Saturday, October 17, 2020

Sri Aurobindo and Arya (1914-21)

 

Thursday, September 24, 2020

Preference for the familiar


Sunday, September 20, 2020

Take a framework and weave new patterns

Sunday, March 15, 2020

Modern law understands itself as the sign of the human

Plasim Radar

Knowing the Eternal Immutable Brahman - Sri Aurobindo translates Shwetashwatara Upanishad, Chapter Four, Verses 18-20: “When there is no darkness, that is neither day nor night, nor being nor no...

Some couplets from Ghalib's Ghazal 48 - From my heart, the *sous rature* of the honeymoon thought of her hennaed finger tracing its location Is that abysmal torment in which finger nails are pulle...

Age of excess of opinions - We are living in an age where excess of opinions, counter opinions; arguments and counter arguments; facts, truths, half truths, sugar coated lies all will...

Explorations in Savitri 159, pp. 378-380 - Across wide noons and glowing afternoons, She met with Nature and with human forms And listened to the voices of the world; Driven from within she followed...

human - It is the dream of modern secular law to occupy all of the space of law—as a universal language—that is, to thoroughly comprehend, to transparently express...

Rosso Agenda – La nave sopramentale (in italiano) 12 - ROSSO AGENDA PASSI SCELTI DALL’ AGENDA DI MERE La nave sopramentale Vol. I Pag. 156-162 “Mi trovavo su un’immensa nave….grande come una città. E’ il luogo ...

A Series Inspired by India’s Rebirth – 6 - Author: Beloo Mehra (2019). Published under the title ‘When Young India Awakes’ in Sri Aurobindo’s Action, Vol. 50 (6), pp. 8-11 CONTINUED FROM Part 5 When...

- "God After Metaphysics: Heidegger, Aquinas, and the Future of Natural Theology" by Justin Gable.

Violence against Women: Problem and the Remedy – M.S.Srinivasan - One of the most distressing condition at present in India is the violence against woman in various forms, from sexual … Violence against Women: Problem and...

Notice: Intensive course on the Yogasūtra, Summer 2020 - From Elizabeth De Michelis: Dear Colleagues, AMRAY, of which I am one of the managers, would like to advertise to suitable candidates an intensive course o...

Film review: ‘Thappad’ - I assume that by now everyone who wanted to see this film has already seen it and that those who haven’t seen the film are not going to see it. So I am not...

Sanskrit texts don't contain self-evident truth - We have seen three phases in the course of the last sixty years. 1. Socialism will bring equality and freedom from exploitation 2. Market will force freedom ...

The Four Beasts of Revelation - In the center, around the throne, were four living creatures, and they were covered with eyes, in front and in back. 7 The first living creature was like a...

What if there’s no hope? - Looking at the primary results this morning, I wasn’t angry or outraged so much as sad. And there was something else in there I had trouble placing — almos...

The Great World-Mother - Once during his Baroda years, Sri Aurobindo visited a Kali temple on the bank of the Narmada river. Recounting that visit, he later said: “With my European...

Naturalized kammatic Buddhism - I think I’ve shown that the kammatic-nibbanic distinction should matter to the historian, textual scholar, or anthropologist trying to figure … Continue re...

Idealism and panpsychism make easy friends - Plasim Radar Poetry as Socio-proctology Jason Stanley on Trump's India visit - Jason Stanley writes in the Guardian- In the early 20th century, the US depl...

Companion to “Hymns to the Mystic Fire” (Vol.2) by Mukund Ainapure - Companion to 'Hymns to the Mystic Fire' is meant as an aid to the systematic study of Hymns to the Mystic Fire (Volume 16 – The Complete Works of Sri Aur...

Odia Nadia


Friday, February 28, 2020

February 29: Supramental descent day


The red book hours: Discovering CG Jung's art mediums and creative process
MA Janice Geller - Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 2019
… It, like many other spiritual schools, recognizes two fundamentally different modes of operation of the unconscious. The Indian yogi Aurobindo (1872-1950) employs the term 'subconscious' to refer to the lower mode …

[PDF] Sunny Pleasure Domes and Caves of Ice: Utopias and Dystopias in World Literature
MK Kang, N Sarkar, B Saha - 2020
… 143 19 Godot and the Gate: A Comparative Study of Dystopia in Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot and Basma Abdel Aziz's The Queue Azhar Uddin Sahaji Mirza Sadaf Fatima 155 20 Utopian Vision in Master Poems: Tagore …

Postcolonial Governmentality and the Indian Middle Classes
I Basu - Postcolonial Governmentalities: Rationalities …, 2020
Page 103. FOUR “Governing without the Politics” Postcolonial Governmentality and the Indian Middle Classes Ipshita Basu1 'Elite governmentality' involves the making of 'new state spaces'2 where- in a coalition of elites including …

[PDF] Yoga for Mental Health and Academic Development in Higher Education
MJ RAY, SJ Chandrashekhar - Our Heritage, 2020
… Let us remember Sri aurobindo's view -"I am concerned with the earth, not with worlds beyond for their own sake; it is a terrestrial realisation that I seek and not a flight to distance summits." Conclusion: A critical analysis of yoga reveals its important in education …

[PDF] Spirituality-A Way to Sustainable Leadership
S Gosain, T Arora - Our Heritage, 2020
… With this every organization and educational institute can be created into “Heaven”. REFERENCES • Aurobindo, Sri (1972) Collected Works Pondicherry Sri Aurobindo Ashram Vol.20 • Sharma.S(1995), “OSHA Model for Relationship …

[PDF] Effect Of Yoga On Fitness And Management Of Mental Health
MV c Mugalolli - Our Heritage, 2020
… Shiv Market, Ashok Vihar , Delhi-110052. 2. Introduction to yoga: A beginner's guide to health, fitness and relaxation. NewYork, NY: Three River Press 3. Indra Sen: Sri Aurobindo on yoga. 4. Sunesh Chandra Dutta: Psychology.

[HTML] Business and Society: A Multidimensional Perspective
MS Srinivasan

[PDF] Workplace Spirituality and its outcomes in the organization: A comparison with the Mystical Practices of Sufism in the Medieval Indian Subcontinent
NM Rahman - Our Heritage, 2020
… 3, No. 6, pp.645–668. 19. Mohan, K. 2001, Spirituality and well-being: Overview. In C. Mattijs (Ed.), Integral Psychology (pp. 203-226). Pondicherry, India: Sri Aurobindo Asharam Press. 20. Pargament, KI 1997, The psychology …

[PDF] Hot and Wet: Architectures of the Equator
E L'Heureux
… The elevation takes on a greater integration with its interior in the Golconde Dormitory, designed by Antonin Raymond, Francois Sammer, and George Nakashima for Sri Aurobindo Ashram between 1935 and 1942.13 Employing …

[PDF] A STUDY OF SELF CONCEPT AMONG 11th GRADE LEARNERS
MA Yadav
… Sri Aurobindo describes it as a life force of self directive, knowledge inherent in consciousness which enables it to guide its own force inevitably along the logical line of the original self perceptions. So, the study of self …

Plasim Radar

Reitter & Wellmon on Max Weber - Paul Reitter & Chad Wellmon write in the 'Chronicle Review'. In 1908, Weber had taken on the powerful minister in charge of higher education in Prussia, Fr...

space, place - When it comes to space and place, in the Universe of Terms, what has grabbed my attention over the past several years is how they ought to be understood in...

The Struggle Between Good and Evil in Human Psychology - Sri Aurobindo translates Chhandogya Upanishad, Chapter One, Section Two, Verses 1-6: “The Gods and the Demons strove together and both were children of the...

The theology of Vaikuṇṭha: Why should you want to be in heaven? - We all know so many clever jokes about how hell should be preferred “because of the good company” and about how boring should heaven be. Let me take the ch...

Companion to “Hymns to the Mystic Fire” (Vol.2) by Mukund Ainapure - Companion to 'Hymns to the Mystic Fire' is meant as an aid to the systematic study of Hymns to the Mystic Fire (Volume 16 – The Complete Works of Sri Aur...

Heavy Pressure on the Head - I sit up to the end of the Pranam ceremony in the Meditation Hall. A strong pressure is felt just when I stand up. It is like a heavy load pressing me ...

Rare mystical verses by Shruti Vishwanath - A beautiful concert held at Youth Center by Shruti Vishwanath singing Kabir and other mystic poetry from across the indian subcontinent. Shruthi Vishwanath...

INTEGRATING DIVERSITY IN THE ORGANISATION- M.S. Srinivasan, O. P. Dani -Unity in Diversity is one of the fundamental principles of life; it is also the right foundation for the long-term … INTEGRATING DIVERSITY IN THE ORGANISAT...

- B&T workshops in the UK. With an eye to the 2027 centenary of that book’s publication, this series of workshops will retrace Heidegger’s steps, each works...

Truth: Ultimate and Relative - It’s quite simple, in a way. Buddhism, like early Christianity, makes a distinction between “Ultimate Truth” and the domain of “Relative Truth”, which is t...

The Philosopher King - This semester, I am teaching a course on the classics of Western political theory. We start with Plato’s Republic, which is at once unavoidable and yet als...

Socratic irony, Galileo's error, and Gargi's silence - "Only modern science has insisted on trying to explain life on a purely mechanical-chemical level, and has failed repeatedly to even come up with a definit...

Sri Aurobindo's theoretical salience - The West has produced hundreds of thinkers and philosophers over the last three thousand years who are part of academic discourse. But in India we hardly f...

Flat Ontology, Questions, and Assemblages - I’ve been having a lengthy discussion with a very good friend about normativity and how we go about determining values. One of the things that keeps coming...

Does the kammatic/nibbanic distinction fit the facts? - How helpful is Melford Spiro’s kammatic/nibbanic distinction in describing Buddhism? It can be tempting to line it up too closely … Continue reading →

Sunday, February 23, 2020

Here's a chance just at a glance

Evergreen Essays: Malady of mechanical bias in ontological thinking https://t.co/FKuF9ImraX
If you harbour even an iota of desire
To know The Mother and Sri Aurobindo
Here's a chance just at a glance
Post by @NathTusar, SELF-Director

Ramesh Thakur's threat to Democracy - Ramesh Thakur writes- An enduring puzzle in world affairs is the failure to impress upon nationalistically inflamed consciousness the enormous disparity be... 

Robopaths - There is an old Yiddish saying that I quite like, and which is also quite wise: “Did your ears even hear what your mouth just said?”. It fits the circumsta... 

The Gods and the Titans Strive for Control of the Human Psychology - Sri Aurobindo translates Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, Chapter One, Section Three, Verses 1-2: “Two were the races of the Sons of God, the gods and the Titans... 

Inert and alive substances: Alternative classifications in Veṅkaṭanātha - In the Nyāyasiddhāñjana and the Nyāyapariśuddhi, Veṅkaṭanātha discusses some fundamental ontological topics in order to distinguish his positions from the ... 

Socratic irony, Galileo's error, and Gargi's silence - "Only modern science has insisted on trying to explain life on a purely mechanical-chemical level, and has failed repeatedly to even come up with a definit... 

Purification of Lower Nature (HH 013) - A Talk by Dr Alok Pandey from the "Tuesday Talks" series The post Purification of Lower Nature (HH 013) appeared first on AuroMaa. 

Questions and Answers 1957 and 1958 (Collected Works of The Mother Volume 9) - This volume contains the conversations of the Mother in 1957 and 1958 with the members of her Wednesday evening French class, held at the Ashram Playgrou... 

Une série hebdomadaire de lectures par Gangalakshmi (en Français) – 318 - Please listen to the weekly series of readings by Gangalakshmi (in French) from selected works by the Mother and Sri Aurobindo. Today a reading from “La sy... 

Books have the power to transport us to faraway worlds - Kant's sublime, Hegel's absolute, Schopenhauer's will, Kierkegaard's passion, Marx's matter, Darwin's evolution, Nietzsche's overman, Bergson's élan vital,... 

Uberman may come flying - If you harbour even an iota of desire to understand #TheMother & #SriAurobindo, here's a chance just at a glance. #SavitriEra: Sri Aurobindo's theoretical ... 

Sri Aurobindo's theoretical salience - The West has produced hundreds of thinkers and philosophers over the last three thousand years who are part of academic discourse. But in India we hardly f... 

Nature is not symmetrical - Request our countrymen to please call out your male contemporaries when they spout nonsense about women and our bodies. India needs sane masculine voices t... 

Flood of transforming influence pours - "All fanaticism is false because it is a contradiction of the very nature of God and of Truth." -Sri Aurobindo, 23.10.39. Clearly, this includes Hindu fana... 

My original contributions to understanding Sri Aurobindo - My original contributions to understanding or interpreting Sri Aurobindo can be summarised under a number of heads: 1) Against Hindutva, Mythology, & Astro...

Thursday, February 20, 2020

Nature is not symmetrical

Request our countrymen to please call out your male contemporaries when they spout nonsense about women and our bodies. India needs sane masculine voices to set the standard. 
@ArunSFan
@samar11 @sardesairajdeep @SorabjeeSoli @raian19 
@SaketGokhale @pbmehta 
@ncbn @PandaJay
https://twitter.com/Anjmeh/status/1229946563889369088?s=19

Look at the number of tweets. This pervert mythologist has been hurling sexist abuses at me since 6 months. I ignored it all along with a lot of patience.
Some worthless people in the comments telling me 'ignore him, Don't stop to his level". Where were all of you then?
https://twitter.com/TIinExile/status/1230164864858935297?s=19

Kindly report @/Devduttmyth for harassment. Also, tag and ask folks platforming him if his sick behaviour has their endorsement. How is such a person presented as an expert of our history, traditions and scriptures?
https://twitter.com/DimpleAtra/status/1221448632668508162?s=19
ANYONE praising, promoting, platforming, endorsing this sick person owes us all a clarification. Make sure you tag and ask folks platforming him if his sick behaviour has their endorsement. How is such a person presented as an expert of our history, traditions and scriptures? https://t.co/OJMHv2R0hH

Golu = a term of derision used by trolls who follow @tiinexile for plump HINDU gods like Ganesha and Kubera, and plump Hindu males like Devdutt Pattanaik, Narendra Modi, and Amit Shah. Deep seated Hinduphobia rooted in Winston Churchill's Bengal Famine.
https://twitter.com/devduttmyth/status/1221398883613298688?s=19
I am proud of her love for BDSM and that she displays it publicly despite attempts to slut shame her
https://twitter.com/devduttmyth/status/1221399402897477633?s=19

...Wrong. Iris of woman expands when looking at a child when compared to situation with men when they see a beautiful girl.
Women can do without sex. Therefore denial of sex by woman is terror and torture by female. Marriage is protection against accusation of rape. He or She should be free to walk away from a marriage m 
 Nature is not symmetrical.
https://twitter.com/freemarkets5/status/1230084806194515968?s=19

.. ..  Civilizational unity is not identical to political unity - Example is Politically disunited Canada and USA coming together to crush Nazis, in defence of Western values. 
Another example: Politically United USSR splitting inspite of strict political unity under KGB
https://twitter.com/freemarkets5/status/1229836414134583296?s=19

Hindus themselves have been detached from Hinduism (thanks to Macaulay followed by Nehruvian Stalinism). So Babas are adjusting accordingly.
If Hindus want pure Hinduism then why do they want in English only and not from a Brahmin trained in tradition?
https://t.co/Ftv6kXZKXB
https://twitter.com/Hiranyareta/status/1230273176426426368?s=19

"Yoga isn't Hinduism, Mahashivratri doesn't have any dharmic origin..." 
These Freemasons are running havoc in this country for a long time. And most people aren't even aware of these thugs like they are now aware about ROP & ROL.
https://twitter.com/From_Himalaya/status/1230218479929704450?s=19

That’s basically also Santideva’s argument! Self-directed concern is already altruistic in a temporal sense and that can be generalized to spatial alterity. I didn’t know Zipporyn had also argued for it.
https://twitter.com/bsod_nams/status/1230210581476651010?s=19

A little historical background to the contemporary crisis of "the New Normal", why "dialogue" isn't dialogue
https://t.co/OeP9LXSeFa
https://twitter.com/fourfoldvision/status/1230191957432918016?s=19

Two aims of my working week was to understand an essay on Sri Aurobindo I am reading and to make sense of some notes I have on psychology & psychoanalysis. Weird how they are linked in a way western philosophy & psychology are not.
Freud's unconscious is anathema to most western religious movements which mimic a hierarchical cosmology and, therefore, lend themselves to simplistic notions of command snd control.
https://twitter.com/thebarredsubjec/status/1229945403564576770?s=19

“Maxim Gorky is a wonderful writer, resister, speaker-outer. He speaks out about the various excesses of the Bolshevik uprisings, but later he lost his lustre because of his complicit attitude towards Stalinism. His early works, though, are infallible” https://t.co/WiRbFeR8KM
https://twitter.com/five_books/status/1230197980252209154?s=19

“Hemingway said that all American fiction comes from Huckleberry Finn. That’s true, in the sense that Mark Twain invented a way of looking at the American experience and putting it into fiction. He is for Americans as important as Chaucer might be for us.” https://t.co/62eyDNbNIj
https://twitter.com/five_books/status/1230250765526163457?s=19



A more fundamental question is whether more number of divorces are good or bad? Or even, whether religious or legal stipulation for marriages is good or bad? There can many layers of interrogation and yet not one can claim self-evident legitimacy or justification. Postmodernism!
https://twitter.com/NathTusar/status/1229478330728144897?s=19

@annavetticad Madam, Mohan Bhagwat probably did not explain himself clearly. Collectivism and Individualism are driven by opposing drivers. Poor people are collective and rich people are individualistic. Individualism fragments societies. You have a knowledge problem. Read books
https://twitter.com/ragways/status/1229342706935062528?s=19
Affluence breeds Independence and therefore individualism. Individualism affects numerous affairs between people including marriage, friendship etc.

Savitri Era: Self-interest acquires spontaneity, luminosity, and sublimity https://t.co/PXkfRHAk0h @NathTusar Tusar Nath Mohapatra, Director, Savitri Era Learning Forum, Shipra Riviera, Indirapuram, Ghaziabad - 201014 #SriAurobindo #FiveDreams #WorldUnion #SavitriEra #MitraVaruna

Tuesday, January 21, 2020

Dharma: Bengali weekly by Sri Aurobindo (1909-10)

Plasim Radar

The Origin of Living Beings, Part Three–the Divisions of Time - Sri Aurobindo translates Prashna Upanishad, First Question, Verses 9-13: “The year also is that Eternal Father and of the year there are two paths, the no...

Thomas T Hills & Shamanism vs Lying - Professor Thomas T Hills has a brief article in Aeon asking 'what good is Shamanism?'. He thinks it has to do with catastrophic risk. My own view is that t...

A Buddhism very different than the one we think we know - Weterners who have studied Buddhist philosophy and ethics, even when we have done so at length, are often thrown for … Continue reading →

A Buddhism very different than the one we think we know - Weterners who have studied Buddhist philosophy and ethics, even when we have done so at length, are often thrown for a loop when we read the Mahāvaṃsa. Thi...

- Lecture at Central Saint Martins on Martin Heidegger's "The Thing".

Bengali Writings by Sri Aurobindo (translated into English) - Most of the pieces in Bengali were written by Sri Aurobindo in 1909 and 1910 for Dharma, a Calcutta weekly he edited at that time; the material consists ...

Guidance in Life: To Correct One’s Defects - As soon as one begins doing yoga or purifying one-self, there are always these hostile forces which come to disturb our work. They are amazing and find m...

Human Nature and the Climate Crisis - While it is somewhat true that the climate crisis is the most serious problem that the planet presently confronts, it is probably truer to say that the mos...

The higher one rises, the farther one is pulled down - “Evolution does not move higher and higher...

Mitra, Varuna, and Sarama - No compulsion for slogging for a PhD degree, no need for publishing in peer-reviewed journals, no scope for post-publication discussion or review articles,...


economy - When I was growing up, not far from New York City’s Bowery, which in those days was lined with soup kitchens and flophouses, my daily walk to elementary sc...

Seeking stops when ..... - Seeking and/or searching for meanings stop not only when we presume we know but also when we try to freeze the process through some of the following:- r...

Yoga of Works: Practioners’ Experiences – M.S.Srinivasan - (A review and a commentary of the book Integral Yoga At Works, A Study of Practioners’ Experiences working in Four … Yoga of Works: Practioners’ Experience...

Reading the Qur’an: Background work - [This semester, I am blogging my course on the Qur’an. You can see my previous post here and the whole series here.] The first week or so of my course (syl...

The Inner Significance of Becoming An Ashramite and Receiving the Ashram “Prosperity”—A Talk given by Nolini Kanta Gupta - Dear Friends, Nolini Kanta Gupta (13.1.1889—7.2.1984) was an active participant in the Swadeshi and national education movements from the tender age of six...

How to invite intuitive knowledge - Sri Aurobindo was an Indian nationalist but is best known for his philosophy on human evolution and Integral Yoga.[87] Although Sri Aurobindo was familiar...

Charles Soule, ANYONE - Charles Soule’s recent science fiction novel Anyone was published in 2019, but I only got around to reading it in early 2020. If I had read it in time, I w...

Hampi Continues to Live – Part 6 - Continued from Part 5 Raghunatha Temple and Malyavanta Hill One of the lesser-known but most beautiful places to visit in Hampi is the Raghunatha templ...

New Year 2020: the Message Card - Photos from Manoj Choudhary’s post Posted here with my thanks also to Kanayalal Bakraniya who relayed it all on his Facebook Timeline.

“Two Loves and Other Stories” - This is a book I started writing about 12 years ago. I wrote the first story and it turned out to be a really long story. Then I was busy with other writin...

Philosophical Rigor - There’s a model of philosophical rigor that denounces all analogies, metaphors, and examples. It is an ancient tradition. Plato, of course, denounces the...