Collated by Tusar Nath Mohapatra
Spent the last weekend at Puducherry for the @PondyLitFest and was quite mesmerised by its spiritual depth and scenic beauty.
Pondicherry’s relationship with Sri Aurobindo is not merely a story of a man who came here in 1910. It is the story of how a place can become a meeting point between history, culture, thought and consciousness.
For forty years, Pondicherry became the ground from which Sri Aurobindo explored what it meant to be Indian - not simply as an identity, but as a civilisational idea. Here, his political nationalism gradually opened into a larger vision: the evolution of human consciousness, the synthesis of the spiritual and the material, and the possibility of India contributing something distinctive to the future of humanity.
The Ashram that emerged around that work transformed Pondicherry in ways that reach far beyond its physical streets. Education, literature, art, music, theatre, physical culture, publishing and spiritual practice became woven into its social fabric. Today, the Ashram remains a living cultural institution, while Auroville -founded by The Mother in 1968 from the vision associated with Sri Aurobindo -extends that experiment into an international community.
And perhaps that is Pondicherry’s deeper gift to Bharat.
A small coastal town, shaped by Tamil, French and Indian histories, became a place where India could look inward without turning away from the world.
Sri Aurobindo’s Pondicherry reminds us that Bharat is not merely a geography. It is an idea still becoming rooted in its civilisational past, yet continually asking what it can become next.
https://x.com/tuhins/status/2106240516405002699
The Literary Genius of the Upanishads: Isha 1
The first word Isha is usually taken to mean one who is the Lord, the Master. Isha is also taken as one who cuts through the Maya or controls and rules it. Isha resides in the Maya or reclines in it.
When we try to understand with the help of later Matrika Vidya, we see that the ई varna implies the desire or first movement of the Pure Consciousness or Shiva. We come to the same insight from Matrika Vidya that Isha is the primeval Lord of the Universe
Sankara’s commentary on the Isha Upanishad may be a little difficult to understand. Swami Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo had a simple and direct approach to the Isha which is easier to grasp
https://x.com/AmazingVedas/status/2105883117978353720
The Literary Genius of the Upanishads: Isha 1
The root vasa- has three different meanings according to Sri Aurobindo: to cover, to wear or to inhabit
Sankara takes ‘to cover’ as the meaning which leads him to all sorts of difficulties since, eventually, he wants to uncover Isha
Sri Aurobindo interprets vasyam as part of the Unanishadic realization that the Isha resides in everything
We can see that the Upanishads are complex works requiring attention from the students regarding the various meanings of each shloka
https://x.com/AmazingVedas/status/2106242619533656147
Let joy arise from inner connection, not outer gratification. @PariksithSingh explores Gita 2.60 and Krishna’s teaching on mastering the senses and remaining centered amid life’s distractions. Watch youtu.be/lU5E10n9Zxs?si… @MakrandParanspe @AmazingVedas
https://x.com/sriaurobindochr/status/2106369677828243824
He made Sri Aurobindo & the Mother accessible to so many during our initial forays into their deep & dense but always beautiful & enigmatically magnetic words. I believe he was from a Muslim background. A great contribution to their Divine work!
https://x.com/viryavaan/status/2106262479160688777
Sanjeeb Mukherjee argues that justice must take precedence over both sustainable development and formal democracy. He treats sustainable development as a limited correction to the deprivations, inequalities, and ecological damage of industrial civilisation, and holds that neither liberalism nor socialism in practice has produced a just order.
routledge.com/Justice-and-Su…
https://x.com/ASR_Metta/status/2106270699119612342
Gandhigiri vs. Gandhian thought. Gandhi’s relevance, failures, biggest mistake, celibacy, assassination & enduring legacy—an insightful conversation with @MakrandParanspe, author of book 'महात्मा गांधी: मृत्यु और पुनरुत्थान' youtu.be/vhJmNtI8p50?si… @PariksithSingh @AmazingVedas
https://x.com/sriaurobindochr/status/2106129847017943071
We assume prison punishes only freedom of movement, but Federica Coppola argues that's a misidentification. The Associate Professor of Criminal Law at IE University Law School makes the case that imprisonment functions as a kind of manufactured exile, severing not just physical freedom but the self's capacity to exist in relation to others.
Coppola pushes back against the Kantian idea that personhood is a self-contained bundle of autonomy. The deepest harm of incarceration, she argues, is the loss of belonging. Tap here to read her full article. iai.tv/articles/the-s…
https://x.com/IAI_TV/status/2106096945135526107
Reason was supposedly an Enlightenment gift that freed us from blind adherence to tradition. But many now contend this is a comforting myth. | bit.ly/43haeSA Dan Sperber, Steve Fuller, and Miriam Schoenfield debate whether we should pursue reason or abandon it.
https://x.com/IAI_TV/status/2106043784865718534
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The Authoritarian Age: Democracy in America and the Global Strongman Ascendancy. Counting the Costs for Democracy, Institutions, and Society
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Colonial and Indian Making
engagement with the colonial construction of Hinduism has limited the scope of
dharma in Indian nationalist and political discourse. It argues that the modern Indian …
[PDF] Chapter Ghosh and the Bikaner Survey
in the first two and a half decades after Indian independence. It looks at the shifts in
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