The Sanskrit language is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek

Greek, Sanskrit, and Closely Related Languages
The Sanskrit language whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined then either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and in the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong, indeed, that no philosopher could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists.
Sir William Jones (1746-1794), speaking to the Asiatick Society in Calcutta, February 2, 1786...

"Knowing" Words inIndo-European Languages
The first systematic theory of the relationships between human languages began when Sir William Jones, "Oriental Jones," proposed in 1786 that Greek and Latin, the classical languages of Europe, and Sanskrit, the classical language of India, had all descended from a common source. The evidence for this came from both the structure of the languages -- Sanskrit grammar has similarities to Greek and to nothing else -- and the vocabulary of the languages. Thus, "father" in English compares to "Vater" in German, "pater" in Latin, "patêr" in Greek, "pitr." in Sanskrit, "pedar" in Persian, etc. On the other hand, "father" in Arabic is "ab," which hardly seems like any of the others. This became the theory of "Indo-European" languages, and today the hypothetical language that would be the common source for all Indo-European languages is called "Proto-Indo-European." Home Page Kelley L. Ross, Ph.D.

A series of vedantically possible worlds

AntiMatters, Vol 1, No 1 (2007) Home About Log In Register Search Current Archives Book Store Home > Vol 1, No 1 (2007) > Mohrhoff
Particles, Consciousness, Volition: A Vedantic Vision
Ulrich J Mohrhoff
Abstract
This essay puts forward a theory of existence that takes its cue from both contemporary physics and Indian Vedanta. The quantum statistics of indistinguishable particles strongly suggests that the “ultimate” constituents of matter, considered out of relation to each other, are identical in the strong sense of numerical identity. This makes it possible to identify each fundamental particle with the vedantic brahman, which relates to the world in a threefold manner: as a substance constituting it (sat), as a consciousness containing it (chit), and as an infinite quality/delight expressing and experiencing itself in finite forms and movements (ānanda).

The fundamental identity of sat with chit makes it possible to understand how anything material can exist for anything material. The fundamental identity of sat with ānanda holds the clue to the free will conundrum. A discussion of a series of vedantically possible worlds solves these problems by showing how they arise and how they become hard. An examination of our place in the vedantic scheme of things at this particular juncture of the drama of evolution is followed by a speculation about the drama’s dénouement. Full Text: PDF

Knowledge of God is found in the observation of the natural order and one’s place in it

The Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar is part of the fourth Book of the Emile...The discussion is particularly significant in that it marks the most comprehensive metaphysical account in Rousseau’s thought.

The Profession of Faith also includes the controversial discussion of natural religion, which was in large part the reason why Emile was banned. The controversy of this doctrine is the fact that it is categorically opposed to orthodox Christian views, specifically the claim that Christianity is the one true religion. The Vicar claims instead that knowledge of God is found in the observation of the natural order and one’s place in it. And so, any organized religion that correctly identifies God as the creator and preaches virtue and morality, is true in this sense. Therefore, the Vicar concludes, each citizen should dutifully practice the religion of his or her own country so long as it is in line with the religion, and thus morality, of nature. Back to Table of Contents iep.utm.edu

Kant adored “Émile” and went somewhat further than Rousseau had

The Politics of God By MARK LILLA The Times Magazine: August 19, 2007
After centuries of strife, the West has learned to separate religion and politics — to establish the legitimacy of its leaders without referring to divine command. There is little reason to expect that the rest of the world — the Islamic world in particular — will follow.

The children of Rousseau followed a different line of argument. Medieval political theology was not salvageable, but neither could human beings ignore questions of eternity and transcendence when thinking about the good life. When we speculate about God, man and world in the correct way, we express our noblest moral sentiments; without such reflection we despair and eventually harm ourselves and others. That is the lesson of the Savoyard vicar.
In the aftermath of the French Revolution, the Terror and Napoleon’s conquests, Rousseau’s children found a receptive audience in continental Europe. The recent wars had had nothing to do with political theology or religious fanaticism of the old variety; if anything, people reasoned, it was the radical atheism of the French Enlightenment that turned men into beasts and bred a new species of political fanatic. Germans were especially drawn to this view, and a wave of romanticism brought with it great nostalgia for the religious “world we have lost.” It even touched sober philosophers like Immanuel Kant and G. W. F. Hegel. Kant adored “Émile” and went somewhat further than Rousseau had, not only accepting the moral need for rational faith but arguing that Christianity, properly reformed, would represent the “true universal Church” and embody the very “idea” of religion. Hegel went further still, attributing to religion an almost vitalistic power to forge the social bond and encourage sacrifice for the public good. Religion, and religion alone, is the original source of a people’s shared spirit, which Hegel called its Volksgeist.
These ideas had an enormous impact on German religious thought in the 19th century, and through it on Protestantism and Judaism throughout the West. This was the century of “liberal theology,” a term that requires explanation. In modern Britain and the United States, it was assumed that the intellectual, and then institutional, separation of Christianity and modern politics had been mutually beneficial — that the modern state had benefited by being absolved from pronouncing on doctrinal matters, and that Christianity had benefited by being freed from state interference. No such consensus existed in Germany, where the assumption was that religion needed to be publicly encouraged, not reined in, if it was to contribute to society. It would have to be rationally reformed, of course: the Bible would have to be interpreted in light of recent historical findings, belief in miracles abandoned, the clergy educated along modern lines and doctrine adapted to a softer age. But once these reforms were in place, enlightened politics and enlightened religion would join hands.
Protestant liberal theologians soon began to dream of a third way between Christian orthodoxy and the Great Separation. They had unshaken faith in the moral core of Christianity, however distorted it may have been by the forces of history, and unshaken faith in the cultural and political progress that Christianity had brought to the world. Christianity had given birth to the values of individuality, moral universalism, reason and progress on which German life was now based. There could be no contradiction between religion and state, or even tension. The modern state had only to give Protestantism its due in public life, and Protestant theology would reciprocate by recognizing its political responsibilities. If both parties met their obligations, then, as the philosopher F. W. J. Schelling put it, “the destiny of Christianity will be decided in Germany.”
Among Jewish liberal thinkers, there was a different sort of hope, that of acceptance as equal citizens. After the French Revolution, a fitful process of Jewish emancipation began in Europe, and German Jews were more quickly integrated into modern cultural life than in any other European country — a fateful development. For it was precisely at this moment that German Protestants were becoming convinced that reformed Christianity represented their national Volksgeist. While the liberal Jewish thinkers were attracted to modern enlightened faith, they were also driven by the apologetic need to justify Judaism’s contribution to German society. They could not appeal to the principles of the Great Separation and simply demand to be left alone. They had to argue that Judaism and Protestantism were two forms of the same rational moral faith, and that they could share a political theology. As the Jewish philosopher and liberal reformer Hermann Cohen once put it, “In all intellectual questions of religion we think and feel ourselves in a Protestant spirit.”
V. Courting the Apocalypse

This was the house that liberal theology built, and throughout the 19th century it looked secure. It wasn’t, and for reasons worth pondering. Liberal theology had begun in hope that the moral truths of biblical faith might be intellectually reconciled with, and not just accommodated to, the realities of modern political life. Yet the liberal deity turned out to be a stillborn God, unable to inspire genuine conviction among a younger generation seeking ultimate truth. For what did the new Protestantism offer the soul of one seeking union with his creator? It prescribed a catechism of moral commonplaces and historical optimism about bourgeois life, spiced with deep pessimism about the possibility of altering that life. It preached good citizenship and national pride, economic good sense and the proper length of a gentleman’s beard. But it was too ashamed to proclaim the message found on every page of the Gospels: that you must change your life. And what did the new Judaism bring to a young Jew seeking a connection with the traditional faith of his people? It taught him to appreciate the ethical message at the core of all biblical faith and passed over in genteel silence the fearsome God of the prophets, his covenant with the Jewish people and the demanding laws he gave them. Above all, it taught a young Jew that his first obligation was to seek common ground with Christianity and find acceptance in the one nation, Germany, whose highest cultural ideals matched those of Judaism, properly understood. To the decisive questions — “Why be a Christian?” and “Why be a Jew?” — liberal theology offered no answer at all.
By the turn of the 20th century, the liberal house was tottering, and after the First World War it collapsed. It was not just the barbarity of trench warfare, the senseless slaughter, the sight of burned-out towns and maimed soldiers that made a theology extolling “modern civilization” contemptible. It was that so many liberal theologians had hastened the insane rush to war, confident that God’s hand was guiding history. In August 1914, Adolf von Harnack, the most respected liberal Protestant scholar of the age, helped Kaiser Wilhelm II draft an address to the nation laying out German military aims. Others signed an infamous pro-war petition defending the sacredness of German militarism. Astonishingly, even Hermann Cohen joined the chorus, writing an open letter to American Jews asking for support, on the grounds that “next to his fatherland, every Western Jew must recognize, revere and love Germany as the motherland of his modern religiosity.” Young Protestant and Jewish thinkers were outraged when they saw what their revered teachers had done, and they began to look elsewhere.
But they did not turn to Hobbes, or to Rousseau. They craved a more robust faith, based on a new revelation that would shake the foundations of the whole modern order. It was a thirst for redemption. Ever since the liberal theologians had revived the idea of biblical politics, the stage had been set for just this sort of development. When faith in redemption through bourgeois propriety and cultural accommodation withered after the Great War, the most daring thinkers of the day transformed it into hope for a messianic apocalypse — one that would again place the Jewish people, or the individual Christian believer, or the German nation, or the world proletariat in direct relation with the divine.
Young Weimar Jews were particularly drawn to these messianic currents through the writings of Martin Buber, who later became a proponent of interfaith understanding but as a young Zionist promoted a crude chauvinistic nationalism. In an early essay he called for a “Masada of the spirit” and proclaimed: “If I had to choose for my people between a comfortable, unproductive happiness . . . and a beautiful death in a final effort at life, I would have to choose the latter. For this final effort would create something divine, if only for a moment, but the other something all too human.” Language like this, with strong and discomforting contemporary echoes for us, drew deeply from the well of biblical messianism. Yet Buber was an amateur compared with the Marxist philosopher Ernst Bloch, who used the Bible to extol the utopia then under construction in the Soviet Union. Though an atheist Jew, Bloch saw a connection between messianic hope and revolutionary violence, which he admired from a distance. He celebrated Thomas Müntzer, the 16th-century Protestant pastor who led bloody peasant uprisings and was eventually beheaded; he also praised the brutal Soviet leaders, famously declaring “ubi Lenin, ibi Jerusalem” — wherever Lenin is, there is Jerusalem.

« Previous Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next Page » Mark Lilla is professor of the humanities at Columbia University. This essay is adapted from his book “The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics and the Modern West,” which will be published next month.

The integral Knowledge is already there in integral Reality

"The integral Knowledge is something that is already there in integral Reality: it is not a new or still non-existing thing that has to be created, acquired, learned, invented or built up by the mind; it must rather be discovered or uncovered, it is a Truth that is self-revealed to a spiritual endeavour: for it is there veiled in our deeper and greater self; it is the very stuff of our own spiritual consciousness, and it is by awaking to it even in our surface self that we have to possess it."
Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine

No culture has had a monopoly on these forerunners

The Yoga of Self-Perfection and the Triple Transformation
by Richard Hartz Introduction: Yoga and Evolution

A remarkable result of the meeting of the “timeless” East with the progressive West is the idea of Yoga as a process related to evolution. The origins of this idea can be traced back at least to Swami Vivekananda. But it was left to Sri Aurobindo to arrive at a synthesis of the principles and methods of Yoga that is profoundly evolutionary in its spirit.

As early as 1909, Sri Aurobindo declared: “Yoga must be revealed to mankind because without it mankind cannot take the next step in the human evolution.”[1] It was soon after his release from Alipore jail that he wrote this sentence in an essay entitled “Man—Slave or Free?” A year’s enforced withdrawal from the Indian freedom struggle had given him an unexpected opportunity for concentration and spiritual realisation. The sentence in his essay foreshadowed the view of the evolutionary significance of Yoga on which his future work would be based.

But “Yoga” has meant many things in India’s long history. In all its forms, it has aimed at some kind of surpassing of the ordinary human condition through the development of supernormal capacities or states of consciousness. In the Indian tradition, however, the recognition of the limitless inner potential of the individual human being was not accompanied by an equally dynamic ideal of outward, collective progress. Nor was there an explicit idea of evolution in anything like the modern sense, in spite of some tantalising hints.[2] It was only at the end of the nineteenth century that, under the stimulus of Western thought, a Vedantic conception of evolution arose and provided a framework for reinterpreting Yoga in an evolutionary context.

The theory of evolution provoked heated controversy in the West due to its perceived conflict with Christian doctrines. But it was readily assimilated by Indian thinkers, who adapted it to their philosophy by seeing it as a kind of cosmic Yoga. In both evolution and Yoga, there is an unfolding of higher and higher grades of consciousness. Consciousness is a puzzling anomaly to Western science. In contrast, it is central to the neo-Vedantic theory which posits a prior involution of Spirit in Matter as a precondition for evolution.[3] A major problem of materialistic reductionism is thus avoided. Moreover, the involution hypothesis suggests the possibility that mind is only an intermediate outcome of the evolutionary process. Yoga, which attempts to go beyond the rational mind, can therefore be redefined as a deliberate means of accelerating our further evolution. As Swami Vivekananda put it:

Now... take the whole of the animal creation, man and the lower animals, as one whole. There is an end towards which the whole is moving. Let us call it perfection. Some men and women are born who anticipate the whole progress of mankind. Instead of waiting and being reborn over and over again for ages until the whole human race has attained to that perfection, they, as it were, rush through them in a few short years of their life.[4]

No culture has had a monopoly on these forerunners, among whom Vivekananda included all the great incarnations and prophets. But he went on to speak of methods by which even those not born with extraordinary gifts can hasten their progress. The Indian subcontinent has long been the scene of particularly intensive, systematic and many-sided efforts to work out such methods. These are the various forms of Yoga as it has been transmitted and elaborated from ancient times. Yoga in this sense remains largely unknown to the world in spite of the popularity of the postures and breathing exercises of Hathayoga, which recently have all but usurped the name “yoga”...posted by Debashish on Mon 13 Aug 2007 04:06 PM PDT Permanent Link Science, Culture and Integral Yoga

Each student's progress is assessed by standards appropriate to him

Pondicherry Education without examination The Hindu Tuesday, August 14

Puducherry, Aug. 14 (PTI): Completing studies without facing a single examination and getting into a desired career is a distant dream for any student - but students of an institution here have been enjoying such a practice for years.
The Sri Aurobindo International Centre for Education here has been, for decades, following the model of 'voluntary pursuit of knowledge' and churning out young talents.
The authorities of the Ashram, speaking to PTI ahead of the 135th birth anniversary of Sri Aurobindo tomorrow, said the Centre for Education was set up in 1943 to realise the great philosopher's vision on education.
The 18 years of learning at the Centre covers three years in kinder-garten, 12 years of secondary education and three years of higher education. The final three years of higher education has been recognised by the Puducherry Territorial Administration as equivalent to graduation.
In the absence of examination, each teacher gives individual attention to the students and, upon assessment, they are promoted, said Manoj Das Gupta, Managing Trustee of the ashram.
"We believe that it would be irrational to set a uniform standard of progress for all students. Each individual is considered a special centre having his own unique rhythms and modes of progress. Each student's progress is assessed by standards appropriate to him."
"To ensure individual attention, we restrict the strength of students to 400," said Gupta.
The Centre which does not confer degrees, has been churning out students who have always successfully got into their preferred careers, said Matri Prasad, a faculty member.

Power of the Sanskrit language to carry the deepest and most recondite truths and processes of yoga

Re: Untold Potentialities: India and the Third World. by Richard Hartz (2)

by Debashish on Sat 11 Aug 2007 08:49 PM PDT Profile Permanent Link

I have just concluded a seven-day intensive study of Sri Aurobindo's Record of Yoga with Richard Hartz, the writer of this article and an "American" disciple of Sri Aurobindo, who works with the master's texts at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram archives. Certainly, the overwhelming impression I have received from this study is that of the power of the Sanskrit language to carry the deepest and most recondite truths and processes of yoga. This is the language Sri Aurobindo used to record for himself his own progress in sadhana. But he also used a variety of alternate lexicons which he himself created for a wider readership in English, so that the terms of the Record are seldom used in his more well known writings.

Somewhere, in his swadeshi period, Sri Aurobindo has said "India preserves that which preserves the world." By this he means yoga. He has also written "Yoga must be revealed to mankind because without it he cannot take the net step in the evolution." So, when we speak of cultural specificity and enduring social qualities, this is certainly one which India seems to have preserved, even if it appears at certain times to "go under" in the mass.

But from my viewpoint (without the antardristi to make pronouncements on the persistence of soul-qualities from birth to birth) this quality has emerged at a certain point in history, has seen its rises and falls and reasserted itself, again often by historical accident, a number of times and in a number of ways, often bringing new formulations which seemed contrary to what had already been developed. The Sufis and pirs have contributed to this stream as have the bhaktas and jnanis of innumerable sects, some of which are unknown beyond the village in which they were born. Kings and emperors of innumerable beliefs have added their bit to it through patronage and practice.

Today, we may be debating fiercely whether the Aryans were indigenous to India or came from elsewhere to supplant or mix with the populations of the Indus Valley, but a study of Indus Valley culture proves that the notion of yoga is well established in it. The exceeding of human structures towards the dual goals of liberation and earth-possession become an enduring concern and the definition of the human being in this cultural discourse, in which Sri Aurobindo's version "Man is a transitional being" is only a recent formulation.

So a revitalization of this tradition and its engagement with modernity is certainly the order of the day for Indians. But this is only possible through the example and teaching of a lived and creative spirituality, not through the classification of national orthodoxies. DB

Aswapati has offered his prayer in the golden fire of his aspiration

Re: 18: The Wonderful Boon
by RY Deshpande on Mon 06 Aug 2007 01:15 AM PDT Profile Permanent Link

The check-list

Let us see the check-list containing Aswapati’s stipulations and what the most excellent boon grants. He hails the divine Wisdom as the radiant fountain of the world’s delight, world-free and unattainable, mystery and muse speaking with a hieratic tongue and lays down how she should come as the incarnate:

• she in the white passion of her force should incarnate herself here • mission upon earth a living form of hers • her eternity should step into the movement of the earthly time that it becomes a speeding part of her eternity • her infinity live in one body • her knowledge, in seas of light, surge through the mind • her love beat in one human heart • take a beautiful form and walk, the immortal, with mortal feet, into the paces of the death-bound creature • her omnipotence should take possession of the mortal’s will • her eternal might load the tick-tack of the helpless and feeble human hour • by accepting such a mortal birth she should change the course events • she should mould the new future, reshape destiny that it becomes good and great and godly

Aswapati has offered his prayer in the golden fire of his aspiration in the context of the destiny of the creation; he presently entreats her to speak a great word and unlock the doors of Fate. Whatever he wanted that he has described in precise details, as to what kind of person she should be as the incarnate, her spirit, and her mind and heart and soul and her body, every feature of hers, and what exactly she should accomplish in this mortal birth of hers. The whole of his yogic force is there in it, in its winning brightness.

Now here is the new-age ushering Boon, the Boon-giver addressing Aswapati as a strong forerunner:

• One shall descend and break the iron Law • Change Nature’s doom by the lone Spirit’s power • A limitless Mind shall can contain the world • A sweet and violent heart of ardent calms Moved by the passions of the gods shall come • All mights and greatnesses shall join in her • Beauty shall walk celestial on the earth • Delight shall sleep in the cloud-net of her hair And in her body as on his homing tree Immortal Love shall beat his glorious wings • A music of griefless things shall weave her charm The harps of the Perfect shall attune her voice The streams of Heaven shall murmur in her laugh Her lips shall be the honeycombs of God Her limbs his golden jars of ecstasy Her breasts the rapture-flowers of Paradise • She shall bear Wisdom in her voiceless bosom,\ • Strength shall be with her like a conqueror’s sword • And from her eyes the Eternal’s bliss shall gaze • A seed shall be sown in Death’s tremendous hour A branch of heaven transplant to human soil

In her coming Nature shall overleap her mortal step and Fate herself shall undergo a radical transformative change, changed by an unchanging will. Even as the well-etched features of her spirit and mind and heart and body and soul are descried in conformity with what was asked, her mission too stands out in a well-defined manner. The tally is exact—and wonderful, exceptionally wonderful. Not only is the mission well-defined; there is also the necessary force to accomplish it. “Let the word be spoken from the heights,” Aswapati had mentioned and the word was spoken—the Word that brings realisation to what is spoken, the creative-formative Word charged with the Truth’s executive dynamism. RYD

Changes and revisions in Sri Aurobindo's understanding and teaching

The Yoga of Self-Perfection and the Triple Transformation by Richard Hartz
by Debashish on August 5, 2007 04:58AM (PDT)

The personal yoga of Sri Aurobindo, as he himself once characterized it, was an "incalculable" one, leading from realization to realization in a journey without end. Through his life, Sri Aurobindo attempted to chart this journey in the form of a darshana (or philosophy) and a yoga (a process leading to experience and transformation). His earliest formulation to himself of this journey with its goals and processes is what he called the Sapta Chatusthaya (Seven Quartets) which form the background to his private notes to himself of his own yogic progress, kept mostly between 1912-1920 and now publshed as The Record of Yoga.

Between 1914-1920, he wrote most of his major works in the serialized journal, Arya, where he outlined his yoga, philosophy of evolution and social philosophy in terms which may also be thought of as contemporaneous with the Record of Yoga. Particularly, in his principal work on yoga, The Synthesis of Yoga, the fourth part, the Yoga of Self-Perfection, can be thought of as a yoga of transformation, a new formulation for the future which followed the achievements of the more traditional yogas of Works, Knowledge and Divine Love, comprising respectively the first three parts of Sri Aurobindo's synthesis in this text. This Yoga of Self-Perfection can largely be correlated with the Sapta Chatusthaya and thus, the Record of Yoga.

Later, after 1926, we have Sri Aurobindo's Letters on Yoga and later still, after 1932, further revisions to his other texts, including the Synthesis of Yoga and the Life Divine. In these writings, Sri Aurobindo introduces a new terminology and what may seem new emphases to his yoga and darshana. Richard Hartz, who works at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram archives, has studied Sri Aurobindo's texts and revisions intensively as an editor of his Complete Works and takes a historical view of the development of Sri Aurobindo's yoga and writing.

Here, he raises and tries to answer some of the questions pertaining to the changes and revisions in Sri Aurobindo's understanding and teaching, by looking at the Record of Yoga, the Yoga of Self-Perfection and other key texts of Sri Aurobindo such as the Life Divine and Savitri. He also considers what may be the special contribution of Sri Aurobindo to the Indian tradition of yoga and touches on the part paid by Vivekananda as a precursor. more » Leave Comment Permanent Link

But ahead of this Siddhi Yoga we also have two remarkable poetic creations of the Master-Poet

All Life is Yoga by RY Deshpande on Fri 27 Jul 2007 05:30 PM PDT Permanent Link Inspired by Ron’s posting with seven photographs of Sri Aurobindo, I am briefly presenting here in the following a biography depicting the seven aspects of his yogic life. These seven aspects are Abhyasa Yoga, Jivan Yoga, Diksha Yoga, Jnana Yoga, Siddhi Yoga, Divya Yoga, and Param Yoga, that is, Studentship-Life-Initiation-Knowledge-Perfection-Resplendence-Absoluteness.

While commenting upon an early biographer’s attempt to present his life Sri Aurobindo, in the course of a conversation with his attendant-disciples, once remarked as follows: “Nobody except myself can write my life—because it has not been on the surface for man to see.” Yet we should be concerned with a few worldly facts from a certain point of view. And the strange thing is that, for a discerning eye, these facts also bring an intuitive vision which can provide a distant bio-spiritual peep into the secrecies of the person whom we so much adore. No wonder, philosophers have described him as the greatest synthesis between the East and the West; critics have acclaimed him as a poet par excellence; social scientists regard him as the builder of a new society based on enduring values of the life of the spirit; devotees throng in mute veneration offering their heart and their soul in a silent prayer that can secure for them the beatitude of the Supreme; Yogins long to live in the sunlight of his splendour to kindle in it their own suns; in the tranquil benignity of his spiritual presence is the fulfilment of all our hopes and all our keenest and noblest aspirations; gods of light and truth and joy and beauty and sweetness are busy in their tasks to carry out his will in the creation; in him the avataric incarnation becomes man to realize the divine in man. Such is the real birth of the Immortal in the Mortal. He comes here as Sri Aurobindo...

Not long after his coming to Pondicherry in 1910 Mme Alexandra David-Néel, who acquainted herself deeply with Tibetan occultism, met Sri Aurobindo in 1912. About her meeting with him she reports: “His perfect familiarity with the philosophies of India and the West wasn’t what drew my attention: what was of greater importance to me was the special magnetism that flew out of his presence, and the occult hold he had over those who surrounded him.” A glimpse of that special magnetism, which grew more and more luminous as his Yoga progressed, we may get from his diary records of the period between 1912-1920. Meticulous as a scientist’s were his observations of the various spiritual siddhis or realisations achieved by him. These constitute a unique record in the entire annals of spirituality. About these documents collectively called Record of Yoga, the compiler writes as follows: “This document is noteworthy in at least three respects… It provides a first-hand account of the day-to-day growth of the spiritual faculties of an advanced yogin… The language of Record of Yoga is bare, unliterary, often couched in arcane terminology… What it provides is a down-to-earth account of a multitude of events, great and small, inner and outer… It may be looked on as the laboratory notebook of an extended series of experiments in yoga.” The intent must have been to fix what was experienced, fixed in the occult way in the working of the yogic process.

In the yogic parlance we may say that this was the period when Sri Aurobindo’s attempts were towards supramentalisation of the mental planes that presently govern our limited evolutionary consciousness. There was soon to follow the supramentalisation of the vital. The last significant stage of the great triple transformation was to be preceded in 1926 by what Sri Aurobindo called overmentalisation of the physical. But ahead of this Siddhi Yoga we also have two remarkable poetic creations of the Master-Poet.

Sri Aurobindo had started writing his epic Ilion while in Alipore jail; he took it up again and worked upon it during the early period at Pondicherry. This was lightly revised by dictation in the late 40s. Then, during 1916-1918, in the midst of his multidimensional Arya-scripting, Sri Aurobindo also made a preliminary draft of his magnum opus Savitri. Eventually it “became a poetic chronicle of his yoga.” We have similarly the record of his later Yogic realisations in his poetic compositions of the 30s. But what stands out as the double autobiography, his and the Mother’s spiritual realisations in the transformative Yoga of the earth-consciousness, is his supreme creation—in the Mother’s phrase, supreme revelation—Savitri. That indeed marks Divya Yoga of the Supreme himself. Keywords: Studies, SriAurobindo, Spirituality, Personalities, People, Literature, Evolution, Events, Biography, Avatar, Ashram

You will get precisely that which you wish to have

Re: 17: An Ardent Prayer by RY Deshpande

on Wed 01 Aug 2007 05:14 PM PDT Profile Permanent Link

In the occult-spiritual working it is a well-known fact that, as a reward of your aspiration and yoga-tapasya, you will get what you ask for; you will get precisely that which you wish to have. The burden therefore lies entirely on the aspirant soul and he has to be extremely careful in making his choice, so to say, his demand. The Asuras, when they did extremely difficult tapasya, wanted power for self-aggrandisement; and they did get it but, ultimately, when things went against the law of the cosmic functioning they had to be eliminated.

You go to the temple and ask for fritters and the image has no difficulty in granting the fritters to you; what you ask and get depends entirely upon the quality and the strength of the plea you make, it depends upon the sort of sadhana you did, upon the nature of the spiritual self-control, regulation you observed, upon the intensity with which you followed the discipline...RYD

During his stay in Baroda his endeavours in the spiritual field had the nation’s freedom as the goal

Sage of Puducherry SAROJINI PREMCHAND The Hindu Tuesday, Jul 31, 2007 Book Review Telugu SRI ARAVINDA DARSHANAM: Srisarvari; Master Yogashram, Plot 89, Krishna Enclave, Military Dairy Farm Road, Tirumalagiri Road, Secunderabad-500015. Rs. 100.

THE ‘SUPERMIND’ which is in its very essence truth-consciousness manifests when there is a complete change in the consciousness of man. This book unfolds the life of the sage of Puducherry, Sri Aurobindo, who gave the above message to the world.
Born on August 15, 1872 he was taken to England for studies when he was seven. Passion for English and French literatures, European history and writing poetry were the marked features of his student days. While setting foot on Indian soil he had a unique spiritual experience.
According to Sri Aurobindo he started ‘looking inward’ when he was 13 and Max Mueller’s writings instilled in him a penchant for Vedanta. During his stay in Baroda his endeavours in the spiritual field had the nation’s freedom as the goal.
While in prison he was overpowered by a radical change. Later renouncing political life he embarked on a secret journey. Subramanya Bharati was one among those who received him when he came to Puducherry. It was the arrival of Mirra Alfassa, a French lady, that propelled his spiritual journey with a new force and the Ashram grew into a focal point for seekers from all over the world.
The author of this biography shows fine command over language and excels while describing Aurobindo’s ethereal states of being. Good photographs and quality printing make this an attractive volume.

Prof. Anil Baran Roy

Krishna Chandra College Hetampur Rajbati, Hetampur Dist. :- Birbhum (W.B.) PIN – 731124 Phone :- (03462) 270236 principal_kc_college@yahoo.co.in It is interesting to note that quite a number of celebrated scholars and academics started their professional career here. We may mention a few e.g. Dr. B B Majumdar (noted historian associated with Patna University), Prof. Anil Baran Roy (brilliant scholar of philosophy and literature and one of the leading figures of Sri Aurobindo Ashram , Pondicherry )…www.krishnachandracollege.org/

Ramkinkar received his primary education in a local ‘Pathshala’ (rural lower primary school). Later, he studied sporadically in the Banga Vidyalaya and Jatiya Vidyalaya. In the interim, he got admitted in the Night School as well. During the Non Cooperation Movement, he had established propinquity with the renowned professor and patriot Anil Baran Roy. The latter inspired Ramkinkar to make portraits of Chittaranjan, Arabindo Ghosh and M.K. Gandhi in oil - colours. www.catchcal.com/kaleidoscope/paintings/painting20.asp

Why Agni and Vak are together?

Tue, 17/07/2007 - 10:06 — vladimir

So Brahman is present in all our faculties as the Sight of our Sight, the Hearing of our Hearing, the Mind of our Mind, Word of our Word, Life of our Life, Body of our Body. And since all our faculties are turned outside to the surface of consciousness, we cannot perceive Him, but we can perceive because of Him present in all these faculties. He is the Sense of our Sense (and here is the link to the studies of consciousness of samjnana as essential sense, etc.)

The Kena Upanishad goes even further, it gives us an educational model how to educate these faculties that they may perceive Brahman. They have first to turn within and reflect in themselves their Universal Prototypes: the Universal Sight, Hearing etc. and then they have to learn to look even beyond their domains to the Transcendental Spirit, Brahman, to reflect His Light in our Sight, His Space in our hearing, His Word in our speech, His Thought in our thinking, they have to become faithful and pure transmitters of his Being in our being.

The names of Vayu, Dishah, Agni, Aditya, Soma are the Universal representatives of these faculties, Vayu is the Universal Life force, Matarishvan, Dishah is the all Space (all the directions), Agni is the Universal Fire, the Divine Will, Aditya is the Sun, the Eye of Gods, the Universal Sight, Soma is the Moon, the reflected light of the Sun, the Universal Mind.

Why Agni and Vak are together, you ask. Because Agni is the Divine Will, the Divine Summoner of the Gods, the Hotar, the Immortal among mortals, calling for the higher powers to come down and transform it into the life Divine. (please have a look into my article Chaturvarnya the Vedic Concept of it). browse the library add new resources learn about projects create new project The University of Human Unity

Update February 4, 2013:

The Foundations of Psychological Theory in the Veda - from Sri Aurobindo Society, Singapore - Jan 29, 2013 - C. Krishnamurthy (chamathu2003@yahoo.co.uk)

Sri Aurobindo was convinced that the Vedantic and Puranic systems are identical and depend on the same idea of seven principles of subjective consciousness formulating themselves in seven objective worlds, thus giving him a total clarity on the symbolism.

It is essential to understand that these worlds are not the physical worlds but in reality are different states of consciousness. These are not reachable by physical means. If a human being is conscious only of matter, at this particular time he is living in the world of matter. If his consciousness is dwelling on desires, feelings, emotions etc., he is living in the vital world. When immersed in thought, he is in the mental world.

Though the Veda refers to all these seven principles, they constantly speak of the three outer worlds only. Relatively, they are of direct concern to us. This is the reason why more riks are devoted to Agni, who is nearest and presides over Earth. Many riks laud Indra as he is the lord of all the Gods of this triple.

Pandit N.R. Bhatt: Felicitation Volume - Page 45 - Pierre Sylvain Filliozat, Satya Pal Narang, C. Panduranga Bhatta - 1994 - Preview -More editions Ratri in Veda and the Concept of Night in Sri Aurobindo - P.K. Mishra

Very objectively Sri Aurobindo draws the symbol of dawn and dusk with the revelation of light and darkness of human heart. Along with this, cosmic light is also drawn to the picture where night and dawn are concerned. The Night that wombs ... 2:21 am 

J.L. Mehta on Heidegger, Hermeneutics, and Indian Tradition - Page 165 - Jarava Lal Mehta, William J. Jackson - 1992 - Preview In my own humble judgment, however, Aurobindo's Vedic studies constitute the one single, central pillar which carries the burden of Aurobindo's creative thought, the one stalk on which the thousand-petalled lotus of his thinking blossomed, ... 2:37 pm

It is a struggle for an ideal that has to establish itself on earth in the life of humanity, for a Truth that has yet to realise itself fully

Re: 17: An Ardent Prayer by RY Deshpande

on Sat 21 Jul 2007 09:04 PM PDT Profile Permanent Link

Sri Aurobindo said that Hitler was the greatest menace the world had to face and that he would stop at nothing to achieve his sinister object, even to destroy the whole civilisation,—wrote Nirodbaran in his Twelve Years with Sri Aurobindo. In the course of one of his sessions with the disciples attending on him, Sri Aurobindo asked Dr Rao: “Do you know that Hitler is trying to get a foothold in South America and doing extensive propaganda there?”

He himself answered: “It can lead to attack against the USA. He is now practically master of Europe. If he had invaded England after the collapse of France, he could have been in Asia by this time… Now another force has been set up against his. Still the danger has not passed. He has 50% chance of success. Up to the time when France collapsed, he was remarkably successful because he had behind him an Asuric Power which guided him; from that Power he received remarkably correct messages.”

In a letter to a disciple written in 1942 about the danger of the Nazi victory:

“You should not think of it as a fight for certain nations against others or even for India; it is a struggle for an ideal that has to establish itself on earth in the life of humanity, for a Truth that has yet to realise itself fully and against a darkness and falsehood that are trying to overwhelm the earth and mankind in the immediate future. It is the forces behind the battle that have to be seen and not this or that superficial circumstance… There cannot be the slightest doubt that if one wins, there will be an end of all such freedom and hope of light and truth and the work that has to be done will be subjected to the conditions which would make it humanly impossible; there will be a reign of falsehood and darkness, a cruel oppression and degradation for most of the human race such as people in this country do not dream of and cannot yet all reaslise. If the other side that has declared itself for the free future of humanity triumphs, this terrible will have been averted and conditions will have been created in which there will be a chance for the Ideal to grow, for the Divine Work to be done, for the spiritual Truth for which we stand establish itself on the earth. Those who fight for this cause are fighting for the Divine against the threatened reign of the Asura.”

In the course of a conversation with the attendant-disciples, in 1940:

“Had it not been for Hitler, I wouldn’t have cared what power remained or went down. Now the question is whether the new world-order is to come after much suffering and destruction or with as little of it as possible. Destruction of England would mean victory for Hitler and in that case, perhaps after a great deal of suffering and oppression, and reaction to them, that world order may come or may not, or it may come only after Pralaya! Of course the issue has been decided by the Divine Vision and there can be no change. But nobody knows what the decision is.”

In a poem written within six weeks after the start of Second World War Sri Aurobindo describes Hitler as the dwarf Napoleon and calls him a Titan Power supporting this pigmy man, a crude instrument of a mighty Force, violent and cruel, devil, child and brute, a screaming orator with a strident tongue,
Now the world for his eating a ripe fruit,

His shadow falls from London to Korea,

Cities and nations crumble in his course…

We are very familiar with the trick the Mother played on Hitler, even as at one crucial juncture she impersonated the Lord of the Nations and guided his disciple to attack Russia when the War was actually going well for him. The deed was done—by her. RYD

The "awakening" or identification with the "psychic being"

The Blessed Remystification of the World

Cosmos Under God Robert W. Godwin Friday, July 20, 2007

A religious genius and a scientific genius will have much more in common than either will have with a mediocre mind such as Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, or Richard Dawkins. Most people can sense this: that depth converges, regardless of the discipline. This is why people can be spiritually invigorated, say, by great music or poetry.

But we can also be spiritually nourished by science, so long as we do not reduce it to the enclosed and circular little world of scientism. The more science discovers about the cosmos, the more reason for awe and wonder. I don't think science has demystified the world at all; rather, it has remystified it, especially after a little sidetrack down the paths of empiricism and positivism that only lasted for a couple hundred years at the most. The universe is so much stranger than supposed by antequated materialists, that we literally cannot suppose how strange it is. In order to be sufficiently puzzled by reality, we have to crank our puzzler up to 11.

But there is something in the human mind that wants to contain novelty and demystify the world -- to make the anxiety of not-knowing go away. In a sense this is perfectly understandable. Ironically, it is a legacy of our evolved nature which, after all, was not designed to ponder the mystery of being, but to survive and get tenure...

Yesterday we touched on the philosophy of Sri Aurobindo. In his approach to yoga, the initial stage involves the "awakening" or identification with what he calls the "psychic being" (not to be confused with "psychics," channelers, and the like). Although Aurobindo gave it a particular name, I obviously believe that he was describing something universal, and which is recognized in some form or fashion in all the major religions. Looked at in the most abstract way, we would simply say that it is that part of man which exists on the vertical plane, both "behind" and potentially "above" the ego. It is both the subject of spiritual knowledge and the object of spritual growth. In my book, I give it the symbol (¶) to distinguish it from the horizontal self, (•)...posted by Gagdad Bob at 7/20/2007 08:46:00 AM 13 Comments

So, in 1995 I became a disciple of Sri Aurobindo

The Evolution of the Interior Horizon of the Cosmos

One Cosmos Under God Robert W. Godwin Thursday, July 19, 2007

So, in 1995, knowing that I had to choose one path and stick to it, I became a disciple of Sri Aurobindo. At the time, the choice was rather easy, based on the options available (or which I thought were available). Aurobindo (1872-1950) is widely considered to be the greatest Hindu sage of the 20th century, perhaps ever, alongside Shankara.

At the time, for reasons I have explained, I couldn't have chosen Christianity, because I just didn't know of any kind of Christianity that appealed to me, and many of the most visible forms -- or at least their practitioners -- frankly repelled me. I was a typical case of someone who turns to the east because we are exposed to so many religious yahoos from our own tradition. If I had been born in India, I'd probably have become Catholic, seeing what a wreck certain Hindu doctrines had made of the place. It was a classic case of comparing their best with our worst.

But Aurobindo also appealed to me because of his thoroughly modern intellect. Although born in India, he was educated at some of the finest schools in England, where he mastered Greek, Latin, and English -- not to mention learning French, Italian, German, and Spanish -- received various prizes for literature and history, and was eventually awarded a scholarship to Cambridge. By the time he returned to India in 1893, he had been thoroughy anglicized and actually had no knowledge of Indian culture or religion. He took a position at a university and then became one of the early leaders in the movement for independence. He was arrested on charges of sedition in 1908 and spent a year in jail, where he had some powerful spiritual experiences. He was acquitted a year later.

To make an endless story short, the spiritual experiences kept coming, and eventually a small group of followers formed around him. He began publishing a spiritual journal in 1914, and his output was somewhat staggering. For the next ten years or so, he engaged in what he called "overmental writing," in that the material would seemingly just come down through him as opposed to from him. Simultaneously he composed several major works, any one of which would be considered a signal achievement for a normal person, including The Life Divine, The Synthesis of Yoga, The Human Cycle, and commentaries on the Bhagavad Gita, Upanishads, and Vedas, not to mention reams of poetry, including the cosmic-spiritual epic Savitri, at some 24,000 lines the longest poem in the English language.

Much of his prose probably sounds a bit turgid to modern ears, since he was educated at the peak of that overly formal and florid Victorian or Edwardian or whatever you call it style. However, after the mid-1920s or so, he wrote almost nothing but letters to disciples -- thousands and thousands of them -- and in these he is much more informal, sometimes humorous and playful (he still wrote some poems as well). The letters are collected into three volumes, and are much more accessible than his formal writings. If you add the three volumes of letters together, they come to some 3400 pages, and cover most every conceivable spiritual topic.

I don't know that I want to get into a complete review of his philosophy, because it's just too complex and multifaceted. (The best introduction is The Adventure of Consciousness, by Satprem). But perhaps his central theme was the reconciliation of the perennial insights of Vedanta embodied in the Upanishads (which form the esoteric essence of Hindu metaphysics) with the evolutionary cosmos revealed by science. In this regard, he was way ahead of his time, because he recognized that there can be no conflict between religion and science -- or that if there appears to be conflict, it must be concealing a deeper unity that eludes us. He has certain rough parallels with Hegel, in that he sees the cosmos as a platform of spiritual evolution toward higher and higher syntheses of unity.

But he has even more in common with the Catholic thinker Teilhard de Chardin, whose Phenomenon of Man was the first systematic attempt to do with Christianity what Aurobindo was doing with Vedanta, which is to say, reconcile it with the new scientific views that emerged in the late 19th and 20th centuries. In turn, Aurobindo and Teilhard have some loose affinities with the process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead, if you want a purely secular point of entry into a cosmic view of evolution.

Another thing about Sri Aurobindo that appealed to me was that his approach worked largely through grace as opposed to self-effort. As I have mentioned, I really hadn't gotten too far based upon my own efforts, so I submitted myself to the grace of Sri Aurobindo and his collaborator, known as The Mother (long strange story there). I didn't really expect anything to happen, but something did, and rather immediately. I began meditating on a darshan photo of them, and felt "zapped" by their force. I suppose that's neither here nor there, but I was soon able to understand spiritual matters in a way I never could before.

It was as if a veil had been lifted, or a new kind of transpersonal light shone on whatever it was I was looking into. It was during this period of time that the idea for my book came to me. I was just meditating and I had this four-part, circular vision of the whole. I must emphasize that I saw the whole first, and that I had no idea how or even whether I would be able to sketch it out in linear form, as a sort of story, or four part "cosmic suite." In fact, there is no doubt that I wouldn't do it the same way today, but I did the best I could with the materials available to me -- or which fell into my hands -- at the time.

The book was actually written in the order it appears, as I first attempted to tackle cosmology and physics, then theoretical biology, then human evolution, and then the algorithms of spiritual transformation. As the book unfolds, you could say that I am grappling with both the subject matter and myself in real time -- except for the prologue and epilogue, which more or less represent the distilled essence of what I came up -- or down -- with.

Somewhere along the way I stumbled upon a book that was very helpful to me at the time, The Unity of Reality: God, God-Experience, and Meditation in the Hindu-Christian Dialogue. In it, von Bruck writes that "yoga is nothing else than a preparation of the body and mind for non-dual, intuitive knowledge." Elsewhere he writes that "Western culture is determined more by reflection, Asiatic cultures by meditation. The meeting of the two is the important historical event of the present century."

That's how I feel. I just don't see how any kind of fundamentalist religion can survive if it isn't compatible with everything else we know to be true about the cosmos, both in its exterior and interior aspects. This post was interrupted by child care responsibilities, and I lost the thread. I'll have to try to pick it up again tomorrow. Assuming anyone's interested, since the ol' site meter indicates that increasing numbers flee from the blog every day.

I have broken the limits of the embodied mind

And am no more the figure of a soul.

The burning galaxies are in me outlined;

The universe is my stupendous whole. --Sri Aurobindo, The Cosmic Spirit

Till all is done for which the stars were made,

Till the heart discovers God

And the soul knows itself.

And even thenThere is no end. --Sri Aurobindo, Is This the End

posted by Gagdad Bob at 7/19/2007 08:51:00 AM

This concept of race consciousness or national-soul goes a long way in explaining universality in art

Anandavardhana lays great stress on the suggestive element in poetry and advocates the Dhvani theory, which is vyanjana or suggestion applied to poetry. This vyanjana suggests an extension of the original meaning and it relates to the fundamental problem of interrelating facts, speech and thought with their vast hinterlands. Dr. Seal in fact got them correlated in an aesthetic context by the postulation of mass consciousness, race consciousness, and time consciousness thereby implying that in the art-activity facts, speech and thought as understood in the aesthetic context get fused together and their disparateness disappears when they are touched upon by the magic of the artist’s imagination.

This concept of race-consciousness as explained by Brojendranath, in a way, comes close to Aurobindo’s idea of nation soul…This concept of race consciousness or national-soul goes a long way in explaining universality in art. Art, as communication could be well explained with this idea of nation-soul or race-consciousness. This concept again stresses the importance of the study of the history of art and art in its own environment, i.e. empirical study of art. -- Studies in Modern Indian Aesthetics (p.98-99) by S.K. Nandi (IIAS-1975)

The Academy no longer trains the integral person

Re: In search of Integral Education Paradigm: Chaturvarnya, the concept of 'integral man'. by Vladimir by Rich on Tue 17 Jul 2007 08:51 AM PDT Profile Permanent Link Vladamir writes: The creation of a prototype of the Universal Purusha and his reflection through the faculties of consciousness in manifestation of the individual is the key concept of cognitive faculties of consciousness in the Vedic Vision. Individual Purusha is embodying and reflecting all the faculties of the Universal, which was the uttamam rahasya, the great secret of Vedanta and Veda. According to Shankara this part of Aitareya Upanishad is the most secret. Thus the individual is nothing but a prototype of the Universal. He is already chaturvarnya.

Rich: Its interesting that this method of representation which depicts a resemblance between the particular sign and its universal phenomena by drawing a concrete analogy was - at least through the Renaissance the dominant way of representing the things of world by simulating their likeness to it. This was according to Michel Foucault the episteme which governed the perception of the world of the 16th century. He writes:

Analogy makes the marvellous confrontation of resemblances across space but it also speaks of bonds and joints. Its power is immense for the similitudes of which it treats are not the visible, substantial ones between things themselves , they need only be more subtle resemblances of relations Disencumbered thus, it can extend from a single point to an endless number of relations,. The one privileged point in space that is saturated with analogies is man, He stand in proportion to the heavens just as does the animals and plants and as he does the earth , to metals, to stalactites or storm. Upright between the surface of the universe, he stands in relation to the firmament (his face is to the body what the face of heaven is to the other; his pulse beats in his veins as the stars circle the sky according to fixed paths; the seven orifices in his head are to his face what the seven planets are to the sky; but he is also the fulcrum upon which these relationships turn, so that we find them again, their similarity unimpaired, in the analogy of the human animal to the earth it inhabits , his flesh is a glebe, his bones are rocks, his veins great rivers, his bladder is the sea, and his seven principle organs are the metals of in the shaft of mines. (The Order of Things)

So yes to construct an integral person Sri Aurobindo is quite correct that we can not lean upon a foregone episteme which identifies the individual with a ordering of the world coextensive with universality and structures a social discourse according to this order. The Renaissance man was thought to be an integral man of sorts in that he was supposed to be a master of many separate disciplines, however we are several orders of “epsitemes” removed from that era, we are now in the age of the “expert” whose mastery extends only to his/her specialty.

The course of human knowledge has evolved to such a magnitude that the Academy no longer trains the integral person but the specialist who parses his thin slice of learning through sorting out “difference” rather than in looking for the resemblance with the universal. In such a fragmented age, the challenge of communities like Auroville whose efforts are specifically to develop the integral ideal, is to adopt education and training methodologies (as described by Vladamir) to nurture a new Renaissance ideal however, such efforts have to not only seek to excavate the resemblances of signs to phenomena , but would also have to honor the pastiche and differences which define the surfaces of our post-modern age even as they reconstruct them into an integral whole. rc

Secular democratic institutions as being facilitative for social change

Re: What is Hindutva? The Eternal Word

by Rich on Mon 16 Jul 2007 09:09 AM PDT Profile Permanent Link

YS wrote: It is therefore necessary to have a social working instrument available as well, so designed on these lines for this purpose; and let us also believe that the redefined and revised “Hindutva ‘ for the reasons narrated above would fulfill the Divine Spiritual Task.<

But these social instruments has been defined in the Ideal of Human Unity and the Human Cycle and nowhere in these document are we forced to choose to adopt any particular tradition's religious practices as a social vehicle for transformation. In fact for this period in history, Sri Aurobindo seems to highlight the workings of secular democratic institutions as being as facilitative for social change as any particular religious organization of society. rc

Lack of clear solutions to our many differences

Anonymous said...

Once and for all, to explain my stand: the issue in question is not whether new material is being discovered or whether the Publication Department is or should be writing articles...The sooner we have everything, the better, no doubt, but I care 2 hoots as long as I have the full set within the next 15 years, or before I die, I hope!

My objection is simply that the attitude expressed in the above paragraph, and the first post in general, is unfair towards the people and the Asram which is working towards compiling the new edition, (apart from being arguably 'unyogic', or as the blogmaster might prefer, a bit 'unSavitri-Eranlike' - excuse my harmless sense of humour.)

> A devotee has the right to know more and more about the Lord and there is nothing wrong to be restless for the same.

Indeed, indeed, and who is stopping the devotee? Plunge into the Yoga of Knowledge, read Srinivas Iyengar or George Van Vrekhem, read On Himself, The Mother - know and experience all you want about every aspect of the Divine...but, what is expressed in the above para is something quite other than wanting to know "more about the Lord".

I may add here, that I am expressing my concerns only because I genuinely feel that the kind of feelings expressed in the above quoted para, and which is frequently done by others online too, work like acid, eating away at the tender and special bonds that hold together the Aurobindonian community. Particularly, in the absence of the physical presence of our Gurus and the lack of clear solutions to our many differences, may we be a little more understanding, patient, and kind to each other, and abtsain from flinging around unchastened, unsubstantiated emotions and thoughts. This holds true for me too, and I apologise for any ruffled feathers.

I believe, not restlessness, but an intense and yet patient individual quest is the need of the hour; if successful, its repurcussions will no doubt echo around us, in the larger Aurobindonian community, and in the human collectivity beyond as well.

And then, maybe, just maybe, the new set will be out quicker too. :)

"May we grow wide," as the Vedas say. V 11:34 PM

You seem to vent your (anger? / frustration? / unhappiness? / irritation?) on a number of fronts

Anonymous said...

> Thanks for replying.

Same here.

> I never demanded immediate publication of the Series. The basic thrust of my post was:[What is the progress with respect to different volumes.The subscribers are totally in dark. It is astonishing why a simple letter is not issued every quarter or so.]You have not commented on that.

Your original post doesn't have 'one' basic thrust. You seem to vent your (anger? / frustration? / unhappiness? / irritation?) on a number of fronts. What you posit as your 'basic thrust' is one of them, and perhaps the most justified of these. The PD could indeed let subscribers know how things are progressing every once in a while. My comment and observation on the rather harsh and accusative tone of your original post continues to stand. On this of course we may both choose to disagree...

> Further, you have mentioned that:[Even now new letters of Sri Aurobindo are surfacing.] This is what we outsiders are eager to know. When did it surface? From where? These kind of tidbits can light up our day. And these facts are of enormous historical significance.

Indeed, but would you rather they work on completing the set first, or start a journal to disuss new finds?

> You have asked me to [elaborate on charges such as "those who have access go on to publish books and articles by leveraging their privilege"]I am willing to do so provided, 1) You disclose your full identity and location,

You don't hesitate to make charges publicly, so why do you refrain from elaborating them publicly? Is my identity so important? Consider me a fellow-sadhak with another point of view.

> and 2) You assert that they have not published books or articles.

I have no clue, and you are the expert, it seems! On one hand, you want them to provide you with 'tidbits', what research is going on and what findings are taking place, and on the other you would not like them to use the information they are 'privileged' to access, for writing articles. Strange contradiction this!

> Personally, you are free to defend [the quality of what has come out so far], but that cannot be taken as a critical acclaim.

You are quite right on this. I am curious though, what do you think about what has come out so far?

"May we grow wide", as the Vedas say. V 1:42 PM

There is no mention of a priest lighting a fire

Rig-Veda is not a textbook or a manual. It is a collection of hymns, in a free-flowing language that is universal and that requires no elaboration. To make a connection with that ancient culture, we have to live the same inner experience.

Rig Veda is often criticized as being a book of rituals. However, not a single hymn in Rig Veda out of its 1017 hymns gives a description of a ritual or a rite. For instance, Agni translated as fire in the altar, is mentioned in several hundred verses, there is however no mention of a priest lighting a fire. Agni is used symbolically to signify the subtle energy in all beings. Sometimes, the fire principle is the same as the sun, which illumines the universe; the same Reality underlies Ushas that makes everything effulgent...

The high idealism of the Rig Veda poetry represents the soaring human aspirations. It is the intense desire to grow out of the limited physical confines and to reach out to the super consciousness that inspired the Vedic rishis. Sri Aurobindo believed that the human being is at the crest, on the threshold of evolving into super consciousness. He asserted that Rig Veda encases that esoteric message and attainment of that super consciousness was the vision of the Rig Veda. ssubbanna Recent Entries Archive References:

The Human Aspiration: http://www.mountainman.com.au/auro_0.html
The concept of gods in Vedas:
http://eng.vedanta.ru/library/prabuddha_bharata/May2005_the_concept_of_God_in_the_Vedas.php
http://eng.vedanta.ru/library/prabuddha_bharata/June2005_the_concept_of_god_in_the_vedas.php