Showing posts with label Rousseau. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rousseau. Show all posts

January 29, 2013

Sri Aurobindo had seen the Truth and sensed the presence of the Source

Mamata Shankar Reopens Historic Indian Silk House in Kolkata: "Tradition is the Mother of All Fashion Trends" Kolkata, Jan 27, 2013 (Washington Bangla Radio) Calcutta Music Blog Reporting by Barshali Banerjee (newsdesk.kolkata@washingtonbanglaradio.com)
Internationally renowned danseuse and actress Mamata Shankar re-inaugurated the hallowed "Indian Silk House" and shared her thoughts about about traditionalism with WBRi... Indian Silk House was founded in 1926 by Shri Rishabhchand who, fired by his patriotic fervor, plunged into the Non-Cooperation movement against the British. The House has dressed Indian film and entertainment icons like Nargis, Supriya Devi, Chhabi Biswas, Sarat Chandra Bose, P.C. Sorcar senior and more. The business was carried on by his brothers and son after Rishabhchand settled in Sri Aurobindo Ashram at Pondicherry in 1931.

Scientist sees end to poverty in 50 years Times of India KOLKATA: Jan 29, 2013, 
Dr Mani Lal Bhaumik, one of the rare scientists to bridge science and spirituality was speaking at a lecture organised by the Sri Aurobindo Institute of Culture and Suresh Amiya Memorial Trust at the Future Foundation School on Sunday evening. "The technology is there. So is the money. All we need now is the right political circumstances to eradicate poverty," said the inventor of excimer laser used in corrective eye surgery. Bhaumik, who is a real life rags-to-riches story, was born in a village in Tamluk but went on to receive global acclaim for his scientific prowess and humanitarian work.
"It thrills me to think that Sri Aurobindo had seen the Truth that our rishis saw in the Vedic age and scientists are only now beginning to dwell upon. He had sensed the presence of the 'Source' - the source of the beginning of the universe - in everything around us, and within us. Our awareness is part of the cosmic awareness. Perhaps the next step of evolution is that we will be able to perceive the 'Source'."

13:20  -  From the Editor’s Desk (Feb 2013) » From the Editor’s Desk (Feb 2013)
In the last few editions, we have been touching on parts and planes of the being. In this edition, we stand on the rung of the Illumined Mind, greater then the Higher Mind in its lustre and power and capacities. These are zones of our being which have to be lived to know and known, in the truest sense, in order to be lived. It is best to leave the lines from Sri Aurobindo and The Mother to illumine us as much as ...

13:30  -  Comment on Epistemology of perception by Sandeep » Bina Gupta has covered the Vedantin view in her book “Cit Consciousness”. The following passage from her book expands on the section “Perception in Vedanta” seen in the article above.
Pure consciousness on account of being covered by the multiplicity of names and forms cannot associate itself with the objects of cognition. Instrumentality of the inner sense is required to establish its connection with the object. The Advaitins hold that the inner...

Saraswathi Mukkai - 05:31  -  Complete Education » What makes Education complete Education to be complete must have five principal aspects corresponding to the five principal activities of the human being: the physical, the vital, the mental, the psy... mment... 05:20  -  Perceiving our forefathers wrongly » In the book titled "The Human Cycle", Sri Aurobindo points out how we mistakenly perceive the actions of our forefathers. We read always our own mentality into that of these ancient forefathers and ...

Hayek was a NATURAL RIGHTS advocate. He wanted firmly bounded constitutions at all levels of government. He would never tolerate, even in any "market" based political model, ANY diminution of liberty for the sake of some experiments on people. What you are saying is that it is quite OK for me to be driven OUT of my place of birth because someone imposes their ideas on me and I refuse to accept them. So you are committing two major fallacies:
a) You are accepting the reduction of my liberties. But I live not to be governed by others. I live to be free. I deny anyone ANY right to impose their will on me.
b) You are advocating Rousseau's collectivist idea of "general will" by which a particular village can have the right to form a "general" collectivist view about what can or cannot be done in that village. Both are based on the same foundational flaw – that a MAJORITY has a right to encroach on ANYONE'S liberty. Majorities DO NOT HAVE RIGHTS. We humans have individual natural rights.  All of us have the right to life and liberty.
So, as you can clearly see, Shailesh, you and Arvind come from the same COLLECTIVIST mould of Rousseau. You are willing to tolerate the destruction of liberty by majorities.
That, by the way, was the reason why Socrates OPPOSED democracy, for he knew that there are some who elevate democracy ("general will") to a status greater than the individual.
I deny ALL such rubbish. I refute ANY attempt or any possibility that a village assembly can have ANY right to limit ANYONE'S liberties. That is, by the way, exactly what Hayek would say, but in far more suave and sophisticated language.
Sanjeev Sabhlok says: November 20, 2012 at 2:59 pm Shailesh, Democracy is not a goal. Liberty is. By glorifying the majority you undermine and destroy liberty, making the government itself irrelevant and a candidate for being destroyed. Hitler’s Germany was a democracy. Socrates was killed by democracy. Sri Aurobindo – the vocal opponent of socialism

Habitations Of Modernity - Page 23 - Dipesh Chakrabarty - 2002 - Preview - More editions The process of inversion is reflected clearly in Aurobindo's [a nationalist leader] famous Uttarpara speech ... "I spoke once before ...” … He never considers the possibility that a religious sensibility might also use a political structure and a political vocabulary as means... For that is indeed the burden of Aurobindo's speech, from which Sarkar seems to have his ear turned away ...
Mapping Subaltern Studies And The Postcolonial - Page 264 - Vinayak Chaturvedi - 2000 - Preview - More editions For Sarkar, the Marxist historian, the question never arises as to whether a 'religious sensibility' could also use a political structure and vocabulary as a means to a (religious) end (for that indeed is the burden of Aurobindo's speech from which ...
Political Thought and Leadership of Lokmanya Tilak - Page 333 N. R. Inamdar - 1983 - Preview - More editions Aurobindo Ghosh who had long felt the same way, hailed Tilak as a leader of clear perception. ... The burden of Tilak's song was bound to be the same: The bureaucracy is incompetent and inexperienced for the job for which it is appointed...
Sri Aurobindo, his life unique - Page 141 - Rishabhchand - 1981 - Chittaranjan was a budding barrister at that time, and, encumbered with the burden of his father's debts and the maintenance of a big family, he was unable to make up his mind as to whether he should take up Sri Aurobindo's case or not.
Elite Conflict in a Plural Society: Twentieth-Century Bengal - Page 134 - J. H. Broomfield - 1968 - Preview - More editions His successful defence of Aurobindo Ghose, Bipin Chandra Pal, and other leading nationalists brought him fame and riches. In a few years he had become the city's leading barrister, enjoying the luxury of frequent trips to Europe during the ... Page 32 At the same time there were disquieting, if less serious, trends within bhadralok society itself. The criticism by Aurobindo, Bipin Chandra, Rabindranath and others of the old Congress group for their denationalised and exclusive political ... Page 162 LOWER-CLASS BHADRALOK The trend of our argument has presented us with a logical problem: if, as we have asserted, the Bengal Congressmen were so implacably opposed to Gandhi and his programme of noncooperation, why did ...
Studies in history - Volume 1, Issue 1 - Page 93 - Jawaharlal Nehru University. Centre for Historical Studies - 1979 - The fact that Broomfield has to invent a term, "lower class bhadralok," for which there is no corresponding indigenous term, shows ... The "lower class bhadralok," share, with their superiors, all the status traits: high caste, access to education, ...
Soundings in Modern South Asian History - Page 246 D. A. Low - 1968 - Preview - More editions The vernacular press, which drew most of its readers from among the semi-educated, underemployed lower-class bhadralok, played upon this bitterness, ridiculing the elite for their English affectations of speech, dress and manners, accusing ...
Anglophone Poetry in Colonial India, 1780-1913: A Critical Anthology - Page 355 Mary Ellis Gibson - 2011 - Preview Paul's and at Cambridge. His biographer, Peter Heehs, argues that while we cannot know precisely how clearly Aurobindo planned this failure, it relieved him of a burden he did not wish to take up; Aurobindo wrote in later years that he could ...
The Lives of Sri Aurobindo - Page 278 - Peter Heehs - 2008 - Preview - More editions Nietzsche's superman, a godhead of power who “fiercely and arrogantly repels the burden of simple sorrow and service,” embodied only one of the three qualities of superhumanity: “Power,” Aurobindo wrote, “must bow its neck to the yoke of ...
J.L. Mehta on Heidegger, Hermeneutics, and Indian Tradition - Page 165 - Jarava Lal MehtaWilliam J. Jackson - 1992 - Preview In my own humble judgment, however, Aurobindo's Vedic studies constitute the one single, central pillar which carries the burden of Aurobindo's creative thought, the one stalk on which the thousand-petalled lotus of his thinking blossomed, ...
A Moral Critique of Development: In Search of Global Responsibilities - Page 266 - Ph Quarles van Ufford, Anta Kumar Giri - 2003 - Preview - More editions For Sri Aurobindo, 'There is in our mentality a side of will, conduct, character which creates the ethical man; then there is another side of sensibility to the beautiful – understanding beauty in no narrow or hyperartistic sense – which creates the ...
Symbolism In The Poetry Of Sri Aurobindo - Page 12 - Syamala Kallury - 1989 - Preview - More editions Of music, the third important trait of symbolist poetry, Sri Aurobindo says that it is "one of the powers by which the substance of the consciousness can be refined and prepared for sensibility to a still higher Beauty and Ananda." The Vedas ...
"Of Many Heroes": An Indian Essay in Literary Historiography - Page 109 - G. N. Devy - 1998 - Preview - More editions It is a book that battles against the coercive influence of the English sensibility on Indian literature. ... All those poets who do not appeal to Sri Aurobindo's sensibility are then described as the poets farthest from the source of divinity. All those ...
Spectrum History Of Indian Literature In English - Page 235 - Ram Sewak SinghCharu Sheel Singh - 1997 - Preview - More editions This will clearly indicate that Aurobindo wanted to bring the Vedic and the Upanisadic spirit as the dominant mode of thought that should guide and shape contemporary Indian sensibility particularly concerning art and literature. Moreover...
Thinkers Of Indian Renaissance - Page 292 - S A Abbasi - 1998 - Preview And like Ananda Coomaraswamy, Sri Aurobindo revealed the subtlest meanings of Vedic thought and sensibility. Indeed the two philosophers are alike in seeing plainly into the clear depths of India's soul. Concerning the significance of Indian ...
Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion - Page 63 - Jeffrey J. Kripal - 2007 - Preview - More editions There are good historical reasons why Aurobindo avoided any explicit alliance with the Tantras... Simply because we lack the centrality of the term "Tantra" in his text, then, does not mean that we cannot or should not use the term in our own precise ways; it simply means that Aurobindo chose not to do so for his own perfectly sensible and very defensible historical and cultural reasons. On The Edge Of The Future: Esalen And The Evolution Of American ... - Page 115 - Jeffrey John KripalGlenn W. Shuck - 2005 - Preview - More editions
Philosophy Of Education - Page 219 - S.S. ChandraS.S. Chandra & Rajendra Kumar Sharma - 2006 - Preview - More editions In his philosophy everywhere Sri Aurobindo has supported reason like any staunch rationalist and lauded its role as the law giver to the irrational elements, the passions, the sensibilities and the sense organs. A true and living education is ...

January 25, 2013

Western learning ignited the pioneers of Indian nationalism

Raja Ram Mohun Roy - Page 150 Nalin C. Ganguly - 1934 - In rational thought the reformer was much influenced by the Muta'zalas (Moslem Rationalists) and the Absolute Vedanta, as well as by Locke, Rousseau, Hume, and the Encyclopaedists; yet he 'was above all and beneath all a religious ...
Studies on Sri Ramakrishna - Page 119 - Ramakrishna Mission. Institute of Culture - 1988 - In his 'pure and rational theism', he was widely influenced by the Mutazales and monistic Vedanta, as well as by Locke, Rousseau, Hume, and the Encyclopaedists. At all events, he studied the major religions and searched out the element common to them all, viz. the unity of God.
Encyclopaedia Indica: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh - Volume 100 - Page 223 - S. S. Shashi - 1996 - In his inaugural address read at the Sri Ramkrishna Centenary Parliament of Religion and published in the Modern Review in April 1937, Dr Brajendranath Seal said: The Religions of the world - Volume 1 - Page 110 - Ramakrishna Mission. Institute of CultureSri Ramakrishna Centenary Committee - 1938 -  Dr. Brajendra Nath Seal RAMMOHUN, KESHABCHANDRA AND RAMAKRISHNA Rammohun Roy, the precursor and in a very real sense the father of modern India, sought the Universal Religion, the common basis of the Hindu, Moslem, Christian and other faiths.
Glory Of Indian Culture - Page 84 Giriraj Shah Satya Pal Ruhela - 2003 - Preview The writings of Voltaire, Rousseau, Kant, Shakespeare, Locke, Hobbes, Schopenhauer, Mill, Dante, Nietzche and Karl Marx opened ... In this direction, pioneering work was done by Raja Ram Mohan Roy and Maharishi Debendranath Tagore.
Rammohun: a study - Page 32 - Nirmālya Bāgacī - 2005 - Brojendra Nath Seal has pointed out that Rammohun followed Voltaire and Volni when he classified mankind into four categories; and he had been influenced by Locke and Hume when he discussed the causes of superstitious beliefs.
Indian Political Thinkers: Modern Indian Political Thought - Page 18 - N. Jayapalan - 2000 - Preview Dr. Brajendra Nath Seal sums up his assessment of Roy as under : "He (Raja Ram Mohan Roy) gave a modern meaning and purpose to these ancient and medieval elements of Indian polity. He went on to link them up with representative ...
Taking factors such as these into account, Raja Rammohun Roy's patient debate with Marshman, and his support ... In both Shiv Nath Shastri's and Brajendrath Seal's assessment, the Raja's universalism points to a future in which religion ...
Swami Vivekananda: A Reassessment - Page 51 - Narasingha Prosad Sil - 1997 - Preview That he was deeply influenced by the Vedanta is attested to by his senior college mate Seal.52 Even Nivedita has reported Swamiji's acknowledgment of Rammohan's acceptance of the Vedanta, propagation of patriotism, and acceptance 3: ...
Ram Mohan Roy: social, political, and religious reform in 19th ... - Page xi - S. Cromwell Crawford - 1987 - For Sophia Dobson Collet, Ram Mohan presents "a most inspiring study for the New India of which he is the type and ... Brajendranath Seal credits him with having laid "the foundations of the true League of Nations in a league of National ...
Gandhi and the Challenge of Religious Diversity: Religious ... - Page 47 - Margaret Chatterjee - 2005 - Preview Raja Rammohun Roy (1772-1833), amidst his polemical encounters with Baptist missionaries, was anxious to maintain in ... but at the same time he did not accept any book or teacher as infallible'. Brajendranath Seal saw in him a man who ...
Modern Indian Political System: Problems and Prospects - Page 8 - B. K. Verma - 2006 - Preview - More editions Ram Mohan Roy was inspired by the teachings of Christian unitarianism and French enlightenment. Keshav Chandra ... Hegel's influence can be traced upon Brajendranath Seal, Aurobindo and Subhas Chandra Bose. Nietzsche's concept of...
Indian Political Thinkers: Modern Indian Political Thought - Page 14 -N. Jayapalan - 2000 - Preview Raja Ram Mohan Roy was a great champion of rights, Like Locke, Grotius and Paine, he accepted the theory of natural rights. Roy not only advocated the natural rights of life, property and liberty but also believed in the moral rights of the ...
Explorations in Modern Bengal, C. 1800-1900: Essays on Religion, ... - Page 31 - Amiya P. Sen - 2010 - Preview Rather than interpret or reinterpret dogma for the sake of defining belief, the greater intellectual challenge was to investigate the nature, tendency and function of belief itself. Like Locke and Newton whom he greatly admired, Rammohun ...
Social, Political, Economic, and Educational Ideas of Raja ... - Page 9 - Poonam Upadhyaya - 1990 - Preview - More editions But unlike some of the encyclopaedists, Rammohun was not a materialist. He also repudiated the ... As regards the political ideas of Rammohun Roy, he accepted like Locke, Grotius and Thomas Paine, the immutable sanctity of natural rights.
Calcutta: Society And Change 1690-1990 - Page 62 - Samaren Roy - 2005 - Preview - More editions Later Rammohun acquainted himself with the writings of empiricists from Bacon to Locke and Newton as well as the works of Hume, Voltaire and Tom Paine, and still later the Utilitarians. Never did Rammohun quote the Empiricists or Deists ...
Connected Worlds: History in Transnational Perspective - Page 260 - ANU E Press - 2005 - Preview - More editions In a careful analysis of the material conditions of Rammohun's thought, S. N. Mukherjee did not erect the usual barrier ... Rammohun's faith in individualism was inspired by Western political philosophy, more particularly by the works of Locke and Bentham, ...
Guru English: South Asian Religion in a Cosmopolitan Language - Page 41 - Srinivas Aravamudan - 2005 - Preview - More editions Rammohun was ultimately an anglicist, or an orientalist modernizer, depending upon one's interpretation. ... One of the earliest published accounts of an encounter with him by an English traveler records that he “quotes Locke and Bacon on ...
Vidyasagar: The Traditional Moderniser - Page 111 - Amales Tripathi - 1974 - Preview - More editions While Rammohun accepted British rule as affording pretection to natural rights, they might demand a government freely created by the consent of the Indians themselves, and even for an egalitarian right to property. Locke's utilitarian ethics ...
Gandhi And Indian Freedom Struggle - Page 144 - Mazhar Kibriya - 1999 - Preview Many of them studied the political ideas of Burke, Herbert Spencer, Macaulay, John Stuart Mill, Locke, Rousseau, Mazzini, Cavour, Voltaire, and Thomas Paine, and were imbued... Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Dadabhai Naoroji, W.C. Banerjea, Surendranath Banerjce, Pherozeshah Mehta, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, and D.E. Watcha were all educated in Western learning, and they became the first pioneers of Indian nationalism.
Ram Mohan Roy, his era and ethics - Page 32 -S. Cromwell Crawford - 1984 - The best-known guardian of the old ways was Radha Kanta Deb who crossed swords with Ram Mohan on more than one ... They sat at the feet of philosophers such as Locke, Hume, Reid, Stewart, Brown, Bentham; scientists, such as Dewey and Newton, social thinkers such as Tom Paine, Voltaire, and Adam Smith; and were...
History of political thought from Rammohun to Dayananda (1821-84) - Page 126 - Bimanbehari Majumdar - 1934 - Aristotle, Bacon, Locke, Comte, Laplace and Malthus. Not only does he mention their names ... The method of investigation followed by Akshoykumar differs fundamentally from that of Raja Rammohun Roy. The Raja drew his conclusions ...
Rammohun Roy: prophet of modern India - Page 76 - Sajal Basu - 2003 - Rammohun, the Father of Modern Political Movements in India. As the history of Western political thought ... like Plato and Aristotle in the ancient world, from Aquinas and Marsigli in the middle ages, and from Hobbes, Locke, Kant, Hegel, ...
Islam and the modern age - Volume 4 - Page 80 - Islam and the Modern Age Society - 1973 - Ram Mohan was thoroughly familiar with the writings of Voltaire, Rousseau, Locke, Jefferson and Thomas Paine. He drew inspiration from the spirit of the French and American Revolutions. He was so much stirred by the French Revolution ...
Hindu revivalism in Bengal: Rammohan to Ramakrishna - Page 19 - Kamal Kumar Ghatak - 1991 - Bacon to Locke and Newton as well as the propaganda of free thinkers like Hume, Gibbon, Voltaire, Tom Paine and others gradually confirmed Rammohun in his rejection of miracle, dogma and ritual. In his first philosphical work, the ...
Politics & society: Ram Mohan Roy to Nehru - Page 26 - Gollapalli Nagabhushana SarmaMoin Shakir - 1983 - Ram Mohan Roy was also acquainted with the writings of Bacon, Locke, Blackstone, Bentham, Montesquieu and Adam Smith. The whole effort of Ram Mohan Roy was to create a "new '' religion on the basis of the rational interpretation of the ...
Recovering Liberties: Indian Thought in the Age of Liberalism and ... - C. A. Bayly - 2011 - Preview - More editions Equally, Recovering Liberties contributes to the rapidly developing field of global intellectual history, demonstrating that the ideas we associate with major Western thinkers - Mills, Comte, Spencer and Marx - were received and transformed ...
Indian society: historical probings, in memory of D. D. Kosambi - Page 359 - R. S. Sharma - 1974 - It is not possible to single out any particular Western work which had influenced Rammohun most. But his works and correspondence clearly show that he was well acquainted with the works of Bacon, Locke, Blackstone and Bentham. It is ...

November 18, 2012

Sri Aurobindo is neglected as a literary critic

Sri Aurobindo Ashram - E-Library - Works Of Sri Aurobindo - CWSA - 28 Letters On Yoga-I Page – 272 … it is not our hope to transform suddenly the whole human race. Your object is precisely to lead a higher life away from the ordinary world, only it is not solitary; there is a collective side to it and a side, not only of meditation, but of work, action and creation. There is nothing in this that is impossible.

Sri Aurobindo and Karl Marx: integral sociology and dialectical ... - Page xx - -Debi Prasad Chattopadhyaya - 1988 - Here the student of the history of sociology can hardly fail to note that the Marx-Aurobindo controversy is a creative extension of a very old and interesting intellectual battle which has been going on for centuries and drawing into its arena distinguished thinkers like HobbesRousseau, Vico, Hegel, Comte, Mill, and Morgan. 6:46 PM

Aurobindo, the first Indian English critic of poetry – Dr. Sandipan Vitthal Wanve, Maharashtra
Sri Aurobindo is neglected as a literary critic. Because people considered him as a saint, a yogi and even a philosopher but not as a literary critic and poet of eminence. But actually he was a man with a keen sense of critical perception…
Aurobindo has an encyclopaedic range. Not only English authors but European writers all come under the critical purview of Aurobindo. Ancient Indian works like Vedas and Upanishads are also studied by him. Aurobindo has used Eliot’s observation ‘Comparison and Analysis’ in his criticism. He has studied Milton beside Dante, Homer beside Valmiki and so on. His theory of translation of poetry is very fascinating. He think that there are two ways of rendering a poem from one language into another- one is to keep strictly to the manner and turn of the original, the other to take its spirit, sense and imagery and reproduce them freely so as to suit the new language.
Aurobindo’s observations about the poet and poetry create special place in Indian criticism. He is the first Indian English critic of poetry with a theory of his own. His assessment of English authors remains as a gift for the readers.

Most people think of Sri Aurobindo as a great spiritual and literary master. Few realise that he was, in line with Vivekananda and most Indian philosophers, a great proponent of liberty and – in Sri Aurobindo's case – a direct opponent of socialism… The more I think about it, it becomes clear that I am speaking from the ANCIENT INDIAN TRADITION. It is an instinctive expression of critical thinking, tolerance, and liberty that ancient India so deeply understood… a deep instinctive tolerance and insistence on liberty. It was an instinctive expression of Indian-ness, the true Hindutva… It is time to reclaim Hindu Capitalism (also known as Hindu Dharma) and bring tolerance and liberty back to India. This includes economic freedom and incentive-based governance outlined in Arthashastra.

A Philosopher Defends Favoritism BY CARL L. BANKSTON III Steven T. Asma has an interesting article on fairness versus favoritism...
I have consistently found that the actions of parents undermine programs aimed at redistributing resources and opportunities to achieve uniform “fairness” in American schools. Even when parents sincerely believe that every student should have exactly the same benefits and opportunities, they do everything they can to maximize the opportunities of their own children. Since some families are better able to realize their goals than others, families promote inequality of opportunity. They are, Asma might say, devoted to favoritism. This, I think, is as it should be. Parents who do don’t want to promote the best interests of their own children over goals of abstract equality are, to put it bluntly, bad parents.

The law of karma as part of a process of soul evolution and development can only have meaning if it is continuous and follows the line of development.

Message on Mother's Mahasamadhi 17th Nov Sri Aurobindo Center of Los Angeles.

Devotees throng Aurobindo ashram Webindia123 - Thousands of devotees from all over the country and abroad thronged the Sri Aurobindo Ashram here today to pay tributes to the Mother, a leading disciple of Sri...

Sri Aurobindo Ashram - Delhi Branch. Saturday 17 November 2012 The Mother’s Mahasamadhi Day will be observed in the Ashram as a day of SILENCE
6.45 p.m. - Offering of Lights of Aspiration
7.00 p.m. - Silent Meditation
On 17th November 1973, the Mother left her body. She was ninety-five. Many among her children were deeply shaken for the time being. But they realise now that she is always present amidst them.
Both at home and abroad, the devotees see the Mother in their dreams. They feel her presence, listen to her message and get inspiration and instruction in their work. They firmly believe that the Mother will return in a new form. Meanwhile her mission is getting quietly fulfilled more and more. When Sri Aurobindo left his body the Mother said, "Nothing has changed. All that Sri Aurobindo has said is true, time will prove it." On the Mother's withdrawal, her children are carrying on her work repeating the same dictum "Nothing has changed."
It is upon you, the young, that her hope rests.

"Sri Aurobindo and Calcutta Memorial Committee" identified places in Calcutta where Sri Aurobindo had stayed at or worked from. In co-operation with the Calcutta Municipal Corporation, Memorial Plaques were erected at these identified sites - a consummation of Joya di's long and laborious endeavour.
This message is generated randomly from a collection of short written statements taken from the notes, letters, and messages of The Mother. The process of generating the guidance is the electronic equivalent of randomly looking up a book to receive an indication or answer.







October 27, 2012

Visible and invisible hands in society and civilization

Glittering Images By CAMILLE PAGLIA Reviewed by Stefan Beck October 25, 2012
Paglia is writing for students, who, she feels, have been cheated out of adequate exposure to art and art history… She has no tolerance for reductive or anemic approaches to art history, taking aim at critical theory, Marxism, and multiculturalism. The reader is warned of the art world's mindless reliance on shock value and its reflexive hostility to religion. (It wouldn't be a Paglia book without a confession of atheism followed immediately by a robust defense of the splendors of world religion and its artistic heritage.)

The promiscuous lifestyle articulated in the first paragraph is prevalent in large sections of Western culture today, and in an age of globalization where American movies and sitcoms are beamed across the world, it is gaining acceptance in other cultures as well.  People are confused – they do not understand why religion and society has historically forbidden a fun-filled lifestyle which doesn't seem to carry any deleterious consequences. 

The first reaction to these allegations from the side of the Trustees was that they were “wild and baseless allegations”, especially the allegation of “sexual harassment and victimisation”.  A few of them even thoughtlessly proclaimed that they didn’t know of any such incidents. When they were reminded of the irrefutable cases involving the police and the Court, they quickly changed their statement to, “Oh, these things happen! We should not take these things seriously! We should not reveal these matters to the public outside, least of all to the Govt!” Would they have said the same if they themselves had been victims of molestation or driven to despair or death – there have been indeed such cases not only in the past but even recently, which the Managing Trustee has dealt in his classic style of “leave the culprit free and punish the victim”! 

Chris Beckett’s novel Dark Eden is not literally an adaptation, but in fact it “adapts” and rewrites a number of foundational Western texts regarding the origins of human society and civilization… At first they live in a tightly-bound, matriarchal, “primitive,” and more or less egalitarian society. But in the course of the book we witness the splintering of this society: a “fall” from a putative “state of nature” into a more “historical” situation.
This “fall” is the result of a number of pressures: most importantly, environmental stress (as a result of overexploitation of limited resources), and the frequent appearance of detrimental recessive genetic traits (cleft palate and clubfoot) due to the restricted nature of the gene pool, combined with adolescent restlessness, and a certain drive against tradition and in favor of innovation.
The consequences of this “fall” include the “invention” of rape and murder, the transition from egalitarian matriarchy to hierarchical patriarchy, a growing tension and discordance between generations, as well as between men and women, and an energetic burst of exploration and technological invention.
In recounting these developments, the novel gives us an updated version of what I would like to call speculative anthropology. Following the classical thinkers I have already mentioned (Rousseau on the origins of inequality; Nietzsche on the origins of morality; Bachofen and Engels on the origins of family structures and differentiated gender roles), Chris Beckett speculates about “primitive” society and the development of the social institutions that today we take far too readily for granted.

Smith also specifies the “necessaries of life”, which were part of the annual produce of the “necessaries, convenience, and amusements (luxuries) of life" (Wealth Of Nations).  By definition, human kind had managed to consume the “necessaries” (food, primarily, but also shelter and other basic utilities) since our ancestors were in the forests.  Those necessaries were basic, absolutely so in times of dearth.   No “proud and unfeeling landlords” shared the “luxuries” of life with the “thousands whom they employed”, except perhaps occasional cast offs of some “conveniences” with family favourites, but certainly no “amusements” – their wife’s luxury cloths, trinkets, and such like.
Those who see my critique of the myth of the “invisible hand” as “too narrow” should take note of the unintended consequences of letting their far “too broad” laxity about the atrocities committed against the truth and Adam Smith’s good name.  They live with what they create in their mysticism about how the economy works, or doesn't, as the case may be.  Buchanan has woken up to the fraud.  There is no invisible hand operating in any economy.