December 28, 2012

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

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.

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.

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!"

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. 

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 

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!

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