When we think of the reception of The Mother & Sri Aurobindo at the global level, the names of Ken Wilber and Michael Murphy come to the mind. Wilber's role in popularising Sri Aurobindo's pioneering status in Evolutionary philosophy is immense. With firm conviction, he broke down the geographical barrier and made Sri Aurobindo a part of the Western tradition. His own ambition, however, did him in and that's another story.
Murphy, on the other hand, was far more conversant with Sri Aurobindo and, unlike Wilber, never attempted to misrepresent his philosophy. But the practice bug got the better of him and his downslide began with Peter Heehs and Jeffrey Kripal alongside. It's important to recall here Satprem who was earlier a victim of such a practice imperative and tried to win a large audience through evocative prose.
From all these episodes what we learn today is important: practice is personal and temporary; visions and experiences are subjective. The books of The Mother & Sri Aurobindo are teachers and accepting any other person as Guru or guide is a seed of distortion. Further, looking for a special place for practice of yoga is delusionary. But finding some spare time for dedicated reading is necessary. Many people get addicted to managerial responsibilities and use it as an alibi for not reading for want of time. But one must be strict with oneself to have a solid grounding in reading during one's thirties and forties. That is the best gift one can give oneself and then, as Sri Aurobindo puts it, "the knowledge is a whip that drives" to the approprite form of practice metamorphosing with space and time. [TNM55]
Misc. References:
seof.blogspot.com › 2007/04 › i-have-no... Auroville Today April 2007 God is waking up in us: encountering Michael Murphy - Alan
“Some people were rejecting aspects of their experience, like siddhis, as distractions, whereas I was seeing them as the budding limbs of our future nature which needed to be cultivated. I also think there's a danger that an over-reliance on the psychic being and surrender to the Divine, as it is practised in the Ashram, can devolve into passivity. I'm a great believer in the adage that God helps those who help themselves.”
www.thehindu.com › article1202645
Feb 16, 2008 - Staff Reporter. Meet on Sri Aurobindo conducted at Auroville. PUDUCHERRY: Michael Murphy, member of the International Advisory Council, Auroville Foundation, who is also co-founder of the ... “Its better to think only of running and nothing else… you look at where you want to go and put all your efforts into it. Sri Aurobindo has said that transformation of matter will be the final stage and before that happens, you have supermental methods of finding the truth.” Mr. Murphy was speaking at a meet, ‘Sri Aurobindo… the new dynamism of the material and the spiritual,’ organised by the Centre of Indian Studies, Bharat Nivas in Auroville on Friday. Sri Aurobindo had discussed various methods by which the final transformation may take place. But there is no question that such a transformation will take place. The question now was perhaps whether the beginnings of this transformation of matter could be detected. When evolution has taken place the lower consciousness does not know about it, he said and added that it was simply not possible for us using merely mental processes to detect the workings of the supermental consciousness.
peterheehs.net
2015. “Sri Aurobindo and his Ashram, 1910-2010: An Unfinished History.” Nova Religio 19, 1:65-86.
2014. “Practices of Non-Theistic Spirituality.” Gandhi Marg 36, 2&3 (July-December): 251-68. (Pdf file available here)
2013. ” ‘Not a Question of Theology’: Religions, Religious Institutions and the Courts in India.”Comparative Legal History 1, 2: 243-61.
2013. “Aurobindo.” In Brill’s Encyclopedia of Hinduism, vol. V, ed. Knut A. Jacobsen. Leiden: Brill, 397-404.
https://books.google.co.in/books?isbn...
Peter Heehs - 2013 - Roots, Branches, and Seeds: The teachings of Swami Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo examined in the light of Indian tradition, colonial modernity and one another. Nehru Memorial Museum and Library Occasional Paper, History and Society Series, No.14. (Pdf file available here)
https://books.google.co.in/books?isbn...
Diaries, Memoirs, and the History of the Self Peter Heehs. Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 175 Fifth Avenue 50 Bedford Square NewYork London NY10010 WC1B3DP USA UK www. bloomsbury.com First published 2013 © Peter Heehs, 2013 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may ...
https://books.google.co.in/books?isbn=9004283420
2014 - Preview - More editions
... vehicle to gnosis: We need to recognize that the act of reading, far from being a mechanical, disembodied exercise of vocabulary and grammar, is in fact an immeasurably complex psychophysical event in which two horizons of meaning and ...
https://books.google.co.in/books?isbn=0253345561
That is, we need to recognize that the act of reading, far from being simply a mechanical exercise of vocabulary and grammar, is in fact an immeasurably complex psychic event in which two horizons of meaning — in this case an Indian and an ...
https://books.google.co.in/books?isbn=0226453693
That is, we need to recognize that the act of reading, far from being a mechanical, disembodied exercise of vocabulary and grammar, is in fact an immeasurably complex psychophysical event in which two horizons of meaning and being (the ...
https://books.google.co.in/books?isbn=0226453839
Delving deeply into the work of major figures in the field--from Jack Kirby's cosmic superhero sagas and Philip K. Dick's futuristic head-trips to Alan Moore's sex magic and Whitley Strieber's communion with visitors--Kripal shows how ...
https://books.google.co.in/books?id...
Art of living Sri Aurobindo. ultimate barrenness and limitation of this knowledge, to the meagreness and insecurity of the power and happiness it brings and to the awareness of an infinite consciousness,knowledge, true ... He is the first son of earth who becomes vaguely aware of God within him, of his immortality or of his need of immortality, and the knowledge is a whip that drives and a cross of crucifixion ...
https://tulikabooks.wordpress.com/.../the-humanization-of-transcendental...
The first study addresses the genesis of the problematic of humanization in Husserl's phenomenology of the life-world; the second seeks to understand the ...
You've listened to Asa kie khaiba ho. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7AWjY-WZDC4# Now, listen to the original Dakhini from which it is a direct lift https://t.co/UDjYhJx9W6
[PETER HEEHS reading & booksigning for The Lives of Sri Aurobindo Thursday, June 19 at 7 pm ...
ReplyDeleteThis special event will be introduced by Esalen co-founder Michael Murphy.]
http://auroramirabilis.blogspot.in/2008/06/peter-heehs-reading-booksigning-for.html
http://booksmith-sf.livejournal.com/12520.html