Congress coalition

[Congress’ rumble within IE: 27 Jul 2010 Neerja Chowdhury

Chidambaram is clearly emerging as a hawk, pursuing a tough line against the Maoists and Pakistan, a stance favoured by a large section of the middle class. … Chidambaram is increasingly coming to occupy the right of centre space, catering to the sentiment of the urban Indians, many of whom had viewed with favour — or backed — the BJP, particularly in north India. …

The second wannabe, Digvijay Singh, seems to be positioning himself in the left of centre mould, contra-distinct from the niche that Chidambaram is carving out for himself.]

The Congress split at Surat in 1907 between moderates and extremists. Now the party is emulating Vajpayee and Advani who enacted different roles representing contrasting poles. [TNM] 

Husserl, Heidegger, Whitehead, & Sri Aurobindo

[Morton on trumpery from Object-Oriented Philosophy by doctorzamalek (Graham Harman)

By now everyone knows that I’m a passionate admirer of phenomenology, which I regard as the most important philosophical school since Kant/German Idealism and possibly even since Leibniz. …

One thing that distinguishes my own view of contemporary philosophy from most views is that I don’t think we’ve ever returned to the level of Husserl/Heidegger/Whitehead. There’s been important stuff since then, sure, but I think we’re still struggling to assimilate and surpass the level attained by philosophy as of the late 1920′s. …

Husserl … was a powerful thinker who shed light into corners of the world that no one even knew were there.]

And Sri Aurobindo, their contemporary, rewrote countless canons of Indian philosophy and psychology ably integrating them with thought currents of the day in the West. His synthesis verily is the acme of acumen that waits for a wider reception.  [TNM] 

His words will be echoed and re-echoed

[Shrinking Heroes Sun Jul 18 2010, Meghnad Desai

The attempts to claim exclusive possession to Tagore or Shivaji or Sardar Patel do not harm these heroes. They indicate the insecurities of modern India, the shrinkage of the contemporary leaders, the emasculation of the vision of what India can be.]

Sri Aurobindo wrote in English, and his appeal as the foremost global Indian continues to swell. [TNM]

Survival of the seniles

[Stanford University confronts the graying of academia

By Lisa M. Krieger lkrieger@mercurynews.com Posted: 07/10/2010

Hoping to create more space for young scholars, Stanford has revamped its generous "Retirement Incentive Program" — for the second time in a decade — to nudge more old-timers toward the door. …

And like a seat on the Supreme Court and papal office, university tenure is lifelong. With the brightest students, best libraries and labs, and lighter teaching loads than at most state schools, professors at elite research universities have little reason to retire. …

India mandates retirement at age 60. If too many older scholars prevent the younger generation's advancement, bright students may not go into academia, Etchemendy worries. … Stanford has tried different approaches to gently encourage departures.]

Sri Aurobindo Ashram administration and its college in Puducherry are groaning under seniles. [TNM]

Let The Lives of Sri Aurobindo sell in India

[Writers welcome SC judgment on Shivaji book Times of India - ‎MUMBAI:

Friday's Supreme Court judgment lifting the ban on James Laine's controversial book Shivaji - Hindu King in Islamic India has received mixed reactions… Writer Chetan Bhagat said he was against the very of idea books being banned. "To ban or not to ban a book becomes a very subjective choice. If a book has hurt sentiments or is offensive, people can condemn it, ignore it or ask for an apology, but banning a book shows high-handedness. We should not turn into a society that doesn’t allow voices of dissent," said Bhagat, adding, "If the book hurt sentiments, the author should apologise.

Shyam Pakhre, history lecturer at KC College, said that when foreigners write books based on Indian history, they are often unable to understand the moral code of conduct of our society. "Writing sensational things without supporting them with evidence is bound to hurt sentiments. I support freedom of speech and expression only when due respect is given to people’s sentiments," he said.  SC lifts ban on Laine's Shivaji Indian Express Laine's book on Shivaji okay: SC Economic Times]

Let’s hope for a similar verdict apropos The Lives of Sri Aurobindo. [TNM]

Beliefs, prejudices, fads and fashions.

[Conservatism and the Academy from Larval Subjects

What have we seen in recent years? We’ve seen a constant attempt to distort, suppress, and fabricate research in the name of various dogmatically held and pre-established political aims. …

I’m not sure where I anywhere suggested that Marxism is a science, although I do understand that it has promoted itself in this way in the past. Nor, I think, will you commonly find people in the academy these days portraying Marxism as a science. The same cannot be said of neoliberalism. Contemporary neoliberal economic theory has endlessly deployed the rhetoric of science in defense of itself, portraying itself as the branch of the social sciences that most closely approaches the hard sciences.

Moreover, in the United States, at least, neoliberal economic theory is hegemonic in economics departments. These economic theories have contributed greatly to human suffering throughout the world through promoting the installation of brutal dictators (Pinochet anyone?), the dispossession of natural resources owned by the people of various nations, and the privatization of various industries leading to a transfer of wealth out of countries into the hands of a few. I believe we need new voices in economics departments that also treat collective and communal interests as values that need to be included in “economic calculations”.]

[Peeling the Fuzzy Onion: On Philosophizing, Denial, and Anosognosia from Networkologies by chris

Thomas Kuhn has famously argued that scientists think in paradigms, and these paradigms determine which questions are seen as worth asking, pursuing, what constitutes legitimate research, etc. …

Our paradigms and problematics are defined, from science to philosophy to everyday life, by the community of those whose feedback we trust. Certain approaches to ‘research questions’, be these in science or philosophy, are simply dismissed as ‘out there’, and never pursued, not so much because they might not have something to them, but that even following up on them would require a massive reorganization of the schemas we use to structure our lives. In the world of the everyday, we’d say they were thrown aside because they violate ‘common sense.’

Is philosophy that within culture that works to constantly keep ‘common sense’ at bay, or rather, is it that which defends ‘common sense’? I’d love to hope it were the former, but I think there is a really slippery slope at work here. A fuzzy onion, so to speak. 9:39 AM]

[Myths of Austerity By PAUL KRUGMAN July 1, 2010

When I was young and naïve, I believed that important people took positions based on careful consideration of the options. Now I know better. Much of what Serious People believe rests on prejudices, not analysis. And these prejudices are subject to fads and fashions. 7:59 PM] 

[Behind every Dravidian act a Christian push - 2 Thamizhchelvan 06 Jul 2010

Dr. S. Kalyanaraman gave an interview to Rediff.com in which he contested the findings of Asko Parpola, saying he did not agree with Parpola’s unproven ‘decipherment’ of the Indus script on the premise that old Tamil was the underlying language. He pointed out that Parpola’s was simply a belief system, not premised on evidence of the corpus of inscriptions and the underlying cultural foundations of the civilization of 4000 years ago. 9:41 AM]

[Indian Political Thought - Page 274 Urmila Sharma, S.K. Sharma - 2001 - 416 pages
Sri Aurobindo, as we have already shown, neglects the discussion of social, economic and industrial institutions. This makes his social philosophy less thorough and practical and more one-sided and inadequate from the academic point of ... 9:59 PM]

Sri Aurobindo avoids elaborating economic and industrial affairs but he is more into our commerce with the other worlds. It is thus desirable that the current academic practices learn how to accommodate his holistic approach. [TNM]

Demolishing Sri Aurobindo’s opposition is our prime task

Sri Aurobindo is yet to receive the recognition and respect he deserves and demolishing Sri Aurobindo’s Opposition is our prime task. The story of his life and the writings he has left behind constitute a fount of inspiration for generations to come and disseminating those across the globe is a gigantic challenge. The occult significance of the work of The Mother & Sri Aurobindo is exceedingly complex and hence to fathom it is beyond the scope of individuals engaged in routine life. Most are, therefore, happy with their own understanding of things and hardly feel the necessity of being acquainted with the teachings of The Mother & Sri Aurobindo. Mind boggling multiplicity of New Age offerings and their aggressive marketing is another major cause of our ware being marginalized.

That the philosophy, psychology, politics, & poetry of The Mother & Sri Aurobindo are the sole and supreme avenue of man’s emancipation is no hyperbole. No human being living at present has the capacity to scrutinize them as regards their efficacy. It is only through a ceaseless yearning for their servitude that we earn the fortunateness of partaking an iota of their grace.   

This in the secular-academic domain, paradoxically, poses a grave methodological problem. The transmission of the teachings of The Mother & Sri Aurobindo is largely academic in nature. Their interdisciplinary implications rather fall mostly at the postgraduate level or above while the ritualistic dimensions are only a miniscule. Applying the theory concurrently in one’s day to day life is also part of the learning process. The three aspects form such an integral whole that the unique subjective nature of the ongoing and ever changing concoction tends to defy any sort of syllabi or evaluation. With communication modalities morphing multifariously, molding our worn out teaching techniques and modulating them to the signals of the future, therefore, is a priority. [TNM]      

Integral roars end up in old religions

[(title unknown) from For The Turnstiles by DGA

A personal item: I have long been a practicing Buddhist, since adolescence. For the last three years, I have practiced at the Tendai Buddhist Institute in upstate New York. The influence of TianTai and Tendai thinking should be evident in my academic work, particularly the items I have published at the Integral Review, to one who is familiar with it.

As of this summer, I am also a novice Buddhist priest. My title is Doshu (information on what that means and what kind of training I have participated in is available here). I mention this simply for the sake of clarity: I think readers should know where I am coming from, in a sense who I am and what I stand for. 

Finally, my training is far from complete. I am by no means done learning; I am no master of anything and make no claims for myself except an earnest desire to be helpful rather than hurtful, to keep my commitments, to keep going.

Now you know. I will keep the other details of my spiritual life private since they have no bearing on my public life.]

All bloggers and commenters should ideally disclose their religious and political affiliations. Anderson has written a few pieces adverting to Sri Aurobindo, and they should be read in the light of the above. [TNM]

What is real and what is not real

[Peeling the Fuzzy Onion: On Philosophizing, Denial, and Anosognosia from Networkologies by chris

If we never left planet earth, barring physical catastrophe, we’d think the strength of gravity a universal, but it turns out that the moon and in fact every object in the universe has a different degree of gravity, as proportional to its mass. It is only by going into counterfactual situations (‘what if I were no longer on this planet?’) that we start to get closer to the realm of the unthought. We start to unlayer the onion of the unthought, …

In class, I often tell my students, particularly those who have never encountered theory or philosophy before, that my job as a teacher is to ‘mess up what they know’, but when you know something, you don’t think about it, knowing is the opposite of thinking. I think there’s a lot of truth to this. 9:39 AM]

[Another Canon: Indian Texts and Traditions in English - Page 124 Makarand Paranjape - 2009 - 293 pages
The American dancer, Ruth St Denis and Mira Richard, who later became the Mother of Pondicherry. ... because the book reduces the stature of the Mother and is unable to do justice to her. ... Though no 'official' response from Sri Aurobindo Ashram has been forthcoming so far, Ashram circles have voiced their disapproval and ... 9:33 PM] 

[A Short Review by a Disciple from A critique of the book "The Lives of Sri Aurobindo" by Peter Heehs by Raman Reddy

The biography is craftily written to fulfil an objective born out of the author’s misguided objectivism. The general reader by and large is prone to be misled by such misdemeanours in literature and becomes an easy prey unless he/she is intelligent enough to decipher and discriminate between what is real and what is not real and maintain the right balance in his/her opinion…

I will give only one advice to PH, though I don’t think he will understand it. The Mother said that “to come closer to the Truth, you must often accept not to understand.” A Disciple]

Heehs, in all fairness, can be said to have attempted to ‘mess up what they know’ and force thinking. That, unfortunately, is yet to happen. [TNM]

Miltonic afflatus

Much water has flown down Hindon Cut during my five years as a blogtender, and it has been a learning process throughout. Many years back, I read something to the effect:

“No matter, if you haven’t read Wordsworth or Byron;

Neither had Shakespeare nor Milton.” 

This piece of self-help maxim has been a morale booster in general and for blogging in particular. Thanks everyone. [TNM] [Savitri Era of those who adore, Om Sri Aurobindo and The Mother.]

OOOntology sans the sacred

[(title unknown) from enowning

Cheston Knapp on his story “A Minor Momentousness in the History of Love”

But Heidegger’s not the Camus of The Stranger. He knows das Man is necessary and inescapable and he defines it as part of Dasein’s [existence’s] “positive construction.”]

[Stuart Kauffman by larvalsubjects

I picked up Stuart Kauffman’s Reinventing the Sacred at the bookstore today before heading off to see Splice. …

What I find less appealing in Kauffman’s book (and his other works) is his project of “reinventing the sacred”. On the one hand, I don’t see anything particularly sacred or divine in demonstrating that the universe is creative.]

[Creativity existed before the universe emerged from it. …Like a cosmic Houdini it breaks free, transcends its constraints, revels in a frenzy of creative imagination, regains consciousness, revels in a frenzy of creative speculation, wondering what it all means.
  Reviewed by U. Mohrhoff ANTIMATTERS 2 (3) 2008, June 18, 2010 at 8:10 am]

“Himself the play, Himself the player, Himself the playground" settles it all. [TNM]

The Christ analogy clinches the issue of religion

[Who the David, Who the Goliath? -- by Dr Prasenjit Sen

We have no information about the degree of zeal with which our David advised members of his community to consult the Internet site for a quick delivery of video-cassettes with "the fast-paced and interesting" film The Last Temptation of Christ by Martin Scorsese. Fortunately, David is well acquainted with legal and other consequences of such a perverse incitation.

Indeed "the people of the city" had "much to learn" on the Christ from that film by Martin Scorsese! The movie had to include, however, "a disclaimer explaining that it departs from the commonly-accepted Biblical portrayal - hagiography ? - of Jesus' life, and that it is not intended to be an exact recreation of the events detailed in the Gospels." from A critique of the book "The Lives of Sri Aurobindo" by Peter Heehs Dr Prasenjit Sen has a Ph.D. from a German university and is a successful engineer. He is the youngest son of late Pramodekumar Sen, Sri Aurobindo's biographer in Bengali.]

The Christ analogy clinches the issue of religion. Dr Sen, however, prefers to be pusillanimous on this score. [TNM]

A new religion was enshrined on December 5, 1957

With the enshrinement of the sacred relics of Sri Aurobindo on December 5, 1957 in Delhi, a new religion can be said to have been instituted. Since then, the roots of this religion have spread far and wide, and the Samadhi of Sri Aurobindo can be found across the globe. A vocal section of the followers, however, dislike the practice of performing Pranam before the Samadhi as, they feel, it applies a tacit pressure on them to mimic the gimmick.

Habermas has a word of advice for the secular-minded which can as well be relevant in the aforesaid circumstance. He called upon his tribe not to be unduly uncompromising with the believers and hoped co-existence of both the camps within the civil society. The situation within the followers of The Mother & Sri Aurobindo, however, is slightly different. Here the question is not about belief, but rather concerning the modalities of its expression.

The behavioral aspects within a global community surely can’t be immune from cultural variations. Moreover, this new religion itself encourages eschewing the beaten track and devising innovations. Despite guarding against the anathema of dogma, however, the physical flow succumbs to certain habits and conveniences over time. Tolerance of such “oddities” in a generous and democratic spirit, therefore, is the only way in the circumstances. [TNM]    

All contraries prepare her harmony

[Christian/Jewish dialogue essential, says Vatican working paper 

Spero News - ‎The 'Instrumentum laboris' - a working paper for Catholic bishops to consider in dealing with the Middle East also notes that the key to harmonious living ...

The document also analyses the strong impact of "modernity", which "to most Muslim believers is perceived to be atheistic and immoral and a cultural invasion, threatening them and upsetting their value-system". "At the same time, 'modernity' is the struggle for justice and equality, the defence of rights". ...

"Christians have a special contribution to make in the area of justice and peace"; they have the duty to "courageously denounce violence no matter what its origin, and suggest solutions which can only be attained through dialogue", reconciliation and forgiveness. However Christians must "utilise peaceful means to insist that the rights of Christians be acknowledged by civil authorities".]

The hybridity of Savitri Era Religion is the right locus for reconciling diverse religions of the world and various caste blocs obtaining in India. [TNM]

You have been called upon to do God's work.

Chatternama: Interrogating Aurobindo's Uttarpara Speech: Tusar N Mohapatra said...

This elucidation, happily, harbours many seeds with the potential of being expanded to a book-length text. However, the writings and speeches of Sri Aurobindo right from his student days to the poems composed in the jail itself needs to be taken into account for a proper appraisal of the significance of the Uttarpara Speech.

A minor correction: He was not “sentenced” but was simply an undertrial. [TNM] JUNE 6, 2010 3:02 AM 

Nadkarni Doctrine

[SELF Group Blogs Since Monday, June 20, 2005 Savitri Era of those who adore, Om Sri Aurobindo and The Mother.

rainbowther This mire must harbour the orchid and the rose June (2)

Taxonomy And the quest continues....... Tusar N. Mohapatra. Posted by Silika at 2:46 AM Monday, June 20, 2005

The Inner Fields - There is a brighter ether than ... Sri Aurobindo 14-3-1947. Posted by Silika at 1:45 AM Thursday, June 30, 2005]

[Savitri Era Time-line Ken Wilber and Sri Aurobindo, A Critical Perspective by Rod Hemsell January 2002 

Sri Aurobindo’s Opposition Why the Indian establishment resisted him by Mangesh V. Nadkarni The Indian Express March 21, 2002 7:28 PM

June 2005: Savitri Era Learning Forum group of blogs hit the net

September 2005: Science, Culture and Integral Yoga webzine - "SCIY" launched

January 2006: SELF (Savitri Era Learning Forum) awarded the Best Integral Theory Non-Ken Wilber blog - by ebuddha of Integral Practice

July 2006: M. Alan Kazlev's frontal attack on Ken Wilber in Integral World

July 2006: Savitri Era religion is born

July 2006: In search of The Mother Orkut community, category: Religion & Beliefs

October 2006: Savitri Era Religious Fraternity formalized

November 2006: M. Alan Kazlev unveils his theory of Integral Esotericism in Integral World

November 2006: Senior sadhak Shri RY Deshpande, Debashish, Vladimir, and others contribute to rich discussions at SCIY

November 20006: Savitri Era Open Forum opens its wings

December 2006: Daniel Gustav Anderson and Richard Carlson duel interests many

Posted by Tusar N Mohapatra at 3:21 PM Wednesday, December 20, 2006]

The Nadkarni Doctrine of overpowering all those who constitute Sri Aurobindo’s Opposition is a constant challenge. Such forces are firmly entrenched within the fort also. Identifying them is not an easy task as many of them masquerade as leading flag bearers. Anonymous web voices further complicate the matter, and it’s really tricky to make out who is telling what and why. The vigil, however, must not flag. [TNM]