Showing posts with label Gokhale. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gokhale. Show all posts

January 30, 2013

Gandhian ideals are plain stupid; Bankim and Sri Aurobindo are superior mentors

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) should show intellectual and moral courage to denounce Savarkar as the Hindutva ideologue and look for superior mentors if they can reach out to any. Perhaps, Bankimchandra Chatterjee and Sri Aurobindo, though it will not be easy to reduce these two literary giants to the vulgar and crude formulations of Hindutva ideology. The sensitive Maharashtrians who take pride in Savarkar are insulting themselves and the Maharashtra tradition. They should look to Mahadev Govind Ranade and Gopal Krishna Gokhale and Bal Gangadhar Tilak. Tilak was a conservative but he was a great leader.
He respected Gandhi even when he dismissed Gandhi's moralism as quixotic. But in the 1919 Amritsar Congress session he fought a losing battle with Gandhi and saw Motilal Nehru and Chitta Ranjan Das supporting Gandhi. Apparently, he told the senior Nehru and Das that they will move away from Gandhi's populist politics. And this from the man who was a populist leader in his own time, and that was his battle with the liberal Gokhale…
Gandhi was an anti-intellectual and he was in his own way a very unreconstructed Hindu traditionalist. One of the best critics of Gandhi was Bhim Rao Ambedkar and his lecture on Gandhi, Jinnah and Ranade is a classic piece showing the stupidity and egotism of Gandhi and Jinnah as leaders. So there are ways of debunking the Gandhi myth, but Savarkar did not have the intellectual sophistication to do that. That is why he resorted to the morally despicable manner of getting ridding of Gandhi…Gandhian ideals are plain stupid in political and historical senses. What was good for Gandhi could not be good for India. So, we can and we must differ with Gandhi… Posted by Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jr at 9:18 AM  

One of Philpott’s goals in *Just and Unjust Peace* is to challenge both sorts of reactions to the role of religion in debates on ethics and justice: the polite, but perhaps patronizing, stance of detachment, as well as the presumption that religion is essentially incompatible with democratic freedoms. He proposes bridging the two as a way to broaden and better ground an ethical debate on the central question that animates the book: What does justice consist of “in the wake of its massive despoliation?” more »

Before embarking upon our journey into Meditations on the Tarot (which seems to have gone out of print again), I'd like to begin with a discussion of the meaning and purpose of esoterism more generally, since so much of it can appear a little dodgy, as if we're just deepaking the chopra rather than engaging in the Eternal Science (or the science of eternity).
However, it has always been understood that, for example, scripture is susceptible to multiple levels of meaning: the literal or plain meaning; the allegorical, or implied meaning; the conceptual meaning; the moral meaning; the more abstract and esoteric meaning; etc. more »

I take Spinoza’s insistence on necessity, over against contingency, as an antagonism toward standard Christianity, with its themes of exemplarity and incarnation. Nothing can be an example of anything else because everything is equivocal; nothing can be prior to anything else because everything is univocal. The univocity of every different thing thus stems not from a muting of difference’s equivocity, but from an affirmation of the necessity of everything in its difference. In other words, univocity has to do with necessity; the refusal of analogy, with its contingency, is inseparable from the affirmation of necessity. In fact, we might think of this insistence on necessity as forming its own kind of reading practice: one must read whatever happens as necessary; if one reads what happens as contingent, then one has failed to understand what happens.

A three-day UGC Sponsored National Seminar on Myth, History, Tradition and Modernity in Indian English Drama 4-6 Feb., 2013 Department of English, Govt. Autonomous Post Graduate College, Chidwara, Madhya Pradesh Contact: Dr. More
Indian English Drama: Thematic Reflections - Galaxy PDF - Quick View Indian English drama got some innovative thematic concerns which were able to ... Karnad's wide handling of history, myth and folklore to tackle contemporary issues has been widely appreciated by .... tradition with modernity. That is why the ...
Myth and Puranas: Decolonisation of Indian English Drama PDF - Quick View Mar 1, 2012 – The Criterion. Myth and Puranas: Decolonisation of Indian English Drama ... grounded in the tradition of the past and it is of real life presented in a fictitious manner. This has led ... It is a history told in a story. According to ... Although modernity has invaded, Indians have not left their culture and tradition.
Aurangzeb New Delhi Theatre Workshop presents Indira Parthasarathy's AURANGZEB directed by KS Rajendran on 1st February 2013 at 6:30 pm at LTG Auditorium. Tickets: 9811232072
Shahjahan lives in the past, Dara in the future, and Aurangzeb in the present. Aurangzeb’s success is the triumph of pragmatism but he has to pay dearly as we find him in the last scene sitting not on his Peacock throne but beside it on the floor. His loneliness becomes his tragedy. The play ends with him asking himself he question: ‘Am I a devout Muslim or a fanatic?’ He is left awaiting the judgement of history.

January 04, 2013

Sri Aurobindo stressed that a radical transformation of human nature is indispensable

Sri Aurobindo: A Contemporary Reader - Sachidananda Mohanty - 2012 - Preview - More editions It is worth noting that, in early life, Sri Aurobindo was an agnostic who turned a believer; a radical transformation indeed! Sri Aurobindo had once said, tongue-in-cheek: 'I shall have to write my ...
The Lives of Sri Aurobindo - Page 130 - Peter Heehs - 2008 - Preview - More editions Certainly he was not a great builder or steady worker. But his radical interventions opened up paths that others could hardly imagine. Aurobindo was always most comfortable when working “behind the scenes.” When the Bande Mataram ...
Tradition and the Rhetoric of Right: Popular Political Argument in ... - Page 72 - David J. Lorenzo - 1999 - Preview In Aurobindoism, and in radical Calvinism and Protestant antinomianism, there is no need to renounce the world so long as we participate in God's will. To be "saved" (or "transformed" in Aurobindo's vocabulary) means that material activity ...
An Analysis of Sri Aurobindo's - Page vii - Roy Posner - Full view An Extraordinary Vision of the Future In one sense, Sri Aurobindo is the most radical of radicals. He begins with the extraordinary assertion that we humans might not be the ultimate form of life to emerge on earth. That we are likely to witness ...
Rescuing History from the Nation: Questioning Narratives of Modern ... - Page 78 - Prasenjit Duara - 1997 - Preview - More editions Aurobindo emphasized Advaita Hinduism, a radically monistic faith which believes in the unity of all being and denies the reality of the many particular entities in the universe. In this highly abstract system, a communal framework was created...
The Phenomenon of Teilhard: Prophet for a New Age - Page 119 - David H. Lane - 1996 - Preview He stressed that if humanity is to survive, a radical transformation of human nature is indispensable. For Aurobindo "it is only the full emergence of the soul, the full descent of the native light and power of the Spirit and the consequent ...
Philosophies Of Education - Page 207 - A. S. Seetharamu - 1978 - Preview - More editions In this book, analysing the growth and decay of societies Aurobindo points out that "the radical defect of all civilisations has been the neglect of the spiritual element, the soul in which is man's true being". Economic prosperity and social ...
Political Philosophy Of Sri Aurobindo - Page 462 - V. P. Varma - 1990 - Preview - More editions Hence, his famous theory of the philosopher-ruler is meant as a radical technique to reform the corrupt City-States. Aurobindo also stresses the growth of a spiritualized society governed not by coercive agencies but by an inner ...
Perspectives on Sri Aurobindo's poetry, plays, and criticism - Page 144 - Amrita Paresh Patel, Jaydipsinh Dodiya - 2002 - Full view - More editions In a radical reinterpretaion of the English critical tradition, Terry Eagleton has shown how criticism was a tool of social protest in the eighteenth century and then how it acquired the status as a class 'possession'. Similarly, Sri Aurobindo ...
Poetic Plays of Sri Aurobindo - Page xx - Bimal Narayan Thakur - 2004 - Preview - More editions"The Viziers of Bassora depicts the education and fate of two radically opposite temperaments with basically different orientations of the energies of life”... Aurobindo are not sign-board characters of morality plays nor are they dressed-up ideas.
Encyclopaedia of Indian Literature: sasay to zorgot - Volume 5 - Page 3881 - Mohan Lal - 1992 - Preview - More editions When late in life Sri Aurobindo embarked upon the adventure of a radical recast and transformation of Savitri, he had the double objective of dramatising the battle of mankind for eternal life and shaping the English language as a vehicle for mantric poetry...
The Political Thought of Aurobindo (Encyclopaedia of Eminent Thinkers) - Page 23 - K. S. Bharathi - 1998 - Preview On April 24, 1951, the mother of the Ashram said, "Sri Aurobindo is present in our midst, and with all the power of his creative genius he presides over the formation of the University Centre which for ... He gave a radical philosophy to politics.
ICSE History & Civics X - Page 108 - Sudeshna Sengupta - Preview Inspiring speeches and writings and the attitude of Radicals like Tilak and Aurobindo Ghosh paved the way for future revolutionaries like Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Chandrashekhar Azad, who laid down their lives for their motherland.
Reflections From Shillong: Speeches Of M.M. Jacob (vol. Iii) - Page 81 - David R. Syiemlieh - 2005 - Preview - More editions ... radical or nationalist counterparts — Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Bipin Chandra Pal, Lajpat Rai and of course Sri Aurobindo. Among all the Congress leaders Sri Aurobindo was special and singular, because he was the supra-conscient intellectual, ...
Mass Communication In India: A Sociological Perspective - Page 68 - J V Vilanilam - 2005 - Preview - More editions Gokhale, Ranade, Annie Besant, Motilal Nehru, Pherozeshah Mehta and Dinshaw Waccha were considered moderates. Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Bipin Chandra Pal, Lala Lajpat Rai and Aurobindo Ghosh were called extremists and radicals.
Sri Aurobindo, his life unique - Page 208 - Rishabhchand - 1981 - ... by his intuition and inspiration, Tilak and Sri Aurobindo were the twin most creative forces in contemporary Indian politics ... and rendered immense help to Sri Aurobindo's radical endeavours to inculcate the true spirit of Swadeshi, inspire an...
Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion - Page 60 - Jeffrey J. Kripal - 2007 - Preview - More editions Aurobindo had died in 1950, but the Mother was still alive and active, running an ashram that Aurobindo had called his ... spiritual monarchies, as we have repeatedly learned over the last forty years, do not do well with democratic values like radical individualism, human equality, and the freedom of expression.
The Ways and Power of Love: Types, Factors, and Techniques of ... - Page 222 - Pitirim A. Sorokin - 2002 - Preview - More editions ... transfiguration of Chaitanya. Escape from a deadly danger played the role of precipitant for St. Tychon. The shock of his first imprisonment by the English precipitated Sri Aurobindo's conversion from an atheist and radical political fighter...
Imperial Encounters: Religion and Modernity in India and Britain - Page 103 - Peter Van Der Veer - 2001 - Preview - More editions The language of masculinity as a counterpoint to colonial emasculation has been crucial not only to the RSS but to all radical Hindu movements, starting with Bengali anticolonial "terrorists" such as Aurobindo Ghosh (1872-1950), the later ...
Sri Aurobindo Ghose: the dweller in the lands of silence - Page 133 - William KlubackMichael Finkenthal - 2001 - Sri Aurobindo spoke carefully about sex condemning neither abstinence nor indulgence. After speaking about abstinence as a ... We stand before radical changes in relationships between mind and body. We have experienced the Gulag and ...
From East to West: Odyssey of a Soul - Roy Bhaskar - 2012 - Preview - More editions In this radical book, Roy Bhaskar expands his philosophy of critical realism with an audacious re-synthesis of many aspects of Western and Eastern thought.

November 29, 2012

Complaints of Mrinalini pointless since Sri Aurobindo is no longer himself

Swamy Dayananda – The Lion Saint by @krishnarjun108 Posted on November 27, 2012 
Dayananda induced much needed shock treatment to hindu society. It was at its lowest ebb, obsessed with empty rituals, mindless sectarianism, casteism and superstition with an ostrich like approach to internal and external siege from enemies of its existence… Christian missionaries were targeting weakest links in hindu society and luring young minds in a systematic manner exploiting internal contradictions of hindus. Traditional hindu intellectual class was unable to cope up with the situation, time demanded an unconventional and radical approach to prevent society from dipping into self-hate.
Dayananda initiated much needed self-introspection in hindu society, reminded hindus of their vedic roots, highlighted the vedic core of hindu dharma with a rational approach. He also reminded hindus that knowledge, not dogma was the source of their path. He prompted hindus to return to basics, be rational and engage in the world with confidence. He was a critic of maya philosophy. The world to him is as real as a slap on the face.

Reflections on Indian English literature - Page 110 - Mukesh Ranjan VermaKrishna Autar Agrawal - 2002 - Preview S.K. Mitra has given an exhaustive review of the world-response to Sri Aurobindo. Be it Europe or America, Universities or general reader, it is always Sri Aurobindo the philosopher who is admired and appreciated (251-78). Few and rare are ...

Sri Aurobindo: a biography and a history - Page 755 - K. R. Srinivasa Iyengar - 1985 - To believe in the existence of this Power, to aspire to be a channel of its Manifestation, to realise this aspiration progressively: such could be our positive response to Sri Aurobindo. There are those, however, for whom Sri Aurobindo is little ...

Mother India: monthly review of culture - Volume 31 - Page 115 - Sri Aurobindo Ashram - 1979 - Certainly it is a major but negative response to Sri Aurobindo, for there is a clear recognition that his ideas constitute a real challenge to Shankara's Mayavada. Adoption of Sri Aurobindo...

India's cultural empire and her future - Page 7 - Sisirkumar Mitra - 1947 -... China and Tan Yun- Shan — Response to Sri Aurobindo's ideal — India's spiritual Kingdom of the future. . 

Kakatiya journal of English studies - Volume 6 - Page 66 - Kakatiya University. Dept. of EnglishPost-Graduate Centre,Warangal Dept. of English - 1984 - A response to Sri Aurobindo would be a return to sanity and spirituality. It is a sign of his creative genius that he has been able to equate the two. Beauty has a role to play beyond amusement and self-expression, not knowing which self to ...

Aurobindo's philosophy of Brahman - Page 119 - Stephen H. Phillips - 1986 - Preview - Similarly, what could Sankara say in response to Aurobindo, were he alive and willing to admit to having the type of mystic experience that Aurobindo thinks Sankara had? Nevertheless, the point that some further experience could invalidate...

A History of Indian Literature in English - Page 125 Arvind Krishna Mehrotra - 2003 - Preview - More editions the highly polarised critical response to Aurobindo's oeuvre. K.R. Srinivasa lyengar closes his discussion of the poem by approvingly quoting the opinion: 'Savitri is perhaps the most powerful artistic work in the world for expanding man's mind ...

The Book review - Volumes 22-23 - Page 26 1998 - ... Digambar Nanda of Contai who had made a contribution of a huge sum of Rs. 1000. At this time Volunteer Samitis came up in response to Aurobindo Ghosh's call for 'Shakti' i.e. physical regeneration of the country for the realisation of the ...

Sri Aurobindo and his Contemporary Thinkers bookvistas.com - They take up interpretations of violence and non-violence by Sri Aurobindo and Mahatma Gandhi, Vivekananda's outlook about morality, caste system and dharma, and response of Aurobindo, Tilak and Gokhale to Western imperialism.

Educational Administration And Management:An Integrated Approach - Page 152 - S.L. Goel Aruna Goel - 2009 - Preview Knowledge is such a thing that the more you have it, the more you realize how little you know. That makes you humble and puts you in the position of a learner even while you teach. I recall the response of Sri Aurobindo to a group of teachers ...

Quality and Excellence in Higher Education - Volume 2 - Page 66 - Aruna GoelS.L. Goel - 2010 - Preview I recall the response of Sri Aurobindo to a group of teachers who sought his advice on how to become good teachers. He reportedly said: "Every teacher should bear in mind that nothing can be taught, but everything can be learnt." There is ...

Mother India: monthly review of culture - Volume 58 - Page 415 - Sri Aurobindo Ashram - 2005 - This response of Sri Aurobindo's makes all the complaints of Mrinalini pointless since Sri Aurobindo is no longer himself but only a tool in the hands of the Divine and so he cannot be judged any longer from the human standpoint which takes ...

The New approach to education - Page 9 Norman C. Dowsett, Sita Ram Jayaswal - 1974 - The Response of Sri Aurobindo Ashram The Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education at Pondicherry has been experimenting along these lines recognising the world cry and the urgent need, for the past thirty years. This experience ...

World union - Volume 14 - Page 4 - World Union (Organization) - 1974 - I greet you in the name of the World Union which is the response of Sri Aurobindo Ashram's urgent call to the divided world for existence and for recovering its soul of unity. Sri Aurobindo's and the Mother's philosophy and practice of perfect life ...

The Religious, the Spiritual, and the Secular: Auroville and ... - Page 176 - Robert Neil Minor - 1999 - Preview - For a full discussion of Aurobindo's position toward "religion" and "the religions," see Robert N. Minor, "The Response of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother," in Modern Indian Responses to Religious Pluralism, edited by Harold Coward (Albany: ...

Modern Indian Responses - Page 85 - Harold G. Coward - 1987 - Preview - Chapter Five THE RESPONSE OF SRI AUROBINDO AND THE MOTHER R.N. Minor When the Indian political activist, Aurobindo Ghose (1872-1950) fled British India in 1910 for French Pondicherry in southeast India, he intended to ... 

November 25, 2012

Had Sri Aurobindo's advice been accepted on the Cabinet Mission Plan

The liberator Sri Aurobindo, India, and the world - Page 200 - Sisirkumar Mitra - 1970 - Chittaranjan's Swaraj Party policy was, in many ways, the same as Tilak's policy of 'responsive cooperation' which also had Sri Aurobindo's support. As seen before, Sri Aurobindo worked with Tilak almost from when he had begun his overt ...

Sri Aurobindo: a garland of tributes - Page 91 Arabinda Basu - 1973 - Nor had Sri Aurobindo's fervent concern for India's political situation and his dream of revolution been forgotten. Though his position in Baroda barred him from overt political activity, he continued to act from behind the scenes. A series of ...

India beyond today & tomorrow: dialogues on the future of India ... - Page 77 - Samyak - 1993 - I agree with you that had Aurobindo's advice been accepted on the Cabinet Mission Plan, it would have been a very great thing. KARAN SINGH: It may have prevented the bloodshed. 

Indian review of books - Volume 4 - Page 6 1994 - Had Tilak lived on, had Aurobindo, an intellectual giant and a daring extremist, remained in politics after 1910, a Gandhi may not have been possible in India. Both Tilak and Aurobindo had a much deeper understanding of the Indian ethos ...

India's freedom movement: legacy of Bipin Chandra Pal Binay Bhattacharya, Bipin Chandra Pal Memorial ... - 2007 - 271 pages - As we shall see, Sri Aurobindo never lost this appreciation of Bipin Pal. In fact, the largest number of lead article in Bande Mataram from the pen of Sri Aurobindo were devoted to one individual leader, it was BC Pal. ... 1:49 PM

Empire, the National, and the Postcolonial, 1890-1920: Resistance ... - Page 100 - Elleke Boehmer - 2005 - Preview - Nominally edited for a time by B. C. Pal, Bande Mataram from the outset once again had Aurobindo as a powerful presence 'behind the curtain'. By way of his unsigned editorials and other contributions he now began more plainly to lay out his ...

Sri Aurobindo - Page 57 - Purnima Majumdar - 2005 - Preview It was the result of the misdeeds of Gokhale and company that he had completely rejected in 1906 and 1907, whom he had not agreed to accept as nationalists, that India's freedom was divided. Had Aurobindo seen this only in his insight?

The Essential Aurobindo - Page 265 - Aurobindo GhoseRobert A. McDermott - 2001 - Preview - Had Aurobindo Ghose not evolved into Sri Aurobindo, or had Mira Richard not attained the realization of herself as the Mother, they would not have gained a knowledge of their previous lives, any more than Arujuna would have had such ...

Karma and Rebirth: Post Classical Developments - Page 28 - Neufeldt, Ronald W. (Ronald Wesley) - 1986 - Preview - One suspects that had Aurobindo rewritten these sections of the work later, he would have discussed more forms of this energy; but in The Problem of Rebirth he speaks of energy of the physical being and nature, energy of the vital being and ...

Between Jerusalem and Benares: Comparative Studies in Judaism and ... - Page 14 - Hananya Goodman - 1994 - Preview - The volume concludes with Margaret Chatterjee's exploration of two of this century's most creative mystical teachers in India and Israel: Sri Aurobindo Ghose and Abraham Isaac Kook. Had Aurobindo and Kook encountered each other they ...

Land of Two Rivers: A History of Bengal from the Mahabharata to Mujib - Page 315 - Nitish K Sengupta - 2011 - Preview - Barin became the main leader of the Jugantar Party which gave greater importance to assassination and dacoity. It had Aurobindo's tacit support. Jugantar Party was broadly based in West Bengal while Anusilan Samiti had its area ...

Evolution In Religion - Page 7 - R. C. Zaehner - 1971 - Had he done so, he would scarcely have dismissed Eastern mysticism out of hand as being perime, 'dated'11, how much less Aurobindo whose thought so closely resembled his own. For what was the ideal of both men? 'The hope of the ... The Spirituality of the Future: A Search Apropos of R. C. ... - Page 19 - K. D. Sethna - 1981 - Preview

Mother India - Page 54 - Sri Aurobindo Ashram - 1956 - And the sheer poetic inspiration is also much less. Sri Aurobindo writes: "The descent from the uncertain but high elevations of the first romantic, half spiritual outbreak is very marked, baffling and sudden. This is not in the nature of a revolt, ...

Sri Aurobindo, seer and poet - Page 11 - Vinayak Krishna Gokak - 1973 - I almost felt that, if I had Sri Aurobindo's genius and experience, I would have written that book myself. It was not long after this that D.R. Bendre went for Sri Aurobindo's darshan to Pondicherry. And he returned to narrate to us such glowing...

Indian Ethics: Classical traditions and contemporary challenges - Page 412 - Puruottama BilimoriaJoseph PrabhuRenuka M. Sharma - 2007 - Preview - To be sure, Aurobindo endorses positive values, principally values of self- development which include ethical traits. The Western tradition of virtue ethics and the Buddhist ideal of the Bodhisattva are precursors. Aurobindo 's message is in fact ...

Sri Aurobindo for all ages: a biography - Page 238 - Nirodbaran - 1990 - Of one thing we may be sure: Sri Aurobindo did not succumb to death - for him, as for all great yogis - it was ichha mrityu. The Mother has said categorically: 'Our Lord has sacrificed himself totally for us.... He was not compelled to leave his ...