Lewis noted the stupidity of making men without chests and then demanding virtue and enterprise from them

The Abolition of Man from Thoughts, Books, and Philosophy by jhbowden
C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man (New York: HarperCollins, 2001)

Lewis wrote that the purpose of a liberal education was not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts. The traditionalists wanted to initiate young people into the mystery of life. They also wanted to inspire participation, and were interested in cultural propagation. The progressive teaching molds people for the purposes of which the molded know nothing. Instead of propagation, we have propaganda. Instead of participation, we have repudiation.

People constantly complain that our civilization needs more citizens with priorities and initiative. Well, Lewis noted the stupidity of making men without chests and then demanding virtue and enterprise from them. We laugh at honor, and then act shocked that there are traitors in our midst.

We cannot debunk everything. That is the main lesson of this book. Explaining everything entails that we explain away the very idea of explanation itself. Much of our mental furniture must be accepted as a datum. For as Lewis concludes, “To 'see through’ all things is the same as not to see.”

The humanities ultimately are formative, not informative

The Culture We Deserve
from Thoughts, Books, and Philosophy by jhbowden

Barzun asserted that art and culture do not belong in a university, in the sense that the university is not their natural home. Great art is meant to be fun. The words amateur and dilettante, which have been turned into words of contempt, in their original sense meant “lover” and “seeker of delight.” Before 1850, after all, there weren’t any subjects and courses to instruct a lover of the arts. Few even believed the arts should be studied in the spirit of the sciences. Rather than methods and theories, the arts presuppose what Pascal called esprit de finesse, an intuitive understanding that seizes upon the character of its object as a whole...

A history, Barzun argued, is a piece of writing meant to be read. History, by showing the heroic side in man side by side with the vile, exercises our imagination and furnishes it. A good history shows the movers and shakers because if we delete them, the story is missing from the history. Too often an enterprising historian will try to make a name for himself by imposing an original idea upon events, a single cause. However, the presence or absence of particular individuals, along with sheer contingencies, both make a difference to the outcome of events; Barzun warned us not to miss the motive power nor the accidents interwoven in the passage of time. History is a product of acts of intelligence, will, and self-interest; things like the Colt revolver and barbed wire simply do not appear out of the ether.

History extends our experience by building an intuition of what is likely and what is important. After all, the humanities ultimately are formative, not informative; they organize our minds and make us attentive to the world. Relativist in the true sense of the word, the humanities link and relate the human soul to the rest of existence. The humanities broaden our horizons by giving us a taste of the philosophic atmosphere and historical perspective. As William James roughly described it, a liberal education allows us to know a good man when we see him; it is not only important for man to have skill, but to be a judge of skill, particularly of other men. Jacques Barzun, The Culture We Deserve (Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 1989)

We need to work through this moment in time as an aspiring Gnostic community

Re: Corrections to textual excerpts of The Lives of Sri Aurobindo by Peter Heehs
by Rick Lipschutz on Sun 12 Oct 2008 07:03 PM PDT Profile Permanent Link Science, Culture and Integral Yoga

As I understand it, in responding to an intellectual position taken by another, an approach practiced and favored by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother begins with this premise:

Not only all forms and forces, but all thoughts, chains of ideas and works of reason, have behind them, are ultimately based on some truth. This truth has real existence, in the Absolute and in the Saccidananda and, however changed, diminished, distorted it may have grown from the original, any idea of any coherence derives from some basis in truth.

What Sri Aurobindo will often do, in his writings, is express clearly a thought, idea, and chain of reasoning and demonstrate what truth is trying, through such ideas, to be expressed. There is, for example, some truth in Materialism that is aspiring to be realized in life. Sri Aurobindo will then go to express another truth, which may be at apparent odds with the first (There is a truth in Spirituality that presses to materialize), showing clearly how both truths—may be even multiple truths—are striving for living expression, and he will proceed to suggest a more comprehensive truth that assimilates the principal elements in each, reaching in this way some expanded synthesis only partially contained in the various elements of seemingly contradictory truths. He will do this using perfectly well the outward form of mental reasoning, but applying from behind it a wider view based on amore comprehensive or intuitive mode of perceptive understanding.

What he will NOT do is what we human beings always seem to want to do. We always find ourselves saying: This is wrong! I don't agree, I don't like its expression, it's simply not true; maybe it's a deliberate lie, on the basis of some hostile agenda, but it is most certainly false, pernicious even. I don't accept it and I in fact question the very motives of the person who puts forth this pernicious form of expression.

The Mother said more than once that when we disagree with another person's position, a healthy exercise is to identify with that exponent and their position sufficiently so that we can express their side of the issue. This can be a means to broaden our viewpoint, help us not only relate to the other person but strengthen our mental faculties, our understanding, and if we have enough aspiration, reach a greater truth than ours or the other's alone.

I have read in full Peter Heehs's book, "The Lives of Sri Aurobindo," and met with him when he came to San Francisco giving readings and discussing his work. I found he added to my understanding and appreciation of Sri Aurobindo—not only in his life before Pondicherry, but after his great realizations: the Silent Brahman, the Cosmic Consciousness that he entered in the Alipur jail, the Parabrahman realization, the Overmental Realization and through the entire arc of his earthy life. I have adeeper sense now how Sri Aurobindo, by the power of yoga, transformed a human consciousness into an integral divine consciousness. And in respect to his Integral Yoga, which is my principal focus (I was recently co-facilitating a Synthesis of Yoga study group and plan to resume it) the book afforded me stronger hope that humans like myself can make progress on this difficult and thorny path.

Sri Aurobindo struggled with human problems, family problems, national problems; found a way through Integral Yoga to surmount them for himself and even to bring into the world a greater force so that others individually and collectively and the nations and the earth itself have a more certain hope, or at least the main chance, to transform our ignorance and struggling lives into something divine. I venerate Purani's biography, I love and enjoy what I've read of Iyengar's, have deep respect for Van Vrekhem's, but I feel there is room for "The Lives of Sri Aurobindo."

I feel his approach to a critical, scholarly work based on a great deal of research, directed to the scholarly and academic community, is a potent form of inoculation against inevitable intellectual attacks to come. After all, Sri Aurobindo and Mother are not only for devotees, and for much-needed karma yogis; they're also for intellectuals, those with a more mental bent—and an integral Yoga must include in it and integrate the heart, the will, the mind and more, in a "methodized effort towards self-perfection."

I am distressed at the personal invective in the attacks on a hard-working scholar and sadhak whose love for Sri Aurobindo shines clearly through the work, if from under the surface.. He is a good writer and, I feel, a sound scholar who has done much original research.

Peter's work, and that of others, in unearthing and bringing to light the "Record of Yoga" (Sri Aurobindo's own diary of his yogic experience) has shown the world that Sri Aurobindo experimented as much or more than any scientist and attempted to realize (and by his own, remarkably self-consistent account, succeeded in realizing) what he wrote about for the sadhaks and the the public.

It is so disappointing, so dismaying to see so many luminaries whom I respect so much attacking a sadhak who has devoted his life to needed scholarship, and attacking him in such a personal un-Aurobindonian fashion. "I could feel my eyes turning into dust/Like two strangers turning into dust."

I find it hard to believe what I've been seeing. We need to work through this moment in time as an aspiring Gnostic community, however far from a functioning collectivity we still seem to be. This chaotic episode is an opportunity for us to begin again to try to put forward our opinions in an Aurobindonian fashion, respecting the truth that is expressed in another position, trying with the Mother's help to bring it into harmony with our own positions, or showing with logic, respect and fairness where we believe it falls short. This would be the least we can do, as human beings discoursing with other human beings, as well as followers of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo who aspire for a divine life for the earth, based on liberty, mutuality and harmony.

Let me add here that I have been a grateful reader on the SCIY website but have not yet posted. I appreciate the postings of Debashish, Ronjon, Rich, Vladimir, Rakesh, Ned, all the many others. We all have to realize that there are real and still-potent forces that WANT us to clash just as we've been doing, fall into anambush, so to speak. If we have the aspiration, if we can summon it back, there are greater more conscious forces that are leading, even as we speak, to a multi-poised Unity that has infinite room in it for the diversity of our approaches. Rick Lipschutz
Reply

It is one of the cardinal principles of Sri Aurobindo's philosophy that intuitions differ very much in value

Sri Aurobindo and Plato S. K. MAITRA SRI AUROBINDO MANDIR ANNUAL No. 9 15th August, 1950 ON THE OCCASION OF THE 78th BIRTHDAY OF SRI AUROBINDO SRI AUROBINDO PATHAMANDIR CALCUTTA

Sri Aurobindo as a true descendant of our ancient sages, has kept true to this standpoint. He looks at the whole universe from the standpoint of the highest consciousness, which he calls Sachchidananda. Unlike the Greeks, who oscillated between the naturalistic and the idealistic interpretation of the universe, Sri Aurobindo looks upon the naturalistic interpretation itself as one that is made from the standponit of consciousness at one stage of its evolution. Paradoxical as it may sound, even the idealistic interpretation is made from the standpoint of the same level of consciousness. This level is what we call mental consciousness. Mind is incapable of framing a perfect synthesis, and therefore, all its constructions exhibit gaps or contradictions. Even the intuitions of Plato had not completely freed themselves from mental elements, and therefore, there was a clash between them and his logic or reason. How this standpoint enables Sri Aurobindo to steer dear of the difficulties of Plato's philosophy, I shall explain in the next paragraph.

THE TRAGEDY OF PLATO: HOW SRI AUROBINDO AVOIDS IT

Plato's philosophy, thus, is haunted by a sense of its incompleteness: its intuition and reason cannot be reconciled with each other. This is its great tragedy.

• It may be removed by lowering the intuitions, by doing away, for example, with the idea of good. This was the solution offered by Aristotle. He did away with the idea of good, the philosopher-king and all the other great ideals revealed by Plato's intuition.
• Or the remedy may be applied to logic by raising it so that it may be made a fit vehicle for the intuitions. This second method was that which was adopted by Hegel.

Sri Aurobindo's solution is totally different from either of these. He avoids Plato's tragedy not by lowering the intuitions, nor by raising the logic, but by still further raising the intuitions. His diagnosis of Plato's tragedy is that it is due to Plato's having imperfect intuitions. The intuitions that Plato had were inutitions of abstract truths, and therefore did not have the potency to project themselves out of themselves. The highest intuitions create their own logic and do not have to wait for logic to come up to their level.

It is one of the cardinal principles of Sri Aurobindo's philosophy that intuitions differ very much in value. This is one of the main points of difference between Sri Aurobindo and most of those Western philosophers who also rely partly or wholly upon intuitions. Whatever that may be, it 'is undoubtedly true, from Sri Aurobindo's point of view, that Plato's intuitions were imperfect, as they were intuitions of abstract truth. His idea of good, grand as it is, is yet nothing but an ab- straction. It is impossible with such a principle to have any kind of rela- tionship with the world of sensible experience. It is dead before it is born, and it is useless to try to make it work by offering it a more suitable logic. The only remedy is to raise it to the position of a concrete universal.

PLATO'S PHILOSOPHY is RATHER STATIC AND HAS NO THEORY OF EVOLUTION

One of the most serious defects in Plato's theory of ideas is that the ideas as he conceives them are absolutely static and have no power of generation or creation. It is only the souls that have got this power, and therefore God as the highest soul performs the functions of creation in his philosophy. One consequence of this static view of the ideas is that they cannot bring themselves into any sort of connection with the world of sense. The only way in which a connection is effected is through the agency of God. But the God of Plato is only an underdog, having the power to create only according to the pattern seen in the ideas. Thus the connection between the idfeas and the world created by God is a somewhat remote one. In the case of the human world it is still more remote, for God does not create it directly but leaves it to the inferior powers. This g ; ves the human world a much lower status than what it would have if it had direct connection with the ideas. Although it is supposed to participate in the ideas, such participation can only be very imperfect. This defect we notice also in other systems of philosophy which take a similar static view of their ultimate principle.

For instance, we notice it in the philosophy of Spinoza whose Substance or ultimate principle is also, like the ideas of Plato, static. There is no passage in Spinoza from Subs- tance to the world of modes or finite beings, and he has therefore to fall back upon all sorts of devices, such as that of infinite modes, in order to bridge the gulf between the two. We notice it also in the philosophy of Hartmann who has borrowed his main ideas from Plato: the values of Hartmann cannot bring themselves directly into contact with the world. Another consequence of his static view of the ideas is that Plato has no theory of evolution. There is no goal or destination towards which the world may be said to be moving. Individual souls can, of course, imporve themselves by education, and if they are sufficiently enlightened, they can, through instruction in dialectic, have even a vision of the idea of good, but there is nothing in Plato which gives us any indication of the whole world marching to a higher goal. On the contrary, the nature of the world has been determined beforehand by the manner of its creation, and con- sequently the possibility of such advance is ruled out. We shall discuss this question when dealing with the problem of evil.

EVOLUTION, HOWEVER, IS THE SOUL OF SRI AUROBINDO'S PHILOSOPHY

The contrast here with Sri Aurobindo's philosophy is striking. His theory of evolution is the pivot round which the whole philosophy of Sri Aurobindo moves. Evolution is the movement which is the reverse of the movement of involution or creation. It is because of the descent of the Spirit into matter, life and mind, that these can ascend to the higher regions of the Spirit. Because the Spirit in creation has involved itself in matter, life and mind, therefore, matter, life and mind feel an impulse to rise to their Source. Evolution, thus, is a sort of home-sickness of the Spirit. The Spirit has descended into the lowest particle of matter; therefore, matter seeks to evolve into something higher than itself, namely life. There is a descent of the Spirit into life, and therefore, life seeks to rise to some- thing higher than itself mind. Similarly, there is a descent of the Spirit into mind;, and consequently mind must ascend to something higher than itself, namely, Supermind. The highest principle so far evolved is mind. But evolution cannot stop with mind^ for mind is not its last word. It must move further up and come to the next stage, namely, Supermind. There is no uncertainty about it: it is bound to do so by the necessity which is forced upon it by the process of involution or creation. But when it does so, there will be a radical change in the nature of the world, for with the emergence of Supermind the process of evolution becomes a process through knowledge, the previous process being through ignorance.

Such, in brief, is Sri Aurobindo's scheme of evolution. It is the most optimistic scheme ever conceived by the mind of man. What concerns us more particularly here, however, is the picture which it presents to us of the goal of human life and society. I cannot do better here than quote a passage from his recent book The Human Cycle, where it is set forth as clearly as possible:

"The true and full spiritual aim in society will regard man not as a mind, a life and a body, but as a soul incarnated for a divine fulfilment upon earth, not only in heavens beyond, which after all it need not have left if it had no divine business here in the world of physical, vital and mental nature. It will therefore regard the life, mind and body neither as ends in themselves, sufficient for their own satisfaction, not as mortal members full of disease which have only to be dropped off for the rescued spirit to flee away into its own pure regions, but as first instruments of the soul, the yet imperfect instruments of an unseized diviner purpose. It will believe in their destiny and help them to believe in themselves, but for that very reason in their highest and not only in their lowest or lower possibilities. Their destiny will be, in its view, to spiritualise themselves so as to grow into visible members of the spirit, lucid means of its manifestation, them- selves spiritual, illumined, more and more conscious and perfect. For accepting the truth of man's soul as a thing entirely divine in its essence, it will accept also the possibility of his whole being becoming divine in spite of Nature's first patent contradictions of this possibility, her darkened denials of this ultimate certitude, and even with these as a necessary earthly starting-point. And as it will regard man the individual, it will regard man the collectivity as a soul-form of the Infinite, a collective soul myriadly embodied upon earth for a divine fulfilment in its manifold relations and its multitudinous activities. Therefore it will hold sacred all the different parts &f man's life which correspond to the parts of his being, all his physical, vital, dynamic, emotional, aesthetic, ethical, intellectual, psychic evolution, and see in them instruments for a growth towards a diviner living. It will regard every human society, nation, people or other organic aggregate from the same standpoint, subsouls, as it were, means of a complex manifestation and self-fulfilment of the Spirit, the divine Reality, the conscious Infinite in man upon earth. The possible godhead of man because he is inwardly of one being with God will be its one solitary cree

Aakash Singh and Rimina Mohapatra lay out the intricate tapestry of Hegel’s thought

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Reading Hegel: The Introductions
G.W.F. Hegel Edited and introduced by Aakash Singh and Rimina Mohapatra
Price: $35.00 AUD$25.00 USD £16.00 GBP
ISBN-13: 978-0-9805440-1-5 (paper) Publication date: October 2008 Pages: 272 Format: 234x156 mm (6x9 in) Paperback Series: Transmission Download book as PDF (Open Access)

Description
Bringing together for the first time all of G.W.F. Hegel’s major Introductions in one place, this book ambitiously attempts to present readers with Hegel’s systematic thought through his Introductions alone. The Editors articulate to what extent, precisely, Hegel’s Introductions truly reflect his philosophic thought as a whole. Certainly each of Hegel’s Introductions can stand alone, capturing a facet of his overarching idea of truth. But compiled all together, they serve to lay out the intricate tapestry of Hegel’s thought, woven with a dialectic that progresses from one book to another, one philosophical moment to another.

Hegel’s reflections on philosophy, religion, aesthetics, history, and law—all included here—have profoundly influenced many subsequent thinkers, from post-Hegelian idealists or materialists like Karl Marx, to the existentialism of Kierkegaard and Jean-Paul Sartre; from the phenomenological tradition of Edmund Husserl to Martin Heidegger, Jacques Derrida and other post-moderns, to thinkers farther afield, like Japan’s famous Kyoto School or India’s Aurobindo. This book provides the opportunity to discern how the ideas of these later thinkers may have originally germinated in Hegel’s writings, as well as to penetrate Hegel’s worldview in his own words, his grand architecture of the journey of the Spirit.

Contents
Editors’ Introduction: The Circle of Knowledge Chapter 1: Phenomenology of Spirit Chapter 2: Science of Logic Chapter 3: Philosophy of Right Chapter 4: Philosophy of History Chapter 5: Philosophy of Fine Art Chapter 6: Philosophy of Religion Chapter 7: History of Philosophy Editors’ Epilogue: The End of Introductions Further Readings Index

Authors, editors and contributors
AAKASH SINGH is a Research Professor at the Centre for Ethics and Global Politics (Luiss University, Rome), specializing in International Legal and Political Philosophy. He is author of Eros Turannos, and Editor of several books, including Buddhism and the Contemporary World: An Ambedkarian Perspective, and L’Inde à la conquete de la liberté.

RIMINA MOHAPATRA is an MPhil graduate from the University of Delhi, and completed her MA in Philosophy from St. Stephen’s College. She has been a Junior Research Fellow, University Grants Commission of India and a Junior Specialist at the Department of Philosophy, University of California Santa Cruz. She is currently formulating and compiling a second collection of Hegel’s writings, to be published in 2009.
© 2008 re.press

Proust by asserting that “the true hawthorns are those of the past”, paints the essence of a mythical time, a time “prior to time”

Post-interpretation from The Joyful Knowing by Mike Johnduff

Quentin Skinner, the brilliant and extremely charming historian at Cambridge, has just delivered a neat lecture that pretty much explains what I was trying to get at a while ago: how Foucault would reply, frustrated, to Derrida. Rehearsing many of Derrida's arguments, marrying them with nice, clear analytic language, Skinner in "Is It Still Possible to Interpret Texts?" (The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, Volume 89, Issue 3, Date: June 2008) tries to ask if we can interpret anything anymore: in short, what the use of hermeneutics is in a post-hermeneutic world, a world subjected to the Derridian critique.

His only mistake--but it is a really, really crucial one (and I think I was making it too until recently)--might be thinking that Derrida, and not Foucault, is really trying to kill off hermeneutics. Derrida wants to use hermeneutics at that point where it collapses: that is, use it otherwise. So describing him as someone who levies a critique against hermeneutics is way off the mark...Posted by Mike Johnduff What is written about: Derrida, Foucault

Derrida, Merleau-Ponty, depth, and the body, concluded
from The Joyful Knowing by Mike Johnduff

I ended my last post by saying that Merleau-Ponty, in his working notes, outlines two notions of the invisible in order to clarify its relationship to the visible. The invisible, which we tried phenomenologically to specify as that sort of reversibility of the seeing-seen relationship, or touching-touched relationship (when I touch my hand touching something, as Husserl said, suddenly I feel the... [6:27 PM]

Proust was a Neuroscientist: N.Y. Times Review
from Science, Culture and Integral Yoga™ by Rich

Since the subject of memory, interpretation and the possibility of the truth telling of history has been raised it seems like good time for a supporting reference both from the arts and sciences

Not only this but Lehrer's book, which I just finished is also heartening in that it opens a possibility of a 4th culture.

If C.P. Snow in 1959 proposed a 3rd culture enjoining the arts and sciences to date this 3rd culture has been dominated by scientist examining the arts with causality still being reduced to physical processes.

Third cultural writings are considered those by such authors as Stephen Jay Gould, Richard Dawkins, Oliver Sacks, V.S. Ramachandran, Steve Weinberg, Mitchio Kaku. E.O. Wilson et al. Although certainly thought provocative and entertaining the works of the above authors fail to achieve a harmonizing of artistic and scientific cultures because they ultimately privilege science. Lehrer who is equally skilled in science attempts to rebalance the situation in which the Arts are equally as important to the narration of what we call reality.

To gather a posse together to cause harm to the author is surely deplorable and such acts ought to be condemned unequivocally

Science, Culture and Integral Yoga Re: Sri Aurobindo and Hinduism (a speech by Peter Heehs: Hyderabad 2006)
by Debashish on Sat 27 Sep 2008 09:41 AM PDT Profile Permanent Link

Rakesh, Have you read the book?

In all this hype against "The Lives of Sri Aurobindo" and the questions raised regarding the factuality of its descriptions, "taking liberties about events", etc. the fundamental and basic question on reading skills needs to be first answered. The tenor of this discussion is so familiar as the development of a kind of mob mentality, where a large number of people are ready to lynch someone based on a few flying snippets of purported wrong-doing, but when you question the individuals in the mob, not more than one in a hundred has first hand knowledge of what has happened. It is interesting and amusing how much time, energy and emotion people are anxious to expend without bothering to form a considered judgment based on experience and study. If I saw even a few adequate quotes (not partial and distorted excerpts) along with footnotes as actually carried in the text, I could have at least found some matter of interest in this discussion.

Corrections to textual excerpts of The Lives of Sri Aurobindo by Peter Heehs
by Rich on September 27, 2008 10:09AM (PDT) Permanent Link

There is a movement of folks in Pondicherry who are so upset by the biography that Peter Heehs has written entitled The Lives of Sri Aurobindo that they have instigated a movement to discredit the author. Some people have even become so embolden as to try and have him ejected from the Ashram itself. The folks who have spurred this on have in the course of their attacks on Mr. Heehs openly distorted his text by decontextualizing portions of it or by a series of selective omissions to make it suit their own interpretation of events that facilitate their own story they wish to tell.

Because of this movement I have decided to post all the portions of the text that have been decontextualized or omitted and reprint them with corrections to demonstrate how the text from the book actually reads in its entire context. The portions of the text that have been lifted to suit the purposes of those with an agenda against the author of The Lives of Sri Aurobindo are in black, the missing portions of the text that are needed to give the entire context of the narrative are in red. As everyone will see there is a lot of red in the text.: more » Leave Comment Permanent Link

Re: Sri Aurobindo and Hinduism (a speech by Peter Heehs: Hyderabad 2006)
by Vikas on Sat 27 Sep 2008 12:08 PM PDT Profile Permanent Link

Rich "I dont think it serves any constructive purpose to try and and gather a posse together to cause harm to the author of a work they do not agree with".

Ofcourse. "To gather a posse together to cause harm to the author" is surely deplorable and such acts ought to be condemned unequivocally. We are agreed on that...

Neither Mother nor Sri Aurobindo told him to write a biography to appeal to the academia much less write it from a "perspective of the secular historian", "in keeping with the academic style" which compelled him to twist the truth to prevent failure of his project...

This need not necessarily be a misdirected reaction of a mere emotional or devotional fervour. Reflect upon this. I think we should discuss this no further because of the controversial nature of the subject. Vikas

Reply by Rich on Sat 27 Sep 2008 04:17 PM PDT Profile Permanent Link

Rich: And are you in such privileged communication with Mother and Sri Aurobindo that they told you that you should denounce this biography? Or did you choose to write these comments just as PH chose to write his biography? ...

Rich: And so are you claiming to be the sole possessor of truth in the matter? as I said in my comment to Rakesh, the story of history is the story of interpretations. It seems like the folks denouncing the book in question assume they are the only ones in possession of the 'Truth". There seems to me to be a fair amount of hubris in making this claim, that seems contrary to the humility required of those claiming to be sadhaks.

Re: Sri Aurobindo and Hinduism (a speech by Peter Heehs: Hyderabad 2006)
by Debashish on Sat 27 Sep 2008 01:54 PM PDT Profile Permanent Link

Vikas, You raise an interesting point here that bears deeper consideration. On the issue of taking Sri Aurobindo's espousal of the acceptance of the Cripp's proposal as something which would have averted the partition "with a grain of salt", you make it appear that this is the expression of a falsehood on Peter's part. Why is this a falsehood? Is it because:

(1) Peter is a disciple of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother and disciples have to take all that their guru says as "gospel truth" and anything they may say which casts doubt on the guru's words is a falsehood? or (2) Sri Aurobindo and the Mother are the Divine, are avatars, and everything that they say is therefore truth and so, to question whatever they say is a falsehood - or (3) Sri Aurobindo and the Mother as yogis are in possession of an infallible source of knowledge and therefore anything that casts doubt on this is a falsehood? - or - (4) Am I missing something?

(1) certainly cannot hold water. In guruvada, one must follow the injunctions of one's guru, but one need not therefore eschew a "grain of salt" until one arrives at knowledge. This is evidenced by Sri Aurobindo himself in his attitude towards Lele's words, when he was told that thoughts come from the outside. Sri Aurobindo tells us that he found the notion outlandish, but that he gave it a try as a possibility. A disciple may very well follow an inner process leading to knowledge, which includes questioning. Given that the spiritual journey is a matter between disciple and guru, to dictate from the outside what a disciple should or should not consider "true" is rather inquisitional, I feel.

(2) would be possible, if there was anywhere in the writings of Sri Aurobindo or the Mother both the claims that (a) they were avatars and (b) whatever avatars express in their lifetimes is to be taken as 100% truth. Whatever case can be made for (a), I have not found any evidence for (b) in my readings. If you can provide some sources, I would be happy to consider the proposition.

As for (3), while we know that Sri Aurobindo and the Mother were attempting to realize the supramental consciousness, which alone according to both of them, gave absolute certainty about anything, we also know by their own telling, that they had not realized this consciousness integrally or were not in possession of it at all times. Hence, unless any of us have an identical consciousness as either of them at the time of the utterance of a statement and can assert that it was said from the supramental consciousness, or unless they make it clear that the statement is made from the plane of truth-consciousness, it is possible for an individual, even a disciple, to hold its truth-content in question, until verified in experience. You or I may have a different threshold of disbelief, but one cannot expect everyone to accept all things said by even supreme yogis as "truth" unless it is unquestionably from the plane of truth-consciousness. DB

I apologize if the fact I have posed the question has caused anyone to feel that their guru has been disrespected

Science, Culture and Integral Yoga Re: Respect for spiritual master from Srimad Bhagavatamby Rich on Fri 26 Sep 2008 08:14 PM PDT Profile Permanent Link

Rakesh, Your points are well taken, of course it is only natural to spontaneously respect ones dear ones and be devoted to them. However this is not the issue I have tried to raise which is namely that in many places both SA/M has stated Integral Yoga eschews traditional religious practice. It is not a religion

However. my experience and those of many many people whom I respect and who are very also devoted to the yoga is that many of the institutions of Integral Yoga have for all practical purposes become akin to religious institutions, and many followers seem to follow it as a variation of Hinduism, and not as a non-sectarian spiritual system.

Now if you do not agree with that then we have to agree to disagree, if you however, as I do, perceive a reification of the teaching into a traditional religious practice then one can honestly ask the question:

Why when IY was proclaimed to eschew religion has its institutions come to resemble traditional religious institutions and why do many of its followers resemble followers of traditional religious practice? If you even think the question is a valid one, perhaps you do not agree with the answer I have arrived at, and again we can agree to disagree.

But if you think the question regards how religion crept into IY is a meaningful one, then it begs a question, which I feel worthwhile to address. But that is something I feel compelled to do, because in my opinion the very religiosity that have crept into will stifle its relevance for the future, now maybe that is ultimately a right or wrong attitude but for many reasons the issue has relevance for me.

I apologize if the fact I have posed the question has caused anyone to feel that their guru has been disrespected, that certainly is not the intention. And although it may be hard for some to believe asking the question -and even coming up with a answer which seems to be a critique = has only increased my respect for Sri Aurobindo rich [7:34 AM]

Scotus is comfortable with many diversities and resists to press all of reality into One unity

Does Scotus’s Modal Distinction Save God’s Transcendence?
from Per Caritatem by Cynthia R. Nielsen

At least two important conclusions follow from what I’ve sketched above by way of King’s comments: (1) God’s simplicity is upheld, and (2) God and creatures are in fact diverse and not merely different-if the latter were the case, God’s transcendence would be weakened because “there would be some real factor common to God and creatures” in light of Scotus’s univocity (of the concept) of being thesis (p. 56). However, this is not the case. Again, turning to King, we read:

although formal distinctions may introduce real complexity, they only introduce real composition when they are combined as genus and differentia. In this case, there are elements united as potency (genus) and act (differentia), making up a composite. But unless distinct elements are so related, they will not produce composition in the relevant sense, and so there need be no composition introduced by the formal distinction (p. 56).

In other words, Scotus’s univocity of being thesis does not construe being as a common genus shared by God and creatures. Rather, we begin with the most indeterminate concept of being as that which is not repugnant to existence. As this imperfect concept becomes more precise (more perfect), we find that it has intrinsic modes (e.g. either infinite or finite), which refer to real aspects of being, viz. a being’s intrinsic intensity.

For Scotus, however, there is only One Reality that corresponds to the concept of infinite being, the Triune God. Every other existent being falls under finite being; hence, the two realities are diverse. In sum, the transcendental concept of being, while being a unified concept, picks out or refers to realities which are diverse, and is set forth as a disjunctive proposition: Being is either finite or infinite. Here Scotus exhibits a non-Parmenidian impulse and resists the urge to press all of reality into One unity. In other words, Scotus is comfortable with a reality that ends up reflecting many diversities - diversities which of course find their ultimate unity in relation to God.

Kant’s secular-Enlightenment updating of the old Christian virtue of hope

A Note on Evil from The Pinocchio Theory by Steven Shaviro

In particular, I was referring to Kant’s essay “An Old Question Raised Again: Is the Human Race Constantly Progressing?”, which forms one part of the late (post-Critical) book The Conflict of the Faculties. I think that this essay deserves a contemporary rethinking and “updating” — in much the same spirit in which Foucault rethought and “updated” Kant’s essay “What is Enlightenment?”.

Foucault rejects the way that, in the hands of Habermas and others, Kant’s Enlightenment principles have become the basis for what Foucault “like[s] to call the ‘blackmail’ of the Enlightenment.” Foucault says that it is ridiculous to demand “that one has to be ‘for’ or ‘against’ the Enlightenment.” For “the Enlightenment is an event, or a set of events and complex historical processes,” rather than a permanent set of values to be identified with “rationality” or “humanism” tout court. Indeed, for Foucault it is precisely in refusing this for-or-against “blackmail” that one can most truly remain faithful to the Kantian task of a continued “historico-critical investigation” of our own assumptions and presuppositions, including precisely and especially the ones that seem to us to be most self-evidently “rational” and “humanistic.”

With regard to “An Old Question Raised Again,” similarly, we might do well to rethink Kant’s interrogation of the possibility of “progress,” precisely because we now find ourselves in a world where nobody can believe any longer in “progress” in the sense that Kant meant it. Lyotard wrote in the 1980s that nobody could believe in “grand narratives” (like the Enlightenment and Marxist one of progressive human emancipation) any longer; Francis Fukuyama wrote in the 1990s that the perpetuity of neoliberal capitalism was the only “end of history” that we could ever hope to attain. Today, in 2008, we are if anything even more cynical, as years of booms and busts in the market — with the biggest bust of all currently looming over us — have all the more firmly established capital accumulation, with its concomitant technological improvements, as the only form of “progress” that we can at all believe in.

But it is precisely in this context that Kant’s essay speaks to us with a new relevance. “An Old Question Raised Again” makes the point that there is no empirical evidence whatsoever to maintain the proposition that the human race is progressing — by which Kant means morally progressing, to a state of emancipation instead of slavery, mutual respect (treating all human beings as means, rather than just as ends) instead of subordination and hierarchy, and cosmopolitan peace instead of strife and war. (In other words, Kant is implicitly referring to the three watchwords of the French Revolution — Liberty, Equality, Fraternity — though we might well want to replace the last one with “cosmopolitanism,” to avoid the gendered connotations of “fraternity”).

There is no empirical way to assert that humanity is progressing in these terms, rather than regressing or merely remaining at the same point. (It is worth maintaining this Kantian point against all those fatuous attempts to claim that the USA is benevolently improving the lot of the rest of the world, or somehow standing up for “freedom” and “democracy,” when in fact it is exporting the imperious demands of neoliberal capital, whether by outright war or by other forms of influence or coercion, to other parts of the world).

However — and this is the real crux of Kant’s argument — although there is no empirical evidence in favor of the proposition that “progress” has taken place, there is a reason, or an empirical ground, for us to believe in progress, to hope for it, and even to work for it — rejecting the cynicism that tells us that any such hope or belief is deluded or “utopian” (this latter word is most often used pejoratively, in the form of the claim that any attempt to make human life better, such as all the efforts of the Left in the 19th and 20th centuries, inevitably has “unintended consequences” that end up making things worse).

This ground is the occurrence of certain events — for Kant, the French Revolution — whose sheer occurrence, in itself, however badly these events miscarried subsequently,

“demonstrates a character of the human race at large and all at once… a moral character of humanity, at least in its predisposition, a character which not only permits people to hope for progress toward the better, but is already itself progress in so far as its capacity is sufficient for the present.”

Humanity hasn’t actually gotten any better, but its active ability to imagine and project betterment, on a social and cosmopolitan scale, is itself evidence that a “predisposition” to betterment does in fact exist...

The two key terms here are universality and disinterestedness. Kant is not merely praising enthusiasm and fervor. He is almost oppressively aware that enthusiasm and fervor guarantee nothing, and that they have propelled many of the worst happenings and the worst movements in human history — something that is all the more evident today, after the horrors of the twentieth century. Nothing that is narrowly drawn, chauvanistic, nationalistic, etc., can stand as evidence for a predisposition towards betterment.

But beyond that: Kant is not saying that the French Revolution in itself is the evidence of a human predisposition to betterment. He is saying, rather, that the “universal yet disinterested sympathy” that “spectators” from afar felt for the French Revolution is such evidence. Our “moral predisposition” for betterment is revealed in the way that “all spectators (who are not engaged in this game themselves” feel a “sympathy,” or “a wishful participation that borders closely on enthusiasm,” for the distant revolutionary events of which they are the witnesses. Such sympathy-from-afar can be “dangerous,” Kant warns us; but it is genuine evidence for the potentiality or “predisposition” toward improvement of the human condition — at least to the extent that it is “universal” (rather than being partial, chauvinistic, or favoring one “nation” or “race” against another — as fascist enthusiasm always is), and that it is “disinterested” (not motivated by any expectation of personal gain; an aesthetic concern rather than a merely self-aggrandizing one).

(I think that, for example, Foucault’s enthusiasm from afar for the Iranian revolution can be regarded in the same way as Kant’s enthusiasm from afar for the French revolution; in both cases, the bad outcomes of these revolutions does not disqualify the reasons for which Kant and Foucault found themseves in sympathy with them; and this is why such events, and such expressions of sympathy, must be radically distinguished from the enthusiasm for fascism that consumed so many early-20th-century artists and intellectuals).

I suppose that, genealogically, all this is Kant’s secular-Enlightenment updating of the old Christian virtue of hope. But it locates what is hoped for in this life, this world, rather than in an afterlife, or in some sort of post-apocalyptic recovery (in this way, it is actually more secular, and less mystical and religious, than, say, Walter Benjamin’s messianism; and although it refers, or defers, to an as-yet-unaccomplished future, it is more materially and empirically grounded than, say, Derrida’s “democracy to come.” Benjamin and Derrida must both be honored as true descendants of Kant, yet arguably they have both diminished him). The human predisposition towards betterment already exists in the here and now, even if its fulfillment does not.

This supramental level is to be attained through the practice of Integral Yoga

KANNADA Integral Yoga V. GOPALAKRISHNA The Hindu Tuesday, Sep 23, 2008
DIVYA JIVANA: Tr. by Ko. Chennabasappa of the original “The Life Divine” by Sri Aurobindo, Sri Aravinda Prakashana, Basaveshwarnagar, Bangalore-560086, Rs.500.

TO INTERPRET Sri Aurobindo’s spiritual vision in any of our languages requires a lot of patience, learning and ability of expression. Since the celebrated Yogi experienced by dint of strict adherence to Yoga, his vision is a hard nut to crack especially for those who have no basic knowledge of the scriptures of our land. Viewed from this angle the translator of this magnum opus has succeeded in his endeavour to give the essence of this philosophical work to the Kannada readers in a simple and lucid style.

It is divided mainly into two parts each comprising 28 chapters. The first part discusses Brahman and the universe, and the second with spiritual evolution. Aurobindo in his philosophy of Absolute affirmation emphasises the essential factors such as faith in the scriptures, initiation by the Guru in addition to earnestness for spiritual realisation. He synthesises the best in the East and the West.

Regarded as a poet of patriotism, prophet of nationalism and a lover of humanity, Aurobindo says that man is a socio-religious and transitional being and is yet to proceed to a still higher level of existence. This supramental level is to be attained through the practice of Integral Yoga to enable him live in peace and joy. This divine life on the Earth can only come about by a spiritual change in our being. The foreword written to the first edition by poet laureate Kuvempu illuminates the volume.

Thompson presages riding on the shoulders of such as Jean Gebser and Marshall McLuhan

At the Edge of History and Passages About Earth (Paperback) by William Irwin Thompson (Author) (3 customer reviews)

Outside the Academy, April 25, 2004 By Allan J. Cronin "francis gerard" (Santa Barbara, CA) - See all my reviews

These two books neatly collected into one volume are written by a man who was a traditional academic but chose to work outside the academy and it is this that he discusses in these books. Trained as a historian Thompson takes a mythical view of history informed both by his own views and those of W.B. Yeats whose "A Vision" is interpreted here.

To classify Thompson as simply "new age" would be to dismiss him too easily. While his work does fit at times with that nebulous genre he wrote these before that term was coined. This is a different take on history and on the academy. I regularly give copies of this one to my academic friends to keep them from getting stagnated by the university system. Essential reading. Comment Permalink

A Must For Every Library, May 19, 2005 By City Boy "RPM" (Maine) - See all my reviews

William Irwin Thompson is one of the truly great minds of our time. These two early works (which were originally published separately) are the perfect introduction to Thompson's opus. While some of the pop culture references may seem dated, passed over by events, the basic world view presented here remains valid.

Thompson, riding on the shoulders of such as Jean Gebser and Marshall McLuhan, illuminates the transitional period we are undergoing, as we move out of the modern era into ... whatever is coming -- we don't really know yet, but the so-called "postmodern" isn't the future, it's just a replay of isolated elements of the modern. Thompson sees signs of one possible future in the emerging planetary consciousness where thinking globally while acting locally is more than a pop phrase but a new way of perceiving our oneness with a sacred world.

Thompson looks at signposts all over the planet which, taken individually might seems interesting, but taken together begin to form a picture that inspires either hope or dread, depending on your attachment to the prevailing consciousness. (You'll have to read his more recent books to get his take on capitalism's latest phase of globalization.) I won't give any more away as I don't wish to spoil the intellectual feast that awaits the reader.

I urge anyone interested in the history of ideas and in understanding the changes taking place in the world around us to read Thompson, starting with this publication. Then work your way through the rest of his books. It's a journey that can change your worldview and your life. Comment Permalink

A Model to understand the world with., February 11, 2000 By David Jonas (Denver, Colorado) - See all my reviews

This is one of those few intellectual works that can truely change one's understanding of how things work. A profound analysis of historical change that presents both models of change and societal models. Comment Permalink › See all 3 customer reviews 7:31 AM

Where the author is commissioned to write what the publisher wants him to write

The Lives of Sri Aurobindo—a Controversial Biography by Peter Heehs
by RY Deshpande on Wed 17 Sep 2008 09:37 AM PDT Permanent Link

What Sri Aurobindo represents in the world’s history is not a teaching, not even a revelation; it is a decisive action direct from the Supreme. ~ The Mother
(14 February 1961)

The present article is apropos of The Lives of Sri Aurobindo, a controversial biography by Peter Heehs, published recently by the Columbia University Press, USA, May 2008. It is claimed that the work is based on researched material, something which is missing in the earlier publications. Please also go to www.sciy.org/blog/_archives/2008/8/8/3830554.html where there is a pretty extensive discussion on a few of the related matters. ~ RY Deshpande

The Technology of Promotionalism
Peter Heehs’s Lives of Sri Aurobindo is a recent arrival in the thriving genre of biographies and professes itself to be founded on researched material. It essentially treats the subject as a human person and not really as a yogi or a spiritual stalwart, and in the least as an incarnate. The book has been recently published by the Columbia University Press and appears to be rough on the sentiments of the devotees of the Mother and the Master. The author claims himself to be a meticulous professional historian and wants to present the subject strictly as it should emerge from the documentary material. The approach is, holds the author, strictly rational and is grounded in the principles of research, eschewing goody-goody emotionalism of the hagiographic presentations of such themes. This may have certain merit but there are things that lie far beyond the reach of such scientification of occult and spiritual matters. In fact, it is not possible for reason to grasp the issues connected with them although to some extent it could open to its intuition; this is simply true, for the reason that “things are never on the surface for men to see them”.

On the other hand, with a degree of spiritual experience and realization, there is a chance of presenting them to the rational mind also. This spiritual experience and realization must come first before one attempts to speak about them who live in the richness of the spirit, in its multi-dimensionality. If this basic fact is not recognized, then the work will fail to carry in it the substance or essential conviction of the higher principles. Not only that; such a work should be at once dismissed as an inchoate or garbled attempt, without any further consideration—because of the wrong premises with which it begins, because it smacks more of “I’m wiser than you all, the gullible, that you utterly lack rational faculty and capacity to detach yourself from your object of adoration." Such unfortunately seems to be the case of the much touted Lives of Sri Aurobindo brought out with great fanfare, which is of course a part of the modern publication dynamics where the author is commissioned to write what the publisher wants him to write.

Truth, the spiritual truth then gets sacrificed on the altar of promotionalism. And it is a peculiar game, a very queer game in which the more the writer becomes diabolical the more gets promoted promotionalism. But we need not fall prey to all this full-size ballyhooing if we are established in the spiritual principles that guide and govern our aspiration and that bring fulfilment to it, the decisive factor being transparent sincerity and devotion in the sense of commitment to one’s persuasive or compelling ideals. So without getting impressed by the “gunny sack” scouring of facts of pseudo-rationalism we could depend more upon the intuition and the inner conviction in matters of spiritual personalities. This need not carry any guilty feeling in us; rather it is that which will strengthen our refined perceptions and subtleties of understanding...

An Extraordinarily Complex Individual
As a part of systematic promotionalism of The Lives of Sri Aurobindo we have in the August 2008 issue of Auroville Today, Peter Heehs being interviewed by Alan. The author maintains that his is a biography based on enormous amount of archival material, on “authentic documents”, something which the earlier works totally lacked. “It wasn't always easy,” informs the biographer, the records of Baroda College, for instance, were stored in “gunny sacks covered with bat droppings, heaped up in an unused”. While fact collection is an important aspect of the work, much has yet to be done in presenting them in a coherent understandable manner, often comparing several sources. In the process certain subjective elements also enter in, something which is inevitable in this kind of a job. However, the author maintains that “the Sri Aurobindo that emerges from the new biography is much more lifelike, more unpredictable, more complex, than the Sri Aurobindo of earlier biographical writing, including my own.” But then there is a puzzling statement also: “If spiritual experience is something which is not merely subjective but represents a human capacity, one would expect to find such accounts.” Although such a stand might be perfectly justifiable for a book to be written for people “in the academic world”, it at once spells doom as far as the representation of the subject is concerned. Never in the case of a spiritual person should come any consideration that is not spiritual, and therefore the argument that “a certain priority to the academic approach” be given turns out to be fallacious.

So what the Mother called “a direct action straight from the Supreme” has to prove itself right in the eyes of the academicians, they sitting in the lofty judgement seats. The fallacy becomes particularly glaring when the interview comes to the deep occult matters, for instance the passing away Sri Aurobindo. Peter Heehs replies:

“You correctly put your finger on a special difficulty of dealing with a life like Sri Aurobindo's. When, as historians, we speak of physical events, there's an established way of dealing with them, using documents to corroborate what we say. When we talk about a person's spiritual experiences, we have that person's own account of what took place. But when we talk about occult workings and effects, we are talking about spiritual things having an impact on physical events. But the influence of the inner world on the outer is not verifiable in ordinary terms. I could have used the Mother's accounts of his death etc. as she is certainly an authority in these matters; but the kind of the biography I wanted to write had to be based upon verifiable facts. When I think about things like Sri Aurobindo's death, I certainly take what the Mother said about them into consideration. But I didn't put everything I think into this book.”

But has any criteria been spelt out as to what should be put and what be not? We have no idea from the interview. In conclusion the biographer says:

“All in all, Sri Aurobindo stands up very well to the critical approach. Devotees think they have to be protective of him, that any criticism will destroy him and all his work. This is ridiculous. His accomplishments in various fields are so strong and lasting that he emerges firmer and stronger from a critical treatment that deals squarely with difficult questions.”

But this statement itself is ridiculous, as it fails to recognize the foundational basis of the spiritual work. It will of course be grossly ridiculous for the Ashram to consider Sri Aurobindo as its property, but to speak of “an extraordinarily complex individual” with multiple spiritual dimensions only in terms of facts found in the gunny sacks lying in the attic is sheer falsification, certainly it is perversion. And the fact is that facts are not always presented. The whole approach therefore displays complete lack of sensitivity; in it spiritual perceptions are unfortunately absent.

This becomes more astonishing when the author also claims himself to be the follower of Integral Yoga. He proclaims: “I am, after all, a practitioner of Sri Aurobindo's yoga, and I take what he has written about his own practice of yoga, and the yogic discipline he recommends to others, quite seriously.” But who is going to decide the “quite serious” aspect of the matter? In any case, it need not be our concern, it need not concern us here...

But what are the spiritual credentials of those people who opine about Sri Aurobindo? We have not been informed about these. Nevertheless, we are persuaded to go by the findings of scraps in gunny sacks, with droppings of bats on them. Or else, we have to go by the bazaar talk and dismiss even what the Mother says:

“What Sri Aurobindo represents in the world’s history is not a teaching, not even a revelation; it is a decisive action direct from the Supreme.”
RY Deshpande
Keywords: SriAurobindo, Spirituality, Sethna, Savitri, Satprem, Review, Religion, Pondicherry, Mother, Biography, Avatar, AurovilleToday, Aurobindo, Ashram, Amal, Science, Culture and Integral Yoga [10:25 AM]

Phyllis Granoff, Paul Hacker, Hajime Nakamura, Wilhelm Halbfass, and Sengaku Mayeda

kelamuni Gender: Male Age: 47 Location: Victoria About Me: The Sanskrit term “kela” is related to “keli,” which in Sanskrit means play, dalliance, or jest. The appellation “kelamuni” thus means “playful-muni.”

In a former life I was an Indologist. In my current incarnation I am exploring my capacities as a musician and transmitter of musical traditions. I remain interested in Indian intellectual history and spirituality, though I take an historical-critical approach toward modern Western appropriations of Asian religion and philosophy. For my views on such matters you can check out my web site, Explorations in Neo-Vedanta and Perennialism.

As an Indologist, I am a specialist in the thought of Shankara. As for scholars of Vedanta, I respect the work of Phyllis Granoff, Paul Hacker, Hajime Nakamura, Wilhelm Halbfass, and Sengaku Mayeda. My philosophical views have been shaped by Wittgenstein, Gadamer, Collingwood, and Kant, though I have an interest in traditional philosophers and exegetes like Nagarjuna and Chandrakirti. My personal views on spirituality can perhaps best be described as anarchic, in the spirit of figures like Asthavakra.

I studied Philosophy as an undergrad and Sanskrit at grad school. I have played in numerous orchestras and ensembles; managed a symphony orchestra for a stint; lived and studied in India; taught Buddhist Studies at a major American university; and helped raise my charming daughter...

Long term projects include: a short history of the origins of Vedanta; a collection of essays on the nature of advaita/advaya in classical Indian thought; a collection of annotated transcriptions of traditional reels and hornpipes from the Celtic and Oldtime fiddle traditions; a collection of recipes from the Moroccan, Turkish, Persian, and north Indian culinary traditions; and a CD of Donegal fiddle tunes. Member Since: Saturday, January 12 2008 6:38 PM

In what sense is India a persistent entity?

RESUME D.P.Chattopadhyaya, Chairman of the Centre for Studies in Civilizations
Introduction PublicationsCSCHomeAdministrationProgrammesLinksContact

D.P.CHATTOPADHYAYA, after obtaining his Ph.D. degrees from Calcutta University and London School of Economics, taught philosophy at Jadavpur University, Calcutta.He is the founder Chairman of Indian Council of Philosophical Research, New Delhi. Currently, he is the Chairman of the Centre for Studies in Civilizations, and General Editor of this Project.

Chattopadhyaya is one of the propounders of interdisciplinary studies in the country with his wide knowledge on philosophy, political theory, economics, history and science. His publications include Individuals and Societies: A Methodological Inquiry (1967); History, Individuals and World (1976); Rupa, Rasa O Sundara (in Bengali, 1980); Sri Aurobindo and Karl Marx (1988); Anthropology and Historiography of Science (1990); Induction, Probability and Skepticism (1991); Sociology, Ideology and Utopia (1997).

Back For editorial information regarding published volumes and volumes in progress.
Dr. Bhagat Oinam Editor (Research and Publication) Tele.: 91-11-6076657/ Ext.37 6099541/ Ext.41

• What is India?
• In what sense is India a persistent entity?
• What power lay concealed in the initial seeds of symbols, vision and experiences that impelled the sprouting and blossoming of intertwined branches of a complex culture?
• What is Indian culture?
• And how did it grow and shape multitudinous philosophical and scientific ideas?
• Is there behind this development a living soul or spirit?
• Can we somehow grasp it?
• And can we, by understanding it, replenish ourselves for fresh creativity?

These and similar questions occupy the pioneers of the Indian renaissance, and there has been since a growing formulation of the discovery and rediscovery of India. Today we feel impelled to delve once again much deeper into our roots and their manifestations. This implies fresh study of Indian history, at its subtle and complex levels, - study of the growth of its science and philosophy, not in their isolated and compartmental limit, but in their interconnections as also in the context of a dynamic panorama of multi-dimensional currents of our civilization and culture...

The idea of undertaking a comprehensive research project of interdisciplinary study of history of Indian Science, Philosophy and Culture (PHISPC), was initiated by Professor D.P Chattopadhyaya in 1981, when he was the Chairman of the Indian Council of Philosophical Research (ICPR). This idea was discussed informally with other members of the Council. Many eminent scholars of History, Science, Philosophy and Culture were also consulted. A warm support was received from various quarters. A major effort was accordingly considered necessary to undertake an interdisciplinary study so that interconnections between Science, Philosophy and Culture as they developed in the long history of Indian civilization could be understood.

Professor D.P. Chattopadhyaya discussed the basic idea of the proposed project with the then Prime Minister Srimati Indira Gandhi. At her instance, the Project was also discussed with Professor Nurul Hassan, the then Vice-President of the Council of Scientific and Industrial research (CSIR). Initial lines of collaboration between ICPR and CSIR began to take shape.

In due course, the idea of the project matured further, and the Indian Council of Philosophical Research included this idea among the programmes for its 8th five year plan. The proposal of the project was discussed at various meetings of the ICPR as also the meetings held in the Department of Education , Ministry of Human Resource Development and the Planning Commission. The proposal was also discussed in the office of the Prime Minister, and there was also a discussion between Professor D. P. Chattopadhyaya and the then Prime Minister, Shri V.P. Singh. With the approval of the Prime Minister's office and the Department of Education, a preparatory Committee was constituted in July 1990, under the Chairmanhip of Professor D. P. Chattopadhyaya. The project has since been approved by the Planning Commission and was included in 8th Five Year Plan.

At a late stage, Professor D.P. Chattopadhyaya discussed the project with the then Prime Minister Shri Chandra Shekhar and Shri Mohan Dharia, the then Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission. As a result of these discussions, initial financial assistance was accorded to the project by the Government of India in the Ministry of Human Resource Development and in the Department of Science and Technology during 1990-91. Professor D.P. Chattopadhyaya also discussed with the Prime Minister Shri P.V. Narasimha Rao who welcomed the project very warmly and promised to support it. While various research councils and agencies participated in the planning and execution of the project, the Indian Council of Philosophical Research worked as the nodal agency for the Project till March 1997.

From April 1, 1997, PHISPC was officially de-linked from Indian Council of Philosophical Research (ICPR) for a greater autonomy to complete the Project by the stipulated period, and is now affiliated to Centre for Studies in Civilizations . Government of India has recognized CSC as the nodal agency for the purposes of funding the ongoing research project, PHISPC.

SANDHAN Introduction Publications CSCHome Vol. I Number 1 From The Editorial Desk Contents Notes for Contributors Sandhan: General Information Contributors

From The Editorial Desk
Sandhan, closely associated with the Centre for studies in civilization, is now in its resurrected form. Mainly for two reasons the Centre was forced to suspend temporarily its publication. One, the Centre started thinking of bringing out a full-fledged journal instead of news bulletin. Two, the non-availability of sufficient material of good quality also forced our hands. Given goodwill and cooperation of our contributors and readers, it is hoped that it will be possible from now onwards to publish Sandhan in a regular manner.
Stricly speaking, it is not intended to be a research journal. Rather we would be primarily interested in the presentations which make analytical, critical and constructive use of the research materials already available. I must qualify the point. If any writer persuasively shows that his / her research may be a critical input for the Centre’s on-going activities, we will be naturally be interested in it.
It is not easy to draw a clear line of demarcation between civilization and culture. Yet one can justifiably say that while the former is primarily infrastructural and instrumental in character, the latter seems to be mainly located in the mid-structural, super-structural and ideational levels. Analysis reveals a continuous process of upward and downward causation bringing them continuously close.
From the articles and other items published in this new issue of Sandhan, I feel, one thing will clear to the readers. While our areas of interest will comprise both sciences and humanities, we would try to lend a South Asian orientation to our published materials. In our view of South Asia the whole world has an unmistakable place in its broad and catholic canvas. Our endeavor will ensure a civilizational dialogue between what we are thinking and doing in this part of the world with the thoughts and events elsewhere in the larger world.
D.P. Chattopadhyaya Editor

Contents I. Articles
The Emergence of the person: Some Indian Themes and Theories Sibajiban Bhattacharyya
Ravidas of the Sikh Tradition J.S. Grewal
Culture, Secularization and Religion G.C. Pande
Beyond the Clash of Civilizations Fred Dallmayr
The Concept of Dharma in Indian Tradition with Special Reference to Swami Vivekananda Krishna Kant
Towards the Idea of Civil Society Ruben G. Apressyan
Schism in the Colonized Soul: A philosophical View of India’s Transit from Raj to Swaraj D.P.Chattopadhyaya
II. Symposia Intellectual Traditions of India: Linguistic and Cultural
III.Comments On J.V. Nalikar’s ‘Four Questions that History might answer’
IV. Book Reviews V. News and Notes VI. Contributors