Nashram!

[Hindutva, Exploring the idea of Hindu Nationalism Published by: Viking Penguin © Jyotirmaya Sharma, 2003 Science, Culture & Integral Yoga Response by Jyotirmaya Sharma on Mon 21 Aug 2006 12:15 PM PDT Profile Permanent Link Let me tell you a thing or two about what you call my unbalanced treatment of Aurobindo. I read Sri Aurobindo's complete works for my M.A. thesis, which was supervised by an Aurobindo devotee. He remains a friend even today and we disagree on Aurobindo. My former supervisor also remains a staunch devotee...
by Jyotirmaya on Tue 22 Aug 2006 10:46 AM PDT Profile Permanent Link In my book, I have never even indirectly imputed that Aurobindo Ghosh was a Hindutva votary. The book is about the ideas that went into making of political Hindutva. In other words, it is about genealogy of ideas, rather than suggesting that so and so was a Hindutva votary or any such nonsense. Moreover, the book contains attributions not only to the Bande Mataram period but takes the story upto India's independence and Sri Aurobindo passing on...
In the case of Sri Aurobindo, all I have suggested in the book is that whether it was the period of revolutionary terrorism or the period as a Maharshi in Pondicherry, there are aspects of Sri Aurobindo's thought that forms the genealogy and patrimony of political Hindutva as we know it today. It simply cannot be dismissed as a simple instance of appropriation, which is the line Mr. Peter Heehs also tends to take. Whether Hinduism is not fossilised, or whether it is an evolving cultural/spiritual corpus or not, this is a subject which I shall try to have my say in a book published next year. 4:14 PM4:43 PM]

[Sri Aurobindo Society, Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo, yoga, the ...
As this aim of Sri Aurobindo's yoga differs from that of traditional yogic systems, so the ashram that grew up around him "is not an ashram like others".]

[Sri Aurobindo, Sri Aurobindo Society, Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo ...
With the Mother and Sri Aurobindo at its centre emerged the Sri Aurobindo Ashram - not a retreat for ascetics and retired men but the seat of an enduring...]

[Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, india, yoga, Sri Aurobindo, Mother
What the Mother and Sri Aurobindo had in mind was not an Ashram in the traditional Indian meaning, but a kind of spiritual laboratory in which a new ...]

[Sri Aurobindo, Champaklal, Mother, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, ...
Champaklal was not only a respected member of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, but almost an .... Nirod says: "Champaklal was not a bhakta of the traditional type, ...

[About the Ashram
Unlike the popular conception of an ashram, the Sri Aurobindo Ashram is not a religious body or a monastery. It has nothing to do with religion or ...]

[BABUL'S WORLD: Sri Aurobindo Ashram and the Ashramites
Sri Aurobindo and the Mother never had any intention of establishing an ashram in the traditional necessity of the term. They did not try to make the ashram ...]

[(A publication of SABDA, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry 605 002)
View as HTML Jugalda’s Sri Aurobindo Ashram is thus a timely work on the state of the community and is a plea to apply the needed correctives so that the Ashram will not ...]

[Sri Aurobindo Ashram Delhi Branch
The Mother had once called the Sri Aurobindo Ashram at Pondicherry a veritable laboratory ... that does not change the outer life leaves the world as it is.]

Science, Culture and Integral Yoga :: Larger Issues of "The Lives ...
The “image” of Sri Aurobindo or of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram features ...... Mother and Sri Aurobindo were not like traditional gurus in many ways.]

While the Hindutva camp is eager to appropriate the legacy of Sri Aurobindo, the anti-fundamentalism faction is vocal in reiterating that Sri Aurobindo Ashram is not a traditional Ashram. The question therefore arises, what is it then? [TNM]