Not a lonely self-glorification, the East-West dichotomy has to be transcended

Religion and Beyond By: Ramesh Bijlani on Feb 14, 2013 7 Responses Every religion has four basic components…  

Religion is good as a gateway to spirituality, but no religion is good enough as the ultimate anchor.  That is why, religion has been called the kindergarten of spirituality.  Or, as Swami Vivekananda said, any religion is good enough to be born in; no religion is good enough to die in.  Having said that, the overall effect of religions on mankind, however, has been positive, in spite of the divisions and even violence that they have occasionally triggered. Acknowledgement: I am happy to acknowledge the insight into the four aspects of religions that I gained from Prof. V.G. Bhide.

Sri Aurobindo: A Forward-Looking Traditionalist by Peter Heehs - Talk delivered by Peter Heehs at a National Conference sponsored by the Rashtriya Sanskrit Samsthan, New Delhi, and the Sri Aurobindo Institute of Indian Culture, Shillong, February 2012  - Free download Choose a format to download

It was not until a decade after his return from England that the focus of Sri Aurobindo’s attention shifted from literary to spiritual works. Around 1902 he began his long engagement with the Upanishads, striving to bring out the majesty of Upanishadic language in English translations, … Sri Aurobindo never gave a final form to his philological investigations, because his research into the origins of language led him to the Rig Veda, and he soon became deeply absorbed in the study of this most ancient of Indian texts…

Sri Aurobindo was convinced of the greatness of the Indian tradition, but his appreciation of the Indian past looked forward to an even greater future… The old as well as the new had to be creatively appropriated, becoming transformed into something that was stronger and richer than the constituent materials. It is in the light of this assimilative appropriation that we have to view Sri Aurobindo’s approach to efforts of “the Indian spiritual mind” to recover its past and move towards its future. On the one hand he encouraged the study of India’s past achievements in religion, literature, art, polity, and so forth. On the other hand he discouraged the “revival of orthodox conservatism” as being superficial, sentimental and out of “touch with the great facts and forces of life.” Modern Indians, he wrote, had to “look upon all that our past contains with new eyes” in order “to recover something of their ancient sense” but at the same time “bring out of them a new light which gives to the old truths fresh aspects and therefore novel potentialities of creation and evolution.”

Pride in the accomplishments of the Indian soul should not take the form of what he called an “unthinking cultural Chauvinism which holds that whatever we have is good for us because it is Indian or even that whatever is in India is best, because it is the creation of the Rishis.” What India needed was not a lonely self-glorification, but “a unity with the rest of mankind, in which we shall maintain our spiritual and our outer independence.” The East-West dichotomy had to be transcended, he said, for “from the view of the evolutionary future, European and Indian civilisation at their best have only been half achievements, infant dawns pointing to the mature sunlight that is to come.”

Meghalaya Guardian ePaper Inspired by Sri Aurobindo's philosophy, he made India his home. GUARDIAN NEWS BUREAU SHILLONG, Feb 14:

Peter Heehs, an American historian living in Puducherry who writes on modern Indian history, Indian spirituality and religion was in town recently to attend the national seminar on “interrelation between Sanskrit and Indian culture with special reference to Sri Aurobindo” organized by Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan, New Delhi and city based Sri Aurobindo Institute of Indian Culture at its campus. On Wednesday, he addressed a select audience at the city- based Asian Confluence – an initiative to promote an open space for creating a better understanding of the North Eastern region of India. It is a space for cultural and intellectual exchange that can act as a hub for civil society initiatives and the brainchild of former Shillong parliamentarian Dr BB Dutta’s son, Sabyasachi Dutta.

In his interaction with the specially invited guests, Heehs said that he came to India at the age of 22 and made Pondicherry his home for over 40 years now. He has authored several books and is being acclaimed as an outstanding authority of Sri Aurobindo and Divine Mother’s vision, thought etc. “Having coming here 40 years ago, India has become a place where I live and work whereas my family ( his brothers) is cantered in USA,” he said. He was born in Illinois, Chicago and grew up in Philadelphia and also spent most of his boyhood in Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey before coming here. His father was from St Louis and mother from California.

When his father was transferred to Philadelphia region that was when he developed first sort of interests about India and came across Indian spiritual gurus besides Ravi Shankar and his music. He was in college then when a thought about what is the purpose of this life, the ideal of Vedanta and general spiritual thinking caught his thinking. He came to know about the Indian Cultural Centre in New York and got associated with it where the in- charge, a French lady came to India and met Morarji Desai and dedicated herself as India’s ambassador as she was more influenced by Sri Aurobindo and Raman Maharshi. “I ended up with this organization and got interested in reading about Sri Aurobindo and thought why not go that place and went straight to Pondicherry and then got kind of fit in and was given a work in a literary activity to set up the archive of Sri Aurobindo’s works,” he said.

Working at this archive was a learning process for him as he was involved in identifying and sequencing the personal manuscripts of Sri Aurobindo from which he had got the opportunity to have a close look into the life of this great Yogi. “We made sequence of the books and his personal manuscripts and discovered that like Bhabani Bharati, which was talked upon largely in the seminar, there were many other works that were lying unpublished,” he said. The quality of Sri Aurobindo that took this historian by surprise was that he (Aurobindo) started a monthly journal Arya of which all the 64 pages he used to write in immaculate texts as he had greater fluency in writing English besides he was simultaneously working on various other disciplines, such as, The Life Divine, The Future Poetry, Translation of Vedas, The Ideal of Human Unity and more as all these are different subject works in addition to the 64 page monthly journal. “He was incredible,” said Heehs.

Heehs also replied questions put up by the visiting guests, such as, why institutions tend to drift away after the departure of the founding fathers besides whether Sri Aurobindo and Swami Vivekananda had any inspirational relationship between them. There was also questions regarding his book “The Lives of Sri Aurobindo” which created a controversy and furore in the country as there was a demand that the historian should leave the country with protests in Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, too.

Heehs also shared his experience meeting with the Divine Mother for a couple of times as meeting with the mother was very restricted. “I would exaggerate if I say that there was a huge feeling or change in me thereafter but certainly there was something as I dedicated my life to that of Sri Aurobindo and Mother,” he said.

The Hindu : Opinion Op-Ed : All the perfumes of Arabia February 15, 2013 MARKANDEY KATJU

To call the killings of Muslims in 2002 a spontaneous reaction reminds one of Kristallnacht in Germany in November 1938, when the entire Jewish community in Germany was attacked, many killed, their synagogues burnt, shops vandalised after a German diplomat in Paris was shot dead by a Jewish youth whose family had been persecuted by the Nazis. It was claimed by the Nazi government that this was only a ‘spontaneous’ reaction, but in fact it was planned and executed by the Nazi authorities using fanatic mobs.

In terms of historical evolution, India is broadly a country of immigrants and consequently, it is a land of tremendous diversity. Hence, the only policy which can hold it together and put it on the path of progress is secularism — equal respect and treatment to all communities and sects. This was the policy of the great Emperor Akbar, which was followed by our founding fathers (Pandit Nehru and his colleagues) who gave us a secular Constitution. Unless we follow this policy, our country cannot survive for one day, because it has so much diversity, so many religions, castes, languages, ethnic groups.

India, therefore, does not belong to Hindus alone; it belongs equally to Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Parsees, Jains etc. Also, it is not only Hindus who can live in India as first-rate citizens while others have to live as second or third rate citizens. All are first-rate citizens here. The killing of thousands of Muslims and other atrocities on them in Gujarat in 2002 can never be forgotten or forgiven. All the perfumes in Arabia cannot wash away the stain on Mr. Modi in this connection.

It is said by his supporters that Mr. Modi had no hand in the killings, and it is also said that he had not been found guilty by any court of law. I do not want to comment on our judiciary, but I certainly do not buy the story that Mr. Modi had no hand in the events of 2002. He was the Chief Minister of Gujarat at the time when horrible events happened on such a large scale. Can it be believed that he had no hand in them? At least I find this impossible to believe… I appeal to the people of India to consider all this if they are really concerned about the nation’s future. Otherwise they may make the same mistake which the Germans made in 1933. (Markandey Katju, a former judge of the Supreme Court, is Chairman of the Press Council of India)

“Is wealth a value?” from Marginal Revolution by Tyler Cowen

By Ronald Dworkin (pdf).  Every economist (and many others) should read this article. And his classic two-part article on “What is Equality?” is here and here.

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THERE IS NO SHORTCUT TO HAPPINESS times of india - speaking tree By: Ramesh Bijlani on Feb 01, 2013

What it means is that happiness resides not in the car, but in ‘not wanting anything’. ‘Not wanting anything’ is an inner state to be cultivated, not a goal automatically reached by fulfillment of desires. The conclusion is that happiness is within us, not in the object outside. Let us take another example. A person goes and donates a unit of blood. That makes him happy. He has not got anything – in fact, he has given something. The person is happy because while donating blood he thought of another individual in need. In the process, he got so completely absorbed in somebody else’s need that he forgot what he himself wants. In other words, he was once again in a state of ‘not wanting anything’. Thus, to be happy, we need not get anything at all. In fact, the joy of giving is much greater than the joy of getting.

The above discussion exposes the two major flaws in the popular notion that happiness comes from getting things. One, happiness resides not in the things outside but within us; and two, true happiness comes from giving. But what we generally do is to look outside for happiness – in the objects that we want, in the work that we do, in the people to whom we are attached, in being healthy, and so on. All these are entities which are inconstant, unreliable, erratic and unpredictable. The objects that seem to give us happiness are perishable, the happiness they give is short-lasting, and the list of still more objects that we may want is endless. In case of a few fortunate ones, the work that they enjoy doing coincides with the work that they have to do for a living. Even these fortunate ones cannot go on doing the same work for ever: enforced ‘superannuation’ or bodily disability might force them to give up the work. People to whom we are attached do not always behave the way we would like them to. 

Understanding Medical Physiology - Page 876 - Bijlani - 2004 - Preview - More editions The basic text of integral yoga is The Synthesis of Yoga by Sri Aurobindo. CONCLUSION Yoga is an ancient system of Indian philosophy. Although its metaphysical aspects are complex, the fundamentals, as applicable to daily life, are quite ...

The meeting of the East and the West in Sri Aurobindo's philosophy - Page 165 - S.K. Maitra - 1956 - This statement we can look upon as containing the essence of Sri Aurobindo's conception of yoga, as, in fact, the text of integral yoga. The first thing which it asserts is that yoga is a birth. It is not a dissolution, nor an absorption, nor a swooning away into the Divine, but it is a birth. That is to say, the human being retains his character as a human being, which means as a being with a body, life, soul and mind, and having a part to ...

Leather, Fur, & Legendary Joy: A Response from Joshua Ramey to Beatrice Marovich’s “‘We Dance These Beasts’: Capitalism, Animism, Believers of the Future” from An und für sich by Joshua Ramey

As anyone who knows me knows, I spend as much of my time as I can drumming or dancing (when I’m not reading and writing and teaching).  Part of why I was drawn to Deleuze in the first place was that he seemed to be one of the few philosophers willing to lend some language to what was crucial for me about movement and rhythm, conceptually as well as at the affective level, and willing to take the emendation of the affects as far as the emendation of the intellect toward the composition of a philosophical life.  Deleuze was always, in a typically French way, reticent about being anecdotal, and I think he knew how to be revealing enough without anecdotes.  I’m not quite that refined.  Beatrice has moved me to relay, anecdotally, an experience that, for me, forms a kind of legend for the defense of spirituality Beatrice is drawing attention to between the lines of my book…

At any rate, I have often thought to myself that from the 1960’s to 2013 the spiritual stakes of experimentation have changed:  what was an aesthetic choice, then, has become a survival strategy, now.  For those of us with anything left to experiment with, survival itself has become experimental.  In the context of endless and irremediable debts, of a totally debt-leveraged existence, everything is improvisation, everything is experimentation.  Existence itself is spiritual ordeal, for those who manage to survive the imperative to “invest in oneself” at the cost of everything, and at the cost of everything manage to pretend to be an “entrepreneur of the self,” while in fact this means to take on the weight of the world, the burden of the global, ever-imploding debt.

On the Occasion of the Ordeal: A Response from Joshua Ramey to Dan Barber’s “Experimental Life and Ordeal’s Necessity” from An und für sich by Joshua Ramey

I would argue, however—with Laruelle’s theory of the fundamental autonomy of heresy and gnosis—that the reverse is the case, that it is orthodoxy that is more or less parasitic, in the long run, on religious experiences that are too wild, too intense, too idiosyncratic to regulate, order, and habituate.  (It’s true that Bergson’s view of religion is similar, but I don’t hold to Bergson’s ontology of development, which overemphasizes continuity). From that perspective, let me engage in some heretical theology.  The logic of exemplarity in standard Christian philosophy is a logic that attempts to provide limits or conditions for possible spiritual experimentation, in advance of ordeal. 

But from my perspective, and the perspective that I call “the hermetic Deleuze,” since every ordeal potentially is unlimited, any ordeal can exemplify any other, to the degree that it resonates with any other ordeal. This is where Bruno did not so much reject incarnationalism as rather accelerate it into a kind of terracarnationalism or cosmicarnationalism, a becoming-divine or being-divine of everything in relation to everything else.  This has obvious overtones of mystical theophanies such as Eriugena’s, and in alchemical theologies like Boehme’s. The problem with the “standard Christian philosophy,” as Bruno saw it, and as Deleuze put it borrowing a phrase from D.H. Lawrence, is that it is not yet ready “to have done with judgment.” 

(title unknown) from enowning Tomonobu Imamichi says The Book of Tea was there first. 

[Ito Kichinosuke, one of my teachers at university, studied in Germany in 1918 immediately after the First World War and hired Heidegger as a private tutor. Before moving back to Japan at the end of his studies, Professor Ito handed Heidegger a copy of Das Buch vom Tee, the German translation of Okakura Kkuzo's The Book of Tea, as a token of his appreciation. That was in 1919. Sein und Zeit was published in 1927, and made Heidegger famous. Mr. Ito was surprised and indignant that Heidegger used Zhuangzi's concept without giving him credit. Years later in 1945, Professor Ito reminisced with me and, speaking in his Shonai dialect, said, "Heidegger did a lot for me, but I should've laid into him for stealing." There are other indications that Heidegger was inspired by Eastern writings, but let's leave this topic here. I have heard many stories of this kind from Professor Ito and checked their veracity.] [The meaningfulness of the tea cup, in 1919. P. 83]