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January 12, 2010

Neither Sri Aurobindo nor Gandhi exemplified Hindu dharma in its totality or essence

Till January 18 (except Saturday) at Sri Aurobindo Institute of Culture, 3 Regent Park; 4 pm - 8 pm: Le Mere Annual 2010, a group show of drawings and ...
Going East, Or, How to Read Late-C19 Spirtualism
In March 1914, Mirra Alfassa (1878 – 1973), a French-Jewish socialist, materialist, ‘new woman’ and occultist, traveled to the French enclave of Pondicherry in Southern India with her politician husband Paul Richard, also an amateur occultist. This trip, ostensibly undertaken for electoral purposes, resulted in a momentous meeting between Alfassa and Aurobindo Ghosh, the Indian nationalist, extremist and mystic, self-exiled in French territory beyond the jurisdiction of the imperial British administration.1 Enthralled by the mutual recognition which marked this first encounter2, Mirra returned permanently to Pondicherry in 1920, where she became, in due course, the Mother of the devotional Ashram community and Sri Aurobindo’s spiritual collaborator.
One among numerous European women and men who arrived in colonial India, at the turn of the last century, to fulfill the secret imperatives of a spiritual vocation or destiny, the Mother, similarly to her counterparts, strongly identified with the cause of Indian independence and with the contingent reformation of Indian social and political life. Yet, notwithstanding their radical disaffiliation from the spoils and privileges of European imperialism, these strangely liminal figures have met with a less than hospitable reception among two groups of postcolonial critics and historians. The first, drawing upon a nationalist idiom, tends to assess Alfassa and others in terms of a narrowly orientalist typology, and the second, with whose objections this paper is principally concerned, invokes a broader liberal/marxist thematic to announce the dramatic incompatibility of spiritualist endeavour and (progressive) ethical/political capacity. So, for instance, Parama Roy, discredits the anti-colonial efforts of Margaret Noble, or Sister Nivedita (1867 – 1911), the Irish disciple and collaborator of the nationalist-mystic Swami Vivekananda, on the grounds that her nostalgic spiritualism appealed exclusively to the recessive strains within Indian nationalism, favouring orthodoxy and revivalism over rationalism and reformism.3 Likewise, and in an uncharacteristically Adornoesque reading of mysticism4,
Ashis Nandy discerns a contaminating authoritarianism in the Mother’s spiritual influence over Sri Aurobindo and their devotees which, he argues, reinforced rather than mitigated colonial hierarchies:[…] Despite their strong sympathies for the then incipient claims of anti-colonial nationalism in India, however, contemporary historical assessments (in India and elsewhere) tend to view the spiritual proclivities of a Sister Nivedita or Edward Carpenter, among others, with suspicion, as a disqualifying mark against the maturity or seriousness of their politics.
Haindava Keralam - global community of dedicated Hindu Keralites ...
Theosophy was a white race hotch-potch brewed by those who were disenchanted by Christianity's inability to accomodate metaphysical and spiritual experiences not in line with the Talmud or the Bible.
We therefore had the American HS Olcott, the Russian Madam Blavatskaya and the British Annie Besant seeking refuge in theosophy while Madeline Slade sought refuge in Gandhi and the Turkish-Egyptian Jew Mirra Alfassa sought refuge in Aurobindo. This writer beleives that neither Aurobindo nor Gandhi exemplified Hindu dharma in its titality or essence; at best they embodied a small aspect of our religious legacy.
The most important thing for idiot Hindus to know and understand is that all of them
HAD TO SEEK PHYSICAL REFUGE from their native countries and  from their disenchantment only in Hindu bhumi. They were all heretics and they could not live the religious lives they desired in their own countries. At least not in the nineteenth century. 
10/01/2010 13:38:44 Radha Rajan
According to G.H. Langley: “Sri Aurobindo is  both a poet and speculative thinker. The same is true of Rabindranath Tagore, but the thought of Sri Aurobindo  appears to me more comprehensive and systematic than that of Tagore.”
Vamanan's Sight: Swami Vivekananda through Sri Aurobindo's eyes January 12, 2010 (Swami Vivekananda’s birth anniversary)
Sri Aurobindo, the Cambridge educated classical scholar who returned to India and become ultra nationalist, was about nine years younger than Vivekananda. ... The Aurobindo Society, and Auroville, the international city of dawn, also carry the impress of Sri Aurobindo's thought and Mother's action.
The organisations connected with these two seminal personalities of the great Indian renaissance have ostensibly different aims and objectives… (The All India Magazine, a monthly magazine of Sri Aurobindo Society,
Pondicherry has published a culling of Sri Aurobindo’s references to Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda. Through Mother’s blessings it was my good fortune to translate it into Tamil and get it published. It was one of the most heartening experiences of my life).
Many great thinkers including Max Müller, Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru,Sri Aurobindo, and Leo Tolstoy have acknowledged Ramakrishna's contribution to humanity.
Sri Aurobindo and Freedom of India
During his stay at Cambridge, he delivered many revolutionary speeches. While in England, he came in contact with a revolutionary organization known as the 'Indian Majlis'. Later on, he joined another secret society called 'the Lotus and Dagger'. Sri Aurobindoand Freedom of India… In the hands of Aurobindo, the application of moral force took the shape of a full-scale nonviolent non-cooperation and passive resistance movement on the occasion of the Bengal partition movement in 1906. What was at first a protest movement against the partition soon developed into a broader movement of 'Swadeshi and Swaraj' under his inspiration. Siddhartha Dash ... Reference:
S.J. Chakravorty - The Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo, Delhi, 1971 A.B. Purani - The life of Sri Aurobindo, Pandicherry, 1958 N. Dhar - Aurobindo, Gandhi & Roy, Calcutta, 1986 M. Das - Sri Aurobindo in the First Decade of the Century, Pondicherry, 1972 Sri Aurobindo - India's Rebirth, Mysore - 1993
Syama Prasad and Deen Dayal Upadhyaya are two major icons of faith for the Hindu nationalist parivar…  Dr Mookerjee, who is respected as the ideological icon and source of inspiration by the Bharatiya Janata Party, was a devotee of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother. In fact, he had been in close contact with Sri Aurobindo, who had said, "The idea of two nationalities in India is only a new-fangled notion invented by Jinnah for his purposes and contrary to the facts.

The nineteenth and twentieth Century has experience and recorded Great Mystics. These were those who had evolved a Super-Conscious Souls- like Sri Ramkrishna, Vivekanand, Aurobindo, Yogananda and Dr. Shivanand. While the Theosophical Society which was influenced by Cultural Renaissance followed by Raja Ram Mohan Roy and Naba- Bidhan of Keshav Chandra Sen of Classic Brahmo Samaj. Madame Blavatsky and Annie Beasants were phychic- Clairvoyants and along with Col. Olcott influenced the Westerners in Oriental Mystism J.K.Krishanmurthy, Bahais, Gurdjeiff and Rajneesh were psychic-Philosophers, well-read but obvious reasons more often misinterpreted. Many Sufi Saints and wandering bails also exerted their spiritual processes, from centuries in the India sub-continent. Khwaja Garib Nawaz, Gospak, Shirdi Saibaba, Magdum Sha and Mira Dattar are such Sufi Saints, while purnadas are other Eastern Bauls sang and communicated with the almighty with their ektara.

9 Jan 2010 ... This article is based in part upon the universe and progressive evolutionary science and theories expressed by Teilhard De Chardin, Erich Jantsch, John Stewart, Duane Elgin, Michael Dowd, Connie Barlow, Nancy Ellen Abrams, Brian Swimme, Thomas Berry, Joel Primack, David Christian, David Ray Griffin, Sri Aurobindo, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Ken Wilber, Andrew Cohen, Steve McIntosh as well as numerous other evolution theorists, scientists, authors and speakers.

Twitter - santosh krinsky: Sri Aurobindo. karma & des ...

Sri Aurobindo. karma & destiny not mechanical or simplistic as popularized. they are lines of action that have trajectory and force.
7 hours ago - [Then Mother turns to the translation of two texts of Sri Aurobindo... But Sri Aurobindo's conclusion is that it is not this (the body) which can change; ...
A key chapter in Sri Aurobindo's Life Divine regards his view on Evolution and Consciousness: A Spiritual evolution, an evolution of consciousness in Matter ...
Sri Aurobindo states the case directly: “Unless therefore the race is to fall ...reference: Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Chapter 22, The Problem of Life ...

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