Permanent Black at Orient Blackswan and Western aesthetic of drabness where dull, bland colours are revered

Joya di's 77th Birth Anniversary - Sri Aurobindo Institute of Culture

2.Feb.2013 Joya di' Birthday celebrations - Special Assembly, Rangoli tribute, Inter-school Flower-arrangement and Painting competition...

Failure of the Ordinary View of Karma « Sri Aurobindo Studies

We generally approach the world and life with an overlay of the moral and ethical viewpoint that we would like to see operative there. We tend to try to shape the ...

The Ignorance Of Reality - Sri Aurobindo - The God Light - Spiritual ...

The ignorance in which we live is a sevenfold self-ignorance; an ignorance of the Absolute and knowledge only of the relations of being and becoming; ... Ignorance is an initial state of knowledge the essence of which is to create a sense of limitation and division; it is this which we have to overcome and transcend without creating an opposite self-limitation. The integral aim of our existence can only be the possession and power and joy of our integral self-knowledge. Words By Sri Aurobindo Arya. 02.1916 / 04.1917

Comment on Sri Aurobindo on Nationalism by Sandeep

These are Sri Aurobindo’s reflections on his Karmayogin writings, including the pieces seen above: Conversation dated 28 Jan, 1926

Sri Aurobindo: It is always very disappointing to read one’s own writing. One feels how ignorant one was! (A B Purani, Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, vol 1 p 259)

Are You Waiting For Godot? from Adam Smith's Lost Legacy by Gavin Kennedy

The only means to “increase economic output” is by visible humans using capital and knowledge in some known productive processes in pursuit of objectives that supply real wealth – the annual output of “necessaries, conveniences and amusements”, as Smith called it, to consumers. 

The most satisfactory ways to organize such activities is by entrepreneurial-led endeavours in markets and their very visible prices (if possible) or by state-sponsored activities if necessary. (Markets cannot operate outside a system of justice. No people will be enjoy opulence for long or at all without stable government and its essential services). Waiting for “invisible hands” to carry out these activities is akin to the watching ‘Waiting For Godot”.

Coming to like modern India from Love of All Wisdom by Amod Lele

The English-speaking world has what appears to me as an unfortunate aesthetic of drabness, where dull, bland colours are revered in the name of “restraint” and “subtlety” and “good taste”… I’m perhaps most annoyed in the West by the drabness of men’s clothing. 

Routledge's Twain Cabin from Taylor & Francis India Blog by Rimina - Feb 3, 2013

Among early bestsellers were: Uncle Tom's Cabin (1853) ­— of which nearly 500,000 copies were sold during the time — and about 1,060 volumes in the Railway Library series (1848).  Also noteworthy were Mark Twain’s Roughing It (1872), illustrating many of Twain's early adventures through the Wild West, including a ‘visit to Salt Lake City, gold and silver prospecting, real-estate speculation, a journey to the Kingdom of Hawaii, and his beginnings as a writer’, and A Curious Dream, and Other Sketches (1872) ­— both of which predate the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884)…

Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group will be at the World Book Fair, Hall 6, Stalls 101–8, Pragati Maidan, New Delhi, India, 4–10 February 2013.   

Believe it or not: French Bistro at the Delhi Book Fair ... from permanent black 

We've been told there will be French food and French films (and books) at the bookfair. Plus all the usual suspects -- Permanent Black included. Come and see all we've published since you last visited! It only happens for one week in the year so don't miss it. Who knows what friends, bargains and books you will find.

As usual our stand will be a part of the Orient Blackswan stall. Details below. NEW DELHI WORLD BOOK FAIR 2013 Pragati Maidan Hall 4, Stall Nos 164–175 (Entry from Gate No. 2, Bhairon Marg) February 4–10 2013 11:00 a.m. to 8 p.m.

web version You are invited: Visit SAGE at the 21st New Delhi World Book Fair 2013 at Hall No 1R, Stall No B15 – 28. Best entry from Gate No 2 on Bhairon Road and Gate No 5 on Mathura Road. SAGE is inviting applications for The Tejeshwar Singh Memorial Fellowships 2013. The last date for submission is 31st March 2013! APPLY NOW! 

February 6 & 7, 2013 New Delhi Centre for Indian Classical Dances, Dr. Sonal Mansingh present the XIth Jivan Pani Memorial Festival. Sonal Mansingh has fondly kept alive the memories of Jivan Pani, a scholar, poet and authority on Indian traditions of performing arts, who was her mentor, guru and guide since 1972. Until his untimely death in 1998, her development and original work in Odissi was largely due to his guidance. Therefore, as an expression of eternal gratitude, she personally and Centre for Indian Classical Dances started the Jivan Pani Memorial Festival as a tribute to this unassuming man but one rich in knowledge. 6th Feb JIVAN RATANA SAMMAN award to an eminent Guru Shri Banamali Maharana - Aditi Mangaldas, Kathak (Lucknow) - Kalamandalam Gopi, Kathakali (Kerala) 7th Feb Swapana Sundari, Vilasini Natyam (Andhra Pradesh) - Pallavi Saran Gujral, Bharatanatyam (Tamil Nadu) At: India Habitat Centre Info: sonaldances@yahoo.com

Study Camps 2013 at Madhuban - Sri Aurobindo Ashram

Sri Aurobindo Ashram -Delhi Branch founded on 12 Feb 1956. The Mother had once called the Sri Aurobindo Ashram at Pondicherry a veritable laboratory to ...

SELF-Shelf Entry Pageviews

Vivekananda’s doctored picture of Ramakrishna 13 Jan 2013 583

Sri Aurobindo cannot be held accountable for the b... 4 Jul 2012 248

Western learning ignited the pioneers of Indian na... 25 Jan 2013 183

Dr. Karan Singh, Prof. Makarand Paranjape, Richard... 14 Jan 2013 118

Albuquerque's Imaginary Dialogue with Sri Aurobind... 12 Sep 2007 118

Gandhian ideals are plain stupid; Bankim and Sri A... 30 Jan 2013 108

Hind Swaraj's children vs. Labourers in the quarri... 21 Jan 2013 108

Creative sleep and transformative death 6 Jan 2013 102

Sri Aurobindo's messianism was based on his teleol. .. 22 Jan 2013 102

We sing, cry, laugh, and love in Hindi, Urdu, and ... 24 Jan 2013 97

Adam Smith, Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, and Sri Aurobindo

More Dire Nonsense from Adam Smith's Lost Legacy by Gavin Kennedy

People left “to pursue their own self-interests” will choose a variety of policies that tend to be mutually contradictory and some of them work against “free markets”. 

The Thatcher Parallel from Centre Right India by Amar Jan 8, 2013 

But there also exist a few handpicked men and women whom fortune places in such circumstances from the vantage of which these rare personalities enjoy a clear view of the socio-political trends of the era. These are leaders who by virtue of their position and awareness are able to significantly advance or reverse the ideas that shape the lives of massive chunks of humanity. These politicians defy the stereotypical self-effacing humility and vacuousness that passes off for leadership in our modern age. Leaders of this hue embrace the idea of power. Their unapologetic pursuit and application of political power is wholly inconsistent with rhetorical conventions of populist politics.

Ashis Nandy says Bhagwat is right Tehelka 

These are typical characteristic of anonymous cities. Highly individualized, personally thin cultures and it is so not only in India, I repeat, but perhaps all over the world from which we have data. In anonymous societies kinship dies and community ties weaken and become superficial. 

Vacuous Media Sleazeballs Moralize Against Mohan Bhagwat from The Rediscovery of India by Sandeep B.

It is this goodwill that has made the RSS the largest network of its kind in the world. Name just one other voluntary organization in the world which has this awe-inspiring network of people dedicated only to serve a nation…

The media fears the RSS. Here’s a vast organization made entirely of voluntary workers intent only on serving the country that has stood its ground amidst severe adversities and which takes the most strident criticism in its stride. Here’s an organization which has sustained for more than seven decades and despite best efforts, hasn’t budged or accepted defeat much less been broken. Courts have consistently taken its side. Every effort to tarnish its reputation has failed. All these are eminently plausible reasons for someone to fear its moral strength…

Whatever be the ideological or intellectual failures of the RSS, they are patriots of the highest order and their record of national service is both unparalleled and unbeatable anywhere in the world. And I say this as an outsider.

View - The Global Journals INDIAN JOURNAL OF APPLIED RESEARCH Volume: 3 Issue: 1 January 2013 Remembering the Ancient Master of Education: Twentieth First Century Reception of Sri Aurobindo - Dr. Birbal Saha, Associate Professor in Education, Sidho-Kanho-Birsha University, Purulia, W.B. India & Mr. Sambhunath Maji, Assistant Professor in English, Sidho-Kanho-Birsha University, Purulia, W.B. India

In his life span of 78 years Sri Aurobindo dedicated his major part of his life in elevating the tradition of experimentation for the best education and educating methods. This research article will conceptualize Sri Aurobindo’s concept of ideal education. This paper will also concentrate Aurobindo’s idea of just educational methods. Finally, this will be our endeavour to locate Aurobindo in the 21st century and understand his relevance in the ultra modern civilization… Sri Aurobindo was almost parent like figure for all the people of the world…

In the educating method the teacher will be an icon figure in terms of virtue and quality. The teacher will not be task master or instructor. A good teacher should be a good helper. Sri Aurobindo rightly commented: “one must be a saint and a hero to be a good teacher. One must become a great ‘yogi’ to be a good teacher.” A successful teacher will not intervene the learning of the learners. Teacher will encourage and stimulate. He will not shape the mind of the learners. He justly remarked, “Teacher is a man helping his brothers, a child leading children, a light kindling other lights, and awakened soul awaking other souls, at the highest a power of presence of the divine calling to him other powers of the divine.” …

Sri Aurobindo viewed that a child is a part of the Greater Existence. It is duty of the child to look for this Greater Existence. The true religion of education is communication. A group of Western dramatists like Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter came with the belief that after the Second World War the world is terribly cut off from God. God has locked his grace for mankind. Mankind is treated as fallen. Our existence is deprived existence. When mankind is awfully cut off from the grace of God, how can we communicate with this Greater Existence? ... But Sri Aurobindo has thought one such education system where the teacher will say: vos es amo mihi, vos es meus amicus (“You are like me, you are my friend”).

The Individual and the Universal Are Aspects of One Eternal Being from Sri Aurobindo Studies 

Due to the habitual action of mind to divide and fragment, we tend to look at things as “either/or” options and to then set up clear demarcations between one thing and another. This action has been extremely useful when it comes to analyzing and breaking down a complex set of processes into distinct steps and thereby gain the ability to act in the material world. However, it has a tendency to overlook the factors that unify and integrate into a larger whole, a “gestalt”, the “big picture”, and it is just this integrated viewpoint which Sri Aurobindo takes pains to enunciate while at the same time not undervaluing the analytical mind’s contribution… Today scientists are beginning to explore the question of Consciousness and advancing concepts of universal creation that bring us to the frontiers of spirituality with a unified field and complex manifestation of multiple universes contained within one all-embracing consciousness.