Shourie's 'Two Saints' Is An Important Book, But Neither Original Nor Thorough - Swarajya
Aravindan Neelakandan
-
In the West, the neuroscience of religious experiences is today a budding discipline with its roots well entrenched in the substratum of scientific research. Though one can say this is a new science, the occidental origins of scientific enquiry into the phenomenon of religion can be traced back to the famous Gifford Lectures of Harvard psychologist William James, which are famous today as the book The Varieties of Religious Experience. That was at the beginning of the twentieth century. Since then, many prominent psychologists like Freud, Jung, Maslow, pioneering anthropologists of religion like Mircea Eliade, writers like Joseph Campbell, Alan Watts and Colin Wilson have ventured into the realm of religion, mythology and religious experiences. They have had some deep insights, illuminating comments and mostly speculative concepts.
Now, we are in the twenty-first century, and science has made some amazing advances in the study of the inner realm – not only in the scientific understanding of the dimensions of our inner life but also in the technologies that can peer into the workings of our brain. Naturally, some of the bravest scientists were quick enough to apply these technological advances and understanding of the brain to the realm of religion.
Arun Shourie’s new book Two Saints: Speculations around and about Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and Ramana Maharishi uses this occidental heritage to study the religious experiences of arguably two of the greatest seers of nineteenth and twentieth century India, whose lives are fairly well recorded by their disciples. At the outset, one should congratulate Shourie for undertaking this daring cerebral adventure. One may or may not agree with his conjectures but definitely this book opens up a lot of questions for the serious-minded seekers of both science and religion.
Arun Shourie. Two Saints: Speculations Around and About Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and Ramana Maharishi. Harper Collins. 2017.
...
Dear Kashyap,
1. A new book by Arun Shourie is making waves and I give below links to two important reviews from which one can draw some impression:
Deconstructing Arun Shourie's “Two Saints” | IndiaFactsIndiaFacts
indiafacts.org › deconstructing-arun-sho...
Arun Shourie’s new book, “Two Saints” explores an interesting, but not unknown, area of spirituality wherein mystical experiences, their mechanism and effects are investigated in the light of modern neurology and psychology. ...
Shourie's 'Two Saints' Is An Important Book, But Neither Original Nor Thorough - Swarajya
https://swarajyamag.com › books › shour...
Arun Shourie's new book Two Saints: Speculations around and about Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and Ramana Maharishi uses this occidental heritage to study the religious experiences ...
2. Sri Aurobindo used to record his experiments and experiences which can be read at:
10 / Record of Yoga - I
11 / Record of Yoga - II
3. Further, a good book on the subject is:
Seven Quartets of Becoming: A Transformative Yoga Psychology Based on the Diaries of Aurobindo
by Debashish Banerji
4. Since arguments over physics is gradually turning a war on Sadhu-Sanga forum, Sri Aurobindo's formulations on Consciousness should receive more attention, in my opinion.
Wishing you all the best,
Tusar (b.1955)
June 11, 2017
RE: [Sadhu Sanga] back to Thomas Nagel, "Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False" (2012)
" Hegel put himself outside this tradition." A recent book, "Hegel's India" brings into focus his tryst with Indian philosophy giving rise to the speculation ...
16 Apr by me - 392 posts - 54 authors
Re: [Sadhu Sanga] Response to your question on Bohm's theory.
Thanks Bruno for appreciation and positive assessment. You have raised enough anticipation in this forum about your theory which, let's hope, will be ...
29 May by me - 57 posts - 19 authors
Re: [Sadhu Sanga] Advaita, Consciousness and Quantum Physics.
Dear Tusar, On 07 Jun 2017, at 18:33, Tusar Nath Mohapatra wrote: Thanks for your considered reply. It appears that what I am asking for coincides ...
9 Jun by marchal - 45 posts - 14 authors
Re: [Sadhu Sanga] Re: Consciousness and matter.
The metaphysical basis for Integral Health — the nature of reality Dr. Soumitra Basu [In Chapter V of The Life Divine, Sri Aurobindo introduces a ...
25 Apr by me - 46 posts - 14 authors
Events and announcements.
Seven Day ICPR Workshop on Studies in Consciousness in the Light of Sri Aurobindo's Philosophy (With special Emphasis on the Upanishads) 19th ...
9 Jun by me - 3 posts - 2 authors
RE: Sadhu Sanga forum.
Dear Tushar,. Thanks for your e-mail. I have very high respect but very limited knowledge about Sri Aurobindo. Last year on our trip to south India we ...
29 May by vasavada - 1 posts - 1 authors
A compilation of passages from two of the major works of Sri Aurobindo, concerning the subliminal regions of our consciousness, with biographical sketches of Sri Aurobindo and of F. W. H. Myers, who coined the ...
Aug 6, 2015 - In the medieval West and Middle East, one finds reference to four worlds (olam) in Kabbalah, or five in Sufism (where they are also called tanazzulat; "descents"), and also in Lurianic Kabbalah.
Jeffrey John Kripal, Glenn W. Shuck - 2005 - Preview - More editions
In one of his rare nods to a western thinker, Aurobindo can appreciatively and insightfully incorporate "the new method of psycho-analysis" into his discussion of ... influence of Frederic Myers and his notion of the subliminal self, which Aurobindo explicitly distinguishes from the psychoanalytic subconscious,24 throughout the ...
For more on Spiegelberg's darshan with Aurobindo, see “German Savant in India: An Interviewwith Dr. FredericSpiegelberg,” MotherIndia, April30,1949, p. 5.My thanks to Peter ... Although Aurobindo does not mention Myers as the source of this category, it is almost certain that he was familiar with Myers's work. Hence in LD ...
Edward F. Kelly, Adam Crabtree, Paul Marshall - 2015 - Preview
A striking parallel to Myers's distinction between “infrared” and “ultraviolet” regions beyond ordinary consciousness can be found in the modern Indian Tantric mystical philosopher Sri Aurobindo, who speaks of the “inconscient” and the “superconscient,” respectively. Interestingly, Aurobindo overlapped with Myers at ...
Kaikhushru Dhunjibhoy Sethna - 1946 - Snippet view
If we can hold the "feel " and rhythm of it intensely within us, we shall distinguish that utter" wholeness" from the high spirit-stuffed ideation of Frederic Myers's urge to Leap from the universe and plunge in Thee or Wordsworth's apostrophe to ...
Courtney Bender, Ann Taves - 2012 - Preview - More editions
reentering the field of his first intellectual love: psychic research, as broadly conceived by Myers, James, and contemporary figures such as Ian Stevenson and ... James, Bergson, Whitehead, Aurobindo (a twentieth- century Indian freedom fighter become metaphysical writer and guru), and Murphy himself are probably the ...
Dr.Michael Puthenthara - 2013 - Preview
Reputed scholar F.W.H. Myers call this deeper aspect of mind “the soul of the bottom bed”.13 But even that was not low enough for the consciousness of Indian thought It can at best be compared to the deep sleep [ susushpta] state only. Turiya which ... But Sri Aurobindo has none of these doubts. His contention is that as ...
Sir Surendranath Tagore - 1974 - Snippet view - More editions
Myers's philosophy, however, does not aspire as high as the Glta. The state of the 'Karma Yoga' is transcended in the Gita by the growth of a higher knowledge about which Sri Aurobindo writes : An inner situation may even arise, as with the ...
Satya Prakash Singh - 1986 - Snippet view
Sri Aurobindo calls it subliminal. xii Distinction from the Western Subliminal His subliminal is quite different from and much ... In the West, the subliminal was discovered by Frederic W. H. Myers sometime in 1886.1 William James characterizes ...
Knut A. Jacobsen - 2011 - Preview - More editions
astronomical universe (if one still couched in mythological language), in which Myers could feel at home In short, at the very end of his life, Frederic Myers, the coiner ... lens Like Frederic Myers, Aurobindo Ghose ( 1872-1950) was a trained classicist Like Myers again, he received his classics training at Cambridge Afterwards, ...
No comments:
Post a Comment