Glasnost in school classrooms

[‘‘In spring, for example, we would like kids to walk down the streets, enjoy the fall and learn more about the leaves. Or, there could be places where parents will prefer school vacations to coincide with the time of harvest so that the children can participate in the family occupation. Such adjustments would permit children to learn from the world they live in, acquiring life skills and attitude, instead of forgoing their lives in the community for the sake of attending school,’’ said NCERT director Krishna Kumar. The Times of India 6 Apr, 2007 10:28 AM]

It is heartening to read the TOI report today regarding the introduction of a variant of the Free Progress System as envisaged by The Mother and Sri Aurobindo in our schools. [TNM]

Uttering the word religion is seen as a sin and proselyting, a pejorative

In a perceptive paper titled “Grace and Self-effort in the Upanishads” published in the Mother India, Apr-May 1962, Sisir Kumar Maitra underscored the fact that the Vedic hymns were replete with supplication and invocation of divine grace, while in contrast, the Upanishadic mantras, by and large, emphasize upon the personal effort for achieving spiritual upliftment. This dichotomy is best expressed in the popular distinction between the approach of a baby monkey and a baby cat.

However, an integration of both the means – call from the below and grace from the above – has been envisaged in the Integral Yoga enunciated by The Mother and Sri Aurobindo. But many of the present day specialists find it hegemonic to appeal to some higher power. So much so that uttering the word religion is seen as a sin and proselyting, a pejorative. Their consternation in this respect is a matter of much amusement for the Savitri Erans who, luckily, are a happy lot to possess and proceed with a clear conscience. [TNM]

Hegel and Marx also had attached much importance to individuals

A short intellectual autobiography of D.P. Chattopadhyaya is available in the book, History, Culture and Truth : Essays Presented to D.P. Chattopadhyaya, edited by Daya Krishna and K. Satchidananda Murty. He has some significant confessions to make with regard to his famous publication Sri Aurobindo and Karl Marx [TNM]:

Partly due to Popper’s primary influence on my mind and partly due to Hegel’s and Marx’s relative indifference to the importance of individuals in history, I was consistently, perhaps also uncritically, fair to Sri Aurobindo. The latter’s emphasis on individual freedom impressed me to an undue extent.

That Hegel and Marx also had attached much importance to individuals escaped my biased attention. What I failed to see clearly at that time is the Marxian thesis that “individuals are the real architects of history.” Also I downplayed Hegelian accent on human beings as expression of the Absolute.

In effect I was reading Hegel through the eyes of Bosanquet, particularly his ‘Philosophical Theories of State’. I was unduly influenced not only by Popper’s ‘Open Society’ but also by Hobhouse’s criticism of the Hegelian political philosophy as expounded in the ‘Metaphysical Theory of State.’ [p.343]

Truth and philosophy

Bertrand Russell’s History of Western Philosophy has a surprise inclusion: Byron, the original rebel. Will Durant, too, provides a pride of place to Voltaire in his Story of Philosophy while relegating Hegel to an insignificant status. In Western Intellectual Tradition: From Leonard to Hegel by Jacob Bronowski and Bruce Mazlish Francis Bacon is not mentioned. The Sociology of Philosophies: A Global Theory of Intellectual Change by Randall Collins tracks the conflictual as well as commensalistic networks among the philosophers that make them popular. For instance, Kierkegaard and Dostoevsky became famous only after a considerable lapse of time because of Kafka and Camus. And where is Sartre today? [TNM]

Anti-Vedic, naturalistic, and skeptical thinking

Samjaya is one of the famous names in “the anti-Vedic, naturalistic, and skeptical thinking” who predates the Buddha or Nagarjuna. Hobbes, Hume, and Kant were responsible to meld it with the western thought. Theosophy, Osho, and Wilber brought it to the popular level. So why fret at Dawkins, Dennett, or Harris? [TNM]

Esoteric, academic, and emergent

Matthew Newsham Says: March 31st, 2007 at 9:32 am The baptism of academia does not automatically make you smart or relevant in all fields of study- especially newly emergent ones.

The distinction between what is called esoteric, academic, and emergent needs to be clearly understood in the context of the diverse writings that fall under the rubric of spirituality. Their standard academic nomenclature is philosophy which has been segregated variously as, metaphysics, ontology or phenomenology. Since the academia, world over, is predominantly dominated by leftists, atheists, and secularists, a large body of identical literature remains outside the university syllabi, which we might call, esoteric.

What has been referred to as emergent is, though young, it might prove to be profound in the days to come, but mere popularity can not be a yardstick for its inclusion under either of the above generic terms. But the important aspect to be remembered is that none of the three areas is superior by itself as each has its own merit and validity. [TNM]

Fighting out the modern day sophists

[In Buddhism and modern Rationalism we have the denial of God, the grand negation… [p.500] Buddhism views the same set of facts from the other end of thought. Not self-working material force, but a mass of subjective sensations is its reading of the universe. [p.496] Isha Upanishad, CWSA 17]

Sri Aurobindo is quite forthright in fighting out adversarial thought patterns. But it is an enigma as to why the modern day sophists are so sympathetic to their worn out arguments. [TNM]

The universal is in undivided unity with this plurality

It was a pleasant surprise to locate the following in Hegel's Phenomenology [136] which has such a close resonance in Sri Aurobindo’s Exclusive Concentration [TNM]:

That within itself the universal is in undivided unity with this plurality means, however, that these 'matters' are each where the other is; they mutually interpenetrate, but without coming into contact with one another because, conversely, the many diverse 'matters' are equally independent.

False subjectivism

larvalsubjects is raising important questions as to discourse and power but we already have the answers in Sri Aurobindo as pointed out by D. P. Chattopadhyaya. [TNM]

Transforming and surpassing the self

Just like Kant’s Third Critique, the Volume-3 of The History of Sexuality by Foucault is also a much neglected treatise. The following quote from Arnold I. Davidson [Ed. Jan Goldstein] highlights Foucault’s spiritual agenda [TNM]:

I would claim, following Pierre Hodot, that one of the most distinctive features of that care of the self studied by Foucault…is its indissociable link with this cosmic consciousness; one philosophical aim of this care of the self is to transform oneself so that one places oneself in the perspective of the cosmic whole…[To] raise the self to a universal level, that place the self within a cosmic dimension that at the same time transforms the self, even to the point…of surpassing the self.

Wherever my idea turned, there the ant

There are two interesting anecdotes regarding “movement of ants on the wall” in the Record of Yoga by Sri Aurobindo [23.1.1913 & 7.9.1913 vide Mother India, Oct’02]. Later on he writes in The Life Divine, “If we look…not at mass of quantity but force of quality, we shall say that the ant is greater than the solar system it inhabits.” [TNM]

Ontology deficiency

Epistemological indeterminacy is just a symptom of a deeper malady, viz., Ontology deficiency. For, as Sri Aurobindo tells, "You must know the whole before you can know the part" [Letters], and "Our way of knowing must be appropriate to that which is to be known" [The Life Divine]. [TNM]

Self-fulfillment and self-interest

Adam Smith surmised that one becomes the butcher, the brewer, or the baker out of self-interest but Sri Aurobindo affirms that the Psychic Being, in fact, chooses to become either a prince or a pauper. Further, Sri Aurobindo’s thesis of Exclusive Concentration permits the individual to carry on his business of life in the diminished light of eclipsed knowledge.

Man, as we think, acts always to his advantage, is thus a half-truth. Because he is forever dragged by the iron-law of ignorance and perforce commits mistakes and suffers losses to fulfill the agenda of the Psychic Being. [TNM]

An authentic Who’s Who for the Savitri Erans

“Bradley’s attempt to play Hegel against Hegel;” that is how Sisir Kumar Maitra introduced F. H. Bradley to us. Now, Daniel Gustav Anderson (Of Syntheses and Surprises INTEGRAL REVIEW 3, 2006) has brought in the younger brother A. C. Bradley.

We have two D.P. Chattopadhyayas, two Kishor(e) Gandhis, and any number of Mitras and Maitras. It is time someone compiles an authentic Who’s Who for the Savitri Erans incorporating a disambiguation manual. [TNM]

Abcd of Philosophy

Philosophy in its purity should be able to tell us the mystery of certain basic issues, which may be termed as the Abcd of Philosophy. They are our Aim, Birth, Choice, and Death. In the philosophy laid down by The Mother and Sri Aurobindo we find complete explanation of these phenomena issuing from an integral ontology. And that is the anchor the Savitri Era religion is proud of. [TNM] 3:01 AM

A mystery to illumine the aeons ahead

On March 31, 1910, Sri Aurobindo leaves Chandernagore for Kolkata and from there to Puducherry. There are several versions of the story which read like a thriller. In a matter of days he would be meeting Paul Richard who too arrives for a short visit. And then unfolds a mystery to illumine the aeons ahead. Glory to the Savitri Era! [TNM]

Rig-Veda and not Nagarjuna

[This is therefore a thoroughly post-metaphysical, post-Kantian spirituality. It shuns ontological levels of reality for postmodern levels of consciousness (which are real as phenomenological occasions ultimately revealed as Spirit's potential for transcendence and known directly by a good broad science). This type of post-metaphysical spirituality was most clearly announced in the East by the Buddhist genius Nagarjuna, who used a transcendental dialectic similar to Kant's (although Nagarjuna discovered it fifteen hundred years before Kant) to demolish belief structures and radically deconstruct myths in order to make way for direct experiential evidence (or science in the broad sense). Thus, where myth and dogma are the material of metaphysical, pre-Kantian spirituality, direct experience and deep science are the material of post-metaphysical spirituality. As I stated in the introduction to SES: "If metaphysics means thought without evidence, there is not a metaphysical sentence in this entire book."

Hence, Habermas states that "there is no alternative to postmetaphysical thinking," I agree entirely. But what Habermas does not yet appear to realize is that this is exactly the foundationless foundation for a postmetaphysical spirituality of direct spiritual experience disclosed in postrational waves of consciousness development investigated by a good, deep science of those who have demonstrated developmental competence in those dimensions and confirmed by a reconstructive science of the entire range of human lifespan development. On the Nature of a Post-Metaphysical Spirituality Response to Habermas and Weis Ken Wilber]

Almost seems like a paraphrase of what Sri Aurobindo writes except for the fact that he would hark back to the Rig-Veda and not Nagarjuna. And the notion of Post-Metaphysical so rhetorical here! [TNM]

The Self-organizing complexity

[Law becomes more complex and less rigid, Process more plastic and less mechanical when there comes in the phenomenon of Life, and yet more is this so when Mind intervenes with its subtlety; an inner freedom already begins to intervene and, the more we go within, the soul's power of choice is increasingly felt: The Life Divine Volume-19 > Rebirth And Other Worlds; Karma, the Soul and Immortality]

[All cosmic existence is a complex harmony and does not finish with the limited range of consciousness in which the ordinary human mind and life is content to be imprisoned. Being, consciousness, force, substance descend and ascend a many-runged ladder on each step of which being has a vaster self-extension, consciousness a wider sense of its own range and largeness and joy, force a greater intensity and a more rapid and blissful capacity, substance gives a more subtle, plastic, buoyant and flexible rendering of its primal reality. For the more subtle is also the more powerful,—one might say, the more truly concrete; it is less bound than the gross, it has a greater permanence in its being along with a greater potentiality, plasticity and range in its becoming. : The Life Divine Volume-18 > The Ascending Series Of Substance Page-257]

"Law becomes more complex and less rigid" and "the more subtle is also the more powerful,—one might say, the more truly concrete" are major governing principles so far as technology is concerned. Not to get overwhelmed by the complexity surrounding us, therefore, is the saving formula as an inner freedom is in operation all the while and "He does not sleep." [TNM]

Toe the Mind-of-Light line

Sri Aurobindo has dealt with the theme of memory at length in three chapters of The Life Divine but it is difficult to speculate whether he was also responding to Bergson’s Matter and Memory. However, in stating that "the law that deprives us of the memory of past lives is a" great convenience, he hints at the finitude of our surface personality as well as the futility of superficial epistemological devices that we love to hone.

Any causal or panoptical hypothesis put forth by some worthy, therefore, needs to be scanned for its level of inspiration. Toying with ideas is one thing but TOE another. [TNM] 5:01 AM

Savitri Era is the most reasonable religion

Many people find it fashionable to say they are atheists and perhaps harbour a secular outlook. But most people are under the sway of one religion or the other. These geriatric religions carry their affair on the basis of fantastic mythologies, superstitions, legends and lies. Their Jurassic worldview fails any sort of ontological scrutiny. The masses suffer them because they were born into them and find no alternative.

Savitri Era is the most reasonable religion. It has the most acceptable metaphysics/ontology and is global in its outlook. Presently it is dominated by a certain elitism but gradually common people will make it their own. [TNM]

No one else can match the Savitri Era

[Having witnessed the powerful influence of Nazi propaganda during his days as a member of the Hitler Youth, Pope Benedict xvi is well aware of the mind-controlling power of effective communications psychology. Under John Paul ii, and now Benedict xvi, hundreds of thousands of youth have turned out at the annual Roman Catholic youth festivals. The pope knows that herein lies the future of the effort of the church to captivate and hold the minds of the upcoming generation—and the future of Roman Catholicism...The Vatican is winning the religious media war hands down! By Ron Fraser 2:53 PM 2:30 PM]

The Vatican, with its enormous resources, might inundate the world with propaganda, but for the Savitri Erans the Internet is the right ammunition at the moment. After all, it is a war of knowledge and learning where no one else can match us. [TNM] 9:17 PM 1:29 PM

Easterly to Writerly

[People act based on their value systems and needs, some/many of which by the standards of what is labeled rational are deeply irrational. The irrationality is to assume people are always working in their own rational self-interest and that such rational self-interest even if achieved across the board automatically brings harmony to the parts. But that only partial critique aside, it is a deep work. posted by CJ Smith @ 8:04 PM 1:43 PM]

Chris Dierkes has brilliantly linked our irrationality to the incompleteness. And therefore perhaps The Life Divine. [TNM]

Wake up to the bliss of reading The Life Divine

Larval Subjects is ecstatic to confess "For me, Hegel’s Science of Logic has always been the great white whale, Ulysses, or Finnegan’s Wake of philosophy." [8:05 AM] while Kenneth Rufo prefers to revel in his intellectually stimulating "conversion" to Buddhism. [8:56 AM]

But deprived as they are of the unalloyed bliss of reading The Life Divine, Savitri Erans can only sympathize. [TNM]

Revaluation to revolution

While Edward Berge is trying to fathom Sri Aurobindian penumbra, Joe Perez has began his journey into the wonderland of The Life Divine. Bon Voyage! [TNM]