November 27, 2006

In direct connection with supraphysical

Planes, an explanation by Sri Aurobindo
If we regard the gradation of worlds or planes as a whole, we see them as a great connected complex move­ment ; the higher precipitate their influences on the lower, the lower react to the higher and develop or manifest in themselves within their own formula something that corresponds to the superior power and its action. The material world has evolved life in obedience to a pressure from the vital plane, mind in obedience to a pressure from the mental plane. It is now trying to evolve supermind in obedience to a pressure from the supra-mental plane. In more detail, particular forces, movements, powers, beings of a higher world can throw themselves on the lower to establish appropriate and corresponding forms which will connect them with the material domain and, as it were, reproduce or project their action here. And each thing created here has, supporting it, subtler envelopes or forms of itself which make it subsist and connect it with forces acting from above. Man, for instance, has, besides his gross physical body, subtler sheaths or bodies by which he lives behind the veil in direct connection with supraphysical planes of consciousness and can be influenced by their powers, movements and beings. From: Dictionairy of Sri Aurobido's Yoga, 1973 Dipti Publications, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry-2 Jérôme Auroville

November 26, 2006

A secret communication and commerce

Other planes coexist with ours, are part of one complex system and act constantly upon the physical which is their own final and lowest term, receive its reactions, admit a secret communication and commerce. Man can become conscious of these planes, can even in certain states project his conscious being into them, partly in life, presumably therefore with a full completeness after the dissolution of the body. Home > E-Library > Works Of Sri Aurobindo > The Life Divine Volume-19 > Rebirth And Other Worlds; Karma, the Soul and Immortality (CWSA Vol. 22, Chapter XXII. page 824)

Resistance, obstruction and limitation

A psychic tranformation and in a greater degree a spiritual tranformation will reduce the hold of the Ignorance. But these influences do not altogether eliminate the resistance, obstruction and limitation. The original basis of Nescience will still be there, requiring always to be changed, enlightened, and diminished in its extent and action. The power of the spiritual Higher Mind will be modified and diminished at its entrance into our ordinary mind and as a result it will not be sufficient to remove all these obstacles. But it can make a first change, which will enable a higher ascent and a more powerful descent and further prepare the seeker for a greater Force of consciousness and knowledge and action. The Illumined Mind is the next greater Force. Barindranath Chaki24-11-2006 Posted by Barin at 4:55 AM Labels: The New Horizon All choice Barin Chaki

The Life Divine does not mention avatar or the sacrifice of the Purusha

Re: The Post-human, Evolution and the Avatar by Debashish on Sat 25 Nov 2006 12:56 PM PST Profile Permanent Link
I appreciate your stand in this problem. For myself, too, critical distancing of doxa is an ongoing process and there is much hidden danger there. But one way to do it is through cross-cultural hermeneutics - something Sri Aurobindo was no stranger to. Sri Aurobindo was in a state to see the value of Pre-Socratic Greek philosophy and put it into a comparative frame with Vedantic thinking. Does Heidegger even attempt the reverse? But that does not prevent him from mking pronouncements about where the transformative overcoming will originate. Moreover, I see no harm in clothing one's poeting in one's tradition, so long as it is not an indictment through ignorance of other traditions.
  • And where has Sri Aurobindo (or the Mother) said that his work is dependent on the Vedanta?

His interpreting the Veda, the Vedanta and the Gita does not make his work dependent on these. Where possible, he has also coined a new language. The Life Divine does not mention avatar or the sacrifice of the Purusha (as far as I know).

If other works do, we must take it that these concepts are handy to express what is important to his experience and woul have taken many more volumes of words otherwise. Again, the essence of "incarnation" as understood in Christianity does not find any representation in the Indic idea of avatarhood. But Sri Aurobindo sees some truth in the idea and brings it out in Savitri. It is debatable whether his work can be called Vedantic at all (particularly if one was to take the Mother's formulation of it). If however, one sees it (as I do) as extending the discourse of Vedanta, then too it is hardly a parochial Vedanta without awareness of the history of spirituality in other cultures.
An Indian thinker does not have the privilege of ignoring western thought if s/he wishes to be heard internationally while the western thinker can remain happily esconsed in his/her doxic tradition. And as regards the supramental manifestation in Auroville, obviously Sri Aurobindo could not say this, the Mother did not say it either. In one of the conversations with Nirodbaran, where he asks Sri Aurobindo whether he expects the supramental manifestation to occur in the ashram, Sri Aurobindo says a few hundred people at the ashram are not going to bring about the supramental manifestation. Thousands testing the yoga out in different world circumstances would be required for that.
Regarding the use of Sri Aurobindo by fundamentalisms of various kinds, this of course is a concern, but partly why it can happen is because "the followers" have not taken enough trouble to create a field of accurate and critical understanding where the lines of his teaching are brought into engagement with social and psychological experience and made living in the sangha through this. DB
The word ‘Avatar’ appears only twice in The Life Divine. In either case the context is different—it is not vis-à-vis Avatar as an Incarnation of the Divine. This absence of the concept of Divine Incarnation in Sri Aurobindo's very major work cannot be taken as he not recognising the necessity of Avatarhood in the evolutionary process. We have also another interesting situation: the word ‘Grace’ does not appear even once in The Life Divine. But in Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga the fruit of realization without the Divine Grace is inconceivable. In this connection, let us first read a couple of passages from his little masterpiece, The Mother:
There are two powers that alone can effect in their conjunction the great and difficult thing which is the aim of our endeavor,—a fixed and unfailing aspiration that calls from below and—a supreme Grace from above that answers.
For the grace of the Divine Mother is the sanction of the Supreme and now or tomorrow its effect is sure, a thing decreed, inevitable and irresistible.
The supramental change is the thing decreed and inevitable in the evolution of the earth-consciousness; for its upward ascent is not ended and mind is not its last summit. But the change may arrive, take form and endure, there is needed the call from below with a will to recognise and not deny the Light when it comes, and there is needed the sanction of the Supreme from above. The power that mediates between the sanction and the call is the presence and power of the Divine Mother. The Mother's power and not any human endeavour and tapasya can alone rend the lid and tear the covering and shape the vessel and bring down into this world of obscurity and falsehood and death and suffering Truth and Light and Life divine and the immortal's Ananda.
What this situation, of the absence of 'Grace' and 'Avatar' in its deeper occult connotation, means is that, Sri Aurobindo is more than his works, prose or poetry, including perhaps his Savitri. And didn’t he say, apropos of his Arya-writing, that had he continued it, not for seven but seventy years, still his knowledge would not have been exhausted?
In The Life Divine he has taken a certain stand to present a certain point of view for a certain type of the soul-need, which does not make it sole or absolute or exclusive in every sense. This is true in other works also. The question is, of one’s perceptions, perceptions which can be different for different individuals and in different contexts. When this is recognised, there should not be any necessity of thrusting one viewpoint on the other, which will be fallacious, fundamentalist, un-Aurobindonian. Eschewing it is broadening, even globalising, one’s consciousness for a greater spiritual progress. 8:45 AM

November 24, 2006

On magical powers called siddhis

zong108 (zong108) wrote,@ 2006-11-21 13:51:00 Sri Aurobindo and Magic Powers (In this little essay, with 'Magic' I mean practical Magic, aimed at change in the phenomenal world including our self-experience)
Sri Aurobindo is one of the greatest thinkers India has brought forth. He lived from 1872 till 1950 and produced a large body of spiritual writings, as well as other writings such as poetry, plays and writings on politics and aesthetics. He had a Western education and his writings are almost entirely in English. He wrote the longest poem ever in English, called Savitri. His writings have the advantage of having an understanding of the Western mind and hence are very accessible for westerners. His spiritual thought has the nature of a synthesis of Indian thought and Western thought.
On the subject of magical powers, called siddhis in Indian philosophy, he takes a positive stance. The ancient seers of India, as well as all the great sages of the past (he cites Jesus' and his apostle's use of siddhis), used or channelled their powers freely. The beneficent influence that these sages have on the world is magical. He criticises Indian and Western spiritual thinkers who consider siddhis unworthy of attention. Sri Aurobindo writes that siddhis are a natural, although not very important part of spiritual development. Denying them is an error.
He emphasizes that spiritual practise should never be aimed at obtaining siddhis directly. The siddhis will come with the opening up to and integrating with the higher forces. These forces he simply calls the Divine. This is the safest way. There is the possibility to attain magical powers and spiritual progress simultaneously, but this he regards as a dangerous path. There are astral forces that try to influence or even possess the aspirant that opens himself or herself to them These forces are opposed to spiritual attainment and may have detrimental effect on the aspirant. Their influences can occur directly through communication or indirectly through impulsion. It seems in Western Magic, we can see many instances of this.Sri Aurobindo has openly declared that he put his occult powers to use against Hitler. See: http://www.lightendlesslight.org/On_World_War.htm
And the West: Sri Aurobindo's view seems to be a very general one among real spiritual adepts. Magic powers are an authentic aspect of spirituality, but should only be played with (in the sense of Divine play, Lila) after a true spiritual attainment has been established. When we look at the Golden Dawn current of Western Magic we see a similar pattern. First the student balances out and investigates the elemental level, then he attains the knowledge and conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel as a Adeptus Minor, after which he learns magical practices such as invocation and evocation. After having established a rapport with the Holy Guardian Angel, the adept is able to use the Magic wisely.
However we see a great difference here between the East and the West. The Holy Guardian Angel (HGA) is considered a separate, independent being. Although there are lots of theories about the nature of the HGA, such as that it is our True or Higher Self or a future Self influencing the past self, attracting it to it's heights, these theories do not address the fundamental feeling/idea that the Divine is separate, outside our normal, everyday experience. In the East this is never the case. The Divine is always considered to be very close, the ultimate essence of our own being.
The result of the Western attitude is that it is easy to get stuck. If you feel that your HGA is outside yourself, it is hard to establish a connection. You are never sure that your connection is real, that you are not fooling yourself. These doubts themselves are a big obstacle on the path of spiritual evolution. The HGA is the Divine force directed to us. It is a deep impulse in our being that forms the background of our spiritual aspirations. In a way there is only one HGA - there is only one Divine force that works on all things in the multiverse. The HGA is an aspect of everything. We never loose our connection with it, we only habitually pay attention to other impulses. It is the aim of spiritual practice to change this habit. Before we do so, the practice of Magic is inadvisable, because it can easily lead to adverse occult powers having a detrimental effect on our spiritual evolution.
Further reading:
Satprem, Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness.
Sri Aurobindo, The Siddhis, published in Essays Human and Divine.
Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga (three volumes).
Sri Aurobindo, The Integral Yoga (a selection of his writings giving a handy overview of his Yoga).

The secret of the Veda

As Sri Aurobindo says in his book “The secret of the Veda”, Vedas are not merely teaching or specific, singular information that was conceived by human consciousness. Instead it is a form like music or Shruti that already exists and will exist ever, whether Homo-sapiens understands it or not. Posted by QuixoticMahesh at 3:05 AM

November 21, 2006

The supremacy of Sri Aurobindo

Edward Berge Says: November 20th, 2006 at 10:50 pm Mark Edwards, AVS II: Both Vedanta Hinduism and Vajrayana Buddhism have developed models of the sleeping and dreaming states which they tie into their philosophies of spirituality. The nescient state of deep sleep is an undifferentiated state of complete immersion where no self-other, subject-object distinction exists. But this is also the undifferentiated immersion of the pleroma or at least the self-without-other state of the archaic uroboros.
Duality only arises with the emergence of the early mind, linguistic identity and the membership self. So we have the nonduality of the very primordial developmental stages and experiential states being associated with the very advanced developmental stages and experiential states. This is evidenced in many passages in Advaitic texts where the state of deep sleep is recognised as a state of avidya or not-knowing and yet is also seen to be a nondual state of bliss or ultimate being.
Aurobindo, using the traditional name of “prajna” for the deep sleep state, calls it the state of “all delight”, “He who knows”, and “the Wise One”. All these are examples of PTF-2 connections between the deep sleep state and the very highest causal state of transpersonal experience.
Wilber rightly regards Ramana Maharshi to be one of the great spiritual sages of history. He refers to his writings quite frequently and quotes him specifically with regard to the states of sleep and how they relate to the transpersonal realms. But Raman’s writings on these matters are not at all straightforward and he at times follows closely the traditional Advaitic predilection of associating sleep with the transpersonal and at other times warns against doing so.
But Ramana is saying that the sleep states cannot simply be equated with the transpersonal and that they are states of “nescience” or ignorance rather than transpersonal insight. Arthur Osbourne, one of the pre-eminent students and interpreters of Ramana’s writing says that Ramana “guarded against” the idea that the transpersonal states of realisation were “like” states of sleep. #

November 20, 2006

Impersonality

Home > E-Library > Works Of Sri Aurobindo > The Life Divine Volume-18 > The Double Soul In Man gnorance of the ego shrinks from the principle of impersonality which it yet applies without too much difficulty ... erfect spiritual living because there the rule of impersonality does not attack those desires cherished by the s ... f us only a limited and specialised equality and impersonality proper to a particular field of consciousness and ... Last Modified: 04-Oct-2006 Document Size: 36,357 View Matches in this Document
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Home > E-Library > Works Of Sri Aurobindo > The Life Divine Volume-18 > Supermind, Mind And The Overmind Maya rsonal ego limitation, to see things in a certain impersonality and universality. Impersonality is the first cha ... lity, One and Many, Divine Personality and Divine Impersonality, and the rest; each is still an aspect and power ... ere equal and coexistent aspects of the Eternal. Impersonality can manifest with person subordinated to it as a ... Last Modified: 04-Oct-2006 Document Size: 48,556 View Matches in this Document
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Home > E-Library > Works Of Sri Aurobindo > The Life Divine Volume-18 > Reality Omnipresent without. This possibility of an entire motionless impersonality and void Calm within doing outwardly the works o ... Last Modified: 04-Oct-2006 Document Size: 22,741 View Matches in this Document
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Home > E-Library > Works Of Sri Aurobindo > The Life Divine Volume-18 > Brahman, Purusha, Ishwara — Maya, Prakriti, Shakti ect of Brahman, but with a certain stress on its impersonality; therefore the Power of the Self has the appearan ... all its becomings in Nature. Even so, freedom and impersonality are always the character of the Self. There is n ... er. For this conscious Spirit while retaining its impersonality and eternity, its universality, puts on at the ... Last Modified: 04-Oct-2006 Document Size: 115,157 View Matches in this Document
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Home > E-Library > Works Of Sri Aurobindo > The Life Divine Volume-19 > The Triple Transformation that is and more. There is a pressure from this Impersonality that seeks to mould the whole mind into a form o ... orms, it is into a vast formless and featureless impersonality that it enters. It becomes aware of the unchangi ... beyond impersonality to the awareness of a supreme Personal Being: th ... Last Modified: 14-Oct-2006 Document Size: 116,867 View Matches in this Document
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Home > E-Library > Works Of Sri Aurobindo > The Life Divine Volume-18 > The Origin And Remedy Of Falsehood, Error, Wrong And Evil the ego. Even when the mind aims most at a pure impersonality of truth and reason, a sheer impersonality is imp ... Last Modified: 04-Oct-2006 Document Size: 105,402 View Matches in this Document
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Home > E-Library > Works Of Sri Aurobindo > The Life Divine Volume-19 > The Progress To Knowledge — God, Man And Nature one, he can sink his individuality either in the impersonality of universal being or in a dynamic self of univer ... Last Modified: 14-Oct-2006 Document Size: 52,783 View Matches in this Document
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Home > E-Library > Works Of Sri Aurobindo > The Life Divine Volume-19 > The Gnostic Being In the supermind consciousness personality and impersonality are not opposite principles; they are inseparabl ... Impersonality is in its source something fundamental and unive ... terial for the building of his personality. Thus impersonality is in the original undifferentiated truth of thi ... Last Modified: 14-Oct-2006 Document Size: 183,261 View Matches in this Document
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Romanticism, Colonialism, Hegemony

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Aravamudan, Srinivas
The Colonial Logic of Late Romanticism [View in PDF]The South Atlantic Quarterly - Volume 102, Number 1, Winter 2003, pp. 179-214 - ArticleSubjects:Romanticism -- India.Chatterji, Bankim Chandra 1838-1894 - Anandamatha.Ghose, Aurobindo 1872-1950 - (Search score: 1000)[Show Occurrences in Context]
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Sartori, Andrew 1969-
The Categorial Logic of a Colonial Nationalism: Swadeshi Bengal, 1904-1908 [View in PDF]Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East - Volume 23, Number 1&2, 2003, pp. 271-285 - ArticleSubjects:Nationalism -- Religious aspects -- Hinduism.Nationalism -- India -- Bengal -- History -- 20th century.Bengal (India) -- Politics and government -- 20th century.(Search score: 637)[Show Occurrences in Context]
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Adas, Michael 1943-
Contested Hegemony: The Great War and the Afro-Asian Assault on the Civilizing Mission Ideology [View in PDF] Journal of World History - Volume 15, Number 1, March 2004, pp. 31-63 - Article Subjects: Africa -- Civilization -- Western influences. Asia -- Civilization -- Western influences. War and civilization -- History -- 20th century. World War, 1914-1918 -- Social aspects.
Abstract: Perhaps the most fundamental and enduring effects of the worldwide crisis of the European colonial order brought on by the Great War of 1914-1918 resulted from the challenges it provoked on the part of Asian and African novelists, poets, philosophers, and emerging political leaders. Four years of indecisive, mechanized slaughter on the Western Front gave rise to spirited and widely publicized critiques of the civilizing mission ideology that had long been invoked to justify European dominance. Since at least the early nineteenth century, the credibility of the civilizing mission credo for European colonizers as well as subject peoples depended increasingly on its emphasis on the unprecedented superiority that Europeans had attained in science and technology over all other peoples and cultures. Some Indian and African, and indeed also European, intellectuals had challenged these gauges of European racial and historical preeminence in the decades before 1914. But the appalling uses to which European discoveries and inventions were put in the First World War raised profound doubts among intellectuals across four continents about the progressive nature of industrial civilization and its potential as the model for all of humanity to emulate. The highly contentious exchanges that these questions gave rise to in the postwar decades soon coalesced into arguably the first genuinely worldwide discourse and proved a critical prelude to the struggles for decolonization that followed. (Search score: 555) [Show Occurrences in Context]
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Mehta, Brinda J.
Kali, Gangamai, and Dougla Consciousness in Moses Nagamootoo's Hendree's Cure [View in PDF]Callaloo - Volume 27, Number 2, Spring 2004, pp. 542-560 - Article Subjects:Nagamootoo, Moses - Hendree's cure. Women in literature. East Indians in literature.(Search score: 388)[Show Occurrences in Context]
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Aravamudan, Srinivas
Guru English [View in PDF] Social Text - 66 (Volume 19, Number 1), Spring 2001, pp. 19-44 - Article Subjects: Internationalism.English language -- South Asia -- Social aspects. Historical linguistics.(Search score: 299)[Show Occurrences in Context]
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Gooptu, Sharmistha
The Glory that Was: An Exploration of the Iconicity of New Theatres [View in PDF]Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East - Volume 23, Number 1&2, 2003, pp. 286-300 - Article Subjects: Sircar, B. N. - Nay namih. New Theatres (Bengal, India) -- History -- 20th century. Motion picture industry -- India -- Bengal -- History -- 20th century. (Search score: 236) [Show Occurrences in Context]
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Patke, Rajeev S. (Rajeev Shridhar)
Empire, the National, and the Postcolonial, 1890-1920: Resistance in Interaction (review) [View in PDF] Modernism/modernity - Volume 11, Number 2, April 2004, pp. 354-356 - Review(Search score: 149) [Show Occurrences in Context]
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Lorcin, Patricia
Teaching Women and Gender in France d'Outre-Mer: Problems and Strategies [View in PDF]French Historical Studies - Volume 27, Number 2, Spring 2004, pp. 293-310 - Article Subjects: Women -- France -- Colonies -- History -- Study and teaching (Higher) -- United States. Sex role -- France -- Colonies -- History -- Study and teaching (Higher) -- United States. (Search score: 149) [Show Occurrences in Context]
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Gold, Daniel
One Lifetime, Many Lives: The Experience of Modern Hindu Hagiography (review) [View in PDF] Biography - Volume 23, Number 3, Summer 2000, pp. 565-568 - Review(Search score: 149) [Show Occurrences in Context]
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Subject Index American Literary Scholarship - 1998, pp. 555-571 - ArticleSubjects:American literary scholarship -- Indexes.(Search score: 149)[Show Occurrences in Context]
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Killingsworth, M. Jimmie
Whitman and Dickinson American Literary Scholarship - 1998, pp. 61-85 - ArticleSubjects:Whitman, Walt, 1819-1892 -- Bibliography.Dickinson, Emily, 1830-1886 -- Bibliography.(Search score: 149) [Show Occurrences in Context]
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Ghosh, Amitav
A Correspondence on Provincializing Europe [View in PDF] Radical History Review - Issue 83, Spring 2002, pp. 146-172 - Article Subjects: Ghosh, Amitav -- Correspondence.Chakrabarty, Dipesh -- Correspondence.Chakrabarty, Dipesh - Provincializing Europe: postcolonial thought and historical difference.Eurocentrism.India -- Historiography.(Search score: 149)[Show Occurrences in Context]
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Duara, Prasenjit
The Discourse of Civilization and Pan-Asianism [View in PDF] Journal of World History - Volume 12, Number 1, Spring 2001, pp. 99-130 - Article Subjects: Civilization. Asia -- Civilization -- 20th century.Nationalism -- Asia -- History -- 20th century.(Search score: 149)[Show Occurrences in Context]
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Kripal, Jeffrey John 1962-
Comparative Mystics: Scholars as Gnostic Diplomats [View in PDF]Common Knowledge - Volume 10, Issue 3, Fall 2004, pp. 485-517 - Article Subjects: Religions -- Study and teaching. Mysticism. Ramakrishna 1836-1886 - Truth of others: a cosmopolitan approach.(Search score: 149)[Show Occurrences in Context]
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Alexander, Will
My Interior Vita Callaloo - Volume 22, Number 2, Spring 1999, pp. 371-373 - Article Subjects: Alexander, Will. (Search score: 149) [Show Occurrences in Context]

November 19, 2006

Existentialism and Vedanta

Haridas Chaudhuri
Philosophy East and West, Vol. 12, No. 1 (Apr., 1962), pp. 3-17doi:10.2307/1397242 JSTOR: Existentialism and Vedanta Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1955), Vol. ... as Gabriel Marcel would put it;" or to exist as unlimited freedom, ...

The Indian tradition is truly "postmodern"

Sri Aurobindo And Psychoanalysis By Don Salmon, PhD
It was mentioned earlier that the use of psychoanalysis as a hermeneutic tool to understand Indian spiritual writings may itself be a kind of "defense mechanism" against the full implications of a spiritual vision of Reality.16 Scientists are slowly, if reluctantly, awakening to the fact that the world is impossible to understand as a purely objective observer. The Indian tradition – truly "postmodern" for more than two millennia" – has always seen fundamental understanding to be achieved by means of inner transformation (though not in opposition to reason, as is generally the case in the Western religious tradition). How might one present the kind of view which Sri Aurobindo offers – one which takes terms like "Self", or phrases like "status of the Divine", to represent not merely ideas, conceptions or hermeneutic tools, but rather, "Reality"?
In recent years, the discipline of psychology – scientific psychology, not only the more clinically oriented theories of psychotherapy – has become more receptive to research methodologies which integrate experiential components. In order to engage in scientific research from this integrative stance, one needs a great deal of flexibility and transparency in regard to the use of language. Sri Krishnaprem describes in the following passage the confusion that often occurs in scholarly discussions because of the common inability to direct attention towards that to which the words refer. He mentions the work of Rudolf Otto, who asks whether the "Vedantic Brahman, the Buddhist Nirvana and Eckhart's Godhead are the same or different."
Despite the fact that Otto's work was written over 60 years ago, and Sri Krishnaprem's comments are over a half century old, the very same confusion identified by him persists to this day, as evidenced in numerous attempts to engage in the comparative study of religion: "What is different? The words, of course, are different: the groups of ideas referred to by the words are also different, to some extent at least. But that is not the end of the matter. That to which these words refer is neither a word nor an idea, and no one who thinks that it is can possibly come at the root of the matter. There are not half a dozen of these mystical absolutes floating about in the universe. There is not even one true and several false ones. There is just one Reality which has been symbolized in various ways, each symbol expressing more or less inadequately some one particular aspect of it. 'The Real is one; men describe it in many ways' (Rig Veda)."17
But it must be acknowledged, the problem described in this essay – the unwillingness to engage with Indian spirituality on its own terms, the need to reduce it to safe proportions by means of such distorting lenses as psychoanalysis, is ultimately not a matter for intellectual disputation. Rather, one needs something along the lines of a "spiritual appreciation" course to prepare the scholar for the full radiance of a text like the Isha Upanishad, just as the musical neophyte may need a "music appreciation" course to fully understand and experience the St. Matthew Passion of Johannes Sebastian Bach. Perhaps it was this need that the philosopher Gabriel Marcel was acknowledging when on one occasion he attempted to respond to scholarly incomprehension. According to Lawrence Leshan, Marcel was giving a lecture "to a group of American Logical Positivists on grace and transcendence. They kept telling him to speak more clearly and to 'say what he meant.' Finally Marcel paused and then said, 'I guess I can't explain it to you. But if I had a piano here, I could play it.'"18

The book has been a revelation

Look at yourself and the world from a different angle, October 10, 2005 Reviewer: Yajnavalkya "Tim" (Hetfordshire, UK) - See all my reviews
Sri Aurobindo's philosphy is ultimately rooted in ancient Hindu Vedic thought. In the course of the book, Aurobindo tackles Marx, Darwin, Nietzche, Freud, Hegel, Feurbach, (plus a whole range of European philosophers) and his idea is to adapt their philosophy to the 'Truth' as expressed by the Seers of the ancient Vedas. Does he succeed in doing so? I don't know. That is for professional philosophers to decide. For me, the book has been a revelation, the scales have dropped from my eyes: I see things differently now. Hopefully, I will continue to do so for a while before the snares of living in a modern city finally engulf me once again. Haven't they said that we can't stand to face the truth for too long?

Transcendental to the Transcendental

Re: Derrida, Death and Forgiveness by Andrew J. McKenna by Vladimir on Thu 16 Nov 2006 07:00 AM PST Profile Permanent Link According to Sri Aurobindo, Purusha is the transcendental Conscious Soul, who was sacrificed, plunged into material Inconscient, in order to uplift the fallen Self; Purushottama is a Supreme, though being one with the Transcendental, Universal or Individual, he exceeds them all. He is Transcendental to the Transcendental, beyond Para and Apara Prakriti, beyond Saguna and Nirguna Brahman, (purushah . . . aksharaat paratah parah)
That is why when Sri Krishna reveals his most secret Knowledge (raajaguhyam) to Arjuna it sounds incomprehensible: Mayaa tatam idam sarvam jagad avyaktamuurtinaa/ matsthaani sarvabhuutaani na caaham teshv avasthitah/ 9.4 Na ca matsthaani bhuutaani pashya me yogam aishvaram/ bhuutabhrin na ca bhuutastho mamaatmaa bhuutabhaavanah/ 9.5
“All this world is extended by Me, who has no manifested form. All the beings stay in Me, but I do not stay in them; (defining the Transcendental character of Purusha) even one can’t say that they stay in me, just see and wonder about My Supreme Yoga! My Self, Atman, is carrying and supporting them, as it were, but not even staying in them.” (indicating the paraat parah purushah).
“Thus there are three, the Kshara, the Akshara, the Uttama.” – says Sri Aurobindo in the Essays on the Gita. - “Kshara, the mobile, the mutable is Nature, svabhaava, it is the various becoming of the soul; the Purusha here is the multiplicity of the divine Being; it is the Purusha multiple not apart from, but in Prakriti. Akshara, the immobile, the immutable, is the silent and inactive self, it is the unity of the divine Being, Witness of Nature, but not involved in its movement; it is the inactive Purusha free from Prakriti and her works. The Uttama is the Lord, the supreme Brahman, the supreme Self, who possesses both the immutable unity and the mobile multiplicity. It is by a large mobility and action of His nature, His energy, His will and power, that He manifests Himself in the world and by a greater stillness and immobility of His being that He is aloof from it; yet is He as Purushottama above both the aloofness from Nature and the attachment to Nature.” (Essays on the Gita, p. 79)
That’s how He can be our guide within our psychic being, as the Lord of the Sacrifice, adhiyajna, as Krishna calles himself in the Gita, for he is neither transcendental nor mutable only, but something greater them both. And that is Uttamam Rahasyam.

Re: Derrida, Death and Forgiveness by Andrew J. McKenna by Debashish on Thu 16 Nov 2006 09:34 AM PST Profile Permanent Link The Akshara Purusha is beyond the mutations of Time in the cosmos (jagat) but it is not this which has sacrificed itself since it knows no becoming. Purushottama is beyond Akshara and Kshara Purushas but has become both of these - each of them is a poise or specific projection of Purushottama. The power through which it assumes these poises is its Nature, Paraprakriti. Thus it is Purushottama as Kshara Purusha that has sacrifced itself and that Sri Aurobindo is referring to when he speaks of the "holocaust of the Purusha."
Similarly Paraprakriti remains united with Purushottama and beyond the cosmic being and becoming in Her Supreme poise, but also projects herself as the sleeping automatism of Apara Prakriti of Avidya and houses in this form the sleep of Purushottama as Kshara Purusha and bases Her cosmic changes in the stable though impotent poise of Akshara Purusha. This is the holocaust of Prakriti. This is true both at the cosmic and individual levels - i.e. the Paraprakriti puts on the masks of the soul and forms of the Ignorance or becomes the Avidya and the jivas and the Purushottama becomes the cosmic Purusha (in its Kshara and Akshara poises) and the individualization of chaitya purusha in the jiva.

Universal economy

Re: Derrida, Death and Forgiveness by Andrew J. McKenna by Debashish on Fri 10 Nov 2006 08:35 AM PST Profile Permanent Link
Autopoesis implies that the "system" is self-manifesting its integrality and individual will is becoming a participant in this self-manifestation. But freedom of choice at the center of the "system" implies that if the "system" is trying to manifets its integrality on the one hand, it is also trying to deny its integrality on the (equal) other and the individual will is left free to choose the one or the other.
In choosing to be faithful to integrality, the individual will is aligning itself with the first of the two cosmic wills, that of Deva as against that of Asura. In persisting in this faithfullness, it solidifies integrality in itself (systasis) leading to internal realization or stabilization of the intuition of integrality. This is tantamount to the coming to the front of the psychic being, where the individual becomes a consistently fatihful channel of the will to the self-becoming of 'system' as truth or integrality, or a perfect channel of Deva.
This is the first of the three ontological changes according to Sri Aurobindo, the psychic transformation. In this ocndition, the individual finds itself pitted against the will to the denial of integrality and its engagement with this will remains incomprehensible to it except as "the Will of Deva." Aspiring to greater identity with the self-becoming of "system," it experiences a rupture, a discontinuity of being and recognizes itself as Deva itself, not just an instrument or channel of Deva. This is the second or overmental/spiritual transformation.
At this point (and this is key) it realizes that the "system" has not offered it any privilege of power as will to integrality over its opposite, the denial of integrality. The cosmic Deva is pitted equally against the cosmic Asura and is destined to struggle eternally against its potential to deny the integrality of 'system.' Cosmic autopoesis does not prioritize the self-becoming of the 'system." Schemes which do not sufficiently accout for the equality of "good" and "evil" in the cosmos as Schelling does, prioritizing the operation of "system" as primordial freedom are missing something.
What then is its utility of Deva in the universal economy? Its utility is only to keep the possibility of psychic idenitification alive. The realization by the psychic of identity with Deva (with Indra, if you will, the Lord of the Overmental Gods or Krishna, self-delegated from the Anandamaya plane to oversee the Cosmic Becoming), awakens it to
(a) cosmic relativity and helplessness of "system" at the cosmic level to self-manifest and
(b) its own freedom to transcend this helplessness and arrive at a power of "system" where its self-becoming it not relativized by its opposite - ie. Supermind.
It is only here, in Supermind with its self-manifesting Power, the higher or Divine Maya that autopoesis as the self-becoming of truth can be spoken of in an effective way. At the cosmic level, it can be spoken of, but its equality with its opposite needs to be acknowledged along with it. It needs to be spoken of as a myth of Sisyphus, a doomed and compromized self-becoming unless the individual freedom to transcendence as psychic will at its center is activized beyond it.

Transcendental-Universal-Individual

Re: Contesting ontotheologies? - Buddhism & systems theory vs. the 'Vedantic Method', Sri Aurobindo & the Mother and Integral Yoga by RY Deshpande on Fri 17 Nov 2006 01:21 AM PST Profile Permanent Link
In The Life Divine Sri Aurobindo speaks of the three poises of the Non-Manifest Supreme, the Avyakta, the first Nothingness of Savitri. In the Philosophy of the Upanishads he writes about Parabrahman in the course of evolving phenomena as follows: “The first condition is called avyakta, the state previous to manifestation, in which all things are involved, but in which nothing is expressed or imaged, the state of ideality, undifferentiated but pregnant of differentiation…” Beyond them all, beyond Parabrahman is the utter Unknowable about which it is pointless to speak.
But what is profitable to speak of is the Infinite of the Chhandogya Upanishad. Sanatkumar tells Narad that, which is Infinite is the plenum and is alone Happiness, tatsukham. The Rishi calls it Bhuma. The concept of Bhuma is something very rich indeed. In the pure Infinite all aspects such as Existence, Consciousness, Bliss, Knowledge, Power, everything are kind of frozen entities, they do not grow, expand, gather richness, the static Brahman. But that is what Bhuma does, brings in the dynamism of growth. The root meaning of the word is “to grow”; its feminine is Bhumi, who upholds growth. And this Bhumi is our Earth, where alone growth is possible, growth by the process of evolution. That makes earth a “significant centre” of the universe, upholding the spiritual geo-centricity.
No wonder, our central being got attracted by it and opted for the adventure of the Unknown. It wanted to grow and hence it came here. In Savitri Narad explains the mystery of pain and suffering and the choice made by the soul to plunge into the evolutionary process. It was “out of curiosity” that it took the plunge seeing another joy in creation. The triple poise of the Supreme in the language of the Gita is described, I believe, in terms of Kshara-Akshara-Uttama Purushsa. In the metaphysical description these are the triple aspects of the single indivisible Reality as Transcendental-Universal-Individual.

The circle opens in truth closes in beauty

Gagdad Bob This entry was posted on Monday, November 13th, 2006 at 5:07 pm and is filed under Uncategorized
For man possesses two types of intelligence, a horizontal, analytical, “dividing” mind, and a unifying, synthesizing mind. However, the latter takes priority, for the ultimate purpose of analysis is to synthesize. For example, to paraphrase Aldous Huxley, science is the reduction of multiplicity to unity. And what is the final unity? Why, the same unity we started with, only transformed by the spiraling journey back to its unchanging self.
To summarise: if reality is nothing else, it is One. It is One prior to our bifurcation of it into subject and object, and it will always be One. We can throw out the Oneness with a pitchfork, but it will always rush back in through the walls, up through the floor boards, and down from the ceiling. The wholeness of the cosmos is ontologically prior to anything else we can say about it, and it is precisely because of its wholeness that we can say anything about it at all. In the miracle of knowing, subject and object become one, but the oneness of matter and mind undergirds this process. In reality there is just the one world that miraculously knows itself in the act of knowledge, as “the circle which opens in truth closes in beauty.”
In the deep there is a greater deep, in the heights a greater height. Sooner shall man arrive at the borders of infinity than at the fulness of his own being. For that being is infinity, is God.
–Sri Aurobindo

Metaphorical or figurative reading

Ram Swarup Memorial Lecture, Los Angeles, Saturday, 18th November @ 7:00 PM You are cordially invited to attend the First Annual Ram Swarup Memorial Lecture to be held in Los Angeles, CA, on Saturday, November18th @ 7:00 PM. The lecture will be delivered by Dr. Koenraad Elst titled "Historicity and Hinduism". Call at 714-225-3318. Sincerely yours, Satinder Trehan Los Angeles, CATel. 714-225-3318 E-Mail: satinder.trehan@vhs-net.com
Abstract: An issue that pits the religious-minded against those of scientific temper is the historicity of Hindu scripture. Scholars historicize e.g. Sanskrit as not the mother of all languages, nor of all Indo-European languages, nor even of all Indo-Aryan languages; the Vedas as not God-given but the creation of a human tribe living in the Saraswati region in a particular (fairly recent) millennium, and as not even the wellspring of Hinduism but one among several religious traditions which together make up Hinduism; "Hindu" as a fairly recent Persian loan word with a history; or "Seshvara Sankhya", "Sankhya-with-God", as a back-projection by theists of a God notion onto Patanjali's agnostic Yoga philosophy. Religious devotees have several problems with all this. Some take scripture as literal history, hence e.g. a recent open letter to the Andhra government protesting against wordings like"legend has it" and "it is said" when referring to Ramayana episodes linked with sites of pilgrimage. Others, by contrast, deny any historical meaning to scripture; e.g. the Arya Samaj translations of the Vedas give a symbolic meaning to all mundane personal or geographical names.
This symbolic reading is entirely apt at the level of mythology, as explored by Ram Swarup, but it is a sad mistake to impose it on historical narratives. It can be argued that along side the historical reading, there is nonetheless still plenty of room for the metaphorical or otherwise figurative reading, as favored by Sri Aurobindo. Comparative mythology has also shown how historical events sometimes get translated into heavenly myths (Euhemerism) or how conversely, mythological motifs get translated into or imposed upon historical events. At any rate, where a historical reading is called for, Hindus ought not to take refuge in an irrational rejection. Indeed, it can be shown that historicity adds a lot to the greatness of the Rishis and of Hindu civilization.

November 17, 2006

On this day of the Mother's Mahasamadhi

Re: Derrida, Death and Forgiveness by Andrew J. McKenna
by RY Deshpande on Wed 15 Nov 2006 02:50 AM PST Profile Permanent Link
In response to Debashish in this posting let me talk specifically about the Holocaust of Prakriti, the Sacrifice of the Divine Mother. (The query about “portals of the birth that is a death” can be taken up if we are to pursue the discussion, which I am not sure is appropriate under the present blog seized with some other issues. Please decide.)The Mother’s powers and personalities are for a cosmic work. Sri Aurobindo described four of them in his letter to Kapali Shastri which was included afterwards in the book The Mother. These are: Maheshwari (Wisdom), Mahakali (Strength), Mahalakshmi (Harmony), and Mahasaraswati (Perfection). These four powers of the Mother are the fourfold soul-forces and they operate variously in the cosmic scheme of things.
Corresponding to these four aspects of the Mother we have the Vedic fourfold personality of the Cosmic Being, Virata Purusha; four parts of his body are: Head, Arms, Heart, and Feet. The names given to them are: Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya, and Shudra, and correspond to the thinker, the warrior, the man of commerce, and man as the doer of works. These are present everywhere, in all the societies and during all the periods of time. Plato and Kant and Einstein were Brahmins, Julius Caesar and Eisenhower and Alexander the Great were Kshatriyas, Henri Ford and DuPont or the present-day Bill Gates make the Vaishyas, the factory worker and the smith and the bank employees and the government servants including the highest secretaries are Shudras.
That is the eternal Chaturvarna. In that sense it is indestructible and cannot be wished away. The Gita proclaims it—I have created this fourfold order— and we have codes based on it. The Synthesis of Yoga explains the spiritual basis of this division. In the Indian social organisation, however, Chaturvarna later became four castes. That is the Great Fall which is unfortunate, speaking of the decadent nature of the society; it is much maligned, and rightly so. It has to be redeemed by breathing the spiritual fire in it. Its justification does not lie in the dead society but in the breathing spirit of the universal being. That should be recovered.
by RY Deshpande on Thu 16 Nov 2006 03:49 AM PST Profile Permanent Link
The Vedic Purusha Sukta thus becomes very meaningful indeed. The appearance of the four aspects is only the beginning in the process of cosmic manifestation. Only when the Four have founded their harmony and freedom can the higher powers of the Mother descend. Sri Aurobindo looks at these powers from the point of view of Vaishnava experience as follows: Mahavira is the Brahmin embodying Knowledge and Light and wide Consciousness; Balarama, Kshatriya quality of Force and Dynamism; Pradyumna, quality of Love and Beauty—the Vaishya; Aniruddha, Shudra quality of competent service, of organisation and execution in details.
Vivekananda brings out the yogic aspect of the Chaturvarna in another beautiful manner. When he speaks of Jnana Yoga, Raja Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, and Karma Yoga he is also suggesting the methods available for the divine realisation for the corresponding type or quality or cast of the soul present in this manifestation. But finally it is the Divine Mother who does the Yoga of Surrender to the Supreme and in his Will identifies her will. Only the incarnation that took place in the far past times can do it and not other powers and personalities or embodiments of the Divine Mother, the Consciousness-Force of the Divine. That is the surety of success. That is the perfection which she alone can attain and not other powers and personalities or embodiments. That is Savitri who was “sent forth of old beneath the stars” of the dark Night. RY Deshpande

Re: Derrida, Death and Forgiveness by Andrew J. McKenna by Debashish on Thu 16 Nov 2006 09:59 AM PST Profile Permanent Link Thank you for your response. It is a matter of deep contemplation and so appropriate on this day of the Mother's Mahasamadhi.

Unconditional love at the heart of Derrida

Edward Berge Says: November 16th, 2006 at 5:07 pm As one small taste of Derrida, here’s an excerpted paragraph from the Postmetaphysical Thinking 4 blog. Come on over to it and taste the unconditional love at the heart of Derrida.
“What is called for in and by the democracy to come is the unconditional gift, which does not seek a return on one’s investment, the gift, in which the self gives up its power, the power of the “I can,” the power of the possible, which is what constitutes a self….What is called for is unconditional hospitality to the other, to the stranger and the immigrant, to the tired, the hungry and huddled masses. What is called for is a transforming and transfixing revolution in which the self turns itself inside out and lets itself by claimed by the other.”

A fundamental lack in Buddhism

Contesting ontotheologies? - Buddhism & systems theory vs. the 'Vedantic Method', Sri Aurobindo & the Mother and Integral Yoga by rjon on Thu 16 Nov 2006 01:04 PM PST Permanent Link
I've copied here part of the prior ongoing discussion re "Derrida, Death and Forgiveness" by Andrew J. McKenna. This part begins with Rich's posting about Herbert Guenther's book "From Reductionism to Creativity, rDrogs-chen and the New Science of Mind," and continues through a fascinating dialogue re systems theory, the Vedas & the Vedantic Method, Sri Aurobindo, the Mother and Integral Yoga.
Debashish comments that he finds a fundamental lack in Buddhism (or Guenther's version of it) related to the "Divine Maya of Supermind." But my personal impression is that the Buddhist ontotheology now has significantly more influence on Western intellectuals and opinion makers, especially Tibetan Buddhism perhaps because of the work of the Dali Lama, than does Vedanta and Sri Aurobindo's Integral Yoga, which most Westerners have little or no awareness of. My questions are:
1) Is Buddhism in fact fundamentally lacking in its ontology and/or its methods, compared to those of Integral Yoga?
2) If so, is there anything those of us who are partial to Sri Aurobindo's "Vedantic Method" can do to increase their influence in the West?
3) Is there a possible integration between the Buddhist and Vedantic/IY perspectives (which perhaps we can contribute to via SCIY?), or are they so fundamentally different that they must remain "contesting ontotheologies?" ~ ron
The impetus for my questions was the comment below by Debashish, in response to Rich's posting about Guenther's book:...
However, what I find lacking in this version is the centrality of freedom in the 'system' which leads away from the One into its fragmentation and its denial - the oblivion of Being and the fragmentation of Subject and also reversely, can lead to the willing of its total transfromation into integrality. This may be implied but not explicitly developed here (or in Tibetan or any Buddhism) as far as I can see it. Individual praxis finds itself in a position of building integrality not only as one faced with the many but as many faced with the many. Our multiple selves do not cohere except in and through separate practices of integrality. This is the implication of jointure. In this also is our throwness - inscribed as we are in multiple texts (discourses) of contested ontotheological histories of the objectified kind, each of which need both the adherence to the peace of the One and the dynamic violence of wresting the concealment of Being out of its genealogical forgetfullness through acts of deconstruction.
Moreover, this practice of a growing faithfullness to integrality through inner intuition can be translated in Aurobindonian terms as a bringing to the front of the psychic being; but Sri Aurobindo's "system" does not find fulfillment or closure thereby, because a sufficient possession of the root of universal integrality is not achieved thereby. The universal Avidya still awaits an act of individual free will powerful enough to to will its disappearance or utter transformation into the universal Integer. This can come about only through the possession of the root of integrality and its power - the Divine Maya of Supermind - the gnosis towards which the method of Heidegger or Schelling may be pointing but which involves entire realms of practice through transformed ontologies (the triple tranformation) to which we have no key at present and until the psychic transformation completes itself sufficiently. ...

The ordinary mind vs. Psychic being

When we ascend to these planes of mind, our vision of the world gets transformed. We might have observed that the ordinary mind sees things step by step, in succession and in a linear way. It cannot see or understand or comprehend more than one thing at a time. I cannot take any leap, surpassing logic, as in such a situation, things would appear hazy, irrational or incoherent to our ordinary mind. When it accepts something as fact or as truth, then all that is different from that fact or truth is rejected as false. That is the reason of the problem that if we accept one philosophy or one religion, we discard others and there is clash and intolerance. The ordinary mind operates with all limitations, like a closed box.
Satprem says: it works like a camera shutter, letting in one and only one image at a time. Anything that is not found on its momentary little screen belongs to the limbo of error, of falsehood and darkness. All things thus fit in an inexorable system of opposites — white or black, truth or error, God or Satan — and it plods along like donkey on a road, seeing one tuft of grass after another.
The ordinary mind relentlessly forms little pieces of time and space. The more there is descent in the levels of consciousness, the pieces of time and space get smaller and smaller. Whatever comes in front of its narrow and limited focus appears to be true, and other things are in error, are wrong and untrue. It has divided time past, present and future. It differentiates between truth and so-called falsehood, good and evil, and sees several opposites. It analyses, but has not ordinarily learned to make a synthesis. We see one colour and speak of black and white, and puzzle and ponder over the problem of various colours of life and reality in an effort to solve or understand it. The ordinary mind is incapable of having a true picture, a true understanding of Truth, of Reality.
But there is the thirst in us, the aspiration in us, for more and more understanding, more and more comprehension, more and more enlightenment. That is the Fire in us, which does not have its source in the ‘ordinary mind’: but it is an inextinguishable flame, an inextinguishable fire, which is burning in our psychic being, in our soul, and which does not depend upon any religion, any intellectual philosophy, any mental construction. Barindranath Chaki 16-11-2006 The New Vision To change the earthly life to life divine. Posted by Barin at 6:04 AM Labels:

November 16, 2006

Words as gateways for the Soul

alan kazlev Says: November 15th, 2006 at 3:26 pm Firstly, in the Aurobindonian tradition there is no one method recommended for everyone. In fact in Integral Yoga the idea is that everyone finds their own technique! But if there is a common theme, it is aspiration for the Supreme, surrender, offering of the self to the Divine. This is what I meant by Bhakti, the way of the Heart.
Now this is very different to the very focused mental path of conventional meditation (such as Raja yoga and Buddhist one-pointedness). However the two are not contradictory. Rather one might say that the object of meditation is aspiration for and offering of the self and all the contents of one’s consciousness up to the Supreme (in whatever guise one chooses to represent the Supreme). So by meditating, focusing, concentrating, in this way, head and heart become one.
My own experience is that by reading Sri Aurobindo and the Mother’s works, often a particular phrase or sentence or even several sentences will suddenly make a huge impression on me, a sense of profound spiritual truth. If I reread and muse over what is said there, I get a sort of feeling (probably not the right word) or quietude. If I go with this, it is much easier to meditate and aspire for the Supreme because the momentum is already there. This quietude I call The Mother and/or Sri Aurobindo’s presence. It is the transmission, the shakti, of their teaching and their spiritual Revelation. That is what I mean about using words as gateways for the Soul.
I confess that this is a practice I do too little. It is all too easy to be caught up in addictions, to let the monkey mind carry one along, distracted first by this bauble, then by that one. Hopefully in the future, when I’ve finished my books and other projects, I will have more time to dedicate to this practice.
Anyway, it is likely that every spiritual teaching and tradition has an effect like this. By reading the words in a receptive manner, one accesses the transmission of that teaching. Some 15-20 years ago I read Da Free John (the Dawn Horse Testament, a book i found extraordinary difficult to read) and felt his presence, although for me it was nowhere as potent as that of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. That just means that his path isn’t the one for me (it has been suggested by an ex-devotee of Da that he is stuck in the “Intermediate Zone”; given Da’s inflated claims this may be so). I have also felt a presence, a transmission of teaching, through reading Tibetan Buddhism. And Jung. And through reading about Nityananda. And through looking at Meher Baba’s picture and/or reading about him.
Each time the flavour of the experience is subtly or even not so subtly different. e.g. I have felt the experience with Ken Wilber and it is very powerful, almost like a drug; that is why so many people are drawn to Wilber and his work and writings. Also this is why the Wilberian tradition can be considered a real tradition. And it is not the case that all the paths lead to the same mountain, as some perennialist and New Age teachings say. Rather it is what Jorge Ferrer says in Revisioning Transpersonal Theory - an Ocean with Many Shores. But not even an Ocean, because that implies a simplistic unity. And Shores implies you end up somewhere and go no further (well this often happens i suppose) Anyway, not sure if all this is of use but it’s the way i see things and my own experiences.

November 15, 2006

Vedas as spiritual allegory

Sunday, November 12, 2006 Vedas: hidden know-how or spiritual guides?
Some believe that the Vedas were transmitted orally for up to 8000 years. Most Western and a few Indian commentators see this as an exaggeration and date the earliest part of the Veda, the Rig-Veda Samhita, to around 1800-800 BCE. Mainstream scholarship places the Vedic period into the 2nd and 1st millennia BCE, continuing up to the 6th century BCE while using Vedic Sanskrit and the Shrauta tradition, when the culture began to be transformed into classical forms of Hinduism.
What do the Vedas mean?: Are the Vedas allegories; or actual knowledge? Sri Aurobindo (August 15, 1872–December 5, 1950) was an Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, scholar, poet, mystic, evolutionary philosopher, yogi and guru. His followers further believe that he was an avatar, an incarnation of the Absolute. Aurobindo decided to look for hidden meanings in the Vedas. He looked at the Rig Veda as a psychological book, inspiring the people to move towards God, but in hidden language.
Vedas as spiritual allegory: Sri Aurobindo spent his life — through his vast writings and through his own development — working for the freedom of India, the path to the further evolution of life on earth, and to bring down what he called the Supermind to enable such progress. He referred to his teachings as the "integral yoga". See “The Secret of the Veda” by Sri Aurobindo. posted by Matthew Parish at 12:55 AM