Collated by Tusar Nath Mohapatra (b.1956), Director, Savitri Era Learning Forum (2005), Founder, Savitri Era Religion (2006), and President, Savitri Era Party (2007)
Part of the Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures book series (SCPT,volume 40)
Sri Aurobindo in the Twenty-First Century
The chapter summarizes the main arguments of the book and argues how Sri Aurobindo is relevant in the twenty-first century. It examines three case studies – from a small scale to a large scale – in the light of Sri Aurobindo and attempts to offer solutions to those cases. It reiterates the argument that we need to reexamine his ideas for the benefit of not only academic disciplines but also the larger human society, and such an exercise is apt, theoretically and practically, on the occasion of his 150th birth anniversary. It seeks to address the question: if Sri Aurobindo’s ideas are alive, how do they reflect on the pressing issues of our times such as rising polarization, communal violence, swelling national egos as reflected in the war in Ukraine, and religious fundamentalism and terrorism? It argues that it could be an apt philosophical as well as a policy exercise to examine whether Sri Aurobindo’s integral yoga is relevant to our current times.
All Life Is Yoga
The chapter focuses on Sri Aurobindo’s theory of evolution and integral yoga and their various facets. It also focuses on concepts such as supramental consciousness, supermind, superman, Sachchidananda as an understanding of these concepts is crucial to understanding the whole spectrum of Sri Aurobindo’s yoga and philosophy. For Sri Aurobindo, ‘All life is Yoga.’ While these words appear simple, on closer scrutiny, they appear to be a powerful code for individual, collective and cosmic living, with an invocation to individual and collective praxis. In the Aurobindonian scheme, a concept has no value unless it has a practical utility in shaping individual and collective life. That was why his yoga was called integral yoga as it emphasized the evolution of matter, life, and mind. Here Sri Aurobindo revealed a scheme of spiritual evolution, which in its sweep incorporated biological and mental evolution, as the integral also involved total evolution of species, with the human individual as the vanguard.
Ideal of Human Unity
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Besides elaborating on various dimensions of ‘ideal of human unity’, the chapter explores the relevance of this concept for the contemporary world. Many of Sri Aurobindo’s reflections on international developments of his time including the rise and fall of the League of Nations, the establishment of the United Nations and its weakness, and the squabbling among the major powers, are relevant to a discussion on international politics in the twenty-first century world. Building on Sri Aurobindo’s integral perspective, it shows that in this perspective, individual’s inner development and their outward political organization and society are all interconnected, and a deeper understanding of them creates an enabling condition to build a peaceful society. In this context, the chapter examines concepts such as ‘national ego’ and ‘nation-soul’. It focuses on Auroville, the international township in South India. It also juxtaposes Sri Aurobindo’s ideal of human unity with the idea and practice of ‘global governance’.
Integral Conflict Resolution
After briefly examining the discipline of conflict resolution, the chapter raises the question: if Sri Aurobindo’s integral yoga is an enabling concept with real potency, how does it help resolve conflicts at the individual, community, state, and international levels? Though Sri Aurobindo did not envisage the discipline of conflict resolution as it is established today, his writings are certainly instructive for the discipline. For him, conflict is a fundamental discord, not confined exclusively to material, cultural, or psychological dimensions. His scheme of conflict resolution can be compared to concepts such as conflict transformation or transcendence, but it will be much more. It can be called integral conflict resolution. For Sri Aurobindo, enduring conflict resolution is essentially a spiritual evolution, a fundamental change in the very human nature. The chapter elaborates on various dimensions of the integral conflict resolution that emerges from Sri Aurobindo’s yoga-philosophy and examines India’s freedom struggle and select international developments in that light.
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