October 22, 2005

Sri Aurobindo and Whitehead

Nature of God: A Comparative Study in Sri Aurobindo and Whitehead
eBook Description: This work stems from a chance discovery of certain striking points of similarity between the views of Sri Aurobindo and Alfred North Whitehead on the Nature of God. The author was particularly fascinated by Whitehead's well known equations regarding the relationship between God and the world. Formulation of such equations by a mathematician and physicist seems to be somewhat amazing. Being stricken by this sense of amazement, Prof. Satya Prakash Singh began to explore various avenues by which such thoughts might have found access to him. After all, man is man everywhere, and he thinks alike to a certain extent. Philosophy deals with the ultimate problems arising in the human mind which is shaped by Nature in a common form. In fact, there is no dearth of similarities from one philosophical system to another. There is no dearth of dissimilarities either. As in fact so in ideas, the world is abundantly rich in similarities as well as dissimilarities. But when either of the two becomes glaringly palpable even in the face of reasons to the contrary, it arrests our attention and demands an explanation. At the outset, the author looked around to see if these two philosophers were ever in contact with each other. The conclusion was in the negative. At the next step, Professor Singh began to think about the possibility of their drawing their fundamental views regarding God from some common source. The outcome was extremely negligible and arbitrary. If Plato and the Bible serve as the main influences on Whitehead, the Veda serves as the same on Sri Aurobindo. Moreover, thinkers of their eminence seldom do rely on mere borrowings. Thus Prof. Singh was impelled to find solution to the problem ultimately by making a structural study of their systems in themselves and by trying to find out their respective ways of thinking on God.

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