Foolhardy premature attempts at “collective yoga”

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In a unique collaboration between the California Institute for Integral Studies (www.ciis.edu) and Matagiri Sri Aurobindo Center (www.matagiri.org), the Fifth Integral Psychology Conference (IPC) is being held at Menla Mountain Retreat in Phoenicia, NY July 1st-5th... Among the featured speakers attending the conference from India are Dr. Aster Patel and Dr. Alok Pandey. Dr. Patel, a graduate of the Sorbonne, is the daughter of Dr. Indra Sen, a pioneer in Integral Psychology and coined the term. Dr. Pandey has practiced as a psychiatrist for many years in India and is the author of the new book, "Death, Dying and Beyond". Julian Lines Matagiri Sri Aurobindo Center

debbanerji Posted March 29, 2010 at 7:17 am | Permalink

Yes, I agree with your nuancing – it is important to hghlight the fact that it is through individual mutation that there can be any possibility of a gnostic community. Foolhardy premature attempts at “collective yoga” remain at best feel-good gregariousnes expressing the play of mediocrity ambition and guilt and at worst cultic imprisonment constituted by the grammar of identity politics and the rites of brainwashing and mob hysteria. Interestingly, these two poles happily co-exist, in a mutual back-scratrching relation.

Rcarlson Posted March 29, 2010 at 6:12 pm | Permalink

Well exactly what you say here demonstrates its applicability as instanced by recent events in the collective IY community, in which members of one “would be” gnostic community -with a few notable exceptions- provided support to those members of another more orthodox wannabe gnostic community down the road, who were engaging in the cultic persecution of an author of a controversial book.

The mutual backscratching included, not only the failure to speak out against injustice but in continuing to invite to speak at their institutions those very people engaged in a smear campaign against the author. (A smear campaign antithetical to the values of said gnostic community) These invitations provided tacit support to those who incited actions that included threats of mob actions of denunciation and ridicule, threats of violence, instances of actual violence, and trumped up court cases.

Most disheartening was that the leadership of the said gnostic community waited until the matter had by in large been concluded, before even attempting to collectively speak out against the injustice, and when they finally did, under pressure from the notable few, they did so with the most neutrally worded paternalistic statement possible, so as not to upset the feel-good politics of a New Dawn.