Quality of our current life would be better

Joy of being: The Integral Yoga The Hindu LIFE & STYLE » SOCIETY MADURAI, November 1, 2012 R. DINESH
What is the Integral Yoga? Before understanding this, we need to go back to the basic starting point. Unless one defines a goal there is no need to change ...

Therefore, Life is all about oneself and what one can control. In all my earlier articles the central point has been the cause is by oneself and not others. For want of something better to do, we blame others but the root cause is our action or reaction. The real cause is that a choice to truly pursue one’s goal single mindedly has not been made. The faculties are happy giving reasons as to why one has to be unhappy (!) rather than doing something to rectify the situation. Therefore this solution of depending on third party(s) is at best temporary and not a solution. Then what does one do?

This is the path of Integration or looking at the whole rather than the parts. The ‘Integral Yoga’ will then have to start with a clearly defined goal of Happiness which is longest lasting (at least more than 90% say) if not permanent. The next step is to align the goals of each of our faculties. What does this mean? A rational analysis of the capabilities of our Body, Prana or Mind and even the knowledge part of ourselves which can be called ‘Intuition’’ has to be attempted through observation (not mental analysis) and once the goal is clear, effort would be made to ensure the capabilities of the faculties are built up to ensure success. For those who believe in rebirth, this process may require a few births but still one is steadfast to one’s goal of Happiness. Even if there is no rebirth at least the quality of our current life would be better.

See how the above is an exact reflection of how we can and must live our practical life. If one is clear what one wants and aligns all one’s efforts to achieve that, there is the best chance of success. Also see what happens when one is not aligned with one’s near and dear ones – fights, disappointments, disagreements etc. How can one hope to align with another when our faculties are fighting amongst themselves to show their superiority rather than aim for a common and overarching goal. (This is the second article of a four-part series on ‘The Integral Yoga’.) Feedback and questions may be emailed to joyofbeingrd@gmail.com (The writer is the Joint Managing Director of TVS & Sons Ltd., and MD, TVS Logistics.)

Seeking the Meaning of Human Life from Sri Aurobindo Studies Nov 2, 2012

Philosophy, religion and science all seek, in their own ways, for the meaning and purpose of our life on earth. The questions “why”, “what” and “how” are the basis of this existential questioning of our existence. Where do we come from? Is there life before birth? Is there any existence after death, and if so, what is it?

Even if we try to avoid these questions and live a practical life of survival, or hedonistic enjoyment, they continue to impress themselves on thinking humanity. In mamy cases, those who have spent a lifetime denying this search for meaning, come in the end, on their death-beds, to the ultimate question with fear, trepidation, hope and prayer.

Sri Aurobindo provides an answer which addresses the various issues that arise: “In the idea of evolutionary rebirth, if we can once find it to be a truth and recognise its antecedents and consequences, we have a very sufficient clue for an answer to all these connected sides of the one perpetual question. A spiritual evolution of which our universe is the scene and earth its ground and stage, though its plan is still kept back above from our yet limited knowledge,–this way of seeing existence is a luminous key which we can fit into many doors of obscurity.”

Sri Aurobindo places weight on the spiritual significance rather than the mechanical process. “The failure to do that rightly will involve us in much philosophical finessing, drive on this side or the other to exaggerated negations and leave our statement of it, however perfect may be its logic, yet unsatisfying and unconvincing to the total intelligence and the complex soul of humanity.”

The Foundations of Psychological Theory in the Veda, Contd from Sri Aurobindo Society, Singapore - C. Krishnamurthy (chamathu2003@yahoo.co.uk)

Rig Vedic mystics realised that a human being performs an effective action only through the assistance he gets from the devas, where as his own contribution is nominal. In fact, even the greatest Vedic poets obtained inspiration from superior planes and their contribution was restricted only to transcribe the revealed verses. With this it is very clear that yajña is an activity recognising the collaboration between the deva and the human. The much later scripture ‘Bhagavad Gita’ specifically mentions the different yajnãs by name such as yajña of obtaining material objects, obtaining knowledge, involving self-study etc., 

The Varieties of Naturalistic Philosophy from Footnotes to Plato by Matthew David Segall

If a pushy philosopher were to back me into a corner and force me to choose one or the other, naturalism or supernaturalism, I would choose naturalism. But I’d find myself wanting to ask, as Socrates might, what is meant by “nature”? Physics becomes metaphysics as soon as the word–”nature”–is pronounced. The logos of language … Read More

A Response to an Anti-Naturalist from Larval Subjects

Over at An und Fur Sich, Adam Kotsko has written a response to my defense of naturalism and materialism (here and here), accusing me of everything from believing that science gives us unmediated access to reality, is capable of explaining everything, and seeks to reduce everything, to advocating totalitarianism.  Anyone familiar with what I argue in my ontology and epistemology will find this to be a peculiar set of charges, but so it goes… but I feel compelled to say something as I have difficulty recognizing myself in what is described in this post… In fact, the ontology and epistemology I propose, the opposite is entailed…  My central argument for the independence of objects– drawn from philosopher of science Roy Bhaskar –revolves around the experimental setting and how knowing requires us to carefully construct closed systems in which we perturb objects in a variety of ways to determine how they respond under these conditions.  

Always Monday, Eternal recurrence, and privacy of consciousness

[Lectures on consciousness and interpretation - Mohanty, Jitendranath Mohanty, Tara Chatterjee - 2009 - 168 pages - Jitendranath Mohanty, Tara Chatterjee ... To reach the grand metaphysics I aim at, I will ask the question: what makes it possible that human consciousness can, through science and philosophy, venture to articulate the structure of reality? What justifies the possibility of success here — if human mind and reality were completely separated? Possibly, an inner unity of some sort.

Discussion on the Lecture of J.N. Mohanty Coordinator: Thank you. Life, mind, and consciousness: papers read at a seminar held at ... - Ramakrishna Mission. Institute of Culture - 2004 - 519 pages]

[Lectures on consciousness and interpretation - Mohanty, Jitendranath Mohanty, Tara Chatterjee - 2009 - 168 pages - Jitendranath Mohanty, Tara Chatterjee. … in recent times, one should take it with a good deal of philosophical skepticism and challenge the notion of privacy that they ascribe to the classical theory of consciousness. One should challenge their notion of subjectivity.]

[Difference Engines or Bhaskar's Objects « Larval Subjects 18 Nov 2009 – Bhaskar’s realist claims are a lot more robust than a sort of nod to the Kantian in-itself. Bhaskar’s question, it will be recalled, is “what must the world be like for our science to be possible?” Where the transcendental idealist asks “what must our cognition to be like for such and such a type of judgment to be possible?”, Bhaskar instead inverts the question and makes it one about the world itself. He argues that minimally intransitive objects (objects independent of mind or society) must be causal mechanisms (what I’d call “difference engines”), that are structured and differentiated, and that act regardless of whether or not humans know about them or exist.]

[Harman on Some Crucial Points About Theory Building from Larval Subjects Graham has a fantastic post: If I say that mathematism and scientism give us no good explanation of why perfect knowledge of a tree would not itself be a tree, it is insufficent to say “but of course they know that knowledge and trees are different.” The point isn’t what they know qua humans, but what their theories lead to as logical consequences.]

[Heidegger and Sri Aurobindo by Rod Hemsell Thinking now means analyzing and reducing things to practical statements and theories, by which we lose contact with the reality about which we are speaking. Both the reality and the understanding get reduced to a framework that is useful but it is not the force and quality and nature of things themselves which can be known 'gnostically', by identity.

Because, eventually, it may be possible to compare Heidegger and Sri Aurobindo, (this is one of our goals), it is important to realize that both of them have presented their metaphysical philosophy from three points of view. One is the classical, ancient, scriptural point of view. Both have based their thinking on ancient language and concepts. Both have developed rational, philosophical reasons to justify and communicate their philosophy. And both have relied on experience. Therefore we can say conventionally that they have presented arguments from scripture, from reason, and from experience. And for both everything finally depends on experience.

This short and concise text, Basic Concepts, is a good example of these three approaches. Heidegger dwells on a few passages from Anaximander and attempts to bring out the meaning of these ancient expressions that are no longer thought; they are hardly thinkable. In Sri Aurobindo's case he has brought back Vedic Sanskrit texts that are hardly readable any more. And yet he found there the source of his philosophy. There is a combination of linguistic genius and philosophical intentionality that has enabled both of them to bring out the meanings from ancient languages that would otherwise probably not be accessible to us. Sri Aurobindo happens to have also been a Greek scholar at Cambridge and situates much of his thought in the context of classical Greek as well as Sanskrit writings. For example, he wrote a series of essays on Heraclitus which is very much along the lines of Heidegger's thinking.

What we might realize on this path is something about the ancient mentality before calculative thought came into the picture. That's why Heidegger is interested in it. He sees in that way of thinking a way to address our loss of a closer identity with the world, because we are only interested in manipulating it. Both thinkers are trying to bring back into perspective a way of seeing that is not so accessible to our thinking or experience today. We benefit from going with them into this process of revealing, through classical language, a way of thinking other than the one we are accustomed to.

Here Heidegger refers to scriptural statements from Anaximander, then he develops a tight and concise philosophical argument concerning the difference between being and beings, as he has done in many texts, but this one is exceptionally tight and almost Upanishadic. Then, finally, he guides our thinking, if we are willing, along a pathway towards a seeing of being, and not just a thinking about being, but a seeing of being as the Same. In the writings on Heraclitus by Sri Aurobindo and in Heidegger's writings on the pre-socratics, both have referred to the writings of Nietzsche who is well known for his philosophy of the eternal recurrence of the same. Now what is this 'the same'? This is the secret that Heidegger is moving towards, the seeing of being, the idein. The seeing of the idea or reality of something in Greek is idein. This concept of the Same is what Heidegger concludes these reflections with. And I have noted that in The Ever-Present Origin, in Gebser's chapter on the philosophy of time,

the first thing he refers to is the incipient saying of being in the fragment of Anaximander. And almost everything he says about origin and time comes from this short commentary of Heidegger, which Gebser acknowledges openly as a fundamental understanding of time brought forward by Heidegger. December 24, 2011]

[5h Savitri Era Party ‏@SavitriEraParty "it was always March there and always Monday." (p.355) ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE by Gabriel García Márquez: http://www.angelfire.com/wa2/margin/nonficHillGGM.html … by jeff k. hill~oglesby, illinois

A fine example of the blending of history and myth (and the precise and sincere narrative tone in the novel) is the aftermath of the banana workers' strike… But this line inscribes a circle. Úrsula, the central female character, is repeatedly struck by the conviction that time is going in a circle and events are repeating. Pilar Ternera observes that "the history of the family was a machine with unavoidable repetitions, a turning wheel that would have gone on spilling into eternity were it not for the progressive and irremediable wearing of the axle." (p.402) In the case of the room of the gypsy Melquíades, "it was always March there and always Monday." (p.355) 

And the very first sentence of the novel is constructed such that past, present, and future all exist at once, with time flowing out in every direction. Indeed, the novel is multilayered, telling many stories of many characters often all at once, as if they coexisted all at once. I have found the best way to read and understand the book is to digest it in individual episodes that follow characters and thoughts with no regard at all for time. Some of my favorite episodes in the novel are the trickle of blood (p.135), the shower of flowers (p.144), and the discovery of a monster or fallen angel or the Wandering Jew (p.349-50). Embedded within the episodes are also synopses of several of the author's short stories. Many people recognise in the novel a central Oedipal plot line veined with a theme of solitude.]

[SavitriEraParty: Plasticity, politics, and unity of purpose - Amod Lele, Levi Bryant @onticologist, Ian Angus, & Sri Aurobindo Studies: http://t.co/3Urgd427]