Just like Hegel’s Science of Logic; The Life Divine cannot be paraphrased

Tusar N. Mohapatra Says: May 6th, 2007 at 5:44 am We may forget for a moment the whole exchange of views whether Sri Aurobindo qualifies as a guru or not. Let us judge him simply on the basis of his ontology and poetry. For his poem Savitri, he ranks along with Dante, Milton, and Goethe. If one has read Hegel, Husserl, Heidegger, or even Habermas, then reading The Life Divine is not at all difficult. The vitalism of Schelling, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Spenser, Bergson, Nietzsche, Freud etc. down to Deleuze of our own times has been a dominant influence in philosophy. In The Life Divine we find the integration of both the streams.

The kind of comments we read here is specific to the ontology one believes in. Without reading The Life Divine, one is simply deprived of the Sri Aurobindian integration. I dare say that even Alan is not fully privy to the intricacies of the Sri Aurobindian ontology and hence expresses many discordant opinions. I would disappoint Ray by holding that just like Hegel’s Science of Logic; The Life Divine cannot be paraphrased. As regards verbosity, I can challenge, let anybody take out even a sentence out of the book and show that the meaning is intact.