Integral and Copyright

I completely agree with Graham here.Of course, I disagree in that I-I "owns", in any meaningful sense, the term integral, or that "they ARE the authority". If anyone had the "copyright" on the term, it would be Sri Aurobindo Ghose. Also, I like the fact that there is separate Wiki for Integral - how about you? by ebuddha on Mon 27 Mar 2006 03:04 PM EST Permanent Link

Integral Conscious Creation

The phrase “conscious creation” has been used for decades, possibly longer. Applying the term to the Seth Material can be traced to Lynda Dahl, who published three books in the 1990s that used “conscious creation” to mean “you create your own reality.” (1) The latter phrase was coined by Jane Roberts in The Nature of Personal Reality (1974). It went on to become a New Age mantra most recently uttered by Amit Goswami in the New Age hit What the F%#? Do We Know? (2004). So it’s popular in the Seth community to use the phrase “conscious creation,” and sometimes YCYOR (you create your own reality) to represent the core ideas in the Seth material.

However, this concept has been around for millennia. It’s traceable back to the New Thought movement founded by Phineas Quimby in mid-19th century America. Moreover, it extends all the way back in some form to the Idealist philosophers, from Plato to Plotinus and Nagarjuna, onwards to Fichte, Schelling, Schopenhauer, Hegel, Berdyaev, and others. Seen in this light, Jane Roberts’s The Physical Universe as Idea Construction (1963) is actually a variation of Western idealism. Thus, the Seth material is a form of idealism found in twenty-three Seth-dictated books (1970-2004). As such, the phrase “conscious creation” doesn’t accurately define what makes the Seth material unique from or related to other bodies of work. Therefore, I define conscious creation more broadly to include two foundational concepts:

• All-That-Is as physical, subtle, and causal fields of consciousness.
• All-That-Is as Primal Cause through the action of involution/evolution.

Thus, “conscious creation” applies to any premodern, modern, or postmodern body of work that explores the simultaneous action of involution/evolution in physical, subtle, and causal fields. For instance, postmodern examples include the information offered by Elias and Mary Ennis, and the Kris Chronicles published by Serge Grandbois and Mark Bukator. Premodern examples include Vedanta Hinduism and Vajrayana Buddhism.

Regarding concept 2 above, involution/evolution is the action of Causal Consciousness that creates All-That-Is. The action of involution outlines how All-That-Is acts as Primal Cause to create causal, subtle, and physical fields. For example, Seth used consciousness units (causal CUs) and electromagnetic energy units (subtle EEs) in this way in Dreams, “Evolution,” and Value Fulfillment (1986). (3) Sri Aurobindo used the Hindu Vedantic version of involution in The Life Divine (1949)...

While the premodern traditions had an understanding of involution – the action of Consciousness as Primal Cause – what’s missing is an understanding of evolution; Consciousness unfolding in broad stages of increasing complexity over time in the physical field, or what Seth called Framework 1. I’m not talking about the crude distortions of Social Darwinism used by Robber Barons or Nazi Germany to justify economic inequalities or genocide, but the kind of evolutionary theories found in Aurobindo, Radhakrishnan, Chauduri, Gopi Krishna, Teilhard de Chardin, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, and Wilber. These modern and postmodern thinkers all show the driving “force” behind evolution, natural selection, genetic mutations, etc., to be none other than All-That-Is, not chance, chaos, or randomness...

Thus, when I combine Wilber’s integral approach with the above definition of conscious creation, we get Integral Conscious Creation. Integral simply means balanced, inclusive, and comprehensive. It doesn’t attempt to reduce inner to outer, or vice versa, but properly situates all dimensions of being in the world. We can have Causal Consciousness and quantum fields jointly creating and co-creating...

So what does Christianity have to do with Integral Conscious Creation? Jane Roberts was raised Roman Catholic, but rejected exoteric Christianity outright in her adult life. Her work doesn’t seek to rehabilitate institutionalized Christianity, but instead to move beyond worn out Christian mythos and pave the way for whatever comes next in postmodern terms.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Dembski. posted Wednesday, March 29, 2006 1:35 AM

Hieromonk Damascene and Sri Aurobindo

All Along the Watchtower posted by Gagdad Bob Tuesday, March 28, 2006 at 5:24 AM

As Hieromonk Damascene describes it, "The spirit is immortal being and thus partakes of time-transcendence; while the lower soul is tied to earthly time. The spirit, in experiencing eternity, abides in stillness; while the lower soul is involved in action that is bound to time." He goes on to say, "As we repeatedly catch ourselves descending to the level of thought (the realm of action in time), we can call ourselves back to the level of spirit (the realm of stillness in eternity). Later, through continual practice, we will be able to watch the thoughts coming, trying to gain admittance into our minds by stealing our attention."

The parallels with what Sri Aurobindo teaches are almost exact. For him, the fundamental approach to building your watchtower involves 1) aspiration, 2) rejection, and 3) surrender. Aspiration may be conceptualized in different ways, but if you are a Christian, it would involve constant recollection of, and opening to, the divine grace--sitting calmly and quietly and literally (that is, literally) drawing upon that energy. Depending on your personality, you may concentrate inwardly, in the heart center, or upwardly, above the head. Some people may think of the heart as a throne where Jesus resides. Or you may think of the spirit "descending like a dove" from above.

"Rejection" is a form of discrimination. Ultimately it involves discerning between reality and appearance, between truth and maya. But at first, it is simply the mundane task of driving a wedge between ourselves and our lower thoughts. What you think is none of your business! As one of the greatest authorities, St. Theophan the Recluse, writes, "Little by little you will separate from your thoughts” and “find that you have strayed far from your first-created image." He further points out that the lower mind does not "steal our grapes" in a straight forward manner, but usually through thoughts that then give rise to other desires and passions. Thus, St. Theophan recommends that we do not attempt to get involved or argue with these thoughts, because this will simply bind us to them.

In this regard, Hieromonk Damascene writes that "Struggle against thoughts is vain and futile. It is enough simply to observe the thoughts as they arise," and to "let them go without reacting to them or following them.... A thought cannot exist long under the light of direct, objective observation. If we do not align our will with it, it naturally disappears." In short, "resist not evil" means not struggling against thoughts but rising toward our Source, where they cannot reach.

A new world in a small cell

Planting the Seed of Love Sat, March 18, 2006 - 11:11 PM - permalink - Karina

It was quite synchronic that while I was writing this article I was at the same time reading a book about Mère: Divine Materialism by Satprem. I would like to translate some points that well describe the passage from kin 105 to kin 106, from B5 to B6 and well fit with what I think is the issue of the year: to find out that " the secret of the next world is beyond the mind… is inside the body, in that knot of life/death….It's not a secret to understand, it's the trial of the fire, because for Matter understanding means power.

A power that can be found at that point, where life embraces death, where the cells leave the old genetic code to enter the law of the next realm..It's the trasmutation of the next aeon. To find that secret means that we can do it. We can stand in front of death, in front of life, where this death fades away, where this life fades away: better where it gets into another physical life, that is neither life nor death, but another thing. Maybe a divine life…A fearful passage "A new world in a small cell. What is our support, our body, is also our last mistery. What is our failure, death, is also the key of a supreme victory". " Until we find the key of death, we won't have the key of life, of matter. It's strange but to really understand what matter is we have to understand what death is, as if our way of looking at matter would produce death as well.

One is not separate from the other. Neither a scientific nor a spiritual revolution will be a revolution until we have the revolution of death". " It's only the body that can understand..I have seen this secret…I have seen that on the earthly matter, on the earth the Supreme becomes perfect….." "To find transparency on all planes is to purify the matter..An "enlighmnent" of the body, a vision of the body, a direct knowledge of matter…true liberation is in the body…" Or as Sri Aurobindo would say: " The way the sovramental force works doesn't consist in influencing the body by giving it abnormal faculties, but in entering the body, permeating it and changing it completely in a sovramental physical body, a pure body, free of all its addictions and evolutionary deformities, with ist normal powers…because in every cell, in every atom, in every molecule of the Matter is the Omniscience of Eternity and the Omnipotence of Infinity".

"To reach that supreme starting point where some Rishi had seen, at the end of a dark cave, in the heart of Matter, at the bottom of their body, a new Sun of knowledge that was like a new Spirit in a new Matter: That treasure in the infinite rock, that Sun that dwells in the darkness, the Black Sun (Martanda) of the Veda, the Sun of Truth under the rock of the Mountain." Or as Josè Arguelles writes in the Cosmic History Chronicles: " Cosmic History is a descent into the darkest darkness and the densest density of consciousness as it could be imagined here on this Earth. Cosmic History dives into the core of Earth Consciousness with a program that is subliminally structured to transmute and alter the causes and effects of the density and darkness, which is a result of the destruction of the previous world systems".

One Cosmos Under God

One Cosmos Under God: The Unification of Matter, Life, Mind & Spirit

by Robert W. Godwin Amazon.com Home

One Cosmos Under God takes the reader on an intellectual and spiritual journey through the whole of creation, describing the evolution of the cosmos from the big bang to the ultimate state of consciousness. It is a comprehensive, self-consistent account of our universe which draws out implications of the latest scientific knowledge and accessibly harmonizes material from a wide range of disciplines. The book also provides a "road map" for serious spiritual aspirants of all faiths who wish to establish an experiential relationship to the non-local dimension that is the ultimate source and destiny of our cosmos.

One Cosmos under God represents nothing less than a new religio-scientific "mythunderstanding" for our time, in which humans are cosmologically situated and revealed to be the key to fathoming the mystery of existence itself. Daring to venture where language cannot go, One Cosmos actually begins in the "mind of God" prior to creation, and culminates in the "mind of the saint" who has transcended the culturally conditioned ego, awakened from the nightmare of history, and merged with the divine mind.

From the Author

One Cosmos Under God is the fruit of a lifetime of thought attempting to synthesize material from a number of diverse domains, including cosmology, theoretical biology, quantum physics, developmental psychoanalysis, attachment theory, anthropology, history, mysticism and theology, into a coherent, self-consistent, non-reductionistic whole.

I borrowed liberally from Savitri

Tusar N Mohapatra said... Why this fixation with Christianity? Just because you're born into it? 3:48 PM

Will said... Tusar - "Fixation" is a pejorative term, as I'm sure you know, at least in the way you're using it; it implies that one takes a narrow, exclusionary view of things. If you've taken the time to read Bob's postings, as well as the commentary, you'll see that we're all over the map re religious and spiritual perspectives. Your own perspective is rather pinched. Were you just born into it? 4:40 PM

LiquidLifeHacker said... Welcome!! Tusar, share with us, you will find there is alot of diversity here and we all can be inspired from each other. For me, when Bob uses the term "vertical", its a variable for you to put in your "higher being"I personally love everyone's input and have enjoyed all the stories and links shared, because for me, all the experience of others is spiritual testimony and I get moved from it all! 5:39 PM

Gagdad Bob said... It looks like Tusar is a fellow Aurobindian. I hope he stays around and contributes to the discussion, because I believe that the future of spirituality will involve a synthesis of Christian and Aurobindian ideals. Since we can write off Europe, the new Anglo-Hindu alliance that President Bush has helped forge will be of capital importance for the future of psychohistorical evolution. 5:54 PM

Tusar N Mohapatra said... It's surprising that Bob is yet to cite a single line from Savitri. 4:55 AM

Gagdad Bob said... Tusar--True. But I have quoted some more manageable poems by Aurobindo. And I borrowed liberally from Savitri in writing my book. Plus, I couldn't even do this blog without the assistance of our nonlocal overmental operators. In building a bridge, you can't start in the middle. 5:56 AM

Sunday, March 26, 2006 UPDATE--Oh, and since we have a specific request from Tusar to toss some Sri Aurobindo into the mix, here's how he describes the psycho-cosmic situation in his epic poem Savitri:

A Nature that denied the eternal Truth

In the vain braggart freedom of its thought

Hoped to abolish God and reign alone.

There was no sovereign Guest, no witness Light;

Unhelped it would create its own bleak world....

It's huge misguided fancy took vast shapes,

It's mindless sentience quivered with fierce conceits....

Leaders of the cosmic ignorance and unrest

And sponsors of sorrow and mortality

Embodied the dark ideas of the Abyss.

A shadow substance into emptiness came,

Dim forms were born in unthinking Void...

Accustomed to the unnatural dark, they saw

Unreality made real and conscious Night.

A violent, fierce and formidable world,

An ancient womb of huge calamitous dreams....

It was the gate of a false Infinite,

An eternity of disastrous absolutes,

An immense negation of spiritual things....

Being collpased into a pointless void

That yet was a parent of the worlds;

Inconscience swallowing up the cosmic Mind

Produced a universe from its lethal sleep....

etc. posted by Gagdad Bob at 5:57 AM 7 comments

AHWAN

From: "Bimal mohanty" bimal_mohanty@vsnl.com To: "Sri Tusar N Mohapatra" tusarnmohapatra@mail.com Subject: AHWAN March 06 issue

WEBGREETINGS AND BEST WISHES IN YOUR SPIRITUAL JOURNEY. THE LATEST VOLUME OF THE SPIRITUAL SITE www.ahwan.org (or www.ahwan.com) : VOLUME 61, MARCH 2006 ISSUE, has been published and uplinked with the article “ATMA-PARAMATMA Part 1.” - If you visit the site, and have any observations to make, I shall be grateful. There are also interesting questions from readers dealing with "Incarnations, Personal Gods and Gurus”, “Countering bad horoscopes”, "God’s acceptance of sinners", “Surrendering to God”, “Men fighting over religion”, etc. You can also browse the previous articles. Please share it with your friends and dear ones. God bless you- Sri bimal mohanty bimal_mohanty@vsnl.com

PS – To continue spreading the benefit of AHWAN to all, we need your assistance if you please. Click on ‘special information’ on the homepage of www.ahwan.org. If you wish someone to receive this information as complements from you please indicate his/her e-mail address. You can usher a qualitative change in your life, the spiritual way- the effective way. Visit the website www.ahwan.org. or www.ahwan.com regularly. Share it with your friends and dear ones.

Life is a laughter

Life is "A laughter from the immortal heart of Bliss" -Sri Aurobindo

Friday, March 17, 2006 posted by Parvati at 3:09 AM 2 Comments: manan said... 3:37 AM That rings true. However, at times, it takes a lot of faith to understand this. Parvati said... 4:14 AM Yes. It seems to be a deep Truth-Knowledge that is imbedded in all of existence. And is not at all evident to our usual, superficial or even the slightly deeper outlook of things - to our normal vision of things, all is bleak, negative, sad, hopeless and frustrating. Unless we actually are able to experience this laughter from the immortal heart of Bliss, we cannot live it, or even pretend that life is all wonderful. The experience will give us the knowledge that life is so, otherwise we are stuck in our present ignorance, pain because of that ignorance, sorrow because of that pain , so on and so forth, a never-ending chain of mistakes.

The larger humanism of Sri Aurobindo

Sumitranandan Pant (1900-77), author of twenty eight published works including poetry, verse plays and essays, was honoured with the prestigious Padma Bhushan (1961), Jnanpith (1968), Sahitya Akademi and Soviet Land-Nehru Awards for his immense contribution to the Hindi literary scene. His poetry epitomised the Indian thought of Satyam, Shivam, Sundaram (the true, the good, the beautiful). A prominent of the Chayavada movement, Pant's greatest poems were penned during this period. When the movement was on the decline, Pant was the poet who effortlessly made the transition from aesthetic mysticism to the temporal, doing so in terms of the Marxist ideology. This phase later gave way to the larger humanism of Sri Aurobindo. Thus in his later writings, Pant the aesthete emerged as a thinker, philosopher and humanist. His finest work, by far, is Pallav, a collection of thirty two poems written between 1918 and 1925. Seasonsindia.com About Us

Precept of Time in Neo-Yogah

A Novel Integral Health Concept and Practice-System.... An extra-ordinary book on complete body culture and Integral Health & self-healing system by a well-known researcher on the Vedic Concept of Material Immortality. Human Body is activated and controlled by mind with the aid of Vital-life energy. All these elements and forces work semi-consciously due to the dominating cosmic consciousness power.

NEO-YOGAH is a combo of dexterous techniques to deal with all the parts and areas of being, jointly and individually both in a unified manner. No other system takes things so comprehensively, systematically and effectively. NEO-YOGAH is absolutely non-religious and much nearer to psychic sciences. It is free of unproved dogmas, credos and fads, which is a significant characteristic of most of the so-called Yoga systems. Mood-change, Food-change, Exercise and Relaxercise- are the distinguishing landmarks of NEO-YOGAH. There are eight more, totaling twelve in all. These can change you from "Man Mr.Negative" to make you "Man Mr.Positive" and passionate to live a life delightful, happy, healthy and meaningful. An empathetic blending of ancient Indian Vedic concepts, Native American practices and traditional Egyptian techniques of personality resurrections.

Unexampled and absolutely novel theories based on the study of the Veda and Native American Esoteric systems and Egyptian health traditions. NEO-YOGAH is an auto-cure and self-energizing methodology which effects the innermost cores of a person & helps in transforming him by nourishing influences in one's cell-programming.

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An extra-ordinary book on complete body culture and Integral Health & self-healing system by a well-known researcher on the Vedic Concept of Material Immortality. Unexampled and absolutely novel theories based on the study of the Veda and Native American Esoteric systems and Egyptian health traditions. Privilege Price for You — Only Rs. 200 till 15 March 2006 The Great Value Edition of this internationally acclaimed book offers you truly incredible value. Sri Aravind Chetana Samaj (Regd. Educational Trust, 1981) 6562/1, Chamelian Road, New Delhi-110006 (India)Phones: (91-11) 23674147 satm@satm.net
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Supersensible, supralogical, transrational

True philosophy (not academic philosophy, which is just an adolescent parlor game) depends on two variables: the depth of one's intelligence, and the source and value of one's information. Neither of these conditions may be reduced to rationalism, for "depth of intelligence" is not something subject to rational measurement, any more than depth of aesthetic vision is. And reason can only prove what follows from its premises, which may or may not be true. Moreover, some true premises are not necessarily arrived at rationally--certainly not in the case of supersensible knowledge or revealed wisdom.

The rationalist is someone who reasons adequately in the world of phenomena, but who is closed off to the supralogical and transrational interior of the cosmos. Therefore, rationalism is by definition a false and partial metaphysic which will simply stamp the world in its own restricted form. This represents not a discovery of integral reality, but its foreclosure. At best, as the greatest rationalist, Kant, concluded, it can map the phenomena but cannot speak of the noumenon except to say that it exists (or "in-sists").

There is a story about Sri Aurobindo contained The Adventure of Consciousness, which is the best general summary of his philosophy. I bring it up because Sri Aurobindo is widely considered to have been the greatest Hindu sage of modern times, in large measure because he had a thoroughly Western education and developed a translogical system that unified the vertical and horizontal:

"The day came when Sri Aurobindo had had enough of these intellectual gymnastics. Probably he had seen that one can continue indefinitely to amass knowledge and to read and read and to learn new languages, even all the languages in the world and all the books in the world, and yet not advance [spiritually] an inch.

"For the mind does not seek to know truly, though it seems to--it seeks to grind. Its need of knowledge is primarily a need of something to grind. And if perchance the machine were to come to a stop because the knowledge was found, it would quickly rise in revolt and find something new to grind, to have the pleasure of grinding and grinding: This is its function. That within us which seeks to know and to progress is not the mind but something behind it which makes use of it:

" 'The capital period of my intellectual development,' confided Sri Aurobindo to a disciple, 'was when I could see clearly that what the intellect said might be correct and not correct, that what the intellect justified was true and its opposite also was true. I never admitted a truth in the mind without simultaneously keeping it open to the contrary of it.... And the first result was that the prestige of the intellect was gone!'"

Of course, that was just the beginning of the Adventure, not the end. posted by Gagdad Bob at 6:22 PM 43 comments United States Clinical psychologist Robert Godwin is an extreme seeker and off-road spiritual aspirant

The need of a deeper knowledge

It is evident that however much we may analyse the physical and sensible, we cannot by that means arrive at the Knowledge of the Self or of ourselves or of that which we call God. The telescope, the microscope, the scalpel, the retort and alembic cannot go beyond the physical, although they may arrive at subtler and subtler truths about the physical. If then we confine ourselves to what the senses and their physical aids reveal to us and refuse from the beginning to admit any other reality or any other means of knowledge, we are obliged to conclude that nothing is real except the physical and that there is no Self in us or in the universe, no God within and without, no ourselves even except this aggregate of brain, nerves and body. But this we are only obliged to conclude because we have assumed it firmly from the beginning and therefore cannot but circle round to our original assumption.

(Sri Aurobindo —The Synthesis of Yoga —The Status of Knowledge, pg. 287)

For in his study of himself and the world he cannot but come face to face with the soul in himself and the soul in the world and find it to be an entity so profound, so complex, so full of hidden secrets and powers that his intellectual reason betrays itself as an insufficient light and a fumbling seeker: it is successfully analytical only of superficialities and of what lies just behind the superficies. The need of a deeper knowledge must then turn him to the discovery of new powers and means within himself. He finds that he can only know himself entirely by becoming actively self-conscious and not merely self-critical, by more and more living in his soul and acting out of it rather than floundering on surfaces, by putting himself into conscious harmony with that which lies behind his superficial mentality and psychology and by enlightening his reason and making dynamic his action through this deeper light and power to which he thus opens.

In this process the rationalistic ideal begins to subject itself to the ideal of intuitional knowledge and a deeper self-awareness; the utilitarian standard gives way to the aspiration towards self-consciousness and self-realisation; the rule of living according to the manifest laws of physical Nature is replaced by the effort towards living according to the veiled Law and Will and Power active in the life of the world and in the inner and outer life of humanity.

(Sri Aurobindo —The Human Cycle —The Coming of the Subjective Age, pg. 24)

Selected quotes from The Human Cycle, ISBN 81-7058-469-8 (One of the greatest affirmations of Existence, from the Indian Mind; possibly very lofty and grandiose to the western reader. His works can be found at many university libraries, or purchased at http://sabda.sriaurobindoashram.org)

[Don't you be running away from your soul, boy. And don't let them fool you into thinking you ain't got one, with they long twisty ideas and big words. 'Cause when a man be havin' to ask if he's got a soul, he's already in a world o' hurt —even if he don't know it. ] Other Voices

Three Principles of True Teaching

Words of Sri Aurobindo

The first principle of true teaching is that nothing can be taught.

The teacher is not an instructor or taskmaster, he is a helper and a guide. His business is to suggest and not to impose. He does not actually train the pupil's mind; he only shows him how to perfect his instruments of knowledge and helps and encourages him in the process. He does not impart knowledge to him; he shows him how to acquire knowledge for himself. He does not call forth the knowledge that is within; he only shows him where it lies and how it can be habituated to rise to the surface. The distinction that reserves this principle for the teaching of adolescent and adult minds and denies its application to child is a conservative and unintelligent doctrine. Child or man, boy or girl, there is only one sound principle of good teaching. Difference of age only serves to diminish or increase the amount of help and guidance necessary; it does not change its nature.

The second principle is that the mind has to be consulted in its own growth.

The idea of hammering the child into the shape desired by the parent or teacher is a barbarous and ignorant superstition. It is he himself who must be induced to expand in accordance with his own nature. There can be no greater error than for the parent to arrange beforehand that his son shall develop particular qualities, capacities, ideas, virtues, or be prepared for a prearranged career. To force the nature to abandon its own dharma is to do it permanent harm, mutilate its growth and deface its perfection. It is a selfish tyranny over a human soul and a wound to the nation, which loses the benefit of the best that a man could have given it an is forced to accept instead something imperfect and artificial, second-rate, perfunctory and common. Every one has in him something divine, something his own, a chance of perfection and strength in however small a sphere, which God offers him to take or refuse. The task is to find it, develop it and use it. The chief aim of education should be to help the growing soul to draw out that in itself, which is best, and make it perfect for a noble use.

The third principle of education is to work from the near to the far,

from that which is to that which shall be.

The basis of a man's nature is almost always, in addition to his soul's past, his heredity, his surroundings, his nationality, his country, the soil from which he draws sustenance, the air which he breathes, the sights, sounds, habits to which he is accustomed. They mould him not the less powerfully because insensibly, and from that then we must begin. We must not take up the nature by the roots from the earth in which it must grow or surround the mind with images and ideas of a life, which is alien to that in which it must physically move. If anything has to be brought in from outside, it must be offered, not forced on the mind. A free and natural growth is the condition of genuine development. There are souls, which naturally revolt from their surroundings and seem to belong to another age and clime. Let them be free to follow their bent; but the majority languish, become empty, become artificial, if artificially molded into an alien form. It is God's arrangement that they should belong to a particular nation, age, society, that they should be children of the past, possessors of the present, creators of the future. The past is our foundation, the present our material, the future our aim and summit. Esamskriti

Integral education

For the last hundred years or so mankind has been suffering from a disease which seems to be spreading more and more and which has reached a climax in our times; it is what we may call "utilitarianism" People and things, circumstances and activities seem to be viewed and appreciated exclusively from this angle. Nothing has any value unless it is useful. Certainly something that is useful is better than something that is not. But first we must agree on what we describe as useful- useful to whom, to what, for what ? Words of the Mother

Life is full of surprises. I was searching for some books in the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan bookshop when I overheard a middle aged women ask where she could donate about hundred books on Indian culture and philosophy. Out of a desire to help and partly because I wanted some of those books I picked up a conversation with her. That's when she told me that it was not her but her sister who had these books. She gave me her sister Pooja Munshi's numbers and me to call. I gave Pooja the name of a learned Sanskrit professor who could add these books to his college library. The marketer in me got me talking to her about my site. Sensing my interest she told me about a Aurobindo ashram sponsored seminar in early October. Having shown my keenness to attend we wished each other goodbye.

It was I think October 1 some 7.30 in the morning. Pooja called to say that the seminar was from October 1-3, she could not call earlier since the piece of paper on which she had scribbled my number had got misplaced. Bhagwan alone knows how she found it! Perhaps it was divine help. When I reached the Sophia auditorium on day two I was surprised to see women around, not that I mind, since a couple of them were stunners. There were only six men in the crowd all over sixty and me a bacha. That's when I decided to find out what the seminar was all about. Aah! It was a three-day Intensive course for teachers on Integral Education. Now that's not something I had bargained for!

Unsure about what was in store I decided to sit through nevertheless. The first session was on the impact of music, sound on our minds and body. The second was on Integral education. Believe me it was marvelous, truly enlightening. During lunch I picked up a book titled The Right Object of Education – And India's National Education, Words of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. I liked the book so much that it is reproduced in parts for you.

It been three years since I have tried to stop controlling my life and flow with the tide, enjoy life as it unfolds. Since then things just keep on happening as if by some divine intervention. The more I look within the more I discover that education has always interested me but not knowing anyone in the field I never knew from where to start. Out of nowhere I met Pooja Munshi who initiated me into the subject. After reading the book I realized that education is not, about studying ten subjects simultaneously with the sole intent of getting a degree, job, but lots more. exploreindia@vsnl.net Esamskriti

Philosophy is at once the most sublime and the most trivial

PRAGMATISM A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking By William James (1907)

To the Memory of John Stuart Mill from whom I first learned the pragmatic openness of mind and whom my fancy likes to picture as our leader were he alive to-day...In America, John Dewey's 'Studies in Logical Theory' are the foundation. Probably the best statements to begin with however, are F. C. S. Schiller's in his 'Studies in Humanism.'

Believing in philosophy myself devoutly, and believing also that a kind of new dawn is breaking upon us philosophers, I feel impelled, per fas aut nefas, to try to impart to you some news of the situation. Philosophy is at once the most sublime and the most trivial of human pursuits. It works in the minutest crannies and it opens out the widest vistas. It 'bakes no bread,' as has been said, but it can inspire our souls with courage; and repugnant as its manners, its doubting and challenging, its quibbling and dialectics, often are to common people, no one of us can get along without the far-flashing beams of light it sends over the world's perspectives.

These illuminations at least, and the contrast-effects of darkness and mystery that accompany them, give to what it says an interest that is much more than professional. The history of philosophy is to a great extent that of a certain clash of human temperaments. Undignified as such a treatment may seem to some of my colleagues, I shall have to take account of this clash and explain a good many of the divergencies of philosophers by it.

Theosophy drew upon both Buddhism and Vedanta

An Introduction to Ascended Master Teachings with Comparisons to Vedanta

(part 1 of 3; 1/2/3/next) By David Tame India's 'Other' Masters and Gurus

The advent of new dispensations or new approaches to the spiritual Path is a phenomenon well-known to Hindus over time. New light has been shed upon Vedanta regularly, every few centuries. Major new directions in Vedanta have blossomed, or new expositions, such as through Patanjali, Chaitanya, and others. In more recent times, a little over a century ago, Sri Ramakrishna introduced a new paradigm of spiritual approaches, such as all-encompassing non-exclusivity of beliefs, and much more. Likewise his disciple, Vivekananda, was instrumental in facilitating a spiritual renaissance among some of the West by introducing Vedanta there. Devotees of great figures such as these are keenly aware, then, of the importance to the world of the introduction of radically new spiritual ideas, paradigms, and dispensations. The Ascended Masters' Teachings may be viewed in such a light.

This relatively new tradition incorporates a stream of philosophy and practices that, whilst holding to the time-honoured moral guidelines and mystical precepts of any worthy spiritual Path, are also as detailed and as experientially scientific as Vedanta. Indeed, they are comparable to Vedanta in many ways, yet at the same time chart intriguing new territories. In the opinion of many, the particularly new aspects of belief, practice, and personal spiritual experience of these Teachings present a genuinely new paradigm of the spiritual life for both East and West. Since attempts to use precise synonyms between the two traditions can be misleading, with a few exceptions I shall therefore sketch an outline of this tradition in its own terminology.

The First Teachings of the Masters, and Neo-Vedanta: Sri Ramakrishna liked to quote the Bengali saying, "As many faiths, so many paths." This is similar to the Vedic dictum: "Truth is One. Sages call it by different names." To those possessed of some familiarity with both the Ascended Master Teachings and the Vedas, it is evident time and time again that the same - or very similar - Truth is being spoken of by each tradition, even at times when the subject is quite detailed and technical. It may be that this similarity is not recognised as frequently as it might be simply due to the different terminology used. Hence the idea of briefly introducing the Ascended Masters to those who may be of a Hindu background.

The Ascended Masters began Their more overt, public service among humanity in 1875, with the founding of the Theosophical Society. Theosophy was never Buddhist or Hindu per se, but drew upon both Buddhism and Vedanta for the sake of their rich lexicons of spiritual terminology, capable of describing Cosmic Law to a Western world that until then had been broadly ignorant of such matters of deeper spirituality. Theosophy was outwardly founded by Westerners, but was actually prompted and inspired from behind the scenes by Eastern Adepts, and soon came to be based near Madras, India.

In retrospect it can now be seen that this was in general a time of great spiritual ferment and renaissance. Sri Aurobindo's spiritual life and teachings stem from around this time. Ramakrishna lived from 1836 to 1886, but only gathered his disciples around him and had a wider impact upon the Hindu world in the final years of his life. The impact of Ramakrishna's life became all the greater after his mahasamadhi, when the disciples formed an Order in his name and began their own work.

This initiated what is sometimes called neo-Vedanta, touching upon such elements as the aforesaid openness to other faiths, as well as a greater openness in general to the various diverse paths of Vedanta itself, the various yogas, and other streams of spirituality within India. Patriarchal Hinduism was challenged with the exoneration of the female. The monastic Ramakrishna Order was also relatively new in India in its emphasis upon action and charitable work, as opposed to what had at times tended to become a rather too inward-looking, self-oriented form of the spiritual life within India.

The latter quarter of the nineteenth century, then, and leading into the early 1900s, saw the beginning of several streams of change and of renaissance of the spiritual life for both East and West. These may be viewed as a foundation and background for the comparatively very different spiritual world we live in today, with the East's neo-Vedanta and the West's increased interest in mysticism and the true living of religion, as well as the Ascended Master movements.

For those interested in the causes behind effects, or in esoteric history, it truly is noteworthy that the fifty years from 1875 to around 1925 saw not only the coming of Theosophy but also of such change and renewal within Hindu religion and society as the mission of Ramakrishna, the birth of Baha'i, and the work of Sri Aurobindo and others. This partly resulted from the presence in India of the British and of the Empire, which led to a co-mingling of ideas and an East-West interaction that was to profoundly change the spiritual possibilities and philosophical thinking of both cultures. But the Brotherhood of Ascended Masters was also an impelling force behind the renewals.

It was within such a time of positive spiritual ferment that the Ascended Masters were able to begin Their own first organisations, such as the Theosophical Society. But this spiritual stream has moved on since then, many more divine truths being released to the world, even for the very first time. The Teachings of the Ascended Masters, which were much more easily brought forth during the 1875-1925 period of extremely positive spiritual East-West interaction, are again destined to return to India, adding once more to the mystical treasures already long associated with that land.

Evolutionary Ideas Of Sri Aurobindo

Sri Aurobindo's insight and analysis of evolution are now part of the scientific and cultural landscape. But few scientists and artists know his evolutionary theories that are being proved true by modern science. While probing frontiers of science, physicists have discovered the limitation of the Newtonian mechanistic model at the level of galaxies and electrons. These discoveries have no doubt given the first glimmering of the new paradigm that matter and consciousness are the primary forces in the universe.

(See also: Sri Aurobindo , Spiritual Guidance, God and Religion, Peace on Earth, Peace of Mind, Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul) Spiritual Inspiration, Spiritual Inspirations, Spiritual, Spirituality, Religion, Religious, Hindu, Hinduism, India, Sri Aurobindo, Aurobindo, Spiritualitu and Science, New physic, New Physics, Quantum Physics, Heisenberg's principles of uncertainty, Bohr's laws, Schrodinger's resolution of particle/wave paradox, Spiritual Growth, Personal Growth, Inner Growth, Guru, Gurus, Spiritual Master, Spiritual Masters, Indian Guru, Indian Gurus, Indian Master, Indian Masters, Indian Spirutual Master, Indian Spirutual Master, Spiritual Teacher, Spiritual Teachers Experience Festival

Indian Philosophy in America

Transcript of a discussion with Rajiv Malhotra : 24th JUNE, 2000

Having a background in physics, I had been reading a lot about the synthesis between quantum physics/relativity with Vedanta, and thought that all this must be really exciting for these scholars; but I found that this was absolutely not the case.

• I got Rutgers University in New Jersey to do a conference called 'Quantum Physics and Eastern Philosophy', for which we gave a grant. But what transpired was one-sided Western chauvinism, even outright negative towards any Indian philosophical orientation. I concluded that I had quite a lot of work to do to incorporate Indian philosophy as part of the American academic system. So when people ask why I positioned all this as religion, my answer is that that's the only choice I had, the only way it could get in the door.
• In University of California, Santa Barbara, we now have a very successful course in the Religion Department for the past four years, called Science and Religion, where the curriculum consists of Quantum Physics, Madhyamika and Vedanta etc. and shows how these ancient philosophies relate to the modern discoveries in science. It's a good introduction and the department has found this to be a very successful course, one of the most popular courses in the religion department. The success is largely due to Alan Wallace who teaches it with great sympathy for the Buddhist tradition that he belongs to, as well as to Vedanta and to modern science.
• In the University of Hawaii, thanks to Prof Arindam Chakrabarti, we are in the Philosophy Department for the past four years. They use the grant to sponsor Ph.D. students each year who are interested in studying Indian Philosophy. Because of the availability of the grants, it helps students to opt for it. They also have a conference, and a lecture series on Indian Philosophy, to which they invite some very distinguished persons. They've done fourteen or fifteen of these lectures and these will be collected into a book.
• At Columbia University in New York, we funded a course at the graduate and undergraduate levels, called 'Non-Duality' - it included Buddhism, Vedanta, Quantum Physics, etc. It was a very successful course, mainly because of the enthusiasm and support from the Buddhists. I was bothered to discover that the teaching of Hinduism was mainly anthropology.

They were not emphasizing the ideas or philosophy behind the religion to make the practices sensible. The focus was mainly on social structure, the role of women, caste, and all the different goddesses and different rituals. A student would not necessarily understand if there was any sense in this. In my opinion, a student would leave with the impression of something very exotic, theatrical and emotional, but which doesn't make any sense especially in a modern context. In this respect, Buddhism is taught with deeper respect for the ideas, because most teachers of Buddhism are practicing Buddhists. In case of Hinduism, most teachers in academics are NOT practicing Hindus.

Part of the problem is that Indian Universities do not produce Ph.D.s in Indian Philosophy. Where they do teach Philosophy in India, it is mainly Western Philosophy. So even if a college in America were convinced that they wanted to start a department of Indian Philosophy, they would tell me to get some good candidates for the faculty. But I cannot find any. The Educational Council on Indic Traditions

DNA Activation in FOURTH DIMENSION

tribes » Other » ~DNA ACTIVATION~ » topics » MATRIMANDIR -a scene about DNA Activation in FOURTH DIMENSION film..topic posted Sun, March 5, 2006 - 1:30 AM by Shiva

EXT. MATRIMANDIR - SUNRISE At Sun-rise SATYA, CHETANA walk into MATRIMANDIR gardens… CLOSE SHOT Dew drops are sparkling in sun light, air is vibrant, now the whole Nature is singing with joy that SAVITRI is going to take an evolutionary step.

ONE VISITOR What is the significance of MATRIMANDIR? Why it is called THE WONDER OF THE WORLD?

CHETANA There is a DIVINE-CONSIOUSNESS in the MATTER, we want to manifest that here in Life. ANIMATION MATRIMANDIR stands for DIVINE CONSCIOUNESS, emerging from the MATTER, at last earth delivering by EONIC EVOLUTIONARY STRUGGLE and pain its hidden DIVINE CONSCIOUSNESS.

In fact if you look at MATRIMANDIR physically it resembles NUCLEUS of the CELL; which contains the hereditary material DNA; but here MATRIMANDIR, which is the symbol of DIVINE CONSCIOUSNESS is the NUCLEUS of the EARTH or MATTER, which contains MATTER’S TRUE hereditary material of DIVINE CONSCIOUSNESS; which had had been evolving throughout history of the Earth. Now MANIFESTED when the EARTH is READY.

CRYSTAL (Divine Spark, Psychic Being) can be compared to the NUCLEOLUS of the NUCLEUS, which is a factory for the partial manufacturing of RIBOSOMES. WHEN THE BODY CELLS COME UNDER THE PSYCHIC CONSCIOUS CONTROL, NUCLEOLUS manufactures Divine C. RIBOSOMES. In respect they manufacture NEW protein molecule by following blue prints DIVINE CONSCIOUSNESS – thus even this body can be TRANSFORMED and DIVINISED.

And all the SEVEN WONDERS in the world were made for some human greatness or might or aesthetic satisfaction. But only the MATRIMANDIR is a PLACE TO FIND ONE'S TRUE CONSCIOUSNESS and it’s dedicated to Man's real mission on the earth. Which is the first step for REAL BROTHERHOOD OR HUMAN UNITY. That's why this is called (MORE) CHETANA (CONT'D) THE WONDER OF THE WORLD.

CRYSTAL is the symbol of EARTH SOUL (PSYCHIC). SUN RAY symbolizes the DIVINE LIGHT passing the CRYSTAL CLEAR PSYCHIC and going deep into SUBCONSCIOUS, thus TRANSFORMING and MANIFESTING itself in the MATTER on the EARTH. DIVINE CONSCIOUNESS and SPARK SOUL evolving from MATTER here, DIVINE LIGHT MANIFESTING, TRANSFORMING and leading the EARTHLY LIFE. SATYA looks at her appreciating and the visitor too. posted by: Shiva India 344 friends join to post

Swabhava

The manifested world with all its hues and colours is nothing but an arudha. All that we see with the naked eye, the physical, tangible objects and people are nothing but the arudhas. The consciousness which drives the person is something which is intangible and cannot be percieved. Even the person himself might not about his real self, till the guru comes to his life and wakes him up from the slumber.

Sri Aurobindo a great indian scholar had remarked in "Supramental manifestation on earth" the following: "A man does not work according to his ideas, but rather his nature". People might have certain ideas about happenings and people around them. They might harbor many ideas, but when they actually start interacting with the world, they behave more according to their general nature and temperament. The general nature, temperament can be known from Moon and also the Arudha lagna. Arudha lagna is nothing but a reflection of the true self, and thus together with moon can show the general behavior in the society. Once mastered, predictions can be made based on Arudha chakra alone. posted by ParthaSarathy Thursday, January 20, 2005 @ 10:23 PM Location:Hyderabad, Andhra pradesh, India I work as a writer, hobby is astrology http://partvinu.tripod.com

The Transformation Of Physical Inertia

There are certain things that have to be taken into the nature and transformed, and others rejected in order to bring every revolting element of the somnambulist subconscient into the supramental light. The danger of working in the subconscient and in the atmospheric subconscient is further precipitated by human revolt to the Divine Will, and the manner in which this human revolt and opposition hinders terrestrial yoga could well be seen and explained by the physiological signs the body has to undergo without actually suffering their ultimate consequences, medical or otherwise. These things have to be conquered and these are the very essential steps that precede the greater ones, and we have to keep ourselves always open to the Divine Guidance and proceed accordingly. There are certain conditions that are still more essential than we have understood so far, steps that seem negligible and trivial but nevertheless important and indispensable.

The first step is to conquer tamas or physical inertia and transform it into a greater physical strength. Tamas is ignorance, or more properly, an expression of terrestrial ignorance that has to be transformed as an essential step towards transforming the body consciousness into a fit and strong vessel of the Divine Supermind.

Physical inertia manifest into the human nature not only as physical weakness and tiredness, but also as hesitation and procrastination, sometimes as fear of the impossible and also as psychological alternations in the physical consciousness. It may be concluded that it is the positive condition for such physical vibrations to impose on the being, and lead men, in the ultimate consequence, to an irrevocable condition in which the only resort for the being, as it would seem, is a self-disgusting surrender to the processes of death. Physical tamas keeps its doors open for the terrestrial forces and influences, in as much as it provides a base for human atavism and habits, for the idiosyncrasies of the terrestrial Mind, which have to be transformed of their imperfections and defects by the power of the Supermind. We ought to see physical inertia as an expression of a certain constitutional ignorance, immanent in the earth conditions and in each being this ignorance becomes an expression, a type that supports its special psychological impulsions and a character made of up thousand contradictions.

In a sense, the physical being finds its support on a constitutional atavism – which is also universal -, a crude mechanism that aggregates all our tendencies, impulsions and actions on earth. Inertia, as an expression of a constitutional ignorance, is perhaps a thing that can well comprise the tendencies of a mass in self-ignorance, and therefore can establish other atavistic habits compressed in a human frame, the habits which it only carries and cherishes in the night of the soul in self-evolution. To overcome that and to be victorious is perhaps the most difficult thing, but it is a battle that has to be won in the terrestrial field by the help of the Supramental Light. Everything in the evolution swarms in an endless agony, as if the evolution itself is a difficulty and a riddle that has to be sorted out by the Supreme Power, but the problem of the earth and that of the human beings is that they reject the Truth-Power and its transmuting touch. Worse still, they detest in others any possibility of a supramental truth-evolution. This self-disparity is hard to overcome by the human ego, which seeks an easy and fantastic shortcut to life by the help of a seemingly impregnable Mechanism, a giant machine that has taken over the place of the immanent gnostic Spirit in life and matter.

An Overmind Power, thus pushed to the point of descent in the individual, may be able to organise around itself all those that are in the mind and vital, may also take up into itself the psychological tendencies of the progressive human type at once into its vast light. It may also be possible for it to achieve a sense of permanency in the mental and vital spheres, permanency of an impermanent type, but nevertheless a lasting touch as long as it is destined to last. But in the earth sphere, it can act only as an influence and under the guise of a secret guide, a masked and well-adored prototype that carries within itself a vast world of possibilities, unable to comprehend the mystery of the depth and the abyss, and therefore leaves everything in a state of its own earthy mess. It crowns the mind with its luminous light, but leaves the body of the earth in a state of death and decay, a state that is unknown to its own experience and, therefore not a valid experience to the logistics of its purpose and plan.

Overmind cannot handle terrestrial ignorance, much less the human ignorance. What it can do at best and as part of the spiritual evolution is to be an instrumentation for the Supreme Power, and in the terrestrial consciousness it can create the initial conditions for the terrestrial being to evolve towards the Supramental order of existence, a lesser evolution based on a superior truth and power is slowly replaced by the Supramental truth-evolution. In a word, to achieve a power of being in the place of a crude physical inertia, and to manifest there a spontaneity and rhythm of existence are the two essential consequences of a Supramental truth-descent into the terrestrial being. That has to be achieved in us first in order that it may bring about a larger result in our difficult and laborious evolution in the course of time. (20th April, 2005) posted by R Friday, May 20, 2005 at 9:17 PM Divine Gnosis

Weblog and the Yoga of work

Divine Gnosis Thursday, August 01, 2002

What the Soul perceives to be true and imposes on the being is rejected by the lower vital. Let there be nothing in you left out from the transmuting touch of the Spirit, let there be not a single distortion of your inner tapasya, otherwise you will be defeat your own purpose and fall into the trap set by the forces of disorder and falsehood. The one meaning of self-surrender to the Divine Mother is to consecrate oneself and all that one must be to the feet of Krishna in a great joy of self-giving, and then you will progress into the Spirit rapidly and quickly towards the sublimation of the supramental Truth-Consciousness in yourself. posted by R at 3:54 PM

Aspiration is a power of the Psychic manifest in both the inner and outer being, an extraordinary movement of the Soul towards the Divine Truth. But it is not at all easy to make it come to the surface and act with its sovereign spiritual force and govern the whole nature towards the Mother and her divine transformation. A perfect discipline in all parts of the being, a calm and settled will in the vital being, an exemplary faith in the spiritual process and its final consequence and, more importantly, in the secret guidance of the Divine Mother are the conditions for the full manifestation of the Psychic into our ignorant nature. Only then, spirituality becomes a spontaneous outflowering of the immanent Divine Spirit that we are. posted by R at 11:46 AM

Let me identify myself only with Sri Aurobindo. posted by R at 11:25 AM

I am absolutely ignorant of the Divine. posted by R at 11:24 AM

Tuesday, July 30, 2002

A perfect discipline in the being is indispensable to a spiritual self-mastery. posted by R at 11:22 AM

Monday, July 29, 2002

I do not see the Weblog from a technical standpoint. It is only a spiritual exercise of my inner Spirit towards the Yoga of work in one of its manifestations. posted by R at 11:11 AM

Agnosticism, a discordant note

Barkha Dutt HindustanTimes.com Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Swimming in the sea of India’s cultural complexity has taught me that I can no longer carry my agnosticism lightly. Time has convinced me that my resistance to institutionalised religion is the defining character flaw of the progressive elite; a discordant note in an otherwise full-throated symphony; a disconnect so deep that sometimes people like me are just left watching from the sidelines at the tumultuous fight for India’s future; spectators, not participants, because we speak the language of disbelief. But there are times I am grateful that I am neither Hindu nor Muslim, but just a devout sceptic. The writer is Mng. Editor, NDTV 24x7

Confusion and contradictions

THE CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON by Immanuel Kant

translated by J. M. D. Meiklejohn PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION, 1781

Human reason, in one sphere of its cognition, is called upon to consider questions, which it cannot decline, as they are presented by its own nature, but which it cannot answer, as they transcend every faculty of the mind.

It falls into this difficulty without any fault of its own. It begins with principles, which cannot be dispensed with in the field of experience, and the truth and sufficiency of which are, at the same time, insured by experience. With these principles it rises, in obedience to the laws of its own nature, to ever higher and more remote conditions.

But it quickly discovers that, in this way, its labours must remain ever incomplete, because new questions never cease to present themselves; and thus it finds itself compelled to have recourse to principles which transcend the region of experience, while they are regarded by common sense without distrust.

It thus falls into confusion and contradictions, from which it conjectures the presence of latent errors, which, however, it is unable to discover, because the principles it employs, transcending the limits of experience, cannot be tested by that criterion. The arena of these endless contests is called Metaphysic.

Shunning the "communal ego"

Thus, in the vicissitudes of human thought,

• on one side the individual is moved or invited to discover and pursue his own self-affirmation, his own development of mind and life and body, his own spiritual perfection;
• on the other he is called on to efface and subordinate himself and to accept the ideas, ideals, will, instincts, interests of the community as his own.

He is moved by Nature to live for himself and by something deep within him to affirm his individuality; he is called upon by society and by a certain mental idealism to live for humanity or for the greater good of the community. The principle of self and its interest is met and opposed by the principle of altruism. The State erects its godhead and demands his obedience, submission, subordination, self-immolation; the individual has to affirm against this exorbitant claim the rights of his ideals, his ideas, his personality, his conscience. It is evident that all this conflict of standards is a groping of the mental Ignorance of man seeking to find its way and grasping different sides of the truth but unable by its want of integrality in knowledge to harmonize them together.

A unifying and harmonizing knowledge can alone find the way, but that knowledge belongs to a deeper principle of our being to which oneness and integrality are native. It is only by finding that in ourselves that we can solve the problem of our existence and with it the problem of the true way of individual and communal living. Sri Aurobindo - The Future Evolution of Man -http://www.mountainman.com.au/auro_3.html posted by Infinisri Thursday, October 28, 2004 @ 8:58 AM 1 comments

Life Divine and Beautiful

life_wanderer (life_wanderer) wrote,@ 2005-10-20 14:10:00 beautiful, bliss, divine, life, omnipresent, philosophy, reality, spirituality, truth Shrikant Vasudeo My search for theLiving Truth Life Divine and Beautiful Solely and exclusively based on God Sri Aurobindo’s Life Divine Aspiration of Humanity (Book One : Omnipresent Reality and the Universe; Chapter One : The Human Aspiration)

The earliest preoccupation of man in his awakened thoughts is also the highest which his thought can envisage. It is interesting to note that it is also his inevitable and ultimate preoccupation as it survives the longest periods of skepticism. It returns after every banishment. The human aspiration manifests itself

• In the divination of Godhead

• The impulse towards perfection

• The search after pure Truth and unmixed Bliss

• The sense of a secret immortality.

The ancient dawns of human knowledge are witness to this constant aspiration. The victorious analysis of the externalities of Nature is not able to satisfy the humanity today. This is in spite of total abundance of such material before us. The Nature of Man always returns to its primeval longings. The earliest formula of Wisdom is also its last. It is summed up in just four key words ; God, Light, Freedom and Immortality.

These persistent ideals of the race pose to us a contradiction between two opposite movements of human nature. On the one hand we have the normal experience of humanity and on the other hand we have the affirmation of higher and deeper experiences. These experiences are abnormal to humanity. They can be attained in their organized entirety by

• A revolutionary individual effort (in a very short period of time), or

• An evolutionary general progression (over a very very long period of time)

The manifestation of God in Matter is the goal of Nature in her terrestrial evolution. It is represented by various aspirations such as :

• To know, possess and be the divine being in an animal and egoistic consciousness

• To convert our twilit or obscure physical mentality into the plenary supramental illumination

• To build peace and a self-existent bliss where there is only a stress of transitory satisfactions which is besieged by physical pain and emotional suffering

• To establish an infinite freedom in a world which presents itself as a group of mechanical necessities

• To discover and realize the immortal life in a body subjected to death and constant mutation

The ordinary human intellect takes its present organization of consciousness as the limit of its possibilities. The above aspirations of humanity are made invalid by ordinary nature when it sees the direct contradiction between the realized fact and the unrealized ideals. On the other hand if we take a more deliberate view of the world’s workings, we find that the above contradictions are part of Nature’s profoundest method. It is her seal of completist sanction.

We should understand that all problems of existence are essentially problems of harmony. These problems arise from following two opposite factors of human nature :

• The perception of an unsolved discord on the one hand and

• The instinct of an undiscovered agreement or unity on the other.

The animal and most practical part of man can rest content with an unsolved discord. However, it is impossible for his fully awakened mind. Even the practical part of human nature which seem to accept the discord can do so either by shutting out the problem or accepting a compromise. This compromise is a rough, utilitarian and unillumined compromise. This is because one very essential fact of Nature : All Nature seeks a harmony. Life and matter seek harmony in their own sphere. The mind seek harmony in the arrangement of its perceptions. The force of Nature to seek harmony is directly proportional to the level of apparent disorder of the materials or apparent disparateness. Greater the disorder, greater will also be the urge to seek the harmony. This principle applies even when the opposition between the constituent elements is irreconcilable.This urge in the face of strong opposition drives the Nature towards a more subtle and puissant order. This would have been not possible under the condition of less difficult endeavour.

The Nature has already successfully solved the problem of opposites between inertia of material and active Life with a material form. Nature continues to solve this problem better with greater complexities. The solution offered by Nature is only an intermediary solution. It is in the continuous process of perfection. The final destination of this process will be the material immortality of a fully organized mind-supporting animal body. As a next step in this evolution, the Nature has accorded conscious Mind and conscious Will with a Form and a Life which are not themselves overtly self-conscious. By themselves, the Form and Life are capable at best of a mechanical or sub-conscious will. But the Nature has wonderfully managed to put conscious Mind and conscious Will in the Form and Life in spite of this opposition. Even here the Nature aims at higher marvels. The ultimate goal of the Nature in this respect will be an animal consciousness no longer seeking but possessed of Truth and Light. This consciousness will possess practical omnipotence which would result from the possession of a direct and perfected knowledge.

This brings us the logical conclusion that there is a perfect rationality to the upward impulse of man towards the accordance of yet higher opposites. We see that it is the only logical completion of a rule and an effort. It is a fundamental method of Nature. It is also the very sense of her universal strivings.

What is the rational explanation of this phenomenon? We speak of the evolution of Life in Matter. The evolution of Mind in Matter. However, evolution is a word which merely states the phenomenon without explaining it. We say that Life has evolved in material elements. OK. But what is the reason for life to thus evolve? Similarly, the word evolution can not explain as to why the Life has evolved out of living form. Here, Vedanta offers a solution. Vedanta states that Life is already involved in Matter. Similarly, the Mind is involved in Life. This is because in essence Matter is a form of veiled Life and Life is a form of veiled Consciousness. Thus we see that what is already involved is getting evolved.

Gold is the colour of Love

Examine the graphic. First of all, there are three primary shapes : The Cube, the Pyramid and the Sphere. I relate Islam to the cube as the Kaaba takes that shape. The color associated with Islam is Green as represented in the national flags of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, etc. Christianity has much to do with the Egyptians and The Pyramid. I attribute Christianity to the color Blue as seen in the flags of USA, Israel, UK, Australia, etc. The Lotus Temple in New Delhi has 9 petals (all Bahai temples have a similar configuration) and Lotus signifies the color White which is an amalgam of Red, Green and Blue. The Bahai dictum is to follow the teachings of all religious faiths akin to Emperor Akbar’s Din-i-Ilahi or Divine Faith. Finally, the Matrimandir in Pondicherry has Gold plates and Gold is the color of Love. posted by Zafar Satyavan Saturday, December 24, 2005 at 12:04 PM