Saturday, July 11, 2009

Sri Aurobindian syllabus

[Immanent Grace from Larval Subjects by larvalsubjects
Adam Miller, author of Badiou, Marion, and Saint Paul: Immanent Grace, has been developing an account of grace within the framework of Badiou and Jean-Luc Marion. More recently he has been situating his account in terms of some of my own work and the work of Latour. One of the things I find particularly interesting about his project is that he argues that this account of grace holds regardless of whether one holds a theistic conception of God and even if one is an atheist. Read more over at
The Church and Postmodern Culture here, here, here, and here.]

[In an era that has long forgotten the true hero and the true hero’s journey, what we celebrate, venerate, worship, adore, and treat ‘like a god’ is anything but the Aryan hero as described in the Vedas and subsequent Indian sacred literature. Will the Real Aryan Please Stand Up?
from Circumsolatious by Lori Tompkins]

Sri Aurobindo is busy writing in the Karmayogin these days 100 years back, and this 10 months period is an interesting episode as far as the evolution of Integral Yoga is considered. The Mother is nowhere in the picture here, and Sri Aurobindo has already spoken of his encounter with the divine while in the jail.

His political comments are not much different from those appeared in the Bande Mataram, but other content take a decisive turn. Along with Dharma, there is an emphasis on the ancient Indian wisdom and spirituality. The merit of such a throwback can’t be delinked from the imperatives of fighting a colonial regime though.

Interestingly, this remains a running theme throughout his writing over the next 40 years. When considered in the context of the present socio-political situation in the country and the dominant academic discourse, a problem precipitates. Lack of any visible connect with the propositions that the past texts convey, people tend to lean towards a secular/skeptic worldview.

The relevance of The Mother & Sri Aurobindo is precisely in this crucial context today. They jointly embody the human diversity and endorse a synthesis that the world needs. Nothing more, nothing less. [TNM]

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