A shadow depends on light for its existence, but light does not depend for its existence on the shadow

Sri Aurobindo

It is no doubt a fact that once truth or good manifests, the conception of falsehood and evil becomes a possibility; for whenever there is an affirmation, its negation becomes conceivable. As the manifestation of existence, consciousness and delight made the manifestation of non-existence, inconscience, insensibility conceivable and, because conceivable, therefore in a way inevitable, for all possibilities push towards actuality until they reach it, so is it with these contraries of the aspects of the Divine Existence. It may be said on this ground that these opposites, since they must be immediately perceivable by the manifesting Consciousness on the very threshold of manifestation, can take rank as implied absolutes and are inseparable from all cosmic existence.

But it must first be noted that it is only in cosmic manifestation that they become possible; they cannot pre-exist in the timeless being, for they are incompatible with the unity and bliss that are its substance. In cosmos also they cannot come into being except by a limitation of truth and good into partial and relative forms and by a breaking up of the unity of existence and consciousness into separative consciousness and separative being. For where there is oneness and complete mutuality of consciousness-force even in multiplicity and diversity, there truth of self-knowledge and mutual knowledge is automatic and error of self-ignorance and mutual ignorance is impossible.

So too where truth exists as a whole on a basis of self-aware oneness, falsehood cannot enter and evil is shut out by the exclusion of wrong consciousness and wrong will and their dynamisation of falsehood and error. As soon as separateness enters, these things also can enter; but even this simultaneity is not inevitable. If there is sufficient mutuality, even in the absence of an active sense of oneness, and if the separate beings do not transgress or deviate from their norms of limited knowledge, harmony and truth can still be sovereign and evil will have no gate of entry.

There is, therefore, no authentic inevitable cosmicity of falsehood and evil even as there is no absoluteness; they are circumstances or results that arise only at a certain stage when separativeness culminates in opposition and ignorance in a primitive unconsciousness of knowledge and a resultant wrong consciousness and wrong knowledge with its content of wrong will, wrong feeling, wrong action and wrong reaction. The question is at what juncture of cosmic manifestation the opposites enter in; for it may be either at some stage of the increasing involution of consciousness in separative mind and life or only after the plunge into inconscience.

This resolves itself into the question whether falsehood, error, wrong and evil exist originally in the mental and vital planes and are native to mind and life or are proper only to the material manifestation because inflicted on mind and life there by the obscurity arising from the Inconscience. It may be questioned too whether, if they do exist in supraphysical mind and life, they were original and inevitable there; for they may rather have entered in as a consequence or a supraphysical extension from the material manifestation. Or, if that is untenable, it may be that they arose as an enabling supraphysical affirmation in the universal Mind and Life, a precedent necessity for their appearance in that manifestation to which they more naturally belong as an inevitable outcome of the creative Inconscience.

It was for a long time held by the human mind as a traditional knowledge that when we go beyond the material plane, these things are found to exist there also in worlds beyond us. There are in these planes of supraphysical experience powers and forms of vital mind and life that seem to be the prephysical foundation of the discordant, defective or perverse forms and powers of life-mind and life-force which we find in the terrestrial existence. There are forces, and subliminal experience seems to show that there are supraphysical beings embodying those forces, that are attached in their root-nature to ignorance, to darkness of consciousness, to misuse of force, to perversity of delight, to all the causes and consequences of the things that we call evil. These powers, beings or forces are active to impose their adverse constructions upon terrestrial creatures; eager to maintain their reign in the manifestation, they oppose the increase of light and truth and good and, still more, are antagonistic to the progress of the soul towards a divine consciousness and divine existence. It is this feature of existence that we see figured in the tradition of the conflict between the Powers of Light and Darkness, Good and Evil, cosmic Harmony and cosmic Anarchy, a tradition universal in ancient myth and in religion and common to all systems of occult knowledge.

The theory of this traditional knowledge is perfectly rational and verifiable by inner experience, and it imposes itself if we admit the supraphysical and do not cabin ourselves in the acceptation of material being as the only reality. As there is a cosmic Self and Spirit pervading and upholding the universe and its beings, so too there is a cosmic Force that moves all things, and on this original cosmic Force depend and act many cosmic Forces that are its powers or arise as forms of its universal action. Whatever is formulated in the universe has a Force or Forces that support it, seek to fulfil or further it, find their foundation in its functioning, their account of success in its success and growth and domination, their self-fulfilment or their prolongation of being in its victory or survival. As there are Powers of Knowledge or Forces of the Light, so there are Powers of Ignorance and tenebrous Forces of the Darkness whose work is to prolong the reign of Ignorance and Inconscience. As there are Forces of Truth, so there are Forces that live by the Falsehood and support it and work for its victory; as there are powers whose life is intimately bound up with the existence, the idea and the impulse of Good, so there are Forces whose life is bound up with the existence and the idea and the impulse of Evil.

It is this truth of the cosmic Invisible that was symbolised in the ancient belief of a struggle between the powers of Light and Darkness, Good and Evil for the possession of the world and the government of the life of man; — this was the significance of the contest between the Vedic Gods and their opponents, sons of Darkness and Division, figured in a later tradition as Titan and Giant and Demon, Asura, Rakshasa, Pisacha; the same tradition is found in the Zoroastrian Double Principle and the later Semitic opposition of God and his Angels on the one side and Satan and his hosts on the other, — invisible Personalities and Powers that draw man to the divine Light and Truth and Good or lure him into subjection to the undivine principle of Darkness and Falsehood and Evil.

Modern thought is aware of no invisible forces other than those revealed or constructed by Science; it does not believe that Nature is capable of creating any other beings than those around us in the physical world, men, beasts, birds, reptiles, fishes, insects, germs and animalculae. But if there are invisible cosmic forces physical in their nature that act upon the body of inanimate objects, there is no valid reason why there should not be invisible cosmic forces mental and vital in their nature that act upon his mind and his life-force. And if Mind and Life, impersonal forces, form conscious beings or use persons to embody them in physical forms and in a physical world and can act upon Matter and through Matter, it is not impossible that on their own planes they should form conscious beings whose subtler substance is invisible to us or that they should be able to act from those planes on beings in physical Nature. Whatever reality or mythical unreality we may attach to the traditional figures of past human belief or experience, they would then be representations of things that are true in principle. In that case the first source of good and evil would be not in terrestrial life or in the evolution from the Inconscience, but in Life itself, their source would be supraphysical and they would be reflected here from a larger supraphysical Nature.

This is certain that when we go back into ourselves very deep away from the surface appearance, we find that the mind, heart and sensational being of man are moved by forces not under his own control and that he can become an instrument in the hands of Energies of a cosmic character without knowing the origin of his actions. It is by stepping back from the physical surface into his inner being and subliminal consciousness that he becomes directly aware of them and is able to know directly and deal with their action upon him. He grows aware of interventions which seek to lead him in one direction or another, of suggestions and impulsions which had disguised themselves as original movements of his own mind and against which he had to battle. He can realise that he is not a conscious creature inexplicably produced in an unconscious world out of a seed of inconscient Matter and moving about in an obscure self-ignorance, but an embodied soul through whose action cosmic Nature is seeking to fulfil itself, the living ground of a vast debate between a darkness of Ignorance out of which it emerges here and a light of Knowledge which is growing upwards towards an unforeseen termination. The Forces which seek to move him, and among them the Forces of good and evil, present themselves as powers of universal Nature; but they seem to belong not only to the physical universe, but to planes of Life and Mind beyond it.

The first thing that we have to note of importance to the problem preoccupying us is that these Forces in their action seem often to surpass the measures of human relativity; they are in their larger action superhuman, divine, titanic or demoniac, but they may create their formations in him in large or in little, in his greatness or his smallness, they may seize and drive him at moments or for periods, they may influence his impulses or his acts or possess his whole nature. If that possession happens, he may himself be pushed to an excess of the normal humanity of good or evil; especially the evil takes forms which shock the sense of human measure, exceed the bounds of human personality, approach the gigantic, the inordinate, the immeasurable.

It may then be questioned whether it is not a mistake to deny absoluteness to evil; for as there is a drive, an aspiration, a yearning in man towards an absolute truth, good, beauty, so these movements, — as also the transcending intensities attainable by pain and suffering, — seem to indicate the attempt at self-realisation of an absolute evil. But the immeasurable is not a sign of absoluteness: for the absolute is not in itself a thing of magnitude; it is beyond measure, not in the sole sense of vastness, but in the freedom of its essential being; it can manifest itself in the infinitesimal as well as in the infinite. It is true that as we pass from the mental to the spiritual, — and that is a passage towards the absolute, — a subtle wideness and an increasing intensity of light, of power, of peace, of ecstasy mark our passing out of our limitations: but this is at first only a sign of freedom, of height, of universality, not yet of an inward absoluteness of self-existence which is the essence of the matter.

To this absoluteness pain and evil cannot attain, they are bound to limitation and they are derivative. If pain becomes immeasurable, it ends itself or ends that in which it manifests, or collapses into insensibility or, in rare circumstances, it may turn into an ecstasy of Ananda. If evil became sole and immeasurable, it would destroy the world or destroy that which bore and supported it; it would bring things and itself back by disintegration into non-existence. No doubt the Powers that support darkness and evil attempt by the magnitude of their self-aggrandisement to reach an appearance of infinity, but immensity is all they can achieve and not infinity; or, at most, they are able to represent their element as a kind of abysmal infinite commensurate with the Inconscient, but it is a false infinite. Self-existence, in essence or by an eternal inherence in the Self-existent, is the condition of absoluteness: error, falsehood, evil are cosmic powers, but relative in their nature, not absolute, since they depend for existence on the perversion or contradiction of their opposites and are not like truth and good self-existent absolutes, inherent aspects of the supreme Self-existent.

Page 605 Location: Home > E-Library > Works Of Sri Aurobindo > The Life Divine Volume-18 > The Origin And Remedy Of Falsehood, Error, Wrong And Evil

The inner meaning of the Gospel according to St. Thomas

AntiMatters Vol 1 No 2 is now online from koantum matters

by Ulrich Mohrhoff Visit AntiMatters‘ Home Page Preface to the Second Issue

3 Sri Aurobindo on Subliminal Consciousness - pp 21-54 A compilation of passages from two of the major works of Sri Aurobindo, concerning the subliminal regions of our consciousness, with introductory biographies of Sri Aurobindo and of F. W. H. Myers, who coined the term “subliminal consciousness” and introduced the subject into scientific psychology. In Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century, Kelly et al. (2006) argued that the subliminal parts of our consciousness hold the key to all or most of the phenomena we tend to label as “paranormal.” According to Sri Aurobindo, they also hold the key to all or most of the phenomena studied by “ordinary” psychology. Through the subliminal we can enter non-physical planes of existence, whose raison d’être is explained...

7 Satprem: The Secret of the Veda - pp 91-96 When Sri Aurobindo first read the Vedic scriptures in translation, they appeared to him as an important historical document but seemed of scant value for a living spiritual experience. Fifteen years later, he read them in the original Sanskrit and found there “a constant vein of the richest gold of thought and spiritual experience.” Meanwhile, he had had experiences for which he had found “no sufficient explanation either in European psychology or in the teachings of Yoga or of Vedanta,” but which “the mantras of the Veda illuminated with a clear and exact light.” It was through these experiences that Sri Aurobindo came to re-discover the true meaning of the Vedas, the gist of which is presented. A short biography of Satprem and an excerpt from one of his conversations with The Mother are included.

8 Medhananda: Buried in the Sands of Time: The Gospel according to Thomas - pp 97-110 In 1945, an extensive anthology of the sayings of Jesus was found preserved in the dry sands of a tomb near Nag Hamadi, Egypt. Going back to a Greek text dating about 100 AD, this Coptic text begins with a prologue that attributes its recording to the apostle Thomas. Applying the psychological approach by which Sri Aurobindo had uncovered the esoteric meaning of the Rig Veda, the author elucidates the inner meaning of the Gospel according to St. Thomas. A brief biography of the author is appended.

Have you come from the Timeless

The Bird of Fire Sri Aurobindo

Gold-white wings a-throb in the vastness, the bird of flame went glimmering over a sunfire curve to the haze of the west,
Skimming, a messenger sail, the sapphire-summer waste of a soundless wayless burning sea.
Now in the eve of the waning world the colour and splendour returning drift through a blue-flicker air back to my breast,
Flame and shimmer staining the rapture-white foam-vest of the waters of Eternity.

Gold-white wings of the miraculous bird of fire, late and slow have you come from the Timeless. Angel, here unto me
Bringst thou for travailing earth a spirit silent and free or His crimson passion of love divine, -
White-ray-jar of the spuming rose-red wine drawn from the vats brimming with light-blaze, the vats of ecstasy,
Pressed by the sudden and violent feet of the Dancer in Time from his sun-grape fruit of a deathless vine?

White-rose-altar the eternal Silence built, make now my nature wide, an intimate guest of His solitude,
But golden above it the body of One in her diamond sphere with Her halo of star-blooql and passion-ray!
Rich and red is thy breast, 0 bird, like blood of a soul climbing the hard crag-teeth world, wounded and nude,
A ruby of flame-petalled love in the silver-gold altar-vase of moon-edged night and rising day.

O Flame who art Time's last boon of the sacrifice, offering-flower held by the finite's gods to the Infinite,
O marvel bird with the burning wings of light and the unbarred lids that look beyond all space,
One strange leap of thy mystic stress breaking the barriers of mind and life, arrives at its luminous term thy flight;

Invading the secret clasp of the Silence and crimson Fire thou frontest eyes in a timeless Face.

Page-571 : Home > E-Library > Works Of Sri Aurobindo > Collected Poems Volume-05 > The Bird of Fire

News of horrible massacres find place in our newspapers side by side with glamorous pictures of beauty contests

Manoj Das Manoj-Das.sulekha.com Beta

For Whom The Bell Tolls? Posted 2 yrs ago
The hungry little imp of tyranny concealed in most human beings is anxious to exert itself – and a dictatorial position provides him with the luxury in its complete bloom. But to ascend to power in the one of the several normal ways and then to capture it craftily and to possess it for life is not easy. No wonder that the tyrant in a man should burst forth in an opportune moment, when anarchy rules the roost, when a harangue or two can yield what it ordinarily should take a decade or two to achieve 2517 Views comments (6)
Revolutions and Rituals Posted 3 yrs ago
The girl's eyes, dazzling with tears of joy and sorrow, slowly close. The young man lets her fall asleep and goes out to look for an apartment, only to turn totally bewildered on his return. His bride-to-be “lay cold; there was no pulsation – her face was pallid and ghastly. In a word, she was a corpse. 3622 Views comments (2)
An Aspect of Identity Posted 3 yrs ago
"I have great regard for the man after whom my district is named. Let there be a dozen hospitals, a university and a dozen public parks bearing his name. But why impose it on my identity? Why should I be obliged to make him a part of my greater address? 3882 Views comments (6) Tags: Tag this
A Courier For The World Beyond Posted 3 yrs ago
Obviously, the spirit that descended into the medium was a sort of freelance! That explains how people claim to have summoned the spirits of the illustrious dead. Why should these spirits, even if they had not incarnated again, be at the beck and call of a curious lot? It seems there are always hosts of tramps in the world of spirits eager to impersonate the VIPs... 2512 Views comments (2)
Killing The Saviour! Posted 3 yrs ago
The story of the genesis of Ganga, like that of several other great rivers of India, is simply thrilling even when we do not go into its symbolism. The story of the sacred celestial flow descending on the earth through the penance of Prince Bhagiratha is well known. Its power to resurrect the dead (it flowed on the ashes of the thousand Sagara princes and brought them back to life), an integral part of that story, is again 2763 Views comments (6)
Darkness And Light From Arabian Nights Posted 3 yrs ago
The young man cursed his own fate. At last he sought out three of his friends who had professed to be his best well-wishers, who used to announce that there was nothing they could not sacrifice for him. The three then sat in a tavern chitchatting and nibbling some delicacies and took no notice of him. He went closer to them and narrated his misfortune to them. Instead of offering him help or even a share of their food... 2878 Views comments (6)
Two Similar Events And An Interval Of Millennia Posted 4 yrs ago
I remembered having read the account of a similar encounter that had taken place some day, somewhere – similar yet with a difference and that is why it had left an impact on my memory. Before long I recollected its source, the Buddha Jatakas. Naturally the incident goes back to many centuries, may be to three thousand years. I 2661 Views comments (5)
The Other Rabindranath Posted 4 yrs ago
Some anniversaries are celebrated as routine; behind some others we feel an inspiration, they wake us up to the ethos associated with the celebrity behind the anniversary. And Tagore's anniversary surely belongs to this category. Reflections on his poetic excellence or his concept of man always revives our faith in humanity, ushers in a new ray of hope amidst the encircling gloom. 2013 Views comments (21)
Tragedy Of The Taj Posted 4 yrs ago
It is now more than two decades since the Taj was added to the UNESCO's World Heritage list. Way back in 1984, the success of anti-pollution measures in bringing down the sulphur dioxide concentration around it by 75 per cent was announced to the relief of its admirers. Before long, however, it was observed that even with the 2520 Views comments (18)
Souls Under Morphia! Posted 4 yrs ago
Disaster? For whom? Whether the youth would abide by the minister's counsel or not is left to them. But if some of them practise better control over themselves, they are certainly not going to cause a disaster for themselves; nor is their abstinence going to be disastrous for the society. Then? Could it be disaster for the condom manufacturers who vie with one another in achieving vulgarity in packaging? 2306 Views comments (4)
My Name is Ozymandias! Posted 4 yrs ago
The heart-broken veteran is overwhelmed by an irresistible nostalgic love for his desolate statue. He visits it all alone at night and soon spies upon a few young men approaching it. He is thrilled. They were about to attack it because they found it important, contrary to what the foolish collector thought! He waits with bated breath. But one of the young men merely climbs the statue to observe a small bank building on 2004 Views comments (3)
The Incredible Posted 4 yrs ago
But however insignificant the surface of their lives may appear to them, we cannot help reading an undercurrent of imports in them. The task they had set for themselves, after all, was to change this gross mortal life into a life Divine. A subtle link between their actions at the physical plane and those at the sublime plane can always be sensed. For example, Sri Aurobindo fought for the freedom of India, and India for him 1883 Views comments (3)
The Hour Of The Unexpected Posted 4 yrs ago
The spectre of unmanageable population made the biologist, Thomas Euston propose a radically original reform when the world could contain pocketsize human beings. "The technology to shrink humans," he assures us, should be available soon. A genetically engineered virus, carrying genes codes to create small people, can be placed in a reservoir or released in the air. Then everyone infected would absorb the 1229 Views comments (2)
The Riddle Of Sphinx And Euthanasia Posted 4 yrs ago
The question brings to my mind another seminar - rather a workshop - held under the auspices of WHO, at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro-Sciences, Bangalore, in 1985. How is it that a certain treatment carried on two mental patients, both similar to each other in every respect and suffering from the same ailment, failed to cure one but was quite successful in the other case? 989 Views comments (3)
A Climate of Smog Posted 5 yrs ago
Half a dozen women gather in an apartment in San Francisco, three women meet in a modest living room in Laguna Beach, twenty women and men find an isolated spot on the beach in Santa Cruz, a dozen men and women meet in a loft in downtown Los Angeles. Wherever they come together, these people lay symbols of the elements -- fire, water, air and earth on a low table -- a red candle, perhaps, and shells, feathers and oysters and green plants... Someone adds chalice and a knife, others light incense and candles 934 Views comments (4)
Two Sensations, A Question and A Confession Posted 5 yrs ago
In India, the country of million mutinies, events vie with one another in their claim to sensation. News of horrible massacres find place in our newspapers side by side with glamorous pictures of beauty contests. We have graduated to maturity... Of the two events, which created moderate ripples in our society and would have continued to be in the front pages of our broadsheets 1882 Views comments (5)
More Equal than Others Posted 5 yrs ago
Alas, we are all equals according to the Constitutions of the nations professing faith in democracy, but not according to our personal constitutions. Most of us would like to be 'more equal than others', to use the Orwellian cliché. Collecting titles as affixes or suffixes is one of the means towards achieving that status. The British rulers of India exploited this human weakness 1592 Views comments (10)
Jubilation of the Bald Parrot Posted 5 yrs ago
The principle of psychoanalysis may be effective within a certain range of the working of human consciousness -- and at a certain plane. The danger lies in its ignoring the truth that the consciousness is too vast for Freud and his disciples to survey it in full. There are spheres of occult reality and planes of consciousness that can be known only through deep concentration, meditation and other methods of Yoga 950 Views comments (4)
The Tiger's Moustache is Still Wet Posted 5 yrs ago
By the way, did you believe that the rustic Indian mistaking a Ph.D. for a medical doctor was a joke dead since long? But here he is for Christina Noble's sake, asking a University teacher, “Will you do a sperm counting for me...?” 1779 Views comments (8)
Evolution: Lights From a Primeval Myth Posted 5 yrs ago
It may be news to many that in several universities in the West Darwin was proscribed till the sixties of the 20th century. The situation has changed. Be Darwin accepted fully or not, evolution is looked upon no longer as a hypothesis, but as fact. However, from time to time we come across new theories about the working of that process 1113 Views comments (19)
Trailblazers of the Primrose Path Posted 5 yrs ago
The films will not change their direction. They will continue to teach carnage and mayhem with the excuse of realism and will glorify perversions in the name of surrealism. And they have with them the all-silencing divine excuse: “We give what the people want” 646 Views comments (3)
The Secret of Human Conduct Posted 5 yrs ago
Way back in the late 60s of the 20th century a communal riot shook a certain town. I was surprised, for it was a new settlement grown around a huge industry and the population consisted of labourers and officials attracted from every part of India. There was no tradition of animosity between communities and what united them was a common existential necessity 2857 Views comments (275)
The Little Imp and the Giant Imp Posted 5 yrs ago
The politician I overheard saw nothing wrong in exploiting a vital element of the feudal tradition -- the fascination people had for the scions of princely families. But he was worried about the other element left to us by the same feudal past -- casteism 713 Views comments (1)
Pilgrimages: A Passing Tradition Posted 5 yrs ago
Indeed, in no other country had pilgrimage grown, over the centuries, into such an extensive and robust tradition as in India. Here is an Englishman's amazement: “One of the strangest sights in India is that of the ascetics who make pilgrimages from one part of the country to another 959 Views comments (5)
The Indigestible Beef Posted 5 yrs ago
Joy, the child's birthright, is denied to him for the sake of a chimerical concept of success. An abundance of pleasures created around him are sickening to his soul. Lighten his burden; recast the syllabi so that his leisure is not usurped either by professional tuition masters or by his parents assuming that role 2063 Views comments (15)
Reviving a Grisly Metaphor Posted 6 yrs ago
“Comrade Aidit, you were present at the Soviet Congress as a fraternal delegate. What was your reaction to the report?” we asked as soon as we settled down around a small table, munching roasted groundnuts and sipping black tea. He listened to his interpreter and banged his forehead thrice or so, before he could formulate some apology. 733 Views comments (2)
Return of the Old Man of the Mountain Posted 6 yrs ago
What is important to note is that the close relationship between drug and terrorism is almost a thousand years old. What is even more noteworthy, the terrorists who volunteered to die for a cause then and who do so now, were not just some brainwashed and misguided idealists, they were and are far worse. 2064 Views comments (6)

About Me
Manoj Das is an internationally known creative writer. He is counted among the popular short story writers in Oriya as well as in English. He is the recipient of many prestigious awards like the Sahitya Akademi Award, the Padmashri and the Saraswati Samman. He has columns in India s national dailies like The Times of India, The Hindustan Times, The Hindu and The Statesman. His writings, revealing the deeper truth and the untraced aspects behind current issues, have been highly appreciated. Member Since Oct 29, 2001 Rank: 5274

Martin Heidegger and Sri Aurobindo Ghose, a new book

So, I published my first book!

It was published by Dharmaram Publications in Bangalore (associated with my school) and is entitled The Quest for Postmodern Ethics: A Phenomenological Comparison of Martin Heidegger and Sri Aurobindo Ghose. It's not on Amazon yet, but I am hopeful. I am thrilled to say that it is going to be reviewed by the Journal for Hindu-Christian Studies in their next issue! Even if they hate it, at least it will get some exposure. It is also going to be reviewed for the Journal of Dharma... Posted by Brad at 7:52 PM Brad and Elizabeth's Indian Adventure

Sri Aurobindo was deeply concerned with the problem of Indian Vedic Religion

Pujya Dr. K.C. Varadachari - Volume -2

SRI AUROBINDO AND universal RELIGION

Sri Aurobindo points out that the Spirit has two poises, the poise of Non-activity which supports the Activity, as well as the poise of Activity which cannot be totally severed. Spiritual activity embraces the secular, whereas secular activity inhibits the spiritual, because of its seeking to be particularised.
The divine life is therefore a spiritual inactivity, but is spiritual activity based on supreme peace. It is then that all activity exudes the peace that pervades all existence. In any case, if a divine humanity should be the goal of existence, then it becomes clear that we should divinise all activities or at least aim at it. If we concede that all is Spirit, that all is divine, even then it behoves us to remove all that obstructs that divine. If it is something that cannot be dissipated by mere textual knowledge, then it follows that this reverse activity or removal-activity should be cultivated. Sadhana becomes absolute condition, and sadhana is activity that uplifts.
It is of greatest interest to find that Sri Aurobindo was deeply concerned with the problem of Indian Vedic Religion as the most universal religion from which all religions, by a process of diversification and particularisation or localisation, had come into being.

Each one of them has emphasized one aspect, and by that fact had ceased to be capable of remaining universal, though the emphasis was for some time at any rate put forward as a universal truth. They can be universal truths without being at the same time comprehensive Truth. It is the ambiguity in the word universal that has lead to the deep misunderstanding. Universal means that which is for every one; universal also means that which comprehends all or includes all. This is what Svami Vivekananda also emphasized in respect of all religions other than the Vedanta which is parent of all; But no one has really presented fully this aspect.
Sri Aurobindo has further expounded the nature of evolution of the Spiritual Man in his Life Divine. Man evolves from the lowest to the highest via religion. The studies in comparitive religion work out themselves on the lines of social organisation from the tribal, communal, clan, national and then individual. Organized religions have this unit-character of sectarianisms. Tribal gods vie with each other to become national gods. But the truly intuitive and mystical experiences of the individuals constantly tend to liberate man from his boundaries. The religions remained private possessions, permitting no entry of new or alien members. However, the proselytizing religions had tended to embrace all mankind. This undoubtedly helped the concept of One God and one Humanity. Each human being therefore was given the chance to lose his private nature or merge himself in humanity. This was undoubtedly a great advance. But its basic defect was its emotional appeal rather than a rational appeal.
The age of reason induced this attempt at a universaling of religion by denuding it of its emotionalism. However the tendency has been to take an oblique turn towards approaching the heart of man through service of man, rather than liberating the understanding which has not become even to a little extent rational, appealing to the head or logic. Rationalistic religions which had intervened have provided certain basic lines of universal understanding of the problems of religion. But these have not succeeded beyond a certain limit. Man has begun to be alienated from both his heart and head. The ascent to a higher form of universalism than reason had become necessary. Neither emotionalism nor humanitarianism, neither reasoning logistically nor scientifi­cally, could satisfy the soul of man. A deeper level, or a higher truth, had to be found. This is the Spiritual level or the life of Spirit which transcends the levels of religion that we have known so far.

This was what was mooted by the Upanisadic seers as the Brahman or Absolute Spirit from whom alone mankind can receive its highest benediction. This is the Universal Godhead who is the meaning of all existence, intelligence - consciousness, and all delight. This is the spiritual principle which every individual must arrive at in his spiritual progress or evolution for such a person perceives all as One Spirit. As Sri Aurobindo puts it “ A diversity in oneness is the law of the manifestation, the supramental unification and integration must harmonize the diversities, but to abolish them is not the intention of the Spirit in Nature. (Life Divine p. 790 Am. ed.)

The study of the Aurobindonian approach to religion and spirituality reveals how the evolution of spirituality proceeds through several stages, and as it ascends, more and more of the truly spiritual gets manifested. Religions are institutions founded by great seers for the promotion of the orderly and harmonious development of man towards his highest destiny. It is of course a fact of great importance to realise that in a world of multiplicity, variety develops, and this itself imposes inequalities that tend to develop barriers or walls of separation which lead to conflicts of all sorts. The only solution to this problem, the only way to make these separative walls less opaque and movable or removable, is to develop the inward life, not of religion but of spirituality.

Hinduism claims this universal quality that belongs to the spirit. It makes meaningful the social organisation and the hierarchy of values for the gradual evolution of the divine type of man. The higher we go, the clearer becomes the vision that reveals the meaningful ness of progress, and the unity of the Spirit through all the diversity. Sri Aurobindo sees in all religions the impulse to move higher; but untouched by the ever descending spirit into lower formations, these religions tend to either break up or deteriorate into fanatical creeds to be sustained and supported by lower nature or emotion. That mystical religion is about the best which leads to an openness to the higher descent.
In the main lines of his thought Sri Aurobindo agrees with Svami Vivekananda. He agrees that at the present moment in the world’s history not only India needs the verification of its spiritual activity, which unfortunately was neglected by denial of all activity as inconducive to spiritual realisation, but demands the descent of the spiritual transcendent force. It would be wrong to introduce rajas, the material element into the body spiritual of India, but it is necessary to bring down the truly spiritual force - the supermind - or vijnana - which in one sense is the spiritual aspect of the original of the prakrtic rajas. It is the only force that can tame the rajas of the West and the tamas of the East, and uplift both to the transcendent state beyond even the sattva of prakrti. Table of Contents Prev Chapter Next Chapter All Books List

India is destined to solve the political, social, economic and moral problems which Europe has failed to solve

Central Object of Our National Education
It … should be clear that the only true education will be that which will be an instrument for this real working of the spirit in the mind and body of the individual and the nation. That is the principle on which we must build, that the central motive and the guiding ideal. It must be an education that for the individual will make its one central object the growth of the soul and its powers and possibilities, for the nation will keep first in view the preservation, strengthening and enrichment of the nation-soul and its Dharma and raise both into powers of the life and ascending mind and soul of humanity And at no time will its lose sight of man's highest object, the awakening and development of his spiritual being.
In any country the best education that can be given to children consists in teaching them what the true nature of their country is and its own qualities, the mission their nation has to fulfil in the world and its true place in the terrestrial concert. To that should be added a wide understanding of the role of other nations, but without the spirit of imitation and without ever losing sight of the genius of one's own country.

Importance of the Sanskrit Language
Words of Sri Aurobindo & the Mother
..each language is the sign and power of the soul of the people, which naturally speaks it. Each develops therefore its own peculiar spirit, thought-temperament, way of dealing with life and knowledge and experience…. Therefore it is of the utmost value to a nation a human group-soul, to preserve its language and to make of it a strong and living culture instrument. A nation, race or people, which loses its language, cannot live its whole life or its real life.
Indian's nature, her mission, the work that she has to do, her part in the earth's destiny, the peculiar power for which she stands is written there in her past history and is the secret purpose behind her present sufferings and ordeals. A reshaping of the forms of our spirit will have to take place; but it is the spirit itself behind past forms that we have to disengage and preserve and to give to it new and powerful thought-significances, culture-values, a new instrumentation, greater figure. And so long as we recognize these essential things and are faithful to their spirit, it will not hurt us to make even the most drastic mental or physical adaptations and the most extreme cultural and social changes. But these changes themselves must be cast in the spirit and mould of India and not in any other, not in the spirit of America or Europe, not in the mould of Japan or Russia.

India is destined to work out her own independent life and civilization, to stand in the forefront of the world and solve the political, social, economic and moral problems which Europe has failed to solve, yet the pursuit of which and the feverish passage in that pursuit from experiment to experiment, from failure to failure she calls her progress. Our means must be as great as our ends and the strength to discover and use the means so as to attain the end can only be found by seeking the eternal source of strength in ourselves.
The recovery of the old spiritual knowledge and experience in all its splendor, depth and fullness is its [India's] first, most essential work; the flowing of this spirituality into new forms of philosophy, literature, art, science and critical knowledge is the second; an original dealing with modern problems in the light of Indian spirit and the endeavor to formulate a greater synthesis of a spiritualized society is the third and most difficult Its success on these three lines will be the measure of its help to the future of humanity.

…what constitutes this higher or highest existence to which our evolution is tending? In order to answer the question we have to deal with a class of supreme experiences, a class of unusual conceptions, which it is difficult to represent accurately in any other language than the ancient Sanskrit tongue in which alone they have been to some extent systematized.
The [Sanskrit} language itself, as has been universally recognized by those competent to form a judgment, is one of the most magnificent, the most perfect and wonderfully sufficient literary instruments developed by the human mind, at once majestic and sweet and flexible, strong and clearly-formed and full and vibrant and subtle, and its quality and character would be of itself a sufficient evidence of the character and quality of the race whose mind it expressed and the culture of which it was the reflecting medium... Home My Business Articles Donate for India’s Progress

A sustained and all comprehending effort at spiritual self-evolution

Sri Aurobindo & Divine Mother
Sri Aurobindo was born in Calcutta on August 15,1872. In His life time, he wrote a number of books explaining the process of the descent of higher levels of consciousness and the way they would transform life and consciousness upon earth eventually. In his efforts, he was assisted greatly by the Mother who came originally from France. Sri Aurobindo left this world on December 5th, 1950. The Mother continued his work in the earthly plane till she passed away in the seventies. In this section we are presenting a few essays and writings of Sri Aurobindo and the Divine Mother for our reader's benefit.

The Bhagavad Gita
Religion
The religion which embraces Science and faith, Theism, Christianity, Mohamedanism and Buddhism and yet is none of these, is that to which the World-Spirit moves.
All religions have saved a number of souls, but none yet has been able to spiritualize mankind. For that there is needed not cult and creed, but a sustained and all comprehending effort at spiritual self-evolution.
Vedanta says rather, "Man, thou art of one nature and substance with God, one soul with thy fellow-men. Awake and progress then to thy utter divinity, live for God in thyself and in others." This gospel which was given only to the few, must now be offered to all mankind for its deliverance.
There are two works that are perfectly pleasing to God in His servant; to sweep in silent adoration His temple floors and to fight in the world's battle-field of His divine consummation in humanity.
God's servant is something; God"s slave is greater.
Our ideal is not the spirituality that withdraws from life but the conquest of life by the power of the spirit. -Sri Aurobindo
Rebirth
Reincarnating soul
Thoughts and glimpses
The Upanishads
The Vedas
Fate and free will
The spiritual aim of life
Man and the battle of life
Nature of super mind
Sri Aurobindo on yoga
The philological method of the Veda
The Process of evolution
Puranas, Tantras
The superman
The supramental sense
The Yoga and its objects
Yoga is Skill in works
Prayers and Meditations
The Visions of the Mother
Divine Thoughts from the Divine Mother
Sri Aurobindo on Astrology
The strength of stillness
Thursday , November 22, 2007 © 2000-2007 V.Jayaram. Hinduwebsite

A nobler pragmatism guided, uplifted and enlightened by spiritual culture and knowledge

"The most vital issue of the age is whether the future progress of humanity is to be governed by the modern economic and materialistic mind of the West or by a nobler pragmatism guided, uplifted and enlightened by spiritual culture and knowledge...." Sri Aurobindo

Sri Aurobindo's unique contribution to human potential and growth developed through his integration of Western and Eastern cultures. He brought the energy and vision of the West, with its focus on the perfection of the physical, material and mental areas of human life together with the spiritual development and philosophical directions developed over thousands of years in the East.

Sri Aurobindo honors the contribution of each of these divergent streams of human activity. His writings help us reconcile the apparent conflicts of two diverse societies and at the same time develop a new, wider, embracing viewpoint which vibrates with spiritual force, mental clarity and a heart of love and compassion for the efforts of humanity.

Sri Aurobindo has been considered one of the foremost philosophers of the 20th Century, but he was far more than just a philosopher. He was a political activist, a mystic, a spiritual leader, and a poet, a yogi and a teacher. Sri Aurobindo experienced the range of human activity and used that experience to communicate his insight in a way that we can appreciate and understand. Outline of Sri Aurobindo's Teaching

Sri Aurobindo's Writings: Sri Aurobindo was a prolific writer over a wide range of subjects including philosophy, yoga, poetry, human unity and much more. Most of his major works have been published in US editions by Lotus Press. Annotations on Sri Aurobindo's Books, Institute for Wholistic Education Home Page

It is only through collected and concerted efforts that we can hope to shape our civilizational future

“We are on the threshold of a new world” The Mother

“Yoga must be revealed to mankind because without itmankind cannot take the next step in the human evolution” Sri Aurobindo

The Vision

We have transited from the end of one era, to the dawning of a new age. Such periods, when looked upon retrospectively, are periods of turmoil, confusion and transition – and yet through it all, visible to the discerning eye are emerging fresh possibilities and opportunities for human progress and development. An example of this we can see, in the growing interest in subjective modes of knowledge and experience: prolific courses in reiki and pranic healing, corporations and executives taking to meditation, health food, hathayoga and alternative learning and healing systems. Even Science, which can be called the modern day religion, has admitted that matter is not the be and end all of creation but is in fact dense energy. Today, a certain body of scientists is even looking at the hypothesis that energy itself is in fact only a particular mode of consciousness.

It is worth pausing here and asking ourselves why this has happened and how come we have moved from a materialistic, model to a more subjective one? Perhaps because material and intellectual knowledge is no longer sufficient to handle the complexities of human existence. We as a human race have dissected and explored the phenomenal world, but know very little about ourselves. We are conquerors of the Moon and Stars, but slaves of our emotions and desires. It is now dawning upon us that unless we begin to understand ourselves and master our nature, we shall be unable to govern the forces that control us and the world.

Even the present day aim of higher education purported to be academic excellence leading to a successful life, is not being achieved. As long as knowledge is taught, rather thrust upon us in piecemeal snippets of information tightly packaged, excellence cannot be achieved. To lead a complete and successful life, a holistic and integral education for the flowering of the mental, vital, physical, psychic and spiritual capacities is essential. As pointed out by Sri Aurobindo: “Yoga must be revealed to mankind because without it mankind cannot take the next step in the human evolution.”

The International Centre for Integral Studies (ICIS) has been founded to attempt to provide students with an integral education in order to prepare them to take this next step in evolution.

The Aims

The aim of the International Centre for Integral Studies (ICIS) is to open up a field of on-going higher education and research in all areas of human development so as to generate the understanding, responsibility and skills to respond adequately to the opportunities and problems of modernity and to create a better global future. Human civilization today faces us with an unprecedented acceleration of technological progress rapidly globalizing the world and providing large-scale access to information, communication and transport amounting to a realized ubiquity for the human individual.

Advances in the Physical Sciences and in Biotechnology have brought us to the threshold of wielding previously unthinkable powers in the control and improvement of the material and biological life and the scope and variety of vital enjoyment. But this vision of enormous optimism coexists with a global condition of unprecedented crisis – psychological, social and ecological. Social, ethnic, religious and class differentiations are erupting into global wars, disbalances and depletions in natural resources are precipitating an impending crisis of planetary survival, vast disparities in the distribution of wealth, education and healthcare are plunging large world populations into deprivation and abjection and the psychological discontents of modernity are creating an endemic condition of widespread malaise and depression.

The march of modern civilization, in its exclusive focus on material progress has left the subjective life of man in a condition of unorganized chaos, a warring field of incapacity, greed and blind preference, which, faced with the enormous forces of contemporary technology and commerce, can very easily bring about disastrous consequences on a planetary scale, unless the powers of human consciousness are properly understood, organized, integrated and mobilized, so as to match and master the objective sphere. This is our contemporary civilizational imperative.

It is here that the field of Indian knowledge has much of offer. Marginalized as a “world-negating” and “unchanging” spiritual culture, India has an active and widespread field of discourse stretching through the millennia and representing what may be called a subjective science, a science of consciousness as meticulous and focused as the accumulation of knowledge developed through the western efforts at an objective science and technology. It is this field of yoga, the understanding, organization, integration and mobilization of consciousness and its experiences that needs to be brought into engagement with the contemporary forces of the objective world if we are to be equal to our civilizational challenges and opportunities.

The field of studies and research which will be the focus of ICIS aims at making this engagement its central aim and purpose. It is our opinion that two personalities who have gone furthest in interpreting and mapping this field of consciousness and its powers and possibilities in modern times are Sri Aurobindo and his spiritual collaborator, the Mother. Sri Aurobindo tells us that no external solution, be it attempted through social, political or environmental engineering or through good intentions or philanthropy, can solve the problems of humanity.

Tried repeatedly and innumerably through the centuries, such solutions have provided at best cosmetic improvements or temporary relief to our human condition. The problems of humankind can only be solved through a change or transformation of human nature and the science of consciousness is the only key to this change. Moreover, the growth of an experiential knowledge of oneness is the only sure security against the ravages and selfish cunning of the human ego. Contrary to the popular belief in the escapism of spirituality, he thus indicates its critical affirmative and world-transforming power.

Focus & Objectives

A revised understanding of all life and its social fields arises from this insight and exploration, opening up new approaches to all educational disciplines, scientific, philosophical, psychological, social and cultural. Thus Indian Studies and Sri Aurobindo Studies will form the central pillars of ICIS’ endeavours, though, along with this, all contemporary disciplines of human development and progress will be brought into its purview. Diagnosing our modern condition as one of fragmentation, a fragmentation of consciousness, of disciplines and of cultures, integration will be its watchword. Its objectives will encompass the integration of the human personality, the integration of the modes and disciplines of knowledge and the integration of cultures in its approach to knowledge and experience.

Formats of Learning

The ICIS, as the Educational wing of The Gnostic Centre, views its educational efforts as holistic, not merely in terms of its offerings but in the collective life it affords through the various wings and activities of the Centre. Thus, it sees its faculty and student bodies as part of the learning community, developing integrally in consciousness, understanding and expression. Such a community, though centred in the physical resources of the Gnostic Centre, is not localized but forms a closely woven extended life of dynamic interchanges of mental, vital, physical and psychic consciousness. To facilitate this, the programs and courses of ICIS include both on-site and distance learning components. Its on-site components will encompass activities such as exhibitions, presentations, performances, seminars, conferences, residential research and learning paradigms which need embodied interactions. These will include experiential workshops, performative learning and experimentation and creative expressions or exhibitions. Its distance-learning components will encompass online multimedia learning and response paradigms and attempt to bring the inner life of teachers and students into a depth engagement with each other and with the prevailing mental and vital forces of the world. Thus these two components will extend into each other, though developing independent lives of their own. At present, both these components are under development and will become more diversified and articulated with time.

Learning Objectives of ICIS Programs & Courses

Current learning objectives in education, following a western epistemology have been limited to an acquisition of information classified and organized into or around ideas, and procedural skills or technologies in the materializing and handling of such ideas and artifacts. In keeping with the larger vision and aims of ICIS, our learning objectives will encompass an enhanced epistemology based on an integral understanding of the human being and its characteristic forms of knowledge.

Including objective and subjective forms of knowledge in its scope, the Vedas have classified human knowledge in terms of material knowledge or knowledge of the external world, adhibhautika, subjective knowledge or knowledge of the inner world, adhidaivika and non-dual knowledge or knowledge of the Self, adhyatmika. This classification stems from the yogic realization that there is a universal and transcendental conscious Self of all things, manifest in the subject and the object and it is possible for the human being to unite in consciousness with this Self and experience reality through its identity.

Sri Aurobindo presents us with a contemporary and practical formulation of this epistemology. In his terms, knowledge can be seen as external knowledge or knowledge acquirable through the senses and their extensions (adhibhautika), knowledge by inner contact acquirable through the subjective, subliminal or occult consciousness (adhidaivika) and knowledge by identity acquirable through identification with the Oneness of the Self (adhyatmika). The learning objectives of ICIS programs and courses will rest on this epistemology and aim at knowledge acquisition which includes the outer and inner or objective and subjective forms of knowledge and indicates the way towards non-dual experiences of knowledge by identity.

Further, the field of inner experiences and knowledge has been seen by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother as divided into a mental consciousness with its intelligence, rationality and opening to higher intuitions, a vital or life consciousness, with its life powers of feelings, emotions and will, a physical consciousness with its senses, sensations and skills and a psychical or soul consciousness with its spiritual aspirations, creativity and intuitions of divinity, beauty, harmony and oneness. The learning outcomes of ICIS will include becoming conscious of these forms and expressions of the inner life and the ability to integrate them, direct them and make them effective.

Unique Features

Towards this end, it will introduce foundational courses aimed at developing awareness of these forms of consciousness and their control and expression – the control of thoughts and quieting of the mind, concentration and opening to higher intuitions for the mental consciousness, the control and refinement of the feelings and the development and control of the will and the transformation of the animal nature through its opening to the psychic impulses of harmony, beauty, creativity, generosity and self-sacrifice for the vital consciousness and the awakening of direct intuitions and skills for the physical consciousness.

The foundational courses will also aim at opening up some awareness of the psychic or soul consciousness and the importance of bringing this consciousness forward to influence and govern the rest of the being. These outcomes of the foundational courses will facilitate an inner engagement with the other disciplines for study and research, whose learning outcomes will also reflect such engagements. Thus, the forms and modes of understanding for mainstream disciplines will also include intuitive comprehension of the subject, identification with the aspiration intrinsic to the subject, development of a practical creativity related to the subject, self-reflection relating one’s life-world, will, intelligence and goals with the subject and an arrival at the integrality of principles shared by the subject with other courses and programs of ICIS.

Faculty

To meet the educational aims described above, ICIS will engage a hand-picked corpus of faculty, characterized by educational proficiency, scholarship, maturity and insight of consciousness and the ability to assess and guide the growth of understanding and consciousness in the student, so as to achieve the learning objectives set before them. Though generally residing off-site, faculty members will also be invited to reside on-campus for periods of time as resident scholars, to conduct research, be available for live guidance and participate in conferences, seminars and intensives.

An Invitation to Participate

We are confident that our vision, objectives, curriculum, faculty and teaching and assessment formats will set up a precedent for higher education and that we will be able to offer the conditions for the development of personalities equipped to effectively guide the direction of our future towards the fulfillment of the opportunities and promises of the present and the mitigation of its dangers. To make this dream a reality, we need the support and help of all those who share our vision. If you resonate with our aspiration, you could help in a number of ways:

• (a) financially, through tax-exempt donations to any of our scholarship or infrastructural funds;
• (b) educationally, by enrolling as a student in one of our programs or approaching us with your research interests if you wish to join our faculty or as a research scholar;
• (c) by referring your friends and families to our programs.

It is only through collected and concerted efforts that we can hope to shape our civilizational future. Together, we can hope to succeed. gnosticcentre.com

A whole army of new philosophers must be hired specifically to teach these courses

Quaker/Philosophy What does it mean to be a Philosopher and a Friend? Wednesday, November 14, 2007

A Bigger Role for Philosophy in the Curriculum

Philosophy used to have a very big role in the college curriculum. The role has grown progressively smaller with each decade. I think we have been outmanoevered by other fields (mainly by the social sciences) in the game of academic politics. We should have a big role to play. How can we get it back?

In the standard American college curriculum today the English Department gets every student for at least one and usually for two required courses in composition. This means big English Departments. People in general recognize that the thinking skills of college students are poor. So a demand for critical thinking has arisen. But Philosophy has been outmaneovered here. As philosophers we understand clearly that good thinking requires a grounding in logic. You don't have to be able to do proofs in predicate logic with overlapping quantifiers, but if you don't see the difference between modus ponens and affirming the consequent you are in bad shape. Most college students are in bad shape. A simple practical applied logic course would do them a world of good.

But instead on our campus we have every department claiming that they teach critical thinking already. The art department claims that they teach students to "think critically" when they teach them how to critique a work of art. Well, as valuable as that skill is, it isn't going to help people to see the fallacies in political speeches and editorials. You need a good solid grounding in logic for that and there is no substitute for it.

We ought to push our institutions to make Critical Thinking a required course for all students and the course should be 100% under the control of people with solid training in logic. This will require a huge shift of resources on campus and this amount of change is not easily accomodated by colleges. It's easier to "solve" the problem of lack of critical thinking skills by redefinition. "Critical Thinking" becomes whatever the Art School, Communications Department, Business SChool etc. want to call by that term. In other words change nothing in fact but rename what we are already doing. Real change requires a shift of resources.

A whole army of new philosophers must be hired specifically to teach these courses and that means a gradual shift of resources away from other departments. But the shift does not have to be done overnight. It could most smoothly be accomplished in phases over a ten year period. Right now our Sociology Department mandates PHIL 1180 for its majors as their way of satisfying the humanity general education requirement. A gradual plan could target different years in which different departments made a equivalent shift in their graduation requirements. As the demand for Critical Thinking courses grew new philosophy positions could be added incrementally to handle the demand. What do you think of my utopian vision? Posted by RichardM at 2:28 PM

3 comments: Joe Jordan said... Your recommendation is hardly Utopian. I consider it critically important. Businesses desperately need people who know how to think logically, comprehensively, and factually about a situation and then determine an appropriate course of action. Ideally, this is a fundamental part of parenting--but one that is often neglected. I applaud your effort to make critical thinking part of the curriculum. Please join in our dialogue about critical thinking at http://blog.actionm.com November 15, 2007 9:57 AM

Jeffrey Dudiak said... Thanks, Richard, for starting us off again, and Joe for your comment. Allow me to chime in with a comment that is oversimplified (granted), a bit provocative (by design), but still three-quarters serious.

I sometimes wonder (although I am no historian of the disciplines) whether it is so very true that philosophy has lost so much of its importance in the curriculum. In asserting that I sometimes wonder whether we are not romanticizing a bit. Is it really that what we now call philosophy was ever so central, or is it rather that much of what used to be called philosophy now goes by other names, like, for example, pretty much the whole of the social sciences (and not too long before that the natural sciences as well, under the name of “natural philosophy”)?

But let us concede that something has been lost, in any case, and that philosophy is being eclipsed by other disciplines vying for preeminence in the university (and even more so in the consciousness of society at large). I am tempted to suggest that this may not be the fault of other disciplines claiming territory that is the rightful province of philosophy, but because philosophy itself has lost its nerve, and its integrity. Over the past hundred years or so, philosophy has been scared off (and rightly so, in some respects) from the too grandiose, totalizing visions offered perhaps most paradigmatically by a Plato or a Hegel, ... too grand (even slightly embarrassing) for our time because these visions do not stand a spirit’s chance in a lab of living up to the demands of testability and rigor demanded by empirical and methodological science, this latter being the Lord of our age.

As such, philosophy (in what may be one of the most excessive overcorrections on record) has hung on for its dear life by transforming itself into the housekeeper of science, earning its keep by trying to keep science’s ideas (language and logic) in order, neat and tidy, but without any real “content” of its own, while science goes merrily on its way (which is no insult to science!). Well, perhaps this needs to be done, but it will hardly attract either the respect or excitement of students or colleagues, college deans or deep-pocketed donors.

For that (if that is worth going for, which is far from certain), I think, philosophy must recover something of its grandeur, or at least some of its dignity. If philosophy is to have a bigger role in the curriculum, it will first have to offer its own “bigger” (grander) curriculum. We have perhaps been outmaneuvered, but we are also very likely where at present we deserve to be. Critical thinking is important, vitally important, like doing the dishes (which is no insult either to critical thinking or doing dishes!). But falling in love with wisdom, ... that has cachet! November 16, 2007 5:47 PM

RichardM said... While I'm not a professional historian either I'm convinced that the loss of philosophy's influence and prestige is largely real and not a product of a romanticized vision of the past.

"because philosophy itself has lost its nerve, and its integrity." That, indeed is the real problem. "philosophy (in what may be one of the most excessive overcorrections on record) has hung on for its dear life by transforming itself into the housekeeper of science"

Again, right on target this time with a more specific analysis of the problem. "Without any real “content” of its own . . . (which) will hardly attract either the respect or excitement of students or colleagues, college deans or deep-pocketed donors." Minor quibble here, deans, in my experience have no interest in the real worth of any ideas and respond only to whatever numbers are being crunched within the bowels of their bureaucracy. But they do respond to what grant agencies are willing to spend money on. So the fact that people outside academia won't spend money on philosophy does negatively affect us. But once more the heart of the problem is quite accurately stated--we essentially have nothing to say and that marginalizes us from the culture. In the past Plato, Descartes, Locke, etc. had something of importance to say to Everyman. It was no doubt wrong in some ways (though I would contend each had something valuable and right to say as well) but at least it wasn't trivial.

Compare that to thirty years of Frankfort examples or forty years of Gettier problems or digging further back hundreds of articles on "grue" and the new problem of induction. The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars but in ourselves.

So....this problem was the one I was trying to solve by turning to the conceptualistic pragmatism of C.I. Lewis. Have any of you guys thought further about whether my proposed solution actually works? November 19, 2007 9:29 AM

In his sonnet The Golden Light we have a very clear statement of this most remarkable siddhi of the Mind of Light achieved by Sri Aurobindo

Narad’s Five Songs and the Theme of Evolution in Savitri
by RY Deshpande on Sun 18 Nov 2007 09:01 PM PST Permanent Link

The body’s cells holding the Immortal’s flame is the long-awaited evolutionary attainment which first should occur in the individual. And after a long and intense Yoga-Tapasya, after carrying out “a difficult and painful” work Aswapati has the experience: (p. 302)

His brain was wrapped in overwhelming Light,
An all-embracing knowledge seized his heart:
Thoughts rose in him no earthly mind can hold,
Mights played that never coursed through mortal nerves:
He scanned the secrets of the Overmind,
He bore the rapture of the Oversoul.

He has established remarkable perfection in the physical itself, it opening to the flood of brilliant light. “His brain was wrapped in overwhelming light”—that is the physical’s mind receiving the supramental, that is the Mind of Light, the Siddhi Sri Aurobindo received on 8 August 1938, as we might understand from his sonnet The Golden Light. The supramental was entering the physical but what could not be done until then was to fix it in it, it was coming and going and not remaining in it. The Golden Light announces that this was now done. It is in that splendid context that the line from Savitri—“His brain was wrapped in overwhelming light”—assumes great autobiographical significance. The draft in which it appears for the first time is dated 6 September 1942 and therefore this momentous period, these consequential four years between 1938 and 1942, could be taken as when the Mind of Light got established fully in him. In his sonnet The Golden Light we have a very clear statement of this most remarkable siddhi of the Mind of Light achieved by Sri Aurobindo. The sonnet was first written on 8 August 1938 and later revised on 3 March 1944. The revisions are of a few noteworthy verbal type. Here is the poem:

Thy golden Light came down into my brain
And the grey rooms of mind sun-touched became
A bright reply to Wisdom’s occult plane,
A calm illumination and a flame.

Thy golden Light came down into my throat,
And all my speech is now a tune divine,
A paean song of thee my single note;
My words are drunk with the Immortal’s wine.

Thy golden Light came down into my heart
Smiting my life with Thy eternity;
Now has it grown a temple where Thou art
And all its passions point towards only Thee.

Thy golden Light came down into my feet:
My earth is now thy playfield and thy seat.

“The earth” of 1938 in the last line became “My earth” in 1944, a significant revision that bears the specificity of achievement in his physical body. This must be considered as the first beginning of the process of physical transformation which started happening from 8 August 1938. On this day the supramental Light and Consciousness and Force appeared dynamically and luminously upon the earth’s playfield.

Humanity as a whole should take up the one religion which could help and heal – the religion of Right Action

We all have our own ways of understanding things, events, words. What is meant by what is said or done is often misconstrued as something else, giving rise to conflict and turmoil where there was need for none. Thus perhaps it has been said that one must reflect before reacting. To pause, to think, to remain quiet – these are not just ideas spewed by philosophical minds but very practical solutions to avoiding disharmony in our lives. Some may term this as non-action but in truth, this is perhaps what could be understood as ‘right action’. In this moment of reflection, when our inner being remains calm and unaffected, the direction that we must take often becomes clear and what would otherwise have been simply a result of rash impulsiveness diving into the dark, turns out to be a quiet and determined response, full of at least the possibility of light. Perhaps it is time that instead of playing politics or blindly following decrees and dogmas, humanity as a whole should sincerely take up the one religion which could help and heal – the religion of Right Action.

Next Future deeply regrets the loss of Nadkarni ji who from the very first month contributed with his beautiful and insightful column on Savitri. Due to his untimely demise, we shall no longer be continuing this particular column; instead, from next year, we will begin a transcription of his earlier talks on Savitri, which will be produced as a complete series. With a prayer in our hearts, Until the next time…http://nextfuture.sriaurobindosociety.org.in/nov07/nfmay06_menu.htm

Yoga as consisting essentially in inner psychological work aimed at the transformation of consciousness

Our Many Selves: Practical Yogic Psychology

by Sri Aurobindo and The Mother and A. S. Dalal

From the blurb,
`This book is meant to bear out Sri Aurobindo's oft-quoted statement, "Yoga is nothing but practical psychology". Generally, yoga is viewed as made up of certain set practices and certain rules and norms pertaining to one's outer life. In contrast to this view, Our Many Selves ... presents Yoga as consisting essentially in inner psychological work aimed at the transformation of consciousness.'
This book presents in detail the various planes and parts of the being and how they are to be harmonised and unified around the soul.
About the Authors:
The Mother:
Born in Paris in 1878, the Mother studied painting at an art studio and became an accomplished artist. Primarily interested in inner development, she was associated with several groups of spiritual seekers in France.
In 1914 she journeyed to India to meet the Indian mystic Sri Aurobindo in Puducherry and settled there permanently in 1920. For nearly fifty years, she was the head of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, from its founding in 1926 until her passing in 1973. She also established a school, the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, in 1952, and an international township, Auroville, in 1968.
Sri Aurobindo:
Sri Aurobindo was an Indian/Hindu nationalist, scholar, poet, mystic, evolutionary philosopher, yogi and guru. After a short political career in which he became one of leaders of the early movement for the freedom of India from British rule, Sri Aurobindo turned to the development and practice of a new spiritual path which he called the "integral yoga," the aim of which was to further the evolution of life on earth by establishing a high level of spiritual consciousness which he called the Supermind that would represent a divine life.
Sri Aurobindo wrote prolifically in English on his spiritual philosophy and practice, on social and political development, on Indian culture including extensive commentaries and translations of ancient Indian scriptures, on literature and poetry including the writing of much spiritual poetry. VEDIC BOOKS » MASTERS » SRI AUROBINDO » Our Many Selves: Practical Yogic Psychology