Joseph Vrinte (1949- )

After reading an article in Times Magazine on the opening ceremony of Auroville in 1968, I decided to go to India in order to participate in this collective experiment for human unity. However, while living in Auroville I did not understand Sri Aurobindo's integral vision and, therefore, decided to follow a Yoga Research / Training course to get familiar with various practical / theoretical aspects of Yoga. In order to acquire a detailed background of Indian Philosophy and to approach Sri Aurobindo's philosophical vision from an academic background I decided to study Indian and Western Philosophy at the Lucknow University. While doing my M.A. in Philosophy / Psychology I chose Sri Aurobindo as a special subject. During my research work I was living in the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry, a place, which I used as a field of experimentation and where I received the necessary guidance from some Aurobindonians with an academic background.

After finishing my research work I became more familiar with the Transpersonal Psychological movement and Sri Aurobindo's Integral Sadhana, which resulted in the publication of my second book. Afterwards I moved to Auroville where I studied Ken Wilber in detail, as he claimed to offer a 'refinement' of Sri Aurobindo's Integral Vision. While sympathetically exploring points of convergence as well as points of divergence in their views I discovered that the weak areas Ken Wilber identified and his refinements of Sri Aurobindo's metaphysical vision are more related to the devotees of Sri Aurobindo than to Sri Aurobindo's vision itself. That is why I wrote the third book in 2002 explaining all these points. In the near future I hope to start a detailed study on F. Schelling's and Sri Aurobindo's transcendental idealism.