Friday, July 31, 2015

Be simple, Be happy, Remain quiet

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Location: Shipra Riviera, Indirapuram, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh 201014, India

Monday, July 27, 2015

Umapada Sen played a pivotal role in the establishment of an Ashram Centre at Rairangpur in 1949

Aug 15, 2014 - On the occasion of Sri Aurobindo's birthday an unpublished letter of his has been uploaded in the online forum ... 

In 1946 he joined the newly-formed Mayurbhanj Spinning Mill as the legal adviser. He was associated with a number of projects related to social welfare especially women education and played a pivotal role in the establishment of an Ashram Centre at Rairangpur in 1949. He passed away at the age of seventy-two on 16 December 1963.

We are thankful to Mrs. Arpita Sengupta, youngest daughter of Umapada Sen, for allowing us to publish the letter of Sri Aurobindo which is seeing the light of day for the first time in the online forum of Overman Foundation. For the benefit of the reader Sri Aurobindo’s reply has been italicized.
With warm regards,
Anurag Banerjee
Founder, Overman Foundation.

Beni Madhav Mohanty said, August 18, 2014 at 7:37 am
thanks for the info, had visited this little centre in 2012, saw and was astounded to know its history now have proof of Umapadada’s letter from the lord , it is the oldest centre in Orissa founded with Sri Aurobindo’s blessings in nov 24th 1949 , 65 yrs ago …

Yesterday Benimadhav Mohanty took a nasty swipe at a friend of mine ... the denigration of Sri Aurobindo in his own Ashram by Peter Heehs.

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Location: Shipra Riviera, Indirapuram, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh 201014, India

Thursday, July 23, 2015

F. H. W. Myers, William James, and Émile Durkheim

Savitri Era of those who adore, Om Sri Aurobindo & The Mother.
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Location: Shipra Riviera, Indirapuram, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh 201014, India

Saturday, July 11, 2015

Integral Yoga doesn't involve any asanas

Mirambika Crisis: So called neutrals in an email dialogue – interesting - An interesting albeit somewhat rambling email exchange between two so called neutral Mirambika parent friends, Jasmeet & Mandakini (wonderful better halves...

The Indian Express - Last week, the school's 150 students were shifted to an unauthorised and under-construction building located on the premises of Sri Aurobindo ...

Times of India-03-Jul-2015 ... moved into unauthorized and under-construction premises above a bank located on the premises of Sri Aurobindo Ashram on Wednesday. 

Times of India-01-Jul-2015 According to the protesting parents, the children were moved to clear the way for AICTE approval of the engineering college that Sri Aurobindo ... 

Times of India-28-Apr-2015 Mirambika was founded in 1981. In '84, Delhi Development Authority allotted SriAurobindo Education Society land for a "college building".

Ratnamali Jema had offered the entire land of Matrugram to Sri Aurobindo Ashram - Relics Centres - Dasa Karmadhara - Events Organisation News (Monthly) January 2014 Aspruha - Ganjam On behalf of Aspruha Zone, there was a Science Exhibition...

Prapatti Memorial Lecture was conducted at Matrubhaban, Cuttack - Relics Centres - Dasa Karmadhara - Events - July 2014 Organisation News (Monthly) June 2014 Aspruha - Gajapati Dibya Janani Pathachakra, Sebakapur, District ...

Sriballav Panigrahi was the president of New Life Education Trust - [Panigrahi was the president of New Life Education Trust for Promotion of Sri Aurobindo Integral Education in Odisha] http://t.co/wdt3GZEJd7 May, 2014 - Mo...

Integral Yoga Retreats (June-July 2015) - All the contents of this website is available at : http://auro-maa.org Talks were delivered by Alok Pandey as part of Integral Yoga Retreats, which...

The First Step of Liberation from the Modes of Nature Through the Witness Consciousness - Originally posted on Sri Aurobindo Studies: When the seeker decides to apply the leverage of the bifurcation of the Witness from the action of Nature, there...

The Hindu-01-Jun-2015 “Why did Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu travel to Pondicherry over 500 years ago from Nabadwip Dham, West Bengal? Why did Agastya Muni ...

The revolutionary contact was further fueled by his rendezvous with Niralamba Swami, the earliest disciple of Sri Aurobindo. After meeting other revolutionaries, ...

The Hindu-27-Mar-2015 However, unlike the spiritually driven movement of the 19th and 20th Century with luminaries like Raja Rammohun Roy and Sri Aurobindo, the ...

The Shillong Times - SHILLONG: Art of living Shillong organized a four-day spine care and posture session at Sri Aurobindo Institute of Indian Culture recently.

Times of India-24-Apr-2015 KOLKATA: Did Rishi Aurobindo 'run away' from India's freedom movement? Or was he disillusioned by the ways of the freedom fighters? 

Daily News & Analysis-10-Jun-2015 The man who mooted the idea was the young Swami Vivekananda, and a few decades later it was again articulated by Sri Aurobindo.

Sify-05-Apr-2010 Although Pondicherry is celebrating the 100th anniversary of Sri Aurobindo's arrival in the former French Establishment, the Bengali seer's ... 

The Hindu-06-Mar-2015 According to Sri Aurobindo, they describe the psycho-spiritual processes experienced by the sages or scientists of the inner worlds, on their ...

Huffington Post India-07-May-2015 India has produced a constant stream of enlightened masters immemorial -- gurus that embrace the essence of all religions -- Sri Aurobindo, ...

The New Indian Express-23-May-2015 Meanwhile, the faith that India has still something to do for herself and for humanity is being reinforced, as Sri Aurobindo wrote, nearly a century ...

May 10, 2015 - Dear Friends, Not many are aware of the fact that Sri Aurobindo had granted an interview to a correspondent of The Hindu in early 1915.

Aug 15, 2014 - Sri Aurobindo was one of the greatest philosophers, revolutionary, mystics and visionaries of modern history. He was a major leader in India's ... 

Deccan Herald-30-Dec-2014 This township was the brainchild of 'The Mother' of Sri Aurobindo Ashram. ... Saving the cows, starving the children · Hindu religion has solution ... 

Times of India-07-May-2015 That's probably why this experimental township, based on the world vision and integral yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, has birthed a ... 

The Hindu-16-Mar-2015 I can see only two future scenarios: one of self-destruction because human beings are programmed for it, and the other, like Sri Aurobindo said, ...

The Hindu-24-Feb-2015 ... to pay obeisance to spiritual destinations of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram or Auroville founded by Aurobindo's compatriot Mirra Alfassa in 1968.

The New Indian Express-21-Feb-2015 ... Integral Yoga that was stipulated by Sri Aurobindo which doesn't involve any asanas but is aimed at awakening the supermind; Ishta Yoga ...

Swarajya-10-Apr-2015 Vivekananda, Aurobindo, Tilak, Gandhi, Savarkar, Ambedkar. .... In this definition, Sri Aurobindo explicitly states that Hinduism is so-called ...

Deccan Herald-04-Mar-2015 Sri Aurobindo's response remains relevant as the relationship between development and fertility continues to be overshadowed by the right ... 

The Statesman (press release)-30-May-2015 ... Western scholarship unquestioningly accepted in India (C.V.Vaidya, to whom Hiltebeitel refers often, and Sri Aurobindo to whom he ignores, ...

Times of India-10-Oct-2014 SRI AUROBINDO PATHAMANDIR: This one is primarily a religious centre that also sells books. Established on August 15, 1941, this store has ...

Economic Times-01-Jan-2015 The Maitri Mandir, envisioned by Mirra Alfassa or the Mother, one of the most dedicated disciples of Sri Aurobindo. as a place where human ... 

The Hindu-21-Feb-2015 Religion. Sri Aurobindo Devotees Trust: Prayers, Sasi Balika Vidya Mandir, Azad Road, R.S. Puram, 4 p.m., Annai Meditation Centre, W 7 C, ... 

The Hindu-01-May-2015 Sri Aurobindo Society: Reading of 'The yoga of Sri Aurobindo's savitri ', Chinna Chokkikulam, 4 p.m.. Maharishi Ved Vigyan Bhavan: ... 

The Hindu-07-Jun-2015 Sri Aurobindo Complex Trust : Talk on 'Surrender in integral yoga – Part II' by Jamshed Mavalwalla, Sri Aurobindo Complex, Sri Aurobindo ... 

The Hindu-06-Jun-2015 Sri Drowpathy Amman Fire Walking Festival: RBANM's School ... Sri Aurobindo Complex Trust: Talk on 'Surrender in integral yoga – Part I' by ... 

The Hindu-23-Apr-2015 Sri Aurobindo Complex Trust: Talk on 'The ultimate man – Hellenic and beyond' by Bhaskara Reddi, Sri Aurobindo Complex, Cultural Hall, Sri ... 

The Hindu-01-May-2015 Veda of the body: Talk by Alok Pandey from Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Puducherry, Sri Aurobindo Complex, Cultural Hall, Sri Aurobindo Marg, J.P. ... 

The Hindu-10-Jun-2015 Discourse on 'The Supreme claim of the divine mother' by Anuradha Chowdary from Sri AurobindoAshram, Puducherry, Sri Aurobindo ... 

The Hindu-23-Nov-2014 Sri Aurobindo's Siddhi Day: Talk on Demystifying Savitri – part II by Prof. T. Ramakrishna, Hon. Director,Sri Aurobindo Centre for Education in ... 

Carl Jung and Sri Aurobindo Mr. Johnson tackles a huge task in his comparison and elucidation of Jung and the great intellectual Indian man who lived...

Outlook-07-Nov-2014 - But you have a lot of interest in spirituality and are a follower of Sri Aurobindo, ... As you know Hinduism comes in a whole variety of moods and impulses and ...

Swarajya-09-May-2015 ... and is a follower of Swami Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo. .... He delivered that sentence first in Hindi and then translated it himself into ...

Sri Aurobindo's Savitri Savitri Cultural. ... Messages given by the Mother and Sri Aurobindo · 

Sri Aurobindo, in a significant verse on the mind of desire, says “its passion caught what the calm intelligence missed”. For example, Vaishnava mystics of India ...

Dr. Shrikant Jamadagni has a PhD in Aurobindo studies and is a working ... He is deeply passionate about Indian Renaissance as expounded by Sri Aurobindo.

Calcutta Telegraph-29-Jul-2011 Consider the fate, within India, of a biography of Sri Aurobindo written by Peter Heehs. Heehs is a real scholar, the author of several substantial ... 

The Hindu-06-Jan-2015 Meanwhile, Latha will revisit 'Savitri', based on Sri Aurobindo's classic. “It is high philosophy; it's the story of mankind's conquest over fear and ...

The Hindu-15-Nov-2014 The Mother's Room at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram will be open for 'darshan' on the occasion of The Mother's Mahasamadhi Day from 4.30 a.m. ... 

Mumbai Mirror-30-Nov-2014 An unwavering believer in the The Mother, spiritual collaborator of Sri Aurobindo, the varied interests of VP, as she would sign herself, ranged ...

SriMaa And SriAurobido 2 days ago - Sri Maa and Sri Aurobindo.

The central focus is Sri Aurobindo's mantric epic Savitri : a legend and a symbol, which the Mother has called 'The supreme revelation of Sri Aurobindo's vision'.

India Today-17-Jan-2015 The famous Sri Aurobindo Ashram is under the scanner of the Supreme Court following allegations of harassment of women and child inmates ...

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Location: Shipra Riviera, Indirapuram, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh 201014, India

Sunday, June 28, 2015

Sri Aurobindo is singing on every page of The Life Divine

In reply to an earlier post on Mar 9, 2015 Don Salmon says:
we're looking at about 3 to 4 months to FINALLY get our music and videos up on our website - www.remember-to-breathe.org - and I'm trying to limit my online activity (except those dreaded Lynda videos were I"m learning about equalization and low shelves and compression and all that).

Hope you understand. Hope to see you over there some time (or just as likely, some other thread on mysticism/astral travel/panentheism/socialist-anarchist-liberatarian-communitarianist-unitarian-Buddhism!

***

Darn! posted that then had another thought. I hated Aurobindo's writings when they were first recommended to me in 1975. Thought he was a hopeless intellectual who understood nothing about spirituality (evolution! Who cares about that!! just BE!!!). Somehow I stuck with it, and the next year I found Sat Prem's "Adventure of Consciousness' (available for free online). By the time I got to the chapter on Consciousness, I got it. Haven't found anything in the world on psychology, by the way, as good as that. Any chapter of Satprem's book is worth all the volumes of Ken Wilber (and even to say that is a slur on Sat Prem - it took me a few years after I stopped reading Wilber back in 2000 to let go of all the incoherent contradictions I had picked up from reading him).

The thing that's misleading about Sri Aurobindo is people think because he was educated at Cambridge and studied in the late 19th century that he was a victorian intellectual. Couldn't be further from the truth, though it took me a long time to "get it." 

One thing that helped was a friend who was a Greek scholar. he said that the long winding sentences in Life Divine had the same rhythm as many of the pre-socratics he read. 

The other thing was almost 20 years of not quite accepting Aurobindo. The turning point was at a retreat in northern England, Tibetan Buddhist. I spent 4 or 5 10 hour days intensely studying Nagarjuna. I finally got it and went the next week to dive into the Life Divine and it was like reading a different book from the one I had struggled with for 20 years. Suddenly every line was music. Aurobindo is singing on every page. He always insisted he was never a philosopher, always a poet. It's true.

Finally, people think he wrote a lot. Actually, he wrote about 6000 pages between 1914 and 1921, 64 pages a month, chapters for 5 or 6 books at a time. He never actually wrote a "book" - he just wrote for the Ashram journal. After 1921, he stopped, and mostly the only stuff he wrote were isolated very short essays, thousands of letters answering questions about yoga from his disciples, and the epic poem Savitri. And The Life Divine is the only "book" he ever wrote on philosophy (and it's not really Philosophy in the modern sense; it's really a translation of his yogic experiences into "the language of the intellect". Though his other 1914-1921 books are written in complex language, none of them are really "intellectual" in the same way - maybe you could think of his political writings (the book on this page) as somewhat intellectual, but if you read them simply as theorizing, you won't get what he's aiming at. Even the Human Cycle and the other 2 parts of the trilogy are translations of a vision, not a "thinking out" of some "idea." Permalink


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Location: Shipra Riviera, Indirapuram, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh 201014, India

Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Hegel, Sri Aurobindo, and Evolution




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Location: Shipra Riviera, Indirapuram, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh 201014, India

Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Evolution from both the scientific and philosophic points of view

Sri Aurobindo wrote a series of articles on the Gita for Dharma, the weekly Bengali review he edited from Calcutta. The articles appeared between August 1909 and February 1910 and their English translations are presented in the book Introduction to the Gita in the same order in which they appeared in Dharma. “Part One: Aspects of the Gita” features three essays on the dharma of the Gita, asceticism and renunciation, and the vision of the World Spirit by Arjuna described in the eleventh chapter. “Part Two: Commentaries on the Gita” is the beginning of Sri Aurobindo’s detailed commentary on the scripture, which he had to abandon after covering only the first two chapters. In February 1910 he left Calcutta and never returned.
The essays provide an introduction to understanding the Gita: its epic setting, the nature of its protagonists, the political objectives that compelled the Kauravas and the Pandavas to engage in fratricidal warfare on the field of Kurukshetra, and the true attitude of a karmayogin who follows the way of works. The following passage is from the Introduction to the section “Commentaries on the Gita”:

    There are many who say that the Mahabharata is only a symbol: Sri Krishna is God, Arjuna is the human soul, the sons of Dhritarashtra are the inner enemies of the soul’s progress, and the Pandava army represents the forces that help bring about liberation. But this is to relegate the Mahabharata to a low position in the world of letters and at the same time to minimise and bring to nought the deep seriousness of the Gita, its utility for the life of the man of action and its high teaching which hastens the progress of mankind. The war of Kurukshetra is not simply a frame for the Gita’s picture; it is the prime motive and best occasion for carrying out the law given in the Gita. To accept a symbolic meaning for the great war of Kurukshetra is to reduce the law of the Gita to the law of ascetic quietism inapplicable to life in this world, not the law of the heroic man, a law to be followed in life.

Other new books introduced in this issue include Deliberations on The Life Divine: Volume Five, transcripts of talks on the last five chapters of Book One: Omnipresent Reality and the Universe. The Philosophy of Evolution, consisting of two series of lectures, offers a coherent introduction to the subject of evolution from both the scientific and philosophic points of view and a study on the mind and supermind, based primarily on Sri Aurobindo’s philosophy, but including the views of other philosophical thinkers, both modern and classical. About Savitri (Part One) is a new edition of a book of paintings by Huta, done under the Mother’s guidance, which illustrates thirty-two passages from Book One, Canto One of Savitri. Each passage is accompanied by the Mother’s comments and Huta’s painting, as in the following selection.

Passage from Savitri—

The impassive skies were neutral, empty, still.
Then something in the inscrutable darkness stirred;
A nameless movement, an unthought Idea
Insistent, dissatisfied, without an aim,
Something that wished but knew not how to be,
Teased the Inconscient to wake Ignorance.
The Mother’s comment—

This is the description – a very wonderful description – of the beginning of Aspiration: how in the Nothingness, in the Inconscient, stirred the first movement of Aspiration. 
There was no mind, so it did not think. Even the vital was not organised, so it did not know how to be. 
But, It stirred slowly to wake up the Inconscient towards something—without knowing what it was. 
This is the first vibration which preceded even form, the first beginning of Aspiration towards the possibility of knowing.
Huta’s painting—

NEW PUBLICATIONS
To order any book, click on the title, which will locate the book in our online catalogue. Next, add it to the shopping cart. You may then proceed to pay online or by other available methods.
Email: mail@sabda.in 

ENGLISH
Introduction to the Gita
— Sri Aurobindo
ISBN: 978-81-7058-978-5
Publisher: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department, Pondicherry
Binding: Soft Cover
Pages: 111
Price: Rs 70

The essays in this volume were originally written by Sri Aurobindo in Bengali and published serially in the journal Dharma in 1909–10. They discuss the elements pivotal to understanding the Gita: the breadth and significance of its setting, the nature of its chief protagonists, and the circumstances and political objectives that brought the Kauravas and the Pandavas to the battlefield. The essays point to the central teaching of the Gita, which answers man’s most searching questions about God and the world, the purpose of life, and the way to right living.

Deliberations on The Life Divine: Volume V (Book I: Chapters XXIV-XXVIII)
Chapterwise Summary Talks
— Ananda Reddy
ISBN: 978-93-85391-05-7
Publisher: Sri Aurobindo Centre for Advanced Research, Pondicherry
Binding: Soft Cover
Pages: 150
Price: Rs 300

This fifth volume of Dr Reddy’s transcribed and edited talks on Sri Aurobindo’s The Life Divine addresses the final five chapters of Book One: Omnipresent Reality and the Universe. In an effort to reach out to those less familiar with philosophic complexities, Dr Reddy uses simple language and examples to introduce the main philosophical arguments presented in these chapters. Subjects considered include the exact nature and origin of Matter, the unity of Spirit and Matter, the principles that govern the destiny of this creation, and the higher ranges of consciousness and their relation to each other. Each chapter studies the main arguments in brief and is followed by lecture notes that encapsulate the contents in outline form.

The Philosophy of Evolution
— Rod Hemsell
Publisher: University of Human Unity, Auroville
Binding: Soft Cover
Pages: 346
Price: Rs 350

Comprising the transcriptions of two lecture series given at the University of Human Unity in Auroville, this book aims at discovering a philosophy of evolution that can help to show the way towards a more unified and enlightened civilisation. Part One, titled “Darwin and Sri Aurobindo”, uses Sri Aurobindo’s perspectives to provide a general context and background for an introduction to the subject of evolution from both the scientific and philosophical points of view. Part Two, titled “Mind and Supermind”, attempts to define mind, the limitations of mind, and the rationale for a theory of evolution beyond mind, based primarily on Sri Aurobindo’s philosophy, but including the views of important philosophical thinkers, classical and modern.

About Savitri: With some paintings (Part One)
— Paintings by Huta with passages from Savitri and explanations by the Mother
ISBN: 978-81-87372-15-8
Publisher: The Havyavahana Trust, Pondicherry
Binding: Soft Cover
Pages: 127
Price: Rs 350

In 1968 the Mother began her work on Savitri with Huta. The Mother read out passages from the poem and then, after a deep contemplation, gave her comments, which were tape-recorded and later transcribed by Huta. The Mother named the work About Savitri, and later gave a message for the book: “Savitri—The supreme revelation of Sri Aurobindo’s vision”. Each passage from the poem is followed by the Mother’s explanation and Huta’s painting, inspired and approved by the Mother. Part One covers Book One, Canto One and includes thirty-two paintings. This is a new edition of the book which was first published in 1972.

HEBREW
Savitri: The Book of Beginnings
— Compiled by Itzhak Bar Yona
Publisher: Itzhak Bar Yona, Israel
Binding: Hard Cover
Pages: 184
Price: Rs 580

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