Showing posts with label Dr. Karan Singh. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dr. Karan Singh. Show all posts

February 11, 2013

Sri Aurobindo described split brain dichotomy accurately

The Nature of Physical Reality (new edition pdf Download this file) Subhash Kak New York, Bern, Frankfurt/M., 1986. 159 pp. American University Studies: Series 5, Philosophy. Vol. 17
It is noteworthy that, in 1910, the yogic philosopher and seer Sri Aurobindo described split brain dichotomy in terms that would be considered accurate even now, hundred years later:5
A New Way of Living - Page 4 - Roy Posner - Preview 1/6/06 Knowledge + Will that Enables Ultimate Accomplishment in Life The Indian sage and seer Sri Aurobindo described the process by which the universe emerged from a Divine Source. That process is essentially the same process by ...
Essentials - Page 15 - Roy Posner - Preview Mira Alfassa, the individual known to her followers as “The Mother”, and a partner of the Indian sage and seer Sri Aurobindo commented on this web of life in the early 1970s:15 "I have a curious impression of a kind of web Inner-Outer ...
Inspirations - Page 222 - Roy Posner - Preview ... what sage and seer Sri Aurobindo called "Supermind," -- with a vast dynamism and energy, enabling her to become the intellectual, psychological, and spiritual leader of the world, leaving others behind. Intuition and Tomorrow's Success ...
Bulletin - Volume 54 - Page 14 - Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education (Pondicherry, India) - 2002 - To prepare that new birth and new creation for man by his illumination and upward voyaging is the function of Surya, the divine Light and Seer. Sri Aurobindo vision de Sourya.
Problems of the Indian creative writer in English - Page 55 C. Paul Verghese - 1971 - CHAPTER 6 The Poetry of Sri Aurobindo Ghose In Sri Aurobindo Ghose too, like Rabindranath Tagore, we have the combination of a poet and seer. Sri Aurobindo is perhaps a greater seer and prophet than Rabindranath and is better known ...
The Indian journal of political science - Volume 68 - Page 494 - Indian Political Science Association - 2007 - Though as a political philosopher Hegel might have more to offer in way of analysis, but as a visionary and seer Sri Aurobindo provided clue not only to the sufferings of individuals in the state but also to its solution. End Notes 1 . For Hegel ...
The nuclear peril and the Gandhian answer - Page 10 - K. R. Srinivasa Iyengar - 1984 - The Law of Karma has worked relentlessly and Truman's atom bomb has grown into the sleepless nightmare that it is now for all the good people of Truman's country" (Satyameva Jayate, Vol. I, p. 334). Again, the Yogi and Seer Sri Aurobindo ...
Dimensions of federal nation building: essays in memory of ... - Page 5 - Abdulrahim P. Vijapur - 1998 - As the great philosopher and seer Sri Aurobindo wrote "The conflict of religions arises because each one claims the exclusive truth and demands complete adherence to it by the method of dogma, belief, ritual, ceremony and prescribed acts.
Hindu Vishva - Volume 15 - Page 7 - 1980 - The great philosopher and seer Sri Aurobindo, proclaimed — "India shall lead the West to spirituality". Indeed, we can if we imbibe values ourselves and understand the brevity of the crisis we face today. It is the youth of India who ought to lead ...
How I became a Hindu: my discovery of Vedic dharma - Page 187 - David Frawley - 2000 - ... struggling to free itself from the aftershocks of a thousand years of foreign rule. Only in the last decade has the country started to awaken to its real purpose as a nation. To echo the great Yogi and Seer, Sri Aurobindo, India's destiny is to take...
As I see it--: the Karan Singh reader - Page 207 - Karan Singh (Sadr-i-Riyasat of Jammu and Kashmir) - 2001 - As the great philosopher and seer Sri Aurobindo wrote, 'The conflict of religions arises because each one claims the exclusive truth and demands complete adherence to it by the method of dogma, belief, ritual, ceremony and prescribed acts.
Public affairs - Volume 27 - Page 41 - Gokhale Institute of Public Affairs - 1984 - Again, the Yogi and Seer Sri Aurobindo who had warned in 1939, when the neutron chain-reaction as it bombarded and split a Uranium atom was discovered — A scientist played with atoms and blew out The Universe before God had time to ...
Gandhi's Emissary - Page 326 - Sudhir Ghosh - 1967 - On 15th March 1965 I made a brief speech on the Vietnam crisis and the power and the intentions of Communist China, in our Parliament, in the course of which I quoted the following prophetic words of the saint and seer, Sri Aurobindo, ...
Yoga and the Sacred Fire: Self-Realization and Planetary ... - Page 7 - David Frawley - 2006 - Preview - More editions The work of the great modern Indian seer and yogi, Sri Aurobindo (1872-1950), opened the door to the Vedic world for me in 1971 when I first came upon his Vedic writings. Reading his translations of Vedic hymns to the Dawn, I experienced a ...
Globalization and Culture: Global Mélange - Page 29 - Jan Nederveen Pieterse - 2009 - Preview - More editions Under what circumstances do cultures flourish? In one view, cultural efflorescence requires or is more common in local, small-scale social units. Thus, according to the Indian philosopher and yogi Sri Aurobindo, “Collective life diffusing itself in ... 

Physical Nature is non-moral in its response to the efforts of humanity. This means that it will provide a commensurate energy response to the effort made to utilize or harness its forces, based solely on the energy and not on some concept of moral or ethical right or wrong. The law of Karma on the physical plane is essentially a law of “cause and effect.” …
We can witness this process at work in the events of the last 200 years. An increasing concentration and focus on the elemental powers of physical Nature has led to discoveries that could only seem miraculous to human beings of earlier centuries. Today we take it for granted that we can observe actions in distant parts of the globe through satellite, television and internet; communicate with virtually any part of the world via wireless cell phones; fly through the air at supersonic speeds; travel into outer space; unlock enormous energies through splitting of the atom; harness the power of the sun through solar energy; transplant organs from one human being to another; and modify the very genetic structure of living beings. Each of these developments, representative of the type of will to mastery over physical Nature that we have seen develop during this time, has dramatically increased the power of action and base of knowledge of humanity, but none of them has been without their down-side consequences, some of which threaten the continued existence of all life on the planet, such as destructive nuclear weapons; global climate change, world-wide chemical contamination of the air, soil and water; and unforeseen consequences of genetic tampering. Sri Aurobindo anticipated this type of much wider responsiveness of Nature to human development of knowledge and will: Physical Nature Is Non-Moral and Non-Ethical In Its Results from Sri Aurobindo Studies 
As we have been examining physical Nature and its forces, it has become obvious that the return or response of the energy, the essence of the law of “cause and effect” which underlies or notion of Karma, is strictly in line with our adherence to the principles and laws of the physical universe and does not include any moral or ethical component. Physical Nature will put into our hands the power to split the atom if we focus intensely enough, regardless of whether we will use it benignly or malignantly.
We try to impugn an ethical motive in the results of physical energy, but in the purest sense, physical energy simply does not have this impulsion. The concept of Karma that includes a “payback” in terms of morality or ethics is actually something that arises with the development of higher forms of consciousness… Sri Aurobindo points out that with the entry of the life energy into physical Nature, we begin to see the first inklings of some kind of energetic response that begins to take into account the effect on life, with the possibility of a response that goes beyond the strictly physical energies to balance excesses, but even here, it is not a moral or ethical principle, but some other life-basis that determines the actual reaction.

January 21, 2013

Hind Swaraj's children vs. Labourers in the quarries of the gods

This is the Western model that Indians currently want to emulate. Large sections of India is currently enamoured by the desire to mimic the American lifestyle. There is lot of money flowing into the country and this has boosted people’s aspirations… They take pride in being “secular” – which means they have no value system other than some minimal ethical principles.  

Tradition and the Rhetoric of Right: Popular Political Argument in ... - Page 53 - David J. Lorenzo - 1999 - Preview But, despite these circumstances, Aurobindo managed to win a scholarship to Kings College, Cambridge, where he read the Classical Tripos. While earning a "first" in the first part of the Classical Tripos, his poverty continued to haunt him.
The Lives of Sri Aurobindo - Page 23 - Peter Heehs - 2008 - Preview - More editions ... whole way of life, which was simple and penurious in the extreme, is against this: they were due entirely to circumstances beyond his control. Despite his heavy load and relative poverty, Aurobindo passed two happy years at Cambridge.
Sri Aurobindo - Volume 1 - Page 807 - Aurobindo Ghose - 1970 - The increasing poverty of the masses has been the subject of innumerable pamphlets, speeches and newspaper articles, but we are apt to think our duty done when we have proved that the poverty problem is there ; we leave the solution to ...
His Majesty's Opponent - Page 26 - Sugata Bose - 2012 - Preview - More editions Aurobindo had inspired Bengal's young revolutionaries of the Swadeshi era, before retiring into a life of religious ... This experience unfolded before him “a picture of real India, the India of the villages—where poverty stalks over the land, men ...
The Mother - Page 15 - Aurobindo Ghose, Sri Aurobindo - 1995 - Preview - More editions a certain distorting influence stamped on it ...Some even put a ban on money and riches and proclaim poverty and bareness of life as the only spiritual condition. But this is an error; it leaves the power in the ...
Poverty and Sustainable Development: Concepts and Measures - Page 72 - Indian Economic Association. Conference, N. Sreenivas Iyengar - 2010 - Preview Sri Aurobindo, however, looked at it from the point of view of an organized society. He said: "The acceptance of poverty is noble and beneficial in a class or an individual, but it becomes fatal and pauperizes the life of its richness and expansion...
Sri Aurobindo and Karl Marx: Integral Sociology and Dialectical ... - Page 137 - Debi Prasad Chattopadhyaya - 1988 - Preview To be good he is asked tc cultivate and realise the virtues of poverty and austerity… The pro-Marxist critique of bourgeois culture is understandable and to a certain extent acceptable to Sri Aurobindo.
Sociology, Ideology and Utopia: Socio-Political Philosophy of East ... - Page 46 - Debi Prasad Chattopadhyaya - 1997 - Preview - More editions If one accepts Sri Aurobindo's stricture against vulgar capitalism, it is difficult to see how one can consistently dissociate oneself from the protest against inequality, poverty and hunger of the majority of the humankind spread over the globe.
Sri Aurobindo circle - Volume 54 - Page 10 - Sri Aurobindo Ashram - 1998 - This was, of course, the message reiterated several decades later by Mahatma Gandhi. Sri Aurobindo was no armchair philosopher. He gave away with a natural ease. That is history. But his point was never poverty for the sake of poverty, but...
Readings in The Mother by Sri Aurobindo - Page 33 - Santosh Krinsky - 2012 - Preview Many religious orders enjoin a vow of poverty on those joining the monastery or convent. We find ... Sri Aurobindo's view of this matter differs from this long tradition: “...most spiritual disciplines insist on a complete self-control, detachment and ...
Empire, the National, and the Postcolonial, 1890-1920:Resistance ... - Page 54 - Elleke Boehmer - 2005 - Preview - More editions Along with its neo-Hinduist Renaissance, the second crucial element shaping nationalist sentiment in Bengal was what Aurobindo referred to as the 'one great fact . . . the terrible poverty of India and its rapid increase under British rule', that is...
Immortal Sarvoday - Page xvii - N.hazary - 2007 - Preview Aurobindo believed that India could be rescued from the state of decline and decadence, poverty and exploitation and could usher into a better life only through Swaraj. Tilak, Aurobindo and Gandhi worked for swadeshi and national education ...
Swami Vivekananda: Messiah of Resurgent India - Page 353 - P. R. Bhuyan - 2003 - Preview Besides, amidst wretchedness, poverty and starvation it is too difficult to preach Advaitism and realise the grand dream of ... Such consideration made Aurobindo a critic of the modern capitalism, which is characterised by oppression and ...
Life and Times of Netaji Subhas: From Cuttack to Cambridge, 1897-1921 - Page 105 - Adwaita P. Ganguly - 2001 - Preview - More editions Reading of Sri Aurobindo thus appeared to him 'refreshing' and 'inspiring' and he wished Aurobindo would come back in ... Those of you who are poor and obscure - I should like to see their poverty and obscurity devoted to the service of the ...
Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and Indian Freedom Struggle (Set in 2 ... - Page 41 - Ratna Ghosh - 2006 - Preview - More editions Comparing Vivekananda's views on the Yogas with threat of Sri Aurobindo's conception of Yoga, Subhas Chandra wrote: ... Those of you who are poor and obscure — I should like to see your poverty and obscurity devoted to the service of the ...
Bhatkhande's Contribution to Music: A Historical Perspective - Page 26 - Nair Sobhana - 1989 - Preview - More editions At this time Aurobindo Ghosh flung himself into this movement and organised Sabhas, Samitis, Akharas and Ashrams ... a Bar-at-Law, he chose a life of self-imposed poverty, as he wanted to identify himself with the poverty-stricken masses.
Ascetic Culture: Renunciation and Wordly Engagement - Page 111 - Karigoudar Ishwaran - 1999 - Preview - More editions ... Sri Aurobindo and Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan. Three were monastics, and Gandhi lived a life guided by the monastic vows of chastity and poverty. It could be argued that the other three, Roy, Tagore and Radhakrishnan often functioned as ...
Sri Aurobindo and Iqbal: a comparative study of their philosophy - Page 6 - M. Rafique - 1974 - Iqbal condemned the doctrine of dissolution of the human self into the featureless Absolute as an ideal of inaction and poverty of life. This point becomes ... Just like Sri Aurobindo, he also holds self-fulfilment as the highest ideal of human life.
Management principles and practices - Page 90 - Raghubir Dayal, Peter Zachariah, Kireet Rajpal - 1996 - Preview - More editions Swami Nikhilananda contends that 'Religion has never been the cause of India's poverty; it is indifference to religious ... Sri Aurobindo's observation, as the most profound scholar-mystic of modern India, and probably no less an achiever than ...
Principles Of Education - Page 261 - S.S. Chandra, Rajendra Kumar Sharma - 2004 - Preview - More editions For example, it is now being recognized that the excessive increase in poverty in any one part of the world is almost certain to affect the ... Sri Aurobindo was a staunch internationalist, in spite of his very emphatic expression of nationalism.
Gandhi: The Traditional Roots Of Charisma - Page 62 - Susanne Hoeber Rudolph, Lloyd I. Rudolph - 1987 - Preview ... Vivekananda, Tagore, Aurobindo, and Gandhi himself played a significant part in shaping India's national identity and helping her to make ... Self-sufficient villages stand in the way of their quest for a release from poverty and dependence.
Makers of Modern India - Page 13 - Guha, Ramachandra Guha - 2011 - Preview - More editions Both were, in their own day, quite influential; yet (as with Radhakrishnan and Aurobindo) their influence has passed. ... The book was called Poverty and Un-British Rule in India; it chastised the rulers for focusing on draining wealth out of the...
Gandhi: 'Hind Swaraj' and Other Writings - Page xxxi - Mohandas Gandhi, Anthony J. Parel - 1997 - Preview - More editions In contrast to the Moderates, no Extremist is mentioned by name in Hind Swaraj - an indication of Gandhi's distance from them. In other words, Tilak and Aurobindo Ghose, their distinguished leaders, are passed over in silence... Neither would Aurobindo Ghose's appeal to shakti - power in its creative but violent forms, mythologised by Durga, Bhavani and Kali - have been more reassuring to the Mahatma. While no work by the Extremists is included in the Appendix, two works by the Moderates, Poverty and Un-British Rule in ...
Immortal Sarvoday - Page 30 - N.hazary - 2007 - Preview Gandhiji gave serious thought to the question of Swaraj in 1908 in his book Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule. But the Swaraj of his conception was different from the concept of Swaraj of Tilak and Aurobindo.
Violence denied: violence, non-violence and the rationalization of ... - Page 329 - Jan E. M. Houben, K. R. van Kooij - Preview In rather the same vein as in the piece from 1908, Aurobindo argues here that violence basically ... In Hind Swaraj, first published in 1908 in South Africa (in Gujarati), Gandhi says about 'soul-force': "The force implied in ...
Socialism Of Jawaharlal Nehru - Page ix - Rabindra Chandra Dutt - 1981 - Preview - More editions It was this kind of sterility of public debate and discussion which led Aurobindo Ghosh to write in Arya the following ... shells and rags of the past ... he would be- amazed by the extent of mental poverty, the immobility, the static repetition, the ...
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh: National Upsurge - Page 130 - M. G. Chitkara - 2004 - Preview Sri Aurobindo was never tired of telling the people that "a great future for India could be built only on the spiritual greatness of her past". Swami ... 
In Another Country: Colonialism, Culture, and the English Novel in ... - Page 171 - Priya Joshi - 2002 - Preview - More editions The adaptations that Bankim made with such apparent ease in the Bengali novel were a lot harder in the English one, compounding Aurobindo Ghose's contention that for an Indian in the British empire "to be original in an acquired tongue is ...
From the Ruins of Empire: The Revolt Against the West and the ... - Pankaj Mishra - 2012 - As the British gunned down the last heirs to the Mughal Empire, burned down the Summer Palace in Beijing, or humiliated the bankrupt rulers of the Ottoman Empire, it was clear that for Asia to recover a vast intellectual effort would be ...
Conversations and Transformations: Toward a New Ethics of Self and ... - Ananta Kumar Giri - 2002 - Preview - More editions In this intriguing new book, Indian social theorist Ananta Kumar Giri issues a stirring call for scholars of contemporary social theory and practice to grapple with late modernity's most pressing social and political issues.
Between Jerusalem/Benare: Comparative Studies in Judaism and Hinduism - Page 265 - Hananya Goodman - 1994 - Preview - More editions ... of the poverty of the historic situation in their day, and despite the fact that full-fledged nationhood had yet to come into ... While in Kook's thinking this was deeply grounded in the messianic idea, there was nothing similar for Sri Aurobindo to ...
Postcolonial Philosophy of Religion - Page 97 - Purusottama Bilimoria, Andrew B. Irvine - 2009 - Preview - More editions In this Sri Aurobindo has the support of Bal Gangadhar Tilak who said: “The point is to have the entire control in our ... a purity of intention that incarnates itself in that particular caste that symbolises renunciative will and voluntary poverty.
The Golden Treasury Of Indo-Anglian Poetry (1828-1965) - Page 32 - Vinayak Krishna Gokak - 1970 - Preview - More editions ... J. Furtado's The Old Irani, Nissim Ezekiel's Night of the Scorpion and Enterprise, Karan Singh's The Seminar and Sri Aurobindo's A Dream of Surreal Science. It becomes even more bitter when the poets deal with poverty and social injustice ...
Victorian Vulgarity: Taste in Verbal and Visual Culture - Page 234 - Susan David Bernstein, Elsie B. Michie - 2009 - Preview For Coomaraswamy, commercialism promulgated the "increasing contrast between extremes of wealth and poverty, the ... The nationalist Aurobindo [Ghose] who led the Swadeshi national movement from 1905 to 1908 and defended the ...
Sri Aurobindo: The hour of God, and other writings - Page 103 - Aurobindo Ghose - The existence of poverty is the proof of an unjust and ill-organised society, and our public charities are but the first tardy awakening of the conscience of a robber. Valmikie, our ancient epic poet, includes among the signs of a just and ...
Sri Aurobindo Reader - Page 62 - Makarand Paranjape, Makarand - Preview ... its 'own style, just and precise and sins rather by economy of phrase than by excess, by over-pregnancy rather than by poverty of sense. ... A Retrospect of Vedic Theory Veda, then, is the creation
The Dialogue With Death (Sri Aurobindo`S Savitri, A Mystical Approach) - Page 208 - Rohit Mehta - 2003 - Preview - More editions Savitri was indeed impatient of the poverty of time and she wanted to spend in love, in one day, what would have been legitimate for a century. Such was the irresitible passion that seized Savitri. One year was too short a period, and her love ...
Rebirth & Karma - U.S. Edition - Page 22 - Sri Aurobindo, Ashram - 1992 - Preview Nature seems to start with an extraordinary poverty of original broad variative conceptions and to proceed to an extraordinary richness of her minuter consequential variations, which amounts to a forging of constant ...

January 16, 2013

Sri Aurobindo said people get stuck in old forms

Sri Aurobindo illustrates the absurdity of some of the most popular conceptions about the operation of the law of Karma with a story from the press of his day.

AuroMere Meditation Centre (Sri Mother and Sri Aurobindo Center), Pallikaranai is running from 2005 under the guidance of The Mother's Service Society (MSS), Pondicherry - founded by Sri Karmayogi Avarkal. Books by Karmayogi

Major Schools Of Indian Philosophy: An Introduction In Six Monthly Lectures An overview of the six orthodox schools, with special reference to the Vedas
30 January 2013 At 18:30 - C.D. DESHMUKH AUDITORIUM, IIC Collaboration: Foundation for Universal Responsibility of His Holiness the Dalai Lama
Speaker: Dr Karan Singh, M.P. Chair: Shri Rajiv Mehrotra, Trustee, Foundation for Universal Responsibility of His Holiness the Dalai Lama
The first in a series of monthly lectures on Indian spiritual thought that will explore some of the principal schools of Indian philosophy, their impact on Indian civilization, and contemporary relevance 

January 9 My encounter with Brian Pennington at the recent AAR Rajiv Malhotra: Of course, I disagree with his argument that Swami Vivekananda violates Hindu tradition. But there was no smear, ad hominem or personal issues raised in his talk. ...
Sandeep responds:
"Someday in the future, as Indian universities improve in quality, lets hope India produces an army of well-funded (non-marxist) academics who understand Hinduism better, who have access to the latest facilities and are able to publish their books without any impediments.
... This debate will then shift to the "Indian academy of religion" Rajiv's response: I have promoted this idea for 20 years. Easier said than done. Infinity Foundation held 3 major world conferences on religious studies in Delhi with opinion leaders across the political and ideological spectrum. Lots of passion, resolutions, etc. No action in the end...
For now I want to focus on producing new discourse that challenges old hegemonic discourse, and on debating my work with serious scholars, so as to take it further amongst readers who have the required level of commitment and background to follow the issues. " …
Now, here comes the book BD by Rajiv Malhotra that recognizes the folly of conflating ideals with practices.  It takes the world-views of Dharmic traditions and contrasts them with Abrahamic religions by walking the readers through a 4-dimensional space of (1) history-centrism, (2) integral unity vs. synthetic unity, (3) attitude towards complexity vs. rigid order, (4) non-translatable concepts (described in original Sanskrit works).
January 9 How to be Dharmic? Sandeep responds Dh" Practicing Dharma does not mean you must mimic ancestral rituals blindly.  It was this problem that Sri Aurobindo cited when he said people get stuck in "old forms".  
Some person several hundred years ago started "dainik sandhya" because he had some intuition that it might help him go inwards.  That doesn't mean you might also benefit from it.  You have to find what suits your personality.  The goal of Dharma is to go within and find your Atman.  You may be better off joining some contemporary Yoga school ... ...
Not every child is bound to become "Dharmic".  Some people are not cut out for it.  If you force the child into something they don't like, they may rebel against you later and turn atheists for the rest of their lives.  Take the case of Vikram Gandhi, who was immersed in religious practices of the Arya Samaj while growing up in New Jersey, but lost interest in it after growing up.  Now he has made a movie Kumare on fake Gurus. 
(See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIXNjDcOLWU&feature=player_embedded)
Therefore, one has to gauge the personality of the child to find what is the best path.  The child is more likely to be attracted to poetry, literature and dance rather than dry philosophy and discursive ethics.  ... The best way to mould a child is to become a different person yourself.  If they sense a positive change in you, they will naturally come to you for guidance.  

Articles in Professional Journals and Books Peter Heehs is an independent scholar based in India. He has written or edited nine books and published more than fifty articles. 2006. “Yoga/Yogi”. Keywords in South Asian Studies. Published online by Centre of South Asian Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies, London.
Popular at the time of this writing are Bikram Yoga, which is done in a room heated to 105º F, and Ashtanga Yoga (no obvious connection with Patanjali’s...) … For the most part, however, yoga is viewed by the American and European public as a form of exercise that helps the student become flexible, relaxed and free from stress… For some urban Indians, the worldwide success of yoga has become a source of cultural anxiety rather than cultural pride… Such anxiety seems misplaced. 
The most respected contemporary masters of the schools of physical yoga practiced in the West, B. K. S. Iyengar of Pune and Pattabhi Jois of Mysore, have spent comparatively little time abroad. No self-respecting Western yoga-teacher can hang up a shingle before she or he has studied under these or other Indian teachers or their students. Some contemporary Indian yogis cater primarily to an Indian clientele. Swami Ramdev brings his message of health through yoga and ayurvedic medicines to an enormous television audience. He heaps scorn on the corrupt civilisation of the West, whose foods, drinks, medicines and entertainments are undermining the Indian body and soul.
Yoga as a phenomenon of popular culture will doubtless continue to go in and out of style. The practices associated with yoga — postures, breath control, meditation, and the rest — are likely to persist, because they offer a means of coming to grips with some of the perennial problems of embodied human life. Peter Heehs Sri Aurobindo Ashram Archives, Pondicherry

Finally, India gained its independence from in 1947 and was disastrously divided by the British, against the advice of saints and seers, such as Sri Aurobindo, ..

Like Sri Aurobindo, who conceptualised Mother India as Bhawani Bharati,.... Tarun Vijay is a member of the Rajya Sabha; member, ...

This is what Sri Aurobindo calls bringing down the Force from above. In this way there is a chance of being able to change the world, because one has brought...

It is no mere chance that visionaries like Sri Aurobindo and Hazrat Inayat Khan both proclaimed a century ago the ultimate resurgence of the Feminine. Sri Aurobindo's prophetic words were: If there is to be a future, it will wear the crown of ... 

Dr. Anirban Ganguly (Associate Fellow, VIF) Expertise: Civilisational and Cultural Studies, Indian Political Thought, Contemporary Indian Political History, Philosophy of Education
The central deity of his adoration and spiritual identification, however, was India. To a generation of the Indian intelligentsia who grew up on and propounded the notion of an externally inspired and evolving Indian unity, Vivekananda came as a mighty nonconformist… He was firm in his conviction that despite all passing appearances the ‘great deeps’ of India and of her people would forever remain ‘moral, austere and spiritual’, it could not be otherwise. And her ancient civilisation meant for him, simply, the ‘inbreeding of energy through many a millennium.’
Like the religio-cultural, the socio-political too strongly attracted and interested Vivekananda. In his expressions of concern for India, this aspect often distinctly flowed out through his talks, conversations and letters. The mighty urge to see India liberated, self-reliant and spiritually conscious and vibrant continuously occupied his being and he attempted to work this out not as a politician, but as a ‘nationalist.’ He ‘was no politician: he was [rather] the greatest of nationalists’ and therefore to him the ‘destiny of the people was in their own soil, and the destiny of the soil was no less in its own people.’
The essence and significance of Vivekananda lay in that: an unwavering nationalist who offered an epochal and liberating vision for his land and his people. Published Date: 27th December 2012
Both Swami Vivekananda and Tagore were personalities who essentially symbolized and represented the Indian civilisational ethos and it is in a commemoration of that uniqueness of their being that we can hope to discover an effective instrument for perpetuating the Indian message. One needs to ensure that generations to come continue to read, understand and internalize those very ‘Sanskrit-Mantras’ that had so surprised Vivekananda. And the determination to spread their message and content requires India to evolve an astute and visionary civilisational perspective. The commemorations at a deeper level offer that opportunity over the next few years and a hardening of resolve to initiate such a mega-plan backed by an integrated long-term vision to spread India’s spiritual and civilization perspectives is what is required at the moment. Published Date: 29th February 2012