[1][2] After training as a painter and a sculptor, he became a yoga student of Sri Aurobindo and lived for many years in Puducherry, where he was a founding member of Auroville.
[1] In India, he discovered the works of the French Egyptologist and esotericist, R. A. Schwaller de Lubicz, which led him to explore the principles and practices of ancient sacred science.
In 1972, they left Auroville for a year so Robert could study sacred geometry and read Sri Aurobindo.
[1] In 1979, Lawlor (then living in Tasmania) participated in the Lindisfarne Fellows Conference, held at Zen Center's Green Gulch Farm, with Keith Critchlow from London.
In 1981, a gathering of about 50 members of the Lindisfarne Association met in Crestone, Colorado under the name, Homage to Pythagoras, which included Lawlor, Thompson, Fletcher, Critchlow, Christopher Bamford, Arthur Zajonc, Anne Macaulay, Kathleen Raine, Robert Bly, Joscelyn Godwin, John Michell, and Ernest McClain.