Other worlds and inner domains

[Most Valuable Books of 2009 from Larval Subjects by larvalsubjects
For me 2009 has been one of those years in which everything changed, where all sorts of old assumptions and fixations dissipated like so much mist, and where I’ve found myself having to rebuild everything from the ground up. Building, of course, always requires materials out of which things must be built. Consequently, it is not so much that all of those old influences (phenomenology, Deleuze, structuralism, semiotics, Lacan, Freud, Marx, Kant, Spinoza, Lucretius, Hume, etc., etc.) disappeared, it is that my relationship to these forms of thought shifted and suddenly I was asking different questions, dealing with different problems, resituating what was important and unimportant in these earlier influences, while also abandoning a number of the problems that motivated these movements and thinkers... The most fundamental encounter of 2009 was certainly my encounter with Graham Harman. 11:52 AM]

[And the Zeitgeist right now favors figures such as Badiou, Zizek, Deleuze, Lacan, Laruelle, a bit of Malabou and Metzinger lapping at the edges, etc. I like much of this stuff too, but it also has weaknesses of its own, and people need to have the freedom to address those weaknesses without explosions from those who like them. on labels from Object-Oriented Philosophy by doctorzamalek 10:01 AM]

[Re: The Story of Creation--the Bright Persona
by paulette on Fri 04 Dec 2009 10:09 AM IST Profile Permanent Link
The result of the BBC poll suggests that Marx's portrayal of the forces that govern our lives - and of the instability, alienation, and exploitation they produce — still resonates, and can still bring the world into focus. Far from being buried under the rubble of the Berlin Wall, he may only now be emerging in his true significance. For all the anguished, uncomprehending howls from the right-wing press, Karl Marx could yet become the most influential thinker of the 21st century.” Paulette Reply]

[Chapters two and three (The Two Negations) in Sri Aurobindo's THE LIFE DIVINE are excellent examples of why Idealism and Materialism are only partial truths. Joan 6:49 AM 10:01 AM]

[Re: LACMA 111909 - Debashish Banerji
by koantum on Fri 04 Dec 2009 09:54 PM PST Profile Permanent Link
But should we deny that Sri Aurobindo is a greater power for widening this discourse than are Deleuze, Zizek, Lacan and their ilk just because we all are disgusted by the sectarian narrowness displayed by the Church of Aurobindianity?]

[Re: LACMA 111909 - Debashish Banerji
by Debashish on Sat 05 Dec 2009 08:02 AM PST Profile Permanent Link
The western debate remains an aporia because there is no passage out of its contradiction in the Avidya. But there is an experiential way out as dealt with by Sri Aurobindo. To insert this into the discourse enlarges and extends its horizon. By introducing Sri Aurobindo into an unfamiliar terrain it also reconstellates and recontextualizes him. db]

If we leave aside The Record of Yoga, a personal journal where things were jotted down in a coded idiom, none of Sri Aurobindo's prose works lend to any mystification. His language is pretty rational and intelligible comparable to his contemporaries like Husserl, Heidegger, and Whitehead.

He talks about things unseen and unknown quite matter-of-factly and invites us to awake to those realities with the encouraging words that the unknown is not unknowable. Having said that, it would be honest to admit that I (and, I presume, most of us) have no conscious access to the other worlds and the inner domains that Sri Aurobindo has delineated.

No amount of languaging gymnastics, therefore, can redeem the situation and a quiet faith in the glory of The Mother & Sri Aurobindo is the only recourse. This may sound pessimistic and anti-intellectual, but the idea of grace restores cheer. [TNM]