Hegel’s India and Sri Aurobindo's view of the West

Writing the Self: Diaries, Memoirs, and the History of the Self By: Peter Heehs

Protestant diaries replaced the Catholic confessional, but secular diaries such as Pepys's may reveal yet more about the self. After Richardson, novels competed with diaries and memoirs as vehicles of self-expression, though memoirs survived and continue to thrive, while the diary has found a new incarnation in the personal blog. 

What is the Meaning of "Integral"? Jack Crittenden     

Wilber's approach appears to have provided a coherent vision that seamlessly weaves together truth-claims from such fields as physics and biology; the eco-sciences; chaos theory and the systems sciences; medicine, neurophysiology, biochemistry; art, poetry, and aesthetics in general; developmental psychology and a spectrum of psychotherapeutic endeavors, from Freud to Jung to Kegan; the great spiritual theorists from Plato and Plotinus in the West to Shankara and Nagarjuna in the East; the modernists from Descartes and Locke to Kant; the Idealists from Schelling to Hegel; the postmodernists from Foucault and Derrida to Taylor and Habermas; the major hermeneutic tradition, Dilthey to Heidegger to Gadamer; the social systems theorists from Comte and Marx to Parsons and Luhmann; the contemplative and mystical schools of the great meditative traditions, East and West, in the world's major religious traditions. And all of that is just a sampling! Jack Crittenden Author, Democracy's Midwife integralinstitute.org [3:23 pm]

Walsh reviews Wilber's Sex, Ecology, Spirituality - CogWeb - The Spirit of Evolution by Roger Walsh - An overview of Ken Wilber's book Sex, Ecology, Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution (Shambhala, 1995). Roger Walsh (MD) is a Professor of Psychiatry, Philosophy and Anthropology, Department of Psychiatry & Human Behavior, University of California College of Medicine, Irvine.

Periodically there arose spectacular individuals--St. Augustine, Meister Eckhart, Dame Julian, St. Teresa, the Rhineland mystics and more--in whom transcendence triumphed over institutional barriers and who thereby faced themselves and the Church with the difficult and dangerous task of reconciling conventional mythology with transconventional realization. However, despite the profound insights of such mystics, the power of conventional myth (for example, Church dogma) largely reigned supreme until the rise of modernity and the empirical scientific outlook during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Joshua Ramey - The Hermetic Deleuze: Philosophy and Spiritual ... Description. 

Gilles Deleuze drew on a vast array of source material, from philosophy and psychoanalysis to science and art. Yet scholars have largely neglected one of the intellectual currents underlying his work: Western esotericism, specifically the lineage of hermetic thought that extends from Late Antiquity into the Renaissance through the work of figures such as Iamblichus, Nicholas of Cusa, Pico della Mirandola, and Giordano Bruno. In this book, Joshua Ramey examines the extent to which Deleuze's ethics, metaphysics, and politics were informed by, and can only be fully understood through, this hermetic tradition.

Mind and Cosmos:  Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False - Amazon.com

Nagel's skepticism is not based on religious belief or on a belief in any definite alternative. In Mind and Cosmos, he does suggest that if the materialist account is wrong, then principles of a different kind may also be at work in the history of nature, principles of the growth of order that are in their logical form teleological rather than mechanistic. 

Sample Chapter for Aravamudan, S.: Guru English: South Asian Religion in a Cosmopolitan Language - Srinivas Aravamudan Book Description -  Endorsements - Table of Contents - This file is also available in Adobe Acrobat PDF format Introduction

When it begins to accommodate multiple registers and innovations, Guru English expands into a free-floating literary discourse that can tolerate a high degree of ambivalence. At this point, if I may invoke Michel Foucault, the range of the discourse makes visible characteristics that are not directly linguistic but also institutional and practice-oriented, and contextual to the deployment and manipulation of language as a material phenomenon with corresponding effects within social networks of power…

Writing to a positivist friend, Jogen Ghosh, in the late nineteenth century, the Bengali novelist Bankimchandra Chatterjee asserted, "anyone who wishes to address all Hindus must of necessity write in English." Bankim's most famous novel of religious atavism, Anandamath [Abbey of bliss], ends with the proposition that "imbued with a knowledge of objective sciences by English education, our people will be able to comprehend subjective truths." The point made by Bankim's conclusion, even if a hopeful stretch given empirical realities, was that the English language would, as a means of international access and especially scientific technocracy, objectively create the conditions where pan-Indian cultural unity could be discovered as a kind of remaindered essence. This adoption of English as a via negativa to the literary discourse of "subjective truths" is quite different from other plausible choices, such as Persian, which in Bankim's context had greater historical precedent as the language of Mughal bureaucracy and government, or Sanskrit, the sacerdotal language of the Brahman-dominated religious and cultural elites of the Hindu majority. We now find that there is an anomalous afterlife to Bankim's recommendation that he may not have anticipated: the circulation of Hinduism through English was probably an early alternative means--and continues to be an important vehicle--for the religious discourse of middle-class urban Hindus in search of their "subjective truths." The global transmission of Hindu and Buddhist thought eventually led to the rise of the self-proclaimed ethno-religious nationalist as well as the detached and Asian-influenced cosmopolitan. It might be worth considering the most provocative version of Bankim's thesis, that the use of English was indispensable to the defining of Hinduism as a universalist "spirituality" at the outset. This new articulation of spirituality cohered around several general assumptions brought to it by colonial discourses and practices, even as it undoubtedly made good use of preexisting practices and doctrines. This necessarily modern presentation of ancient practices explains the constitutive contradiction of Hinduism's national and cosmopolitan roles far more effectively than various empirical accounts that map the contingent coming together of a number of loosely related practices and identities under the pressure of British colonial rule…

The first chapter explores the impact of the orientalists and the resultant reaction-formation of a number of indigenous voices with diasporic appeal, including Brahmos such as Rammohun Roy and Keshub Chunder Sen, Vedantists such as Vivekananda, and yoga exponents such as Yogananda. These figures are neoclassical in that they reinvent continuous tradition under the sign of the advent of modernity. Through some of these individual cases, I narrate the existence of the discourse of Guru English from the late eighteenth to the mid-twentieth century. It is indeed moot whether neoclassicism of this sort can ultimately be separated very carefully from Romantic nationalism.

More through a principle of convenience and slightly different philosophical emphasis rather than that of radical separation from the figures treated in the first, the second chapter examines the parallel implication of Guru English into a literary form of late colonial Romanticism. Writers such as Bankimchandra Chatterjee, Rudyard Kipling, Rabindranath Tagore, and Sri Aurobindo are shown to contribute richly to this enterprise, one that participates in the Janus-faced project of Romantic nationalism. Looking back atavistically, Romantic nationalism also generates a wholly modern idiom that is produced prosthetically. These important early figures are but the very beginning of a whole range of Indian and foreign romanticists and romanticizers of the subcontinent's religious wealth. The eternal rediscovery of Indian spiritual and religious mysteries continues unabated, whether in travelogues, tourist brochures, pulp fiction and media, or even occasionally in religious anthropology.

Yoga Journal - Jul 1975 - Page 3 Vol. 1, No. 3 - Magazine - Full view And it was for this purpose that he was sent to the United States in 1951 by his Guru, Hegel’s India:  the prophet of Integral Yoga. It was at this time that he, along with his dedicated wife Bina Pani, established the Cultural Integration Fellowship ...

The Other Tale of Indian Modernity: Savita Singh by Pratilipi Blog

Hindi poet and feminist scholar Savita Singh's reading of Ashis Nandy's version of Sri Aurobindo's life in his book Intimate Enemy is a classical, scholarly refutation of Nandy's critique of modernity and in a way suggests that ... 

Publications - Aakash Singh - LUISS Guido Carli FORTHCOMING BOOKS 

Hegel’s India: Texts and Commentary (complete manuscript [ms.] under review at SUNY Press, NY). Co-edited with R. Mohapatra. 

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.]

Dr. Karan Singh, Prof. Makarand Paranjape, Richard Hartz, & Peter Heehs

Sri Aurobindo’s Collected Poems Sunayana Panda sunayana.com

Sri Aurobindo did not write poetry to pass time on a Sunday afternoon. His works are the creations of a master poet who expects his readers to know the background of what he is saying. This again becomes a common stumbling block. Even if a person had the inclination to read a sonnet or a long narrative poem, he would still find it hard to understand not only the vocabulary but also the allusions and references to Greek or Indian mythology, which often form a backdrop to Sri Aurobindo’s poems. These literary and cultural references were once common knowledge to the educated person but do not generally form part of the intellectual development of modern man.

In other words, one needs a certain amount of preparation about the context before one can take pleasure in reading some of the poems. And that preparation must also include a familiarity with his yoga in order to grasp the meaning of many of his later poems, including most of the sonnets. The most fascinating thing about these poems is that they were written not only in different places but also during the various phases of a life that changed dramatically through the decades… Perhaps our knowledge of Sri Aurobindo the philosopher may remain incomplete without our knowledge of Sri Aurobindo the poet. ‘Love & Death’, 4:42 PM, 11:08 AM Friday, July 11, 2008

Sri Aurobindo’s writings abound in allusions, and Savitri is no exception. Indeed Sri Aurobindo has made lavish use of this poetic tool to enrich the suggestiveness of his word-music and images. We find echoes of the Vedas, Upanishads, Gita and Puranas – but also of Greek and roman mythology, of the Bible, and of lines or phrases from English literature, and from Virgil, Dante, Homer and other great poets. 5:36 PM Wednesday, July 30, 2008

06. Narad’s reading of The Mother on Savitri from Savitri

It's exactly like pulling open a curtain: everything is waiting there behind. It's difficult for me to speak during these experiences because French comes to me more spontaneously, and the experiences all happen in English—Sri Aurobindo's power is so much with them... .

Colloquy Apropos of the Embodied Nothingness from Savitri 

The phrase “original Gods” must be understood in the context of the embodied Nothingness, one with whom Savitri is going to have a life-and-death settling debate. She must grapple the problem; she must meet head-on this being who has sprung up from the Absolute’s mysterious Void, a paradoxical Void packed with every opposite of his. The formless Cause, that has given rise to that mighty embodied Nothingness, must be discovered and that Nothingness transformed into the Being of luminous creative Delight.

Savitri’s path for immortality upon earth passes through such a strange puzzling and inexplicable Void, a path which can open out only with the death of Satyavan. Who in this creation has reached the Supreme passing through the all-negating Void? None; therefore Death has remained unconquered. Savitri is now set to do it. If this is her way, and it seems that is the only way, to do God’s work in the field of the utter Nothing, then the imperative of Satyavan’s death becomes perfectly understandable, rational, necessary, inevitable.

Beyond the Transcendental Gods from Savitri 

Even the Supramental or Transcendental Gods are only the truth-ful and luminous Functionaries, high-stationed and majestic, imperial, each holding some specific office, all in harmony with each other, working in the Truth and Light and Consciousness and Joy of the great creative Urge. When the spiritual gifts of the divine Dawn, appearing repeatedly, pile up there is a possibility of the birth and growth of all the Gods in us. Among them the four great shining Kings are Varuna, Mitra, Bhaga, Aryaman … cast the glory and protection of their divine gaze.

Nehru Memorial Museum & Library cordially invites you to a Conference at 9:00 a.m. on Friday-Saturday 11-12 January in the Seminar Room, First Floor, Library Building

‘Swami Vivekananda and the Making of Modern India’

Swami Vivekananda was one of the earliest to emphasize the point that our material lives became more meaningful only when spiritualized. Above all, he inspired his countrymen, and by extension, all oppressed people in the world, to relocate faith and vitality in themselves. He exhorted men and women to more fully realize their potentialities as individual human beings; at the same time though, he encouraged them to be more compassionate and socially responsible.

Even though Swami Vivekananda rejected political praxis and West inspired reform, his message constitutes an integral part of Indian self-awakening. The overarching mission in his life was empowerment of the people: through education, collective thought and action and realizing the underlying unity of all human existence. ‘Man-making’ was Vivekananda’s vital agenda.

Programme Schedule Friday, 11 January 2013 9:15 a.m. - 9:30 a.m. Inaugural Speech by Dr. Karan Singh

Session I Chair Prof. Mahesh Rangarajan, Director, NMML

Speaker: Mr. Richard Hartz, Independent Scholar, 9:30 a.m.-10:45 a.m. Pondicherry

‘An unmanageable encounter: The meeting of religions and cultures in Chicago, 1893’

12:15 p.m.-1:30p.m. Prof. Makarand Paranjape, Jawaharlal University, New Delhi.

‘Swami Vivekanada and the shaping of Indian modernity’

Session II Chair Mr. Peter Heehs, Independent Scholar, Pondicherry

Saturday, 12 January 2013

10:15 a.m.-11:30a.m. Mr. Peter Heehs, Independent Scholar, Pondicherry

‘Roots, trunk, branches, and seeds: Similarities and differences in Swami Vivekananda’s and Sri Aurobindo’s approaches to Vedanta and Yoga’

Prof. Pralay Kanungo, Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

‘Hindutva and Swami Vivekananda’

Purpose 2012 — The Annual Youth Camp, Hanamkonda Dec 6–9, 2012  Champak Hills, Jangaon, Hanamkonda, Andhra Pradesh

AURO YUVA, the youth wing of Sri Aurobindo Society, Hanamkonda, organized the annual youth camp—PURPOSE 2012—at Champak Hills, Jangaon, from 6th to 9th December 2012. The camp was supported by Matridarshan Trust, Champak Hills, Jangaon. This year, 44 boys from Warangal in the age group of 18–25 participated in the camp, while Sri Raghav Rao, Managing Trustee, Matridarshan Trust, Sri C. A. V. Ravi, Sri Shanthi Swaroop, Sri Venkataramana, Sri Ramu Sowmithri and a team of 11 volunteers coordinated the entire camp.

Swamy Dayananda and Arya Samaj krishnarjun108

Arya samaj was the first socio-cultural hindu organisation that took up the task of addressing the challenges before hindu society with a well organized modern approach. Samaj was involved in social reform, education, service activities and reconversion to vedic religion.

The inspiration for samaj was to reform hindu religion and follow vedic way of life, apart from that samaj did commendable work in spreading education among masses…

Arya Samaj had a vibrant intellectual culture of debate, though at times it had caused ideological divisions. It’s important to discuss and differ than to stagnate, new vital currents of thought and action could emerge from such debates.

Arya samaj had enriched the spiritual, social, intellectual, cultural, and political life of hindu society, from its spring of inspiration emerged many personalities who made their mark on Indian society including its struggle for national independence.

The integral Advaitism of Sri Aurobindo - Page 342 Ram Shankar Misra - 1957 - It is true that Sri Aurobindo's integral view of Reality cannot be said to be perfectly original. The transcendence and immanence of the Absolute or Brahman has been advocated in the Upanisads and the different systems of the Vedanta.

Political Thinkers of Modern India: Sri Aurobindo Ghose - Volume 11 - Page 336 - Verinder Grover - 1993 - Preview Unlike Christianity, Hinduism did not find it difficult to assimilate Darwinian ideas, because from the beginning Vedanta viewed God as both transcendent and immanent in nature. Aurobindo could easily spiritualise the concept of evolution and ...

Sri Aurobindo: a garland of tributes - Page 243 Arabinda Basu - 1973 - Transcendent of the universe, it is also immanent in it. Secondly, one of the forms in which it is immanent in the universe is what Sri Aurobindo calls the spiritual soul or the psychic being. (It should be noted that the psychic being is not the mind...

Dancing with Siva: Hinduism's Contemporary Catechism - Page 171 - Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami - 2003 - Full view - More editions To most monists God is immanent, temporal, becoming. He is creation itself, material cause ... History's pantheists include Sankara, Vivekananda, Aurobindo, Plotinus, the Stoics, Spinoza and Asvaghosha. The Vedas proclaim, “As a ...

Integral Advaitism Of Sri Aurobindo - Page 394 - Rāmacandra Miśra - 1998 - Preview Sri Aurobindo rightly argues that in order to have an integral view of Reality, we are not to take into account only the relationless or transcendent aspect of the Absolute but we have to include its immanent aspect, its universal and individual ...

Aurobindo's Philosophy of Brahman - Page 128 - Stephen H. Phillips - 1986 - Preview - More editions that Brahman is not responsible for the nature of our world.18 In this way Aurobindo is led to blur his distinction between an essential Sachchidananda and inessential finite presentations. He repeatedly insists on Brahman's immanence, and ...

Gems from Sri Aurobindo, 3rd Series - Page 64 - Sri Aurobindo, Sri M P Pandit - 1995 - Preview - More editions Sri Aurobindo Sri M P Pandit. The material world and the physical life exist for us only ... INNER DIVINE The Divine is already there immanent within us, ourselves are that in our inmost reality. INNER DOORS As the darkness disappears, the ...

Evolutionary, Spiritual Conceptions of Life - Sri Aurobindo, ... - Page 22 - Michael Leicht - 2008 - Preview and 'How do we get from atoms to Shakespear?' (If I remember right, Aurobindo makes somewhere an analogous simile about how mud can become a lotus?). Like Aurobindo he thinks that this can only be explained by positing immanent ...

Political Philosophy Of Sri Aurobindo - Page 294 - V. P. Varma - 1990 - Preview - More editions To Aurobindo on the other hand, the social institutions have an intrinsic immanent importance and do not depend for their significance on the political order. But in one sense Hegel, Bosanquet and Aurobindo are similar because all of them ...

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother: Glimpses of Their Experiments, ... - Page 28 - Kireet Joshi - 1989 - Preview - More editions He said, 'Read the Gita knowing that Krishna is the symbol of the immanent God, the God within.' That was all. 'Read it with that knowledge — with the ... 42-3. But, in spite of her intimate contact with the leading 28 Sri Aurobindo and The Mother.

The Bhagavad Gita and Its Message: With Text, Translation and Sri ... - Page 312

Sri Aurobindo, Anil Baran Roy - 1996 - Preview Through the practice of the Yoga of the Gita, Sri Aurobindo attained the state of Cosmic Consciousness and the perception of the immanence of God in all beings — sentient and insentient. This book provides the original Sanskrit text, ...

Sri Aurobindo and Vedānta philosophy - Page 130 - Sheojee Pandey - 1987 - But when scriptures go to describe the Reality as Nirguna then on that point Sri Aurobindo also agrees with Satikara, ... In spite of all the facts the transcendent and immanent aspects of Brahman have been advocated in Upanishads and in other...

A Moral Critique of Development: In Search of Global Responsibilities - Page 268

Ph Quarles van Ufford, Anta Kumar Giri - 2003 - Preview - More editions For Sri Aurobindo, there is such a creative ongoing dialogue between transcendence and immanence. But despite this dialogue, transcendence for Sri Aurobindo seems to work at a much higher level and has its predominant reading as a ...

An introduction to Sri Aurobindo's philosophy - Page 36 - Joan Price Ockham - 1977 - Since Brahman is not only transcendent, but also immanent, the cosmic and the individual activity as manifestations of "That" are equally real. Herein lies the ... "In the beginning," says Sri Aurobindo, "all this was the Non-Being. It was thence ...

Sri Aurobindo, thinker and the yogi of the future - Page 66 - M. G. Umar - 2001 - Sri Aurobindo's concept of God, Soul and Nature is many- sided and complex. ... cdtmdnam na tato vijugupsate According to Sri Aurobindo, God has three aspects: the Transcendent Divine, the Universal Divine, the immanent Divine within us.

Teilhard and Aurobindo: a study in religious complementarity - Page 53 - David M. Brookman - 1988 - From the perspective of the supra- mental may be glimpsed Aurobindo's majestic vision of Reality as transcendent, unmanifest and self-absorbed on the one hand; immanent, manifest and creative on the other. Aurobindo conceives of three ...

Sri Aurobindo and Iqbal: a comparative study of their philosophy - Page 77 - M. Rafique - 1974 - Snippet view - More editions His God is both the transcendent and immanent. In one of hjs English verses, he says : , "Thou who pervadest all the worlds below, " ' Yet sits above, Master of all who work and rule and know, Servant of Love." Sri Aurobindo's conception of ...

Indian Religions: The Spiritual Traditions of South Asia : an ... - Page 455 - Peter Heehs - 2002 - Preview - More editions A few months later, while in jail awaiting trial for conspiracy, Aurobindo had the wider experience of the Divine as simultaneously transcendent of and immanent in the universe. This came to him as a vision of Krishna in all things and beings.

Revisioning Environmental Ethics - Page 119 - Daniel A. Kealey - 1990 - Preview - More editions Aurobindo wants to maintain Brahman's absolute transcendence on the one hand while on the other wants that the knowledge by identity with the absolute transcendental infinity be within the grasp of immanent, finite consciousness. 12:35 pm

Karma and consequence are not solely individual

The Hindu : NATIONAL KARNATAKA: Bangalore today January 1, 2013

Sri Aurobindo Complex Trust: Screening of film, “Meditation on Savitri”, Sri Aurobindo Complex, Cultural Hall, Sri Aurobindo Mark, J.P. Nagar I Phase, 4.30 p.m.

Welcome Year 2013 Tuesday, 01 January 2013 02:13 Written by Ch. Santakar 

It was midnight and spiritual seekers were sitting around the Relics of The Mother and Sri Aurobindo at Sri Aurobindo Bhavan, Koraput meditating to welcome the New Calendar Year -2013. At 12.00, Calendars of The Mother and Sri Aurobindo which were received from Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondichery (Now Pudduchery) got opened by Prashant Bhai and offered at the Relics for distribution to the seekers. It was a silent moment inside while there was great noise of crackers and shouting outside the campus. Let Divine's Grace fill more strength in all of us to transform the New Year to be a better one in all aspects of life. Words for 31st December-2012

December Meditation from Centre Right India by Aravindan Neelakandan Jan 1, 2013

Swami Vivekananda was the first Hindu monk to tell in modern times that our downfall was due to the neglect of the masses… If we remember that the Upanishads are the epicenters of Sri Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Vedanta, then in the framework of Sri Ramakrishna-Vivekananda tradition, Bhagavat Gita becomes a strong spiritual source for social justice.

Four forerunners: June 21, 2007

In other words, his concern that Vedanta become “practical” is as much a response to the challenge presented by Christian and Utilitarian ethics as it is an interest in the value of practical concerns as such. This response is important to Vivekananda as it is integral to his project of inspiring Indian self-confidence. While European thought played an important role in the development of Vivekananda’s notion of a “practical Vedanta,” Indian elements influencing its development also can not be ignored. Ramakrishna himself had introduced Vivekananda to forms of “tantricizied” Advaita, such as the teachings contained in the Ashtavakra Gita and Yogavashishta.

While he remains theoretically committed to Shankara’s Vedanta, Vivekananda also incorporates into his teaching elements not characteristic of Shankara’s thought. In his conception of non-dualism, Shankara emphasized the discrimination of the world from transcendent brahman; for Shankara, a-dvaita means that brahman has “no other,” no second. Vivekananda, on the other hand, emphasizes a monistic version of non-dualism wherein the world is “non-other” than brahman. This acceptance of the world, which is an aspect of Tantric thought in general, lays the theoretical backdrop against which action in the world, in accordance with the principle of “non-dual ethics,” becomes possible… posted by kelamuni 11:35 AM  

A happy new year to all you psychopaths! from sans serif by churumuri Jan 1, 2013 If you didn’t know what it means to be a psychopath (which is unlikely) here’s the clinical definition:

“Psychopathy is a personality disorder that has been variously described as characterized by shallow emotions (in particular reduced fear), stress tolerance, lacking empathy, coldheartedness, lacking guilt, egocentricity, superficial character, manipulativeness, irresponsibility, impulsivity and antisocial behaviors such as parasitic lifestyle and criminality.”

The Broader Implications Of Karma and Consequence from Sri Aurobindo Studies Jan 1, 2013

When we look at Karma through the lens of perspective, we can see that our usual interpretation of Karma and its effects, focused solely on its impact on our own lives or the most part, is just as faulty as our too narrow view of the role of the individual. Karma and consequence are not solely individual. Just as we are connected to both the universal manifestation through oneness, and our soul is part and parcel of the Eternal manifesting here, so Karma also takes on the aspect of acting on the individual and universal levels. We can find the meaning of karmic consequence not solely in its impact on our limited personality and limited life, but on the lives of others and the entire universal existence…

This opens the door to individual implications to the function of karma in the manifestation as well as universal impacts, and an ever-progressing development, both for the individual and the world within which he acts. 

Royce, Josiah [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy] by JAK Kegley - 12 May 2011 – In place of the earlier “Absolute Knower,” Royce presents the concept of an infinite community of interpretation, guided by a shared spirit of truth-seeking and community building. The Universal Community constitutes reality, and its understanding increases over time, through its members’ continual development of meaning. Royce’s concern for building a universal or “Beloved Community” is exemplified in two later works focused on building peace and a world community: War and Insurance (1914) and The Hope of the Great Community (1916). 8:49 PM 

What Friedrich Nietzsche Can Tell Us About Heaven Patheos (blog) December 22, 2012 By Ryan Adams 

Friedrich Nietzsche is renowned by atheists everywhere for his (usually taken out of context) axiom of the era, “God is dead.”  This misuse of this quote can perhaps in some way shed light on what I mean when I say that we have anything to learn about Heaven, the place where we live with God for eternity, from the man who said that “God is dead.” ‎

Empire by Appeasement from Centre Right India by Jaideep Prabhu Jan 1, 2013

World War I is seen by many historians as a decisive turning point in Great Britain’s imperial experience, separating an era of rampant success from a period of swift decline and dissolution. After 1914, the ability of the British to control their far-flung empire diminished significantly. With the emergence of full-fledged representative democracy in Great Britain in 1918, it seemed at first that the British people were not as much concerned with allocating resources to defend various British imperial possessions in other parts of the world as with domestic issues that had taken on a new urgency in the wake of World War I…

In fact, Great Britain accomplished most by way of diplomacy rather than by use of military force to maintain a preeminent position and influence within her imperial world order that would guarantee her the special international status she had been accustomed to in the past.

11 Nineteen Hundred - Sri Aurobindo Ashram

In September 1909, in an interview with the correspondent of a Tamil nationalist weekly, India, Sri Aurobindo made the following prophecy.

"Since 1907, we are living in a new era which is full of hope for India. Not only India, but the whole world will see sudden upheavals and revolutionary changes. The high will become low and the low high. The oppressed and the depressed shall be elevated. The nation and humanity will be animated by a new consciousness, new thought and new efforts will be made to reach new ends. Amidst these revolutionary changes, India will become free."

Sri Aurobindo Ashram - Regulatory Documents 23 hours ago - Information that the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust is required by MHA, GOI to display: FOREIGN CONTRIBUTION RECEIPTS AND PAYMENTS ACCOUNT FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31^st MARCH, 2012 Total 170,529,822.24 regulatory documents. © 1999 - 2012 Copyright Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust.

Sri Aurobindo is a gradualist, an evolutionist

A greater psychology: an introduction to Sri Aurobindo's ... - Aurobindo Ghose, A. S. Dalal - 2001 - Provides an overview of the psychological thought of the Indian philospher which includes body, mind, soul, and spirit… "When it comes to a 'greater psychology'-one which includes body, mind, soul, and spirit- Aurobindo has much to teach us, as is clearly and beautifully ...

Indian Philosophy Since Independence - Volume 1 - Page 114 - Dale Maurice Riepe - 1979 - Preview - More editions ... an attempt in particular to possess and organise the mysterious occult, outwardly still undeveloped direct power of Mind upon Life and both Mind and Life over Matter. Lest anyone think that Aurobindo has much use for matter or secular ...

Sri Aurobindo and his contemporary thinkers - Page 8 - Indrani Sanyal, Krishna Roy, Jadavpur University - 2007 - Sanyal observes that the idea of universal history as understood by Pramath Nath or Sri Aurobindo has much wider connotation than what is ordinarily conveyed by this expression. Sanyal attempts to elaborate the standpoint of Pramath Nath ...

Annual - Page 106 - Sri Aurobindo mandir, Calcutta - 1995 - Snippet view - More editions This is a very sad state of affairs, because Sri Aurobindo has much to offer to this country: he has brought to us a new model of spirituality which can not only make our terrestrial lives rich and fulfilling, but which can also make us the leaders of ...

Mother India: monthly review of culture - Volume 21 - Page 321 - Kaikhushru Dhunjibhoy Sethna, Sri Aurobindo Ashram - 1969 - We wish to consider some fundamental principles of Sri Aurobindo's world- vision and God-vision. For we are all seeking to deepen our consciousness of Truth, the truth of the Self, and the World, and God — and Sri Aurobindo has much to tell...

International Encyclopaedia of Yoga & Occultism (In Vols. 3) - Page 453 - Prof. Ramesh Gupta - 2008 - As philosopher Ken Wilber comments: "When it comes to a 'greater psychology' — one which includes body, mind, soul, and spirit, in both ascending evolutionary and descending/involutionary currents—(Sri) Aurobindo has much to teach us.

Sri Aurobindo: A Contemporary Reader Sachidananda Mohanty - 2012 - Preview - More editions The organized Hindi group is fighting against the international numeral on the ground of Aryan Culture. Sri Aurobindo has no decided opinion on the question. But if the South Indians and other non-Hindi Provinces insist on this arrangement, ...

Sri Aurobindo and Karl Marx: integral sociology and dialectical ... - Page 90 - Debi Prasad Chattopadhyaya - 1988 - Preview Then he refers to the deliberations of the Stuttgart Socialistic Conference which considered the question whether socialism is consistent with or excludes patriotism. As for himself Sri Aurobindo has no doubt in his mind that socialism, which ...

Aurobindo's Philosophy of Brahman - Page 83 - Stephen H. Phillips - 1986 - Preview - More editions

But Bolle tries to make far too much out of the point, claiming that Aurobindo has no concern for "epistemology" or for the "foundations" of his positions (see p. 88). 89. Agehananda Bharati in 77ic Tantric Tradition (1970) writes: "Tantrism has ...

The Indian Imagination: Critical Essays on Indian Writing in English - Page 221 - K. D. Verma - 2000 - Preview - More editions In Worthy is the World: The Hindu Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo (Rutherford: Far- leigh Dickinson UP, 1971), Beatrice Bruteau notes "Aurobindo's thesis of the three poises of Brahman," and observes: "He [Aurobindo] has no difficulty in admitting...

Spiritual Titanism: Indian, Chinese, and Western Perspectives - Page 150 - Nicholas F. Gier - 2000 - Preview - More editions Aurobindo has no sympathy for those who describe the Superman as the "deification of the rare or solitary ego," which, says Aurobindo, is unfortunately one valid interpretation of Nietzsche's "Overman." Accepting the cooriginality of Devas ...

Sociology, Ideology and Utopia: Socio-Political Philosophy of East ... - Page 39 - Debi Prasad Chattopadhyaya - 1997 - Preview - More editions The label "false subjectivism" appears no more meaningful than the labels of "oriental despotism" and "oriental substantiality". Sri Aurobindo has no hesitation to recognise the philosophers, poets, and musicians of Germany as "great" but to...

Knowledge Consciousness and Religious Co - Page 269 - Michael T. McLaughlin - 2003 - Preview Recall, however, that Aurobindo has no belief in an incarnation in the Christian sense. For Lonergan and for the Christian theologian in general, the incarnation means that the God-Man, Jesus Christ, is the object of CONVERSION IN ...

Coming Into Being: Artifacts and Texts in the Evolution of ... - Page 186 - William Irwin Thompson - 1998 - Preview - More editions So it is small wonder that Aurobindo has no use for sexual love or the affectionate touching of the human body. But the Rig Veda is fascinating precisely because it gives us a way of getting into a mind that is older even perhaps than the texts ...

Against Empire: Feminisms, Racism and 'the' - Page 109 - Zillah Eisenstein - 2004 - Preview - More editions Sri Aurobindo has no patience with "enforced dogma, cults, and moral codes". One's spiritual evolution develops as one finds oneself "more and more united with the collectivity and the AH". This is a fluid religiosity which encompasses a ...

Studies in Sri Aurobindo's philosophy - Page 125 – S.K. Maitra - 1945 - The chief complaint of this writer is that, unlike Sankara, Sri Aurobindo has no faith in intuition, and he has paid me a great compliment by quoting from my book An Introduction to the Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo to show that Sri Aurobindo has...

A New Way of Living - Page 257 - Roy Posner - Preview The spiritual view of time described by Sri Aurobindo has no precedence in human history. It is where all understanding of time and beyond should begin to understand its ultimate frontiers. Ordinary vs. Spiritual View of Time -- The normal ...

The Calcutta review - Page 168 - University of Calcutta, University of Calcutta. Dept. of English - 1934 - Aurobindo has no liking for a negative attitude in life; hence though he sees the dignity of the Nirvana calm, he leaves it aside as not yielding the full fruition of life. Aurobindo is always alive to the intrepid and incessant activity of life in which he ...

The yogi and the mystic: a study in the spirituality of Sri ... - Page 122 - Jan Feys - 1977 - Sri Aurobindo has no use for the traditional 'light and dark courses' the deceased soul is supposed to follow. Instead we have the 'supracosmic' and 'cosmic' states of the soul. These are made to correspond to the double 'Unmanifest' of the ...