December 01, 2012

Whether hew to the old order of life or hew the ways of Immortality

A Factual Analysis on the Present Controversy Govardhan Dave December 1, 2012
The existing Religions or specifically the Institutional Religions in the world had attempted to transform the Truth revealed to some saints or prophets into an intricate theology or dogma with concurrent rituals and codes of conduct. Moreover, they had insisted upon the necessity for the faithful followers to ensure conformity of their behavior with the prescribed standard or norms and had devised the complex mechanism of reward and punishment to get things done. These Religions took up these Revelation as the Absolute Truth, out of the sheer regard for the spiritual personalities, whom people adored as Prophets. They gave it the status of the Absolute Truth, a Truth beyond and besides which there is nothing. It was for them the final message delivered by God to the humankind for its good, which should command the unequivocal adherence of all humans.
This belief in the finality of the basic concepts or ideals espoused by Religions encouraged the move for their horizontal expansion, while inadvertently sidelining the vertical growth. This happened because they regarded an aspect of Truth as the whole truth, which left no scope for any other quest or for the quest beyond. This state of affairs inculcated rigidity of approach, which eventually generated intolerance towards differing views. It caused conflict between the different sects, which at times had acquired criminal dimension. The agitating devotees of the Ashram while exhibiting such intolerance in the present context have exposed fully their religionist bias.
Eventually, these Religions lost their contact with the genuine spiritual practice and promoted dichotomy of faith and reason, which led to the division of the religious life, which belonged to the domain of faith and the mundane one to the one of the reason. It created a scope for hypocrisy since the two lives have to unavoidably coexist and interact with each other. This state of affairs has generated the belief of an unbridgeable gulf between Principles and Practice.
Moreover, because of the conformism promoted by these Religions the emphasis on the inner spiritual quest or growth in consciousness that is raison d’ etre of Spirituality was shifted to the conformity of behavior with the preconceived standard. This paradigm shift further instilled in the believers the faith in the efficacy of the prescribed rituals giving credence to the externalist view and approach to life, which made spirituality quite redundant. Thus, these Religions succeeded in preserving the body of the Truth at the cost of its soul. And now we come across a move to corporatize the Religious Institutions in order to make their working more effective as is done in the professionally managed corporate establishments, and thus the Religions are gradually being transformed into Mega-establishments dealing with the so-called Spiritual Goods.
Thus, one would see that the source of inspiration of these friends in their effort to reform the Ashram is not the teachings of the Mother, but the Ideology subscribed by the prevalent Religious, Political and Business or Industrial Establishments. However, this ideology has lost its significance as far as further progress of Humanity is concerned, which necessitates the spiritualization of life as such. This amounts to serving the mission of the Mother like a legendary trader who would certainly worship his God but would prefer to keep Him away from his routine life and business. This approach found its support in the prevailing ideology, which took for granted the rift between God and mundane life as the final truth of existence and subscribed to the view that the earth and heaven would never meet.
These friends are thus unknowingly working to perpetuate the old order of life while resurrecting the old mode of working, which the Mother was and is attempting to transform. However, the mission she has undertaken is not an easy task, since the old order, which has established itself firmly in the life of humanity, would certainly offer its resistance before it disappears and would make inroads to upset her work. It has made such inroads in the Ashram through the medium of these devotees.
The prevalent mode of regulatory working with its prescription of several external sanctions is in tune with the ill-conceived notion of man as a self-centered mental being whose behavior needs a provision to control him for his personal and social good. It became necessary because man is very much prone to a variety of unruly and undesirable vital cravings, the cravings of the lower vital being. It presumes distrust in the basic human nature, which if left on its own would operate in the manner detrimental to his existence and its progress. The present-day society and its Institutions are subscribing knowingly or unknowingly to this faith while they remain busy in devising and operating a variety of mechanisms to tame the legendary wild horse in the interest of civilization and culture.
However, since the man in the very scheme of things, or as it is said, his being in the process of evolution is required to outgrow this state of consciousness for a greater destiny, there has arisen a dire need for its change for which the Mother has been working. Her first step in this direction was to initiate a new approach to organize and manage the Ashram with an emphasis on freedom in thought and action in order to facilitate inner governance with a view to create an opening for the influence of Higher Consciousness in the actual working. It would not amount by any stretch of imagination to being lax and chaotic or subscribing to the laissez-faire order under the guise of freedom. This approach entails the sincerity of the purpose and clarity of the aim to prepare man for the Divine Life on the earth, in view of which it has departed from dogmatism and conformism for good. Thus, the adherence of the trustees of this Ashram to this mode of working does not amount to promoting or encouraging, much less to protecting and shielding any libertine behavior as alleged by these friends.

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother facilitated the process of surrender by adopting a laissez-faire approach towards their disciples. Instead of pushing the disciples towards certain goals, they would intervene only after the disciple became aware of ...

The ideal is to have suppleness and receptivity Posting date: 01 Dec 2012 from Savitri The Mother
As I said, I took it simply as a caress to comfort a child. But now I realize that the most important thing is not to have any fixity: nothing should be set, definitive, like the sense of a perfection in the realization – that means a dead stop in the march forward. The sense of incapacity (with the meaning I said of mediocrity, of something by no means exceptional) leaves you in a sort of expectation of something better. So then, the most important thing is suppleness – suppleness. Suppleness and breadth: reject nothing as useless or bad or inferior – nothing; set nothing up as really superior and beautiful – nothing. Remain ever open, ever open.

When we look at the involution of Spirit into Matter, and the subseequent evolution of Consciousness in successive stages out of Matter to realize the spiritual ...

Sangh’s Narendra Modi Problem - Prasanna CRI Saturday, December 1, 2012
Given the intentional inscrutability and deliberate obfuscation that the Sangh tends to practice in its communication, it will never go on record admitting… Sangh vanguard, to put it charitably, practices a bit of sophistry when they claim that they do not meddle in the political affairs of BJP. I have observed Sangh for long, often with huge admiration at their exemplary record of social service and purposeful patriotism but also with consternation at their prejudiced pronouncements and regression in to some kind of a secretive, Marathi Brahmin brotherhood… Victimhood narrative will yield diminishing returns with aspirational middle India… Sangh has a unique opportunity to embrace modernity that it always feared and resented… Sangh has a historic chance to leave behind embarrassing aspects of its legacy which included advocating isolationism of mind, fostering fear of modernity and contempt for politics as an instrument of socio-political change.

Herder, Schiller, Kant, Fichte The Isaiah Berlin Virtual Library THE ASSAULT ON THE FRENCH ENLIGHTENMENT Fichte and Romantic Self-Assertion
I MUST NOW TURN to a very different figure, namely, Fichte, who was neither, like Herder, a man of very generous character, nor, like Kant, a man who was totally dedicated to the truth. Nevertheless, his influence in some respects was perhaps wider than that of either Kant or Herder. Schiller’s classification of mankind, at least of the history of mankind, into three stages is what affected the imagination of his contemporaries. 11:33 AM Sunday, September 09, 2007

No comments:

Post a Comment