Friday, February 10, 2012

Can inmates protest?

Six More Show-Cause Notices Served by the Trust by General Editor
[This is the notice issued to Varun Pabrai by the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust. The same has been served to five others who participated in a silent protest against the Trustees' inaction with regard to Peter Heehs and his book "Lives of Sri Aurobindo". The same strong reply of Prof. Kittu Reddy has been sent to the Trustees for all the six inmates of the Ashram. The message that clearly comes across is that the inmates of the Ashram have no right to protest but Peter Heehs has the full liberty to criticise and denigrate Sri Aurobindo and the Mother in their own Ashram.] … Text of Varun Pabrai's Reply to Manoj Das Gupta

Truth and Facts have the inherent property of being monolithic. It is the perception of these that have various shades. Each perception has its purpose as well as its place and it is therefore only natural that one should be tolerant to each of these perceptions. However, when one of these singular perceptions tries to mask or take over the Truth and Facts that it originates from and seeks to impose an exclusive right over it, that perception inevitably looses its plurality; such a perception then becomes neither interesting, nor convincing or constructive.

The main news from Matrimandir this month is about the aftermath of the cyclone Thane that crossed Auroville on the night of 29th December. This has affected ...

Sri-aurobindo-and-his-followers In time, a whole set of beliefs and rituals began to be built up around Sri Aurobindo and more so, around The Mother. The death of each of them caused dismay and disappointment among large sections of the faithful. Many had grown to believe that some miraculous transformation of the physical bodies of their Gurus and through them of the disciples themselves was in the offing. Naturally these devotees were disheartened when this did not happen in the manner they had come to expect.
Besides, a whole theology began to be developed, especially because of the extensive records of what Sri Aurobindo and The Mother had said…This theology not only asserts the Avatarhood or Divine Incarnation of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, but builds around them a special cult of worship and devotion…
Like the early Christians whose lives were lived in hope and anticipation of the Second Coming and the Day of Judgement, the disciples of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother also believed that the promised fulfillment of all their hopes and aspirations was imminent. A series of pronouncements by both Sri Aurobindo and The Mother…certainly contributed to the sense of constant awe and expectation in the ashram community…
It needs to be acknowledged that though both Sri Aurobindo and The Mother repeatedly warned against the creation of a cult around them, they themselves encouraged it in several ways. Sri Aurobindo himself deified The Mother and vice versa. Sri-aurobindo-and-his-followers.html From The Introduction, The Penguin Sri Aurobindo Reader, 1999 Edited by Makarand Paranjape, a critical insider. 8:48 PM February 20, 2012 at 2:26 pm

UPSCStudy Notes: Uniform civil code vs. Right to Religion upscportal.com 17 Feb 2010 – S.P. Mittal vs. Union of India: The Majority in this case taking a very restricted view of religion held that the teachings of Sri Aurobindo constituted a philosophy and not religion even if their followers claimed them to be their religion.
Chinnappa Reddy, J: In a dissenting opinion said "the question is not whether Sri Aurobindo refused to claim or denied that he was founding a new religion or a new school of religious thought but whether his disciples and community thought so because religion is a matter of belief and doctrine, concerning the human spirit, expressed overtly in the form of ritual and worship and since Aurobindo's disciples took Aurobindo's teachings in that spirit the teachings constituted a distinct religion. 8:08 PM

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