Saturday, April 23, 2016

The individual lost its vital independence in the Devonian age

Seed beings

when time becomes real-time
There are little animals, each a single cell, who live happy chemicals lives, continuously creating amino acids, busily building the tiny stones of life, millions and millions of them in a few short moments.
Then comes dryness, a period of shrinking into spores, each one into thousands of spores - seed beings. Although seemingly dead they are merely in a waiting state of cryptobiosis or suspension of life, totally dried out. In this state of suspension outside of time a seed being can spend hundreds of years. It can travel, carried by winds, even through freezing winters, yes, even driven by solar winds across empty space, till the time comes when the sun shines on it again. Then, a drop of water added, and the old happy activity starts once more in a hundred new beings, faithful copies of the old.
instant soul
Psychologically speaking, we humans are also seed beings: souls asleep, frozen, desiccated, soul beings waiting for a drop of bliss, of ananda to awaken, to come alive. As soon as some joyful event happens, even a minor one, it permits us to enter real life, real time, ecstacy and instant soul that we are; in a few seconds a thousand blissful experiences occur, blooming activity starts, intense soul bliss, till again we fall into that state of psychic suspension we call ordinary life.

The superbrain


The first of the great syntheses on our planet took place 2,000 million years ago in the Precambrian age when a living cell united with another living cell to form the first multicellular being.
The second great synthesis took place in the Devonian age more than 1,000 million years later when multicellular insects cooperated to form insect states like those of the termites, the ants, the bees and the wasps.
The first synthesis was physical: cell was added to cell to form a single psychical body, in which each individual cell became highly specialised in its particular activity in that body.
The second synthesis was not somatic; each ant, each bee preserved its own independent physical body. The union was hormonal and effected by hormonal-chemical exchanges between the independent bodies so that they came to constitute a single vital being. What the individual lost was its vital independence, for each one now played a vitally specialised role: the egg producer, the water carrier, the soldier, the worker, the queen and the drone. Each had to play its specific role so that the hive could live and continously renew itself.
The third great synthesis is taking place in our time, and in it we are all participating. It is the synthesis of living mind, in which all the individual minds of man lose their capacity to function separately and alone. No human child could become a human being, a partaker in human culture, if it were left entirely to itself.
The communality of mind we call culture, and until our time cultures were still to be found in the plural. There were many on earth. But what we are now witnessing is the birth of a common culture for the whole of mankind. There is no longer an Arab chemistry or an Indian psychology or a Chinese astronomy. There is only one body of science from Tokyo to Cape Town, from Los Angeles to Moscow. And thousands of biologically independent individual scientists are forming together that great invisible body, the scientific community, which to their mind is as real as the anthill is to the ant.
This third great synthesis is still in the making. It is not yet accomplished; is has not reached adulthood. It is flexing its invisible muscles and slowly building its nervous body of electronic communication, its memory archives of electronic tapes, and it has started to create its own language, [...]
Now our children are still little beggars, searching hopefully in those dustbins of culture we call schools. But before very long failthful and skilled electronic teachers will present each child with the riches of his very own individual cultural kingdom. It is on the summits of this third great synthesis of life that man will really become homo sapiens. Then he will stand on the solid foundations of a cultural past, surrounded by the electronically accumulated and organised knowledge of the billions of men who have lived on earth before him. Thus he will be able to choose freely his very own cultural contribution to that great invisible hive: the superbrain of humanity.
Only then will each man attain to his luminous indiviudal summit, his own divinity of knowledge, bliss, love and consciousness, because each man will not only be aware of his own little biological body, but will be able to see with the awareness of the whole, to act with the knowledge of the whole, and to enjoy the bliss of the whole. It is in this single whole that each will find his soul and his immortality as well as a physical cradle for birth after birth after birth.
Life’s longing for the shining heights of being will have taken a new step forward, and when man then looks back towards his beginning as a unicellular being in some forgotten sea he may well feel that the most difficult part of his advance towards omnipotence and omniscience is already behind him.
He will have taken the greatest hurdle in the course of his evolution towards perfection, the hurdle of the ego, the ahamkara, the feeling of being a separate isolated being in a hostile universe, and will have gained the new security of being a perennial element in the conscious superorganism of planetary man.


=1 "Equals One" was a journal edited by Medhananda and Maude Pickett Smith in the early days of Auroville. See "=1 history". 

“Essentially there is but one single true reason for living: it is to know oneself. We are here to learn - to learn what we are, why we are here, and what we have to do.”
“To exceed ego and be our true self, to be aware of our real being, to possess it, to possess a real delight of being, is therefore the ultimate meaning of our life here; it is the concealed sense of our individual and terrestrial existence.”

The uncertainty principles of Heisenberg and Hurd
Benjamin Schonthal at The Immanent FramePerfect knowledge was impossible, Heisenberg theorized, because scientists changed the quantum universe through the very act of measuring it. Observers could not watch the universe voyeuristically, as though from the sidelines. To sight quantum reality was to alter it.
Beyond Religious Freedom: The New Global Politics of Religion introduces something like an uncertainty principle into the targeting of religion in international relations. In a manner not dissimilar to Heisenberg, Hurd argues that, in the process of singling out religion for support or censure, governments, lawmakers, advocacy groups and others alter the complex field of social relations that they purport to manage. They change religion through the process of sighting it. [...]
Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle points to the limits of scientific observation; and to some extent, Hurd’s book does as well. What Heisenberg said of conventional language and sub-atomic processes, Hurd might also say of regulatory language and social processes: regulatory language is incapable of describing the complex processes occurring within societies. [...] For Hurd, more ominous implications follow from the distorting effects of expert knowledge. In Hurd’s narrative, expert religion and governed religion appear to be changing society in alarming ways. These forms of knowledge are actively remaking the social universe into a place of governed religion. And this remaking, Hurd persuasively argues, frequently increases the potentials for strife and conflict, while also diminishing the possibilities for reconciliation, understanding, or mutuality.

Tuesday, April 05, 2016

Žižek, Chesbrough, and Sri Aurobindo



46th All Orissa Sri Aurobindo Study Circle Conference to be held btwn 4th -7th April 2016 at Matrubhaban, Cuttack http://auroramirabilis.blogspot.in/2016/03/april-2016-conference-at-matrubhaban.html?m=1 …

Cuttack, 05. 04. 2016: 6.30 - 8.30 pm - Recitation: Km. Namita; Man can collaborate, Speakers: Dr. Biranchi Narayan Mohapatra, Sri Rabi Padhi & Prof. Biswanath Ray


www.srimatriniketanashram.org/Documents/Change.../Soul%20Centre.p...
Sri Aurobindo. “As the servant and disciple of the Master he (a Sadhaka) has no business with pride and egoism because all is done for him from above, so also ...
The true leader of men must radiate the double perfection of (1) union with the Supreme and (2) its universalised individuality that must radiate from him Oneness with the Universe and its Beings. This experience culminates his Spiritual experience of Oneness with all creatures and his Oneness with the Eternal. He will lead the human race forward Spiritually through his Influence and large world action. He becomes a light and power of the Truth to which he has climbed and a means of others’ ascension. The path finder or the path-leader is one who has realised the Truth and is able to communicate the light and the experience. He is a strong guide and instructor who takes by the hand and carries over difficult passages and points out the way. According to his place, he would take equal delight to rule and lead all those who are behind him in Consciousness and subordinate himself to all those who are ahead of him in cognition. 
Thus the triple status of womanhood to know God’s love utterly, slavehood to the Divine Master and Lord concealed in all humanity and discipleship to the Supreme from whom he receives all immaterial and material things constantly, become the secret of true life and is extended as true leadership. OM TAT SAT 
References: Sri Matriniketan Ashram, Managed by The Mother’s International Centre Trust, Regd.No-146/24.11.97. Vill: Ramachandrapur, PO: Kukudakhandi-761100, Via: Brahmapur, Dist: Ganjam, State: Odisha, India www.srimatriniketanashram.org

www.barodarocks.com/sri-aurobindo-ashram-vadodara/
Relics of Sri Aurobindo are present here. It is open to all for meditation. It houses a library, study room and sales emporium. Here you can find all books by and ...

www.thehindu.com › Cities › Puducherry
They were celebrating the 106th arrival anniversary of Sri Aurobindo in Puducherry. The celebrations turned out to be a low-key affair due to the election ...

The concept of spiritual innovation has been inspired by the views of social entrepreneurship, Chesbrough's concept of open innovation (2003; 2006) and Sri Aurobindo's Integral Philosophy. ... (Sri Aurobindo 1993, p 43). To make this distinction Herriot et al. ...

He has done very well to select the personalities like Aurobindo Ghose, Adil Jassawala, Dom Moraes, DC Chambial , Harish Thakur, Keki N. Daruwala, Kamla Das, Krishna Srinivas, Mahashweta Chaturvedi, Dr. H. Tulsi, MR Anand, Nissim Ezekiel, Syed Ameeruddin, Sarojini

Silence is All, TLC Auroville Radio
Today at 7.30 pm special performance at Savitri Bhavan - Silence is All , Sri Aurobindo's poem performed in mime.

This 2 week immersion in Auroville includes sites visits, seminars, organic farming, yoga classes, meditation and some tours in Tamil Nadu. Highlights of this program:
Learn about the origins of Auroville with the oldest Aurovillians living here.
Attend several seminars to learn about every aspect of Auroville.
Visit the different zones of Auroville and some of the main projects.
Tours and possibly voluntary work in some of the organic farms.
Meditations at the Matrimandir, the spiritual centre of Auroville.
Daily yoga classes upon request.
Visits to some tourist attractions of Tamil Nadu.
Interact with people from all over the world who live or visit Auroville.

https://books.google.co.in/books?isbn=9351180824
Subhadra Sengupta - 2015 - ‎Preview - ‎More editions Aurobindo Ghose was born on 15 August 1872 in Calcutta. His father Krishnadhan Ghose was a doctor in the government medical service and his mother Swarnalata was the daughter of Rajnarayan Bose, a famous Brahmo scholar who ...

https://books.google.co.in/books?isbn=055743789X
tenzin gyurme - 2015 - ‎Preview - ‎More editions CHAPTER THREE- Attraction And then, upon discovering our Higher Self, or as Sri Aurobindo calls the Super Consciousness, we are then ready to talk about our connection to the Collective Super Consciousness, also known as 'All that Is'.

https://books.google.co.in/books?isbn=1400877784
Donald Eugene Smith - 2015 - ‎Preview - ‎More editions The country was the Mother, but not a defenseless female: “Thou art Durga (the Goddess Mother), Lady and Queen, with her hands that ... Some of the most passionate statements of the Extremist creed came from the pen of Aurobindo Ghose.

This academic year, the art project will reach out to Aurobindo International School, schools associated with Teach For India and other schools in APS ...

This academic year, the art project will reach out to Aurobindo International School, schools associated with Teach For India and other schools in APS ...


Savitri Era of those who adore, Om Sri Aurobindo & The Mother.

What exactly is wrong with Zizek’s political commentary lately? - I find it interesting that the dominant mode of critiquing Zizek’s recent political writings from the left is simply to post quotations from him, with dism...

Stationing the Consciousness Above the Mind - The long experience of yogic practitioners has developed an understanding of consciousness that goes far beyond what commonly passes for psychology in the ...

Babaji, Prapatti and Utsabananda Samantaray - Sri Aurobindo Ashram Pondicherry, 12.02.1950 To, Sj Lalit Mohan Ghose, The purpose of your letter was communicated to Sri Aurobindo and The Mother. They gi...

Prapatti: Need to enter politics for reforming it - [PDF] 46th All Orissa Sri Aurobindo Women Study Circle ... www.motherorissa.com/Files/Events/April_Conf_Pgm_2016.pdf 46th All Orissa Sri Aurobindo Study Circ...

Mirambika Epitaph in the Kalu Sarai Graveyard – by the Wretched Prince - Here rests her high head under the dirt and dust of my land An evergreen flower killed by me – her own. The fair applauded her rise from humble grains of s...

The Organisational Cycle: From Reason to Subjectivity (Part 2) - CONTINUED FROM PART 1 Published in the February 2016 issue of Sraddha, Vol. 7 (3), pp. 128-146. Model-based Scientific Decision Making and its Limitations ...

Mime by Drupad along with the students of Deepanam School - madurai today - The Hindu www.thehindu.com/news/national/tamil-nadu/.../article8428589.ece Sri Aurobindo Study Forum: Discourse on Sri Aurobindo's 'Life Divi...

Decoupling lifestyle choices from Religion, tradition, and Political parties - Savitri Era Party ‏@SavitriEraParty Mar 31 One can change one's religion and nationality but there is no voluntary exit route from the Scheduled Castes a...

April 4: Sri Aurobindo’s arrival in Puducherry - 4th April - The Master Meets His Mission - Sri Aurobindo ... www.sriaurobindoashram.net/ Sri Aurobindo’s arrival in Pondicherry on 4 April 1910 marks the cu...

Dacca Nawab’s invitation to the Aligarh leadership was the genesis of Pakistan - Bande Mataram On October 16, 1905 — the day of Lord Curzon’s Partition of Bengal — is regarded as a turning point in British India’s history... Even before...

Sri Aurobindo's books in Chinese - The Sri Aurobindo Society, Singapore: 2A Starlight Road 01-07, Singapore Indian Fine Arts Society Building (Nearest MRT: Farrer Park), Singapore 217755 P...

Goodness - *Modest in appearance, does not make a show but is always ready to be useful. * *Botanical Name*: Lobularia maritima *Common Name: *Sweet Alison, Sweet a...

Building a Woman-Friendly Work-Place – M.S.Srinivasan - Where the women are respected, there the gods dwell with delight. – Manu in Manava Dharma Shastra (As the previous article describes vividly, the present c...

Gandhi’s Synthesis of Liberal and Communitarian Values (a guest post by Sanjay Lal) -This is a guest-post by Sanjay Lal (Clayton State University). For further info on guest-posts on the Indian Philosophy Blog, check this page. 

She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not - Remember the game you played as a teenager? He/she loves me, he/she loves me not. Well, it seems to me that in some ways we don’t really outgrow the s...

- Sarah Bakewell on Heidegger after the war. Heidegger paid increasing attention to language, to Hölderlin and the Greeks, and to the role of poetry in thou...

Haeckel, Golwalkar, and Ganeri - Jonardon Ganeri, “Why philosophy must go global” Andrew Nicholson at The Indian Philosophy Blog - 3 hours ago Jonardon Ganeri of NYU gave a lecture at Stony ...

Matter, Life and Mind – Sri Aurobindo - 8 May 1926 In the West the highest minds are turned not towards spiritual truth but towards material science. The scope of science is very narrow, it touch...

Treatises full of absurd conceits, quaint fancies, and chaotic speculations - Dr. O. P. Sudrania says July 14, 2012 at 9:44 pm It is an exhaustive painstaking job that I have been researching in for sometime. I beg excuse from my hono...

Religious freedom, past and future - [image: Elizabeth Shakman Hurd | Beyond Religious Freedom]For those of us who have been following the Politics of Religious Freedom project on this website...

Ramesh Bijlani, Sraddhalu Ranade, and Rajiv Malhotra - Relevance of Mahatma Gandhi Today - Good Governance [image: Sri Aurobindo from www.goodgovernance.in] www.goodgovernance.in/event_details.php?recNo=39 1....

श्रीअरविन्द के राजनैतिक विचारों और क्रियाकलाप के तीन पक्ष थे - आर्यावर्त: विद्यार्थी जी के 85 वाॅ वलिदान ... [image: महर्षि अरविन्द from www.liveaaryaavart.com] www.liveaaryaavart.com/.../ganesh-shank... 1. Transla...

Mandala Pottery - We are very happy to introduce Mandala Pottery on auroville.com! We took some time to find a new potter, who could provide us with their items. Our choice ...


The Mother’s Interviews with Dr. Indra Sen about the Supramental Manifestation of 29 February 1956 - The Mother has the concrete experience of the descent of the Supramental Consciousness on Earth on February 29,1956. The Golden Day ‘The lights had been ...

The Mother’s Interviews with Dr. Indra Sen about the Supramental Manifestation of 29 February 1956 - Dear Friends, Dr. Indra Sen (13 May 1903—14 March 1994) was a noted scholar, author and educationist who obtained his Master’s degree in Philosophy and Psy...

Light reading that does not challenge the reader - Where bad literature makes good reading - A professor and students in an English course at Juniata College discuss what makes a book ‘crap’ By Bill Schackn...

An aesthetic of extremes - Vikram Chandra’s Geek Sublime might be the most popular book in a Western language ever to deal with Indian aesthetic … Continue reading →

Who is the ideal insider? What is Philosophy’s proper home? - [PDF] Sri Aurobindo's Yogic Discovery of the 'One Original Language'of Mankind: A Linguistic Exploration N Kumar - Theory and Practice in Language Studies, ...

The Collaboration of Nature by Richard Pearson - *Editor's note* "A new world is born". The Mother and Sri Aurobindo have worked ceaselessly to bring a new consciousness on earth, - the Supramental or ...

A little birdie told me… - “Of course, miracles do happen; but it is unwise to expect them.” -Alfred North Whitehead That bird knows more than you think, Bernie.

Sri Aurobindo was certainly not for the Disintegration of India – by Raman Reddy -Secular intellectuals obfuscate the obvious, by which I mean, they use every intellectual argument to undermine what is pretty obvious to the common man. O...

The Answer of the Gods (SH 194 B4C03 pp 372-373) - Savitri Class in Hindi with Alok Pandey (SH 194) Savitri Book Four : The Book of Birth and Quest, Canto Three : The Call to the Quest, Pages 372 – 373 Play...

The Spiritual Dimension - The spiritual dimension, though included in the WHO definition of health, defies any simple understanding. It evokes different images determined […] The...

Art as discovery of one's deeper self - [PDF] CULTURAL HERITAGE IS ART OF INDIA B Singh Aurobindo Ghosh pointed out that “All Indian art is a throwing out of a positive thoughtful self-vision crea...

History of Auroville edited by Gilles Guigan - The history of Auroville - Mother's known words in their context www.auroville.org/contents/3981 Mar 18, 2016 - Books 1 to 3 February 2016 version Edited by ...

Friday, February 26, 2016

Mira Nakashima, Julian Lines, and Miriam Belov

Wisdom of compassion The Asian Age-27-Jan-2016

Sri Aurobindo talks of a compassion which sees, understands and accepts the burden of others and is strong to help and heal always remembering that one is ...

Story image for Sri Aurobindo from The Hindu

Seeking the supramental light

The Hindu-4 hours ago
'In the Light of the Supramental', was the name given to the next stage of higher consciousness, which Sri Aurobindo saw as humanity's spiritual destiny.
“On February 29, the Mother had an exclusive experience in the playground in Ashram. She heard – ‘It’s time’. She knocked down a wall into two to allow the golden force to descend on her,” said Miriam Belov, a board member of the Nakashima Foundation for Peace.
On Thursday at 5 p.m, two board members were present in Auroville while their counterparts in Moscow and New York gathered at 2.30 p.m. and 6.30 a.m. respectively. ‘In the Light of the Supramental’, was the name given to the next stage of higher consciousness, which Sri Aurobindo saw as humanity’s spiritual destiny.
“The day is to celebrate Mother’s Supramental Consciousness. This is the Supramental Year and the flowers for this day have been chosen based on its psychic meaning,” she added.

Story image for Sri Aurobindo from Free Press Journal

A Vision of Hope

Free Press Journal-19-Feb-2016
Sri Aurobindo came upon earth to teach this truth to men. He told them that man is only a transitional being living in a mental consciousness, but with the ...

Watch: Avoid criminalisation of dissent at all costs, says Sugato Bose

Catch News-24-Feb-2016
In conclusion, he invoked the brand of nationalism that the likes of Sri Aurobindo and Rabindranath Tagore endorsed and said that the idea of nationalism ...

Why Smriti Irani's speech in Parliament was high on rhetoric and low ...

Scroll.in-1 minute ago
... Nehru, Subhas Bose, Vivekananda, Chittaranjan Das, Sri Aurobindo and Tagore, and that this government might label Tagore an anti-national, for his ideas.

Story image for Sri Aurobindo from The Quint

Puducherry School is India's First Solar Powered Institution

The Quint-10-Feb-2016
The Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education (SAICE) in Puducherry produces three times the electricity it consumes, a video recently uploaded on ...




Story image for Sri Aurobindo from NYOOOZ

Jipmer signs MoU with Sri Aurobindo Society | Puducherry NYOOOZ

NYOOOZ-09-Feb-2016
The Sri Aurobindo Society will also contribute to Jipmer's Self Help Group Project by identifying volunteers for helping patients and their attendees in Jipmer.




Story image for Sri Aurobindo from India.com
India.com

138th birth anniversary of The Mother celebrated | Puducherry ...

NYOOOZ-21-Feb-2016
While Sri Aurobindo passed away on December 5, 1950, 'The Mother' breathed ... Sri Aurobindo established the Ashram in 1926 and expounded the theory of ...

Monday, February 01, 2016

Man’s urge for plumbing his own depths

Sunday, December 18, 2005

Human unity must base on the idea of culture and not simply commerce

Another year is drawing to a close and what we observe in what can be called the national discourse is sheer ennui. There are many voices, old and new, and proliferating, no doubt, but everybody is speaking in quite expected and predictable lines. The Hindutva and cultural nationalism orchestra is not as enthusiastic as earlier nor the Swadeshi caravan. The secularism debate is groping in the dark and seems to have lost its way in the myriad bylanes of myth and culture.

All polemics concerning haves and have-nots, North and South, State and individual, human rights and technology issues appear to perish under the Juggernaut of Globalisation. Perorations by cheerleaders of both sides abound but bereft of any new insight. Continental commercial conglomerates are being tom-tommed as the panacea for the future. Everything is being weighed in terms of trade or tourist-traffic.

But that is not the model of a greater World Union what Sri Aurobindo and other great thinkers dreamt of. The ideal of human unity must base itself on the idea of culture and not simply commerce. Books like Savitri and The Life Divine can very well form the basis of an enduring inter-cultural dialogue. The evolution-intelligent design dichotomy and racial unrests from Paris to Australia, are perhaps the pointers of such a hunger.

Sri Aurobindo holds a unique position among the modern day thinkers of the world. He has lived through the tradition of the east as well as the west for quite a long time and has not only delved deep into the soul of both the cultures, but also written about them extensively in English with a universal sweep. The futuristic vision that has come out of his forty years’ spiritual retreat needs to be kneaded into all our socio-economic endeavours.

At a time when all our heroes and idols are gradually fading into oblivion, Sri Aurobindo must be invited to occupy the dominant consciousness of the nation. The poet-philosopher must be allowed to teach us so as to exorcise our ephemeral notions about national regeneration and Global citizenship. The contemporary confusion concerning the search for the wisest man ends here.

Monday, December 05, 2005

The other worlds

Sri Aurobindo passed away 55 years back, on December 5, 1950. He is perceived as a great soul but his writings have yet to earn the reception they deserve. The vast body of his work and the difficult diction he employs, may be the reason to deter the common reader; but even the scholar is not enamoured enough of them. The most plausible factor that seems to be responsible is Sri Aurobindo’s insistence on spirituality while discussing secular themes such as politics, poetry, the arts, or education.

The convenient demarcation between secular and the sacred suits the academic approach. But for Sri Aurobindo this is a faulty notion because the causal aspect is eclipsed. The linkage between the two is less of the manner of an umbilical chord and more in the nature of interpenetrating imbrications. If our sensory and scientific construct of the world fails to accommodate such a picture, it must be understood as a lack.

Astronomy as an ancient passion has helped us to know about the outer universe. Astrology, too, by talking of stars and planets attunes us to their subtle influences. The different abodes of gods as described by various mythologies, also, permit us certain familiarity of the other worlds. But we rarely take their effect on our lives any seriously. And the task of Sri Aurobindo is to hammer the modern mind so as to rid it from secular superstitions.

The inner and the other worlds are a consistent theme in his poem, Savitri. Composed through the years from Quantum mechanics to nuclear holocaust, this modern epic puts a stamp of authority on the unseen fecund worlds and their inhabitants who are inextricably linked to our motions and emotions. To recognize this reality seriously, is what Savitri demands from its readers.

The different parts of our being and consciousness, as delineated by Sri Aurobindo in his Integral Yoga system, are nothing but the other worlds. We can well imagine our plights as puppets when disparate worlds are very much in the play to pull the strings. Somewhat similar to the insight offered by Baudrillard that it is the object which uses and employs us and not the other way round that we ordinarily perceive. But then, how do we benefit by this concept in our practical life?

That there runs a perpetual consonance between the seen and the unseen, might seem, at times, hard to digest, but a poetic impression can be allowed to swim aloft. The process should further deepen in the realm of creative imagination leading to a faint intellectual recognition. Since the notion runs counter to our egoistic autonomy, it is bound to take a long time to percolate down to the distant and defiant impulses. And regular recitation of Savitri helps here; its mantric effect casting its reach down to our body cells.

Friday, October 14, 2005

Mysticism and measuring rods

In Mind, Language and World ( Ed. Jonardan Ganeri, OUP:2002 ) Bimal Krishna Matilal claims, “ The ineffability of mystical experience or mysticism is a doctrine which seems to be unanimously accepted by most modern writers on mysticism.”( p. 3 )
There is nothing irrational about it, asserts Sri Aurobindo, speaking of the so called spiritual visions and experiences. The cosmic scheme of things has its own logic and necessity and hence the tenor and sequence of the whole dynamics appears to us as a jigsaw puzzle. But then a puzzle it is, which points to a solution, as yet unresolved and unrevealed.

Such an approach attracts labels of deterministic fatalism, but it arises from a human-centric world-view. Social science has its peculiar compulsions and it can’t do without the data-based procedures. The fact that it is under-equipped to probe matters in the realm of human mind should have been a well-accepted proposition. On the contrary, it is considered a rightful activity and the result is, understandably, disastrous.

Obviously, the mismatch is methodological. Though nobody can dispute man’s urge for plumbing his own depths, surely there can be disagreements about the tools and territories. The measure of success in such ventures would depend upon the measuring rods one selects.
One important aspect, which is often overlooked, is the personal disposition of the individual undertaking the exploration. Sedimented mind-sets are a terrible barrier. The tyranny of the normal and contemporary is formidable. Attempting empathy by rising above a hedonistic indifference is intimidating. Above all, the person is a hostage of his own contradictions and therefore, any objective inference is hard to expect.

Monday, October 10, 2005

The Upanishads

by Sri Aurobindo
"THE Upanishads are the supreme work of the Indian mind, and that it should be so, that the highest selfexpression of its genius, its sublimest..." (moremain breathyears sempiternalupper breatheternal syllable,blind gloom (moreKena UpanishadTaittiriya UpanishadChhandogya UpanishadShwetashwatara UpanishadMundaka Upanishad (more)

Editorial Reviews: Book Description
The Upanishads is a collection of Sri Aurobindo's final translations of and commentaries on every Upanishad or other Vedantic text he worked on. Upanishads are the ancient treatises on spiritual truths as envisioned by the seers, sages and rishis of the civilization of India.
Customer Reviews
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Guide to The Life Divine, October 9, 2005
Reviewer: savitriera - See all my reviews
The 18 verses of Isha Upanishad, which also appear in the Veda, were most dear to Sri Aurobindo in the sense that he has attempted several commentaries upon them in order to break free from the anomalies occuring in the received interpretations. In the process, he has audaciously ventured to disagree with many venerated masters and philosophical doctrines. Now that all these commentaries are available in one single volume, one should relish the delightful arguments and illumining explanations.
It is important to know that, out of the repeated revision of these commentaries was born, 'The Life Divine', by far, the greatest philosophical work to date. His shorter commentary on the Kena Upanishad deals with epistemological issues while that on Isha takes up the ontological aspects. These works are much more accessible than the sophisticated idiom of 'The Life Divine', and, in fact, serve as guide-books.

Monday, October 10, 2005

The Secret of the Veda

"IS there at all or is there still a secret of the Veda?..." (morethree luminous worldsluminous cowsshining herdsradiant herdsluminous herds (moreVedic RishisAngirasa RishisThe Guardians of the Light,Surya SavitriRetrospect of Vedic Theory (more)

Editorial Reviews: Book Description
Sri Aurobindo breaks new ground in interpreting the ancient Vedas. His deeper insight into this came from his own spiritual practices for which he found vivid allegorical descriptions in the Vedas. The hidden meaning of the rig Veda is revealed with numerous translations and commentary. Many have been perplexed by the reverence accorded to the Vedas when they read past commentaries or translations. Sri Aurobindo was able to uncover the mystery of the double meanings, the inner psychological and yogic significance and practices and the consistent, clear sense brought by this psychological view of the Vedic hymns. Finally, the true inner meaning of the Veda and its relevance to the seeking after self-realization and enlightenment is revealed.

Customer Reviews
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Stop chanting, start decoding, October 9, 2005
Reviewer: savitriera - See all my reviews

This epoch-making work of Sri Aurobindo on Vedic mysticism is of immense import as far as hermeneutics and psychology are considerd. It is the most original contribution of Sri Aurobindo to the modern knowledge systems. To the reader of this work, Indra is no longer a mere mythological deity, but the master of his own 'indriyas', senses, with whose active help, it would be easy to win new frontiers of awareness. Varuna is not simply the lord of the sea but the highest psychological state of oceanic vastness, light and purity into which we all must aspire to surge forth. By this simple exercise of replacing the connotations, one turns with profit the Vedic text of great antiquity into an excellenct self-management treatise. The Veda is no more prisoned in rituals and conventions but becomes a handbook of self-culture.
As a result, thematic unity between the Veda and the Upanishads has been restored. By addressing the most primordial existential issues besetting human life, the Veda is a univesal testament, and Sri Aurobindo has delivered it from the confines of a particular religion.

Sunday, October 16, 2005

Savitri: A Legend & A Symbol

by Sri Aurobindo
Paperback: 816 pages, Publisher: Lotus Press
Editorial Reviews- Book Description:
In this epic spiritual poem, Sri Aurobindo reveals his vision of mankind's destiny within the universal evolution. He sets forth the optimistic view that life on earth has a purpose, and he places our travail within the context of this purpose: to participate in the evolution of consciousness that represents the secret thread behind life on Earth.
Customer Reviews:
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Adventure of consciousness, October 15, 2005
Reviewer: savitriera - See all my reviews
Yes, it was originally written in English, it's not a translation from some Indian language. The whole book is one poem, a long poem, one of the longest, they call it an epic. A poem is not meant for the poets only, it can be read by anyone. But, it is so difficult to understand? OK, a poem or a song is primarily meant for the ears, so reading aloud is the key. Can it be one page a day? Yes, and then the power and music of the words play magic. The message seeps in by and by.
SAVITRI is the finest substitute for those who can't access the VEDA because of the difficult sanskrit language. As a modern scripture it synthesizes the wisdom of all cultures. So, go for the pure gold; what better way to read SAVITRI than to start reading, right away? Bon Voyage.

2 comments:

  1. Dear brother soul Mahapatra,

    Very glad to see your Blog and learn about your great understanding and admiration of the supramental Avtar of the New Age.

    I'm Shiva Vangara, have been living in-out of Ashram and Auroville, at present in Bombay pursuing the epic Hollywood project inspired by SAVITRI, entilted FOURTH DIMENSION.

    Love
    Shiva
  2. How come you are writing like a stranger! We have been co-workers so often in the Delhi Book Fair courtesy Dr Gyanchandra.

    Chase your dream, as they say. SAVITRI must vanquish and Harmony prevail.