An actual step of being-toward-the-future

Re: Comments on "Reflections on Sri Aurobindo's THE IDEAL OF HUMAN UNITY" (cont.) by Rod on Sun 29 Oct 2006 02:36 AM PST Profile Permanent Link I would like to make an important concession to the techniques of postmodernist criticism and to the importance of an understanding of being-toward-the-future in the context of Sri Aurobindo’s work, as mentioned above. A meaningful intermediate step might be allotted to phenomenology and deconstruction as a preparation for an actual step of being-toward-the-future as well as a true grasp of Sri Aurobindo’s philosophy, similar to Derrida’s treatment of Heidegger. That would be to accord Sri Aurobindo’s philosophemes their due position within the history of metaphysics and religion, both Eastern and Western, and then to transcend our own embeddedness in that doxological framework by considering that position under erasure.

Because the position of Sri Aurobindo is only really meaningful in relation to an ever-present future of consciousness to be realized through transformation and the transcendence of intellectual concepts, his metaphysical and religious structures must be erased in order for that transformation to be present and in order for the future represented by his writings to be understood. Supramental truth-force is a direct seeing, through a transformed consciousness, that may or may not be mediated by an inspired text or a direct spiritual influence, such as those which Sri Aurobindo, the writer-yogi created. It is known and valid only through an opening to a unifying consciousness of the oneness and difference of all perceptions that yields a strong sense of their unity, a sense of a divine wholeness and rightness (ritam), “a smooth and even infinity everywhere.” In this experience, the Mother’s insistence that even a superhuman effort to attain a true knowledge and to uplift humanity pales and disappears before the realization of what in fact already is the truth of everything.

Reply Re: Comments on "Reflections on Sri Aurobindo's THE IDEAL OF HUMAN UNITY" (cont.) by Debashish on Sun 29 Oct 2006 08:39 PM PST Profile Permanent Link Very well put and true. In fact, to this I would stick my neck out and agree that this is exactly the necessary method (call it postmodern or not) that Sri Aurobindo demands for a legitimate understanding and practice of his teaching. DB
Reply Re: Comments on "Reflections on Sri Aurobindo's THE IDEAL OF HUMAN UNITY" (cont.) by Debashish on Sun 29 Oct 2006 08:58 PM PST Profile Permanent Link I might also point out that in my reading, it is exactly this dynamic of experience through erasure that is meant in Zen Buddhism by the injunction - "If you meet Buddha on the street, kill him." Of course, "kill him" is far from what I would do if I met Sri Aurobindo on the street, I would ask to be graced with experience. But that is because Zen Buddhism pays little importance to grace and is equating "Buddha" with his text.