Sri Aurobindo did not need Vedas, Upanishads and the Gita, etc. for formulating the Integral Yoga

Re: Sri Aurobindo and Hinduism (a speech by Peter Heehs: Hyderabad 2006)
by rakesh on Sat 27 Sep 2008 10:20 PM PDT Profile Permanent Link

My comments were directed towards Rich’s comments on the constraints of a historian writing a biography on spiritual masters for secular audience. Since this biography was written based on objective facts that the author claims to have possessed in the archives that none others have access to and his interpretation of it is not only objective but subjective there is ample scope for the historian to make wrong interpretations of the objective facts. If the interpretation of the author seems to taint the masters reputation and if the author is not sure of its truth validity of his interpretation, is it not better to leave the matter alone instead of making personal judgments on dubious matters?

I am not only questioning PH book but such books in general. Given the choice what will a disciple do in such a situation when the biography is on his master? Will he take the sides with the secular audience and go by the mob mentality in interpreting the events or avoid confusion that may taint the reputation of the guru especially when the guru does not exist to support himself.

Rich seems to suggest that no one can question a biography that is directed towards secular audience and anyone who questions it makes “truth possessing” claims. This is a good way to divert from answering the original question. There is also a confusion in trying to segregate core teachings of Hinduism like the Gita and IY which to me seem to be the same. He also seems to suggest that there is no secular teachings in hindu religion. My comments were also directed towards this confusion that is persisting from a long time on this blog postings. If IY is considered Secular and its core teachings are based on the Gita and even Hinduism considers it the Holy text can’t we see something secular in Hinduism.

Why always carp on Hinduism as Sectarian etc? I have not tried to denigrate PH book or to target Rich since he is supporting the book. That is far from my intention. There is no mob mentality in questioning the intentions. I will definitely quote some passages from PH book that are objectionable when I get the time.

Reply Re: Sri Aurobindo and Hinduism (a speech by Peter Heehs: Hyderabad 2006)
by Debashish on Sat 27 Sep 2008 10:45 PM PDT Profile Permanent Link

"The guru does not exist to support himself"? The guru not only exists to support himself but support his disciples as well. Look into yourself and if you truly feel called upon to "defend the guru's reputation", no one can stop you. But don't expect others to agree with you either that "the guru's reputation is being tainted" or that he needs your or anyone else's defense. DB

Re: Sri Aurobindo and Hinduism (a speech by Peter Heehs: Hyderabad 2006)
by Debashish on Sat 27 Sep 2008 11:38 PM PDT Profile Permanent Link

On the issue of Hinduism as a religion vis. a vis. secularism and the relationship between Integral Yoga and the core teachings of the Gita and Upanishads, to be fair this requires a long response, for which I don't have the time just now.

However, in brief, "Hinduism" is a construct which is better seen as a cluster of disparate beliefs, practices and philosophies with some common principles tying them together. It is a historical development, and is continuing to extend itself in a variety of ways in the modern period. It has elements in it which are "religious" in the narrow sense of sectarianism and these are what RC has been referring to when speaking of Hinduism as a religion.

But it also has various contrary and critical strands within it, which are geared towards a variety of forms of divine realization. The complex cluster is tied together, one may say, through acceptance of the Veda as the root revelation, the yogic axioms of the Upanishads as the accepted descriptions of reality and certain other synthetic texts such as the Bhagavad Gita as commonly held shastras.

Sri Aurobindo certainly draws on Vedas, Upanishads and the Gita in his spiritual teaching and practice, though it may be debated that he did not need these for formulating the Integral Yoga. The "religion" of Hindutva makes its own kinds of uses of Gita, Upanishads, etc. which don't have any place in Sri Aurobindo's teaching. But these same texts can be shown to describe yogic paths in consonance with Integral Yoga, and Sri Aurobindo has himself shown this through his writings. DB

Peter Heehs ridicules Indian customs as did his predecessor, William Archer

Re: The Lives of Sri Aurobindo—A Letter from a Professor
by RY Deshpande on Tue 23 Sep 2008 04:30 AM PDT Profile Permanent Link

I, on my first visit to Sri Aurobindo Ashram in early nineties, was impressed by a rule on the notice board which read, if you do not have anything good to say about a fellow Ashramite, the least you could do is to keep silent. That would be a service to the divine...

I felt shocked to see the excerpts from a book by an Ashramite, by implication a follower of The Mother and Sri Aurobindo... In navadhā bhakti, hatred for the divine is also a means for salvation. But the hatred of Peter Heehs for The Mother and Sri Aurobindo, Aurobindo in his language, has no such thought in it. PH seems to be a split personality who is a devotee and an enemy at the same time. He could be many more things. The carry home message from his recent book is as follows:

1. He questions the mystical experiences of Sri Aurobindo. “Perhaps they are only hallucinations or signs of psychotic breakdown? Even if not, do they have any value to anyone except the subject?” He has quoted a few persons at several places to show that Sri Aurobindo had a tinge of lunacy. Even his spiritual vision of Krishna in jail, was rubbished by his associates in Uttarpara speech. What does PH want to communicate?

2. Sri Aurobindo, “was a coward and liar … by his own account.” How deviously PH misquotes Sri Aurobindo. The statement was obviously the mannerism of a self-effacing personality. PH further writes to prove his intent, “Aurobindo failed to pass his medical examination the first time on account of ‘something found wrong with his urinary organs’. … Aurobindo told a series of lies. … He was rejected because he did not pass the riding examination.” He questions the truthfulness of Sri Aurobindo in a letter that he wrote to a disciple. I quote PH, “Years later Aurobindo observed in a letter that his advise was in effect, “the order that led to the breaking of the congress.” This gives too much importance to a single factor in a complex chain of events. .. Even without Aurobindo’s “order”, Tilak’s stance and the attack against him would have led to a free-for-all.”

PH suggests in his book that Sri Aurobindo had not much impact on India’s freedom struggle. This is in contravention to the address of Sri Aurobindo on the Independence of India. Has he not read India Wins freedom By Maulana Azad who writes that he was inspired by leaders like Sri Aurobindo, and the famous statement of CR Das in the court? Subhas Chandra Bose too admitted that he drew inspiration from Sri Aurobindo. Tagore wrote an inspired poem on him. Many other revolutionaries in later days were influenced by him. He insinuates that Sri Aurobindo was for Hindu communalism, and that he did not do enough for Hindu Muslim unity. He says, “Still, partition and the bloodletting that accompanied it were the movement’s principal failings, and Aurobindo and his colleagues have to take their share of the blame.” I really wonder! At a place PH clubs Sri Aurobindo with Extremist.

3. Sri Aurobindo married for “The usual desire for gratification…” PH implies that Sri Aurobindo’s knowledge of ordinary maithuna ananda was experiential. Sri Aurobindo has somewhere, I do not exactly remember where, has said that he lived as a brahmachari in his wedlock. PH creates distorted scenes on the basis of his own imagination quoting Nolini Kant, AB Purani and Romain Rolland. He suggests that Sri Aurobindo was willing to marry Mirra, had she wanted that. He holds that Sri Aurobindo’s interest in Mirra was responsible for the break-up of her marriage with Paul Richard. I have mentioned above the difference between the visions of a hagiographer and a pornographer. Paul Richard’s statement to Romain could hardly be accepted as sufficient proof to justify PH’s conclusions.

• Was Paul more truthful than the Mother and Sri Aurobindo?
• Granted his suggestion, what evidence has he produced regarding PR’s truthfulness?
• Are subjective and emotional statements of piddlings sufficient proof for an objective researcher?

What the men of eminence and character and the personal attendants of the Masters say, holds no water for PH. That is not objective. Gullible will be misguided by PH’s book. They may believe him to be truly objective. That is my fear.

Regarding academic vs nonacademic approach, research etc, I must say that even hard and experimental sciences are gripped with the problem of bias and confounding influences. Theories keep changing with newer paradigms. Research Methods in Psychology and Consciousness are on worse footing. Therefore till the time their Research Methodology is refined and defined and freed of individual bias, we must not attempt to demolish faith and phenomenon which surpass human comprehension, lest we destroy a great movement in our pettiness and ignorance.

At another place PH calls The Mother in a very ordinary sense a “partner” of Sri Aurobindo. PH comments on the Viziers of Bassora, “In the imaginary world of his dramas, his protagonist was never without a partner.” It is not difficult to understand his insinuation. Let us remember that Sri Aurobindo was the first to call Mirra, The Mother. She fended Him as Her own Child. Sri Aurobindo described in his letters, that sometimes his meditation was to become a baby in the lap of The Mother. PH is a good case study for a psychoanalyst.

I am reminded of a psychopath. When he was shown a square and asked what did it remind him of? He said, “sex.” He said the same for a circle, a triangle, a hexagon and the picture of a goat. When the doctor was perplexed by his single word answer, he asked the patient if the latter was a maniac. The patient was annoyed. He barked back, “What else you expect me to say when you show me such lewd images?”

4. PH ridicules Sri Aurobindo throughout. Sri Aurobindo was an ugly man (PH found that in his photographs), lusting after girls in youth (comments on Song to Myrtilla), was looking for a life partner (Sri Aurobindo was psychoanalysed on the basis of his translation of Vasavadatta) a less than mediocre poet (PH quotes one Ranjee Shahani in TLS) and a sort of philosopher whom members of philosophical profession “would loath to admit him to their club.” His description of The Defence of Indian Culture by Sri Aurobindo as “a polemic from start to finish” is hurting.

5. He calls pranams and darshans as “theatrical” and compares the commonplace godmen of India with Them in his objectivity. He ridicules Indian customs as did his predecessor, William Archer.

Anand Kumar MD, All India Institute of Medical Sciences 11:59 AM

Three transformations—psychic, spiritual and supramental—śuddhi, mukti and siddhi

The Yoga of Self-Perfection and the Triple Transformation by Richard Hartz Science, Culture and Integral Yoga Mon 13 Aug 2007 Permanent Link [2:26 PM]

In the Yoga of self-perfection as described in The Synthesis and the Record of Yoga, a purification of the Prana enabling the emotional mind to “mirror the real soul in us, the Divine in our hearts”, would be regarded as part of śuddhi. In Sri Aurobindo’s later reformulation of the integral Yoga it would come under the heading of psychicisation or psychic transformation...

In the Yoga of self-perfection, śuddhi or purification is followed by mukti or liberation, then by bhukti, “a cosmic enjoyment of the power of the Spirit”,[45] and siddhi or perfection. The order of the last two was sometimes reversed, with implications which we will see. But in the subsequent period, instead of four stages of self-perfection we hear of a triple transformation: psychic, spiritual and supramental. At first sight, the systems appear to be quite different. Yet there are correspondences between them which shed light on the continuity as well as the evolution of Sri Aurobindo’s spiritual experience.

Purification is a preparation for liberation. It can even be said that it is itself a kind of liberation:

Śuddhi is the condition for mukti. All purification is a release, a delivery; for it is a throwing away of limiting, binding, obscuring imperfections and confusions.... But all this is an instrumental liberation. The freedom of the soul, mukti, is of a larger and more essential character; it is an opening out of mortal limitation into the illimitable immortality of the Spirit.[46]

The concept of liberation, like that of purification, acquires a more dynamic sense in the integral Yoga than is conventionally associated with it—although this was amply foreshadowed in the Gita and elsewhere, where liberation does not imply cessation from action. Just as he makes a distinction between negative and positive purity, Sri Aurobindo also distinguishes negative from positive freedom, insisting in this case on the necessity of both. The “negative movement of freedom” is defined as “a liberation from the principal bonds, the master-knots of the lower soul-nature”, these bonds being “desire, ego, the dualities and the three gunas of Nature”. The “positive sense of freedom”, on the other hand, “is to be universal in soul, transcendently one in spirit with God, possessed of the highest divine nature”.[47]

What concerns us here is how mukti or liberation, as a step towards self-perfection, relates to the spiritual transformation which follows the psychic transformation in Sri Aurobindo’s later accounts of the Yoga. We have seen that the purification of the nature, liberating as it is in itself, is insufficient unless it is completed by a larger freedom which universalises the soul and brings it into union with the transcendent. Likewise the psychic transformation is not all that is needed for the largest spiritual change. In the first place, since this is the individual soul in Nature, it can open to the hidden diviner ranges of our being and receive and reflect their light and power and experience, but another, a spiritual transformation from above is needed for us to possess our self in its universality and transcendence.[48]

But even the freedom that the spiritual transformation brings was not enough for Sri Aurobindo. In almost all traditional systems of Yoga except Tantra, inner liberation was pursued as an end in itself. In the Yoga of self-perfection, on the other hand, not only is the meaning of mukti enlarged to include liberation of the nature as well as liberation of the spirit, but even this leads beyond itself to bhukti and siddhi. We meet a similar situation in the case of the triple transformation, as described by Sri Aurobindo near the end of the revised text of The Life Divine and in other writings of the 1930s and 1940s. In a letter of that period, he indicates the liberating and other effects of spiritualisation, the second transformation, but also points out why a still greater transformation is needed to complete it:

Spiritualisation means the descent of the higher peace, force, light, knowledge, purity, Ananda, etc., which belong to any of the higher planes from Higher Mind to overmind, for in any of these the Self can be realised. It brings about a subjective transformation; the instrumental Nature is only so far transformed that it becomes an instrument for the Cosmic Divine to get some work done, but the self within remains calm and free and united with the Divine. But this is an incomplete individual transformation—the full transformation of the instrumental Nature can only come when the supramental change takes place. Till then the nature remains full of many imperfections, but the Self in the higher planes does not mind them, as it is itself free and unaffected.[49]

The process of spiritualisation occupied Sri Aurobindo for many years. It involved not one, but several transformations by the ever-increasing power of a series of ascending planes. On each of them “the static realisation of Infinity and Eternity and the Timeless One remains the same,” but “the vision of the workings of the One becomes ever wider and is attended with a greater instrumentality of Force”. From the point of view of knowledge, “what is thought-knowledge in the Higher Mind becomes illumination in the Illumined Mind and direct intimate vision in the Intuition”. Still higher is the overmind, which sees not “in flashes”, like the Intuition, but “calmly, steadily, in great masses and large extensions of space and time and relation, globally”. But even here there “is not the absolute supramental harmony and certitude”.[50] Sri Aurobindo saw in the end that nothing short of what he called a supramental transformation could bring about the integral perfection or siddhi “which finishes the passage of the soul through the Ignorance and bases its consciousness, its life, its power and form of manifestation on a complete and completely effective self-knowledge”.[51]

We find, then, that there is a broad correspondence between the “triple transformation” and three stages of the earlier Yoga of self-perfection termed śuddhi, mukti and siddhi, or purification, liberation and perfection—we will see in a moment why there is nothing in the later scheme that seems to correspond to bhukti. The system presented in the unfinished Part Four of The Synthesis of Yoga appears to be superseded by the three transformations—psychic, spiritual and supramental—as the definitive statement of Sri Aurobindo’s distinctive approach to an evolutionary spirituality. But just as the old triple way of Karma, Bhakti and Jnana was surpassed but kept in a new form, so Sri Aurobindo continued to speak of self-perfection as the consummation of the Yoga. In a passage in a letter summarising the Karmayoga as he had “developed it for the integral spiritual life”, he concluded:
Finally, works, bhakti and knowledge go together and self-perfection becomes possible—what we call the transformation of the nature.[52]

There seems to be no good reason to regard the Yoga of self-perfection as out of date or irrelevant in the light of later developments, even though Sri Aurobindo’s account of it published in his major work on Yoga remained incomplete and unrevised. But because the last part of The Synthesis was never revised, its terminology has to be interpreted according to the period when it was written...

In the Introduction to The Synthesis of Yoga, written in 1914, “integral beatitude” follows directly after “integral purity” and “integral liberty” and precedes “integral perfection” in a paragraph giving a brief synopsis of the integrality of the Yoga. But when in March 1919 he came to the fourth chapter of “The Yoga of Self-Perfection”, Sri Aurobindo reversed the order of the last two items and listed them as “purification, liberation, perfection, delight of being... śuddhi, mukti, siddhi, bhukti.”[65]...

In a sense, Sri Aurobindo recognised a quadruple transformation as the complete aim of the integral Yoga. But he insisted that “one must pass through the supermind to arrive to the highest Ananda”.[66] Supramentalisation, the transformation whose accomplishment would constitute the next decisive step in evolution, was his immediate concern.

Prema Nandakumar's illuminating discussion on Sri Aurobindo's Savitri

Spotlight: A MAGIC BOX OF STORIES 20 Sep 2008 - The Statesman
The most precious asset of the series is the outstanding transcreation of the Sanskrit text by Prof. Lal... A review by Shekhar Sen. Prof. P.Lal - Mahabharata Katha Series:

Prema Nandakumar's introduction to the Savitri Katha is highly illuminating, though a trifle too long. Underlining the existence of a Savitri Parampara in Indian culture, she shows how Savitri has become “a role model for womankind” and how her five dharma vachanas in conversation with Yama “make a compendium for faultless living.” She has brought out the Vedic connections, referred to the Puranic versions and to the English versions of Romesh Chandra Dutta and Toru Dutta.

Her discussion on Sri Aurobindo's Savitri, arguably his greatest work, is short but illuminating. The highlight of her introduction is the section describing the Savitri traditions of women in Tamilnadu and her discussion on the Savitri Paadam (a Tamil masterpiece translated into English by her) indicating how the story has integrated “with the everyday life of women as homemakers.”

Meditations On Savitri Complete DVD-Set

SOME INTERNATIONAL COMMENTS
”THERE ARE NO WORDS TO DESCRIBE THE EFFECT 'MEDITATIONS ON SAVITRI' HAS ON MY SPIRITUAL LIFE – I DON'T KNOW IF I SHOULD SAY THAT 'MEDITATIONS ON SAVITRI' INTRODUCED A FANTASTIC CHANGE IN MY LIFE OR IF I SHOULD WRITE THAT THIS IS A NEW START IN MY SPIRITUAL LIFE OR THAT MY SPIRITUAL LIFE HAS REALLY STARTED FROM THAT MOMENT. THEREFORE THERE IS NO WORD WHICH WOULD DO JUSTICE IN QUALIFYING RIGHTLY THIS MASTERPIECE; IT IS PERFECT SPIRITUALLY, ARTISTICALLY AND TECHNICALLY. THEREFORE I CAN ONLY CONGRATULATE ALL THE TEAM WHO HAS WORKED ON IT ...“

”THE 'MEDITATIONS ON SAVITRI' MOVIE SERIES IS AN IMMEASURABLE SPIRITUAL TREASURE. NOT ONLY THAT THIS SYNERGETIC MULTIMEDIA ARTWORK OF DYNAMIC IMAGE POWER, MANTRIC RECITATION SPEECH-ACT AND NEW CONSCIOUSNESS MUSIC HAS OPENED TO ME NEW ENTRANCES AND FURTHER ACCESS TO SRI AUROBINDO'S GRAND EPIC POEM, BUT THIS AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE HAS ALSO EXPANDED MY COMPREHENSION OF MEDITATION ITSELF BY THE ART OF FILM-MEDITATION. BY SITTING IN FRONT OF A BIG SCREEN WITH A SILENT MIND AND AN OPEN HEART IT IS POSSIBLE TO TUNE INTO THESE INTENSE ATMOSPHERES AND COME IN CONSCIOUS RESONANCE WITH THE OMNIPRESENT ARCHETYPAL FORCES SYMBOLIZED THROUGH THE POETRY AND IMAGERY OF THIS MULTIMEDIA AND MULTIDIMENSIONAL ARTWORK. WHAT AN INESTIMABLE PRECIOUS GIFT FOR AWAKENING MAN!“

”... TO SEE THE 'MEDITATIONS ON SAVITRI' DVD-SERIES IS FOR ME A JOURNEY THROUGH TIME AND SPACE FROM THE BEGINNING OF CREATION TO THE HUMAN WORLD AND FURTHER ON TO FUTURE REALISATIONS. THANKS TO THE ARTISTS FOR THIS EXCELLENT EXPRESSION OF SRI AUROBINDO'S EPIC POEM 'SAVITRI'.“

”'THE 'MEDITATIONS ON SAVITRI' DVDs ARE A STUNNING AND PROFOUND EXPERIENCE OF CONSCIOUSNESS EXPANSION.“

I was given a book by The Mother of the Ashram when I was sixteen

Wednesday, September 17, 2008 Turning Point

My life began in an Ashram ( Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry). But yes one little thing stands out. I was given a book by The Mother of the Ashram when I was sixteen. At that age I read it but the words and the word pictures were not conveying much. The words were understood but not their implication. Specially one sentence stood out......... "Then you will see that the world is standing upside down."

Of course I could see that every one as on their legs quite upright then what was She saying. The sentence was at the back of my mind and has been. Gradually as life unfolded, I could see that people were lying left, right and centre; very often for no reason. I wondered if this is what Mother meant. Then I realised that people are maintaining a facade.

They wish to be seen as honest, hardworking, sincere, capable etc. While in their heart they were looking for shortcuts, were totally insincere and insecure about themselves as they knew well that the qualities they were expecting others to see in them were not there. They knew well that they were living a charade but simply did not have the guts to live otherwise. What an upside down way to live?! ... Posted by PK at 4:55 PM

Understanding Thoughts of Sri Aurobindo

Sri Aurobindo : A Contemporary Reader - SHOP.COM by Sachidananda Mohanty - Hardcover (Routledge India; Mar 30 2008) at SHOP.COM.

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I was not practicing Sri Aurobindo's yoga. It was a fake

On July 2nd Serge Brelin left his body at the age of 53...

We have not understood what a collective being is. Our understanding is mostly political, and that takes over. It should not. This is what I understood. A community, or a collectivity, is just a space for the individuals to grow, but in which they are all one, thus creating a being. But this being is not political. It is not something that can be expressed in institutions, in rules and regulations and all these things.

Sri Aurobindo used to say that he had repeatedly broken all that he believed was true and started afresh. Of course, we cannot undo what has been done on the ground. But we can certainly make our mindset blank. What makes us die is this constant repetition of all that we believe is true, all our habits.

So if we would succeed, individually and collectively, just to make blank, to switch off, for a while, I believe that something will flow in. And that suddenly our relationship with all that is here will change, and that we will see new solutions, new ways of dealing with our so-called problems. And maybe, these problems will even vanish. But the machine has to stop. And I do believe that it has to stop first in our heads. If more and more individuals take it upon themselves to switch off the machine in themselves, something new will flow in.

Interview by Doris and Francis
An earlier interview with Serge titled “In relentless pursuit of Divine Anarchy” appeared in AVToday # 176, September 2003 Photo credit: Photo courtesy Doris and Francis Home > Journals & Media > Journals > Auroville Today > We are one being, feeling, thinking, living together Current issue August 2008 Archive copies The Auroville Experience

The Ashram needs people like Peter

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Extremely private, confidential and sensitive mate...": Posted to Savitri Era Open Forum at 9:21 PM, September 11, 2008

The Ashram needs people like Peter. If we are living really what Aurobindo and Mother were saying we will not be afraid of any negative publicity. This doesn't mean that a work such as Peter's is beyond critic.

The play of emptiness

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At 1:34am on August 14th, 2008, sunyalila said…

Namaskar Ulrich! I too once lived and taught in Pondicherry (at the Sri Aurobindo ashram) and am seriously considering returning soon. I was just reading the "Focus and Scope" of your Antimatters Journal and the direction and source of your inquiry sounds refreshing and undivided, especially in the light of the assumptions that have become prevalent in materialism. I hope you all have a wonderful darshan in celebration of Sri Aurobindo's birth. May all of life reveal its divinity to you. To your deepest peace, joy and fulfillment, Ellen

Find the meaning of life via "Onlife Online"

Question of the Month Archive Introduction
In our section "Onlife Online", we often receive questions from aspirants, who are not satisfied with their present lives, who are trying to find a meaning in their lives, a deeper reason for why things happen as they do, and who are searching for a light to guide them in their actions.Each month we take a question of this nature and present an answer based on the writings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, with the belief that this could be of help to a larger number of persons. We welcome further comments on making our endeavour beneficial to all.
1.
How do I get rid of Anger?
2.
How to do Work faster and better?
3.
How to read Sri Aurobindo's & the Mother's Books?
4.
"I am with you!" said the Mother, What does it mean?
5.
Fear of losing some one close.
6.
Dealing with Disturbing Thoughts.
7.
How should one deal with Depression ? (Part I)
8.
How should one deal with Depression? (Part II)
9.
When we make an effort to do better but don't see any progress, we feel discouraged. What is the best thing to do?
10.
What exactly is meant by the "Eternal Birth" of Sri Aurobindo?
11.
How is it that one seeks something and yet does not know that one is Seeking?
12.
How can we establish a settled Peace and Silence in the Mind?
13.
How one can face the death and loss of a dear one?
14.
What is the Purpose of our Life?
15.
How to Sleep Well?
16.
What are Dreams? What is their Nature and Importance?
17.
How to Control ourselves?
18.
Why do Accidents happen?
19.
What is the importance of Concentration in life?
20.
Sri Aurobindo's Vision of the future.
21.
How should we understand 'not to have preferences'.
22.
How to help or protect somebody in difficulty or danger from a distance?
23.
What happens after Death?
24.
How to overcome the Fear of Death?
25.
When one prays sincerely for the intervention of the Grace, doesn't one want a particular result? Is is right to do so?
26.
Why do Natural Disasters like earthquakes and cyclones happen?
27.
What happens after Death and how does Rebirth take place?
28.
Meaning of Seeking the Divine for the sake of the Divine
29.
What is the significance of Birthdays?
30.
What is Desire? How does it arise? Should one try to conquer it?
31.
What is the "Divine Grace"?
32.
"Are Difficulties on the path an indication...?"
33.
The Present Crisis and the Future Challange (Part I)
34.
The Present Crisis and the Future Challange (Part II)
35.
Are events predetermined or can we change them?
36.
How to rekindle hope in the midst of suffering and despair?
37.
How to offer one's will to the Divine? How to deal with defects in one's nature?
38.
Why we feel attraction or repulsion for some persons?
39.
How can we give all we are, all we have to the Divine?
40.
How to deal with Pain and Suffering?
41.
When somebody has an ill-will against a person, how does this will act upon that person?
42.
What is the difference between prayer and aspiration?
43.
What is Love? What does it mean?
44.
Why do we hurt each other? What can be done?
45.
Who is fit to possess money?
46.
How to get from the Divine what one needs?
47.
How to make our Resolution and Will firm?
48.
How to attain the ultimate victory?
Question of the Month - Next Future # Sri Aurobindo Society

Skills: French, back office, sales, translation

Objective and Resume Summary:
Having learnt French since childhood, I am looking in for a challenging opportunity, where I can make use of my knowledge of French language to the maximum. I also have flair for for arts and crafts, and have participated in many private and government organised exhibitions. I am a friendly person and am well accepted by people around me. I like to travel and meet people of different culture and know about them and their socio-economic life. I am an executive member of an NGO and have been involved in skill development of women in the rural areas of West Bengal and marketing their products. This marketing skill has given me to a lot of exposure in the marketing world. My objective is to keep myself occupied and make the most of skills and enjoy do so.
Skills: French, back office, sales, translation
Known languages (and levels): English-Very Good, French-Good, German-A little, Hindi-Good, Other: A little Tamil
Minimum Yearly Salary in Numbers: 350000 USD
Current Location: India, Kolkota (Calcutta)
Education History, Qualifications & other additional information: Level of Education: Unspecified
I have graduated from Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, Pondicherry. Completed successfully a 12 weeks computer course from Womens Proffessional Training Institute, Kolkata. I have studied DL from Alliance Francaise, but could give the final exam as I couldnt stay back till the date of the exam. I speak English, French, Hindi, Bengali and a little Tamil.
Work History & Experience: Years of Work Experience: More than 15 Years
I have been appointed as secretary to the Dy. French trade Commissioner in Kolkata from '86 to '89. My responsibilities were correspondence, telex operations, file maintenance and day to day office duties. From '89 to '91I joined CESC Ltd. as Lady Asst. My responsibility was, correspondence, prepairing training material and engineering drawing. From '92 to ' 2001 I was in Pondicherry, teaching french to the students and also adults. I joined an NGO in 2001, was responsible for the skill and design development and held the post of an executive member. For the last 11 months I am working with a new firm "Study and Jobs Worlwide as a Sr. Manager. My responsibilities here is to look after the sales on the whole and corespondence. Contact Information

Worship of an image or a photo, chanting of a name, pilgrimage, reading of scriptures

Re: Sri Aurobindo and the Future of Humanity: Integral Yoga--a Religion?
by RY Deshpande on Thu 28 Aug 2008 04:27 AM PDT Profile Permanent Link

To become more vast, more complete, more powerful than the trivial life of a thousand painful limitations and imperfections and sorrows in which we live now—that’s the authentic Religion. Cherish a lofty aim and pursue it—that’s what great Thought or Religion or Mysticism or Idealism or creative Art plead in their truemost sense.

• If a creed, a dogma, a rite, an observation of the vow, weekly fast, worship of an image or a photo, chanting of a name, pilgrimage, reading of scriptures, offering a flower or waiving a lamp or lighting an incense stick or perambulation is going to help me grow in vastness then what’s wrong in that practice?
• Or else I take a painter’s brush or write poetry to discover myself—and is that not my legitimate religion which demands following its discipline and rigour?

None can stop me, none need stop me from that “religion” of mine. Call it commitment to one’s ideal or devotion to it, my criterion is my progress through it, my inner and spiritual progress and not my professional success.

Re: Sri Aurobindo and the Future of Humanity: Integral Yoga--a Religion?
by RY Deshpande on Thu 28 Aug 2008 05:29 PM PDT Profile Permanent Link

There are codifications, there are commandments, there are laws, there are ancestral and cultural traditions, there are communal systems and rituals and scriptures, and there are even legal entities. Often bureaucratic structures and hierarchies also get formed.

• But what is religion?
• What is its function, its role in life or is it more concerned with after-life?

There are dharma-shastras, moralistic prescriptions, procedures for the conduct of life at every stage, from birth to death, with matters concerned with earth and heaven, with sin and virtue, good and evil, and the punishments and the rewards. There are social divisions and there are sub-groupings and strict assignments and job responsibilities for each. There are a variety of officials also supervising the organizational functionings. If we go by such formalized considerations, then we are actually dealing with the institutionalisation of a society and the conduct of the collective life, which is quite another matter than a free individual’s quest for God-Light-Freedom-Immortality. It is of course necessary that these be not mixed up in our discussion.

Discovering, feeling and realizing the presence of divine Mother which is always there with us

At 8:28am on August 23rd, 2008, Unknown M said…

You are specially invited to the yahoo group on THE MOTHER & SRI AUROBINDO. This group aims at learning, spreading and interpreting teachings of our masters in a dynamic and a lucid way. This groups aims at discovering, feeling and realizing the presence of divine mother which is always there with us but we are unable to feel it as we are too much involved in materialistic pleasures of this world. We are unable to feel her because curtain of vital desires and greed surrounds it. When she is always there with us why must not we unite our being and work towards her realization in this material body.

C’mon be a part of us and join this group if you also believe in the same for them; join us if you believe that they have just left their material envelope but their inner consciousness is always there with us and they will answer us if we are ready to hear them.Please click the below mentioned URL to view this group:- http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/themother/

LOOKING FOREWARDS TOWARDS YOUR ACTIV PARTICIPATION FOR THE WORK OF THE MOTHER & SRI AUROBINDO :-Unknown M

Sri Aurobindo endorsed the secular tradition as the best course for contemporary polity

Re: Sri Aurobindo and the Future of Humanity--About Avatarhood
by Rich on Sun 24 Aug 2008 10:13 AM PDT Profile Permanent Link

Deshpande, I want to thank you for providing support to demonstrate my thesis that in her patronizing insertion of religion into what was overtly declared to be a yoga which renounced religion, that Mother helped create the religion of integral yoga. In the entire train of these post I have not seen one word about the inner avatar or the inner guru but rather only a stream of incessant monologue about the outer avatar whose relationship to us is one of lessor beings venerating a distant Godhead.

Of course at the end of the day, like any other religion that asserts their gurus or founders to be divinity, there is not a shred of evidence you can offer to support your arguments that they were Gods. The best you can do is to supply texts which can only refer to themselves in endless tautology.

Like the poor deluded population in Auroville who at the time of her death where wholly perplexed as to what to do next, because they thought she would live forever, what remains are only dysfunctional Institutions which attempt to fan the flames of a sacred candle whose sacrificial smoke has already vanished in the heavens.

You are correct in your assertion that claims to Divinity can not be supported by a biographer or historian. Rather, these claims are best made by the pendantic Acolyte who scours every text from their papal source to locate those sections which reinforce their beliefs that they are indeed the “chosen ones” who are following the “true -evolutionary- path”. Unfortunately a closer inspection of this path, reveals it to be one not heading toward a new future, but rather one bound to the endless repetitions of the past.

Although I find my inspiration in the texts of Sri Aurobindo and have derived inexplicable revelations from them, I do so in honoring the secular tradition I have grown up in - and which Sri Aurobindo endorsed as the best course for contemporary polity - Thomas Paine one of the American founding fathers declared ones religious experience to be a revelation but the communication of that experience to others as mere “hearsay”.

As with all claims of folks who assert that their's is the true path and only their gurus are divine, all that has been conveyed here as Avataric revelation is at the end of the day merely gossiping about the Divine; and of course the most appropriate thing to do when one encounters gossip is to simply say no more. rc

Re: Sri Aurobindo and the Future of Humanity: Integral Yoga--a Religion?
by RY Deshpande on Sun 24 Aug 2008 10:24 AM PDT Profile Permanent Link

• Has Sri Aurobindo’s Integral Yoga become a Religion?

Perhaps this question is quite irrelevant for the spiritual practitioner and one could simply set it aside. However, this is exactly what some of the rationalist toilers and thinkers would tend to believe, believe rather than argue about it, that today’s Integral Yoga is just a religion. They consider that the regular Hindu rites and rituals have crept into it, that these have become an integral part of the Integral Yoga. They go even a step farther and maintain that these were allowed to become so by Sri Aurobindo himself!

Perhaps all that began with the Mother when she put the Master on a distant high and lonely pedestal. Prior to this, Sri Aurobindo’s early associates were not disciples but his colleagues and comrades who had come here along with him. In fact one of the group photos of the time (1914) has them all together, two seated in chairs on both side of him and three standing behind. The Mother made him the Guru and desired them to respect him so. In her very first meeting with him, on 29 March 1914, she prostrated full length at his feet and just sat in front him on a low stool.

The essential mistake was to have considered Sri Aurobindo’s teaching as one among the spiritual teachings

Re: Sri Aurobindo and the Future of Humanity--About Avatarhood
by RY Deshpande on Sat 23 Aug 2008 05:05 PM PDT Profile Permanent Link

Words of the Mother Sri Aurobindo wouldn’t declare himself to be an Avatar, the way Sri Krishna did on the battlefield of the Mahabharata. It was the Mother who did that, not once but in several contexts on several occasions. She revealed to us his divine birth, divyam janma, and the divine work, divyam karma he had come to do. But then he did tell us about the Mother, who she was, the embodied Consciousness-Force, the Supreme’s manifesting Power, daivi śakti who had taken the mortal birth here, who had condescended to pass through the portals of the birth that is a death. If one is true then, the second has also to be accepted. Here are some of the disclosures made by the Mother about Sri Aurobindo

What Sri Aurobindo represents in the world’s history is not a teaching, not even a revelation; it is a decisive action direct from the Supreme. 14 February 1961 *

(Message for broadcast by All India Radio, Tiruchirappalli)

What Sri Aurobindo represents in the history of the earth’s spiritual progress is not a teaching, not even a revelation; it is a mighty action straight from the Supreme. 15 August 1964 *

(Message for the issuance of a Sri Aurobindo commemorative stamp)

He has come to bid the earth to prepare for its luminous future. 15 August 1964 *

Sri Aurobindo has brought to the world the assurance of a divine future. *

Sri Aurobindo has come on earth not to bring a teaching or a creed in competition with previous creeds or teachings, but to show the way to overpass the past and to open concretely the route towards an imminent and inevitable future. 22 February 1967 *

Sri Aurobindo does not belong to the past nor to history. Sri Aurobindo is the Future advancing towards its realisation. 2 April 1967 *

Lord, we are upon earth to accomplish Thy work of transformation. 1 January 1951 *

You spoke of Sri Aurobindo’s birth as “eternal” in the history of the universe. What exactly was meant by “eternal”?

The sentence can be understood in four different ways on four ascending planes of consciousness:
1. Physically, the consequence of the birth will be of eternal importance to the world. 2. Mentally, it is a birth that will be eternally remembered in the universal history. 3. Psychically, a birth that recurs for ever from age to age upon earth. 4. Spiritually, the birth of the Eternal upon earth.1957 *

Since the beginning of earth history, Sri Aurobindo has always presided over the great earthly transformations, under one form or another, one name or another. *

It is said that Sri Aurobindo in a past life took an active part in the French Revolution. Is it true?

You can say that all through history Sri Aurobindo played an active part. Especially in the most important movements of history he was there—and playing the most important, the leading part. But he was not always visible. 23 January 1960 *

(Message for broadcast by All India Radio, Pondicherry)

Today is the first day of Sri Aurobindo’s centenary year. Though he has left his body he is still with us, alive and active. Sri Aurobindo belongs to the future; he is the messenger of the future. He still shows us the way to follow in order to hasten the realisation of a glorious future fashioned by the Divine Will. All those who want to collaborate for the progress of humanity and for India’s luminous destiny must unite in a clairvoyant aspiration and in an illumined work. 15 August 1971*

Sri Aurobindo came to tell the world of the beauty of the future that must be realised. He came to give not a hope but a certitude of the splendour towards which the world moves. The world is not an unfortunate accident, it is a marvel which moves towards its expression. The world needs the certitude of the beauty of the future. And Sri Aurobindo has given that assurance. 27 November 1971 *

Sri Aurobindo came upon earth to announce the manifestation of the supramental world and not merely did he announce this manifestation but embodied also in part the supramental force and showed by example what one must do to prepare oneself for manifesting it. The best thing we can do is to study all that he has told us and endeavour to follow his example and prepare ourselves for the new manifestation. This gives life its real sense and will help us to overcome all obstacles. Let us live for the new creation and we shall grow stronger and stronger by remaining young and progressive. 30 January 1972 *

Sri Aurobindo is an emanation of the Supreme who came on earth to announce the manifestation of a new race and a new world: the Supramental. Let us prepare for it in all sincerity and eagerness. 20 June 1972 *

Sri Aurobindo came on earth from the Supreme to announce the manifestation of a new race and the new world, the Supramental. Let us prepare for it in all sincerity and eagerness. 15 August 1972 *

Sri Aurobindo came to announce the creation of tomorrow: the coming of the supramental being. 15 August 1972 *

Sri Aurobindo’s work is a unique earth-transformation. *

Sri Aurobindo incarnated in a human body the supramental consciousness and has not only revealed to us the nature of the path to follow and the method of following it so as to arrive at the goal, but has also by his own personal realisation given us the example; he has provided us with the proof that the thing can be done and the time is now to do it. *

In the eternity of becoming, each Avatar is only the announcer, the forerunner of a more perfect realisation. And yet men have always the tendency to deify the Avatar of the past in opposition to the Avatar of the future. Now again Sri Aurobindo has come announcing to the world the realisation of tomorrow; and again his message meets with the same opposition as of all those who preceded him. But tomorrow will prove the truth of what he revealed and his work will be done. 21 February 1957 *

The essential mistake was to have considered Sri Aurobindo’s teaching as one among the spiritual teachings—and the work done here now as one among the many aspects of the Divine works. This has falsified your basic position and has been the cause of all the difficulties and confusions. If this mistake is corrected in your mind and in your attitude all other difficulties will disappear easily. You must understand that what Sri Aurobindo represents in the world’s history, is not a teaching, not even a revelation; it is a decisive action direct from the Supreme. And I am just trying to fulfil that action. 1961 *

What is the Divine? The Divine is what you adore in Sri Aurobindo. 28 March 1932

A way, a rule and law of self-moulding by which he can grow towards divinity. It is too a collective business

Re: Sri Aurobindo and the Future of Humanity--About Avatarhood
by RY Deshpande on Sat 23 Aug 2008 04:25 AM PDT Profile Permanent Link

We have already seen that as per the Gita there are two aspects of the purpose and process of Avatarhood: divine works, divyam karma, and divine birth, divyam janma. Of the divine birth itself, there are two further objects:

“…one is a descent, the birth of God in humanity, the Godhead manifesting itself in the human form and nature, the eternal Avatar; the other is an ascent, the birth of man into the Godhead, man rising into the divine nature and consciousness; it is the being born anew in a second birth of the soul. It is that new birth which Avatarhood and the upholding of the Dharma are intended to serve.”

The Avatar comes as the manifestation of the divine nature in the human nature in order that the human nature may by moulding its principle, thought, feeling, action, being transfigure itself into the divine. The law, the Dharma, the conduct of living in the truth-movement, of growing in it, in the ŗtam, the Dharma which the Avatar establishes is given for that purpose chiefly. His concern is further to build up the next stage of manifestive evolution in the widening possibilities of the great spirit, in its delight and awareness and truth-dynamism and knowledge and power and harmony and beauty and perfection. A stage must come when even the physical must open itself to these greatnesses and grandeurs of this marvellous creation.

This double aspect is the whole meaning of the Gita’s doctrine of Avatarhood. “Otherwise the Avatar idea would be only a dogma, a popular superstition, or an imaginative or mystic deification of historical or legendary supermen, not what the Gita makes all its teaching,” explains Sri Aurobindo, “a deep philosophical and religious truth and an essential part of or step to the supreme mystery of all, rahasyam uttamam.”

The idea of Avatarhood did not exist at least in its explicit sense prior to the arrival of the Avatar of the Gita. What was the necessity of him speaking about it, propounding the mystery of the divine birth in this humanity? Because things had matured up at this stage for making the revelation in order to further the possibilities of the mental being into the overmental realizations. Something absolutely remarkable had happened in the cosmic dimensions which could become the foundation for the next evolutionary structure to come up, from which could be taken the next evolutionary leap.

And the raison d’être of Avatarhood according to the Gita? “Many are my lives that are past, and thine also, O Arjuna; all of them I know, but thou knowest not, O scourge of the foe. Though I am the unborn, though I am imperishable in my self-existence, though I am the Lord of all existences, yet I stand upon my own Nature and I come into birth by my self-Maya. For whensoever there is the fading of the Dharma and the uprising of unrighteousness, then I loose myself forth into birth. For the deliverance of the good, for the destruction of the evil-doers, for the enthroning of the Right I am born from age to age. He who knoweth thus in its right principles my divine birth and my divine work, when he abandons his body, comes not to rebirth, he comes to Me, O Arjuna.”

Sri Aurobindo explains it as follows: When the eternal divine Consciousness takes possession of the human consciousness, then we have the manifest Avatar. But it is to assist that ascent or evolution the descent is made or accepted. It is to give a spiritual mould of divine manhood into which the seeking soul of the human being can cast itself. It is to give a dharma, a religion,—not a mere creed, but a method of inner and outer living,—a way, a rule and law of self-moulding by which he can grow towards divinity. It is too a collective business, a work and the work for the race, to assist the human march, to hold it together in its great crises, to break the forces of the downward gravitation when they grow too insistent, to uphold or restore the great dharma of the Godward law in man's nature, to prepare even, however far off, the kingdom of God, the victory of the seekers of light and perfection and the overthrow of those who fight for the continuance of the evil and the darkness. All these are recognised objects of the descent of the Avatar, and it is usually by his work that the mass of men seek to distinguish him and for that that they are ready to worship him. It is only the spiritual who see that this external Avatarhood is a sign, in the symbol of a human life, of the eternal inner Godhead making himself manifest in the field of their own human mentality and corporeality so that they can grow into unity with that and be possessed by it. Perhaps we can have that spiritual discernment when we talk about the Avatar.

But the upholding of Dharma in the world is not the only object of the descent of the Avatar, that great mystery of the Divine manifest in humanity. It is the new birth which Avatarhood and the upholding of the Dharma are intended to serve. Dharma for what? to hold the new birth in the gracious and felicitous advent of the Avatar. It is an advent to usher in a nobler and superior truth in this progressive life of ours. ~ RYD Reply

It would be best to treat his life as a purely religious matter

Reply Re: Sri Aurobindo and the Future of Humanity--Adesh and History
by Rich on Tue 19 Aug 2008 05:01 PM PDT Profile Permanent Link

RYD writes: "Sri Aurobindo was now working in the data and parameters of this world and that’s the only practical aspect behind the epoch-making command, the divine ādeśa; the rest is connected with his work as the incarnate Divine."

If you are going to consider Sri Aurobindo "the divine incarnate" as is expressed in this account then it would be best to treat his life as a purely religious matter because the history of the Divine is more properly called Religion. It would also be best -and certainly less frustrating for the faithful - just to ignore history because for such supernatural tales mythology will suffice.

Hiranya Kumar Mohanty passes away

Technocrat passes away Sunday August 17 2008 12:09 IST Express News Service BHUBANESWAR:

Noted technocrat Hiranya Kumar Mohanty passed away here on Saturday at age 88. An ailing Mohanty was admitted to Kalinga Hospital here. He is survived by two sons and a daughter.

Born in Sareikala, Mohanty headed for England after graduating in engineering from Benaras Hindu University. He worked with Hirakud Dam project before joining Steel Authority of India Ltd.His assignments included Technical Advisor to the Rourkela Steel Plant, Mecon and UNIDO. He was honoured by the Association of Engineers for his contribution to the field of engineering.

After retirement, he shifted to Pondicherry. He was also associated with Gandhi Peace Foundation and Sri Aurobindo Society. He was cremated at Satya Nagar cremation ground here.

Do not fool yourself that you are not undertaking a religious practice

Re: Sri Aurobindo and the Future of Humanity
by Rich on Fri 15 Aug 2008 12:51 PM PDT Profile Permanent Link

Well are you saying that leadership is not responsible for the practices of the Organization? Especially the organization it founded? If so this goes against everything one learns in graduate level courses in Organizational Psychology. Generally any responsible leadership acknowledges that as president Harry Truman says "the buck stops here".

The problem of religion and sectarianism in the Ashram is famous. Let me quote an from a New York Times article of a book review of a book from Gregor von Rezzori

After Bucharest comes a visit to Pondicherry, India, where he is enraged by the mindless devotion he witnesses to the deceased guru Sri Aurobindo and the "cult of personality" surrounding "the Mother," Aurobindo's companion and the co-founder of the ashram there. Given that he spends only three days in Pondicherry, his 50-page rant against spiritual enslavement does go on a bit too long, for even the author recognizes that "in Pondicherry I lost my ability to laugh."

Rakesh you write: Sri Aurobindo mentions that the Integral yoga takes the essense of Vaishnavism<

Well Vaishnavism is a religion! You cant have it both ways, either you declare yourself not a religion and eschew religious practice or you do not make the claim that you renounce religion and you continue traditional religious practice. Either one is just fine, but you cant have it both ways!

So if you advocate devotional practices that involves worship of idols or gurus thats perfectly ok, but just do not fool yourself that your not undertaking a religious practice.

I have no problem myself with devotional practice, I actually am drawn to it. However, lets be clear about it that this is also religious practice. aka belief in a personal godhead, deity or guru, the forms all religions take. (btw one does not necessarily transfer ones devotion on to a guru or idol, one can be devoted to a child, a family, a community)

But lets just be honest about it, IY in the form given to it by Mother and Sri Aurobindo, with its sectarian and devotional religious practices is a religion! Moreover, the fact that folks in the yoga also believe in the infallibility of Sri Aurobindo and Mother, choose to elevate them as Avatars, who could never make a mistake -in this instance an error in leading their organization - just seals the case for religion. rc

Reply Re: Sri Aurobindo and the Future of Humanity
by Rich on Fri 15 Aug 2008 09:07 PM PDT Profile Permanent Link

Regardless if I have traced an exact genealogy -because genealogies are complex- between religious practice instituted in the Ashram and the political ideology of some of IY's contemporary followers and institutions, the fact of Religion, in a form that Sri Aurobindo would perhaps call False Subjectivism, has infiltrated the collective consciousness of IY can not be refuted.

Additionally, the fact that political ideologies have appropriated Sri Aurobindo to support their agendas an both left and right can also be demonstrated,

Rakesh,

If one does not find cause for pause and reflection on the status of Integral Yoga in 2008, a Yoga that while Sri Aurobindo's lived claimed not to be a religion, yet has become wholly infiltrated by religion; a Yoga which claimed not to be political, yet has been appropriated by politicians, then this whole conversation is unimportant

But if one wishes to go on after the initial deconstruction and attempt to recompose the relationship of IY to individual to collective to Spirit, and revision the relationship of IY to the Future, which does not become an eternal return of good ol' religion then one must decide how in depth one wishes to go.

To do it as we perceive our relationship to IY as individuals requires a different level of commitment than to also address it, where you say its problems lie , on an organizational level

But if one is to address this at an organizational level, one must first take care to locate the structural problems which reinforce the dogmatic practices of the past and those generative epistemological fields from which the gradients of muddled thinking originate

The reason religious practices began in the ashram are cross culturally and epochally and complex. These practices are certainly not congruent with the Enlightenment inspired values of renouncing religion that Sri Aurobindo and Mother also championed. So what are we to do?

Since this point is being misunderstood, I reiterate I am not questioning the validity and even necessity of devotion as a religious practice. The question is the culpablity of continuing religious practice yet making claims of no religion, and its affinities to fundamentalist thinking in certain populations.

Sri Aurobindo and Mother were dealing with complex realities not the least of which is that at a certain point organizations take on their own life. While they were able to work with the internal contradictions of the many people from different cultures and different levels of emotional and intellectual maturity who sought their guidance; people have their own motives for seeking guidance. If those motives were self-serving, the harmony that was bestowed on them, in the absence of their guidance could certainly untangle in the discord of contradictions.

But often it may not simply be out of selfish intent that contradiction emerges but rather out of ignorance, and here the law of unintended consequences comes into play.

The unintended consequences of working on different levels of consciousness, in doing excavations both on surface layers and the cavernous depths, in trying to harmonize individual needs and collective norms

Because if one believes that in a universe in which consciousness is delineated by various graduations, that on some planes of consciousness, expressions of devotion through the articulation of feelings (bhakti) are entirely proper, yet also believes in eschewing religious dogma one must take special care that some followers will not become attached to the forms of worship and inevitably confuse levels of consciousness, as well as secular and sacred, subcultural and cultural, theocratic and democratic values. While they could perhaps manage to convey this in individual communication, when these communications are broadcast to the group, to the world, then those forces unleashed and subject to the will of history can eventually morph into forms quite unlike those which were intended . The structural problems of the organization can I believe be traced here,

One does not deal with this however, by laying out blame but rather in trying to trace back sources and deconstruct deficient mental models.

Once this is done one can begin the work of reconstructing a shared vision which learns from the past and renews the teachings in the present in a form pliable enough to adapt to the complexities of the promised future rc

The other way round

Re: Sri Aurobindo and the Future of Humanity
by RY Deshpande on Mon 11 Aug 2008 05:20 AM PDT Profile Permanent Link

In the context of the “visible-invisible”, I could possibly just add the following two among many similar statements of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo:

• I think it was to Dilip Roy that Sri Aurobindo had written that he could continue to write the Arya (1914-21) not for seven but for seventy years and yet his knowledge wouldn’t get exhausted. The plumbless oceanic “invisible” ’s poised “visible” itself therefore has become a small fraction of our “visible”. And then who can really understand this overt “visible”? For instance, the Secret of Savitri, the supreme revelation of Sri Aurobindo as the Mother says, remains inaccessible to us because of our severe limitations.

• Apropos of the work of physical transformation the Mother spoke of how much Sri Aurobindo had done after his passing away. This is a sealed “invisible” to us and perchance could be accessed if only we grow occult-yogically. Let me quote the Mother: “How much he has worked since he left! Oh!... all the while, all the while. It seems... it seems to be a miracle in the body. The disappearance of this formation seems truly miraculous.” (Notes on the Way, 14 March 1970, CWM, Vol. 11) And here is another profound statement from the Mother: “The question is to know whether [the body] will be able to follow.... In order to follow, not only must it endure but acquire a new form, a new life. That, I do not know. In any case, it does not matter—the consciousness is clear and the consciousness is not subject to [it]. If that can be made use of, so much the better, otherwise... There are things still to be found. Yes, things to be found!... What is to be found is the plasticity of Matter, so that Matter is able to progress always. There you are. How long will it take? I do not know. How much experience is needed? I do not know. But now the way is clear. The way is clear.” (Ibid., 30 October 1971)

Which simply means that, while we might go only by the “visible”, perhaps by the Centenary Volumes and the Agenda plus the Collected Works, the dimensions of the “invisible” have to be seen by the faculty of the intuition and yet higher senses of cognition. Until then our opining and comparisons based on the “visible” made available to us would remain crude happy pastimes.

More important than access to the “invisible” is first our capacity to make an authentic spiritual progress for which all the help and guidance is available from the Mother and the Master. If it is going to be called an act of faith, let it be so. At the same time, there is absolutely no question of the ‘faith”-ful enforcing it on others, as there cannot be the fundamentalist’s imposition in matters of spiritual quest and progress. Nor of this guru versus that guru, not of this yoga versus that yoga, and so on. Each individual has to make the discovery for himself, and so too each collectivity. In any case, it is too far away from us to understand what the “direct action from the Supreme” means, action in the context of the stubborn Mind of Night standing across the path of the divine Event. Freedom—that’s the true spirit, and the more we live in it the more we grow. ~ RYD Reply

Re: Sri Aurobindo and the Future of Humanity
by RY Deshpande on Mon 11 Aug 2008 05:35 PM PDT Profile Permanent Link

There’s absolutely no question of doubting the importance of Sri Aurobindo’s writings and the Mother’s talks—far from it. It was not for nothing that Sri Aurobindo used to write day after day, rather night after whole night, for eight years, those thousands of letters. It was not for nothing that he encouraged the aspiring poets to use poetry as a means for the expression of the spirit, to open the doors of creativity to the higher possibilities which must step into this world of ours. These were a part of his yogic action for establishing something which had got to be done in this material creation. But these immediate identifiables, the “visibles” are just an aspect of a much larger, more luminous occult-spiritual operation.

Therefore when the rationalist goes only by them, even dismissing at times what is beyond them, then he is doing injustice to the Yogi in several ways. Sri Aurobindo’s writings, Sri Krishna’s Gita on the battlefield, the Mother’s running the Dining Room are the “visibles” for us and we tend to go by them alone. Surely, Sri Krishna didn’t come just for haranguing the besieged Arjuna and making him pick up the weapon of destruction!

Surely the Mother didn’t consent to pass through the portals of the birth that is a death for the sake of the Dining Room!

Much vaster actions are involved and they are concerned with the very difficult problems of this inconscient creation itself. The process and purpose of Avatarhood is for opening the doors of evolution to the next step and for doing that they take the entire burden upon themselves. At one time the Mother was unhappy that some of the Master’s literary disciples were cutting into his time with the literary issues, that they did not understand with what greater things he was busy. “My life is not on the surface for men to see”—this is what Sri Aurobindo himself had declared.

Therefore it will rather be disparaging to speak about him in a desultory way. Yet we have to move on, we have to find our true, our authentic potential—and grow. That’s what finally matters—and for that all the help is there. ~ RYD Reply

Re: Sri Aurobindo and the Future of Humanity
by RY Deshpande on Wed 13 Aug 2008 05:16 PM PDT Profile Permanent Link

With a great deal of research done over a long period of time and marshalling the collected historical documents connected with the life of Sri Aurobindo, we are presented his ‘factually dependable and correct’ biography by Peter Heehs, check at biography, author of The Lives of Sri Aurobindo ...

Our author writes about Sri Aurobindo that “his life as a yogi and spiritual leader is more difficult to quantify, but it certainly will not be forgotten soon.” Perhaps it will be the other way round. ~ RYD Reply