Rev. Rama Coomaraswamy
THE DESACRALIZATION OF HINDUISM FOR WESTERN CONSUMPTION (part II)
Our second case study this evening will be Sri Aurobindo Ghosh. He was born in Calcutta on August 15, 1872. His father, a physician trained in England, was completely enamored with Western ways. At the age of seven he sent his son to England where he entered St. Paul’s School in London and distinguished himself in his studies. He returned to India at the age of 21 and became lecturer in French at Baroda College. Then in 1905 he was thrown into prison on the charge of sedition and there began to study the Bhagavad Gita. In prison he claims to have had a vision of Sri Krishna enveloping all of existence. On release from prison he once again threw himself into politics and founded the Nationalist Party in Bengal. In January of 1910 he received word secretly that he was soon to be deported, so he retired from Calcutta to the neighboring French territory of Chandernagar. From there he went to Pondicherry where he began to pursue the sadhana of yoga. Here he remained until his death in 1950. You will note that at no time did he have a spiritual director.
The next four years were spent in comparative seclusion. Sadhus who live quietly tend to attract people and over the course of time he gathered some disciples including a French couple by the name of Richard who were in search of a ’Master in whom they could recognize a world teacher’. With their assistance they started an English journal Arya and a French one called Revue de Grande synthese The pages of Arya were to carry most of the philosophical writings, poetry, art criticism, and essays on Indian culture that were to bring Aurobindo recognition and fame.
World War I forced the return of the Richards to France, and after the war Mrs. Richard, having divorced her husband, worked for a while as a country club hostess in. this country, and then returned as 'the Mother’ to take over the ashram (a sort of monastic enclosure) Daughter of a wealthy Jewish banker, she was able to devote herself and her funds to this man whom she had claimed was a 'seer’ as long ago as 1914. She died in 1973 at the age of 96.
Mr. Aurobindo received enlightenment in November of 1926, or as it is claimed in their literature, he at that point realized the 'Supermind’. ’By the descent of the Overmind, the descent of the Supermind has been assured … Sri Aurobindo ceased to see people and contact should be made with him only through the Mother.’
Aurobindo envisaged the Supreme Reality as Sat Chit Anand. Such a statement could be legitimate, though in point of fact Sat Chit Anand, or Being-Consciousness-Bliss are but primary manifestations of the Supreme Reality. Be this as it may, Aurobindo continues to tell us that the Supreme Reality is Pure Existence, Existence that is both will and forces and above all, it is blissful Existence. The Divine is not only omnipresent, it also includes both Matter and Spirit. While supposedly anchoring his system in the Vedanta, he wove the theory of evolution into his philosophy. Man has come to the present stage of evolution through a process of evolutionary growth which is as yet still incomplete. Man has to grow in consciousness until he reaches complete and perfect consciousness, not only in his individual, but in his collective and social life. There is at the heart of things a conscious force that is evolving to ever higher forms of being, and indeed, there is also evolution of the Divine. In fact, growth of consciousness is the supreme secret of life and the master key to earthly evolution.
Corresponding to the ascent from the material to the spiritual is a descent of the spiritual into the material. The link between the process of ascent and descent is where Mind and Supermind meet with a veil between them. The rending of this veil of maya is the necessary condition of the 'Divine Life’ in humanity. Physical evolution has brought mankind from lower forms of existence to the present stage of development, but is on the verge of yet higher stages of evolution. In the next stage man will emerge as a 'gnostic being.’ This is our divine destiny. ’The gnostic being will have indeed an inmost existence in which he is alone with God, one with the Eternal, self-plunged into the depths of the infinite, in communion with its height and its luminous abysses of secrecy.’ Ultimately Aurobindo envisaged the emergence of a new humanity beyond the present stage of human evolution. ’First a few will attain to gnostic being… Gradually the number will increase and form small islets of gnostic communities. From within these gnostic communities a Conscious Force will emanate, exercising so powerful an influence on the rest of humanity that it to may enter into the destiny that awaits it from eternity.’ This is the Life Divine. (Gurus, Swamis , and Avataras, Marvin Henry Harper)
Aurobindo was clearly out to establish a new evolutionary religion. In his own words Aurobindo told us that ’All religions have saved a number of souls, but none yet has been able to spiritualize mankind. For that there is needed not cult and creed, but a sustained and all comprehensive effort at self-evolution.’
His admirer and follower, Dr. Shiv Das, tells us that ’the object of his mission was to usher in a new spiritual age as the next higher curve of human evolution. This is also the inviolable destiny and future of mankind. Sri Aurobindo sounded the trumpet call of the New Age.’ This is to be achieved or worked out ’individually as well as in the collectivity’ by means of a ’trile transformation, viz. psychic transformation, spiritual transformation and supramental transformation.’ The end result was the creation of new ’spiritual religion’ that was the ’hope of humanity,’ a religion that differed from ’the prevailing religions of intellectual belief, dogma and extraneous rites and rituals which have to be discarded in the new World Order.’ (The Vedic Path, June 1990) Some of these strange ideas are explained by the Mother. ’Sri Aurobindo is an emanation from the Supreme who came on earth to announce the manifestation of a new race and the new world, the Supramental …. Man is the creation of yesterday. Sri Aurobindo came to announce the creation of tomorrow: the coming of the supramental being … Sri Auribindo is the future on the way to its realization … His teachings leads us towards a better future. Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga is a unique earth-transformation…’
Aurobindo, even though he lived as a recluse, remained intensely interested in world affairs. He openly described himself as a Marxist. He received a large number of international journals and newspapers. Still later he had radio installed and spent several hours each day listening to the world news. This was all part of his 'work,’ which was to influence world affairs through his spiritual powers. Thus, during the second world war he claimed to have prevented Hitler from proceeding with the invasion of England after the fall of Dunkirk, and then brought about the victory of Britain through Churchill whom he greatly admired, and who was his 'instrument.’ To use his own words, ’my force is being largely used for helping the right development of the war and for change in the human world.’ This force is, according to his followers, still working in an effective manner in the world.
Aurobindo’s desire for world unity also had its secular counterpart. To quote him directly, ’the unity of the human race by political and administrative means implies eventually the formation and organization of a single world state out of a newly created though still loose, natural organic unity of mankind… To that reason two alternative possibilities and therefore two ideas present themselves, a world state founded upon the principle of centralization and uniformity, a mechanical and formal unit, or a world union founded upon the principle of liberty and variation in a free and intelligent unity.’
Interestingly enough after his death, his body was not cremated. It was eventually laid to rest in a marble tomb in the Ashram at Pondicherry. According to the Mother, when she asked him to resuscitate himself he said ’I have left this body purposely. I will not take it back. I shall manifest again in the first supranatural body built in a supranatural way.’ The marble tomb is the only place of worship in the ashram. That is if you call placing a flower on the monument, or kneeling there briefly, worship. People otherwise only gather on the soccer field on Thursday and Sunday evenings for 15 minutes of silent meditation. In fact, no group is even allowed to set up a place of worship or to perform religious ceremonies. Religion is a 'private matter’ and therefore no set forms should be forced on anyone. This is said to be in harmony with the universal spirit of Aurobindo.
Now, the spread of these gnostic communities which base themselves on Aurobindo’s ideas has received considerable support from, among other organizations, the United Nations. Funding the French architect Roger Anger, the first city to be developed was Auroville, ’a model city for the whole planet,’ where a utopian and cultist One World Brotherhood is fostered whose purpose is said to be 'service to mankind.’ The ideas developed here have been adopted by the HEW and the National Training Labs of the National Educational Association as well as a host of other international and national organizations. (Beyond Jonestoum, Ed. Dieckmann.)
Now there is another interesting tie-in with Aurobindo and the New Age Religions. Michael Murphy, founder of Esalen, received his inspiration from Aurobindo or the Mother while living in the Ashram in Pondicherry between 1948 and 49. The Esalen Institute is one of the granddaddies of so-called 'sensitivity training’ – the application of non-directive group therapy as applied to normal people for the purpose’ of expanding the human potential. One of the courses offered at the Esalen Institute is 'The Evolution of Consciousness’ in which it is suggested that 'a transformation of human consciousness as momentous as the emergence of civilization is under way.’ The techniques fostered by this Institute include music therapy, LSD experiments, and holotrophic breathing techniques, yoga and the use of mantras, and intense sports activities – all aimed at altering consciousness in order to bring about that universal consciousness, or to use Aurobindo’s term, contact with the evolving Supermind. In addition, from the beginning the Esalen Institute supported its own inter-house 'channeler’ named Jenny O’Connor, who received messages from a group of nine nonhuman entities allegedly living on the star Sirius. These 'spirit guides,’ and I shall return to the topic of spirit guides later, were the ultimate gurus of Murphy and his band of Aurobindians.
Now what many people do not know is that the techniques used by these groups are essentially brainwashing and mind-bending techniques. A group of people gather around on the floor and embrace each other, telling each other their deepest feelings and experiences. Locked into a closed system, separated from their families, often for days at a time, those who do not accept the norm for the group – usually the lowest common denominator – and usually established by a 'facilitator’ and assistant whose function the other members of the group are unaware of-are browbeaten until they do. Now strictly speaking, brainwashing was developed in groups under external control such as prisoners. What is new is that Americans by the millions are rushing to accept this type of experience voluntarily. Est, Forum, Silva Mind Control, Scientology, Synenon, their name is legion. Corporations are insisting that their executives go through this type of experience. Interestingly, the fundamentals of this technique were developed by Pavlov at the request of Lenin, and were first effectively applied in the show, trials of Stalin. When Lenin read the result of Pavlov’s research in this field, he said to him ’you have saved the revolution.’
One last spin-off of interest is Father Bede Griffiths, the Benedictine Monk who lived near Auroville in South India. He- ived like a Hindu sadhu, supposedly achieving a blend of Eastern and Catholic mysticism. His guru and source of inspiration was also Aurobindo. In his book, A New Vision of Reality, he informs us that the world ’is on the verge of a new age and a new culture.’ The advertisement tells us he is a ’spokes man of the New Age, speaking for it from his Christian-Hindu Ashram … He concludes his radical vision of a new society and a universal religion in which the essential values of Christianity will be preserved in living relationship with the other religious traditions of the world.’ Here once again, we have the export of evolutionary and Marxist thought to India, its adoption by a supposed Swami, and its reintroduction to the West, both by Murphy and the Esalen Institute, and also by Father Griffiths within the Catholic Church.
