rally the faithful saying that, ‘…every Sai devotee bears a greater responsibility now in joining forces for upholding and carrying forward this majestic vision and world-transforming mission’. She attempts to focus their attention on the future, on the promise of Prema Sai and a new world order, but this too is a ruse, a diversion put forward to redirect their original projection toward a mental religious ideology without any real knowledge to sustain it. The predictable result is an existential crisis brought about by an untenable conflict between belief and reality. The millions of Sai devotees who formed the ranks of a global spiritual cult will gradually succumb to doubt and disillusionment and without the financial support of the faithful and their ability to proselytize new converts, the organization will collapse. Devotees need only watch what happens in the months and years ahead. Without its iconic leader, Sai Baba’s empire will slowly implode. This has already begun with a bitter battle for control of his money and his myth. And soon, Baba’s $5.5 billion dollar foundation will likely be confronted by the same tardy justice that rocked the Roman Catholic church costing them over $3 billion in sexual abuse claims. And in the end, all of those open to the light will learn who and what Sai Baba truly was; a cautionary tale proving to us that we should not seek miracles or visions or lights or etheric forms, we should instead pursue a solid path - the Vedic way of Knowledge and Realization. We must BECOME light and SEE IN UNDERSTANDING.

June 5th, 2011

Notes:

(1.)  In the spirit of full disclosure it should be noted that Ms. Sadhwani has lodged a strong objection to the following statement:

‘…This kind of embellishment often happens following the death or departure of one’s spiritual teacher, but Ms. Sadhwani’s excessive and idealized account of Sai Baba’s importance and her liberal use and distortion of Sri Aurobindo’s words to support her contention that her guru was one of Vishnu’s final Avatars ^1.  demands to be answered in the most specific and unequivocal terms…^’    

Her objection is as follows:

‘…Now nowhere in my articles have I claimed that Sai Baba was the final avatar of Vishnu. Neither
have I mentioned the Vishnu Puran's dasavatars that Wilkinson keeps referring to. I have provided my own conceptualization of the Avatar that has nothing to do with the Purans and on the contrary I have even linked Sai Baba as the Shiva-Shakti avatar.’  Tina Sadhwani

Despite Ms. Sadhwani’s claims to the contrary, she uses the term ‘Avatar’ repeatedly in her articles, a concept which is unique to Hinduism and defined as ‘a manifestation of the deity Vishnu, in human, superhuman or animal form’.  Vishnu is that All-Pervading essence that supports, sustains, and governs the Universe and originates and develops all elements within. He is also called 'Preserver of the universe' and is always discussed in conjunction with the Cosmic Order and ‘Line of Ten Avatars’ as I have done in my article. Since there is wide agreement that there have been Eight (8) Avatars, any reference to present incarnations of Vishnu involves the completion of the line through his final Avatars.   

Ms. Sadhwani’s claims that she is using her ‘own conceptualization of the Avatar’ is simply not true. This is clearly evident in her citations of the Bhagavad Gita where she quotes the passage where Krishna gives a discourse to Arjuna describing his periodic return and purpose as being to rejuvenate the Dharma. As any good Hindu knows, this is a function exclusive to Vishnu as described above. She goes on in her article to present other attributes of the Avatar as contained in the language of Hinduism:

‘…It has been said that at every turning point and every great epoch of the earth’s existence there has often been one extraordinary being standing at the leading edge of light, unravelling the consciousness in which the transcendent descends into the physical, in which the cosmic pulse of the universe converges to a point, to a singularity that is at once human with its manifested boundaries, as well as suprahuman, displaying its infinite capabilities. Both heaven and earth have collaborated in the sacred alchemy of such a creation and in the divine birth of such an extraordinary being. In the language of the Hindus, such a sacred being is referred to as the Avatar. He is the direct, super-conscious descendent of the same force that shapes the universe and renders it its harmonies and balance.  He symbolizes the unity of all existence and the pinnacle of the divine intelligence that is diffused in all things.

To many around the world who have experienced him, Sri Sathya Sai Baba, is the living embodiment of such a force and spiritual descent, that unifies all the planes of existence, from the cosmic to the planetary and finally to the individual, guiding humankind to the next stage of evolution, signifying the ultimate transformation and alchemy of Spirit and opening us to the possibilities of a higher dynamism, a higher principle by which we may actualize our own greatest potentials.’  Tina Sadhwani - Sathya Sai Baba, the Divine Alchemist, Chakra News April 19th, 2011 

For Ms. Sadhwani to say that has been misinterpreted is pure nonsense. She defines ‘Avatar’ using the exact terms that describe the essence of the Godhead Vishnu. She then attributes these divine qualities to Sai Baba for the purpose of bearing up his own ridiculous claims that he is Vishnu’s avatar, that he was Rama and Krishna, and that he is Kalki. If she has mentioned 'avatar' it has nothing to do with Shiva or Shakti, it means the Vishnu Line of Ten. Sai Baba himself made this perfectly clear by having a photo shoot of himself as Kalki, white horse, sword and all. And then, if this wasn’t enough, he fashioned his bed as if he were Vishnu laying on Shesha. All this simply bears up the point made in the article that Ms. Sadhwani is misleading the public in important factual matters for the furtherance of her own personal agenda. For me to state that Ms. Sadhwani has ‘distorted Sri Aurobindo’s words to support her contention that her guru was one of Vishnu’s final Avatars’ is unequivocal and factually correct.  RW

(2.)  A detailed account of how Sai Baba attempted to usurp the epochal events of Sri Aurobindo’s Siddhi Day on 24/11/1926 by changing the date of his birth from 4 October, 1929 to 23 November, 1926 and then claiming that Sri Aurobindo  had taken voluntary retirement after handing over the reins to Baba.  http://allchoice-barin.blogspot.com/2008/07/day-of-victory.html

(3.)  Documentation and relevant links concerning the Sex Abuse claims against Sai Baba as noted by UNESCO, the UK and the US State Department. < http://www.saibaba-x.org.uk/14/

 

A number of important documents are listed (and/or scanned) here which bear relevance to the exposure of Sathya Sai Baba and the crimes of which he stands accused by alleging victims and others.

UNITED KINGDOM PARLIAMENT EARLY DAY MOTION on Sathya Sai Baba and the sexual abuse of children.

U.S. DEPUTY OF STATE WARNING TO TRAVELLERS In 2001 The US State Department issued a warning to travellers in Andhra Pradesh - which officials confirmed related primarily to Sathya Sai Baba. This warning has never been revoked, though since 2007 it ceased to figure in the official document. http://www.saibaba-x.org.uk/14/India%20-%20Consular%20Information%20Sheet.htm

UNESCO MEDIA ADVISORY WARNING AGAINST SATHYA SAI BABA This advisory was issued by UNESCO when it withdrew its intended participation in a Sathya Sai Education Conference due to serious allegations of sex abuse investigated thoroughly by UNESCO officials.

Misc.

In a passage from a manuscript of one of the Mother’s students, Satprem, we find a record of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram's ‘bright period’ in 1926, when the Mother had made an Overmental creation and the gods were beginning to manifest. Satprem quotes the Mother as saying: ‘In 1926, I had begun a sort of Overmental creation, that is, I had brought the Overmind down into matter, here on earth (miracles and all kinds of things were beginning to happen). In the end, Sri Aurobindo told me it was an Overmental creation, not the Truth. These were his very words: 'Yes, it's an Overmental creation, but that's not the truth we're seeking; it's not the truth, the highest truth,' (The Supramental). I made no reply, not a word: in half an hour I had undone everything—I undid it all, really everything, cut the connection between the gods and the people here, demolished absolutely everything. Because you see, I knew it was so attractive for people (they were constantly seeing the most astonishing things) that the obvious temptation was to hang on to it and say, 'We'll improve on it'—which was impossible. So I sat down quietly for half an hour, and I undid it all. We had to start over again with something else. But I said nothing, I told no one about it except Sri Aurobindo. At the time I let no one know, because they would have been completely discouraged.’

*****

‘Ignorance means Avidya, the separative consciousness and the egoistic mind and life that flow from it and all that is natural to the separative consciousness and the egoistic mind and life. This Ignorance is the result of a movement by which the cosmic Intelligence separated itself from the light of the supermind (the divine Gnosis) and lost the Truth, -truth of being, truth of divine consciousness, truth of force and action, truth of Ananda. As a result, instead of a world of integral truth and divine harmony created in the light of the divine Gnosis, we have a world founded on the part truths of an inferior cosmic Intelligence in which all is half-truth, half-error. It is this that some of the ancient thinkers like Shankara, not perceiving the greater Truth-Force behind, stigmatised as Maya and thought to be the highest creative power of the Divine. All in the consciousness of this creation is either limited or else perverted by separation from the integral Light; even the Truth it perceives in only a half-knowledge. Therefore it is called the Ignorance. Falsehood, on the other hand, is not this Avidya, but an extreme result of it. It is created by an Asuric power which intervenes in this creation and is not only separated from the Truth and therefore limited in knowledge and open to error, but in revolt against the Truth or in the habit of seizing the Truth only to pervert it. This Power, the dark Asuric Shakti or Rakshasic Maya, puts forward its own perverted consciousness as true knowledge and its willful distortions or reversals of the truth as the verity of things. It is the powers and personalities of this perverted and perverting consciousness that we call hostile beings, hostile forces. Whenever these perversions created by them out of the stuff of the ignorance are put forward as the truth of things, that is the Falsehood, in the yogic sense, mithyii, moha.’ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga, Book I, Section Six: The Divine and the Hostile Powers, December 2, 1946, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, India, 1946.

Bibliography and Suggested Reading:

India’s Most Sacred Texts:

The Rig Veda: The Vedic Experience, by Raimundro Pannikar. New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1997.

The Vishnu Purana: A System of Hindu Mythology and Tradition (Translated from the Original Sanskrit) by H.H. Wilson, Dec 31, 2010.

Bhagavad-Gita: The Song of God by Swami Prabhavananda, Christopher Isherwood and Aldous Huxley Jul 2, 2002.

Ramayana Valmiki by Swami Venkatesananda and Valmiki, State University of New York Press; Concise edition, May 1988.

Mahabharata: The Greatest Spiritual Epic of All Time by Krishna Dharma, Torchlight Publishing, August 15, 1999.

Selected Works by Sri Aurobindo:

Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, 1940.

Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga, 'Toward a Supramental Time Vision', Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, 1976.

Sri Aurobindo, The Upanishads, 'The Great Aranyaka', Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, 1971.

Sri Aurobindo, Essays on the Gita, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, India, 1972.

Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga, December 2, 1946, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, India, 1946.

Sri Aurobindo, Essays in Philosophy and Yoga: ‘The Process of Evolution’, Volume: 13, Collected Works of Sri Aurobindo, The Supramental Manifestation and Other Writings, September 1909.

Sri Aurobindo, The Secret of the Veda, Lotus Press, Twin Lakes, Wisconsin, 1995.

Sri Aurobindo , Savitri: A Legend & A Symbol - Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, India, 1951.

Sri Aurobindo, Essays in Philosophy and Yoga: ‘The Yoga and Its Objects’, Volume: 13, Collected Works of Sri Aurobindo, The Supramental Manifestation and Other Writings, September 1972.

Sri Aurobindo, India’s Rebirth, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, 2001.

Sri Aurobindo, Sri Aurobindo On Himself: The Present Darkness and the New World, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, India 1950.

Selected Works by Thea (Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet)

Thea (Norelli-Bachelet, Patrizia), The New Way – Volumes 1 & 2, Æon Books, New York, 1981.

Thea (Norelli-Bachelet, Patrizia), The New Way – Volume 3, Æon Books, 2005.

Thea (Norelli-Bachelet, Patrizia), The Gnostic Circle, Æon Books, 1975.

Thea (Norelli-Bachelet, Patrizia), The Hidden Manna: Being the Revelation called Apocalypse of John the Divine, Æon Books, New York, 1976.

Thea (Norelli-Bachelet, Patrizia), Time and Imperishability, Æon Books, April 1, 1997.

Thea, The Vishaal Newsletter, ‘The Capricorn Factor: India’s Lost Measure and its significance for the world’, October 1987, Volume. 2, Number 4.

Thea, ‘The Nine Nights of Durga: the Destiny of India across the century in a new Cosmological Paradigm’, 17 November, 1999.

Thea, ‘Secrets of the Earth: Questions and Answers on the Line of Ten Avatars of Vedic Tradition’, March 2009

Thea, ‘Cosmology in the Rigveda - The third premise’ published in 'The Hindu', 9 July, 2002.

Thea, ‘Sri Aurobindo and the Condition of Vedic Wisdom in India’ The Movement for the Restoration of Vedic Wisdom, 2 February, 2007.

Thea, ‘A Calendar that Unifies: Questions and answers on reforming the Hindu Calendar’ 6 March, 2009.

Thea, The Vishaal Newsletter, ‘Culture and Cosmos - 3: The Evolutionary Avatar in the Cosmic Harmony and in Contemporary Vedic Culture’, Volume 7, Number 6, February, 1993.

Thea, ‘An Interview with Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet, India’s True History Is In Its Myths’, Published in Bhavan's Journal (English) Volume 54 Issue Number 1, 15 August, 2007.

Selected works of Sathya Sai Baba:

A Compendium of the Teachings of Sathya Sai, Charlene Leslie-Chaden, Sri Sathya Sai Towers Pvt Ltd, March 7, 1997.

Online Selections of Sai Baba’s Writings - Sri Sathya Sai Baba Divine Teachings, http://www.saibaba.ws/teachings.htm

Articles by Tina Sadhwani:

Sathya Sai Baba, the Divine Alchemist, Chakra News, April 19th, 2011

The Sai-Evolution, A Dharmic Odyssey, Chakra News, May 3rd, 2011

http://www.chakranews.com/the-sai-evolution-a-dharmic-odyssey/1238,
http://www.chakranews.com/sathya-sai-baba-the-divine-alchemist/1213)