Slap on the face of religious fundamentalism

Tweets Gautam Chikermane ‏ @gchikermane Peter Heehs: Have a safe journey. Come back and continue with your vast, deep and inspiring work. We wait for your next book. 11:55 AM - 14 Apr 12. Uma Shashikant ‏ @Uma_Shashikant - @gchikermane You led a very spirited and inspiring twitter campaign for Heehs, Gautam. Kudos! 10:48 AM - 14 Apr 12. Gautam Chikermane ‏ @gchikermane - @Uma_Shashikant Thanks. It's going to be a long war - book by book, idea by idea, cartoon by cartoon. 11:27 AM - 14 Apr 12. This is a decision in favour of free speech and a slap on the face of religious fundamentalism. 10:15 PM - 13 Apr 12. Madanmohan Rao ‏ @MadanRao Gautam Chikermane: I wrote about deportation of Peters Heehs (biographer of Sri Aurobindo), got shallow reactions from twitterati #PulEjawan 5:17 PM - 14 Apr 12. Malini Parthasarathy ‏ @MaliniP Heehs biography is well researched and ultimately a tribute to Aurobindo. We are a tolerant society but don’t want our heroes smirched! :) 6:47 PM - 14 Apr 12

A Heretic Believer Scholar or devotee? A schizoid split? Aurobhakts are torn over Peter Heehs. CONTROVERSY: AUROBINDO ASHRAM PUSHPA IYENGAR Outlook MAGAZINE APR 23, 2012 Hot seat Peter Heehs with the ‘offending’ book … Underneath the surface though, there are valid, fundamental questions about how he could be a part of the ashram and yet write such a book… His backers say the book has become a victim of the prevailing climate of “fundamentalism” and “increasing religiosity”.

But the naysayers claim he wrote the book to trigger controversy, and get mileage… An insider says Heehs’s book has bothered those who feel they are the rightful inheritors of Aurobindo’s intellectual tradition. Not Heehs, who has written nine books and several articles on him over 40 years.

anahata says:April 13, 2012 at 1:44 pm on Demeaning devotion – page 343

These observations are incorrect. Sri Aurobindo certainly did not regard the Darshan as a “ancient form that Indians have difficulty going beyond.” What Sri Aurobindo thought about the Darshan can be read from the recently published “Letters on Himself and the Ashram”

A hagiography from an anti-hagiographic perspective—by Narendra

Mr Pratap Bhanu Mehta’s work says much about our media culture of readership as regards to Sri Aurobindo. His article represents a new dimension, a new layer, a scholarly-professionally sordid element in the patronizing of Mr Heehs. As yet the controversy was of content. Mr Mehta goes a step further, dismissing the objections to content [...] Read more of this post - RY Deshpande from Mirror of Tomorrow April 14, 2012 at 6:20 am URL: http://wp.me/p9L4p-3P