Periodical
elections keep the engines of news industry moving which provides a form of
entertainment as well as a sense of participation to large sections of people.
So much so that local issues are often overshadowed by ideological dichotomies
operating at the national level. Anna Hazare and Kejriwal are apt examples of
how Jantar Mantar can turn someone a national figure within a short span of
time. But the sorry spectacle of splintering of the erstwhile Team Anna is due
to lack of a coherent intention or direction.
Against
this backdrop, the work of The Mother & Sri Aurobindo in repackaging the
civilizational perspective of India for a wider global
application procures prominence. Although many of their pet themes such as
popularization of Sanskrit and inculcating poetic sensibility are patently
impractical at present, some key ideas like the East-West integration or
Free-Progress system of education, nevertheless, are doable propositions.
Further, their endeavor of embedding all pursuit of excellence within the overall
trajectory of evolution echoing the Vedic quest for light and immortality
imparts meaning and profundity to ordinary human wants and action.
This
is where spirituality supersedes morality. Morality is surely a force and a
chief ingredient of our social capital but has uncertain effectiveness and a
high rate of mortality. The spiritual path of hitching the wagon to evolution,
on the contrary, is a more dependable and enduring method of ensuring honesty
and creating a largely ethical environment. The Science of Living enunciated by
The Mother is a potent formulation involving depth psychology that awakens the
spiritual dimension in our day to day lives. This shows why and how right
pedagogy should find adequate space within the realm of power struggle and
politics. [TNM55] Posted by
Tusar
N. Mohapatra at
9:32 AM Tuesday, November 06, 2012 Labels:
Anna Hazare,
Evolution,
Kejriwal,
Sri Aurobindo,
The
Mother and Sri Aurobindo Location:
Shipra Riviera, Indirapuram, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, India
Fighting
colonialism as well as resisting revivalism was twin challenges before
Sri Aurobindo as a writer a century ago. Conscious of his task of
fashioning a synthesis, he handled his wide ranging subjects with utmost
sympathy. In his commentaries on ancient Indian texts, his fidelity is matched
by the profundity he furnishes. Not averse towards modern science and
philosophy, he accomplishes a happy harmony of Vedic vision and Evolution.
The
Mother & Sri Aurobindo stand for universality. The present political
situation in
India –
howsoever fragmented it may be – can’t afford to evince as provincial or
parochial. Neither the Nehruvian nor the Hindutva worldview can be counted as
appropriate for
India at
the moment. Rather, the 1947 Five-Dreams broadcast should be considered as the
right saviour. [TNM55] Posted by
Tusar
N. Mohapatra at
4:11 PM Wednesday, November 14, 2012 Labels:
Hindutva,
Manushi,
Nehru,
The
Mother and Sri Aurobindo Location:
Shipra Riviera, Indirapuram, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, India
Tweets
30m -
Savitri Era Party @SavitriEraParty The
followers of Sri Aurobindo can grow a critical mass to influence the politics
of the country provided they forego intellectual hedonism.
58m Che or Hu, a firm commitment to an
ideology is the key. 1947 Five Dreams Manifesto provides a
futuristic road-map for
India and the World.
1h Right moment to get rid of the dynasty
and other nasty personality cults. Neither Anna nor Kejriwal, adopting an
honest ideology is the way.
1h Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo imparts the
right intellectual muscle to judge complex political and economic currents
circulating in the world.
1h Sri Aurobindo's teaching constitutes an
essential feature today for enduring power and nation building. No other
ideological glue is safer.
1h Congress accommodated Leftist
scholarship to look respectable but RSS banished Sri Aurobindo's illuminating
vision from its curriculum.
4h -
Savitri Era Party @SavitriEraParty -
@alok_bhatt @rsyashasvi In commentaries on
ancient Indian texts, his fidelity is matched by the profundity he
furnishes
View
conversation 4h Fighting colonialism as well as
resisting revivalism was twin challenges before Sri Aurobindo as a writer a
century ago.
4h Neither the Nehruvian nor the Hindutva
worldview can be counted as appropriate for
India at the moment.
5 Nov Rely on Sri Aurobindo, and not on
Naipaul, for "rediscovering and questioning every received wisdom"
about Indian history and culture.
4 Nov Sri Aurobindo was a rebel &
stayed so till he breathed his last. Savitri Erans are envoys of Unity,
Mutuality & Harmony. Posted by
Tusar
N. Mohapatra at
10:21 PM Wednesday, November 14, 2012 Labels:
Auroville,
Chanakya,
Che,
Hindutva,
Manushi,
Naipaul,
Nehru,
SriAurobindo
Location:
Shipra Riviera, Indirapuram, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, India
Tweets
1h -
Savitri Era Party @SavitriEraParty The
Mother & Sri Aurobindo have inaugurated a new epoch to break free from the
shackles of the past and its prohibitions.
#SiddhiDay Victory
1h Freedom of thought & intelligence
not only fosters Democracy & Markets but also fights superstition &
propels emancipatory social practices.
1h The Mother & Sri Aurobindo have a
vision for
India that
embodies Knowledge, Power, Harmony, and Perfection and is worthy of
true Leadership.
1h Tailor made careers & doctored
aptitude profiles are civilisational hazards the repercussions of which are
toxic for the nation.
#SiddhiDay 2h Apart from self-management insights,
The Mother & Sri Aurobindo infuse a thought revolution in consonance with
evolution of consciousness.
2h The Mother & Sri Aurobindo offer
the best opportunity to confront our ignorant views and anomalous theoretical
undergirdings that we harbour.
2h The Mother & Sri Aurobindo unveil
an integral perspective transcending narrow parochial barriers and naive nationalism.
Darshan Day on 24th.
2h Calling upon Engineers to allow The
Mother & Sri Aurobindo to re-engineer their lives' priorities so that their
full potential blossoms.
3h Darshan Day on 24th. May young Indians
mobilise motivation to discover The Mother & Sri Aurobindo for transforming
their lives and the world.
20 Nov Kejriwal's new party too runs the
risk of becoming 'another Hindu Mahasabha or another Congress.' Only Sri
Aurobindo gives a new direction.
20 Nov Kasab brings to mind how the
Congress ignored Sri Aurobindo's fervent appeal for accepting the Cripps'
Proposal in 1942 leading to Partition.
20 Nov On November 24, 1926 Sri Aurobindo
had attained Siddhi of realising Overmind truth. Thousands of letters written
thereafter is worth reading.
20 Nov It's Sri Aurobindo who uncovers
Indian wisdom in its purity and heralds it's world-conquering mission as part
of evolution of consciousness.
20 Nov Sir Stafford Cripps immediately
replied by a telegram. Sri Aurobindo also appealed to C. Rajgopalachari to
“save
India”
20 Nov Battle the forces of casteism,
illiberalism, and injustice.
18 Nov Sri Aurobindo is still a marginal
figure in academia. Sri Aurobindo is neglected as literary critic.
17 Nov McTaggart, Nussbaum, Adorno,
Levinas, Laruelle, Heidegger, Wilber, The Mother and Sri Aurobindo.
16 Nov -
@iac007 @MovementIAC Time to bring Sri
Aurobindo to the front & be guided by his 1947 Five-Dreams broadcast. Posted
by
Tusar N. Mohapatra at
9:11 PM Thursday, November 22, 2012 Labels:
Congress,
Hindu
Mahasabha,
Kejriwal,
The
Mother and Sri Aurobindo Location:
Shipra Riviera, Indirapuram, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, India
Sociological
interrogation of the legacy of The Mother & Sri Aurobindo is definitely an
urgency. 1914, 1926, 1956, and 1968 have engendered a plethora of prescriptions
with conflicting and confusing signals that are surely burdensome for any
individual. Further, surviving institutions are certainly not in the shape that
the Masters would have liked them to be for piloting a predominantly collective
yoga. And hence, any lifestyle paradigm receiving tacit endorsement may be
suspect. One safe guiding principle, however, is that the past and its methods
can never be the final touchstone for the pathways of the future.
[TNM55] Posted by
Tusar
N. Mohapatra at
10:13 AM Saturday, November 17, 2012 Labels:
McTaggart,
The
Mother and Sri Aurobindo Location:
Shipra Riviera, Indirapuram, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, India
When
it comes to The Mother & Sri Aurobindo and Integral Yoga, one feels
like
Condoleezza
Rice remarking “The fact of the matter is I've been black all my life.
Nobody needs to tell me how to be black.
[125]”
Like Socrates’ "examined life,” The Mother’s stress on avoiding the misery
of an “aimless life” is perhaps the most basic rule for an aspirant. For a
major stretch in life, however, many mistake earning livelihood for the aim
although the profession provides the opportunity for flowering of talent,
nurturing creativity, and moulding of subjectivity. The resultant
individuality, identity, and social mobility, however, do exert a mesmerizing
effect whereby the chance of coming face to face with choosing an aim or
confronting one’s own real self head on is always deferred. Drawing
satisfaction from some substitute as compensation is, of course, forced by
subsistence compulsions.
Traditional
canons of conduct conveniently contain predominantly direct correspondence
between ethical life and action and liberation. But non-linear Integral Yoga
Ontology and its spiral evolution paradigm is more prone to post-modernist
rapprochement with tentativeness, contingency, and uncertainty of
interpretation. This is no logic to condone misconduct (for, the elephant is
Brahman and so is the
mahut) but the paramountcy of context is
never emphasized more elsewhere. The tenet, All life is Yoga, therefore,
assumes unprecedented significance against this backdrop. Like the Shatadala or
a Sahasra-bahu (called Saas-bahu erroneously in colloquial fashion) temple, the
interdependence, interconnection, and economy within a collectivity is thrown
into sharp relief. Integral Yoga, thus, is no uniform potion; but rather an
arena for experimenting with life along the known tracks and with notions yet
unpracticed. [TNM55] Posted by
Tusar
N. Mohapatra at
6:56 PM Sunday, November 18, 2012 Labels:
Condoleezza
Rice,
Integral Yoga,
Sri Aurobindo,
The
Mother and Sri Aurobindo Location:
Shipra Riviera, Indirapuram, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, India
It’s
not without significance that
Sri
Aurobindo Ashram came into being in 1926 in the wake of
Swarajya Party in
1923 and
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and
Communist
Party of India in 1925. Despite all disclaimers, establishment of a
commune is a palpable political act by which the inmates, not only stay
insulated against unwanted ideological propaganda, but also become
example of
lived values thereby offering an alternative socio-cultural paradigm.
But as we observe at the end of 2012, none of the aforesaid four streams
inspire confidence so far as the future of humanity is concerned.
Technological
breakthrough has brought about quantum leap in integrating thinking all over
the globe but opinions remain as opposed as ever. The Mother & Sri
Aurobindo, however, have asked for
vigilant,
constant, and unceasing aspiration for ushering in
unity, mutuality, and harmony. [TNM55] Posted
by
Tusar N. Mohapatra at
6:56 PM Monday, November 12, 2012 Labels:
CPI,
RSS,
Sri
Aurobindo Ashram,
The
Mother and Sri Aurobindo Location:
Shipra Riviera, Indirapuram, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, India
The
Mother’s proclamation of the descent of the Supramental in 1956 almost
coincided with the sweeping post-Independence hopes of building a
new India. But what we observe 56 years later is not a very encouraging
scene on both the fronts. Despite the democratic pretensions, politics, media,
education, and leisure are all hostage to a pervasive feudal culture. Instead
of the Marxist angst and alienation, a celebratory engrossing with Heideggerian
inauthenticity and trivia seems to be the order of the day. Commerce, of
course, propels excellence as well as quality of life. Patronage for arts and
creativity, too, are hinged to the invisible hand of market dynamics.
Management of human affairs has climbed such macro levels that ordinary human
beings have become inconsequential.
Large
scale money making through arms, drugs, vaccines, and trafficking etc. also
have turned sophisticated avenues that employ cutthroat liaisoning and spying.
Both Corporates and Governments are succumbing to such underworld machinations
not to speak of non-State terror and arm-twisting. Even, many respectable
ecological campaigns hide behind them murky tales of cooked up economics.
Bioethical issues are compounding with the march of technology and media. So,
coping up compulsions is perhaps driving people to cheap forms of entertainment
and arenas of religious dumbing down. To sense something noble and inspiring
within this cacophony, therefore, has surely become a self deluding task. But
The Mother & Sri Aurobindo stay as the only fount of light and hope midst
such oppressive despair. [TNM55] Posted by
Tusar
N. Mohapatra at
8:54 PM Thursday, November 15, 2012 Labels:
Heidegger,
Marx,
Supramental,
The
Mother and Sri Aurobindo Location:
Shipra Riviera, Indirapuram, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, India
Heehs
has made the word “hagiography” famous through his debut in national TV. So,
the general assumption is that what is “non-hagiographic” is true, or at least,
rational and credible. And if the writer happens to hail from the West, then he
must be the most astute and exact while the rest have “vested interests.”
In
four long years, we don’t find even four persons among the civil society to
have read the book to judge it independently. Writing a review and committing
oneself to a distinct view, of course, requires motivation as well as courage.
But even then, many are likely to miss the bone of contention that it’s all
about what Heehs has not explicitly written in the book. [TNM55] Posted
by
Tusar N. Mohapatra at
7:09 PM Friday, November 16, 2012 Labels:
Peter Heehs,
The
Lives of Sri Aurobindo Location:
Shipra Riviera, Indirapuram, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, India
The
firmness with which Sri Aurobindo refutes Nietzsche’s playful
affirmation is a
milestone in the history of human thought. For long, philosophy has been
hostage to a science fiction style of writing or abstract painting. Happily,
fatigue has set in and that epoch is fast coming to a close. Further, defending
Marx, which was considered pivotal to theory, is no longer that sacrosanct.
These are welcome developments but without Sri Aurobindo a satisfying
ontological framework is difficult to put together. [TNM55] Posted
by
Tusar N. Mohapatra at
1:54 AM Tuesday, November 13, 2012 Labels:
Hegel,
Heinrich
Heine,
Kant,
Manushi,
Martin Luther,
Nietzsche,
Sri Aurobindo
Location:
Shipra Riviera, Indirapuram, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, India
The Life Divine commenced on July 18, 1912 and hence
it’s the Centenary year, in a way. The book has not been sufficiently combed by
competent analysts and commentators as yet as it should have been but the
ontological ground it defends against sophisticated harking back to dominant
and fashionable strands of philosophy is priceless. To that extent, it’s
tantamount to a political testament as well. This splendid isolation explains
the allergy of the Hindutva brigade for Sri Aurobindo and matching impatience
of the Leftists for him.
The
West, too, is envious of his magnum opus and strives to ignore and eclipse it.
Academicians feel safe by labeling it under religion out of lethargy. Thinking
theologians of all hues are jealous of the coherence of its content but fear
its hegemony. But the synthetic cosmology that
The Life Divine sets
forth is a sure guide for unification of mankind and congealing harmony.
[TNM55]
Posted by
Tusar
N. Mohapatra at
9:43 PM Monday, November 05, 2012 Labels:
Hindutva,
Karnad,
Ken Wilber,
Leftist,
Levi Bryant,
Martha
Nussbaum,
Muslims,
Naipaul,
Naturalism,
OOO,
The Life
Divine Location:
Shipra Riviera, Indirapuram, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, India
Sri
Aurobindo’s name underwent many metamorphoses during his lifetime. From stark
anonymity to a slew of pseudonyms and acronyms, his experimentation ended with
his signing as Sri Aurobindo sans any surname or caste identity. His works,
understandably, have been published under that name and, ordinarily, he is
referred to as so. But there are certain types of people who are intolerant of
his adding Sri to his name and are always eager to geld it. The Sri to them is
a canopy of fundamentalism that smacks of unjustified superiority, thus
threatening secular sensibilities.
The
fact is that no one can help in this matter as Sri Aurobindo is no more and
can’t be questioned as to why he wanted to retain his name this way. So, the
minimum one can do is not to distort his name by eclipsing Sri. In book indexes
too he should appear under the alphabet S and not A or G as Sri is
not an honorific here but an integral part of his name. Sri Aurobindo is yet to
receive the prestige he deserves as a poet and a thinker and hence the need to
resist the snatching away of his Sri. [TNM55] Posted by
Tusar
N. Mohapatra at
4:47 PM Tuesday, November 13, 2012 Labels:
Hinduism,
Sri Aurobindo
Location:
Shipra Riviera, Indirapuram, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, India
The
methodological quandary has been a constant companion of man since millennia
and no possible remedy for it is in sight. Despite their exhaustive writings,
The Mother & Sri Aurobindo – let’s face it – have not left behind some firm
opinion on any specific topic. So, one must be extremely circumspect while
recommending a slice of their prescriptions or endorsing its splice with some
other formulation.
Internet
has greatly facilitated availability of texts, but just because something is
written, it can’t be taken at its face value. The content, by itself, is no
assurance of truth or commensurate performance. Religious texts have existed
for thousands of years but what we find in the society at present is sham and
scams. Yoga or spirituality, if ineffective to refine the collective life, then
will be accused of collusion or escapism. Heehs imbroglio has been instrumental
in spreading the fragrance of Sadhana in Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Puducherry
from Columbia to Cambodia. It’s shameful that
Dr. Karan Singh remains the Chairman of Auroville
Governing Board for next four years. [TNM55] Posted by
Tusar
N. Mohapatra at
3:03 PM Friday, November 02, 2012 Labels:
Ambedkar,
Auroville,
Foucault,
Heidegger,
Husserl,
The
Mother and Sri Aurobindo Location:
Shipra Riviera, Indirapuram, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, India
Home
A
great day as the focus is on
Sri Aurobindo by influential right wing. We agree with
Gaurav’s criteria barring the last point in which he sidetracks web based
offerings. As one who has been at the
receiving end of many
rebuffs for
urging people to take the socio-political philosophy of
Sri Aurobindo seriously, the web is a great empowering
tool with vast potentiality of making minds meet. Street politics may be the
flavour of the season, but ultimately it's words and opinions which will
matter. Savitri Era Party looks forward to the day of such enlightened politics
being ushered in. [TNM55] Posted by
Tusar
N. Mohapatra at
6:12 PM No
comments: Links
Friday, November 02, 2012 Labels:
Chanakya,
Nehru,
Savitri
Era Party,
Sri Aurobindo
Location:
Shipra Riviera, Indirapuram, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, India
For
a couple of years, Blogs were a rage and hence followed multi-pronged flurry at
sabotage.
Facebook,
Twitter,
LinkedIn, and sundry social media and networking ventures
cropped up to compete. Most mainstream publications also renamed their features
as Blogs. The individual voice was drowned amid the surfeit of sites
mechanically reproducing news and sales props. However, the utility of Blogs
will ensure their longevity albeit with dwindled popularity.
Another
threat is disproportionate flood of videos and photographs which devalue the
reading material. Overemphasizing graphics and designing too seduces the eyes
elsewhere. Modified version for mobiles or tablets robs the Blogs of their
unique charm and some outreach arms. Country-based URL is a prelude to
restricted circulation and diminished distribution. But the lure of freedom and
free publishing will continue to draw new entrants to etch their speech for
future generations. [TNM55] Posted by
Tusar
N. Mohapatra at
9:27 PM Tuesday,
November 20, 2012 Location:
Shipra Riviera, Indirapuram, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, India
