Six pillars vs. Scepticism

Six pillars: introductions to the major works of Sri Aurobindo

- Chambersburg, Pa.: Wilson Books, 1974.- ix, 198 p.: port.; 21 cm.- SERIES: [South and Southeast Asia studies].- NOTES: Bibliography: p. 194-198. .- ISBN: 0890120013

• Savitri; poetic expression of spiritual experience, by John Collins
• The foundations of Indian culture; its contemporary significance, by Thomas Berry
• The vision of the Purushottama in Essays on the Gita, by Thomas J. Hopkins
• A new yoga for a new age: a critical introduction to The synthesis of yoga, by J. Bruce Long
• A pragmatic approach to The human cycle, by Eugene Fontinell
• The life divine; Sri Aurobindo's philosophy of evolution and transformation, by Robert A. McDermott

Zinkin, Taya. Book Review -- Heehs, P. Sri Aurobindo: A Brief Biography

Having fled from British justice to Pondicherry, Aurobindo met Mme Richard - the Mother - and soon became a recluse. He spent twenty-four years locked in three rooms, accessible to his devotees only through the Mother. During that time his philosophical outpourings were gargantuan; whether they are profound is debatable. However, what is remarkable is that during the time in spent in seclusion, emerging only a few times a year for brief blessings of his devotees, he kept walking back and forth for ten hours every day, wearing a channel two feet deep in the floor of his three rooms. The author, who devotes the last part of his book to the philosophy and the writings of Sri Aurobindo, is more than discreet about the part played by the Mother and presents a picture of Ashram austerity and saintliness which is at variance with this reviewer's memory of the facts.