History, mythology, and the woman Y

The Hindu : NATIONAL TAMIL NADU : COIMBATORE TODAY February 24, 2013

Prayers to Divine Mother: Sri Aurobindo Devotees Trust, Sasibalika Vidya Mandir, R.S. Puram, 9.30 a.m. and Sri Annai Meditation Centre, W7C, Kovaipudur, 4 p.m.

Aurobindo admirer The Shillong Times - Rajib Roy met American historian Peter Heehs during his visit to Shillong WHILE GRADUATING in a college in ...

Comment on Sri Aurobindo on synchronicity by mwb6119Mark from Comments for IYSATM Sandeep said: As you too may have noticed, once you have a spiritual opening, all kinds of experiences tend to occur and it is not easy to distinguish whether one is interpreting them correctly or just projecting one’s desires.

There is no single reality that defines the past - Right & Wrong - Times Of India Blog 24 February 2013 Swapan Dasgupta

There was a time when history was an engagement involving the dead, the living and the unborn. Today, thanks to the multiplication of isms and the epidemic of prefixes (post-modernism, post-colonial , neo-liberal , et al), the story of the human experience has been reduced to conversations involving tiny groups of ‘professional’ historians. The wider citizenry that should, ideally, have informed perceptions of their heritage and inheritance have been disdainfully left out of the process.
The results have been horrible. An India that was in any case relatively unconcerned with history has become even less so. An enlightened yet critical view of how our ancestors coped with challenges and uncertainties have been replaced by either idyllic or prejudicial fantasies. By far the most damaging contribution has been that of ‘scientific’ history which, thanks to its impersonal nature and inherent dryness, has virtually killed popular interest in the past. For the aam aadmi, history has become a Bollywood hand-me-down.

This perversion has had two consequences. For some, not least the political class, the rendering of the past has become an aspect of contemporary politics — tales to be moulded and presented as facets of a contested nationhood. To the completely uninitiated, history has become an extension of mythology — a process that conveniently bypasses chronology and empirical rigour. By definition, any appreciation of the past involves a great deal of tentativeness. Yet, if mass reaction is any guide, everything from Shivaji to Gandhiji has become bound in unflinching certitudes… Viewing history as a series of certitudes forecloses awkward conclusions. Like the present, there is no single reality that defines the past, a point to consider the next time we make it a contemporary battlefield. 

Vivekananda’s doctrine of Maya is not like that of Sankara Pertinence of Vivekananda’s Apotheosis in Indian Social Diaspora - Dr. Ravindra Kumar – Aug. 29, 2007 - The intuitive mind of Vivekananda has been inspired by the juxtapose thought and theism of various pantheists and epistemologists.

Remembering Vivekananda - Frontline AMIYA P. SEN Feb 8, 2013 – Unlike Sri Ramakrishna, Vivekananda was not a sadhaka, nor did he possess the philosophical depth or originality of Sri Aurobindo. His most ... 3:23 pm

Vivekananda's doctored picture of Ramakrishna 13 Jan 2013 - Jyotirmaya Sharma busts many myths around Swami Vivekananda From: Outlook Magazine, 21 January 2013 Interview ‘His Inclusiveness Is A Powerful Myth’ Vivekananda comes across as a Hindu supremacist, and not so much a social reformist - Satish Padmanabhan Interviews Jyotirmaya Sharma

Worship was offered to the Undivine from Savitri

There is darkness below darkness, as if worse is awaiting the worse, evil for a greater evil. Not a drop of joy, not a ray of light, not a bit of truth, not a trace of hope is present there. Eye cannot see anything, but it is only by the perception of the soul one knows the things that go in that calamitous world, in that city with grimed sooty filthy walls, in those savage slums of the Night. If there are proud perverted palaces, there also crowd grey and squalid huts, places full of inhuman and demoniac inhabitants. Life has achieved in the shadow depths a strange miracle. She is here a strong and fallen goddess, a drunken empress, a terrible horrendous dreadful Gorgon in all her monstrous ugliness, with living snakes as her hair, a look at her turning one into a dead stone. A Medusa may be killed by Perseus but here she is an immortal, once a royal woman, attired in gold and purple robes, a queen leaving her palace and now living in a shanty, in a crudely built hut, in a squalid bouge, bearing her fatal breasts in shameless and uncouth exultation.

She has become a dissolute woman, a harlot, promiscuous, a vagabond, an adventurous tramp. There on the dark background she scripts her dramas and her long epics of horror and grimness, of agonies and hideous deeds. She runs booths of sin and makes good business in night-repairs beautifying skin and flesh with creams and serums, and stylises body’s lustful moods and desires. To the goat-like satyr she gives the honey-dripping thyrsus of a god. Such are her ingenious crafts of monstrosity. Everything that Nature made is given repulsive twists and unnatural poses. To the dead is expressed anguish but it is no more than a ritual, a custom, without an element of genuineness. In the secret Night is abroad only the bestial joy, a monstrous ecstasy. Anything done only exposes the mystery of Hell.

Even you are very beautiful: Nikitha Suryadevara from Kafila Guest post by NIKITHA SURYADEVARA

In a professional setting like a press conference, definitely inappropriate. Yelling “you’re beautiful, you’re sexy!” at passing women on the street can never be construed as a compliment. My apologies to legions of what I’m sure are well meaning men with only pure good intentions… I want to be more than a piece of meat. I want to be more than something pretty to look at. I want to inspire respect not lust. And until the day it happens, I will continue to be over sensitive and I will continue to regard all such ‘compliments’ with the skepticism they deserve.

Comment on What is wrong with promiscuity? by Mansee from Comments for IYSATM by Mansee - Feb 14, 2013

I also have come across some old pervert men in university and job alike, but i have also had the chance to meet certain men with lot of self control and integrity. Similarly for the women, i have known the devoted ones and also the not-so-controlled ones. (Maybe it is more difficult to find pervert women as their means of expressions are more restrained than men in Indian society. Also just think in a traditional society, if a man cheats on one woman X, it will surely involve another woman Y. Now what will you call Y here?).

Women themselves want to be seen as seductive from Savitri Era Learning Forum - The King is dead, long live the King from sunayana.com by Jul 21, 2012

Women themselves want to be seen as seductive and are totally focused on their physical appearance because that must attract attention. In Rajesh Khanna’s films women were objects of adoration. India may have become wealthier than before but crimes against women are in the headlines every other day.