John Robert Cornell

John Robert Cornell is secretary of the Sri Aurobindo Association and a member of SAA’s Editorial Advisory Board. He manages print subscriptions for Collaboration, a journal of Integral Yoga.

John Robert found Home when he met Sri Aurobindo and Mother in 1980 by the grace of a spiritual teacher named Elena DeJoya in California. He made his first pilgrimage to Pondicherry in 1994 with his wife Karen. During later trips he fell in love with Auroville and spent two years living there (2006–2008).

He is haunted by light and by the veil of the Divine in the American landscape. His compelling interests are writing, Integral Yoga, and the search for the American soul and the American yoga. He and Karen make their residence in a small town in the California foothills.

Our souls can visit in great lonely hours
Still regions of imperishable Light,
All-seeing eagle-peaks of silent Power
And moon-flame oceans of swift fathomless Bliss
And calm immensities of spirit space.

— Savitri, page 47

Organizer of

Savitri Reading Circle

Organizers:

| 2 Apr 2024 – 1 Jan 2026 Readers Underground Group Books

Reading Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri – A Legend and a Symbol, with a virtual meeting every 1st and 3rd Tuesday until the poem is fully read.

Synthesis of Yoga Practicum

Organizers:

| 22 Apr 2020 – 31 Dec 2026 Readers Underground Group Books, Community, Philosophy Meditation, aurobindo, integral, reading, spirituality, yoga

An open-ended reading and discussion of Sri Aurobindo’s Synthesis of Yoga, with a virtual meeting every 2nd and 4th Wednesday until the book is fully read.

Organizer of

Transmissions