August 17, 2015

Sri Aurobindo is the forerunner in freedom struggle

Tweets: Soumitra Basu @drsbasu2115
consciousness researcher, psychiatrist, explores Sri Aurobindo's vision

Sri Aurobindo: Socialistic Democracy. http://t.co/0gCPTziIkw
Sri Aurobindo: Democracy as practised is not the last stage, at best amounts to rule of majority & works by vicious method of party government
Sri Aurobindo: perfect democracy isn't last stage but still    standing-ground on which self consciousness of social being can come to its own
Sri Aurobindo: Democracy and Socialism are the sign that self- consciousness (of social being) is beginning to ripen into fullness
Sri Aurobindo: Socialism is old Asiatic attempt to effect permanent solution of economic problem which will give leisure to develop higher self
Sri Aurobindo: Without Socialism democracy would remain rule of masses by small aristocratic / monied class with consent and vote of the masses
Sri Aurobindo: Materialism like spiritual Monism arrives at a Maya that is and is not--is for it is compelling, is not for it is phenomenal
Sri Aurobindo explains that the criminal side of law is of more preference to the State than the civil side. http://motsac.org/mission.php
@mridula2c But Rammohun Roy's role needs a proper reappraisal in that Time - Spirit, isn't it?
@SavitriEraParty The conspiracy of silence apropos Sri Aurobindo benefits both the Rightists  and the Leftists alike.
@SavitriEraParty Refusal of Congress leaders to Sri Aurobindo's plea to accept Cripps proposals or Cabinet Mission resulted in partition
@DwaipayanM Sri Aurobindo had valid reasons for forwarding Cripps  proposals, they have been studied in details.
@DwaipayanM Sri Aurobindo did not mind his proposal was rejected, his magnanimity can be learnt if not his ideas, which are difficult to grasp
@DwaipayanM To understand Sri Aurobindo's ideas, one has to shift from linear to circular thinking which is not successive but simultaneous
Acceptance of Sri Aurobindo's proposals would have led to reduction of communal conflicts
Sri Aurobindo was the 1st  voice to claim TOTAL INDEPENDENCE for India, he was the 1st on 14.8.1947 to favour a new South Asian alignment
Sri Aurobindo had to bear the murder of his aide Mulsankar on 15.8.1947 by fundamentalists, he accepted it with dignity, never blamed anyone
when his proposals were rejected, Sri Aurobindo requested Congressmen to declare that people should'nt choose India or Pak on religious basis
@SavitriEraParty Sri Aurobindo advocated passive resistance, active resistance & open armed revolt, any one to be used as a tact as required
@SavitriEraParty Sri Aurobindo advocated passive resistance as a tact which much  later Gandhi took up as nonviolence, made it into a creed
@SavitriEraParty Sri Aurobindo advocated active resistance if passive resistance didn't work, influenced  patriots, Khudiram to Bhagat Singh
@SavitriEraParty Sri Aurobindo's idea of open armed revolt was later taken up by Surya Sen, Bagha Jatin, Rashbehari Bose & Subhas Bose
@SavitriEraParty: Sri Aurobindo is thus forerunner of all major initiatives taken  freedom struggle of India by Gandhi, Bhagat Singh or Netaji
@SavitriEraParty: As The Mother's vision of a great Asian federation, Mynamar should be part of South Asia. http://motsac.org/journals.php

Sandeep
Here is an excerpt from his essay
“The caste systems as we find today is of course of a deviated and deformed version of the original Caturvarna system. Sri Aurobindo examines the problem from three angles :
(a) the socio-economic and political perspective which helps us to understand how the ethical principles enshrined in the Dharma-idea maintained the Caturvarna and how the political changes affecting the structure of the classical Indian community influenced transition of the ancient Caturvarna to the caste-system of later years ;
(b) the socio-cultural and psychological perspective which shows how the spiritual and religious values attached to the Caturvarna evolve into psychological and ethical paradigms and again into conventional prototypes; and
(c) the spiritual and synthetic perspective which justifies and innovative effort to re-use the Vedic-ideas that gave birth to Caturvarna to effectuate another synthesis. This new synthesis is entirely different from Caturvarna in its form yet to consonance with the spirit of the original seed-ideas form which the Caturvarna evolved and hence would be more acceptable to the Indian psyche.”
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August 14, 2015

Philosophy and Psychology in the light of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother

Sri Aurobindo and the Logic of the Infinite
Essays for the New Millennium
— Rod Hemsell
Publisher: University of Human Unity, Auroville
Binding: Soft Cover
Pages: 319
Price: Rs 325

This collection of essays, many of which were originally presented as lectures, readings, and workshops, attempts to examine the writings of Sri Aurobindo in the context of philosophy and to present the ideas of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother in relation to topical subjects and concerns. It is the author’s conviction that only through the radical transformations – individual and collective – proposed by them that pressing global concerns such as war, poverty, exhaustion of natural resources, and the destruction of the biosphere will be effectively addressed. Ranging across diverse subjects, there are also essays on Auroville, spirituality in healing, Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri, and the work of supramental transformation done by the Mother.
Savitri Era of those who adore, Om Sri Aurobindo & The Mother.
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Location: Shipra Riviera, Indirapuram, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh 201014, India

August 11, 2015

Mythology, ideology, and subjective fantasy

The Trauma of New Materialism, Speculative Realism, and Object-Oriented Ontology Posted by larvalsubjects . Larval Subjects . August 10, 2015
Here we have the very structure of both mythology and ideology (do the two differ from one another?). Both myth and ideology can be thought as structured around the idea of a lost origin or ground that has been contaminated and to which we must return and the idea of a synthetic function of the subject that can both totalize the field of past and future in the production of the future and thereby regain that lost origin.
I would like to say that the mark of those most vital vectors of 20th century thought have been to contest these yearnings (yearnings that I’ve argued elsewhere are at the root of our drive to mastery (destruction) and autoimmune xenophobia that characterize our social structure at all levels), but the truth is that there has always been a minor tradition of philosophy, of theory, of practice, that has always contested the synthetic function of the subject, the existence of lost origins, the drive to totality. If there’s something new today, it’s the question of how to do philosophy in politics in the face of the likelihood that we’re already dead (the truth of the anthropocene). That aside, the contestation of origin and the synthetic function of the subject capable of overcoming alienation and reconciling itself with itself has been the theme of thought in Nietzsche, Freud, those indebted to Saussure, and a host of others. 
We live in the age where myth and ideology have slipped, yet still everywhere exert their influence. If there’s a horror to be found among the new materialisms, speculative realisms, and object-oriented ontologies (they must always be written in the plural as they know no identity), it is in the fact that they continue this undermining of the self-present mastery of the subject and effacement of the origin, drawing attention to the manner in which we live in the orbit– in the astronomical sense of the word –of things that exceed us. Speaking to this is not a hatred of humanity– though I contest any univocity attributed to the term “humanity” –but, as Kant said in “What is Enlightenment?”, is a way in which humanity rises from it’s self-imposed infantile state. Such an enlightenment entails abandoning the fantasy of sovereignty, the discourse of the master, the structure of masculinity, so as to encounter the manner in which we’re beings among beings. Perhaps that is one meaning of overcoming correlationism.
Interviews With Me


Abstract: Gebser suggests that the world-constituting reality of time first irrupted into Western consciousness with the publication in 1905 of Einstein’s special theory of relativity. This was the first indication of an emerging mutation from the three-dimensional, Copernican world of the mental structure into the four-dimensional world of the integral structure. My presentation will critically examine Einstein’s role in this evolutionary initiation by situating his concept of a space-time continuum within its early 20th century context. While Einstein’s relativity theory played a central role in the 20th century revolution in physics, revisiting the debates he was engaged in with thinkers like Henri Bergson and Alfred North Whitehead reveal that his perception of time was still obscured by the residue of the mental structure’s spatializing tendency. As Gebser remarked, we are “compelled to become fully conscious of time—the new component—not just as a physical-geometric fourth dimension but in its full complexity” (EPO, 288, 352). 
During his controversial debate with Bergson in Paris in 1922, Einstein argued that the former’s understanding of time as “creative evolution” was merely the subjective fantasy of an artist, and that, as a hard-nosed scientist, he was concerned only with the real, objective time made manifest by the geometrical reasoning of relativity theory. Bergson, for his part, argued that Einstein had mistaken a particular way of measuring time (i.e., clock-time) for time itself. Whitehead’s meeting with Einstein shortly after this debate with Bergson, though not as public, was no less significant. Whitehead similarly argued that the philosophical implications of Einstein’s brilliant scientific theory must be saved from Einstein’s faulty interpretation. My presentation will review these early 20th century debates about the nature of time in light of Gebser’s prophetic announcement of the birth of a new structure of consciousness. More than a century after Einstein’s theory was published, mainstream scientific cosmology still has not fully integrated the immeasurably creative character of qualitative time. I will argue that Bergson and Whitehead’s largely neglected critiques and reconstructions of relativity theory help show the way towards the concrete realization of Gebser’s integral structure.

louisbrassard on August 10, 2015 at 7:59 pm said: The question of time is intimatly linked to the notion of evolution, not only the biological evolution but the evolution of all that exist. In the second half of the 19th century many natural philosopers proposed cosmological evolutionary theories. In 1859, Darwin had shaken the world with his theory of biological evolution. The modern notion of time in physics had been invented by Galileo. He is the first to think of including the time of a clock (he design the first mechanical clock) into an equation with position. He created space time which will become the platonic realm of dynamic equation when calculus will be invented. The invention space time had provided a way to immobilize movement and so to geometrize dynamical systems. In these equation, t is like the other spatial parameters. All the phenomena that can be expressed by differential equations end up frozen in space time. Around 1880, Bergson realized that the time of physics was only parametrizing predicting changes which in space time where fixed and so saw for the first time that physics was describing a frozen block universe in space time and thus that the time of physics was not describing real change, change that cannot be predicted, in other word: creative events, what drive evolution. The time of physics is conceptual, it exists into a conceptual space time. Real time, real change is not conceptual, it cannot be conceptualized. It is a lived time.
The NOW is absent in space time while it is all that exist in lived experience.

Roy Smith on August 10, 2015 at 12:09 pm said: Great subject for a paper, Matt. It elucidates the necessity for dialog between Science and Philosophy that has been lacking in our culture. I’ve found that the science professions are filled with men and women who don’t even recognize the validity of philosophy, not realizing that the very presuppositions by which they proceed with their work are philosophical in nature. You could fit their ability to question their own assumptions into a container the size of a pea. As long as only average thinkers can become scientists these days, many meaningful breakthroughs will remain in limbo. We haven’t yet weened off the classical prejudices, 90 years after the arrival quantum mechanics.

Demystifying space & time - Kalika Prasad Dasgupta
The Statesman - 12/8/2015
Throughout the autumn and winter of 1915, Einstein tirelessly worked on his General Theory, which explained the apparent anomaly in Mercury’s orbit that defied Newtonian mechanics — the planet’s perihelion, the point of its orbit nearest the sun, is advanced by 43 seconds of arc per century. In Einstein’s final theory, gravitation was not treated as a force of attraction between bodies and the same was untenable in a relativistic universe explained in terms of field theory. Einstein’s gravitational field equations (1912 -1915) governing space-time curvature are 10 non-linear partial differential equations with tensor quantities. This theory, inter alia, explains gravitational red shift, whereby light passing close to a heavy object such as a planet will redden. His theory of curved space near massive planetary bodies such as the sun also explained the deflection of light along a curved path.

Einstein’s equations also suggested that the universe was expanding. It contradicted the concept of a static universe as advanced by Fred Hoyle and JV Narlicar in the 1960s, though earlier, at the end of the 1920s, American astronomer Edwin Hubble had demonstrated that the universe was really expanding. Einstein’s field equations later provided the mathematical foundations of the Big Bang theory and the origin of the universe. In a sense, Einstein was one of the founders of quantum theory, though he did not cherish the concept of its uncertainty principle. His Nobel Prize was not for his relativity principle but for his 1905 paper on the quantum nature of light.

In mid-1924, taking up ideas from Satyen Bose in Dhaka and Louis de Broglie in Paris, he predicted that atoms might club together in a single entity. This is not an ordinary crystal or molecule, but an accumulation of similar atoms bonded together like a conglomeration in a slow moving laser beam. Such a condensate can exist at temperatures close to absolute zero and was called the Bose-Einstein Condensate. Special Relativity rules out the reversal of time by travelling faster than light; however, General Relativity allows for an extraordinary condition of space-time called a “wormhole”. An object might enter at one end, proceed by a route outside the known universe and come out at the far end of a wormhole in a quite different place and/or time. In particular, an excursion like that allows a return to an earlier time.

After 1916, Einstein did not consider his theory to be the pinnacle of human knowledge. He felt the basic fields of nature, such as gravitation, electromagnetism and the like must be explained in a single theory, which would account for any phenomena occurring in nature, including quantum mechanics. For the rest of his life he worked tireless on this theory of unifying fields in a profound manner. Since Einstein breathed his last, physics has propounded several similar cutting-edge theoretical endeavours, such as the String Theory and Super String Theory, which extended human knowledge to a trans-universal scale. As Richard Feynman suggests, there could be 11 universes in parity with 11 dimensions. It would be like Lord Krishna telling Arjuna that he knew 11 rudras that the latter was unaware of. But all such theories stem from Einstein’s master theory, which turned 100, this year.

On Schrödinger's birthday, how his talk "What is Life?" captivated DNA researcher James Watson http://t.co/4AkJWZncvy - http://t.co/djkFA0fhL5
Schrödinger’s What Is Life was delivered in 1944 and was later published in book form. Watson read it two years later as a third-year student and was captivated. “I realised it was very important and it was the book that turned me towards biology.”

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August 07, 2015

One associates ‘mysticism’ rather than ‘skepticism’ with Aurobindo

Indian Ethics — Classical Traditions and Contemporary Challenges
Eds Purushottama Bilimoria, Joseph Prabhu and Renuka Sharma.
Oxford. Pages 431. Rs 795.
Moral reflections
Vijay Tankha
LIKE many disciplines thought absent in the classical traditions of Indian thought, ethics, along with politics, science and even some would say, philosophy, has slowly found its way into academic curricula. The need to create a discipline, which resembles those for whom books are readily available, becomes necessary. Hence, in the recent past, a whole range of books attempt to systematise and so explain not the absence, but the presence of not only an outlook but a body of work that can stand with all the classics of thought that we are familiar with.

This recent interest in Indian ethical and philosophical theories is not without a past. Since the first arrival of Western and Eastern travellers, the texts of the subcontinent have been the subject of translation and appraisal. The responses too have passed through various stages of incomprehension and rejection, whether Indian thought is concerned with morality at all or is essentially immoral, or really about religion, or really comparable to the best of Western-style ethics, to assertion and adulation. The post-Independence turn contrasted the materialist West with the spiritual East, overvaluing what had been undervalued. In the present post-modern times and with the increasing socio-economic rise of India and other Asian countries, there is a greater sensitivity to positively assess the contribution of this great civilisation to the moral literature of mankind.

This book is a collection of learned essays divided broadly into three parts—the first dealing with the early period, from the Vedas to the Gita, discussing mainly the notion of Dharma. Of the eight papers in this section, none is devoted to the Gita, which seems odd. Laurie Patton’s reading of Vedic ethics through the categories of "being in the presence of another" developed by Levinas, is suggestive. The demand that the ‘other’ makes is used to read into Vedic texts the infinite demands of morality in the person and presence of the guest. She seems to forget that the guest in question is invariably a Brahmin (in the Kathopinsad, a text she quotes, Nachiketa’s three unfed nights in the house of Yama, get him three boons because he is a brahmanathithi).

Crossing from Levinas’s thought, shaped by the world wars and the Jewish experience, to the Vedic India, requires an enormous leap of the imagination. We may not endorse Arthur Danto’s claim that we cannot at all enter into the conceptual scheme of that world, but we need some reason to engage with it. Modern revivals of Vedic sacrifices need, for instance, to investigate more critically the notion of ritual. More to the point then is Maria Heim’s Dana as a Moral Category, which sketches the enormous range of dana literature, Buddhist, Hindu and Jain in medieval texts, noting the difference between the theory and practice of giving in India and the West. The difference she feels is marked by lack of reciprocity: the giver is ennobled by giving to a superior rather than an inferior, and the superior (monk, renunciant or Brahmin) gives nothing in return, not even a word of thanks! She does not notice that there is an exchange, albeit muted: the Brahmin gives knowledge in exchange; the renunciant shows the path.

Moral reflections Chandigarh Tribune - Stephen Phillips’s Skepticism in Aurobindo brings the volume to the late 19th century interpretation of the Indian tradition. One associates ‘mysticism’ rather than ‘skepticism’ with Aurobindo.

Modern Oriya Literature and Translation Practices 
Modern Oriya literature is a complex phenomenon. It coincided with many crucial events relating to the separate statehood of Orissa and their impact on the territorial, linguistic and literary aspects and aspirations of the state. The British occupation of Orissa in 1803 signified an important shift in its history, but the two hundred years that preceded this event, when Orissa was ruled successively by the Moguls, the Afghans and the Marathas, were more anarchical and corrosive. During the rule of the Moguls, Orissa’s territorial identity was beset with doubts and uncertainties and its geographical boundaries were redefined many times. Areas were attached and detached as different dispensations were interested in the extortion of its resources.

Battles and rebellions were regular features. These might be the reasons why the British were welcomed warmly. As the poet and critic Mayadhar Mansinha writes: “The priests of the temple of Jagannath could welcome their victorious generals in sonorous, adulatory Sanskrit, because the two hundred years under the rule of the Moguls, the Afghans and the Marathas had created completely anarchical conditions in the country” (156-157). But British ruled Orissa with iron hands and the hope of the people that they would succour the wounds inflicted by the previous rulers was disappointed. In the revolt against the British occupation, Orissa lost brave sons like Jayakrishna Raiguru, Bakshi Jagabandhu, the Paikas and countless others. The British disarmed the Paikas and grabbed their hereditary lands. Moreover the new tenancy laws including the notorious ‘Sunset Law’1 that “practically uprooted the Orissa nobility from the entire coastal area of the district Balasore, Puri and Cuttack, turned the Oriya peasantry into a race of coolies” (Mansinha: 157). The intermediaries from outside Orissa working with East India Company were the most treacherous. Historian R.D. Banerjee admits that “Bengalis of a low type ruled Orissa for nearly half a century after the conquest. Having control over judicial and executive work, the Bengalis found Orissa an easy means to get rich quick…Hundreds of old Oriya noblemen were ruined and their ancient heritage passed into the hands of Bengali Zamidars” (Mansinha: 279-81). Not content with the economic ruin, they even propagated that Oriya was not a ‘language’. For instance in 1867 Deputy Magistrate Rangalal Bandopadhyaya spoke of the primacy of Bengali over Oriya. Likewise, a well-known Bengali scholar Rajendralal Mitra who came to study the schools of Cuttack declared that there was no need to have a separate language for a mere 20 lakh Oriya population. Mitra argued that Orissa would remain backward if it used a separate language (Sachidananda Mohanty: 6) and Pandit Kanti Chandra Bhattacharya of Balasore Zilla School published a pamphlet titled “Oriya is not a separate Language”. 

But the dismal cultural condition ended with the dedicated works of Fakirmohan Senapati (1847-1918), referred fondly as the father of modern Oriya literature. His brilliance and erudition was highly regarded and he was on friendly terms with John Beams, the British Civil Servant and linguist, (then the District Magistrate of Balasore, Fakirmohan’s birth place) and T.E.Ravenshaw (then commissioner of the Orissa Division after whom the Ravenshaw College, now Ravenshaw University is named). Ironically, it was the English scholar-administrator John Beams, who defended the need for Oriya language at a special meeting of the Royal Asiatic Society in Calcutta in his paper “The Relationship of Oriya to Other Aryan Languages”. He refuting the arguments of Rajendralal Mitra and Kanti Chandra Bhattacharya, Beams maintained that Oriya was in fact older than Bengali and extended up to Medinapur in the north, Nagpur in the west and Telengana in the south (Mohanty: 7). Finally in 1936 a separate province of Orissa was identified. 

A major factor that promoted Oriya language and culture was the setting up of the Orissa Mission Press at Cuttack on 1 March 1838 by Reverend C. Lacey. Although the Mission Press was used primarily for the printing of Christian religious tracts, it soon took up the production of books for government vernacular schools. Sachidananda Mohanty offers the following statistics: 

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August 04, 2015

The greatest messianic philosopher the world has known, Sri Aurobindo


Rossa Yes I think they are complementary. Man is the Messiah as well as the son of God, the human is created in “the image of God.” In the Vedic myth the seeker goes looking for God only to discover “Tat twam asi,” i.e., “That thou art,”—that he/she is God. Serine expresses a vision that is both mystical(vertical dimension) and messianic (the horizontal dimension). She astutely says Jesus’s victory is only partial because people are starving—therefore the need for messiahs. (BTW scientists in quantum physics are increasingly spiritual but science cannot prove, or disprove, the existence of God.) But as children of God, one of our divine obligations must be to save, to redeem, just as God seeks to redeem. St. Athanasius said “God became man so that man could become god.”In Hinduism and Christianity,God takes on human form, enters into the lower earthly realms for the purpose of saving, of elevating, transforming— and of educating, of showing the way. (I never said, Maxima, that this obviated the need for grace, but I do not believe it requires elevating Jesus above the Divine Mother or Krishna or vice versa.) In Christianity there is the incarnation, in Buddhism there are Bodhisattvas, and in Hinduism there are a series of Avatars. The Avatar is a divine being who comes down at critical point to save. But in each of these religions human beings have a messianic-redemptive role. My point is to revive the messianic vision, the idea of humanity’s messianic vocation, and the idea of the Mad as agents of messianic transformation. The messianic vision is the final reconciliation of humanity and God, the transcendence of suffering. This means affirming the concept of the messianic, in spite of modern secular world’s attempt to banish it—the mystical is far more reputable, since it doesn’t threaten corporate capitalism.

As Hindus says God manifests the world out of Herself, not out of nothing—it is thus intrinsically sacred. This is what Alex says eloquently also, but I… read more

Genuine redemption does not separate soul and body–which David suggests is the problem. That is the product of the Enlightenment war on nature and the body—transcended in the vision of the greatest messianic philosopher the world has known, Sri Aurobindo (1872-1950). In his epic poem Savitri based on adaptation of Indian legend Savitri is depicted by Aurobindo as an Avatar, the only female Avatar ever conceived in the Hindu tradition. Unlike most Avatars Savitri does not know she is an Avatar until she is forced to battle with Death and feels the World-Mother come alive within her. When Savitri meets her future spouse Satyavan he senses Savitri is more than human. He tells her of his frustration with a liberation that is purely spiritual.


I carelessly omitted quotation marks in the last two paragraphs in my reply above –they were from Faith’s commentary. I see the below as an ideal that ought to govern Mad Pride

For example she stated “I understand that it would be a wonderful thing in the world to have masses of mad people – redeemed “schizophrenics” and “bipolars” and “depressives” – rise up in a cultural wave of peace, wisdom, and evolutionary clarity about what is and is not important. I understand how fantastic it would be if mad folks could inspire people to adopt an ethos of love, humility and stewardship.”

Sri Aurobindo did not subscribe to the Traditionalist view. He did not reify as natural and inevitable the circumstances of life at present– birth, death (mortality), suffering and predation–the whole realm of what philosophers call natural evil. He described the higher life, the purpose not yet realized of the evolutionary process.An extinction of the human race would be more than just a temporary set-back.

Sri Aurobindo The Life Divine

“The gnostic individual would be the consummation of the spiritual man; his whole way of being, thinking, living, acting would be governed by the power of a vast universal spirituality. ..All his existence would be fused into oneness with the transcendent and universal Self and Spirit… He would feel the presence of the Divine in every centre of his consciousness, in every vibration of his life-force, in every cell of his body. In all the workings of his force of Nature he would be aware of the workings of the supreme World-Mother; he would see his natural being as the becoming and manifestation of the power of the World-Mother. In this consciousness he would live and act in an entire transcendent freedom, a complete joy of the spirit, an entire identity with the cosmic self and a spontaneous sympathy with all in the universe. All beings would be to him his own selves, all ways and powers of consciousness would be felt as the ways and powers of his own… read more


Hi Metalrabbit, Take a look at THe Politics of Experience by R D Laing. THe so-called schizophrenics, and now “bipolars”(manic depressive” was a rarely used label 30 + yrs go) are spiritual pioneers, said Laing. What if he is right? What are the implications? Now right after Laing said the mad might be the most enlightened beings on the planet-and even that they might have a redemptive role to play– he dropped the idea like a hot potato. And he gave up political activism. Of course both MindFReedom and TIP have saved a lot of people

They started the revolution against the mental health system. And they are still doing good work.But the oceans are dying, 200 species go extinct every day, and global warming exceeds what the scientists had predicted. We may not have much time to reverse our course in order to save life on earth.

We are at the turning point now–after 10,000 years.

It’s only logical that many of those people who march to the tune of a different drummer are going to be captured by the mind- police and end up in loony bins. The system needs to neutralize them. Yes MindFreedom provides good companions, as you say. AS does TIP. MindFreedom is holding the Szaszian banner high. And they “deprogram” people. And TIP invites them to create a different reality. They both proved the mental death system wrong.

Nevertheless there is an illusion shared by many in MindFReedom and TIP–that small changes are more effective than trying to realize grandiose dreams. That’s a dangerous illusion because it leads people to stop thinking about grandiose dreams. But their grandiose dreams are the pavement on the road to paradise,

It’s an illusory choice because the only alternative to omnicide is a new Great Awakening and the political/social changes such an Awakening would inspire.

It seems like it would be easier to change the “mental health system” than to usher in the kingdom of heaven, or paradise. But that’s an illusion.

Humanity needs prophets, messianic catalysts to… read more
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July 29, 2015

Scales are tipped toward harmony

Posted on July 28, 2015
Check out this interesting post by my cousin, Seth Segall, over at the Existential Buddhist. The topics Seth discusses include whether consciousness is emergent from or intrinsic to the physical world, the place of values (human or otherwise) in the universe, and the variety of God concepts available to those willing to philosophize about such matters. Seth also compares the ideas of the 13th century Zen Buddhist monk Dogen, the 17th century Jewish philosopher Spinoza, and the 20th century mathematician and cosmologist A.N. Whitehead. 

I appreciate Seth’s pragmatic (in the Jamesian sense) approach to these questions. I do not pretend to any metaphysical certainty about the existence of the Whiteheadian or any other God. From my perspective, we inhabit a cosmos that is always on the edge of chaos with nothing guaranteeing continued peace, goodness, or beauty. I do believe these ideals are realized in the ongoing genesis of this universe to a degree far greater than mere chance, but I cannot go so far as to claim they are metaphysical necessities. I think the process-relational God articulated by Whitehead allows us to recognize the realization of these ideals as somewhere in-between utterly contingent and totally necessary. They are potentials freely realized by the creatures of this cosmos because of their intrinsic desirability. Nothing is to stop any particular being in some particular circumstance from desiring otherwise. On the other hand, Whitehead makes it clear that we cannot speak of a “cosmic order” without already assuming the realization of an ideal of beauty. For Whitehead, all order is aesthetic order. In other words, no beauty, no cosmos. So the fact that there is a cosmos at all is already evidence enough that the scales are tipped toward harmony. ~MS

By Hugh Colmer - Aurobindo Ghose, was an Indian nationalist, philosopher, yogi, guru, and poet. He was a great influence in the Indian movement for independence from British rule, and then became a spiritual reformer, introducing his visions on human progress and spiritual evolution. Sri Aurobindo characterized the term Overmind to encapsulate the consciousness of the greatest prophets the world has ever known. However he observed that the Overmind still has the potential to become a Nietzschean superman and believes we need another Consciousness rather than a Super- consciousness. His advice is to disconnect from gods and religions.

We have lived under the influence of these gods for thousands of years as their lives have been well publicized and glamourized through the voices of our prophets, religions, and sometimes through of our poets and artists. Even Jesus advised us to be as wise as serpents. Matthew 10:16 Did we take his advice? Obviously not for he said I am sending you out like sheep surrounded by wolves. These wolves still keep us in the Matrix as they romanticized the gods and unbeknownst to them have been their PR agents.

One of the more controversial theories, sometimes called the "copycat thesis" -- suggests that many of the miracles, other life events, and beliefs about the supernatural status of Horus, an ancient Egyptian God, were fused into stories about Jesus as recorded in the New Testament. The life of Jesus was based on the lives of 50 sun gods who were all warlords. For if we read their mythology, which is really their history, we would not worship them or the rock stars that have taken their place.

Savitri Era of those who adore, Om Sri Aurobindo & The Mother.





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Location: Shipra Riviera, Indirapuram, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh 201014, India

July 27, 2015

Sri Aurobindo’s books present difficulty in grasping

Sri Aurobindo’s books attract many a scholar and devotees for the eloquence and novelty of thought. Yet they present difficulty in grasping not only for their English but also for the content and consciousness packed in them. However, mentored study of his vast and varied works could facilitate their deeper understanding. It is with this view that SACAR launches “intensive” research in Sri Aurobindo’s major works: The Life Divine, Savitri, The Synthesis of Yoga, The Human Cycle, Foundations of Indian Culture, Essays on the Gita.

Online Courses

CONCEPT

The online courses offered at SACAR have been especially designed keeping in view that there are many seekers who wish to study the works of Sri Aurobindo systematically but are bound by distance and time to take on a full-fledged course by living on the campus. The online forum allows the individual to sit at home and study under the guidance of the facilitator who is available online.

DURATION

These are certificate courses of 12 weeks each. They cover almost all the major works of Sri Aurobindo. If the student or a group of students has a special demand to study any specific course, we also design it according to his or her needs.

INTER-DISCIPLINARY APPROACH

Our approach to teaching-learning is inter-disciplinary. Sri Aurobindo with his wide and vast vision has written on such varied subjects that nearly all the major disciplines of Arts and Humanities and a few of the Sciences and Management find their place of study and deeper analysis in his writings.

FACILITATOR

Essentially we believe that a teacher does not teach but only facilitates the learner to dig deeper into the area of his/her interest. Therefore, we address our teachers as facilitators. They are a group of highly qualified scholars of the works of Sri Aurobindo and have done a good deal of work in their own chosen field.

COURSES

Essentially we believe that a teacher does not teach but only facilitates the learner to dig deeper into the area of his/her interest. Therefore, we address our teachers as facilitators. They are a group of highly qualified scholars of the works of Sri Aurobindo and have done a good deal of work in their own chosen field.

COURSES

  •  Principles of Integral Education
  •  Educational Thought in India
  •  Ancient Indian Education
  •  Holistic Education in the West
  •  Foundations of Indian Culture
  •  The Philosophy of Evolution of Consciousness
  •  The Psychology of Yoga
  •  Science of Living
  •  A Psychological Approach to Bhagvad Gita
  •  Secret of Indian Scriptures
  •  Rhythm of Social Development
  •  Towards Human Unity
  •  Poetry of the Future
  •  The Vision of the Future
  •  Self Management
  •  Integral Personality Development
  •  Research Methods in Philosophy and Transpersonal Enquiry

Internship Programme

Internship

Internship at SACAR is different than other professional internship programmes. This has been specially designed with two-fold intension
  •  To add an inner dimension to one’s life and professional course that one is doing;
  •  To study the chosen discipline with respect to Indian Culture and its relevance to the future of India.

Various disciplines in India these days are incorporating the best of the knowledge that the West provides and that surely brings the syllabi at par with the international standards. However, those cannot be blindly applied to the specific field in India for the simple reason that Indian cultural milieu demands an indigenous system to make it work. What then is the demand of our culture? For this students need to study Indian culture from a different perspective.
This perspective is provided by Sri Aurobindo in his writings on Indian culture, society, polity and the like. His vision of seeing things is new and at the same time it blends well with free-thinking minds of the day
We therefore invite the youth to explore this new dimension and add an inner perception to themselves and the world.

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Location: Shipra Riviera, Indirapuram, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh 201014, India
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