Sri Aurobindo's more philosophical version of neo-vedanta

kelamuni has left a new comment on your post "Kelamuni unimpressed by Sri Aurobindo": hi tusar,

it's not that i'm unimpressed with aurobindo, or than i am consciously ignoring him. the fact is, i was hoping to deal with aurobindo's more philosophical version of neo-vedanta after having given my account of vivekananda's. for this reason, there have been no detailed descriptions or analyses of aurobindo's thought in my blogs, only cursory references. cheers. Posted by kelamuni to Savitri Era at 12:59 PM, February 16, 2010

Hugh Higgins - If God is an imagination of stupid people, that includes Moses, Isaiah, Jesus, Plato, Aristotle, Leibniz (who invented the infinitesimal calculus), Spinoza, Hegel, Alfred North Whitehead (who wrote Principia Mathematica with Bertrand Russell), and Sri Aurobindo, whose Life Divine explains who and what God is perhaps better than any other book… 15 Feb

Hugh Higgins - I would recommend that you study philosophy, because if you don't know the difference between a concept and that of which it is a concept, you don't know how to think. God is more than just the universe, he is consciousness; you are more than a brain, you are consciousness. Philosophers have been over all this territory for centuries and are way ahead of you, that is, the most brilliant ones.

I recommend that you study Alfred North Whitehead, although he is extremely difficult. His book Process and Reality discusses God extensively from a complex metaphysical viewpoint based on Whitehead's knowledge of mathematics and natural science. Also Hegel could show you how God is the total awareness and experience of the human race, at least, and more than that; and whose brain contains all that? I could go on and on but this is not the place for detailed philosophic discussion. Atheists assume they are the smartest people around but they are really among the most uninformed or misinformed, not even knowing what the word "God" means. To know that one must study the philosophers I have already pointed out here. 07:00

Hugh Higgins - Well, I ought to have no desire to convert people, perhaps, unless it would be for their benefit. But then I have no right perhaps to decide what is beneficial for them. I could not live without God and could not be happy without a concept of God, but my concept is continually evolving. I feel I am a child at the bottom of a ladder leading to an understanding of God, and (since one cannot fully love what one does not understand), to my love of God.
I say, read Whitehead, but have to admit I have never read Process and Reality all the way through. It is hard. I have been studying a book expounding Whitehead. I also recommend books by J. N. Findlay, such as his book on Hegel and two books, The Discipline of the Cave and The Transcendence of the Cave.
I also recommend Sri Aurobindo's The Life Divine which I need to re-read myself for about the sixth time. Maybe some day I will get it. Some chapters in it seem to explain God, or Brahman plus Ishwara, better than anything I have read. […] I am reading a book by Charles Tart, The End of Materialism, which is not philosophically brilliant but conveys the ideas of one who spent his life studying parapsychology. It was published within the past year.
There are also arguments for God from the basis of spiritual or religious or mystical experience. A recent exponent of that, a brilliant philosopher I have met and taken classes from, is William P. Alston. I don't know the name of his book on the topic but it is available in the university library where I live. 

John Niemeyer Findlay (1903-1987)

Sanford L. Drob, Ph.D

Findlay made major contributions to the study of Meinong, Husserl (he translated both volumes of the Logical Investigations into English), Hegel, Plato, Wittgenstein and Kant. His 1958 work, Hegel: A Reexamination, was instrumental in reviving the interest in Hegel in the English-speaking world. His highly original rational-mystical philosophy is detailed in four of his books, The Discipline of the Cave, The Transcendence of the Cave, Values and Intentions and Ascent to the Absolute. Findlay’s command of the history of both western and eastern thought was legendary. […]

His own prose, particularly in his later, "mystical" books, The Discipline of the Cave and the Transcendence of the Cave, was written in seemingly endless, baroque sentences (with numerous dependent clauses) which flew into the air and always seemed to land softly and in just the right place. […]

Findlay’s philosophy has, unfortunately, not received anything near the attention it deserves. Douglas Lackey has written that in spite of his current obscurity, future generations may well regard Findlay as one of the great philosophers of the 20th century. This website is dedicated to publicizing Findlay’s ideas and preserving his legacy.

I would be most interested in hearing from anyone with an interest in Findlay’s philosophy, who has something to post by or about JN Findlay or who has personal reminiscences about this unique and wise man. Sanford L. Drob