Savitri Era Learning Forum: December 2012

December 31, 2012

James, Myers, Royce, and Sri Aurobindo.

The action of subliminal memory | Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo ... 23 Apr 2010 – Sandeep October 8, 2012 at 11:44 am “Irreducible Mind” describes the work of American psychologist F. W. H. Myers, who is credited with inventing the term “subliminal” in Western psychology to denote larger consciousness which exists beneath the surface consciousness. Myers did not want to use the word supernatural.

Sri Aurobindo’s interpretation of the term ‘subliminal’ is derived from the Upanishads, if we go by this footnote in the Life Divine… Sri Aurobindo defined subliminal as intermediate region between the superconscious and subconscious realms

Sri Aurobindo on Subliminal Consciousness - AntiMatters subliminal regions of our consciousness, with biographical sketches of Sri Aurobindo and of F. W. H. Myers, who coined the term “subliminal consciousness” and ...

The Absolute as a Heuristic Device - California Institute of Integral ... Robert A. McDermott's discussion in "The Absolute as a Heuristic Device: Josiah Royce and Sri Aurobindo," International Philosophical Quarterly IX (1978): (1) an account of Royce and Aurobindo from the perspective of comparative philosophy, particularly in terms of their use of materials outside their own respective ...

Teilhard, Jaspers, Royce, Heidegger and Sri Aurobindo - Savitri ... 26 Jan 2006 – Teilhard, Jaspers, Royce, Heidegger and Sri Aurobindo. MAN-NATURE UNION IN HINDU METAPHYSICS Ramakant Sinari, Ph.D. Professor...

The philosophy of integralism: the metaphysical synthesis in Sri ... - Page 82 Haridas Chaudhuri - 1967 - the metaphysical synthesis in Sri Aurobindo's teaching Haridas Chaudhuri ... The American Neo-Hegelian Josiah Royce lays emphasis upon the character of the infinite stream of becoming as a totum simul present at a stroke to the Absolute. ...

The philosophy of integralism, or, The metaphysical synthesis ... - Page 255 - Haridas Chaudhuri - 1954 - ... a measure of 'apartness' and 'independent action' is indeed the 'main miracle' of the universe. Josiah Royce has expounded the view that finite-infinite individuals are in the nature of self-imagings or self-representations of the Absolute.

Sri Aurobindo's prose style (with a foreword by V.K. Gokak) - Page 30 - Goutam Ghosal - 1991 - Josiah Royce (1855-1916) defended the Idealist and Absolutist tradition in philosophy on the basis of dialectic... It is not improbable that a glutton of books like Sri Aurobindo on various aspects of life came into touch with his writings. The ultimate views may differ in important details but Royce foreshadows certain stylistic features of Sri Aurobindo no less ...

A comparative study of the philosophy of Josiah Royce & Radhakrishnan - Page 216 - H. L. Chourasia - 1979 - ... Radhakrishnan's attitude would seem to be nearest of all to that of the great sage Ramanuja and closely allied with that which has been so suggestively developed in recent years by Sri Aurobindo."1 Strikingly a similar opinion is expressed ...

Josiah Royce (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) Copyright © 2011 by
Kelly A. Parker <parkerk@gvsu.edu> 3 Aug 2004 – Josiah Royce (1855–1916) was the leading American proponent of absolute idealism, the metaphysical view (also maintained by G. W. F. Hegel and F. H. Bradley) that ... Royce began to write more about what today would be called “practical” or “applied” philosophy…

Royce and James had always disagreed deeply concerning the proper understanding of religious phenomena in human life. When James delivered the Gifford Lectures in 1901 and 1902, he directed many arguments against Royce's idealism, though he did not there target his friend by name. James's lectures, published asThe Varieties of Religious Experience, were a popular and academic success . Royce believed that James, who had never been regularly affiliated with an established church or religious community, had in that work placed too much emphasis on the extraordinary religious experiences of extraordinary individuals.

Royce, Josiah [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy] by JAK Kegley - 12 May 2011 – In 1912, while recovering from a stroke, Royce published The Sources of Religious Insight, in which he sought an explanation for the phenomena of ordinary religious faith as experienced by ordinary religious communities and individuals. He considered this a correction to James’ The Varieties of Religious Experience (The Gifford Lectures, 1901-1902), which, in Royce’s judgment, put too much emphasis on extraordinary and individualistic religious experiences. Drawing on the semiotic of Peirce and other sources, in 1913, Royce published his opus on religious community, The Problem of Christianity, a work which Yale philosopher, John E. Smith identified as “one of the finest works in the philosophy of religion ever to appear on the American scene” (Smith 1982 &1992, 122). In place of the earlier “Absolute Knower,” Royce presents the concept of an infinite community of interpretation, guided by a shared spirit of truth-seeking and community building. The Universal Community constitutes reality, and its understanding increases over time, through its members’ continual development of meaning. Royce’s concern for building a universal or “Beloved Community” is exemplified in two later works focused on building peace and a world community: War and Insurance (1914) and The Hope of the Great Community (1916). In the 1914 book, Royce made a daring political and economic proposal to use the economic power of insurance to mediate hostilities among nations, and reduce the attraction of war in the future. Royce died September 14, 1916, before he could develop fully his new philosophical insights.

Intellect divisible into two important classes and Invisible hand

The Hindu : NATIONAL TAMIL NADU : Madurai Today December 31, 2012

Sri Aurobindo Society: Study circle meeting on ‘The Mother’, 3 Lajapathi Roy Street, Chinna Chokkikulam, 10.30 a.m.

KM Munshi remembered - The Hindu December 31, 2012

Munshi was educated in Baroda under Sri Aurobindo, and started his career as a lawyer and entered into politics under the guidance of Dr. Annie Besant and...

Atanu Dey on India's Development » Blog Archive » A few quotes ...

Transforming India - The book “Material things are not to be despised – without them there can be no manifestation in the material world.” – Sri Aurobindo

Young India! Reject State Education! from ANTIDOTE by Sauvik von Chakraverti Dec 30, 2012 Read about James Watt - and how this "steam engine" happened. Read about Edison - a man who "invented" so many, many wondrous products! And there have been so many such - and there are many such even today…

NEW KNOWLEDGE - is "produced." This includes "new histories" - something that NO COURT HISTORIAN ever does! We may say "Austrian School of Economics" - but even this School of Thought has never stayed STATIC. Mises, for example - he raised a TOWER above whatever Menger had begun. Just as I have made attempts to further "develop" upon all that Mises has left behind. Each one of us is a "unique and non-repeatable" human-in-time. We are not here to repeat or relive the lives of ancestors - like these "political epigones" who claim to be "leaders" - and even "youth leaders" - or even "role models." It is the PREROGATIVE OF YOUTH to contribute something NEW to the vast inventory of mankind.

Renaissance in India:A Prelude The Mother India

We drifted away from our own dharma and karma, we gave up the teachings of Geeta, we betrayed our ancestors-Swami Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo. Today ...

resurgentindia.org Indian Culture

The Lives of Sri Aurobindo by Peter Heehs – A Critical Appraisal · Some Issues of Critical Importance · The Present Situation – Various Practices Adopted in ...

The Acts of the Moment Are Created By the Eternal Soul from Sri Aurobindo Studies

The focus on the individual details makes us lose sight of the “big picture”, the sense or significance, the perspective. Impressionist painters such as Vincent Van Gogh conveyed this sense through their artistic efforts. Up close, their paintings overwhelm one with the incredible number of brush strokes, texture, and color. There is however a “tipping point” as one backs away from the canvas where one suddenly switches from the “detail view” to the “gestalt”, the idea being conveyed, and suddenly the “big picture” takes over and the brush strokes are seen for what they are, the technique or the “facts” by which a larger significance is expressed.

Similarly, we become so involved in and overwhelmed by the detailed acts of our day to day lives that we tend not to recognize the “big picture”, the significance of those lives or those acts.

Sri Aurobindo discusses this situation with a very insightful view about the relationship between the day to day details and the soul’s meaning in creating and carrying out those details… Just as we undergo a transformation in our view of life when we understand that the sun does not revolve around the earth, but the earth around the sun; and that the entire solar system is part of an enormous Milky Way Galaxy which is a part of a larger universe, we can begin to understand the soul’s action and the true meaning of the details of our day to day lives when we take a different standpoint outside the focus on each of the details and begin to view the “big picture”.

Modern psychologists point out that there are essentially two hemispheres to the human brain. Left brain activity tends to be fixated on details, analysis and “the trees” of our lives; while right brain activity looks at the “gestalt”, the “big picture”, “the forest” if you will. Both of these perspectives are valuable, but they must be integrated in order to give a true sense and meaning to what we experience.

Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo & The Mother All Life is Yoga!

Those who practice the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother have developed the habit of reading their books either alone or during study circles. Comment on Sravana Manana and Nidhidhyasana by Sandeep Dec 31, 2012

One of the aspects I forgot to emphasize in the main article is the fact that the ancients used to transmit knowledge orally rather than via writing. Texts were read aloud rather than silently as we do now. And the medium of transmission was through poetic verses rather than prose. That allowed the ancients to absorb and remember the melody of a composition which might have helped to stimulate the power of “intuition”. OTOH, we are drowned very much in an intellectual and visual era.

Although it is known that the Vedas were transmitted orally, historical documentation is scarce in India. In Greece and Rome, however, we find records that indicate that reading was usually done aloud. See a few anecdotes from Plutarch, St Augustine and St. Benedict here: http://www.readingaloud.org/history.htm. Also see online Chapter 2 of Alberto Manguel’s “A History of Reading” - There are plenty of other books on the subject. For example, Rosalind Thomas on page 13 of her Literacy and Orality in Ancient Greece

Predictions of Sri Aurobindo Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo & The Mother 4 Aug 2012 Lateralization of brain function (thanks to Ashish Kumar Sahani who pointed this out in a comment seen below)

Ashish September 17, 2012 at 6:30 am Link (http://surasa.net/aurobindo/aurowrit.htm) to “A system of national education” as proposed by Sri Aurobindo in Karmayogin 1909. It seems he knew about the workings of left and right half of the brain much before the modern split brain experiments which began only in 1950 which can be verified from this article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split-brain#History

Sandeep October 8, 2012 at 11:37 am Rajiv Malhotra has independently discovered the same prescient observation of Sri Aurobindo. On pages 283-284 of his book Being Different, he writes:

“Sri Aurobindo describes the dichotomy between the left and right as follows:

The intellect is an organ composed of several groups of functions, divisible into two important classes, the functions and faculties of the right hand, the functions and faculties of the left. The faculties of the right hand are comprehensive, creative, and synthetic, the faculties of the left hand critical and analytic … The left limits itself to ascertained truth, the right grasps that which is still elusive or unascertained. Both are essential to the completeness of the human reason

It is noteworthy that Sri Aurobindo wrote this in 1910, long before modern science came up with the idea that there are differences between the left and right hemispheres of the brain. A yogic technique of pranayama consists of breathing through the nostrils in such a way as to synchronize the two hemispheres.”

ashish kumar sahani October 9, 2012 at 3:48 am Thank you Sandeep, I was quite sure that Sri Aurobindo was the first to speak about left half and right half of the Buddhi. Your detailed and persistent effort in validating the observation added a seal of certainty to it. I hope you will mention this in your main article very soon. I will like to congratulate you for this blog which is truly a treasure house of knowledge for spiritual aspirants.

Comment on Sravana Manana and Nidhidhyasana by Sandeep Dec 31, 2012

Whatever theory that is superimposed on phenomenal data is just a collective belief upheld by the personalities of the participating scientists. Some day, these scientists will die and be replaced by a new set of scientists who might question and overturn the “consciousness-based models” and return to the more close-fitting materialistic theories. Given alternate explanations, science works fine with “inference to best explanation” or parsimonious theories. Nothing in the phenomenal world requires a supernatural explanation. The world works fine as it is. December 29, 2012 at 12:32 pm

I am more inclined to believe that the scientists will just conjure up more refined materialistic theories to explain away the anomalies and discoveries that crop up with new instruments and experiments. Antonio Damasio did just that; he constructed a new three-layered model of the Self to explain all his clinical results on mind-body connection in a series of books from Descartes Error to Self Comes to Mind

Sri Aurobindo. On Original Thinking = On the Importance of Original ...

The attitude of mankind towards originality of opinion is marked by a natural hesitation and inconsistency. Admired for its rarity, brilliancy ...

gune has left a new comment on your post "Prior uses of the ‘invisible hand’ in literature, ...": Savitri Era Learning Forum at 9:43 PM, December 30, 2012

A list of prior uses of invisible hand is useful to the reader. The issue is that the reader is able to identify what the metaphor is. You can analyse the whole list.

December 30, 2012

Patient's symptoms are answers in search of questions

The Hindu: NATIONAL TAMIL NADU: Coimbatore today December 30, 2012 RELIGION

Sri Aurobindo Devotees: Prayers, Sasibalika Vidya Mandir, R.S. Puram, 9.30 a.m.; Annai Meditation Centre, Kovaipudur, 4 p.m.

The Political Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo - Page 257 - V. P. Varma - 1990 - Preview - More editions Aurobindo is critical of a world state and favours a world union. There are three possible institutional means to effectuate the scheme of the unity of mankind. There can be a centralized unitarian world state but Aurobindo rejects this suggestion ...

Comment on Sravana Manana and Nidhidhyasana by Sandeep Dec 29, 2012

In the book “Consciousness, Indian Psychology and Yoga”, there is a chapter where Matthijs Cornelissen says the hard problem arises because Western psychology is inverted in its thinking. It sees this world as real and hence has to figure why the brain works; whereas Indian psychology which sees this world as a projection can explain better why the brain creates images. Comment on Sravana Manana and Nidhidhyasana Here is the excerpt from the article by Matthijs:

(David) Chalmers' formulation of the hard problem-and of the correlation between the brain and consciousness are typical examples of our unwarranted, and often unconscious collective tendency to think that even if consciousness is irreducible, it is somehow still “less fundamental” than matter. The recent philosophical debate on the nature of consciousness is to a considerable degree dominated by such materialist presuppositions…. (Kireet Joshi, Matthijs Cornelissen (ed). Consciousness, Indian Psychology and Yoga , New Delhi, Motilal Banarsidas, 2004. pp 16-17)

Why Zizek doesn’t have a political program from An und für sich by Adam Kotsko

From Less Than Nothing, pp. 1007-1009 (yes, I’ve finished the thing):

“Claude Levi-Strauss wrote that the prohibition of incest is not a question, an enigma, but an answer to a question that we do not know. We should treat the demands of the Wall Street protests in a similar way: intellectuals should not primarily take them as demands, questions, for which they should produce clear answers, programs about what to do. They are answers, and intellectuals should propose the questions to which they are answers. The situation is like that in psychoanalysis, where the patient knows the answer (his symptoms are such answers) but does not know what they are the answers to, and the analyst has to formulate the questions. Only through such patient work will a program emerge.”

Slavoj Zizek and the role of the philosopher Santiago Zabala Al Jazeera, 25 Dec 2012

In order to respond, as Edward Said once said, the intellectual has to be "an outsider, living in self-imposed exile, and on the margins of society", that is, free from academic, religious and political establishments; otherwise, he or she will simply submit to the inevitability of events.

If Slavoj Zizek perfectly fits Said's description, it is not because he is unemployed, in exile, and at the margins of society, but rather because he writes as if he were. His theoretical books, political positions and public appearances are a disruption not only of the common academic style, but also of the idea of the philosopher or intellectual as someone to be idealised and deferred to…

While many believe that globalisation made the Slovenian philosopher more popular than John Dewey, Herbert Marcuse, or Jurgen Habermas, it was actually his ability to disrupt our neoliberal democratic surety through the same events that characterise it…

Today, whether we like him or not, Zizek is, as the Observer points out, "what Jacques Derrida was to the 80s", that is, the thinker of our age. While Derrida's intellectual operation focused on "deconstructing" our linguistic frames of reference, Zizek instead "disrupts" our ideological structures, the underside of acceptable philosophical, religious and political discourses. 1:57 PM

Slavoj Zizek: I am not the world's hippest philosopher! Salon - SUNDAY, DEC 30, 2012 01:30 AM IST ‎The coolest and most influential leftist in Europe tells Salon he battles depression -- and those who worship him BY KATIE ENGELHART

Almost 25 years ago, philosopher Slavoj Žižek broke through the intellectual cul-de-sac of Slovenian academia — making his mark on the English-speaking world with “The Sublime Object of Ideology” (1989), a wily fusing of Lacanian psychoanalysis, Frankfurt School idealism, and reflections on the 1979 blockbuster horror flick “Alien.”

Today, he’s everywhere. The notoriously unkempt “radical leftist” philosophe has become the unlikeliest of celebrities: a cult icon and spiritual guide for Europe’s lethargic left…

Žižek: I really hate all of this politically correct, cultural studies bullshit. If you mention the phrase “postcolonialism,” I say, “Fuck it!” Postcolonialism is the invention of some rich guys from India who saw that they could make a good career in top Western universities by playing on the guilt of white liberals… I also have a bit of megalomania. I almost conceive of myself as a Christ figure.

December 29, 2012

Hayek, Zizek, Heehs and Elst

Sri Aurobindo: A Contemporary Reader Sachidananda Mohanty - 2012 - Preview - I believe that Peter Heehs is right in his analysis and observations. While the intersection of religion and nationalism remains an unresolved issue and Heehs has not ventured 'to set forth in systematic form', his own vision of Sri Aurobindo's views—he does it elsewhere—his point about the existing prejudice and misunderstanding against Sri Aurobindo is a valid one. What I propose to do next is to underline key aspects of Sri Aurobindo's social vision that make him a front-ranking thinker of contemporary culture.

Aurobindo's Philosophy of Brahman - Page 132 - Stephen H. Phillips - 1986 - Preview - I think that the case for the interpretation that his overriding motive is empiricist is a good one. My chief reason for identifying this additional affinity is, as before, to try to comprehend his positions as fully as possible, ...

While mystic experience does stand out not only justificationally but in his idea of the nature of divine life, Aurobindo's stress is on a continuity, mutual value, and mutual reality obtaining between the mystical and and our more ordinary ...

An Indian Sceptic – Philosophy of Daya Krishna from from Centre Right India by Koenraad Elst - Dec 28, 2012. Daya Krishna (1924-2007) had been a member of the Changers’ Club, the debating circle of friends at Delhi University, featuring the later journalist Girilal Jain, economists Ram Swarup and Raj Krishna and historian Sita Ram Goel.

Daya Krishna wisely avoids pronouncing on the difficult question of their absolute chronology… Briefly, Daya Krishna was a Hindu philosopher who knew his classics very well, and who took a questioning position. He was not a secularist, the kind who know next to nothing of their tradition yet condemn it out of hand anyway. But he was not a believer either, aware as he was of the contradiction between the common beliefs about Vedic literature and what the Vedas themselves say.

The Enduring Relevance of Koenraad Elst from The Rediscovery of India by Sandeep B.

One of the defining sentences in the various analyses of post-Independence Hindu revivalism, which is also original is this: Hindus have been playing the game by the rules set by their enemies. [Ed: Paraphrased] Elst wrote this in his masterful Decolonizing the Hindu Mind in 2001. More than a decade ago. As we see, very little has changed since then. If anything, it’s gotten worse in several respects… The Intellectuals: The widely travelled, well-read, and smart ones. The ones who (rightly) want to change the narrative, who point out the inherent bias in our discourse about India and Hinduism.

A Day in the Life of a Sikh Prejudice: Pukhraj Singh DECEMBER 29, 2012 from Kafila Guest post by PUKHRAJ SINGH

“The very ink with which history is written,” allegorised Mark Twain, “is merely fluid prejudice.” By that rationale, religion can often be the quill which defaces the truth with its broad strokes, perverting history than promulgating it. And like the bastard child of these perversions, a few counter-narratives manage to wade through the tides of public opinion, carrying the dim outline of the ossified ideas that led to its tragic pursuit. But one has to have the right kind of eyes, says Hunter S. Thompson, to “see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.”

Why Zizek doesn’t have a political program from An und für sich by Adam Kotsko

From Less Than Nothing, pp. 1007-1009 (yes, I’ve finished the thing):

“Faced with the demands of the protestors, intellectuals are definitely not in the position of the subjects supposed to know: they cannot operationalize these demands, or translate them into proposals for precise and realistic measures. With the fall of twentieth-century communism, they forever forfeited the role of the vanguard which knows the laws of history and can guide the innocents along its path. The people, however, also do not have access to the requisite knowledge–the “people” as a new figure of the subject supposed to know is a myth of the Party which claims to act on its behalf…

There is no Subject who knows, and neither intellectuals nor ordinary people are that subject. Is this a deadlock then: a blind man leading the blind, or, more precisely, each of them assuming that the other is not blind? No, because their respective ignoance is not symmetrical: it is the people who have the answers, they just do not know the questions to which they have (or, rather, are) the answer….

Claude Levi-Strauss wrote that the prohibition of incest is not a question, an enigma, but an answer to a question that we do not know. We should treat the demands of the Wall Street protests in a similar way: intellectuals should not primarily take them as demands, questions, for which they should produce clear answers, programs about what to do. They are answers, and intellectuals should propose the questions to which they are answers. The situation is like that in psychoanalysis, where the patient knows the answer (his symptoms are such answers) but does not know what they are the answers to, and the analyst has to formulate the questions. Only through such patient work will a program emerge.”

(title unknown) by enowning

In Al Jazeera, Santiago Zabala on the thinker of our age.

[His ability to fuse together Martin Heidegger's "fundamental ontology", Francis Fukuyama's "end of history" and Naomi Klein's "shock doctrine" in order to undermine our liberal and tolerant democratic structures is a practice few intellectuals are capable of.]

A Must Read New Book on Friedrich Hayek from Adam Smith's Lost Legacy by Gavin Kennedy

Eamonn Butler: “Friedrich Hayek: the ideas and influence of the libertarian economist”

It is in his accounts of why markets flourish naturally that Hayek is most persuasive, and Butler is at his best in showing the importance of this side of Hayek’s work. This means discussing socialism, which at first glance is a debate about a past that is now over. However, lessons from the endemic failures of socialism are in excellent contrast to the superior results of market capitalism, and Butler develops the contrast clearly, highlighting the untold damage done by the rising tide of deliberate rule changes that eventually clog the operations of markets, restraining them from their full potential.

Socialism is a mistaken response to how societies evolve and work. The “battle lines” may have changed from what they were in the 19^th century when socialism was an untried idea, but having been tried and failed in the 20^thcentury, the central problem remains today: how does a central agency manage a complex economy? Socialism necessarily means dispensing with an existing market capitalism, which whatever else is regarded as dispensable, the visible success of markets that grew within the margins of the millennia-old human experiences since our ancestors left the forest and plains to become shepherds and farmers 10,000 years ago, suggests that markets are dispensed with at an enormous cost.

We can contrast the experience of China and Britain since the 15^th century; China’s government deliberately ended foreign trade despite its massive technological lead. Meanwhile individuals in Britain continued trading and eventually re-discovered the ‘lost’ technologies of China which led to the spread of local markets, science and unheard of new technologies. Market capitalism flourishes under conditions of constitutional liberty more than totalitarian socialism can flourish by destroying markets. Gavin Kennedy Emeritus Professor, Edinburgh Business School, Heriot-Watt University

December 28, 2012

Bergson's U.S. visit in 1913 brings a traffic jam on Broadway

William James - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was an American philosopher and psychologist who had trained as a physician. He was the first educator ... William James (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) 7 Sep 2000 – Russell Goodman - rgoodman@unm.edu

William James was an original thinker in and between the disciplines of physiology, psychology and philosophy. His twelve-hundred page masterwork, The Principles of Psychology (1890), is a rich blend of ...

Henri Bergson (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) 18 May 2004 – Leonard Lawlor lul19@psu.edu Valentine Moulard

Henri Bergson (1859–1941) was one of the most famous and influential French philosophers of the late 19th century-early 20th century… In 1903, Bergson published, in the prestigious Revue de métaphysique et de morale, an article entitled “Introduction to Metaphysics” (later reproduced as the centerpiece of The Creative Mind [La Pensée et le mouvant] in 1934). The first of Bergson's works to be translated in many languages, this article not only became a crucial reading guide for Bergson's philosophy as a whole, but it also marked the beginning of “Bergsonism” and of its influence on Cubism and literature. Through Williams James's enthusiastic reading of this essay, Bergsonism acquired a far-reaching influence on American Pragmatism. Moreover, his imprint on American literature (in particular, Wallace Stevens and Willa Cather, who created a character called “Alexandra Bergson”) is undeniable.

Creative Evolution appeared in 1907. It was the beginning of the “Bergson legend,” as well as of numerous, lively academic and public controversies centering on his philosophy and his role as an intellectual. The beginning of the next decade is the apex of the “Bergsonian cult” (“le Bergson boom”). Creative Evolution was translated into English. Bertrand Russell (who publishes an article entitled “The Philosophy in Bergson” in The Monist in 1912) objects that Bergson wants to turn us into bees with the notion of intuition. Russell also notes that any attempt at classifying Bergson will fail, as his philosophy cuts across all divisions, whether empiricist, realist or idealist (Soulez et Worms 2002, p. 124). Bergson's lectures at the Collège de France were filled to capacity, not only with society ladies and their suitors, but also with a whole generation of philosophy students (Étienne Gilson and Jean Wahl among others) and poets such as T.S. Eliot.

In January 1913, Bergson visits the United States for the first time (Soulez et Worms 2002, p. 134). The week before he delivered his first lecture at Columbia University (entitled “Spirituality and Liberty”), The New York Times published a long article on him. The enthusiasm this article generated may explain the traffic jam that occurred before Bergson's lecture, the first traffic jam in the history of Broadway.

Henri Bergson - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bergson travelled to London in 1908 and met there with William James, the Harvard philosopher who was Bergson's senior by seventeen years, and who was instrumental in calling the attention of the Anglo-American public to the work of the French professor. The two became great friends.

Alfred North Whitehead - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia OM FRS (15 February 1861 – 30 December 1947) was a Fellow of the Royal Society since 1903

The period between 1910 and 1926 was mostly spent at University College London and Imperial College London, where he taught and wrote on physics, the philosophy of science, and the theory and practice of education.

Whitehead's metaphysical views, which he called process philosophy emerged in The Concept of Nature (1920) and were expanded in Science and the Modern World (1925), also an important study in the history of ideas and the role of science and mathematics in the rise of Western civilization. Indebted to Henri Bergson's philosophy of change, Whitehead was also a Platonist who "saw the definite character of events as due to the "ingression" of timeless entities."^[8]

Alfred North Whitehead (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) 5 Apr 2010 – A. D. Irvine - andrew.irvine@ubc.ca

The second main period, from 1910 to 1924, corresponds with his time at London. During these years Whitehead concentrated mainly, but not exclusively, on issues in the philosophy of science and the philosophy of education… Thus although not especially influential among contemporary Anglo-American secular philosophers, his metaphysical ideas continue to have significant influence among many theologians and philosophers of religion.

Samuel Alexander - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia OM (6 January 1859, Sydney – 13 September 1938, Manchester) was an Australian-born British philosopher.

In 1908, he published Locke, a short but excellent study, which was included in the Philosophies Ancient and Modern Series. He was president of the Aristotelian Society from 1908–1911 and from 1936–1937. In 1913, was made a fellow of the British Academy. He was appointed Gifford lecturer at Glasgow in 1915, and delivered his lectures in the winters of 1917 and 1918. These he developed into his great work Space, Time, and Deity, published in two volumes in 1920, which his biographer has called the "boldest adventure in detailed speculative metaphysics attempted in so grand a manner by any English writer between 1655 and 1920."

The question went largely unanswered and his work is mostly ignored (or, at best, little known) these days. Alexander's views have also been described as panentheistic.^[2] Alexander was a contemporary of Alfred North Whitehead, whom he influenced, and mentored others who went on to become major figures in 20th century British philosophy.

Sri Aurobindo: A Contemporary Reader Sachidananda Mohanty - 2012 - Preview - More editions On the other end, M. S. Golwalkar and others of the Right wing persuasion admire Sri Aurobindo for his Hindu nationalism. ... religion and nationalism remains an unresolved issue and Heehs has not ventured 'to set forth in systematic form',54 ...

Sri Aurobindo and Karl Marx: Integral Sociology and Dialectical ... - Page xx - Debi Prasad Chattopadhyaya - 1988 - Preview Sri Aurobindo's integral sociology is a serious and systematic attempt to put the matter 'upside down', to use that famous expression of Marx, to show how the whole of our socio-political structure depends for their existence and significance ...

Political Philosophy Of Sri Aurobindo - Page 285 - V. P. Varma - 1990 - Preview - More editions PHILOSOPHY OF 'THE STATE Sri Aurobindo has not developed any systematic theory of the state like Hegel, Green or Bosanquet. But I will try to reconstruct a theory of the state according to Sri Aurobindo, by arranging, systematizing and ...

Perspectives on Sri Aurobindo's poetry, plays, and criticism - Page 144 - Amrita Paresh Patel, Jaydipsinh Dodiya - 2002 - Full view - More editions Sri Aurobindo was more consistent and original for he tried 'to present a systematic theory of futuristic poetry'. With the ...

Penguin Sri Aurobindo Reader - Page xii - Paranjape, Makarand - Preview Sri Aurobindo and the Mother may be considered among the most consistent and systematic proponents of this idea. As Sri Aurobindo put it, 'It is a step for which the whole of evolution has been a preparation.' Or in the Mother's words: ...

Thinkers Of Indian Renaissance - Page 205 - S A Abbasi - 1998 - Preview It is this fusion which gives Sri Aurobindo a very unique place in the history of Eastern as well as Western philosophy. In this essay an attempt has been made to present Sri Aurobindo's philosophy in a systematic, critical and comparative ...

The Study of Hinduism - Page 275 Arvind Sharma - 2003 - Preview Aurobindo Ghose was one of the most systematic thinkers of the so-called Hindu renaissance.

Sri Aurobindo Ghose - Page 478 - Verinder Grover - 1993 - Preview Sri Aurobindo's writing is large and most varied. But for the strict philosophical purpose the book of systematic exposition is only The Life Divine. His Letters in Yoga are answers to queries put by his disciples in the course of their practice of ...

The perennial quest for a psychology with a soul: an inquiry into ... - Page 542 - Joseph Vrinte - 2002 - Preview In The Human Cycle and Foundations of Indian Culture, Sri Aurobindo deals systematically and comprehensively with the social and cultural life of man, indicating the effects of the individual's spiritual development upon the evolution of man's ...

Reading Hegel: The Introductions - Page 265 - Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Aakash Singh, Rimina Mohapatra - 2008 - Full view ... place, this book ambitiously attempts to present readers with Hegel's systematic thought through his Introductions alone. ... Derrida and other post-moderns, to thinkers farther afield, like Japan's famous Kyoto School or India's Sri Aurobindo.

Indian Political Thinkers: Modern Indian Political Thought - Page 136 - N. Jayapalan - 2000 - Preview He was a great poet, a great metaphysician, a great systematic thinker, a great seer and a great patriot. He had a message for the whole world. Shri AurobindoGhosh was born on 15th August, 1872 in the city of Calcutta, a date which reminds...

The Lives of Sri Aurobindo - Page xii - Peter Heehs - 2008 - Preview - More editions But it had never occurred to anyone to search systematically for biographical documents. I spent parts of the next few years ... Most of the documents I found in public archives dealt with Aurobindo's life as a politician. They confirmed that he had ...

Put up some pictures of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother in your house

The universe is an endless masquerade from Savitri

We live in this world of mortality oblivious of our true self, the self of immortality that can make our mortality immortal in the expressions of the spirit. There is the unseen Presence of which we are not aware. In the sleep of Inconscience he is there and he gives to his timeless thoughts forms in time through his active Nature. Through objects and through persons she shapes the idea of him even as he repeats his births in them. This Presence and this Nature, Soul and Nature, may seem to be two, but in their depths they are one; knowledge and Ignorance, day and night, life and death, and all those things in this existence which might appear contraries are nothing but their eyes’ swift and understanding interchange.

In the universe they go about as if in pretences, in the disguises of unconnected players in the drama of life. But this is a drama whose plot is kept hidden from our sight, from our understanding, even as he keeps aside his omnipotence and yields to her moods and manners of working. Thus in her he hopes to find himself. Although possessor of earth and heaven, he leaves to her all the cosmic management, watching all becomes the Witness of her scene. Not only that; in a thousand ways he serves her royal needs. Thus in the mysterious working of this creation all appears nothing but they two, only he and she are there.

Zizek and “sexual difference” from An und für sich by Adam Kotsko

I’ve long found Zizek’s development of the Lacanian opposition between the logic of the master signifier or constitutive exception and the logic of the non-all (or non-whole, as I wish he would translate the Lacanian pas-tout) to be a compelling and useful schema. At the same time, I’ve never really understood why he is so insistent on referring to this opposition as “sexual difference” or why it is necessary to refer to the master signifier and non-all as masculine and feminine, respectively. He uses many other examples that follow the same logic — in Less Than Nothing, the relationship between bourgeoisie and proletariat is explained in these same terms — and it’s not clear to me why the gendered language should be privileged.

The best explanation I can come up with is his loyalty to the psychoanalytic tradition, where “sexuality” comes to name the fundamental derangement of the human animal (as opposed to any notion of a “natural” procedure of reproduction, etc.). And it’s possible that I’m being an overly squeamish feminist and not following my own rule that generalizations refer fundamentally to social forces rather than to the idea that “they’re all like that.” But still.

Any thoughts?

Samuel Alexander - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia OM (6 January 1859, Sydney – 13 September 1938, Manchester) was an Australian-born British philosopher… his great work Space, Time, and Deity, published in two volumes in 1920… is mostly ignored (or, at best, little known) these days.

The Value and Significance of the Role of Man In the Universe from Sri Aurobindo Studies

Our view of the role and importance of man in the grand scheme of things has gone through the entire gamut from the one extreme that holds that human beings are simply specks of dust in a vast mechanical machinery, essentially having little or no ultimate value, to the other extreme that places man at the center of creation as the most important of all beings (and many positions between these two extremes). While we may not be able to say, as some have said that “man is the measure of all things”, we can nevertheless appreciate that there is a real and significant role for a being that provides conscious awareness, self-reflection and an intuition and aspiration for further evolutionary development.

Man’s will represents an action of the Eternal in the evolutionary schema and is part of the engine that drives forward the unfolding and expression of ever higher levels of consciousness in the material universe. Rebirth and Karma, Section I, Chapter 10, Karma, Will and Consequence, pp. 87-88

Doing away with Death—what does that mean? from Savitri Posting date: 28 Dec 2012

One understands: the psychic being will materialize ... and it gives a continuity to evolution. This creation gives you a clear impression that nothing is arbitrary, that there is a sort of divine logic behind, which isn't like our human logic, but highly superior to our logic (but it exists), and that logic was fully satisfied when I saw that.

It's odd, it was also when she was here that I had that experience of the supramental light going through, within without causing any shadow. She has something like that, I don't know. And this time, it's really interesting. I was quite interested. It was there, tranquil, and saying to me, "But you're after ... well, here it is, this is it!"

Comment on How to choose the right life partner by Sandeep

The Mother had to battle against these ancient ideas as well. Old and retired people would come to her asking for admission to the Ashram. From her perspective, it was too late for any yogic transformation.

Comment on Chakras by mike

Stephanie, just put up some pictures of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother in your house and ask them for what you need. People think that because they aren't here in a physical body anymore, that they can’t be contacted. They are very close – just the other side of the veil, next to this world [subtle physical plane]. They are permanently positioned there. Contacting them isn’t difficult.

Indomitable spirit - The Times of India Dec 28, 2012, 12.00 AM IST

If you can always smile at life, life will always smile at you. The Mother

Happiness comes from the soul's satisfaction not from satisfaction of vitals or body. Sri Aurobindo

The Hindu: Life & Style Metroplus: Joy of being: The final goal
MADURAI, December 27, 2012 R. DINESH

Therefore, once one starts observing oneself in one’s interactions with the rest of the world it becomes easy to start distancing oneself from ‘Becoming’ and gives a chance to get nearer to ‘Being’. Finally, even a little taste of Being is so infectious that one cannot but go back to the same every time a chance arises or effort is made to create an opportunity.

I hope these articles have been useful in passing on an enthusiasm and desire to pursue True Happiness… I am well aware of my limitations of both knowledge and time but it was these messages which encouraged me to finish this series of articles… To digress when I was first introduced to Sri Aurobindo’s writings, I used to think that he was not following the principles expounded in the Upanishads but later it became clear how wrong that first reaction was! This is how relevant most of our reactions are!

Sri Aurobindo delineating Aim in Yoga during 1912–13

Augment Whitehead with Sri Aurobindo

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Aristotle, Nietzsche, Iqbal, and Sri Aurobindo

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