Wednesday, December 23, 2009

The Life Divine retains its fertility

[Take The Life Divine for example. Sri Aurobindo is very conscious of the historicity of various discourses which provide different trajectories for human becoming and negotiates his integral ground by addressing all these. Outside of his own intent, contemporary thought has introduced new concerns (which are often old concerns in new bottles) which the text can be seen to have anticipated in certain ways and hence retains its fertility. The question of bias arises in a situated study very clearly. In untangling the discourses and their genealogies in a text, the biases of the text also reveal themselves. DB Posted June 25, 2009 at 3:48 am | Permalink]

The pivotal role of The Life Divine in the overall Sri Aurobindian scheme is so well entrenched that it is very difficult to elicit a critique. Deficiencies and discrepancies, nevertheless, exist, and a full scale interrogation is required to be attempted.
One glaring rupture is the addition of the last six chapters which altered the basic thrust of the book. Second is the Problem of Rebirth which, unresolved, remained outside the text. The third is the Mind of Light which torpedoed its neat structure. Fourth is the four powers of The Mother which could not be accommodated there.
Scores of other ontological questions raise their heads upon close reading of The Life Divine. On the praxis front too, adequate safeguards against collective yoga changing into a religion have not been addressed. [TNM]  


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