Anilbaran Roy (1890—1974), the renowned leader of the Congress Party.
Having made a name for himself as a brilliant professor of philosophy, he
joined the Non-Cooperation Movement in 1921. When Chittaranjan Das was the
President of Bengal Provincial Congress, he served as its Secretary. Sri
Aurobindo’s book Essays on the Gita had deeply influenced him;
he accepted Sri Aurobindo as Krishna incarnate
and wrote to Sri Aurobindo seeking his permission to translate Essays
on the Gita into Bengali. Sri Aurobindo sent his written consent and
added that Anilbaran was the competent person for the work. As a matter of
fact, one of the best interpretations of the Gita in the light
of Sri Aurobindo has come from the pen of Anilbaran. A regular correspondence
followed through which Sri Aurobindo gave him directions in the path of yoga.
After the untimely demise of C.R. Das, Anilbaran became the undisputed
leader of Congress in Bengal . At this
point of time, Sri Aurobindo wrote to him asking him to leave politics and
pursue the path of yoga at Pondicherry .
Anilbaran was not quite willing to leave his political career and insisted Sri
Aurobindo to guide him in the path of sadhana through epistolary
communications. Sri Aurobindo flatly refused and wrote back that if Anilbaran
was desirous to follow the yoga mentioned in the Gita then he
was welcome to go ahead in his political career but he must not expect any help
from Sri Aurobindo; but if he sincerely craved to follow the path of Integral
Yoga then he could surely expect to receive Sri Aurobindo’s guidance but for
that he would have to leave politics.
Anilbaran went to Pondicherry in
May 1926 and Sri Aurobindo not only granted him a number of personal interviews
but also allowed him to be present during his evening talks. When Anilbaran
asked Sri Aurobindo about the freedom of India ,
he replied: “The independence of India is a thing decreed.” At
the same time, he informed Anilbaran that though the Indians did not deserve
independence they would definitely get it. [Anilbaran Roy, Purushottam
Sri Aurobindo, p. 4] Anilbaran stayed in Pondicherry for five months and was
present on 15 August 1926 when Sri Aurobindo’s fifty-fourth birthday was
celebrated. He left Pondicherry on 1
October and after leaving his political career returned to Pondicherry on 10
December 1926. By that time Sri Aurobindo had retired and the Mother had taken
charge of the newly-formed nucleus of the Aurobindonian community. He was to
remain in Pondicherry till
1965 and emerge as one of the brightest sadhaks of the Integral Yoga.
135th
Birth Anniversary of 'The Mother' Mirra Alfassa – The
Mother (1878-1973) By Subhamoy Das,
About.com Guide
The Mother remained its inspirer, director and guide for nearly 50
years to build the Ashram into a huge, many-faceted spiritual community… The
Mother continued Sri Aurobindo’s work of psychological and physical
transformation. Both of them dedicated their lives for the manifestation of “a
mode of consciousness beyond mind, which Sri Aurobindo named ‘Supermind’ or
‘The Supramental’.” The Mother's Agenda recount her experience of the last 18
years of her life.
Sri
Aurobindo's Five Dreams: Nation-Souls and the Triple Transformation Debashish
Banerji
On the eve of India 's
independence, 15th August 1947, Sri Aurobindo wrote an address to the nation in
which he outlined the five dreams with which he began his adult life. This
address spoke of the scope of these dreams and held out pointers towards the
future. This article explores these five dreams of Sri Aurobindo in terms of
their contemporary relevance and their relationship to Sri Aurobindo's yogic
teaching. After two World Wars, can we still speak of nation-souls as Sri
Aurobindo had? What did Sri Aurobindo envision in terms of the unity of India , the rise of Asia or
a world union of the future? How can we understand these things today? And do
these larger social and political goals have anything to do with his yogic
vision? These and other questions are explored in this article, based on a talk
given on 15th August 2008 at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, New Delhi , by Debashish Banerji. The article
is reproduced courtesy of the February 2010 issue of the journal Srinvantu, Kolkata , India
It also shares psimilarities with what Sri Aurobindo calls the
attainment of the "silent mind," which is well explained in chapter 4
of The
Adventure of Consciousness. In fact, we may discern a convergence of the
Christian and neo-Vedantic approaches, as Satprem writes that "the major
task that opens the door to many realizations is to silence the mind....
Clearly, if we want to discover a new country within us, we must leave the old
one behind -- everything depends on our determination to take this first
step."
In order to understand the mental energy as it manifests in the world,
it is essential to look at its varying types of effort and impacts. The first,
and most familiar to us, is the impact, influence and control the mental energy
exercises on the physical and vital life. The power of mentality is at work,
but the purpose, goal and focus is on achieving the aims of the vital life
force. If we look at the characterisation made by ancient seers and sages, this
would encompass the first two of the four goals or aspects they attribute as
meaning to human existence, namely, artha and kama,
the seeking and attainment of profit and fulfillment of desire.
The powers of mind concentrated on the achievement of these aims can
be extremely powerful and can lead to tremendous success along these lines, but
it is a success that remains quite limited and does not represent the power of
mentality carrying out its own native lines of action. It is an important step
for the transformation away from the purely animal existence, but it does not
represent the true larger role that mentality is intended to play.
Don’t get too elated by these trivial signs in the beginning. You need
an overwhelming experience to really get started down the spiritual path, and
when that happens, you will know it. Just aim to stay alert and focused the
whole time; don’t fall asleep and don’t get misled by hallucinations. After meditation,
the head must feel cool and the heart must feel happy. That’s the only sign you
should look out for.
I have discovered the real cause for the rising pitch of protests and
the vengeful spirit stirring up society today… My own diagnosis is
that in expecting people to be constantly thoughtful, sensible and clever, we
have set the bar too high. Man is a rational animal, but sometimes even reason
needs the afternoon off to take in a Salman Khan movie. A century ago, American
writer and philosopher Elbert Hubbard had said, "Every man is a damn fool for
five minutes every day. Wisdom consists in not exceeding that limit." How
considerate — and such a reasonable ceiling!
To take an example from not very long ago, consider Ashis Nandy. He
has a fine track record of cerebral thinking and unorthodox articulation. But
it’s too much to expect anyone to sustain a cent per cent success ratio of
saying wise things. I don’t believe Nandy actually stepped out of line for more
than a minute at Jaipur, but it was enough to get the FIRs flying and mobs
spilling out in anger on the streets.
15 minutes of fame is short-lived media publicity or
celebrity of an individual or phenomenon. The expression was coined by Andy Warhol,
who said in 1968 that "In the future, everyone will be world-famous for
15 minutes." The phenomenon is often used in reference to figures in
the entertainment industry or other areas of popular
culture, such as reality television and YouTube. It is
believed that the statement was an adaptation of a theory of Marshall
McLuhan, explaining the differences of media, where TV differs much from
other media using contestants. The expression is in fact derivative of an
older UK expression, "nine days o' wonder"…
The age of reality television has seen the comment wryly updated as:
"In the future, everyone will be obscure for 15 minutes." The
British artist Banksy has
made a sculpture of a TV that has, written on its screen, "In the future,
everyone will be anonymous for 15 minutes."
A more recent adaptation of Warhol's quip, possibly prompted by the
rise of online social networking, blogging, and
similar online phenomena,
is the claim that "In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen
people" or, in some renditions, "On the Web, everyone will be famous
to fifteen people". This quote, though attributed to David
Weinberger, was said to have originated with the Scottish artist Momus.
"Zero Defects" is one of the postulates from Philip
Crosby's "Absolutes of Quality Management". Although applicable
to any type of enterprise, it has been primarily adopted within industry supply
chains wherever large volumes of components are being purchased (common items
such as nuts and bolts are good examples)… Criticism of "Zero
Defects" frequently centers around allegations of extreme cost in meeting
the standard.
The One Minute Manager: Kenneth H. Blanchard, Spencer
Johnson Release date: September 1, 1982
The One Minute Manager is a concise, easily read story that
reveals three very practical secrets: One Minute Goals, One Minute Praisings,
and One Minute Reprimands.
