Saturday, April 30, 2016

Democracy and Constitutionalism are delicate flowers

Prapatti is a pioneer of The Mother & Sri Aurobindo's movement in Odisha. Homage to our beloved leader & visionary on his birth anniversary.
Democratic values are Evolutionary triggers which are sure to achieve victory and hence a new party like Savitri Era is the only option now.
Congress, BJP, BSP, SP, or AAP etc. don't want any change; their aim is surval. Only a new party like Savitri Era can bring radical changes.
Murmurs of dissatisfaction are audible from all the parties and joining hands under the Savitri Era Party banner is the most viable option.
Congress tightening its Dynastic rule & pushing a puppet Prime Minister is a fateful tragedy of the 21st Century and for human civilaisation.
Those obsessed with Aurangzeb-Shivaji, Sanskrit, or AIT-OIT etc. are certainly not the tribe who would be interested in future of Democracy.
Most intellectuals agree that there should be change but wouldn't back any new party. This bond with the status quo is a formidable barrier.
@raaxus @a_r_j_u_n @dr_madindian The responsibility of healing yourself of the pitiable ideology that you are afflicted with is solely yours.
@smarket All Nationalised Banks should be taken over by RBI and SBI should be a competing monolith by gobbling its Associates plus Pvt Banks.
Rajya Sabha seats should be filled up by a list system drawn on the basis of State Assembly election results for proportional representation.
Each Lok Sabha and State Assembly Constituency should elect two representatives: one man and one woman securing the highest number of votes.
@bhoopalp Admirable sentiments but concerted portrayal of Muslims as culprits and threatening a 'Mullah at your door' turns them suspicious.
@bhoopalp Agree; foregrounding Sri Aurobindo is one such task. But, misdeeds of past Kings should not be used against present day Muslims.
@bhoopalp Can't understand, with your strongman in power, what sort of danger you anticipate. Why this rumour mongering in orchestration?
Peddling hackneyed angry epithets is no substitute for argument and reason. Educated Indians must read Sri Aurobindo for conceptual clarity
@dr_madindian @a_r_j_u_n Easy to tweet filmy dialogue by being anonymous. Btw, why so many RW ultra-patriots hide their identity? Manliness?
@dr_madindian @a_r_j_u_n I feel happy that you are affected. The contagion of Sri Aurobindo can work miracles with fundamentalist attitude.
@dr_madindian @a_r_j_u_n Democracy and Constitutionalism are delicate flowers which we need to nurture with enormous patience and tolerance.
@a_r_j_u_n Better to talk in terms of an individual than saying 'we'. Rest of the problems are to be handled by our elected Govt. Why fret?
@dr_madindian You choose to be a prisoner of imagined calamities and call yourself mad. I think your self deserves kinder treatment by you.
@dr_madindian @a_r_j_u_n Thanks for being lenient but I am astonished that a puny individual can curse a whole race and a whole people.
@a_r_j_u_n @dr_madindian Interfering in the internal affairs of other nations is not in consonance with modern day international law, I feel.
@a_r_j_u_n Conflating diverse issues clouds thinking. Determining inference beforehand is not a very desirable method of research and study.
@a_r_j_u_n The rules of the game of a Monarchy can't be judged appropriately by the ethical tenets of a democracy, a few centuries later.
@a_r_j_u_n What a King does has its own legality and validity. Spinning narratives and claiming victimhood for present politics is dishonest.
@dikgaj @a_r_j_u_n Questioning the Kings of yesteryears is futile; it's faulty both morally & methodologically. Only spreads needless hatred.
Savitri Era Party has been able to bring awareness about the significance of Sri Aurobindo as a bold thinker [TNM55] https://t.co/G163bbfWwS
[Patience, like gratitude, is a modest virtue whose value is often downgraded or ignored but not by Sri Aurobindo] https://t.co/6ANOgx1o9E
[Integral Yoga depends on members, not on Sri Aurobindo & Mother. The first dogma will be that it is NOT a religion] https://t.co/JRKfeXBz9t
Aurora Mirabilis: Nirodbaran, Nirmal Chandra Sahu, and Narad https://t.co/aRdaxo2X4l
rainbOwther: Guha, Foa, Verghese, and Danino https://t.co/LA7uprevp6
Savitri Era Open Forum: Voltaire, Darwin, Husserl, and Sri Aurobindo https://t.co/mJdv6qOFBz
Marketime: Hazlitt, Chang, Prahlad, Rajan, and Banerjee https://t.co/fFPXlOJXOA
Adam Smith's Lost Legacy https://t.co/w5UOwgjvYl
[The contrast is striking. Over 90 percent of Rotterdam in the Netherlands sits below sea level] https://t.co/T69sjhYkvh





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Location: Shipra Riviera, Indirapuram, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh 201014, India

Monday, April 25, 2016

Sri Aurobindo as a bold thinker

Politics is about power; that's the common conception. But politics also concerns knowledge as Sri Aurobindo has proved through his writings. His very first paragraph in The Life Divine pulls the rug out from under the feet of the then formidable "God is dead" thesis, so effortlessly. Similarly, one would imagine that Sri Aurobindo is writing commentaries on the Veda and Upanishads to popularise them but, in effect, he is subverting the age old foundations of the Hindu religion. The more one reads Sri Aurobindo's works, the more one is converted. And that is the reason why our learned Nehruvians and Marxists as well as the Hindutva votaries dread him so severely and keep him out of the University syllabus and political discourse.

However, Internet has turned the tables on them and Savitri Era Party has been able to bring awareness to lots of people who, otherwise, would not have been able to know about the significance of Sri Aurobindo's works. As education spreads and communication expands, the Evolutionary agenda of The Mother & Sri Aurobindo will find takers spontaneously among the youth. And then the edifices of the present day parties will begin to crumble irrevocably. [TNM55]

References:
blogs.timesofindia Sagarika Ghose in Bloody Mary
Apr 1, 2015 - Why Yogendra Yadav will always lose out to Arvind Kejriwal ... Yadav is the Karl Marx to Kejriwal's Lenin, the difference being that Marx was .... Yet every political party whether Samajwadi Party and Ram Manohar Lohia or the original Janata Party and Jayaprakash Narayan, requires a bhishma pitamaha, an intellectual ancestor, who becomes the party’s moral voice. It’s a tragedy that with the departure of Yogendra Yadav, AAP has lost its Bhishma. But perhaps Yadav and Bhushan’s mistake was to believe that their formidable cerebral attainments would give them a natural pre-eminence in a system which shuns thinkers and instead gravitates towards those with a mass connect, where, whether we like it or not, winner takes all. As they say in the Hindi belt, Jo Jeeta Wahi Sikandar.

2. An excerpt from Michel Danino’s book “Indian Culture and India’s Future”.
Voltaire, one of the first to expose the countless inconsistencies in the Bible, could hardly disguise how it filled him with “horror and indignation at every page”. In particular, he found the plethora of laws dictated by Jehovah “barbaric and ridiculous”. The U.S. revolutionary leader and thinker Thomas Paine wrote of the Old Testament in this Age of Reason:
"Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon that the word of God. It is a history of wickedness, that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind; and, for my own part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest everything that is cruel."
With the growth of materialistic science, in particular Darwinian evolution, such views which were revolutionary at the time of Voltaire, became widespread. Bernard Shaw, for example, described the Bible god as “a thundering, earthquaking, famine striking, pestilence launching, blinding, deafening, killing, destructively omnipotent Bogey Man.” Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the courageous U.S. pioneer of woman rights movement, wrote in 1898, “Surely the writers [of the Old Testament] had a very low idea of the nature of their God. They make Him not only anthropomorphic, but of the very lowest type, jealous and revengeful, loving violence rather than mercy. I know of no other books which so fully teach the subjection and degradation of woman.” Mark Twain put it in his own way: 
“Our Bible reveals to us the character of our god with minute and remorseless exactness. The portrait is substantially that of a man – if one can imagine a man charged and overcharged with evil impulses far beyond the human limit… It is perhaps the most damnatory biography that exists in print anywhere. It makes Nero an angel of light and leading by contrast.” 
On another occasion he added, “It ain’t the parts of the Bible that I can’t understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.” Freud, seeing in Jehovah an all too human creation, subjected him to psychoanalysis – a dream of a subject for a psychoanalyst. Aldous Huxley called the Old Testament “a treasure trove of barbarous stupidity [full of] justifications for every crime and folly.” In fact, Huxley traced the “wholesale massacres” perpetrated by Christianity to Jehovah’s “wrathful, jealous, vindictive character, just as he attributed “the wholesale slaughter” of Buddhists and Hindus by invading Muslims to their devotion for a “despotic person”. Albert Einstein said, “I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own – a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty.”
Because a few intellectuals had the courage to state the obvious, the power of Christianity was greatly reduced in the West. Yet I have always marveled that Indians should learn about Christianity neither from those bold Western thinkers nor from their own inquiry, but from bigots who continue to pretend that the Age of Enlightenment never happened. Posted at 3:11 PM

3. Defender of the Faith? The Times Magazine By MARK EDMUNDSON NYT: September 9, 2007
Though Freud hoped that mankind would pass beyond religion, he surely took inspiration from the story of Moses, a figure with whom he had been fascinated for many years. (He published his first essay on the prophet in 1914.) Freud wanted to lead people, and he wanted to make conceptual innovations that had staying power and strength: for this there could be no higher exemplar than the prophet.
“Moses and Monotheism” indicates that Freud, irreligious as he was, could still find inspiration in a religious figure. Something similar was true about Freud’s predecessor, Nietzsche. Nietzsche is famous for detesting Christianity, and by and large he did. But he did not detest Jesus Christ — whose spontaneity, toughness and freedom of spirit he aspired to emulate. “There has been only one Christian,” he once said, one person who truly lived up to the standards of the Gospel, “and he died on the cross.” [...]
Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Freud were all at times able to recognize religion as being what Harold Bloom has wisely called it: not the opium of the people but the poetry of the people. They read Scripture as though it were poetry, and they learned from it accordingly. Mark Edmundson teaches English at the University of Virginia. His book “The Death of Sigmund Freud: The Legacy of His Last Days” is being published this month. Posted at 8:55 AM

4. Two Atheist Philosophers Feuerbach and Schopenhauer
The Preface will make a brief mention of two important atheist philosophers. They did not belong to a particular school and stand on their own, although their influence on other philosophers was significant. 
Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872) - Feuerbach was infamous in his time for his attack on Christianity in The Essence of Christianity (1837) and his Lectures on the Essence of Religion (1848.) In Essence of Christianity he argued that the beliefs of the Christian faith are anthropology turned into religion. He maintained that unconscious processes try to overcome contradictory elements within the self by projection. All the unrealized projection of ourselves into an imaginary, non-human god resolves our difficulty without the daunting task of improving ourselves and other human beings. Essence of Religion took a slightly new direction. Feuerbach added to his original theory by stating that religions are also based on a desire of people to exceed the limits of life which are based in nature. That is why people believe in miraculous concepts and a god independent of limits. Feuerbach was very influential in the 19th Century and is an interesting philosopher for readers of atheistic literature.
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788- 1860) - Schopenhauer was an atheist who was influenced by Buddhist and Indian philosophy. He believed in the reality of the world, but thought that people’s view of it was illusory. His philosophy is contained in his magnum opus, The World as Will and Representation. He maintained that behind the world and managing it was a force he called “The Will.” The will drove people and all of nature to “mate,” “breed,” and “die.” People attempt to maintain the illusion that their life has meaning, but their movement from one desire to another is the basis of their motivation. The way out of this unsatisfactory state of being is either through art, aesthetic pleasure, contemplation, or ascetic self denial. Schopenhauer had a significant influence on Nietzsche (see Existentialism) and on Ludwig Wittgenstein and Karl Popper, 20th Century philosophers.

https://books.google.co.in/books?isbn=073919318X
Brayton Polka - 2014 - ‎ReligionSchopenhauer, together with Feuerbach, whose ideas I shall discuss as a preface to Schopenhauer, who both precedes and succeeds him, undertakes to ... the radical optimist (as Schopenhauer would surely have viewed Feuerbach) who ...

India Today- Monday, April 25, 2016 
"Dance is a profession. If it is obscene, then it loses its legal sanctity. Govt regulatory measures can't be prohibitory," the Supreme Court told Maharashtra government. "It is better for women to perform in dance bars and earn than begging on streets or indulging in unacceptable activities," the top court added.

The Hindu, April 22, 2016 SUNIL KOTHARI - Championing the cause of much neglected performing arts of Ganjam District of Southern Odisha, the renowned painter, research scholar, author Dinanath Pathy joining hands with Malaysia’s artistic icon Ramli Ibrahim, through Sutra Foundation ...



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Thursday, April 21, 2016

Ambedkar ignored what Sri Aurobindo wrote

23 hours ago
Reading Sri Aurobindo's books in original and not in translation is important since it's not the substance alone but also the sound of words.
Sri Aurobindo has written at length on Mantra and in his writings both prose and poetry has infused the power of inspired word combinations.
Sri Aurobindo can be considered as one offering a sympathetic framework to build upon.
Most contemporaries of Sri Aurobindo did not read his epochal works. The present generation too is no better but would soon be compelled to.
Ambedkar did admirable study on society and religion but unfortunately ignored what Sri Aurobindo wrote.
If support for Hindutva clouds your thinking and public pronouncements, then the intellectual environment suffers to a considerable extent.
Supporters are terribly disappointed with Modi now, but still fail to understand that BJP has got no fuel to grow further. So, Savitri Era.
No matter if they scrupulously avoid to follow or RT me but what I have been harping on for the last four years is unfolding slowly & surely.
Savitri Era: Ambedkar and Buddhism are double whammy
Savitri Era: Any blossoming of credibility anywhere in the age of paid-media therefore is surely a real gain [TNM55]
Savitri Era: Sidelining mythological symbols should form a valid goal - Pratyusha Banerjee or Rohith Vemula as theory
Being organised under the banner of a political party is a better option with long term and additional advantages.
Ghaziabad, India
"If wishes were horses, beggars would ride"
 Apr 16
What's your take on Minhaz Merchant?
[Sri Aurobindo’s Action does necessarily need to include political aspect of Society into Its scope. ~Barin Chaki]
[Debashish Banerji, professor, South Asian Philosophy, Culture and Art at California Institute of Integral Studies.]
‘Odia letters most elegant among all scripts of world’ via

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Friday, April 15, 2016

Ambedkar and Buddhism are double whammy

 Apr 11
10-Apr-2016, 6.00 PM: A meeting of Savitri Era Party was held in Basai Darapur, Delhi which was also addressed by Gobardhan Dhal, Gen. Secy.
Cuttack 07-Apr-16 (6.30-8.30 pm) Recitation: Bandita Ray, Education in India: CH. Nirakar, Biswanath Ray, Gadadhar Mishra, & Prasad Tripathy
Cuttack 7.4.16 (8.30-12.00 noon) Discussion on Sri Aurobindo's Poems: Sri Pravakar Mishra, Sri Sanjay Kr. Mohapatra, Sri Ramesh Chandra Sahu
Cuttack, 6.4.16, 8.30-12 noon: Discussions on Sri Aurobindo's Poems by Prasanta Kr. Swain, Kalandi Ch. Senapati, Bimala Prasanna Dash et al.
Cuttack 5.4.16: 6.30 -8.30 pm Recitation Km. Namita. Man can collaborate, Speakers: Dr. Biranchi Narayan Mohapatra Sri Rabi Padhi Prof. Biswanath Ray
History of Sri Aurobindo movement in Odisha: Babaji, Prapatti, & Utsabananda Samantaray
My vote goes for Prof. J.N. Mohanty for his global standing and integral ethos.


Savitri Era: Decoupling lifestyle choices from Religion, tradition, and Political parties
Savitri Era is a feeble attempt to keep lofty ideals within sight: 
1) Education - Recent happenings in JNU and HCU underscore ideological vacuum and need for credible alternative.
2) Politics - The way RSS is trying to poison minds by corrupting discourse needs to be countered.
3) Religion - The significance of the descent of Supramental Consciousness upon Earth (February 29, 1956) needs to be told in a wider scale.
Ghaziabad, India
4) Personal Evolution - Scope for transforming one's own action and consciousness is normal to be expected by engaging with the above spheres.

The Life Divine by Sri Aurobindo is the most relevant work on this debate. Again a book!
Fine online site:

The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo

following Sri Aurobindo's philosophy is far more important than mere intellectual surfing or skiing
Konark Temple was built by a King as per his whims. It need not be a reference point for choices in Democracy and Modernity.
This should be a general principle whether Kings built temples or destroyed them. India after 26-Jan-1950 should be the focus.
A Democracy should be able to formulate ethics and take its own decisions without being bound by the actions of the past Kings.
Each of us can have his own version of Evolution but it's worth consulting what Sri Aurobindo thought about it in The Life Divine.
43 minutes ago
The Veda must be understood in its originality and not for the sake of sundry presumed utilities.
How Sri Aurobindo fields the Varuna-Vritra dialectic in his "The Secret of the Veda" surpasses all human creativity.
Imbibing a right worldview can heal half of human problems and that was perhaps the intention of Sri Aurobindo for writing The Life Divine.
Transformation through Knowledge has a bearing on our bodily existence and on the hope of surmounting Death. [TNM55]
Development issues are entwined with funding, technology, and environment concerns but Sri Aurobindo points to larger Ontological dimensions.
Talent is rare and no amount of patriotic muscle-flexing can compensate its scarcity. An eclectic and global approach, therefore, is a must.
Excellences achieved by the human civilisation shouldn't be judged in parochial lines. Quality and not source should be the owning criteria.
Political exploitation of Hindutva is, perhaps, less pernicious than the deeply entrenched commercial networks, the latest being Patanjali.
How Casteism and consequent discrimination can be eradicated as long as Indian Constitution recognises castes, is the most difficult puzzle.
Be it the vexed ways of Nehru, Ambedkar, or Hindutva, Sri Aurobindo has the final answer. He has been disregarded for a century; no further.
Literature and culture must not be confused with religion which, Sri Aurobindo insists, comprises of man's inner aspiration for perfection.
No use of Mythology, Astrology, or Rituals as true essence of the Veda and Upanishads have been painstakingly brought out by Sri Aurobindo.
No political party in India remembers an outstanding Freedom fighter, poet, and philosopher like Sri Aurobindo or his Manifesto.
Time for the youth of India to grasp political significance of Sri Aurobindo vis-à-vis Hindutva, Nehruvian, Marxist, or Ambedkarite paths.
Following Sri Aurobindo and Savitri Era Party is the best way for banishing the anti-Evolutionary paths of Ambedkar, Savarkar, and Golwalkar.
Patronising Dalit politics in the name of Ambedkar and Buddhism are double whammy. Join Savitri Era envisaged by The Mother & Sri Aurobindo.
Let no one call you a Dalit or SC. Ambedkar imprisons you as low and oppressed but The Mother & Sri Aurobindo show the path to emancipation.
Savitri Era Religion supports Narisetti's "thesis that children's rights to include complete freedom from religious belief or conditioning."
Savitri Era Party seeks abolition of Govt recognition for castes, races, religions, or languages and reservation or preferential provisions.
TV debates are deceptive and people need to learn not to be overwhelmed by them. It's better to turn to Sri Aurobindo for authentic guidance
The country has seen enough theatrics since 2011 and the time is ripe now for rational and serious work based on Sri Aurobindo's inspiration.
Not only Congress or BJP, most parties, form the Left and AAP to supporters of Lohia, Ambedkar or Periyar see Savitri Era Party as a threat.
Savitri Era Party will push for concerns like Equality, Individual rights, and Rule of law anchored to the Evolutionary template.
Every passing day, RSS is making Nehru look greater but the current status of Congress is dismal. So, SEP would be the ultimate beneficiary.
No BJP or RSS supporter quotes Sri Aurobindo now and so, our insulation attempts have been successful so far. Cause of heartache, no doubt!
Not easy resolving the conflicting claims of tradition & modernity or uniformity & diversity, but Sri Aurobindo's Evolutionary vision guides.
Apart from the political and philosophical relevance of Sri Aurobindo, his educational and cultural contributions are vital for refinement.
Modi used to be portrayed as a superman who will usher in change in minutes. Now his supporters are blaming either RSS or IAS. AchheDin gone!
Despite coming to power BJP has not been able to build an iota of intellectual legitimacy for any of its pet agenda on socio-political front.
Link opened but not the prose. Too coded to be ordinarily understood or practiced. Signals sinking hope for Hindutva!
Really disgusting that Shaktimaan Govt's first Gatimaan Express is to run between Hazrat Nizamuddin and Agra, both associated with Muslims!
No one should occupy office for more than two terms and twelve years in aggregate. Don't vote for those who have already served two terms.
Why maintain a separate IST and INR? Why can't India switch to GMT and adopt Euro? 24X7 life surely needs a common currency and single time.
I love reading Western philosophy but mercifully could not develop any attraction towards their fiction, movies, or music, not even poetry.
Why the Western music seems like a rollercoaster journey while our Hindi evergreen old movie songs are so neatly symmetrical is beyond me.
Zero attraction for TV serials, Cars, or Cricket is also something which I consider as a blessing. The time obviously is consumed by Twitter!
As a child I had promised to myself: No cosmetics and no narcotics which continues to be in force. So, many assume me to be ten years older.
Grey hair is also a good teacher. It alerts to be socially responsible so that one is saved from the temptation of stupidly playing younger.
Community life suffers a lot due to disproportionate reliance on cosmetics especially by women who feel younger & avoid normal conversation.
Savitri Era: Warp and woof of attraction and repulsion harnessing space and time
[Vedic cosmology and cosmogns may be largely reconstructed from the fire, light and sun-related Vedic myths.] 
[we must not confuse Sri Aurobindo’s concept of Hinduism which is beyond any institutional religion that we practise]
"Each country or region can seek solutions better suited to its culture and sensitive to its traditions and local needs," Pope Francis wrote.
Manipal Centre for Philosophy & Humanities talk on Self & identity by Prof. Stephen Phillips, Univ-of-Texas, Austin.
Ghaziabad, India
Mainstream, April 4, 2016: ‘Danger to Constitutional Values’ - Statement by Retired Civil Servants, Niranjan Pant...

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