Sri Aurobindo Society: Study circle
meeting on ‘The Mother’, 3
Lajapathi Roy Street , Chinna Chokkikulam, 10.30
a.m.
KM Munshi remembered - The Hindu December 31, 2012
Munshi was educated in Baroda
under Sri Aurobindo, and
started his career as a lawyer and entered into politics under the guidance of
Dr. Annie Besant and...
Transforming India - The book “Material things are
not to be despised – without them there can be no manifestation in the material
world.” – Sri Aurobindo
Young India! Reject State Education! from ANTIDOTE by Sauvik von Chakraverti Dec 30, 2012 Read about James Watt - and how this "steam engine"
happened. Read about Edison - a man who
"invented" so many, many wondrous products! And there have been so
many such - and there are many such even today…
NEW KNOWLEDGE - is "produced." This includes "new
histories" - something that NO COURT HISTORIAN ever does! We may say "Austrian School
We drifted away from our own dharma and karma, we gave up the
teachings of Geeta, we betrayed our ancestors-Swami Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo. Today ...
The Lives of Sri
Aurobindo by Peter Heehs – A Critical Appraisal · Some Issues of
Critical Importance · The Present Situation – Various Practices Adopted in ...
The focus on the individual details makes us lose sight of the “big
picture”, the sense or significance, the perspective. Impressionist painters
such as Vincent Van Gogh conveyed this sense through their artistic efforts. Up
close, their paintings overwhelm one with the incredible number of brush
strokes, texture, and color. There is however a “tipping point” as one backs
away from the canvas where one suddenly switches from the “detail view” to the
“gestalt”, the idea being conveyed, and suddenly the “big picture” takes over
and the brush strokes are seen for what they are, the technique or the “facts”
by which a larger significance is expressed.
Similarly, we become so involved in and overwhelmed by the detailed
acts of our day to day lives that we tend not to recognize the “big picture”,
the significance of those lives or those acts.
Sri Aurobindo discusses this situation with a very insightful view
about the relationship between the day to day details and the soul’s meaning in
creating and carrying out those details… Just as we undergo a transformation in
our view of life when we understand that the sun does not revolve around the
earth, but the earth around the sun; and that the entire solar system is part
of an enormous Milky Way Galaxy which is a part of a larger universe, we can
begin to understand the soul’s action and the true meaning of the details of
our day to day lives when we take a different standpoint outside the focus on
each of the details and begin to view the “big picture”.
Modern psychologists point out that there are essentially two
hemispheres to the human brain. Left brain activity tends to be fixated on
details, analysis and “the trees” of our lives; while right brain activity
looks at the “gestalt”, the “big picture”, “the forest” if you will. Both of
these perspectives are valuable, but they must be integrated in order to give a
true sense and meaning to what we experience.
Those who practice the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother have developed the habit of
reading their books either alone or during study circles. Comment on Sravana Manana and Nidhidhyasana by Sandeep
Dec 31, 2012
One of the aspects I forgot to emphasize in the main article is the
fact that the ancients used to transmit knowledge orally rather than via
writing. Texts were read aloud rather than silently as we do now. And the
medium of transmission was through poetic verses rather than prose. That allowed the ancients to absorb and remember the melody of a
composition which might have helped to stimulate the power of “intuition”.
OTOH, we are drowned very much in an intellectual and visual era.
Although it is known that the Vedas were transmitted orally,
historical documentation is scarce in India . In Greece and Rome ,
however, we find records that indicate that reading was usually done aloud. See a few anecdotes from Plutarch, St Augustine and St. Benedict here: http://www.readingaloud.org/history.htm.
Also see online Chapter 2 of Alberto Manguel’s “A History of
Reading” - There are plenty of other books on the subject. For example,
Rosalind Thomas on page 13 of her Literacy and Orality in Ancient Greece
Predictions of Sri Aurobindo Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo &
The Mother 4 Aug 2012 Lateralization of brain function (thanks to Ashish Kumar Sahani who
pointed this out in a comment
seen below)
Ashish September
17, 2012 at 6:30 am Link (http://surasa.net/aurobindo/aurowrit.htm)
to “A system of national education” as proposed by Sri Aurobindo in Karmayogin
1909. It seems he knew about the workings of left and right half of the brain
much before the modern split brain experiments which began only in 1950 which
can be verified from this article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split-brain#History
Sandeep October
8, 2012 at 11:37 am Rajiv Malhotra has independently discovered the same
prescient observation of Sri Aurobindo. On pages 283-284 of his book Being Different, he writes:
“Sri Aurobindo describes the dichotomy between the left and right as
follows:
The intellect is an organ composed of several groups of functions,
divisible into two important classes, the functions and faculties of the right
hand, the functions and faculties of the left. The faculties of the right hand
are comprehensive, creative, and synthetic, the faculties of the left hand
critical and analytic … The left limits itself to ascertained truth, the right
grasps that which is still elusive or unascertained. Both are essential to the
completeness of the human reason
It is noteworthy that Sri Aurobindo wrote
this in 1910, long before modern science came up with the idea that there are
differences between the left and right hemispheres of the brain. A yogic technique of
pranayama consists of breathing through the nostrils in such a way as to
synchronize the two hemispheres.”
ashish kumar sahani
October
9, 2012 at 3:48 am Thank you Sandeep, I was quite sure that Sri Aurobindo was the first to
speak about left half and right half of the Buddhi. Your detailed and
persistent effort in validating the observation added a seal of certainty to
it. I hope you will mention this in your main article very soon. I will like to
congratulate you for this blog which is truly a treasure house of knowledge for
spiritual aspirants.
Comment on Sravana Manana and Nidhidhyasana by Sandeep Dec 31, 2012
Whatever theory that is superimposed on phenomenal data is just a
collective belief upheld by the personalities of the participating scientists.
Some day, these scientists will die and be replaced by a new set of scientists
who might question and overturn the “consciousness-based models” and return to
the more close-fitting materialistic theories. Given alternate explanations,
science works fine with “inference to best explanation” or parsimonious
theories. Nothing in the phenomenal world requires a supernatural explanation.
The world works fine as it is. December
29, 2012 at 12:32 pm
I am more inclined to believe that the scientists will just conjure up
more refined materialistic theories to explain away the anomalies and discoveries
that crop up with new instruments and experiments. Antonio Damasio did
just that; he constructed a new three-layered model of the Self to explain all
his clinical results on mind-body connection in a series of books from Descartes
Error to Self
Comes to Mind
The attitude of mankind towards originality of opinion is marked by a
natural hesitation and inconsistency. Admired for its rarity, brilliancy ...
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