Friday, December 28, 2012

Sri Aurobindo advocates a religious ethos for nationalism

Tweets 23 Dec - @satyamevajayate Reciting Savitri and reading The Life Divine by Sri Aurobindo is perhaps the best means for spreading sanity and harmony.  View conversation
23 Dec - Savitri Era Party @SavitriEraParty May the youth of my country follow the words of The Mother & Sri Aurobindo instead of chasing quick-fix solutions in Rajpath and India Gate. 23 Dec Those who are fueling anarchy in the name of securing instant justice through direct democracy are enemies of national interest and harmony 23 Dec The alacrity with which some national level players jump regularly to fish in troubled waters without thought sends shivers down the spine. 23 Dec - @raj393 No instant solutions barring invoking the teaching of The Mother & Sri Aurobindo. Halting moral degeneration is a long-term process. 23 Dec - @raj393 Mere security and secularism is not enough for inculcating character. Sri Aurobindo has advocated a religious ethos for nationalism.  View conversation
20 Dec From now on as the search for a new iDom begins, the idiom of Indian politics goes for a toss. Religion and its pseudo version under scanner. 13 Dec [International Research Network on Religion and Democracy presents an international conference ‘Are We Postsecular?’ 13–14 Dec. 2012 at LSR] 10 Dec - @OUPAcademic @philosophybites "Matter, the usual philosophical pariah, is spiritual, and has been treated with due respect" by Sri Aurobindo.  View conversation
5 Dec Neither Ambedkar nor Savarkar, Sri Aurobindo is the true beacon of light for guiding the future of India and the world in the 21st Century. 1 Dec - @SathyaSher @alok_bhatt @kshetragnya Read Sri Aurobindo's Human Cycle and all theoretical confusion will melt away. Ignorance is no glory.  View conversation
29 Nov Give must not spur any give and take ... For to know how to wait is a heroic trait. http://tusarnmohapatra.blogspot.in/2005/11/diffidence.html …
28 Nov The philosophy of Sri Aurobindo has not been accepted on a wide scale till now, but then no other philosophy has been universally accepted. 28 Nov "गो is cow or cattle, no problems there" surmises @bibekdebroy, but no, then what is Goloka or Gaveshana? Sri Aurobindo comes to the rescue. 28 Nov What is the meaning of life? The simple answer is LIFE. L = Light, I = Immortality, F = Freedom, E = Ecstasy or Bliss. http://savitriera.blogspot.in/2007/11/light-bliss-freedom-immortality.html …
28 Nov A confluence of myth, history & philosophy, Savitri, like Suez Canal, ensues unhindered East-West commerce of culture. http://savitriera.blogspot.in/2007/11/step-and-all-is-sky-and-god.html …
28 Nov Admirers of Swami Vivekananda are legion but only a minuscule of them has read the works of The Mother & Sri Aurobindo. http://savitriera.blogspot.in/2007/11/promoting-intellectual-growth-of.html …
26 Nov - @saliltripathi With a slight modification of course, with Sri Aurobindo and his 1947 Five Dreams as the pivot. @sabhlok -  View conversation

Saturday, December 01, 2012

Founding a new religion is not an easy task


Their recent posts imply that Levi and Harman are no longer as confident about OOO as they were a year ago. RSS has come in for scathing attack even from faithfuls for its functioning as a secret society. AAP seems clueless about its future and no clarity has emerged on policy front. Leftist rhetoric is tottering under the weight of clinging to false hopes but is surviving through polysyllables.

RC is right in catching discrepancies in The Mother's utterances, but he must understand the balancing act she had to perform in the face of multi-pronged resistances. Founding a new religion is not an easy task and sugarcoating the cruel truth is always permitted. The choice is either to have faith or move away but whining all the while and creating nuisance perennially doesn't behove of a person who values diversity. His academic interrogations, however, are welcome. [TNM55]







Saturday, November 24, 2012

AAP deserves all support and goodwill

Tweets 1h - Savitri Era Party @SavitriEraParty Not appreciating Sri Aurobindo yet is a cause of India's misery. AAP must offer intellectual leadership and not discredited Leftist ideology. 1h Karnad batted for lyrics recently and a play is more about dialogues. AAP must get down to Policy or it'd be Too many cooks spoil the broth. 1h - @indinova @mihirssharma Neither Ayodhya nor Nalanda, Pondicherry shows the way for the future through Sri Aurobindo's #5Dreams #SiddhiDay  View conversation 1h Muted response to AAP on Twitter is understandable. Ground has slipped from under many a feet and most are crestfallen. #SiddhiDay#5Dreams 2h The circuitous route that AAP has traversed before taking birth today is a masterstroke considering how perplexed Congress, BJP & Left were. 2h Thanks to AAP, there is a space now in the national politics to breathe freely beyond dynasties and dystopian fossils. #SiddhiDay#5Dreams 3h So Hisar was no misadventure. With AAP becoming a reality, connecting the dots is easier now. "Mayhem in Meham" too once made Haryana famous. 3h - @rajeerajan Many faces of Indian Democracy: Of the Bharatiya Lok Dal, By the Janata Party, For the Aam Aadmi Party. #SiddhiDay Sri Aurobindo  View conversation 7h What better opportunity than to have an inhouse psephologist for founding AAP who is also an ace theorist and stickler for ethics #SiddhiDay 7h Equally fascinating is AAP's tryst with theatre. All techniques of Asmita were adopted to change the political theatre of India.#SiddhiDay 7h AAP took birth through the midwifery of the old-, new-, and paid-media. Truly a 21st Century party that has tamed technology. #SiddhiDay 7h Machiavelli is the first political thinker to effectively separate politics from religion - by Greg Nyquist: http://selforum.blogspot.in/2007/08/machiavelli-is-first-political-thinker.html … #SiddhiDay 8h Sri Aurobindo drew on Neoplatonism, Hegelianism, and Bergson http://feelphilosophy.blogspot.in/2012/06/sri-aurobindo-drew-on-neoplatonism.html … Yoga Vashishtha and Kashmir Shaivism http://savitriera.blogspot.in/2006/10/integral-adwaita-yoga-vashishtha.html … 8h Knowing the complexities of Indian political scene, it's premature to expect firm policy grooves hewed by AAP. #SiddhiDay of Sri Aurobindo. 8h AAP deserves all support and goodwill as it occupies the crucial non-Congress, non-BJP space as an alternative with a national perspective. 8h Many faces of Indian Democracy: Of the Bharatiya Lok Dal, By the Janata Party, For the Aam Aadmi Party. #SiddhiDay Sri Aurobindo's 5-Dreams. 23h - Savitri Era Party @SavitriEraParty - #SiddhiDay of Sri Aurobindo. Greetings.

Friday, November 23, 2012

Best Wishes to Kejriwal

Tweets 16mSavitri Era Party @SavitriEraParty Our last hope & prayer 12 hours before founding of@ArvindKejriwal7's New Party & First NC meeting: Sri Aurobindo's Five Dreams #SiddhiDay 40m - @ArvindKejriwal7 It's hoped that Sri Aurobindo's ideals finds a mention in New Party's guiding principles tomorrow. Best Wishes. #SiddhiDay  View conversation 1h - @kirankhurana Good sign as 24 November is celebrated as Sri Aurobindo’s #SiddhiDay all over the world. View conversation
5h Yoga is quest for Truth, Good, and Beauty and conquest over Death. Sri Aurobindo synthesizes the sacred and the secular http://savitriera.blogspot.in/2012/09/sri-aurobindo-synthesises-sacred-and.html …
5h Sri Aurobindo gives a collective element to spiritual quest. (24 November is celebrated as Sri Aurobindo’s Siddhi Day) http://selforum.blogspot.com/2012/11/sri-aurobindo-gives-collective-element.html …
16h The Mother & Sri Aurobindo have enjoined upon the people of India & persons of Indian origin to carry their message to all corners of world.
17h The Mother & Sri Aurobindo secured a synthesis of two world cultures aimed towards a mankind of light and might, of concord and sublimity.

Thursday, November 22, 2012

The Mother & Sri Aurobindo infuse a thought revolution

Tweets 1h - Savitri Era Party @SavitriEraParty The Mother & Sri Aurobindo have inaugurated a new epoch to break free from the shackles of the past and its prohibitions. #SiddhiDay Victory 1h Freedom of thought & intelligence not only fosters Democracy & Markets but also fights superstition & propels emancipatory social practices. 1h The Mother & Sri Aurobindo have a vision for India that embodies Knowledge, Power, Harmony, and Perfection and is worthy of true Leadership. 1h Tailor made careers & doctored aptitude profiles are civilisational hazards the repercussions of which are toxic for the nation. #SiddhiDay 2h Apart from self-management insights, The Mother & Sri Aurobindo infuse a thought revolution in consonance with evolution of consciousness. 2h The Mother & Sri Aurobindo offer the best opportunity to confront our ignorant views and anomalous theoretical undergirdings that we harbour. 2h The Mother & Sri Aurobindo unveil an integral perspective transcending narrow parochial barriers and naive nationalism. Darshan Day on 24th. 2h Calling upon Engineers to allow The Mother & Sri Aurobindo to re-engineer their lives' priorities so that their full potential blossoms. 3h Darshan Day on 24th. May young Indians mobilise motivation to discover The Mother & Sri Aurobindo for transforming their lives and the world. 20 Nov Kejriwal's new party too runs the risk of becoming 'another Hindu Mahasabha or another Congress.' Only Sri Aurobindo gives a new direction. 20 Nov Kasab brings to mind how the Congress ignored Sri Aurobindo's fervent appeal for accepting the Cripps' Proposal in 1942 leading to Partition. 20 Nov On November 24, 1926 Sri Aurobindo had attained Siddhi of realising Overmind truth. Thousands of letters written thereafter is worth reading. 20 Nov It's Sri Aurobindo who uncovers Indian wisdom in its purity and heralds it's world-conquering mission as part of evolution of consciousness. 20 Nov Sir Stafford Cripps immediately replied by a telegram. Sri Aurobindo also appealed to C. Rajgopalachari to “save Indiahttp://selforum.blogspot.in/2012/11/sri-aurobindo-also-appealed-to-c.html …
20 Nov Battle the forces of casteism, illiberalism, and injustice http://selforum.blogspot.in/2012/11/battle-forces-of-casteism-illiberalism.html … Seas inlaid with eloquent gentle wires http://selforum.blogspot.in/2012/11/seas-inlaid-with-eloquent-gentle-wires.html … 19 Nov International conference Are We Postsecular? Contesting Religion & Politics in Comparative Contexts 13–14 December 2012 http://selforum.blogspot.in/2012/11/international-conference-on-contesting.html … 19 Nov Lady Shri Ram College for Women & International Research Network on Religion and Democracy - International conference: ‘Are We Postsecular?’ 18 Nov Sri Aurobindo is still a marginal figure in academia http://selforum.blogspot.in/2012/11/sri-aurobindo-is-still-marginal-figure.html … Sri Aurobindo is neglected as literary critic http://selforum.blogspot.in/2012/11/sri-aurobindo-is-neglected-as-literary.html … 17 Nov McTaggart, Nussbaum, Adorno, Levinas, Laruelle, Heidegger, Wilber, The Mother and Sri Aurobindo. SELF Help Favourites: http://auroramirabilis.blogspot.in/2012/11/self-help-favourites.html …
16 Nov - @iac007 @MovementIAC Time to bring Sri Aurobindo to the front & be guided by his 1947 Five-Dreams broadcast. @sabhlok http://goo.gl/fb/M373I  -  View conversation 15 Nov [Sri Aurobindo's work is untouchable in terms of comprehensiveness. He commands an incredible breadth of knowledge.-BP] http://selforum.blogspot.in/2012/11/sri-aurobindos-work-is-untouchable-in.html …

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Integral Yoga is no uniform potion

When it comes to The Mother & Sri Aurobindo and Integral Yoga, one feels like Condoleezza Rice remarking “The fact of the matter is I've been black all my life. Nobody needs to tell me how to be black.[125]” Like Socrates’ "examined life,” The Mother’s stress on avoiding the misery of an “aimless life” is perhaps the most basic rule for an aspirant. For a major stretch in life, however, many mistake earning livelihood for the aim although the profession provides the opportunity for flowering of talent, nurturing creativity, and moulding of subjectivity. The resultant individuality, identity, and social mobility, however, do exert a mesmerizing effect whereby the chance of coming face to face with choosing an aim or confronting one’s own real self head on is always deferred. Drawing satisfaction from some substitute as compensation is, of course, forced by subsistence compulsions.

Traditional canons of conduct conveniently contain predominantly direct correspondence between ethical life and action and liberation. But non-linear Integral Yoga Ontology and its spiral evolution paradigm is more prone to post-modernist rapprochement with tentativeness, contingency, and uncertainty of interpretation. This is no logic to condone misconduct (for, the elephant is Brahman and so is the mahut) but the paramountcy of context is never emphasized more elsewhere. The tenet, All life is Yoga, therefore, assumes unprecedented significance against this backdrop. Like the Shatadala or a Sahasra-bahu (called Saas-bahu erroneously in colloquial fashion) temple, the interdependence, interconnection, and economy within a collectivity is thrown into sharp relief. Integral Yoga, thus, is no uniform potion; but rather an arena for experimenting with life along the known tracks and with notions yet unpracticed. [TNM55] 







Thursday, November 15, 2012

56 years of 1956

The Mother’s proclamation of the descent of the Supramental in 1956 almost coincided with the sweeping post-Independence hopes of building a new India. But what we observe 56 years later is not a very encouraging scene on both the fronts. Despite the democratic pretensions, politics, media, education, and leisure are all hostage to a pervasive feudal culture. Instead of the Marxist angst and alienation, a celebratory engrossing with Heideggerian inauthenticity and trivia seems to be the order of the day. Commerce, of course, propels excellence as well as quality of life. Patronage for arts and creativity, too, are hinged to the invisible hand of market dynamics. Management of human affairs has climbed such macro levels that ordinary human beings have become inconsequential.  

Large scale money making through arms, drugs, vaccines, and trafficking etc. also have turned sophisticated avenues that employ cutthroat liaisoning and spying. Both Corporates and Governments are succumbing to such underworld machinations not to speak of non-State terror and arm-twisting. Even, many respectable ecological campaigns hide behind them murky tales of cooked up economics. Bioethical issues are compounding with the march of technology and media. So, coping up compulsions is perhaps driving people to cheap forms of entertainment and arenas of religious dumbing down. To sense something noble and inspiring within this cacophony, therefore, has surely become a self deluding task. But The Mother & Sri Aurobindo stay as the only fount of light and hope midst such oppressive despair. [TNM55] 

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Dynasty and nasty personality cults

Tweets 30m - Savitri Era Party @SavitriEraParty The followers of Sri Aurobindo can grow a critical mass to influence the politics of the country provided they forego intellectual hedonism. 58m Che or Hu, a firm commitment to an ideology is the key. 1947 Five Dreams Manifesto provides a futuristic road-map for India and the World. 1h Right moment to get rid of the dynasty and other nasty personality cults. Neither Anna nor Kejriwal, adopting an honest ideology is the way. 1h Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo imparts the right intellectual muscle to judge complex political and economic currents circulating in the world. 1h Sri Aurobindo's teaching constitutes an essential feature today for enduring power and nation building. No other ideological glue is safer. 1h Congress accommodated Leftist scholarship to look respectable but RSS banished Sri Aurobindo's illuminating vision from its curriculum.
4h - Savitri Era Party @SavitriEraParty - @alok_bhatt @rsyashasvi In commentaries on ancient Indian texts, his fidelity is matched by the profundity he furnishes  View conversation 4h Fighting colonialism as well as resisting revivalism was twin challenges before Sri Aurobindo as a writer a century ago. 4h Neither the Nehruvian nor the Hindutva worldview can be counted as appropriate for India at the moment. [TNM55] http://savitriera.blogspot.in/2012/11/the-mother-and-sri-aurobindo-stand-for.html …
[8 Nov - Madhu Kishwar @madhukishwar Kiran segal dancing to soul uplifting poetic compositions of oriya poet Kuntala Kumari. Amazing first time composition pic.twitter.com/LyN7iugd  Retweeted by Savitri Era Party  View photo]
7 Nov - Savitri Era Party @SavitriEraParty @sabhlok Being an ace criminal lawyer, Jethmalani can't make do without criminals.  View conversation
5 Nov Rely on Sri Aurobindo, and not on Naipaul, for "rediscovering and questioning every received wisdom" about Indian history and culture.
4 Nov Sri Aurobindo was a rebel & stayed so till he breathed his last. Savitri Erans are envoys of Unity, Mutuality & Harmony http://savitriera.blogspot.in/2007/10/savitri-erans-are-envoys-of-unity.html …
4 Nov A must read RT "@sabhlok: Sri #Aurobindo – the vocal opponent of #socialism http://goo.gl/fb/M373I "
[2 Nov - B Shantanu @satyamevajayate @prasannavishy @doubtinggaurav Pl do read @sabhlok's recent posts on Aurobindo, Chanakya etc.. We don't hv to rely/copy western paradigms  Retweeted by Savitri Era Party  View conversation]
[1 NovAshísh Gulhatí @an4rky What I meant by Auroville bring socialist was that there's ostensibly no property rights within Auroville. @sabhlok @Getafix2012  Retweeted by Savitri Era Party  View conversation
[1 Nov pvnatarajan @pvnatarajan Sri Aurobindo - the vocal opponent of socialism - Sanjeev Sabhlok's revolutionary blog http://sabhlokcity.com/2012/11/sri-aurobindo-the-vocal-opponent-of-socialism/#.UJMZejZrHJg.twitter …  Retweeted by Savitri Era Party
[1 Nov - Sanjeev Sabhlok @sabhlok @an4rky You are right! This is a mess: http://www.aurovillefoundation.org.in/organisation/the-secretary … @Getafix2012 Why do Aurobindo's followers need IAS officers? Retweeted by Savitri Era Party  View conversation

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Defending Sri

[Millenarian Elements in the Hindu Religious Traditions Hugh B. Urban The Oxford Handbook of Millennialism In the course of suppressive colonial rule, militant nationalism emerged in messianic attire. Spiritual nationalist Sri Aurobindo described it as a religion directly presented by God. The new age came up with lifestyle gurus such as Osho Rajneesh, who asserted a symbolic end of time by surrendering typical lifestyle practices. The Oxford Handbook of Millennialism - Page 375 - Google Books Result - Catherine Wessinger - 2011 - Although Aurobindo Ghose is today best known as a spiritual teacher and philosopher, he was also, in his youth, one of the primary leaders of the revolutionary ...]

Sri Aurobindo’s name underwent many metamorphoses during his lifetime. From stark anonymity to a slew of pseudonyms and acronyms, his experimentation ended with his signing as Sri Aurobindo sans any surname or caste identity. His works, understandably, have been published under that name and, ordinarily, he is referred to as so. But there are certain types of people who are intolerant of his adding Sri to his name and are always eager to geld it. The Sri to them is a canopy of fundamentalism that smacks of unjustified superiority, thus threatening secular sensibilities.

The fact is that no one can help in this matter as Sri Aurobindo is no more and can’t be questioned as to why he wanted to retain his name this way. So, the minimum one can do is not to distort his name by eclipsing Sri. In book indexes too he should appear under the alphabet S and not A or G as Sri is not an honorific here but an integral part of his name. Sri Aurobindo is yet to receive the prestige he deserves as a poet and a thinker and hence the need to resist the snatching away of his Sri. [TNM55]  

Sri Aurobindo refutes Nietzsche

[Nietzsche, Descartes, Lacan and the Death of God Posted by larvalsubjects 11 Comments May 21, 2006
What strikes me as crucial in this passage is Nietzsche’s remark that we have wiped away the horizon, that we now move without direction, that we are suspended in an infinite void and cold, empty space. The death of God therefore seems to signify a world that has lost its coordinates (what else is a horizon if not a way of co-ordinating our movement?) and where the ground has disappeared beneath us. I take it that the term “God” is a generic term for any sort of transcendental term that would fix meaning and identity. It would be a mistake to assume that “God” simply refers to the God of organized religion. Rather God is a generic term referring to anything on the order of a form, essence, transcendence, identity, substance, permanence, ideal, wholeness, totality and so on.]

[April 9, 2007 at 7:46 am Coming across in a hymn of Martin Luther what Hegel described as the cruel words, the harsh utterance, namely, God is dead, the latter was perhaps the first great philosopher to develop the theme of God’s death according to whom, to one form of experience God is dead. Commenting on Kant’s first Critique, Heinrich Heine spoke of a dying God. Heine influenced Nietzsche. Since Heine and Nietzsche the phrase Death of God became popular. (K. Satchidananda Murty, The Realm of Between, IIAS, 1973)]

[The Human Aspiration « Sri Aurobindo Studies 30 Aug 2009 – Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine
The earliest formula of Wisdom promises to be its last,—God, Light, Freedom, Immortality. These persistent ideals of the race are at once the contradiction of its normal experience and the affirmation of higher and deeper experiences which are abnormal to humanity and only to be attained, in their organised entirety, by a revolutionary individual effort or an evolutionary general progression… The greater the apparent disorder…, the stronger is the spur…]

The firmness with which Sri Aurobindo refutes Nietzsche’s playful affirmation is a milestone in the history of human thought. For long, philosophy has been hostage to a science fiction style of writing or abstract painting. Happily, fatigue has set in and that epoch is fast coming to a close. Further, defending Marx, which was considered pivotal to theory, is no longer that sacrosanct. These are welcome developments but without Sri Aurobindo a satisfying ontological framework is difficult to put together. [TNM55]  

Monday, November 12, 2012

Unceasing aspiration is the sure means

It’s not without significance that Sri Aurobindo Ashram came into being in 1926 in the wake of Swarajya Party in 1923 and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Communist Party of India in 1925. Despite all disclaimers, establishment of a commune is a palpable political act by which the inmates, not only stay insulated against unwanted ideological propaganda, but also become example of lived values thereby offering an alternative socio-cultural paradigm. But as we observe at the end of 2012, none of the aforesaid four streams inspire confidence so far as the future of humanity is concerned.

Technological breakthrough has brought about quantum leap in integrating thinking all over the globe but opinions remain as opposed as ever. The Mother & Sri Aurobindo, however, have asked for vigilant, constant, and unceasing aspiration for ushering in unity, mutuality, and harmony. [TNM55] 

Friday, November 02, 2012

Rediscovery of Sri Aurobindo

Had Sri Aurobindo lived, Nehru's plans of socialism would have been still-born and India might have escaped from its (ongoing) misery of the past 65 years.]
[5h - Sanjeev Sabhlok @sabhlok @SavitriEraParty @hguptapolicy Thanks. Can I see your party's manifesto on economic policy and governance?  Retweeted by Savitri Era Party  View conversation]
[3h - Jaideep A. Prabhu @orsoraggiante @SavitriEraParty Agreed. Spontaneous order is a fundamental principle of liberalism. @an4rky @sabhlok @hguptapolicy  Retweeted by Savitri Era Party  View conversation]


Tweets 1h - Savitri Era Party @SavitriEraParty @orsoraggiante @sabhlok @an4rky @Getafix2012 @hguptapolicy It's actually about allowing local self-Govt. by returning it to original owners.  View conversation
1h @sabhlok @an4rky @Getafix2012 Residents of Auroville are not strictly Sri Aurobindo's followers; should be allowed to elect their President.  View conversation
1h @sabhlok @an4rky @Getafix2012 SEP has been long demanding liberation of Auroville from Govt. of India control. @hguptapolicy @orsoraggiante  View conversation
2h @sabhlok @hguptapolicy A fixed manifesto is a socialist concept. Members to shape policy with Sri Aurobindo's 1947 Five Dreams as core.  View conversation
5h @an4rky @sabhlok A community of 2K people should have liberty to experiment and choose their own way of living. @hguptapolicy @orsoraggiante  View conversation
6h @sabhlok SEP is the only party in India today with the ideological basis of Liberty and and its inspiration is Sri Aurobindo. @hguptapolicy  View conversation
8h @sabhlok @an4rky Many thanks for highlighting what we are harping on for the last five years. Hope fruitful collaboration in the future.  View conversation
30 Oct [Unleash entrepreneurial force & apply “markets where possible, the state where necessary” and stand back & stay back.] http://marketime.blogspot.in/2012/10/underground-entrepreneurial-energy-is.html …
30 Oct Savitri Era is a pioneering effort in this direction to precipitate an alternative identity & a participative religion. http://savitriera.blogspot.in/2012/10/savitri-era-as-alternative-identity-and.html …
29 Oct - Savitri Era Party @SavitriEraParty By debating the ideas of Sri Aurobindo, and not St. Augustine, that one can reach at the right conclusions pertaining to secularism in India

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Twelve years with SELF

After a year of Pre-University in BJB College, Bhubaneswar, I joined Regional College of Education (now RIE, Bhubaneswar) run by NCERT for a Four year Integrated B.Sc.B.Ed course with Botany honours and Agriculture as vocational education, besides Statistics. It was really an integral atmosphere with students from all the Eastern States including undivided Bihar and teachers from all over the country. The library was a blessing which exposed me to a wide range of journals catering to diverse interests.

After one year as a science teacher in the same school in my village in which I had my schooling, I joined Punjab National Bank at Sundargarh as Agricultural clerk. The professional CAIIB exam gave the opportunity to study alien subjects like Commercial Law, Economic Geography, and Accountancy etc. apart from Management lessons imparted through in-house training. After 23 years in various capacities, I opted for VRS in Y2K and then these 12 years steering the SELF has been life-altering.

Since my schooling was in the Odia medium, grappling with English remains a stumbling block to this day. Further, dabbling in philosophy with the kind of educational background I have, would also seem hilarious. Nevertheless, whatever has been possible, thanks to Google and The Mother's Grace, is squarely amazing as well as humbling. [TNM55]

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Savitri Era as alternative identity and religion

[Building New Solidarities | Economic and Political Weekly Editorials. Vol - XLVII No. 44, November 03, 2012. Public religious festivals are a ready resource for reactionary politics. Can they be secularised?
Perhaps precisely because of this, it is necessary to develop a critique – both intellectual as well as political/practical – of the public religious festival. Some earlier attempts, like those of Tagore in Bengal, Gora in Andhra Pradesh and Periyar in Tamil Nadu, to critique them and move away to other, non-religious public festivities, have been unsuccessful, despite their initial promise…
Is it possible for radical and progressive forces to find forms of public festivities which can rival the public religious festival? Is it possible to build a popular culture which does not rely on religion and communal identities? We will not know the answer till the battle is truly joined.]

[VAAD-PRATIVAAD: SECULARISM IS IMPORTANT TO A MODERN INDIA III  CRI (Round I here and Round II here). FOR THE MOTION: Harsh Gupta
Not a nation where one cannot badmouth the Bhagwad Gita or disparagingly paint Goddess Sita. India does not need a proactive Hindu vanguard in the Abrahamic mould because this will end up making India more divided and Hinduism less universal. Instead we need to take identity completely out of our policies, our schools, our jobs, our tax code, our personal code – and this must include caste identity politics also over time. 2:31 PM]

Fond hopes, but a more doable option is to precipitate an alternative identity and, thereby, a participative religion. Savitri Era is a pioneering effort in this direction. [TNM55]

Monday, October 29, 2012

Invigorating writings of The Mother & Sri Aurobindo

Tweets 11m - Savitri Era Party @SavitriEraParty By debating the ideas of Sri Aurobindo, and not St. Augustine, that one can reach at the right conclusions pertaining to secularism in India. http://centreright.in/2012/10/vaad-prativaad-secularism-is-important-to-a-modern-india-iii/
24h [Amazon: Sonnet-like Passages in Savitri by RY Deshpande 318 pages $9.99 Publication Date: October 18, 2012] http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009W93YVM?ie=UTF8&camp=213733&creative=393177&creativeASIN=B009W93YVM&linkCode=shr&tag=savera-20 … via @amazon -  View summary
28 Oct Quit tweeting and spend the time to study the invigorating writings of The Mother & Sri Aurobindo. That's the best path for nation building.
28 Oct No firm supporter of The Mother & Sri Aurobindo now in the national scene. All the more reason for clinging to the Manifesto of Five Dreams.
27 Oct [The Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust waiting for a better system of self-governance!] http://www.thelivesofsriaurobindo.com/2012/10/ashram-trustees-rush-to-chennai-high.html …
27 Oct Huge gap between level of the students and what The Mother & Sri Aurobindo convey. Multilateral conversation needed. https://plus.google.com/u/0/108736999389484710538/posts/3kJVmN6jf7g …
26 Oct [The image of the chariot becomes therefore a near perfect image of the human being. -Dr. Alok Pandey] http://nextfuture.aurosociety.org/chariot-of-the-gods?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=chariot-of-the-gods …
26 Oct [The first man who inspired the voice of India’s freedom was not a politician or an activist, but a poet Sri Aurobindo] http://www.tehelka.com/story_main54.asp?filename=hub031112psychology.asp … 

Sunday, October 28, 2012

Dusting the Dreams

A local popular proverb asks pointedly, “Who has ever seen tomorrow?” thus registering a deep suspicion of the future. Teleology too is a highly contested notion and any hint of design in history is promptly resented. Reading the future from the palm or the forehead sounds esoteric but forays in genetic research confirm certain future events like diseases to be scribbled beforehand. This, when seen in the light of Sri Aurobindo’s theory of rebirth as well as evolution, there remains no confusion. Periods of gestation or hibernation, however, demand a lot of patience and high level of conviction.

Time is a dominant factor in the teaching of The Mother & Sri Aurobindo. They were averse to accepting disciples in the Ashram immediately and advised that the aspirants were not yet ready. So, it’s not without significance that Sri Aurobindo termed his 1947 manifesto for the future as a set of dreams.

[Rajesh Ahuja Yesterday 18:55: I visited the Punjab University Library recently. I was searching for Sri Aurobindo's and The Mother's writings. The books had hardly been issued and dust had accumulated on them.]

Tusar N. Mohapatra Yesterday 19:09: That's the reality but there is no denying of the fact that there is a huge gap between the level of the students and what The Mother & Sri Aurobindo actually convey. So, there is a need to bridge this perception of a gap through multilateral conversation. [TNM55]  

Saturday, October 27, 2012

Ilion along the Bay of Bengal

Sri Aurobindo builds, but also breaks; synthesizes, but also demolishes. His painstaking attempt in metaphysical system-building and writing elaborate commentaries on ancient philosophical texts is incomparable but he also has a lurking mistrust for pure knowledge and has turned the whole corpus of prevailing motivational theories upside down. By affirming “Nothing can be taught” he throws a bombshell at the normal notions of human cognition and stretches subjectivity to unimagined heights and depths. Man’s proclivity for empiricism sustained a permanent injury when Sri Aurobindo lobbed his “Logic of the Infinite” by exempting all supra-physical phenomena from submitting to scrutiny by the senses. Philosophy will always be indebted to him for the methodological breakthroughs that he has fruitfully introduced so authoritatively.

One must strut through the alien terrain of his Ilion where he recreates Homer to get a feel of what he characterizes as “Knowledge by identity.” The “Ladder of consciousness” in Savitri, similarly, imparts such an intimate sense of reality that one shudders to call them fictional. The very combination of a poet and a philosopher in him is indeed a rare occurrence. But what takes the cake is his enviable third quality of being an astute critic. [TNM55]