Apropos of Record of Yoga, Let me compile here some of the comments that have appeared elsewhere:

http://www.sciy.org/blog/_archives/2007/7/29/3126349.html#1007667

Re: Untold Potentialities: India and the Third World. by Richard Hartz (4)
by Rich on Mon 20 Aug 2007 09:26 AM PDT | Profile | Permanent Link

DB wrote:

The scrupulous avoidance of stereotypical usage of words through at least two means: (1) to keep one's language expression within the limits of one's experience; and (2) to handle language creatively - is mandatory to prevent the easy slippage into the "integral religion" of "conscious evolution." In this regard, Sri Aurobindo himself gives us the best example. Further, he coins a completely different dictionary for his own use in the Record of Yoga. DB....

regards the Record, I have heard various tales from senior sadhaks in the Ashram, that it was not the intention of Sri Aurobindo to publish his personal diary or what we call the Record of Yoga. First is that an assertion which can be verified? and next if true, is the fact that it was not published by either Sri Aurobindo or the Mother because they wished to resists its slippage into the discourse regime of the (pseudo)enlightenment industry? or even mis-interpreted by the aspiring sadhak or sadhika? or did he just wish for these to simply function as his own personal notes and reflections?

Re: Re: Untold Potentialities: India and the Third World. by Richard Hartz (4)
by RY Deshpande on Wed 22 Aug 2007 04:09 AM PDT | Profile | Permanent Link

An important point, Rich.
It will be nice if DB can get the details from RH himself. My own understanding is as follows: There was a pile of Sri Aurobindo's unpublished writings at that time and on top of it was a note saying "confidential". This was taken to mean that the confidential matter was only in the top sheets of papers and the rest could be published. The Record was later serialised in the Ashram's Archival half yearly periodical. Perhaps this could have been enough, instead of bringing out the whole lot in the complete works. But I don't know. Let DB take up the matter with RH.

RYD

Re: Re: Re: Untold Potentialities: India and the Third World. by Richard Hartz (4)
by Rich on Wed 22 Aug 2007 11:14 AM PDT | Profile | Permanent Link

RYD
Thanks for the light you have shed so far,
even though in an Era of information it would be counter-intuitive for anything to remain "confidential" especially with regards to someone like Sri Aurobindo who is of iconic status in sub-continent and world history, and fortunate for us that the "Archives" has done an excellent work in its excavation and recovery,
however, if true, the fact that Mother did not publish it nor (as I understand it) Nolini-da, would perhaps be significant. or maybe not? At any rate the discussions regards the publication decision, and the literary history of the editorial process would be valuable in itself....rc

Re: Re: Re: Re: Untold Potentialities: India and the Third World. by Richard Hartz (4)
by RY Deshpande on Thu 23 Aug 2007 03:59 AM PDT | Profile | Permanent Link

Rich: I would not apply the criteria of the Information Era to matters spiritual and occult. We had the ancient mysteries, and till yesterday the secret of the Veda had remained a secret. And whatever is overt, hardly we understand anything of it, for isntance, of the Gita and the Upanishads. The Mother didn't want the Agenda to be published the way it has now been done. But perhaps the most important thing is, our growing in the spiritual perception--which will assure all that that is needed for that growth. The deed has been done and there is hardly anything else one can do now about it--except to develop our psychic-spiritual faculties by profitting from all these splendid richnesses.

RYD

Re: Re: Re: Re: Untold Potentialities: India and the Third World. by Richard Hartz (4)
by Rich on Thu 23 Aug 2007 08:48 AM PDT | Profile | Permanent Link

RYD wrote"

"I would not apply the criteria of the Information Era to matters spiritual and occult."

I totally agree with you.

rc

Rich's note should open new windows of investigation. I had suggested DB to shed light on the issue. I repeat the suggestion. Thanks.

RYD

Here I am reposting the following comment from
http://www.sciy.org/blog/_archives/2007/1/1/2611511.html#1012136
This is in view of the reference it makes to the publication of the Record of Yoga.

Three Questions about Savitri-Agenda
Before I can respond to Arun, let me take the three questions a journalist-cum-author friend of mine, Prabhakar Nulkar, has asked. These questions are as follows:

• Is the Mother’s Agenda a Supplementary to Savitri?
• Is it a ‘must’ for Savitri studies?
• Can it be termed as a prose Savitri?

Difficult questions. I mean, they are so observant and elegant, also insightful, that we can generally answer them in the affirmative. And yet it is not quite so. Answers to these questions are not available in the Prashnopanishad and we can go only by our deepest perceptions, our enlightened intuition of things in its authenticity.

Sri Aurobindo had two very major spiritual experiences in just one year at the beginning of his spiritual calling, and that was during his hectic political days, around 1908. More or less following it, at a very early stage, he was given the Adhyatma Yoga in the nature of the Sapta Chatushtaya, leading to the Yoga of Self-Perfection. When the Yoga progressed in the course of the years Sri Aurobindo, in the 1930s, wrote that only a part of what was given earlier could be applied to things which were happening during this period, the Letters-period. During the Savitri-era, the 1940s, he had established in himself the Mind of Light, the physical’s mind opening to the supramental, the Siddhi necessary towards the transformation of the physical. If Savitri is the Record of his Yoga-Siddhis belonging to it, then we should take note of the above three questions from that point of view, answer them in that context. We must recognise that firstly Savitri is the revelation of these attainments.

But Savitri is not just a Word-document, in the MSFT edit-format. It is a living-breathing Word. In fact, Savitri is the Word of Truth with its Truth-dynamism and, being so, it does not come to a stop, does not stop with the 1950. It grows, it expands, it conquers newer worlds, in the spirit and the soul of a supramental Yogi it explores the dimensions of the supramental, its powers which are ready to descend upon earth; in its wake newer possibilities open out, the possibilities of a new manifestation. Savitri is not a frozen experience. While it contains what is experienced, it has the supremacy to give rise to experiences—they entering into life with an unfolding drive and force.

Agenda is not a supplement to Savitri, an auxiliary, ancillary, an addendum to it. It has an independent status, more concerned with the working of the supramental in the physical. Is the Letters on Yoga a supplement to the Synthesis of Yoga? Is Matri Mandir a ‘supplement’ to the Ashram? But while the Mother was revealing all those wonderful, as well as painful, experiences Sri Aurobindo was constantly, all the while, present with her; he was expressing himself through her, willing and doing whatever had to be willed and done for the Yoga of Transformation.

Is Agenda a ‘must’ for Savitri? and the Vedas and the authentic scriptures and the knowledge of the worlds? and the philosophies and the Arts and the Literature and the findings of Sciences? Whatever can make us perceptive to the inner reality and bring to us the truths of the spiritual domains, all that is relevant to Savitri. Ultimately Savitri shall give us the truth and the things of the truth. It is the Word of the Age, the Age of the Ageless, it is Yuga-Vakya.

Agenda is sheer poetry. Its rasa, its essence is the Glory of the Lord himself. But not all that we have in the present Agenda—all the extraneous stuff from it must go. The Mother didn’t want to publish it in that form. She had instructed it to be edited by André before publishing it. This was not done. A similar thing could be said about the Record of Yoga. It is said that this was done with the approval of Nolini. But not really. He had given the papers to be just typed out, and that’s all, typed without taking a copy. The original papers had become brittle and just to preserve the contents, he had permitted these to be typed. And that’s all. After the Record-period the yoga-tapasya of Sri Aurobindo had progressed so much that we should be careful not to mix it with the later Siddhis. The parameters of operation had changed, had progressed, one founded on the other—it was the House of the Spirit that was being built upon Earth. The further great change took place in the Agenda. We might say that Savitri envisions it, the Agenda, but the aspect of realisation is in the Agenda. What is the realisation of the Agenda? The physical itself saying “What Thou willest, what Thou willest”, its surrender to the Supreme. Is that the Mantra of Savitri? Not quite. In any case, Savitri is its foundation.

In our spiritual pursuit we have to understand what is it exactly that we need and we will find that that help is indeed available. Savitri is there to give that help—and it is founded on that that we have the Agenda.

RYD