Never trust a man who dyes his hair

Tweets 21 hrs - Savitri Era Party ‏@SavitriEraParty [in defending ethical revaluation while ... advocating compassionate giving and the prevention of wrongdoing, Śāntideva remains consistent.] 22 hrs [Latour may be a bit flippant at times, but his point is certainly not to “do everything he can to deny enchantment"] http://footnotes2plato.com/2013/03/10/reflections-on-latour-tarnas-and-the-misenchantment-of-the-world … 22 hrs [By contrast, others’ wrongdoing is beneficial to us, because it can help produce patient endurance.] #Śāntideva http://loveofallwisdom.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/lele-dissertation.pdf … 22 hrs [Property & personal relationships, things we would normally take as goods, are actually harmful to our flourishing, because of attachment.] 22 hrs [Ethical Revaluation in the Thought of Śāntideva - A dissertation by Amod Jayant Lele] http://loveofallwisdom.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/lele-dissertation.pdf … (pdf) - http://loveofallwisdom.com/2013/03/why-you-can-read-my-dissertation-on-this-site/ … 23 hrs [Towards a Spiritual Aesthetics of the Environment: Quality, Space, and Being in Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri, ISLE Vol.18, Issue 2, Spring 2011] 24 hrs [Those who are other-focused are happier... Happier people are more successful — and that’s causal, not correlative.] http://www.bakadesuyo.com/2012/09/what-6-steps-should-be-guiding-your-career/ … Mar 11 - doubtinggaurav ‏@doubtinggaurav Never trust a man who dyes his hair.  Retweeted by Savitri Era Party Mar 11 - Harsh Madhok ‏@hmadhok It is our desire to cling to the past while grabbing at the future which has made the present too complicated.  Retweeted by Savitri Era Party  Mar 11 Savitri Era Party ‏@SavitriEraParty At SELF our slogan is "Be Selfish" ... Judgment failures occur as a result, and our vigil for "Self-interest" skids. http://savitriera.blogspot.in/2008/08/one-should-have-nose-for-what-is-good.html … Mar 11 [Smith said humans have the power of reasoning... Self-interest is far more complex than rationality.] -Gavin Kennedy. http://adamsmithslostlegacy.blogspot.com/2013/03/for-new-readers-of-adam-smiths-moral.html … Mar 10 [For Heidegger, by contrast, conscience is not God talking to me, but me talking to myself] Simon Critchley 20 July 2009 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/jul/20/heidegger-being-time-critchley … -  View summary Mar 10 Racing round the universe riding on a mouse: The meditative mode of blogging - by Tusar N. Mohapatra http://savitriera.blogspot.in/2009/07/racing-round-universe-riding-on-mouse.html … Om Sri Aurobindo Mar 9 -Vivek Dehejia ‏@vdehejia To label those opposed to Modi's Wharton visit as "Indian sepoys" does no credit to Rajiv Malhotra nor his arguments. http://huff.to/13I9Qdc   Retweeted by Savitri Era Party -  View summary - Mar 10 kittu reddy ‏@kitturd http://wp.me/s3bTx3-182  via @wordpressdotcom Sri Aurobindo on ancient indian polity  Retweeted by Savitri Era Party  View media Mar 10 Sri Aurobindo admits the debt of materialism for making us free from superstitious beliefs http://selforum.blogspot.in/2010/06/sri-aurobindo-admits-debt-of.html … Savitri Era Learning Forum Mar 9 Savitri Era Party ‏@SavitriEraParty Being pushed, willy-nilly, towards Hindutva camp is another danger @RajivMessage either overlooks or underestimates. http://savitriera.blogspot.com/2013/02/rajiv-malhotra-vis-vis-raja-rammohan-roy.html?showComment=1362841178423#c5506374844487270099 … Mar 9 Savitri Era Party ‏@SavitriEraParty [we must first become a nation of individual citizens, multi-hyphenated, yes, but also equal in the eyes of the law.] http://www.firstpost.com/politics/the-fake-debate-communal-modi-fanboys-vs-sickular-commies-623991.html … - View summary Mar 9 [Confused liberals in India mix up classical liberalism, secularism and nationalism – and end up practising none of them.] @minhazmerchant Mar 9 [Ananthamurthy imposes a misleading mix of existentialism and the Marxist conception of society] -Sandeep Balakrishna http://themusepaper.blogspot.in/2013/03/ananthamurthy-imposes-misleading-mix-of.html … Mar 9 IIT Delhi workshop on Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit by Prof John Russon and Prof Shannon Hoff (Canada) on 11th March 2013 (10 am: MS 610) Mar 9 santosh krinsky ‏@santoshk1 Karma Is a Law of Spiritual Evolution http://wp.me/pCLXM-1qy  via@wordpressdotcom  Retweeted by Savitri Era Party  View summary Mar 8 [Sri Aurobindo and Tyagaraja attempt to capture the bliss of spiritual experience & unison.] -Murali Sivaramakrishnan http://themusepaper.blogspot.in/2013/03/sri-aurobindo-and-tyagaraja-are.html … Mar 8 db Debashish Bose ‏@db_DelAlpha @kshetragnya They are different persons, Aurobindo is a visionary willing to believe and try, Nirad C is a chronicler and commentator  Retweeted by Savitri Era Party  View conversation Mar 8 Savitri Era Party ‏@SavitriEraParty [a person who is attuned to Sri Aurobindo’s consciousness just falls in love with his writing style.] by Sandeep http://selforum.blogspot.in/2013/03/postmodernism-requires-maturity-and.html … 9 hrs Hostilities between the Israelis and the Palestinians too will be resolved one day through the Savitri Era Religion. http://savitriera.blogspot.in/2008/02/hostilities-between-israelis-and.html … 9 hrs Sri Aurobindo admits the debt of materialism. Postmodernism requires maturity. History-mythology. Auroville to Esalen http://selforum.blogspot.com/ 

On the Generality of Exchange Behaviours from Adam Smith's Lost Legacy by Gavin Kennedy

Humans are not isolated in their self alone.  They act in social settings with other people and also have memories.  They live today in settings where the majority of people nearby are anonymous, not relatives or friends. (The ‘company of strangers’ was a great title recently).  In a small hunter/scavenger and gathering band they knew everybody intimately… We share by giving in order to legitimise our expectation of getting at some time in the future… The share motive (so-called altruism) was accompanied by the expectation of reciprocation in due course, and punished by exclusion from sharing in future (witnessed by Dunbar and observed by people today in work situations and, indeed in families). This simple facet of exchange by reciprocation is experienced today in inter-personal relations in the workplace, including university faculties (!) and is an element of behaviour relevant in developing influence among fellow employees. 

Questions that are rarely asked from Marginal Revolution by Tyler Cowen

“So, my libertarian devotees of evolutionary psychology, you can’t have it both ways.  If feminism is wrong to think we can and/or should resist the dispositions that evolution has given us, then why is it wrong for defenders of the classical liberal order to think we can and/or should resist those dispositions when it comes to our evolved instincts toward the morality of socialism?  Or put the other way around:  if resisting our evolved moral instincts and obeying the rules of just conduct work to generate a civilized, cooperative economic order, why should gender issues be any different?” That is from Steve Horwitz.

Quotation of the Day…  from Cafe Hayek by Don Boudreaux … is from page 190 of Richard Posner’s 1995 volume, Overcoming Law:

“We all have the weaknesses of our strengths.  It is hardly a surprise that people who have powerful intellects tend to have an exaggerated faith in the power of intellect to solve social problems.  It is the same perspectival deformity that leads intellectuals to model democracy as a form of intellectual discussion or to set freedom of thought and debate far above economic freedom.”

(title unknown) from Routledge India Originals's Facebook Wall ~ The Democratic Predicament: Cultural Diversity in Europe and India Edited by: Jyotirmaya Tripathy and Sudarsan Padmanabhan, Rs 895, Pages: 366. Both India and Europe have been undergoing a difficult process of negotiating cultural, religious and ethnic diversity within their democratic frameworks....

The Highest Law of Our Nature from Sri Aurobindo Studies 

It is a quite natural tendency of human nature to fixate on one issue to the exclusion of others. The mind, as a dividing and analyzing instrument, tends toward exclusive concentration. So it is easy to understand that when we once focus on the ethical principle, that it may be viewed as the “categorical imperative” of our human nature.

Sri Aurobindo acknowledges the role of the ethical principle, but he also puts it in context with other aspects of our nature that equally call for fulfillment. There are the seeking for knowledge, the seeking for beauty and harmony, the seeking for Oneness which also represent aspects of our nature.

How to deal with exhaustion? spirituality is a surival tactic

Taking Materialism Seriously from Larval Subjects

Taking materialism seriously means attending to our understanding of the symbolic and imaginary are transformed as a result of what we learn about the real.  It means that we can no longer fully divorce these realms from one another, but have to attend to how they’re entangled.  And, of course, our idea of materiality is also transformed as a result of our understanding of the symbolic and the imaginary or the semiotic and the phenomenological.  Of course, at this point in history, I also feel that we need to attend a bit more to materiality than to the symbolic and imaginary. “Objects” and Institutions from Larval Subjects

The work of theorists such as Donna Haraway, Bruno Latour, Isabelle Stengers, Karen Barad, Stacy Alaimo, and Jane Bennett among others has all gone far in raising attentiveness to genuine materiality.  The same is true of media theorists such as Kittler, Ong, and McLuhan.  Catherine Malabou is notable in this connection with her work on neurology.  That said, critical theory has been overwhelmingly dominated by a focus on the phenomenological and the semiotic.  Making a little room for the material doesn’t hurt anything, but merely opens new vistas for understanding the mechanisms of power and devising strategies for resistance.

Of Cruelty and Vulnerability: A Response to Dan Whistler’s “The Hermetic Critique of Deleuze” from An und für sich by joshua ramey

Deleuze’s incompletely conceived or even ill-conceived later vitalism might not be a symptom of his becoming-sentimental, but of a becoming-invulnerable, a drying out, a crack up. Perhaps this tells us something, those of us investigating the labyrinth of the spiritual sciences: the problem of the meta-pragmatic is not how to avoid sentimentalism but how to deal with exhaustion. I have already indicated that spirituality, as I deploy the term, is a surival tactic. It is what to do when confronted with being out of breath. Deleuze ended his own life: he could no longer breathe. He did not breathe without pain, for years. What an ordeal.

Now There's an Invisible Foot! from Adam Smith's Lost Legacy by Gavin Kennedy

Adam Smith never taught anybody “to think of competition as an ‘invisible hand’ that guides production into the socially desirable channels”. He never mentioned ‘competition’ in relation to his use of the IH metaphor and neither was either case in which he used the IH metaphor remotely linked to competition issues.

An Inquiry into Literary Postmodernism

Such an agglomeration of disparate names and terms may confuse a person who is keen to know what Postmodernism is all about, but again, such confusion need not weigh too heavy on him as the very spirit of postmodernism requires of him maturity and ability not to be bothered by confusion. “Perhaps to grow up,” writes Patricia Waugh, “ is to live suspended between the modern and the postmodern, resisting the temptation for resolution in one direction or the other” (9). Posted by Dharanidhar at 4:38 PM Thursday, February 14, 2013

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (in India)

Do you want fame and success in India? It is not that hard if you know what to do. Here are seven simple techniques that can make your career more fulfilling and make you more popular than ever before! 

2 hrs - Jaideep A. Prabhu ‏@orsoraggiante The Indian electorate loves a little hypocrisy, some false modesty and arrogance: http://goo.gl/W3F6H  - @TheJaggi on Modi, MMS, and Rahul  View summary 

1 hr - Savitri Era Party ‏@SavitriEraParty [Seven distinctive features of Indian secularism -alternative definitions for Western welfare states] Rajeev Bhargava http://sepact.blogspot.in/2010/09/seven-distinctive-features-of-indian.html …

1 hr we are engaged in a process of refining the whole structure through aspiration and receptivity.] -Rod at UHU Seminar http://www.universityofhumanunity.org/audiodetail.php?audioid=572 …

2 hrs If we can and must be severe critics of Enlightenment, it is Enlightenment that has empowered us to be so. -Terry Eagleton] 3 hrs Sixteen needs: http://rainbowther.blogspot.in/2007/11/16-basic-human-psychological-needs.html … -  View summary

Integral Psychology – Theorizing its Disciplinary Boundaries - Debashish Banerji

A revised transcript of a talk given at the Cultural Integration Fellowship, San Francisco in 2008 and carried in the February 2010 issue of Sraddha, a journal of the Sri Aurobindo Bhavan, Kolkata. In this, I bring into dialog the epistemic boundaries of the western academic discipline of Psychology and Sri Aurobindo's formulation of Integral Yoga, so as to reflect on the disciplinary formation of a field of Integral Psychology. What would such a field hold out and how would it impact the existing assumptions of both Psychology and Yoga? The insertion of such a discipline into the academy is not a trivial task. It is a project fraught with danger and possibility, which needs to be carefully negotiated.

Revising British Aestheticism: Critics, Audiences, and the Problem ... - Page 23

Ji-Hyae Park - 2008 - Preview ... “If we can and must be severe critics of the Enlightenment, it is the Enlightenment which has empowered us to be so” (8). Indeed, the ways in which nineteenth-century aesthetic critics conceptualize art enable them to conceptualize ...

At the Intersection: Cultural Studies and Rhetorical Studies - Page 309 Thomas Rosteck - 1999 - Preview - More editions In one direction, theory is the critique of Enlightenment; in another, it is its expression. "If we can and must be severe critics of the Enlightenment, it is Enlightenment which has empowered us to be so" (Eagleton, Ideology of the Aesthetic, 8). Or, as Adorno and Horkheimer declared, "the Enlightenment must consider itself if humanity is "not to be wholly betrayed.

Who Killed Shakespeare?: What's Happened to English Since the ... - Page 67 - Patrick Brantlinger - 2001 - Preview - More editions "If we can and must be severe critics of the Enlightenment, it is Enlightenment which has empowered us to be so" (Eagleton, Ideology of the Aesthetic, 8). Or as Adorno and Horkheimer declared, "the Enlightenment must consider itself" if humanity is "not to be wholly betrayed.

The Cultural Life of the Early Polyphonic Mass: Medieval Context ... - Page 24 - Andrew Kirkman - 2010 - Preview As Terry Eagleton has put it, “If we can and must be severe critics of Enlightenment, it is Enlightenment which has empowered us to be so.”69 And as Gombrich observed of Burckhardt, the strength and influence of his perspective derive from ...

Northrop Frye: The Theoretical Imagination - Page 200 - Jonathan Hart - 1994 - Preview - More editions If we can and must be severe critics of Enlightenment, it is Enlightenment which has empowered us to be so. Here, as always, the most intractable process of emancipation is that which involves freeing ourselves from ourselves. (1990:8) Here...

Serious play: the cultural form of the nineteenth-century realist ... - Page 168 - J. Jeffrey Franklin - 1999 - As Terry Eagleton observes in a more general vein, "If we can and must be severe critics of Enlightenment, it is Enlightenment which has empowered us to be so" (Li 8 ) . Indeed, the dangers of replicating Arnold's blindnesses are strongest for ...

"An innocent way out": the literature and politics of cultural ... - Page 191 - Carrie A. Tirado Bramen, Stanford University. Program of Modern Thought and Literature - 1994 - If we can and must be severe critics of the Enlightenment, it is the Enlightenment which has empowered us to be so" (Ideology of the Aesthetic 8). Although Eagleton remains rather vague about the criteria for determining which elements are ...

What is an author? - Page 45 - Maurice Biriotti, Nicola Miller - 1993 - If we are able today to be critics of Enlightenment, it is Enlightenment which has empowered us to be so. The subject as self-authoring is in any case a peculiarly tragic, self-thwarting creature. It knows only two ways of coping with external ...

JOBS - Volumes 11-12 - Page 131 - Florida State University. Dept. of English - 2002 - ... free themselves. lt is worth remembering Terry Eagleton on the topic: "lf we can and must be severe critics of Enlightenment, it is Enlightenment which has empowered us to be so." Davies is certainly an accomplished scholar and authority ...

Latour, Laruelle, Lovecraft, and Sri Aurobindo

Beyond the human Jawaharlal Nehru University New Delhi 20-23 February 2014

This trajectory is found in the overman of Friedrich Nietzsche, the supramental being of the Indian yogi-philosopher Sri Aurobindo, or as more recently contextualized by Gilles Deleuze through the“superfold,” the result of the folding into the human subject of the rhizomatic triplicity of genetic code, information technology, and a language at the borders of signification… The conference is organized by

• Makarand Paranjape, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
• Debashish Banerji, University of Philosophical Research, Los Angeles
• Richard Carlson, Pacific Weather, Port Angeles, WA.

Call for papers: If you have thoughts on any of these areas and would like to participate in the conference, please send us a resume and an abstract of your talk. Our email address is beyondthehuman2014@gmail.com. The submission deadline is August 15, 2013. Those whose abstracts are selected will be notified.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (in India) from Centre Right India by Ibn-al-Dunya

Use those GRE words you memorised – they were made for such occasions! Everything is a discourse and a narrative; do not be afraid to embed yourself in the dasein of the moment. See what I did back there? Use words from foreign languages strategically when explaining key points and your logic fails. It is unlikely that anyone in your audience speaks that language, and if they do, words like dasein, ding-an-sich, or eudaimonia. Not only will you appear scholarly, but you will be aided by two things: 1. even if someone does know these terms, they are ambiguous enough to merit an entirely different debate, allowing you to skirt the original issue, and 2. actual scholars also use such terms when talking to each other, lending legitimacy to the practice… Assuming you speak two or three Indian languages and the Queen’s English, Western organisations will be grateful for your expertise on that blasted subcontinent. 

Bruno Latour’s Gifford Lectures from Ediburgh are now all online from Object-Oriented Philosophy by doctorzamalek (Graham Harman)

Latour is not only one of the world’s most important living intellectuals. He is also perhaps the most polarizing author within Speculative Realist circles (maybe only Laruelle is equally polarizing). Some of us are in awe of Latour’s breakthroughs, while others in SR circles treat him (with what I myself regard as an almost grotesque lack of intellectual taste and foresight) as a sophist and a relativist hack. I’m as confident in my bet on Latour’s long-term importance as I am on just about anything, and this despite serious disagreements with some of his ontology, as I outlined in Prince of Networks.

the difference between my Lovecraft book and my earlier Lovecraftarticle from Object-Oriented Philosophy by doctorzamalek (Graham Harman)

In the article, I was very hard on the “Kantian” or noumenal reading of Lovecraft and defended a Husserlian reading of Lovecraft that I also linked with cubism in the arts. The difference is that while writing the book, I decided that both strands are operative in Lovecraft. There are two completely different major stylistic devices at work in Lovecraft. One of them is the allusion to the unutterable, and I no longer have any objection to relating that to Kant. The other is the one I was championing exclusively in my article, in which Lovecraft claims to be describing something literally but piles up such a ridiculous number of incompatible descriptions that the bond between the objects and its qualities, while not withdrawn into a noumenal realm, explicitly becomes an operative principle over and above its list of qualities. This is what is most typical of Husserl, who’s as anti-noumenal as it gets but is still a philosopher of objects over and above their qualities. It’ll all be clear when you finally see the book.

There’s an introductory section, then I analyze 100 individual passages (not plot summaries, but short passages) from eight of the key stories, then conclude with some further thoughts. Work on the book only increased my sense of Lovecraft’s greatness as a stylist. I’m well aware of the objections that he overwrites his prose and overloads it with adjectives, but rules like this are always beside the point. You can do just about anything as a writer as long as you know how to handle it. At most there is some unevenness in Lovecraft as a stylist, as often happens with amateurs in any field who are isolated from mainstream critical feedback.

Comment on Sri Aurobindo’s prose style – by Goutam Ghosal by RJ from Comments for IYSATM by RJ - Mar 4, 2013

I recently read a quote about writer HP Lovecraft that seemed applicable to Sri Aurobindo’s prose style as well… (Lovecraft was, IMO, a brilliant writer from a purely literary perspective, though obviously nowhere near Sri Aurobindo in any sense. I don’t mean to compare them in any other way than to point out that that comment is insightful.) Of course, even if one is able to get “past” his style and understand him “intellectually” (like a student of English literature might), one will not understand anything if the consciousness is not ready. kkk

Love, Death, and the Sub-Creative Imagination in J. R. R. Tolkien from Footnotes to Plato by Matthew David Segall

The chief import of Tolkien’s Art, as I understand it, is that its example invites us to step into our own roles as cosmic artisans, just at that moment in world history when so much seems headed for disaster… There is also a spiritual side to the strange logic underlying Tolkien’s sub-creative vocation. He says of all his “stuff” that it is “fundamentally concerned with the problem of the relation of Art (and Sub-creation) and Primary Reality” (xiii). Primary Reality is the world of daily life, of biological struggle, and, eventually, of death. The sub-creator, in bringing forth a Secondary Reality (made not of solid matter, but of story and myth), expresses a desire which not only has no ordinary biological function, but which indeed usually finds itself at strife with these functions (xiii). Despite its spiritual motives, the sub-creative desire “is at once wedded to a passionate love of the real primary world, and hence filled with the sense of mortality, and yet unsatisfied by it” (xiii). Death, even ifimaginary, is no less real for all that. We human sub-creators have, again, two paths open to us upon encountering it.

Creating a Cohesive Worldview (Part One: Either/Or) By Joran Slane Oppelt

Haridas Chaudhuri writes in The Evolution of Integral Consciousness, “One devious root of war-mindedness is the dualistic logic of the arrogant intellect – the logic of either/or. Dualistic logic says: Either communism or democracy, either socialism or capitalism, is the ultimate truth, and thus creates an irreconcilable opposition between them, diving the world into two warring camps sworn to destroy each other.” Integral Church ~ Religion 2.0: The Formation of the Integral Church By Joran Slane Oppelt

It is a seed that was planted when I discovered the work of Arthur Koestler and Ken Wilber and that sprouted when I realized that their life’s work was a continuation of those who came before them — Socrates, Sri Aurobindo, William James, Aldous Huxley. Continue reading

Tusar N. Mohapatra March 4, 2013 at 1:35 pm

Sri Aurobindo’s notion of human unity doesn’t envisage any antagonistic prospect between India and Europe. Relying upon some stray quote to build a sound economic scenario is therefore anomalous. [TNM55] Reply ~ As Europe goes down, we need to be prepared for consequences 

A day of consecration, of self-examination and a preparation

Madurai Today - The Hindu March 3, 2013

Sri Aurobindo Society: Study circle meeting on ‘The Mother on Savitri,’ 3 Lajapathi Roy Street, Chinna Chokkikulam, 10.30 a.m. ~ Sri Aravindar Annai Trust: Collective meditation, Aravindar Annai Relics Meditation Centre, 12 Aravindar Avenue, Tirunagar, 10 a.m.

Auronet Sunday 3 Mar ~ Contact Us Call Us: +91 413 2623424

Class - Savitri Bhavan 10:30 AM Savitri Study Circle at Savitri Bhavan

Class - Verite Hall 06:45 AM Vinyasa Yoga with Einat - in Vérité

Exhibition - Savitri Bhavan 09:00 AM Exhibition - The Mother's Yoga:1956-1973 at Savitri Bhavan

Exhibition - Savitri Bhavan 09:00 AM Exhibition - Meditations on Savitri at Savitri Bhavan

Exhibition - Pitanga 10:00 AM Light beyond skin

Exhibition - Exhibition: Chantal GOWA (Shanta) Rétrospective 03:00 PM Exhibition: Chantal GOWA (Shanta) Rétrospective

Exhibition - UNITY PAVILION 04:30 PM Matrimandir and The Park of Unity

For general information about Auroville please visit us at auroville.org

Savitri Bhavan programme for March ~ Arka schedule

Natural childbirth: new midwife in Auroville Manuela Schliessner

Birth is a blue print for the rest of the life, if we invest in a peaceful gentle birth, we invest in the future life that lies ahead of this person. If a birth is full of trauma the person needs to work on removing the obstacles during his whole life. The Art of Midwifery is to guide by being still, pure presence, observing and guiding through the Heart, with as less as possible medical interventions; to support women in their authentic feminine power and to reconnect to their own strength and authenticity. 

AIR 1968 Auroville Inauguration from Auroville Radio by contact@aurovilleradio.org (Andrea & Amanda)

Listen to an inspiring piece of broadcasting history as Mother announces the inauguration of Auroville live across India on 28 February 1968. The recording was made with Mother sitting in Pondicherry while 5000 founding members of Auroville conducted the inauguration ceremony nearby at the Matrimandir Amphitheater. Thanks to All India Radio, her reading of the original Charter of Auroville in French was broadcast live to the amphitheater, as well as across India, while soil representing 124 nations and 23 Indian states was placed in the ground. 

Comment on Predictions of Sri Aurobindo by Sandeep

Additional remarks made by Sri Aurobindo regarding the first two predictions seen above

Sri Aurobindo explained that when something is decided in the higher plane, the decision may be communicated to men who are fit to receive it. Thus when living in Alipur Jail he himself got definite prophecy about the war of 1914. Mirra [the Mother] received such a prophecy about the Chinese revolution. Then he referred to a vision he saw at the time of the last European war. Two eagles were trying to go through a mountain pass and a strong gale was blowing against them and above that scene he saw the words 1931. This was not a definite prophecy as before but Sri Aurobindo interpreted it in this manner: the two eagles obviously referred to Austria and Germany and the whole scene represented a cataclysm of which obviously the European war was the beginning; it would end in 1931 by the dissolution of the British empire and the eventual liberation of India. This was not a definite prophecy but only Sri Aurobindo’s interpretation of the vision he saw.

Comment on Conversations with Sri Aurobindo recorded by Anilbaran Roy, Part 3 by Anurag Banerjee Sri Aurobindo’s speech on l5th August 1926 as recorded by A.B. Purani

But we have attached a special importance to this day and it is justified if we live in the light of the Truth it symbolises. For this day we can fix a mark in the stage in the individual and general progress. It is a day which ought to be a day of consecration, of self-examination and a preparation for future advance, if possible, for the reception of a special Power which would carry on the work of advance. This can only be done in each individually if he takes up the true attitude and lives on that day under the right conditions. That was what I meant when I spoke the other day. It is we who can make it a decisive day in this sense, and it is we who can help to fulfill it.

Comment on Conversations with Sri Aurobindo recorded by Anilbaran Roy, Part 1 by Virender Ghai

This interview truly reveals the thoughts of Sri Aurobindo. Though, strictly speaking, I am not follower of Sri Aurobindo but am greatly influenced by the way he has amalgamated philosophy, psychology and science into spirituality on one hand and sociology, religion and nationalism on the other hand particularly at macro level in his spiritual thoughts. I feel convinced that while pursuing my studies in application of Quantum Physics, Non-local Reality and Genetics I must have further in-depth understanding of Sri Aurobindo’s thoughts. Virender Ghai, Gurgaon

The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do, and How to Change - Page 217 - Charles Duhigg - 2012 - Preview - More editions Social habits are what fill streets with protesters who may not know one another, who might be marching for different reasons, but who are all moving in the same direction. Social habits are why some initiatives become world-changing ... How Movements Happen from The Tao of Wealth by Sreekanth

Book Review: Ricoeur On Psychoanalysis from Continental Philosophy 

Reading On Psychoanalysis will provide anyone interested in Ricoeur’s hermeneutics the chance to discern and even admire the continuity and remarkable coherence of his views on Freud over a period of about thirty years. Second, the texts simultaneously indicate the development of his philosophy by revealing new questions that preoccupied Ricoeur from the 1970s onwards and that shaped his thinking in the latter years of his life. Some of these thematic concerns had to do with language, text and narrative. 

Call For Papers - SUSSEX PHENOMENOLOGY

Husserl’s famous battle cry calls thinking to return to the ‘things themselves’, that which is given, or that which presences and is present. Yet, this very challenge, the question of presence, has drawn quite different responses from those thinkers who have engaged with the inheritance of phenomenology. Now more than ever, phenomenology must contend with a scientific world view which describes the world by that which is withheld and yet underpins all that is given. 

Latour’s 4th Gifford – “The Anthropocene and the Destruction of the Image of the Globe” from Footnotes to Plato by Matthew David Segall

Latour prefers a geostorical connective tissue woven out of “loops” to the historical-spherical project of globalization. Spheres, “from Plato to Nato,” have disconnected us from the local, narrative knowledges of the Earth Community. In the rush toward “global thinking,” Man has tried to unify too quickly what should have been composed slowly, taking great care to follow the networks, the feedback loops, that tie us to this planet and her uncanny life. This work of composition is not simply cognitive (i.e., scientific), but also affective (i.e., political).

Gaia has no central control station. She is not an all-seeing sphere, but a complex assemblage whose life is precariously composed by an indefinite multiplicity of chemical, microbial, and, increasingly, human teloi. She is not a unified actor; Her agency is fully distributed, which is why her face is so frightening.

Tweets 5 hrs - Steven Shaviro ‏@shaviro I have the same experience reading Laruelle as I do reading Schelling: amazing formulations emerge in the midst of stuff I just can't parse.

Review – English Vinglish from sunayana.com I am a bit disappointed that, at all the glittering award ceremonies that took place recently, English Vinglish did not receive more awards. In my eyes this was by far the best film that was produced from the Mumbai film … finish reading Review – English Vinglish

Savitri, Occult, OOO, and the Invisible Hand

6.2. The World Does Not Exist - MLibrary Digital Collections The Democracy of Objects by Levi R. Bryant - 2011

Here we might think of monumental intellects such as Donna Haraway and Katherine Hayles, the work of McLuhan, Kittler, Ong, and Stiegler, the later work of Deleuze and Guattari, the thought of Latour and Stengers, …  that ranges freely over the “experience” of nonhuman entities, plumbing the worlds of other entities without being obliged to relate everything back to the human. Graham Harman's universe is a universe populated by circuses and clowns, vampires, unnamed monsters, fire and cotton, and a host of other frightening and delightful carnivalesque entities that erupt across his pages like so many apparitions that simultaneously withdraw and capture us with their inherent fascination and allure.

Jane Bennett's universe is inhabited by the vital forces of abandoned bottle caps, dead rats, trash heaps undergoing various forms of bio-chemical decomposition, and a host of other objects. Ian Bogost is currently writing his Alien Phenomenology, which promises to bring us into the subterranean experience of all sorts of other entities such as computer software we scarcely notice in our day to day existence. Donna Haraway's universe is pervaded with wolves, microbes, lab reports and articles, various types of primates, plants, and all sorts of laboratory equipment. Karen Barad's universe is populated by all sorts of particles, instruments and waves.

Can act in his acts, infest his thought and life: Savitri: the Light of the Supreme Nov 19, 2012 – The Titan and the Fury and the Djinn

Lie bound in the subconscient's cavern pit

And the Beast grovels in his antre den:

Dire mutterings rise and murmur in their drowse.

While man works out the dreams of God in the life of the world, he is himself just a small creature in the works of Nature, a thinking caricature of a mysterious puzzling Force. It is she who reveals in him what is present in her, her glories and her deep puzzling darknesses. It is not only the gods who live in his house; there also dwell occult shadows and tenebrous powers. He harbours dangerous powers in his house, the Titan and the Fury and the Djinn. These are dreadful beings, the ancient immortal giants of incredible strength. The first generation of the Titans existed long before the younger gods arrived on the scene,—the Olympians came later.

This could perhaps correspond to the beings who were present before the Gods awoke with which Savitri opens. There are in us also Furies, distorted goddesses of vengeance, of murder, who would punish every crime this little creature might commit unknowingly, punish with no excuse of ignorance; such are the powers that inhabit the subconscious. The three Furies or Infernal Goddesses described in Greek mythology are: goddesses of vengeance: Tisiphone (Avenger of Murder), Megaera (the Jealous) and Alecto (constant Anger). They are also called the Daughters of the Night. Another name for them is the Erinyes. Without mercy, the Furies would penalize all crimes, including the breaking of the rules, penalize considering all the aspects of the society. They would strike the offenders with madness and never stop following the criminals. The Erinyes are similar to if not the same as the Poinai (Retaliations), Arai (Curses), Praxidikai (Exacters of Justice) and Maniai (Madnesses). They are depicted as ugly, winged women with hair, arms and waists entwined with poisonous serpents. They wield whips and are clothed either in the long black robes of mourners, or the short-length skirts and boots of huntress maidens. [From the Internet]

There are five different types of Djinn who are responsible for illness and mishaps, of man and the cosmos. Genie is made famous in the insightful tales of the Arabian Nights. When a brass lamp is rubbed three times a genie will appear and he will grant three wishes for having freed him from the lamp. Solomon the Wise shut them in a lamp which he threw in the sea, that they would never come out. There is the monstrous vital being seated in us, hid in the subconscient den; he remains there groveling all the while, with face downward and the body prostrate, taking pleasure in mean and harsh things. There are powers rising in fierce opposition to the authorities. These act in the acts of man, these control his thought and his life.

D.A.M. , Mainly Red from Auroville Radio by contact@aurovilleradio.org (Clara, Andrea)

In today's news we are featuring short interview with Professor Kostel talking on D.A.M., which is India's first Design, Arts, Music carnival. The festival revolves around the concept of nourishing creativity and it will be held at Ganesh Thottam near Auroville, at the end of the canyon road in green belt. 

Comment on Reading and writing books in a dream by donsalmon Jan 19, 2013

I don’t understand. When Sri Aurobindo spends more than 100 pages of The Life Divine refuting Shankara’s view, I don’t see how that’s any different from what Sandeep is doing here.

Comment on Reading and writing books in a dream by Sandeep Jan 20, 2013

Many people may attain Self-realization but their experiences may diverge after that. In this vast universe, you might penetrate into zones of consciousness that no one has reached before. Take for instance the ascent-descent of consciousness: Ramana Maharshi consistently denied Sri Aurobindo’s claims on the topic, and yet other people do have such experiences indicating that they are possible. I think Sri Aurobindo and the Mother had richer experiences which enabled them to decipher the interconnection between the different worlds.

Shankara probably only had previsions of the future (mental dreams) which made him conclude that the occult worlds are illusory. He may also have been influenced by the nihilistic Buddhist sects which were popular in his time. Had Shankara walked about in his dreams, he might have reconsidered his views on their illusory nature. The “real” nature of the occult worlds can be derived from several (subjective but repeatable) experiences: We are not debating an assumption here but the differences which arise because people do not have the same spiritual experiences. Comment by Sandeep Jan 21, 2013 The study of mystical experiences yields insights which need to be discussed.

Moral Acts Create Primarily Moral Karma from Sri Aurobindo Studies Jan 20, 2013

One of the confusions that tends to permeate the discussion about the law of Karma is the implication that because one is morally or ethically good, that one should therefore have physical pleasure or well-being. Sri Aurobindo exposes this confusion and points out that each type of action has its result primarily within its own sphere, and only secondarily will have effects of a different nature.

The direct impact of moral or ethical action is thus primarily in the field of moral and ethical result, with tangential and secondary effects in other forms of energy possible, but not necessarily supremely powerful in those other fields. Modern research shows, for instance, that strong emotions, such as love or hatred, release various biochemical reactions, such as stimulating hormones, which can indeed impact the physical body and its ultimate health, positively or negatively as the case may be, but such effects may be offset or overcome by specific direct actions taken to support physical health and well-being or not.

Manifesto for a human economy from The Memory Bank by Keith Hart Jan 20, 2013

Ronald Coase won a Nobel prize in economics for inventing the idea of transaction costs in his famous paper “The nature of the firm” (1937). He has just announced his desire, with Ning Wang, to found a new journal called “Man and the economy”. Their manifesto, “Saving economics from the economists”, was published in the Harvard Business Review for December 2012…

We can’t arrive instantly at a view of the whole, but we can engage more concretely with the world that lies beyond the familiar institutions that immediately secure our rights and interests. According to Mauss and Polanyi (especially, but all the founders of modern social theory too), the chief way of achieving social extension has always been through markets and money in a variety of forms.

Training In Smith's Theory of Bargaining from Adam Smith's Lost Legacy by Gavin Kennedy Jan 19, 2013

Those who learn that bargaining, for instance, is about mediating their self-interest with the self-interests of others to achieve some degree of their own self-interests.

In practise, as the Red-Blue game illustrates, the “propensity to exchange” identified by Smith in Wealth Of Nations is not a well understood process across the population, which Smith clearly identified as the ‘If-Then’ conditional proposition (WN I.ii: 25-6). By recognising Smith’s ‘If-Then’ proposition it is easily understood and practised in the real world.

Once again, neoclassical Max U economics approaches bargaining by wrongly formulating it as confrontational problem (see modern economics on bargaining since the 1930s around themes like Zeuthen’s ‘economic warfare’, Hicks on ‘strikes’, Cross and others on ‘conflict’, even actual warfare, through to the 1980s.

Yet Adam Smith set it out in both Moral Sentiments and Wealth Of Nations in the 18th century in his two great, but mostly unread, books.  Hence, my particular sadness, at people libelling Smith with a self-interest theory that he never held.

'Anonymous' is Wrong; Try Again? from Adam Smith's Lost Legacy by Gavin Kennedy Jan 19, 2013

Smith’s writing on self-interest does not conform to the Maximum Utility models of neoclassical economics.  Smith notes scores of cases where individuals pursuing their self-interests undermine the self-interests of others. In fact, Smith’s ideas on the “pursuit” of self-interests are quite the opposite of the views asserted in “Raising the Invisible Hand” at the head of the above statement. [I have no views on the politics expressed by "anonymous", as I only comment on political views expressed in the country or about the country where I vote, i.e., Scotland.]