The Mother's distinction between spiritual realization, spiritual philosophy, occultism and religion

Overview Introduction Integral Yoga Sri Aurobindo The Mother Sitemap Fundamentalism Issues Reviews Annotated Documents Further Documents Standpoints Letters Bio Data Integral Yoga Sri Aurobindo The Mother Feedback about this site may be posted in the comments section to the Announcement of this site at SCIY (login required).

Introduction Issues This section deals with issues that where thrown into stark relief by the recent American publication of The Lives of Sri Aurobindo by Peter Heehs, and by attempts to prevent its publication in India and to expel its author from the Ashram Archives and from the Ashram itself.

Larger Issues of the "Lives of Sri Aurobindo" Controversy The Heehs biography controversy is unfortunately a symptom of a much deeper crisis in the Integral Yoga community, with future repercussions which are hardly optimistic. In this consideration of some of the larger issues involved, the editors of SCIY and other concerned viewers of the phenomenon have drawn attention to what is at stake for all those interested in the Integral Yoga. These are only a few of the more serious ramifications. by Debashish Banerji , Rich Carlson , David Hutchinson , Angiras, Ulrich Mohrhoff Read more...

Yoga, religion, and fundamentalism in the Integral Yoga community Opening remarks by Lynda Lester for a panel discussion at AUM 2007 on fundamentalist tendencies in the Integral Yoga community. Read more...

An examination of the criticism against The Lives of Sri Aurobindo In this essay, Larry Seidlitz, a resident and scholar at Pondicherry, examines the charges being made against the author of The Lives of Sri Aurobindo and attempts to put to rest the exaggerations and misreadings which have been circulated by the ringleaders of the "anti-PH movement" and which have become "authorized truths" to a vast range of "followers" of these ringleaders, most of whom have not read the book. Read more...

The Greyscale Between Religion and Spirituality Rick Lipschutz reflects on the continuum which stretches from religion to spirituality. Drawing on the Mother's distinction between spiritual realization, spiritual philosophy, occultism and religion and her perception of a complementarity in their workings, the author calls for a more integral understanding of the yoga and its stages and processes. Read more...

Representing Swami Vivekananda: Some Issues and Debates In this article Makarand Paranjape raises two issues and then goes on to discuss the impact of the life and teachings of Swami Vivekenanda (SV). The first issue has to do with how SV has been represented in the secondary literature on him. The second which, in a sense, arises out of the first, has to do with what constitutes a “fact” in a spiritual biography. The author believes that confronting both these issues is necessary in order to have a clearer comprehension of the impact of SV on his world, both in the East and the West.

In their excellent comments to this article, Debashish, Rich, and Angiras point out its relevance to the issues surrounding the publication of The Lives of Sri Aurobindo. Read more...