The Mother & Sri Aurobindo have saved us from going the Mani way

['Every political life ends in failure' How did you end up rejecting religion?
It was a process of evolution. As a child, rituals had some attraction. Around the age of twelve, I read the entire Gita. I participated in major rituals that would take place in my village around that same time. I took them as the thing to do.
But between the age of 14 and 16, the questioning became very acute. My mother had taken up in a big way with the Swami Sivananda ashram near Rishikesh. Her idea of a happy weekend or a holiday was to go off to that ashram, or spend time doing pujas at home. I began questioning those childish rituals, pretending to bathe, feed, dress the god. I also found the whole set-up in the ashram to be very unequal. I was beginning to boil with rage at social injustice. And it was clear to me that the better off you were, the more likely of receiving the guru’s attention. And the worse off you were, the more you had to wait. I began suspecting that all the special favours my mother was receiving ... Mani Shankar Aiyer is a senior Congress leader...indian express, July 5, 2009]

The Mother & Sri Aurobindo have saved us from going the Mani way. It’s not clear why Banerji and his friends are obfuscating further the word ‘fundamentalism’ instead of saying simply that it is religion that they are against. Religionification is rather the right jargon. [TNM]