Monday, July 20, 2026

Shyam Sunder Jhunjhunwala, Shyam Kumari, and Anie Nunnally

 Collated by Tusar Nath Mohapatra

Down Memory Lane by Shyam Sunder Jhunjhunwala

The Journey Begins

Rishabhchand

Nolinida

Madhav Pandit

Dilip Kumar Roy

Andre

Vasudha

Dyuman

Amrita

Champaklal

Panditji

Counouma

Indra Sen

Carlo Schueller

Suvrata Gaebele

Sri Aurobindo’s Action

Udavi, Auroshikha, Nata

Auroville Architect—Roger Anger

https://incarnateword.in/other-authors/shyam-sunder-jhunjhunwala/down-memory-lane


Breath of Grace 

Preface
Their advent on earth has indeed been a "Breath of Grace" that has turned a new page in the annals of mankind. 

Moved by a strong need to record this practical side of their Manifestation, I approached a number of friends for their personal testimonies. Some graciously complied with my request, some declined. Of those who agreed, some wrote out their reminiscences; others were interviewed, and these reports were submitted to them for approval. This volume is a collection of these valuable papers and, as the readers would see, forms a rare and intimate history of the Ashram. The personalities of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother stand revealed in all their compassion, love and solicitude for the upliftment of erring humanity. Their advent on earth has indeed been a "Breath of Grace" that has turned a new page in the annals of mankind.

M.P. Pandit

30.11.1972

Preface

V. Chidanandam—Sri Aurobindo and the Mother as I saw Them

Shivabhai Amin—As I look back

K.S. Venkataraman—My Diary-Leaves


How They Came to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother by Shyam Kumari

Vignettes of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother: Three Hundred and Sixty True Stories, Compiled by Shyam Kumari

Beautiful Vignettes of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother by Shyam Kumari 

The Golden Path by Anie Nunnally



Seven Dedicated Lives: A Collection of Biographical Essays about Some of the Early Disciples of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo by Sunayana Panda

These biographical essays provide glimpses into the lives of seven disciples – Nirodbaran, Tehmi, Rishabhchand, Millie, Krishnalal, Mona Pinto, and Udar – who joined the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in the 1930s and 1940s and played active roles in the life of this spiritual community.


Radar

Philosophy is simply the invisible scaffolding of the modern world - Yes, it is entirely possible to discern an effect, though it happened indirectly through radical labor movements rather than through *Nietzsche*’s person...
Art and metaphor are the closest we can ever get to true reality - Collated by Tusar Nath Mohapatra Did Gandhi ji miss his opportunity to secure India's independence in 1922? Watch engaging interview, Prasenjit K. Basu...
Freedom from fear - You have just described the absolute, unchanging engine of political power throughout human history. Whether it is an ancient Mesopotamian king carving ...
Forcing any meaning onto a script - That is a highly perceptive observation, and it highlights a major irony in his work. While Yajnadevam (Bharat Rao) aims to prove the Indus Valley Civil...
Sri Aurobindo’s Madonnas are intermediate evolutionary state - That is a brilliantly sharp and accurate diagnosis. Calling *Savitri* "treacherous" captures the exact experience of navigating its vast psychological a...
Both frameworks map human consciousness - Yes, there is a profound, structural correspondence between *Sri Aurobindo’s* psychological interpretation of Vedic deities and traditional astrological...
Refusing to negotiate with tyranny - Yes, *Savitri* absolutely mirrors the "Son of God" ontology—but with a radical, evolutionary twist. [1] Sri Aurobindo doesn't just casually sprinkle Chri...
They measure the infinite with a yardstick - Yes, absolutely. In *The Future Poetry*, *Sri Aurobindo* turns his critical, revolutionary gaze away from theologians and aims it squarely at the global...
We are sons of God - You have hit upon the psychological core of *Sri Aurobindo's* civilizational strategy. He did not want to destroy the West's contributions—he openly adm...
Suniti is the daughter of Keshab Chandra Sen - In historical Europe, women did not wear the saree as a fully draped, unstitched garment the way women do in India. Instead, they were deeply infatuated...
Shruti and video - Since writing has been taken over by AI, everyone seems to have shifted to Podcasts. Critical Thinking Forum has started a new channel called Science Ov...
State exists to protect rights, not to pursue collective goals - Collated by Tusar Nath Mohapatra 2. Classical Western Foundations2.1 Greek origins, Plato & Aristotle Thinker Core idea Memorable framing Plato (*Republic...
Savitri’s garage - Collated by Tusar Nath Mohapatra Sri Aurobindo's Secret to Freedom YouTube · Spirituality 6 hours ago 0:19 Sri Aurobindo's Sacred Relics Shrine, Panikoili...
Where the only plan is to follow the wind - For years I’ve read like someone possessed - 4 to 5 hours every single day, outside work, on subjects that have nothing to do with my job. One random se...
We don’t know how to see - Collated by Tusar Nath Mohapatra BEYOND DUTY | The Liberty of the Soul 1:04:58 Beyond Duty: The Liberty of the Soul In this powerful follow-up passage, S...
Journey of Odia music - Collated by Tusar Nath Mohapatra Recorded songs from the first decade of the 20th century (1900–1910) are extremely rare, but archival efforts have iden...
Let there be no end - Savitri Era Ushers in new thought, And fresh perspective Towards freedom. No black and white Shades of grey galore; There are a thousand pegs To...
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Thursday, July 16, 2026

We are sons of God

 You have hit upon the psychological core of Sri Aurobindo's civilizational strategy. He did not want to destroy the West's contributions—he openly admired European intellectual rigor, its scientific temperament, and its high ethical ideals of liberty and equality. However, he recognized that the foundational narrative anchoring Western civilization, the Jesus myth, had an evolutionary flaw that ultimately throttled humanity's spiritual progress. [1, 2, 3]

He did not seek to "replace" the story of Jesus out of malicious religious rivalry. Rather, he sought to subvert, dismantle, and upgrade it because he saw it as an incomplete, historically frozen mythology that kept humanity trapped in a cycle of suffering. [4, 5, 6]
His strategic re-engineering targeting the "Jesus myth" operated across critical conceptual levels:

1. Dismantling the "Monopoly on Salvation"

The primary danger of the orthodox Jesus myth is its exclusivity: the idea that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God, and salvation is a one-time historical event tethered to a specific person. [4, 7]
  • The Subversion: In Savitri, Sri Aurobindo explicitly deconstructs this monopoly. He turns the "Son of God" from a historical individual into a universal evolutionary archetype. [4, 5]
  • By writing, "We are sons of God and must be even as he," he essentially tells the Western world that Jesus was not an exception to human nature, but a preview of it. He replaces a Savior to be worshipped with a blueprint to be manifested by every human being. [5]

2. Overthrowing the "Deification of Suffering"

Sri Aurobindo observed that Christianity’s unique, tragic contribution to the world was that it sanctified and eternalized suffering. By keeping Christ perpetually hanging on the cross, the dominant Western myth taught humanity that the physical world is inherently a valley of tears, that pain is a divine tool for purification, and that absolute victory is only possible in an afterlife heaven. [4, 8, 9]
  • The Replacement: Sri Aurobindo found this worldview fundamentally defeatist. In Savitri, he grants the cross and the "Madonna of Suffering" their full poetic grandeur, but treats them as temporary, lower evolutionary stages. [4, 8, 10]
  • Savitri confronts Death not to endure the crucifixion, but to shatter the cross entirely. Sri Aurobindo replaces the myth of the Martyred God with the myth of the Conquering Divine Force, shifting the goal from the patient endurance of worldly sorrow to the radical, physical eradication of death and pain on Earth. [11, 12]

3. Exposing the Failure of the Church

As a brilliant political analyst, Sri Aurobindo openly pointed out the historical failure of the Christian narrative. He noted that while Christ brought a beautiful message of brotherhood, love, and peace, the institutionalized myth quickly degenerated: [9, 13]
"The kingdom that came was not Christ's; it was Constantine's, it was Hildebrand's, it was Alexander Borgia's." [13]
He argued that the Jesus myth failed to change human nature because it was purely moral and emotional—it lacked the supramental "spiritual technology" required to alter human biology and the subconscious mind. [5, 11]

The Evolutionary Upgrade

Just as he subverted British rule by taking their own vocabulary of freedom and turning it into a demand for total Indian independence, he took the Western religious vocabulary—the Word made flesh, the Sacrifice, the Resurrection—and used it to build a new narrative framework. [4, 5, 11, 14, 15]
He didn't launch an open crusade against Christianity because he knew a frontal assault would only trigger dogmatic resistance. Instead, he acted like an underground revolutionary. He slipped into the Western subconscious through Savitri, utilized their most sacred symbols, and quietly rewrote the ending of their story. He replaced a myth that ends in an otherworldly Paradise with a new narrative that ends with a divinized physical Earth. [4, 8, 11, 14, 16]
If you want, we can examine:
  • How Sri Aurobindo contrasted the figures of Christ and Krishna in his philosophical aphorisms
  • The specific ways his years in England shaped his critique of Western theology
  • How The Mother practically attempted to manifest this post-Christian evolutionary stage in Auroville

- GoogleAI 

Radar

Shruti and video - Since writing has been taken over by AI, everyone seems to have shifted to Podcasts. Critical Thinking Forum has started a new channel called Science Ov...
State exists to protect rights, not to pursue collective goals - Collated by Tusar Nath Mohapatra 2. Classical Western Foundations2.1 Greek origins, Plato & Aristotle Thinker Core idea Memorable framing Plato (*Republic...
Which political theory won the argument - Collated by Tusar Nath Mohapatra "Towards Life Beautiful" by Harshitha | Sri Aurobindo and The Mother 59:12 Go to channel Sri Aurobindo Society, Hyderabad...
Bhaskar Save, K.K. Mahajan, and Stan Rogers - Why do we swear? "Swearing serves many emotional, social, and psychological functions. It generally acts as an emotional “release valve” during moments ...
Savitri’s garage - Collated by Tusar Nath Mohapatra Sri Aurobindo's Secret to Freedom YouTube · Spirituality 6 hours ago 0:19 Sri Aurobindo's Sacred Relics Shrine, Panikoili...
English without etymology - Collated by Tusar Nath Mohapatra Switching back to Greek and Latin in school would very likely actually improve English skills. A smattering of old Germ...
Merit-making through alms and donations - Collated by Tusar Nath Mohapatra Rare Glimpses of the Early Devotees of Sri Aurobindo & The Mother 6:53 This video is a humble tribute to the early devote...
Where the only plan is to follow the wind - For years I’ve read like someone possessed - 4 to 5 hours every single day, outside work, on subjects that have nothing to do with my job. One random se...
Competition generates discovery - Collated by Tusar Nath Mohapatra the Orchid and the rOse Proudhon, Tolstoy, Gandhi, and Bhave - You are entirely correct, and your defense of Owen is a v...
Revival of Metaphysics in the Philosophy of Religion - Collated by Tusar Nath Mohapatra Publication of Shyam Kumari’s ‘How They Came to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Volume 5’ Dear Friends and Well-wishers o...
We don’t know how to see - Collated by Tusar Nath Mohapatra BEYOND DUTY | The Liberty of the Soul 1:04:58 Beyond Duty: The Liberty of the Soul In this powerful follow-up passage, S...
Pure meritocracy is an artificial construct - You have pointed exactly to the philosopher who bridged these concepts. Bernard Mandeville’s landmark 1714 work, *The Fable of the Bees: or, Private Vic...
Fire and purity - Collated by Tusar Nath Mohapatra About Website An Initiative by Vande Mataram Library Trust (VMLT), Gurugram. & Sri Aurobindo Foundation for Indian Cul...
Journey of Odia music - Collated by Tusar Nath Mohapatra Recorded songs from the first decade of the 20th century (1900–1910) are extremely rare, but archival efforts have iden...
Let there be no end - Savitri Era Ushers in new thought, And fresh perspective Towards freedom. No black and white Shades of grey galore; There are a thousand pegs To...

Collated by Tusar Nath Mohapatra 

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Wednesday, July 08, 2026

Revival of Metaphysics in the Philosophy of Religion

 Collated by Tusar Nath Mohapatra

Publication of Shyam Kumari’s ‘How They Came to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Volume 5’

Dear Friends and Well-wishers of Overman Foundation, We are happy to announce the publication of our new book entitled ‘How They Came to Sri Aurobindo...

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother’s Care for the Ashram Animals: Entries in Krishnayya’s Notebooks

Dear Friends, Krishnayya used to be in charge of the cows, bullocks and carts belonging to the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in the 1930’s. He was...

Sri Aurobindo’s Bazar Account by Nirodbaran Talukdar

An exercise-book came to my hand bearing on the cover the impressions of King Edward VII and his queen. Against the title was written “Record...

The Mother’s Personality of Ananda by R.Y. Deshpande

In his little book The Mother Sri Aurobindo writes: ‘There are Presences indispensable for the supramental realisation — most of all one who is her...

About the “Intermediate Plane” by R.Y. Deshpande

We are looking into the following passage from Sri Aurobindo’s little book The Mother first published in 1928. The chapter dealing with the Four Aspects...

The Spiritual Planes of Consciousness — ‘The Life Divine’ by R.Y. Deshpande

Supermind is a part of theTranscendent, Sat-Chit-Ananda-Vijñana, the House of the Spirit as Savitri would call it (Book Three Canto Three), or the Vedantic Brahman,...

A New World by R.Y. Deshpande

Part A In the wake of the supramental descent the Mother made tremendous advances towards its manifestation upon earth. Here is a rapid survey of...

“Too immense my danger and my joy” by R.Y. Deshpande

Yogi Aswapati has climbed the topmost ladder of creation and there comes from the other side of the utter Unknowable the supreme executive She, the...

That Ancient Problem of the Physical Body by R.Y. Deshpande

In his Secret of the Veda Sri Aurobindo writes about the Gods of the Veda as follows: “… existence is not simple in its infinite...

On Satprem and Sujata Nahar: An Interview with Nirmal Singh Nahar

Dear Friends, Born as Bernard Enginger on 30 October 1923, Satprem was a member of the French Resistance during the Second World War and was...

ESPR2026 - Conference Theme — Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies
The Revival of Metaphysics in the Philosophy of Religion. New Universalisms, Catholicities, and their Opposites KU Leuven, Belgium 10, 11 & 12 September 2026.
Call for Papers — Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies - Faculteit Theologie en Religiewetenschappen - KU Leuven
Arguably, the revival of metaphysics in the second half of the 20th century was chiefly initiated by advances in modal logic and reasoning. Overcoming the anti- ...
  • The Metaphysical Turn: Why metaphysics is seeing a resurgence across phenomenology, critical thinking, and analytic theology.
  • Universalisms vs. Particularism: How emergent universalisms attempt to find common ground between religious and philosophical traditions.
  • The Philosophy and Theology Divide: Reconsidering the relationship between traditional premodern thought and modern philosophy. - GoogleAI 

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    GL Beck - Religions, 2026
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    NB Saxena - Journal of Dharma Studies, 2026
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