The New Spirituality

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Georges Van Vrekhem, a Flemish Belgian, has been living in Auroville from 1978 until his passing on 31st August, 2012.

In that period he published a number of highly seminal books on Sri Aurobindo and the Mother such as Beyond Man, the Life and Work of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother (1997); The Mother, the Story of Her Life (2000); Overman - The Intermediary between the Human and the Supramental Being (2001); Patterns of the Present - from the Perspective of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother (2002); Hitler and His God, the Background to the Hitler Phenomenon (2006); Evolution, Religion and the Unknown God (2011), and Preparing for the Miraculous (2012), containing the eleven lectures Georges had given in 2010- 2011 at Auroville's Savitri Bhavan and Town Hall.

In 2006, he was awarded the Sri Aurobindo Puraskar by the Government of Bengal.

At his passing Georges left a number of unpublished essays behind. Some of them were based on his talks in Auroville at the end of 2011, when he embarked on a second series of lectures on a wide variety of topics related to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. However, first Cyclone Thane and later his deteriorating health disrupted these lectures.

This book, which contains his unpublished essays as well as some of his articles and interviews that have been published in the magazines Auroville Today, Mother India, and The Advent, and in the book The Journeying Years, is published to honour Georges Van Vrekhem in recognition of his immense work in helping to understand the life and work of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.

When Georges Van Vrekhem passed away on 31st August, 2012, he left behind a number of unpublished essays and articles. Some of these essays were based on his talks in Auroville at the end of 2011, when he embarked on a second series of eleven lectures on a wide variety of topics related to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. It was the intention that these lectures would be published as a sequel to the book Preparing for the Miraculous, which contains his first series of lectures at Auroville.

Cyclone Thane, which hit Auroville on 30th December, 2011, disrupted these plans and his talks were postponed; they were delayed again in the second quarter of 2012, due to health problems. Georges planned to restart the lectures in September 2012 but, unfortunately, his passing away decided differently.

In publishing these essays, we want to honour Georges and his immense work in helping to understand the life and work of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. We also felt it worthwhile to include in this compilation several articles that have been published in various magazines, such as Auroville Today, Mother India and The Advent, and in the book The Journeying Years by Dianna Bowler.

Like in Preparing for the Miraculous, most essays in this compilation are not polished-up nor aim at exhausting their subject. The reader may also find that repetitions occur occasionally. We have kept these repetitions as each is an integral part of a specific talk or essay.

Unless otherwise mentioned, all quotations of Sri Aurobindo in this book are from the Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo; those of the Mother are from the Collected Works of The Mother - Centenary Edition.

All of Georges' books and their translations, as well as his talks, video lectures and the interviews are available online from www.beyondman.org and www.georges-van- vrekhem.org.

We hope that this posthumous publication will inspire all his readers within and outside Auroville.

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