22 thoughts on “The Non-Duality of Advaita and the Christian Metaphor by Merlyn Swan”

1. I was an intern with Infinity Foundation when Don Salmon got a 3 year full-time salary to write a book. He is right on that point. I no longer work there but they have the old records about this I am sure. In this grant project given to Shri Salmon, he was to write a book that would show Wilber borrowing Indian ideas from Aurobindo and others.

   But some years later Salmon had moved on from Indic work to a Christian organization taking his knowledge with him. In effect he had UTurned. Shri Rajiv pointed tbis out and Salmon got very angry.

   When Salmon’s book appeared, it contains an attribution to Infinity giving him the grant. But the book is silent on Wilber. He did not want to break ranks with his peers in the psychology field as he is an opportunistic and wants what he can get from anywhere he gets it. So his book does n ot fulfil the promise to write about Wilber’s digestion.

   Also the YogaPsychology egroup of yahoo has the archive where Salmon used to post extensively in favor of Indic thought.

   When Shri Rajiv pointed out to Salmon his disappointment Salmon got very angry. Since then Salmon went even further into the Christian digestion of Indic thought. He has become one of the prime digesters now operating in Christianity.

   Shri Phabhat is a naive man fighting without having done full homework. He does not know this background. He must first go to the Yahoo egroup on Yogapsychology. Do your homework by studying the egroup at: https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/yogapsychology/info

   Shri Salmon should discuss issues on his work rather than lashing out personally. The YP egroup and his Infinity grant work shows his early allegiances to Indic thought. Why the sudden switch to Christianity?

   Answer is not that he hates Hinduism but that he chases the latest money supply.

   1. I was an intern with Infinity Foundation when Don Salmon got a 3 year full-time salary to write a book. He is right on that point. I no longer work there but they have the old records about this I am sure. In this grant project given to Shri Salmon, he was to write a book that would show Wilber borrowing Indian ideas from Aurobindo and others.

      THERE WAS NEVER ONE WORD FROM MALHOTRA ASKING ME TO WRITE A BOOK ABOUT WILBER. I HAVE THE ORIGINAL PROPOSAL IF ANYBODY WANTS TO SEE IT – I MENTIONED WILBER’S NAME IN PASSING ON THE FIRST PAGE AND THE WHOLE REST OF THE PROPOSAL IS ABOUT SRI AUROBINDO. IF YOU LOOK AT THE BOOK I WROTE (PUBLISHED IN 2007) AND LOOK AT THE PROPOSAL (WRITTEN IN 2000) YOU’LL FIND THE CORE THEMES ARE CONSISTENT THROUGHOUT.

      But some years later Salmon had moved on from Indic work to a Christian organization taking his knowledge with him. In effect he had UTurned. Shri Rajiv pointed tbis out and Salmon got very angry.

      I’D APPRECIATE IT, ADITYA, IF YOU WOULD TELL ME ABOUT THIS CHRISTIAN ORGANIZATION. I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT. SINCE I LEFT THE UNITARIAN CHURCH IN 1963 (A CHURCH I ONLY WENT TO BECAUSE MY PARENTS WANTED ME TO – FROM AGES 5 TO 11) I HAVE NEVER BEEN A MEMBER OF ANY CHURCH. I’VE ATTENDED RELIGIOUS/SPIRITUAL SERVICES IN ORGANIZATIONS FROM BUDDHIST TO HINDU TO SUFI TO JEWISH TO CHRISTIAN, BUT HAVE NEVER BEEN A MEMBER. SO ADITYA, SINCE YOU KNOW MORE ABOUT ME THAN I DO, PLEASE LET ME KNOW WHICH ONE IT IS.

      BY THE WAY, BEFORE I COVER THE OTHER POINTS, THE MOST INTERESTING LIE RAJIV TOLD ME IS THAT HE READ OUR BOOK ON YOGA PSYCHOLOGY. WHEN I READ HIS INITIAL REVIEW, IT WAS SO DIFFERENT FROM THE BOOK I ASKED RAJIV IF HE READ IT. AT FIRST, HE SAID OF COURSE HE DID. HE INSISTED THIS WAS ABSOLUTELY TRUE FOR A YEAR UNTIL I FINALLY GOT HIM ON THE PHONE, AND ASKED FOR SPECIFIC INSTANCES OF THE VARIOUS CHARGES HE MADE. HE HEMMED AND HAWED UNTIL HE ADMITTED IN FACT HE HAD NOT READ THE BOOK. HE CLAIMED HE COULD SKIM IT VERY QUICKLY AND GET THE GIST OF IT. EVIDENTLY IT DIDN’T MATTER THAT IN SKIMMING IT, HE WROTE A REVIEW COMPLAINING ABOUT AUTHORS WHO WEREN’T EVEN MENTIONED IN THE BOOK, AND ACTUALLY REVERSED THE INTENT OF ALMOST EVERY OTHER POINT HE MADE. HE NEVER WOULD ACTUALLY ADMIT THAT HE HAD LIED ABOUT HAVING READ THE WHOLE BOOK COVER TO COVER.

      When Salmon’s book appeared, it contains an attribution to Infinity giving him the grant. But the book is silent on Wilber. He did not want to break ranks with his peers in the psychology field as he is an opportunistic and wants what he can get from anywhere he gets it. So his book does n ot fulfil the promise to write about Wilber’s digestion.

      AS I SAID, THE INTENT FROM THE VERY BEGINNING WAS TO WRITE ABOUT SRI AUROBINDO’S INTEGRAL PSYCHOLOGY. I WAS NEVER ASKED TO WRITE ABOUT WILBER FOR THE BOOK, HOWEVER IF YOU GO TO THE INFINITY FOUNDATION SITE, YOU’LL SEE ESSAYS OF MINE CRITICIZING WILBER AND OTHERS WHO APPROPRIATED INDIAN THOUGHT WITHOUT ACKNOWLEDGING IT.

      Also the YogaPsychology egroup of yahoo has the archive where Salmon used to post extensively in favor of Indic thought.

      When Shri Rajiv pointed out to Salmon his disappointment Salmon got very angry. Since then Salmon went even further into the Christian digestion of Indic thought. He has become one of the prime digesters now operating in Christianity.

      I’M NOT SURE HOW MY DIGESTION WORKS INTO IT;>))) ONCE AGAIN, FIND SOMETHING I’VE WRITTEN ON THE NET THAT FOCUSES ON CHRISTIANITY. I’VE WRITTEN DOZENS OF ARTICLES ON THE NET YOU CAN FIND EASILY. YOU’LL NEVER FIND ONE THING I’VE SAID ON THE NET THAT DENIGRATES THE BEST OF INDIAN SPIRITUALITY, AND YOU’LL FIND 99% OF WHAT I WRITE IS BASED ON SRI AUROBINDO.

      Shri Phabhat is a naive man fighting without having done full homework. He does not know this background. He must first go to the Yahoo egroup on Yogapsychology. Do your homework by studying the egroup at: https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/yogapsychology/info

      YES, I WAS THE MODERATOR OF THE YOGA PSYCHOLOGY GROUP IN 2001 AND 2002 – I’M VERY PROUD OF EVERYTHING I WROTE THERE. GO AHEAD AND FIND ME A QUOTE FROM THERE WHERE I PUT DOWN INDIC THOUGHT AND COMPARE IT UNFAVORABLY TO CHRISTIANITY. YOU WON’T FIND ONE. AND THEN LOOK AT MY BOOK (MANY OF THE CHAPTERS ARE AVAILABLE ONLINE IF YOU WANT TO FIND OUT HOW MUCH ADITYA IS LYING. GO TO INTEGRALWORLD.NET AND CLICK ON THE READING ROOM AND SEARCH “SALMON” AND YOU’LL SEE THE CHAPTERS. GO TO http://WWW.IPI.ORG.IN (yes, it’s a site on Indian psychology and I’m still posting there – so much for Aditya’s lies – check if he’s still being paid by Rajiv – about me putting christianity above indic thought) AND CLICK ON THE BLOG

      Shri Salmon should discuss issues on his work rather than lashing out personally. The YP egroup and his Infinity grant work shows his early allegiances to Indic thought. Why the sudden switch to Christianity?

      NO SWITCH TO CHRISTIANITY, THIS IS A LIE. I DO AGREE WITH SRI AUROBINDO THAT THE ESSENTIAL CONTEMPLATIVE UNDERSTANDING OF THE WISEST CHRISTIANS – AS IS THE CASE IN JEWISH MYSTICISM, SUFISM, BUDDHISM, ETC – IS ONE WITH THAT OF INDIA.

      Answer is not that he hates Hinduism but that he chases the latest money supply.

      WELL, SINCE OUR YOGA PSYCHOLOGY BOOK HAS SOLD SEVERAL HUNDRED BOOKS, AND WE’VE NEVER MADE ANY EFFORT TO PUBLICIZE IT, I’D LIKE TO KNOW WHERE THIS MONEY SUPPLY IS:>))))) THAT WAS ONE FOR A GOOD LAUGH.

      GO AHEAD, ADITYA, SINCE YOU’VE BEEN INVOLVED WITH INFINITY FOUNDATION, FIND ME THE DOCUMENT WHERE IT SAYS RAJIV ASKED ME TO WRITE A BOOK ABOUT WILBER. YOU CAN’T BECAUSE IT DOESN’T EXIST.

      AND LAST LIE – I NEVER GOT A SALARY. I GOT ONE INITIAL PAYMENT, AND THEN A FOLLOW UP SUM, MUCH SMALLER, TO HELP WITH EXPENSES IN A TRIP TO INDIA (YES, INDIA, NOT THE VATICAN OR THE HOME OF LUTHER:>))).

      THE ONLY THING ADITYA SIAD THAT’S TRUE IS KEN WILBER IS SICK IN THE LAST FEW YEARS AND HAS HAD TROUBLE WITH HIS DIGESTION. OTHERWISE, ANYBODY IS WELCOME TO LOOK AT THE YOGA PSYCHOLOGY POSTINGS AND OUR YOGA PSYCHOLOGY BOOK, AND MY ORIGINAL PROPOSAL (WHICH I’LL POST HERE IF ADITYA KEEPS LYING) AND SEE WHAT THE TRUTH IS.

      Merlyn, I apologize for this and if you don’t want this ridiculous comment thread continuing here, perhaps we can move it somewhere else. Again, i think you wrote an excellent post, and so far Aditya and Prabhu simply prove they have a cult mentality and are unable to see through Rajiv’s rather extensive network of lies.

      In case the capital letters were too annoying here it is simply:

      1. Rajiv asked me to write a book on Sri Aurobindo and yoga psychology, and beyond that, told me i was completely free to shape it as I saw fit.
      2. I fully acknowledge I wrote yoga-positive articles as 2 year moderator of the yoga psychology group. These are in line with everything i’ve written and said since 1972 when I discovered Vedanta, and everyone who comes here who is skillful at googling can go on the net and see articles I’ve written since 1997 that are Indic positive, right up to the present day.
      3. I never received a salary from IF – just two payments. Rajiv guaranteed, over and over, that he would help publicize the book when it came out and he never did.
      4. Rajiv lied about helping with publicity, and he lied about reading the whole book. Even after admitting he only skimmed it, he refused to acknowledge he had lied before. Even after he complained about several “christian” authors (like Rupert Sheldrake, whose name shows up twice in the whole book) who he considers one of the villains of the infamous U-Turn (westerners who turned to india then went back to Christianity) and was unable to cite a single accurate thing about the book that was “anti-indian” (strange since the whole book was about seeing Western psychology and philosophy from an indic perspective!!!) and even complained about authors WHO NEVER APPEARED IN TEH BOOK, he still wouldn’t admit having lied about reading the book.

      So Aditya and Prabhu, there, I’ve answered your every lie. Now, find something specific or even better, read the online chapters of the book and then tell me I’m anti-indic. The people in the Sri Aurobindo community who have been reading my writings for the past 18 years online would be very surprised and interested to hear about it:>))

      Well, that was good for a laugh this morning!

      1. Dear Shri Salmon,

         It would be helpful to your credibility if you did not demean serious discussants by name calling such as “minions”. Could that be a projection of your becoming a Church minion?

         I refer you for evidence to the YogaPsychology egroup of which you were one of the co-moderators. It is inactive now but the archive is still intact and available online. Please refresh your memory.

         The Internet memory does not lie. There is a clear & staunch Hindu/Indic stance you have in the early period when that forum started. Thats when Infinity was paying you. Your tone starts shifting over time. You also wrote critically about Wilber, as anyone can see there. Wilber was being discussed as the most prominent appropriator of Aurobindo and you were very harsh on Wilber.

         Wouldn’t it better of you said that your thinking has evolved and moved on? That is normal for most people who learn and grow. Why accuse those who shine the light on your intellectual journey? That you hit out at Shri Rajiv is telling and indicates fear, anxiety of getting caught.

         Lets stick to the hard facts available online. Besides that, the email exchanges you had with Infinity are also part of the foundation’s archive and I might be able to get access to that given my prior association there. Lets discuss the hard evidence without acrimony or slander.

         Personally I dont think it wrong if you learned as you went along and changed your views and allegiances. But why this angry defensiveness?

         Regarding compensation you got from Infinity, its public record on their web site and in their annual filings. How can you deny hard facts? Are you denying getting grants and compensation from Infinity? Or just playing with semantics? Why is that a problem for you to acknowledge? Dont most scholars get grants? I am disappointed Shri Salmon ji.

         1. So far, Aditya, you have not cited one error of mine.

            1. I got a grant, never said i didn’t. You said I got a salary. If that was semantics, that’s fine, but it was not my error.
            2. I told you, provide me proof (other than what Rajiv told you) that I was hired to write about Wilber. I wasn’t, and my proposal stands as proof. I asked Ravjiv several years ago when he made this claim to produce any proposal I ever wrote saying I would write about Wilber and he has so far failed to do so. Unless you can provide that, I can tell you, i was asked to write a book about Sri Aurobindo and I did.
            3. I never denied I had a pro indic stance on yoga psychology – you keep claiming I did but I never anywhere stated i didn’t. I have had a pro indic stance since 1972 and have need wavered from it. Instead of just making random claims, show me evidence to the contrary.
            4. I have never joined any “christian” organization since (or before) being in evolved with IH or the yoga psychology group. Prove otherwise, don’t ust throw around empty words
            5. It’s a fact, not slander, that Rajiv lied to me. He implicitly acknowledge it. He told me repeatedly over a year that he read the book, and even added several times that he read it thoroguhy. he then a year later admitted he had not read it and only skimmed it. Saying that’s a lie is not slander it’s a fact. He quoted several authors as examples of my uturn in my conversation with him – authors’ names who either didn’t appear in the book at all, or to give two examples that were correct, jon Kabat Zinn and Rupert Shedrae. Zinn I mentioned critically saying he had watered down meditation and in the context of my saying indian philosophy should be presented in its full glory, not watered down. Sheldrae’s name comes twice, once in support of parapsychology – in the midst of a chapter saying the indic presentation of parapsychology is innately more profound than anything western researchers have come up with, and once quoting him on laws of nature not being absolute, again in the context that any such observation is infinitely more profound in eastern philosophy than western.

            So, if you want to keep writing vague accusations that have no basis in fact, that’s fine. I dare you to write one actual example of anything that contradicts what I just wrote.

            please, I’m curious – where have I written anti indic comments, where is there proof that Rajiv actually requested a book on wilber, where is there proof that rajiv even read our book? Where have i denied that I wrote pro indic comments on the yoga psychology forum (remember, I was the moderator for 2 years!)

            Go ahead, take any of the facts from the last paragraph and prove me wrong. I know you can’t do it because they’re all true. But go ahead – deal with the facts and don’t just post vague nonsense.

            Merlyn, I’d like to set up a page on my “Beyond the Matrix” blog to have this conversation, but don’t have time at the moment. I do apologize again. It seems like a tea party conversation of trump supporters or climate change deniers who insist on avoiding anything factual. But perhaps Aditya will prove me wrong and provide actual evidence for his absurd claims.

            I’m waiting… for facts….

            1. Ok, I did it. Here’s the entire proposal I submitted to Rajiv in 2000. Notice I only mention Ken Wilber one time, in the opening paragraph, and it’s in the context of a critical examination of various conflicting versions of “integral psychology” (and we elaborated in our book, published in 2007, noting VERY deliberately that the ORIGINAL integral psychology was developed in 1936, by Indra Sen, with Sri Aurobindo’s express permission.

               I have written tirelessly, and actually fought for, a recognition by Wilber of the origin of the term he stole, I’ve never – to this day – retreated even one iota from telling anybody who will listen that I think it is a gross injustice (a) that Wilber stole the term and (b) has lied about what he did and refuses to acknowledge that he has stolen it; he even promised me in a letter that in his 2nd edition of his own “Integral Psychology” he would acknowledge the source, but of course, he never did.

               So again, Aditya and Prabhu, let’s at least settle this one point. Aditya, you claimed that I promised Rajiv I would write a book about Wilber, and how he appropriated his ideas from Sri Aurobindo. You have a link now – https://beyondthematrixnow.wordpress.com/2015/10/22/book-proposal-for-the-infinity-foundation-tuning-the-finite-to-infinity/#comment-96 – to the original proposal.

               As you can see, you were wrong. This is the proposal I wrote, this is what I submitted to Rajiv, this is what he approved, and I never even implied over the next 7 years that I would do anything else but write a book based on these ideas.

               Do you have any personal evidence to the contrary, or did Rajiv tell you I was writing a book on Wilber? If so, now you can see why it’s not slanderous or emotionally overwrought but a simple fact that he lied. “lying” implies intention, and I have no doubt if Rajiv was confronted with this solid irrefutable evidence he would simply say, “No i didn’t lie I must have forgotten.”

               So I’ll even grant that. Would you at least acknowledge, that the evidence is irrefutable, evidence you have right in front of your eyes, that my proposal had nothing to do with writing about Wilber, and if it bothers you for me to say Rajiv intentionally said something that wasn’t true, at least you could acknowledge that Rajiv is mistaken in saying I promised to write a book about Wilber misappropriating Sri Aurobindo’s ideas.

               (by the way, if you want to know my opinion about Wilber, I’ve written it many times, but to put it simply, it’s being too kind to Wilber to simply say he stole or misappropriated Sri Aurobindo’s ideas. Wilber understands virtually nothing of what Sri Aurobindo write, so at best, you could say he TRIED to steal Sri AUrobindo’s ideas and in the process so distorted them and so trivialized them they’re barely recognizable. The very worst thing one could do if one wanted to portray the Indic tradition in a positive light would be to waste time writing about Wilber. The best thing you could do would be to point out that Wilber, typical of many Westerners, rather dramatically misunderstands Sri Aurobindo based on the projection of many Greco-Christian underlying assumptions.

               SO again, would you at least admit that Rajiv was wrong in claiming I intended to write a book about Wilber? Here’s the evidence: https://beyondthematrixnow.wordpress.com/2015/10/22/book-proposal-for-the-infinity-foundation-tuning-the-finite-to-infinity/#comment-96

   2. From Sri Aurobindo’s Life Divine:

      IF ALL is in truth Sachchidananda, death, suffering, evil, lim- itation can only be the creations, positive in practical effect, negative in essence, of a distorting consciousness which has fallen from the total and unifying knowledge of itself into some error of division and partial experience. This is the fall of man typified in the poetic parable of the Hebrew Genesis. That fall is his deviation from the full and pure acceptance of God and himself, or rather of God in himself, into a dividing conscious- ness which brings with it all the train of the dualities, life and death, good and evil, joy and pain, completeness and want, the fruit of a divided being. This is the fruit which Adam and Eve, Purusha and Prakriti, the soul tempted by Nature, have eaten. The redemption comes by the recovery of the universal in the individual and of the spiritual term in the physical conscious- ness. Then alone the soul in Nature can be allowed to partake of the fruit of the tree of life and be as the Divine and live for ever. For then only can the purpose of its descent into material consciousness be accomplished, when the knowledge of good and evil, joy and suffering, life and death has been accomplished through the recovery by the human soul of a higher knowledge which reconciles and identifies these opposites in the universal and transforms their divisions into the image of the divine Unity.

      Once again Merlyn, excellent job. If anybody is interested in quotes from Sri Aurobindo’s Letters on Yoga on similarities between indic and European spirituality (not just Christian) let me know:>)) One more apology, Merlyn, for that long letter and all those capitals. I thought it might be nice to have a little “loud” truth telling.

   3. I just thought of another very funny thing in response to Aditya. I’ve written many critiques of materialism in the Amazon comments section. If you look for my name there, you’ll find, almost inevitably, when people search the net for articles I’ve written, I’m accused of being a Hindu apologist/fundamentlist.

      So, it’s kind of nice being accused of making a sudden switch to Christianity, especially when I never did such a thing.

      Never was on a salary for IF
      Never told Rajiv I would write a book about Wilber.
      All of my writing on the net, from 1997, before I was moderator of the yoga psychology group, and from the last 13 years since I left the yoga psychology group, are consistently positive toward Indic spirituality.
      Rajiv never read the book. When he admitted only skimming it, he refused to admit he had previously lied about reading it. When I asked for examples of things I mentioned in the book that were “pro christian”, he named several authors whose names don’t even appear in the book. He still didn’t’ admit he lied about having read the book.

      Do you know the saying about alcoholics and lying? It’s true of Rajiv, and seems to be of Aditya too:

      How do you know Rajiv is lying?

      His lips are moving.

      1. By the way, it would also be nice if you stopped using Sri Aurobindo to promote your fundamentalist brand of Hinduism. This has ended up smearing Sri Aurobindo. I just came across an Indian writer attacking Sri Aurobindo for supporting fundamentalism. Here are his true views about Hinduism and all religions:

         Gilles Guigan
         Sri Aurobindo on Religions
         I must say that it is far from my purpose to propagate any new religion, new or old, for humanity in the future. A way to be opened that is still blocked, not a religion to be founded, is my conception of the matter.
         (Letters on Yoga, p. 139)

         * * *

         It is not [Sri Aurobindo’s] object to develop anyone religion or to amalgamate the older religions or to found any new religion – for any of these things would lead away from his central purpose. The one aim of his Yoga is an inner self-development by which each one who follows it can in time discover the One Self in all and evolve a higher consciousness than the mental, a spiritual and supramental consciousness which will transform and divinise human nature.
         (Sri Aurobindo’s Teaching. Written as the third person)
         * * *

         The spiritual life (adhyatma-jivana), the religious life (dharma-jivana) and the ordinary human life of which morality is a part are three quite different things and one must know which one desires and not confuse the three together. The ordinary life is that of the average human consciousness separated from its own true self and from the Divine and led by the common habits of the mind, life and body which are the laws of the Ignorance. The religious life is a movement of the same ignorant human consciousness, turning or trying to turn away from the earth towards the Divine, but as yet without knowledge and led by the dogmatic tenets and rules of some sect or creed which claims to have found the way out of the bonds of the earth-consciousness into some beatific Beyond. The religious life may be the first approach to the spiritual, but very often it is only a turning about in a round of rites, ceremonies and practices or set ideas and forms without any issue. The spiritual life, on the contrary, proceeds directly by a change of consciousness, a change from the ordinary consciousness, ignorant and separated from its true self and from God, to a greater consciousness in which one finds one’s true being and comes first into direct and living contact and then into union with the Divine. For the spiritual seeker this change of consciousness is the one thing he seeks and nothing else matters.
         (Letters on Yoga, p. 137)

         * * *

         …I don’t believe in advertisement except for books, etc., and in propaganda except for politics and patent medicines. But for serious work it is a poison. It means either a stunt or a boom – and stunts and booms exhaust the thing they carry on their crest and leave it lifeless and broken high and dry on the shores of nowhere – or it means a movement. A movement in the case of a work like mine means the founding of a school or a sect or some other dammed nonsense. It means that hundreds or thousands of useless people join in and corrupt the work or reduce it to a pompous farce from which the Truth that was coming down recedes into secrecy and silence. It is what has happened to the ‘religions’ and it is the reason of their failure.
         (Letter to Dilip Kumar Roy dated 02.10.341. On Himself, p. 375)

         * * *

         References:

         1. Letter sent to Auroville on 30.01.71 by the Mother because they all have a false idea about propaganda and publicity.

   4. (Merllyn, again, apologies for filling up your comments section with this – but I think the heart of your post, understanding deep, mystical commonalities between various religious traditions, might be well served by this, at least, I hope so)

      Dear Aditya:

      Now that I have posted definitive proof that you are wrong, I notice that you are silent. I sometimes wish – though as a psychologist I know better – that just once, on the net, when someone has been arguing for “A” and “A” is proven definitively wrong, they would just have the courage and decency to say, “Oh, I’m sorry, I made a mistake.”

      This seems so far beyond Rajiv and his minions, it is unfortunate. I really expected better of you, Aditya, but I guess you are trying to do your best to point this out.

      In case someone just came across this for the first time, the facts are simple and irrefutable:

      1. Aditya accused me of violating an agreement I had with Rajiv Malhotra, the founder and director of the Infinity Foundation. He and Rajiv claim that I had made an agreement with Rajiv in the summer of 2000 to write a book showing how Ken Wilber stole most of his major ideas from Sri Aurobindo. Rajiv, in a personal phone conversation several years ago, stated in no uncertain terms that he had my original proposal in his file, and anyone who looked at the proposal could see that I had made this agreement.
      2. I posted a copy of the original proposal several days ago after Aditya and Prabhu accused me of all kinds of wild things I either didn’t do or actually never heard of. After posting the proposal – which shows in no uncertain terms that I never said a thing about writing a book about Ken Wilber, and in fact, if you go to the Amazon page for “Yoga Psychology and the Transformation of Consciousness” and read the comments, you can see (particularly from Dr. Larry Malerba’s excellent summary) that the book ended up remarkably similar to the proposal I made – and Rajiv very positively approved of – in July, 2000.
      3. Since I posted this irrefutable proof that Aditya was wrong, notice that neither Aditya nor Prabhu have had a thing to say about it.

      I think it would be a decent, kind, generous and appropriate thing for them simply to say, “Oh, I see, I made a mistake. Evidently, Rajiv lied to me and I was wrong to assume he was telling the truth about the book proposal.

      I believe it was you, Aditya, who sent me a letter telling me that IF was no longer going to promote the book. You never told me why, but now I know. Thank you at least for that.

      Now, if you’re interested in other truths, you’re welcome to ask – my favorite is the one about the switch to Christianity. I can’t imagine anything I ever said or wrote that would have led Rajiv to say that – but then, I don’t think that’s relevant. When Rajiv wants to lie, he has – as several dozen people who have known him have told me numerous times – simply to take something out of thin air and cast it about.

      Again, the decent thing to do: “Oh, I’m sorry, I was wrong. I had believed Rajiv, but evidently he lied about this. I apologize.”

   5. November 10: Did i not predict this? Neither Rajiv nor his devotees, even when caught in an irrefutable falsehood, ever – at least, in my experience – acknowledge it.

      I am assuming Aditya will not reply, but this is useful for others who have been bewildered by these kinds of untruths.

      So here it is, in black and white: Both Rajiv and Aditya have asserted, repeatedly, that I was hired to write a book on Ken Wilber and his misappropriation of SrI Aurobindo’s ideas. And they say I went against this agreement – written, allegedly, in a proposal when Rajiv first hired me.

      I then asked them for proof of such a proposal. Both claimed repeatedly there was such a thing. Finally, I posted my original proposal, which lays out in very precise terms the format for the book my wife and I actually wrote.

      Then, as I predicted, Aditya disappeared. He cannot respond to this without admitting he was wrong, but for some reason, neither he nor Rajiv seem capable of doing this.

      I’ll stop by again at some point in the future, no doubt to comment on the fact that Aditya has not yet admitted he is wrong – and of course, Rajiv is as well.

      People who have been bewildered by Rajiv’s rather remarkable ability to say “white is black” and “up is down’ without showing the least bit of hesitation or discomfort, may be helped in their understanding of this phenomenon by tracking what happens here. It is the same thing – when you have a cult mentality, your number one aim is to preserve the beliefs and views of your cult. This enables you to lie utterly without conscience or guilt.

   6. December 5, 2015 – Aditya still hasn’t acknowledged his mistake.

      1. I just realized it’s quite hard to find the link I posted. So here it is again:

         So again, Aditya and Prabhu, let’s at least settle this one point. Aditya, you claimed that I promised Rajiv I would write a book about Wilber, and how he appropriated his ideas from Sri Aurobindo. You have a link now – https://beyondthematrixnow.wordpress.com/2015/10/22/book-proposal-for-the-infinity-foundation-tuning-the-finite-to-infinity/#comment-96 – to the original proposal.

2. Prabhu: It is interesting that you and Rajiv know so much more than Sri Aurobindo, who told his disciples countless times that the understanding at the heart of Christianity is one with that of the Upanishads, Buddhism, and many other Asian traditions.

   Rajiv lies as much as he can to advance his cause – you should never trust anything Rajiv says without checking it dozens of times. I just happened to come across a manuscript I sent him for a book he helped fund. some years later when he was trying to explain why he went back on his word to help publicize it, he said I had promised to write a book about ken Wilber “stealing” ideas from Sri Aurobindo and had made this the focus of my manuscript.

   I was reminded of this lie of Rajiv’s when I went back to the manuscript and found that Wilber’s name was only mentioned once, near the beginning of a 15 page manuscript.

   Now, if you told Rajiv this, he would simply deny that he ever claimed he had wanted me to write a book comparing Wilber and Sri Aurobindo.

   If he had written it down, signed it in the presence of a leading attorney, he would simply deny it and say that wasn’t his signature.

   So, Rajiv or Sri Aurobindo – you choose.

   1. by the way, I forgot to mention – Merlyn, that was a wonderful post!

   2. Don: You make the last line sound like a dilemma. Well let me assure you it is not. I choose both of them. Both are honest and have seminal work to their credit.

      For thieves who steal philosophies and try to appropriate: Know this, you cannot be a Hindu and a Christian at the same time. The reasons are as under:

      1.) No substitutional atonement for us Hindus. We are born divine. No need for a middle man to tell us how to reach God.

      2.) Complete denial of rebirth and Karma by christians. Ask Pope or whomsoever in the respective apex body of the church to see what the their view is.

      3.) There is no perdition. No perdition for Hindus.

      So Don, thanks for the attempted sanctimony but spare us.

      1. Prabhat – again, you sound like you know more than Sri Aurobindo, who was the greatest Indian philosopher/yogi of the 20th century. Also, Ramana Maharshi, almost universally acknowledged as one of the great yogis of the 20th century, and Mahatma Ghandi (i could go on for pages, Tagore, countless others.

         Far be it for me to contradict you if you have greater enlightenment than the greatest luminaries of the 20th century Indian pantheon.

         You and Rajiv are building a straw man. If I said that Hinduism consisted of widow burning, hating the world and rejecting it to fly off into Nirvana, etc etc (i could bring up a million cliches) you would quite rightly condemn me (i would condemn myself) for uttering such hateful nonsense.

         Yet you kknow nothing but trivial prejudicial cliches of other religions (and actually, I suspect, of Indian philosophy as well) and claim to be wiser than Aurobindo, Maharshi, Tagore, Gandhi, etc.

         So again, whom I am to contest your point (to paraphrase Pope Francis)?

         Merlyn Swan, good for you for being so capable of seeing past these superficial, trivial differences and going to the depths to see the ultimate oneness of the greatest contemplatives and mystics the world over.

         I’d strongly recommend B. Alan Wallace’s “Mind in the Balance” and “Meditations of a Buddhist Skeptic” for another brilliant account of the underlying Oneness of religions around the world, going far below the superficial doctrinal disputes that Prabhu, Rajiv and others like them autistically focus on.

         Sri Krishna Prem wrote a number of books – among them perhaps the most accessible being “Initiation Into Yoga” – demonstrating this underlygin Oneness. His whole Gita commentary aims at showing these worldwide similarities, not only among religions but among Western, Eastern and even Northern and Southern pagan traditions. He was praised by Sri Aurobindo and Ramana Maharshi both as having attained a rare height of spiritual intuition (though no doubt our friend Prabhu is superior in spiritual wisdom to him also!)

         1. regarding sanctimony, you might want to check the definition then look in the mirror.

            As Nasruddin did when he was asked by a border guard to identify himself. He took out a pocket mirror, looked into it and said, “yep , that’s me!”

            1. Don – Nice try! No I do not know more than Aurobindo nor Rajiv Malhotra. Nowhere in my response have I indicated so. As a matter of fact I do mot much about any of the names that you have mentioned.

               Here is the difference: I am not a thief.

               Rajiv has not built strawmen, he exposes them. This does not go well with the altar boys and their nefarious cabal who are solely funded by evangelicals. It annoys them and looks like I have rattled your cage. Jackpot!!!

               The fact that many like me are now questioning all this “literature inculturation” aka “intellectual idea stealing from Hindu Philosophy” and also finding U Turners and Digestion etc in process and not to mention many other brazen thievery among the cabal seems to bother many.

               So there are no cliches here. I really do not know much about philosophy either nor do I claim so.

               What I do know is when someone steals an idea and I can see that. One need not be a lawyer to know what common crimes are. By suggesting that I do not know much about philosophy (and I grant you that) you are creating a false premise that I need to know a lot about philosophy before I know what stealing of a philosophical idea is!!??

               It will only get worse for the altar boy’s cabal, if it continues like this. People are already smiling now, later on these people will be laughed at – loudly, in the face.

               Also, if all these efforts are genuine, which I and several others highly doubt, please get them endorsed at the highest level of the church of any denomination…vatican, protestant, lutheran.

               Either way you are U Turner and a digester and maybe not good karma.

               By the sanctimony is not my virtue, may be yours. Do look in the mirror.

         2. Octobet 22, 1015 AM. I’m enjoying this so much. I haven’t had a chance to respond to any of Rajiv’s minions (whether they know him directly or whether they’ve read him and misquote him) so this is a delight.

            Prabhu, you might notice I wasn’t responding to you in the last post. So far, neither you nor Aditya have stated one speciic example of anting I’ve stolen or digested, or given any examples of negative eomments anywhere on the net (my writings are freely available and easily found) where I make a single negative comment about anything in indic philosophy, nor any examples of favorable comments about Christinaity within a negative context about indic philosophy.

            not one.

            I’m waiting.

            1. Don the minion and altar boy – Now that is a sobriquet ! I am enjoying as much as you are. The fact that you evade is telling and so please keep trying.

               Obviously disgruntled, may your voice be heard elsewhere, I cannot help you. Only Rajiv Malhotra can but ooops looks like you have burned your bridges or should I say bitten the very hand that fed you.

               Best Wishes,

               Prabhat

3. Dear Merlyn – You are typical example of a good cop and a “Jesus Inside” personality trying very hard to sell.

   Effectively you have attempted to digest the ideas of Hindu Philosophy and pass it is as your own and worse make it sound christian. See this to know more:

   https://www.facebook.com/RajivMalhotra.Official/videos/179148485610656/

   At a higher level your book tries to do what these videos and other links expose at a lower level what the evangelicals

   https://www.youtube.com/wahttp://beingdifferentforum.blogspot.com.au/2012/12/american-veda-digestion-of-hinduism.htmltch?v=-FoHxJs0B0U

   http://beingdifferentforum.blogspot.com.au/2012/12/american-veda-digestion-of-hinduism.html

   Effectively you have appropriated Sanaatan Dharma (Hindu) philosophy and tried to pass on as your own. Nice try!

   Also read this:

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heathen_in_his_Blindness…

   There has been a trend for almost a century to digest integral unity dharma metaphysics using Whitehead, Husserl, Heidegger, Merleu Ponty among others. In fact, each of these was a digester as well.
   You have just joined their list.

   So Merlyn, nice try but it isn’t just like Western Universalism isn’t.

   Also I will request you to see all these links and read the contents therein.
   Verily it shall become clear thus that there have been attempts in the past. You still operate under the banner of religious philosophies
   and hence I suspect that one day you may “find” jesus and hence salvation. They are referred by us as – U Turners who appropriate.
   No harm in that, but my sanatan dharma should not be appropriated by person/s and/or ideologies.

   I have a nagging suspicion that you already must have been aware of some content presented underneath if not all. This will feed into the
   wider discourse and I am certain that you can see what the narrative, grand or otherwise is all about.

   Please read:

   http://www.deeshaa.org/2006/02/16/rajiv-malhotras-u-turn-theory/

   http://beingdifferentforum.blogspot.com.au/2012/12/american-veda-digestion-of-hinduism.html

   http://rajivmalhotradiscussions.blogspot.com.au/2012/02/u-turn-amartya-sen-example.html

   and watch

   https://www.facebook.com/RajivMalhotra.Official/videos/179148485610656/

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FoHxJs0B0U

   ​What is U TURN

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RSu4ymCgp4 LONG – Recommended
   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQP4pUPNjqs SHORT

   ​
   ​Here is a U TURNER in action​

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SS0UQNsxhus

   ​I exhort you, implore you to spend time and see why there is this angst surrounding this issue.​ Maybe you will come up with some idea how to fight this brazen thievery.

   Finally also read this:

   I also hasten to add this:

   https://sites.google.com/site/colonialconsciousness/thequestionofconversioninindia

   and introduce you to hegemonic discourse:

   A hegemonic discourse is a body of ideas produced by an influential coterie of writers. The core ideas get restated over and over again, until they are seen as common knowledge. The group relies on a circle of mutually supportive reviews, and on one another’s institutional contacts and sources of patronage to gain leverage for their views. Under the guise of ‘peer reviews’, this process gives them the semblance of objectivity. As the process unfolds, there is less and less need to defend their positions, and anyone who tries to oppose faces a very heavy burden of proof. Their core thesis is increasingly taken for granted. This mode of thinking then gets implanted in other disciplines and into the mainstream. Even when fresh evidence or arguments come along to challenge it, it continues to live because it is embedded and has momentum.

   Western ‘philosophers’ and indologists along with experts in “South Asian studies” are a part of this cartel / cabal. Not sure if you knew this….but now you do.

   Regards,

   प्रभात गुप्त

4. This is a very convoluted attempt at making the two look similar. The essential duality of the Christian way of looking at things has impacted so many aspects of mankind. The idea of dominion and a special status with respect to the rest of creation has been at the root of much of the exploitation of the earth and of colonisation.

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