Education and the Strange Struggle of the Intellectual for Enlightenment

Abstract

This paper examines the strange struggle of intellectuals for enlightenment, and it centres primarily on the teachings of three significant mystics-Sathya Sai Baba and the spiritual colleagues, Aurobindo and the Mother. What say these and others about the highest reaches of humanity, the pinnacle of human accomplishment, its sublimest potential and destiny, its inner light and nature? What role do they give to the intellect in scaling these summits, and why do intellectuals so often resist the climb? For Baba, Aurobindo and the Mother, enlightenment was simply a recognition and a lived awareness of an inner majesty for which "divine" seems the only adequate descriptor.