Does it matter?

Peter Heehs, an American, has lived in India since 1971. He is a historian and has written books on India's independence and has been working as editor of Sri Aurobindo Ashram archives in Pondicherry. Apparently he has written a book on Sri Aurobindo in which he also explores his relationship with Mirra Alfassa who is revered as The Mother of the ashram in Pondicherry. Mirra Alfassa was born of a Turkish Jewish father and an Egyptian Jewish mother. She married Henri Morriset in 1897, had a son named Andre, divorced Morriset in 1908, married Paul Richard in 1910 and divorced him in 1920. Followers have taken exception to what Heehs has written in his book and the Indian government is now refusing to renew his visa. A few points need to be made about this controversy. 1. Western writers seem to be obsessed with sex. Any human being needs to eat and drink and hence will need to go to the bathroom. These are all bodily functions and do not detract from the teaching of the person. Ramakrishna, Ram and Krishna were all married while Vivekananda was not. So what. Is the message of the Gita in any way diminished just because Krishna was married? The problem with these one God fellows is the concept of the Original Sin and the expulsion of Adam and Eve from paradise. This makes God either a fool for giving genitals to us or a sadist for forbidding sex to 2 naked humans. If the idea is to create a sensation just to sell your book then it is stupid. 2. The habit of politicians in India of banning books is counterproductive. The publicity arouses curiosity in people and more people read the book than would have done if it had not been banned. Such books are easily available in the west and there is so much travel these days that it is impossible to keep any book from coming into India. Protests by Muslims and the Fatwah on Salman Rushdie made Satanic Verses unnecessarily famous and earned Rushdie a lot more money than he could have hoped for. If any book really makes Muslims look bad then it is Exodus by Leon Uris, an American, which has been freely available for decades. 3. If you are going to be controversial then stick to your own kind. Dan Brown's contention that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and had children with her, in his book the Da Vinci Code, made the Catholic Church but there were no Fatwahs because Brown is a Christian himself. However, if someone writes something controversial about another faith it causes more anger because it is seen as a deliberate insult by an outsider. Unless you have absolute proof. All this debate seems a complete waste of time. Because it really does not matter. The message is all important.