Vivekananda uses the word involution exactly how it appears in Theosophy

Readings in Sri Aurobindo's the Life Divine: Covering Book Two, ... - Page 290 - Santosh Krinsky - 2012 - Preview - More editions Sri Aurobindo uses the example of electricity in the form of lightning to illustrate this point. ... and factor. evolution is an inverse action of the involution: what is an ultimate and last derivation in the involution is the first to appear in the evolution; ...

Evolutionary, Spiritual Conceptions of Life - Sri Aurobindo, ... - Page 35 - Michael Leicht - 2008 - Preview According to Aurobindo the Super-Mind plays a vital role in linking the physical with the spiritual (transmitted by the overmind). Aurobindo in dealing with the ascent of matter and the descent of god (as evolution and involution) dwells upon...

The Essential Aurobindo - Preview For Aurobindo, a proper understanding of evolution—i.e., that space and time, the universe, is possible because of a prior involution (involvement) of Spirit—is the foundation stone of his entire teaching. He also emphasizes, however, ...

The Integral Advaitism of Sri Aurobindo - Page 285 Rāmacandra Miśra - 1998 - Preview Mind is the manifestation or the result of the self-concentration or the self-modification of the ... There are, according to Sri Aurobindo, four ways in which man becomes aware of his own existence as well as that of the ...

Neoplatonism and Indian Thought - Page 265 - R. Baine Harris - 1982 - Preview - More editions Thus what Plotinus calls emanation has some resemblance with Sri Aurobindo's concept of involution. But emanation is directly involved in creation, while involution is a pre-condition of evolution which is involved in creation. Both Plotinus and ...

Penguin Sri Aurobindo Reader - Page 260 - Paranjape, Makarand - Preview - More editions ... story of each evolutionary emergence: the principle of its highest perfection lies concealed in the involution which precedes and ... Each gradation contains the possibility and the certainty of

The philosophy of Sri Aurobindo: his idea of evolution - Page 21 - Joseph Veliyathil - 1972 - has the involution resulted in this universe and not in another one? Is there any element determining the process of involution? Aurobindo was quite aware of these possible questions. He says that the delight in the Absolute is the answer to...

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother: Glimpses of Their Experiments, ... - Page 265 - Kireet Joshi - 1989 - Preview - More editions For behind our conscious physical, vital and mental operations there is, according to Sri Aurobindo, a deeper and ... of communication with the worlds of being which the descent towards involution created in its passage and

Sri Aurobindo: A Contemporary Reader Sachidananda Mohanty - 2012 - Preview - More editions Sri Aurobindo expounds his philosophy of Creative Evolution in a number of texts, primarily in his magnum opus—The Life Divine. He suggests that Evolution as a concept cannot be understood without the parallel theory of Involution.

The philosophy of evolution in Sri Aurobindo and Teilhard de Chardin - Page 108 Jan Feys - 1973 - We can now dispel the ambiguity: the fundamental law of evolution is summed up in one word, both by Aurobindo and Teilhard: 'involution'. But with totally different meanings. What Aurobindo means by involution is that the Absolute, before ...

Understanding Medical Physiology - Page 876 - Bijlani - 2004 - Preview - More editions Swami Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo have made powerful pleas in the recent past for correcting this ... The Supreme Consciousness underwent an enormous involution when it manifested as inconscient matter. In the course of time, matter...

Handbook of Religion and the Authority of Science - Page 335 Jim R. Lewis, Olav Hammer - 2010 - Preview This brings us to the second assumption that underlies Vivekananda's evolutionism, namely, involution. Vivekananda uses the word involution exactly how it appears in Theosophy: the descent, or the involvement, of divine consciousness into ...

Encyclopaedia of Literature in English - Page 1146 - M K Bhatnagar - 2001 - Preview - More editions From the assumption that every evolution presupposes involution, Vivekananda suggested that the Cosmic Intelligence or the Lord of Creation, involves itself in the process of evolution, manifests and evolves itself until it becomes a perfect ...

Selected Doctrines from Indian Philosophy - Page 48 - V. Ramakrishna Rao, Vet Ury Ramakrishna Rao - 1987 - Preview The Panchakosa represent the involution of Brahman while Alexander's scheme represents the evolution of space, time and matter. Swami Vivekananda says : "Every evolution is preceeded by an involution... The whole series of evolution ...

Sri Aurobindo and the theories of evolution: a critical and ... - Page 71 Rama Shanker Srivastava - 1968 - Involution is a process of creation of the cosmos and evolution is its successive 1. The Life Divine. Book.II, Pt. II. pp. 628-29. Reprinted 1949, New York, The Sri Aurobindo Library Inc. 2. Ibid pp. 734-35. process of Divinisation. Here it is important ...

The Spectrum Of Consciousness - Page xix - Ken Wilber - 2002 - Preview - More editions In subsequent writings, I reverted to the other usage, following Aurobindo: involution is the move away from Spirit, getting lost and involved in maya, and evolution is the growth back to Spirit as Spirit, whereupon it is seen that all of maya is ...

A critical study of Aurobindo: with special reference to his ... - Page 94 - Laxman Ganpatrao Chincholkar - 1966 - That which evolves must be implicitly involved. Thus observed, involution and evolution constitute two terms of material existence. 2 The order of the ... 73. are, as Aurobindo remarks, the double terms of our existence. 2. L. D. pp. 811, 812. 3.

Columbia companion to 20th-century philosophies - Page 651 - Constantin V. Boundas - 2007 - Preview - More editions Like Vivekananda, Aurobindo accepts the monistic premise: evolution which leads to an eventual development beyond the Mind can occur because the 'infinite Spirit' lies hidden - 'involuted' in material nature. In fact Aurobindo describes ...

The integral philosophy of Sri Aurobindo: a commemorative symposium - Page 136 - Haridas Chaudhuri, Frederic Spiegelberg - 1960 - Involution of Saccidananda precedes Its manifestation. The act of involution is graded descent from Saccidananda to supermind, overmind, intuition, illumined mind, higher mind, mind, soul, life and finally to matter. As Sri Aurobindo remarks:...

The meeting of the East and the West in Sri Aurobindo's philosophy - Page 98 – S.K. Maitra - 1956 - Just as in involution the Spirit projects itself out of itself, so in evolution it comes back to itself. It comes back to itself in the reverse way to that in which it went out of itself in involution. The former process Sri Aurobindo also calls Ascent and the... Studies in Sri Aurobindo's philosophy - Page 29 – S.K. Maitra - 1945

Pschology of the Future: Lessons from Modern Consciousness Research - Page 282 - Stanislav Grof - 2000 - Preview - More editions In the East, similar concepts found their most articulate expression in the writings of the Indian mystic and philosopher Sri Aurobindo under the names of involution and evolution of consciousness (Aurobindo 1965). Modern discussion of the ...

Towards eternity; Sri Aurobindo birth centenary volume, 15th ... - Page 228 - Aurobindo Ghose, V. Madhusudan Reddy - 1973 - Evolution reproduces in the reverse order the process of the descent of the spirit in involution. The order of involution is sketched thus by Sri Aurobindo. "Existence, Consciousness- Force, Bliss, Super- mind, Mind, Psyche (or Soul), Life, ...

Karma and Rebirth: Post Classical Developments - Page 30 - Ronald Wesley Neufeldt - 1986 - Preview - More editions Aurobindo's letters to his disciples discuss some other possibiliites, though this is the normal course. ... Since the whole of evolution is the Spirit's free becoming, experiencing freely the involution and evolution of the many possibilities of the ...

Psychotherapy and Spirit: Theory and Practice in Transpersonal ... - Page 71 - Brant Cortright - 1997 - Preview - More editions Overview of the Spectrum Model Wilber's model began with Sri Aurobindo's idea, first articulated in 1915, that cosmic evolution began first with an involution by the Divine into the creation of matter and then proceeded to unfold along an ...

Contemporary Indian idealism (with special reference to Swami ... - Page 179 - Ripusudan Prasad Srivastava - 1973 - He does not. however, work out the details of involution. In Radhakrishnan also we find a reference to this involution, biut there, too, a full account of it is wanting. It is in the philolosophy of Sri Aurobindo that one gets a full-length treatment of ...

Foundations of Indian Psychology Volume 1: Theories and Concepts - Page 184 - Cornelissen R. M. Matthijs - 2011 - Preview ... As noted above, the story of existence began with the involution of the supreme superconscience in and as gross matter. ... repeated or disguised in strange forms can surge up into dream or into the waking nature' (Sri Aurobindo, 1970a, p.

Realization of God according to Sri Aurobindo: a study of a ... - Page 39 - George Nedumpalakunnel - 1979 - INVOLUTION OR DESCENT OF THE DIVINE Basing himself on the theory of emanation explained as self-extension or self-diffusion of the Divine, Aurobindo maintains that the creative self-diffusion of Saccidananda down the scale of ...

Sri Aurobindo and Vedānta philosophy - Page 81 - Sheojee Pandey - 1987 - Aurobindo. In the process of creation everywhere involution conditions evolution. The evolution of matter takes place owing to the fact that the spirit involves into matter. Matter possessed of spirit emerges into the higher grade of reality.

Sri Aurobindo: or, The adventure of consciousness - Page 301 - Satprem - 1968 - This is what Sri Aurobindo calls "the involution": The nescience of Matter is a veiled, an involved or somnambulist consciousness which contains all the latent powers of the Spirit. In every particle, atom, molecule, cell of Matter there lives ...

Science, Spirituality And The Modernization Of India - Page 106 -Makarand Paranjape - 2008 - Preview But, in the terminology introduced by Vivekananda and developed by Aurobindo, this is a process of 'involution'. Aurobindo insists that at each stage in evolution the previous stages are not left behind but taken up (Killingley, p.195–6).

Page 122 In his magnum opus, The Life Divine (Aurobindo, 1990), Aurobindo presents descriptions of cosmic involution and evolution, combining Eastern and Western elements with his own experience and insights. In the Involution–Creation, the ...

The Yoga of Patanjali and the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Page 79 - G. M. L. Shrivastava - 1987 - Sri Aurobindo writes, "The manifestation of the Being in our universe takes the shape of an involution which is the starting-point of evolution, Matter the neither- most stage, Spirit the summit. In the descent into involution there can be ...

Knowledge, Consciousness and Religious Conversion in Lonergan and ... - Page 260 - Michael T. McLaughlin - 2003 - Preview CONVERSION IN LONERGAN AND AUROBINDO On the other hand, because our actions are actions of a being already in union with the divine, anything we do can only be a movement within the greater evolution and involution of the Divine ...

Sri Aurobindo and Karl Marx: Integral Sociology and Dialectical ... - Page 32 - Debi Prasad Chattopadhyaya - 1988 - Preview The scientific account of evolution is discounted by Sri Aurobindo mainly on two scores. First, it fails to explain how evolution is different from involution; and, secondly, how specific (or in species) variation leads to the emergence of a superior...

Sri Aurobindo and Iqbal: a comparative study of their philosophy - Page 112 - M. Rafique - 1974 - To sum up in Sri Aurobindo's own words : "Involution of a superconscient spirit in inconscient Matter is the secret of this visible ... Sri Aurobindo's contention is that without the prior fact of involution, we cannot, consistently, justify the fact of...

The Lives of Sri Aurobindo - Page 274 - Peter Heehs - 2008 - Preview - More editions In answering, Aurobindo reminds us that it is brahman itself that has become each individual being. ... he turns to its psychological conditions. He has traced the origin of the cosmic ignorance (avidya) to the involution of the divine in matter.

Perspectives on Sri Aurobindo's Poetry, Plays, and Criticism - Page 130 - Amrita Paresh Patel, Jaydipsinh Dodiya - 2002 - Full view - More editions The mind is thus the concentrated form of 'chit' in the process of involution. It is the mind which aspires for the "adventures of consciousness". In conclusion, it is safe to say that Sri Aurobindo has formulated Poetics in the light of Sanskrit poetry ...

Encyclopaedia of Eminent Thinkers: The political thought of Aurobindo - Page 54 - K. S. Bharathi - 1998 - Preview ... but believes in the teleological involution and evolution in the world of the transcendent-universal spiritual absolute. Aurobindo says that absolute freedom, even when within the bounds of the mortal frame, can be won if one makes a ...

An introduction to Sri Aurobindo's philosophy - Page 88 - Joan Price Ockham - 1977 - Chapter Five INVOLUTION AND IGNORANCE Throughout his philosophical magnum opus, The Life Divine, Sri Aurobindo argues for the necessity of the involution of the higher principles of unity to account for the evolution of the lower world ...

Sri Aurobindo and Jung: a comparative study in Yoga and depth ... - Page 63 - Satya Prakash Singh - 1986 - ... the supreme creative power of Saccidananda. It is that power which is responsible for the whole process of involution of Saccidananda and evolution of the world. ... Sri Aurobindo, Centenary Edition Vol. XXV. pp. 94— 5. Mother is capable of ... Nature Of God - Satya Prakash Singh - Preview

Integral Education: thought & Practical - Page 133 - R.N. Pani - Preview - More editions Evolution is the reverse movement of involution. Sri Aurobindo writes : "Evolution is an inverse action of the involution : what is an ultimate and last derivation in theinvolution is the first to appear in the evolution, what was original and primal in ...

Integral psychology: the psychological system of Sri Aurobindo (in ... - Indra Sen - 1986 - A greater psychology: an introduction to Sri Aurobindo's ... - Aurobindo Ghose, A. S. Dalal - 2001 - Provides an overview of the psychological thought of the Indian philospher which includes body, mind, soul, and spirit. The Hidden Heart of the Cosmos: Humanity and the New Story - Brian Swimme - 1999 - Opens up not only the exhilarating truths that science reveals of the birth of the universe, but how these truths can transform our lives.

Hormonal urges to which all men are susceptible

Psychoanalytic Views of Mental Health from An und für sich by Jeremy

Recently Nancy McWilliams, a prominent American analyst, presented at my graduate program. Here’s her list of mental health. Let me know what you think.

Signs of Mental Health based on McWilliams’ Presentation at GWU (March 2012):
1) Capacity to Love (Freud)
2) Capacity to Work (Freud)
3) Capacity to Play (Winnicott)
4) Secure Attachment (Bowlby)
5) Sense of Agency/Autonomy (Erikson)
6) Self Constancy/Identity Integration (Stern)
7) Object Constancy (Stern)
8) Ego Strengths (Westen/Shedler)
9) Realistic/Reliable Self-esteem (Kohut)
10) Sense of Values (Superego) (Cleckley)
11) Affect/Thought Tolerance/Frustration (Tomkins)
12) Insight (Reality Testing) (Fenichel)
13) Mentalization (Reflective Functioning) (Fonagy)
14) Good Coping Strategies/Defensive Flexibility (A Freud)
15) Balance between Self-Definition & Self-in-Relationships (Balint)
16) Passion/Vitality/Purpose (Winnicott)
17) Acceptance & Capacity to Mourn/Suffer (Klein)

Notice, the absence of sex and aggression!

Sex and the godman: Nityananda haunted by his past by Venky Vembu Firstpost May 4, 2012 14 Comments

Yet, the karmic deeds of a past when kundalini forces—and the hormonal urges to which all men are susceptible—played havoc with a spiritual practice aren’t proving so easy to bury.

Should women dress modestly? Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo ... 14 Oct 2011 by Sandeep

In everyday life, people frequently engage in pseudo-interactions with women (e.g., through the phone or the internet) or anticipate interacting with a woman later on. The goal of the present research was to investigate if men's ...

Empirical Evidence, Sexual Harassment, and the Economic Way of Thinking from Marginal Revolution by Alex Tabarrok

What the theory and the empirical results are saying is that people exposed to a higher risk of sexual harassment are paid more, just as people exposed to a higher risk of death are paid more… Nevertheless, the principle here is clear, the way to think about these issues is not to throw out economic reasoning but to apply the reasoning ever more deeply.

Lacan, Anarchy, Masculinity, and Psychosis from Larval Subjects (Levi Bryant)

I argued in The Democracy of Objects that it’s actually the masculine side of the graph of sexuation that’s semblance, masquerade, and fiction 

Tweets 30m - Jaideep A. Prabhu ‏@orsoraggiante Optimal Openness: http://goo.gl/V61eZ MT @pragmatic_d It's not openness that's important, but judiciousness

1m - Savitri Era Party ‏@SavitriEraParty - @orsoraggiante @pragmatic_d [Why liberals are dogmatic ideologues - Shadow Warrior]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303830204577446512522582648.html?mod=rss_opinion_main%5d & [Amod Lele] http://loveofallwisdom.com/2012/07/how-intellectual-conversion-happens-and-elephants/ -  Hide conversation 10:15 PM - 2 Jul 12 

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Creative people easily rationalize their dishonest behavior

Study finds men suffer mental decline when around, or even just thinking about women. Same doesn't hold true for females, researchers say Comments (30) BY RHEANA MURRAY NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Tuesday, March 13, 2012 Seen in movies like "The 40 Year-Old Virgin," sometimes men don't know what to say in the presence of a woman.

Men just can’t think straight when women are around. Researchers are studying how males can actually experience a mental decline when interacting with women, Scientific American magazine reported. A study from Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands showed that while heterosexual men’s cognitive performance was impaired when they were around someone from the opposite sex, the same didn’t hold true for women. Just the anticipation of interacting with a woman could impair mental performance, according to the study, first published online last November.

Researchers compared the findings to a scene in Tolstoy’s novel “Anna Karenina,” in which a male character, Levi, becomes so nervous trying to think of something to tell a woman, Kitty, that he doesn’t recognize a friend who walks by the pond where they’re standing. Such temporary lapses in memory or mindfulness are more common “if the woman is attractive and men report trying to impress her,” according to the study’s authors. And they happen in real life, too…

Men who were told a woman would be watching them performed worse on subsequent tests of cognitive ability, even when there was no actual face-to-face contact with a woman. Women showed no change.

Researchers suggest the findings could be attributed to “evolutionary pressures” that have shaped men to be more likely to sexualize otherwise neutral situations, but say further study is necessary. rmurray@nydailynews.com

Creative people more dishonest, Harvard study finds - Daily Dose 2 Dec 2011 – By Deborah Kotz, Globe Staff - But are creative types more likely to lie, cheat, and steal?

“There’s been a lot of anecdotal evidence linking creativity with dishonesty, but without much empirical evidence,” said Francesca Gino, an associate professor of business administration at Harvard Business School. She decided to conduct a series of experiments with several hundred college students to determine whether creativity and intelligence play a role in lowering ethical standards when it comes to making money. The findings were published in the recent issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology…

“When you’re a creative person, you can use that creativity to come up with reasons for why unethical behaviors may be okay,” said Gino. “Crossing ethical boundaries may not be as problematic.”

Interestingly, all of the study participants wanted to maintain a positive view of themselves: In anonymous surveys, nobody admitted being a cheater, and all considered cheating to be wrong. But when faced with ethical dilemmas where they weighed self-interest against the desire to maintain their high self-image, the creative participants were better able to rationalize their dishonest behavior, so they could still see themselves as honest human beings.

They figure what’s the harm in cheating, just a little? “One might reason that other people would cheat under the same circumstances or that a little cheating will not hurt anyone,” wrote Gino in the paper.

Other research suggests we all start to self-rationalize more when we’re in a creative mindset -- looking for ways to lower our tax bill, for example, or coming up with a new idea for an advertising campaign. “Anyone who’s thinking creatively at [the] moment, may be more likely to engage in unethical behavior,” Gino told me.

Of course, we shouldn’t try to avoid being creative, but we may want to be a little more self-aware. “Knowing that creativity can have this side effect,” Gino said, “should make us stop and think more carefully when we’re faced with an ethical decision.” Deborah Kotz can be reached at dkotz@globe.com

Rich People 'More Likely To Lie, Cheat And Break The Law' 28 Feb 2012 – huffington post

People from privileged, wealthy backgrounds are more likely to be dishonest and unethical than their poorer counterparts, a study has found. Wealthy more likely to lie, cheat: Study - Indian Express Washington, Tue Feb 28 2012

They may be the more respectable and upstanding members of society, but the rich are also more likely to lie, cheat and engage in other kinds of unethical activities than those in lower classes, claims a new study. But these findings, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, do not mean that everyone of high status behaves unethically, nor that everyone in lower society behaves ethically, scientists cautioned. 'Wealthy class more likely to lie, cheat' - Times Of India

However, the researchers suggested that the rich's view of the world may be clouded by self-absorption and greed. As a result, they have fewer scruples than those who have less money to burn.

Everyone believes what they want to in a post-fact world

The fallacy of mood affiliation by Tyler Cowen on March 31, 2011 at 8:43 am in Philosophy Permalink Recently I wrote:

It seems to me that people are first choosing a mood or attitude, and then finding the disparate views which match to that mood and, to themselves, justifying those views by the mood.  I call this the “fallacy of mood affiliation” 

Let’s not count the poor from Kafila by Shivam Vij

As someone recently commented on a Kafila post, we live in a post-fact world where there are no facts. Everyone believes what they want to. 1:47 PM

We are all salespersons to different degrees, and use fallacies Why Politicians are Liars, Darrell Williams author's web site September 19, 2007

These are complex deceitful statements that are used to sell an idea by misleading claims. This is done by different individuals to different degrees for different purposes. Some are harmless but some are dangerous and illegal. There are over 166 different ways in which a person can use fallacies to deceive or mislead someone. 5:36 PM

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Neat People vs. Sloppy People":

Oh well, it is not so much her questionable sense of humour that bothers me here; it is not the fact that she is painting a very two-dimensional black and white picture either. It is that people relate to it: "Oh yes, everything in my life can be defined so simply. One line, two kinds of people." Seriously? I don't recognize any sloppy nor any neat people I know in this essay. Why not stick to the definition? (Oxford) neat: arranged in a tidy way; in good order. sloppy: careless and unsystematic; excessively casual.

I see nothing about waste or attachment to things here.
When you want to put people in boxes, the larger your boxes are, the more judgmental and wrong you get. And it doesn't get any funnier... Evergreen Essays at 7:15 PM, March 17, 2012

Non-marriage based communities

Feminism and the Family – Thoughts on International Women’s Day from Kafila by Nivedita Menon MARCH 8, 2012 - Excerpts from my forthcoming book Seeing like a Feminist (Penguin India/Zubaan Books).

Women have to learn to remake themselves completely, but even more significant is the fact that the entire period of their lives before this singular event of marriage, is spent in anticipating and preparing for this specific future, from choice of career and job options to learning to be adaptable from early girlhood.

As a young girl said, ‘Whenever I ask my mother to have fun, go out, to wear interesting clothes, she says, ‘Now I am married, I can’t do that’. If marriage is the end of life, how can it also be the goal of life?’[7] […]

The family is an institution that rigidly enforces systems of inheritance and descent, and in this structure, individuals – sons, daughters, wives, husbands – are resources that are strictly bound by the violence, implicit and explicit, of this frame. We tend to take this frame for granted, and it becomes obscenely visible only in extraordinary circumstances.

As feminists we need to build up the capacity and strength of both women and men to live in ways in which marriage is voluntary, and to build alternate non-marriage based communities.

The questionability of the traditional family from An und für sich by Adam Kotsko Mar 6, 2012

Modern society has certainly tweaked with the traditional model to a significant extent, relying primarily on the willingness of the mother to leave an abusive situation and take the kids with her. In extreme situations, the state itself will intervene to take the kids away from an abusive parent’s custody. Yet the primary strategy is to provide exit strategies for when things go wrong. And of course conservatives are constantly fighting to make those exit strategies more difficult — and to cut off the means to avoid becoming entrapped in bad situations in the first place (i.e., birth control and abortion).

This is where gay marriage is absolutely necessary: at its best, it provides a model for a voluntary union of equals. Unless we’re going to go the full Republic route, it seems that more or less autonomous households are here to stay — and so we might as well have them forming without all the baggage of patriarchal presuppositions. This is the good way that gay marriage challenges the traditional family: by pushing it further in the direction of being a realm of love and affinity rather than a regime of property.

Obviously this isn’t a magic-bullet solution, because gay marriage and the changed marriage norms it can hopefully bring with it do not lead automatically to a utopia in which everyone is good and responsible. Yet the patriarchal model is practically begging the father to abuse his power, and so moving away from it can only be good.

Thus I would say that straight people would do well to make their marriages a little more gay.

Auroville Radio Auroville Radio Newsletter Editor's Notes Dear readers,

There is much hustle-bustle here in Auroville these days with new developments as well as the Bulgarian celebrations in the International zone. And with International Women’s Day just around the corner, you can imagine the excitement as women take the lead in History, Literature, Cinema, Dance and a lot more! 

How many Ashrams have we imagined where the inmates, some unmarried, especially women, expose their lower bottom on the body by wearing shorts and go out on the streets, even to the markets? How many traditional Indian ashrams serve non-vegetarian food to their inmates? This is a reality in the Sri Aurobindo Ashram and a big attack by some fundamental groups who are plotting a planned and systematic attack to the very essence and existence of its survival. This is the nature of attack… Manas 12:33 PM from: Narayan T Rao narayan.t.rao@gmail.com date: 6 March 2012

'लिव इन रिलेशनशिप' को स्वीकार करें: टीम अन्ना दैनिक भास्कर गाजियाबाद. टीम अन्ना 'लिव इन रिलेशनशिप' के समर्थन में आगे आई है। टीम के सदस्य और पूर्व केंद्रीय मंत्री शांति भूषण ने कहा है कि लोगों को बदलते समाज के सच के साथ इसे स्वीकार कर लेना चाहिए। भूषण के मुताबिक लिव इन रिलेशनशिप का विरोध नहीं होना चाहिए। 

गाजियाबाद में एक कार्यक्रम के दौरान मीडिया से बातचीत में शांति भूषण ने कहा, 'सामाजिक मूल्य बड़ी तेजी से बदल रहे हैं और हमें इसे स्वीकार करना चाहिए।' विधानसभा चुनाव के बारे में शांति भूषण ने कहा कि अन्ना फैक्टर ने अपना असर दिखाया है और चुनावी नतीजों को देखने से यह बात साफ हो जाती है। (12/03/12) 

Live-in fallout of materialistic western culture: RSS Ramu Bhagwat, TNN Mar 17, 2012 Times of India - NAGPUR:

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has made it clear that it could never approve of the recent vogue of live-in-relationships. Reacting to events organized in Nagpur and Gujarat by lonely senior citizens to find live-in partners, RSS joint general secretary Dattatreya Hosabale said that it was a fallout of materialistic western culture and such an act cannot be encouraged.

Hosabale was speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the three-day Akhil Bharatiya Pratinidhi Sabha which began here on Friday. The remark coming from him became all the more important as he is being billed to succeed Mohan Bhagwat as next 'sarsanghachalak' (RSS chief) few years down the line. Hosabale said over the last one year the RSS has conducted camps to spread the message about importance of strengthening the institution of family.

Oedipus complex may not apply to other cultures

Comment on Practising Titiksha with marshmallows by Sandeep from Comments for Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo & The Mother by Sandeep

True. You might be aware of American psychologist Alan Roland’s book “In Search of Self in India and Japan“, in which he examine cultural differences between Indian, Japanese and American cultures. He observes that Western psycho-analytic models such as the Oedipus complex may not apply to other cultures. One Japanese psychologist defined other variations which were more prevalent in his culture.

MacIntyre against Wilber’s worldcentrism from Love of All Wisdom by Amod Lele

MacIntyre, in the 30 years since his famous After Virtue, has been telling us a story of regret and decline – one focused largely on ethics, but ethics broadly defined. In After Virtue, MacIntyre described the Enlightenment project of “justifying morality” as performed most famously by Kant and Mill, but also more recent analytic figures like Alan Gewirth. And he argues that this project has not only failed, but had to fail. “Morality”, in this sort of modern context, nearly always stands opposed primarily to “self-interest”.

rick-santorum-women-military-combat-roles

But I do have concerns about women in front-line combat, I think that could be a very compromising situation, where people naturally may do things that may not be in the interest of the mission, because of other types of emotions that are involved," Santorum continued. "It already happens, of course, with the camaraderie of men in combat, but I think it would be even more unique if women were in combat, and I think that's probably not in the best interest of men, women or the mission. [Women are more afraid]

Social currency and insecurity

sbicitizen : Message: Re: Social currency: 'via Blog this'

Human devised solutions to the issues such as currency, morality, rights etc, will always be unequal. This is not an opinion, it is His (nature/universe) law. He has designed us differently (similar only in race), this universe is uniquely dual and its chaos are loaded with benefits.

Sense of equality touches our conscious, sounds good, is wonderful in concept, but remains a mirage that a desperate thirsty mind chases. We have choices, stay in pursuit of the mirage as we done since time immemorial, or seek a different beat; preach reality. Let us challenge human mind to adopt to the realities of this universe and take charge of self survival. Our fair mind has always taken care of rare/exceptional unequal human conditions. In the name of equality, organized religion has exploited/failed its followers more than providing claimed benefits.

Let us get real for the sake of our own conscious and broadcast/preach real values as they exist. He has given His creation the adaptability to adjust to the realities of their situation. Fake bleeding hearts and false hope generating exploiters remain the only constant impediment. Nirmal S. Nilvi, Texas.

Class and Academia: On cultivating a sense of entitlement by Adam Kotsko from An und für sich - Jan 13, 2012 

My father is a truck driver and though my mother went to college shortly after I did and ultimately became a teacher, she spent my childhood helping to run a small business and then doing various service jobs. At every level of my education, my parents were of little assistance in helping to discern what I should do. My mom opted not to put me in the “gifted program” when offered the opportunity in elementary school. I applied to only one college: Olivet, where I knew I would qualify for a full-tuition scholarship. It seemed obvious to me that I couldn’t afford college anywhere else, even though I had a 4.0, excellent test scores, and a strong record of extra-curricular activities. And when it came time to do grad school, I was already far out of their range of experience.

My ignorance of the practical mechanics of these kinds of processes was exacerbated by a lack of the skills associated with success: social networking above all. But perhaps most important was the emotional burden. Every step I made, it seemed to me, could be my last. One small mistake could lead me tumbling back down to where I really belonged. This sense of the fragility of my position has had profoundly negative emotional effects. The job market is always stressful, but for me it was devestating — far out of proportion to the actual results, which turned out to be really good in the end. I deal with groundless anxiety in my teaching, somehow convinced against all evidence that one small mistake will spell the end. I am also overly sensitive to “pride”-related issues like recognition for my work from other academics.

“Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution,” from Per Caritatem by Cynthia R. Nielsen

King calls for solidarity and a concern for humans qua humans.  None of this suggests that King is advocating for a post-racial society where we deny difference. Rather, he sees that in order to fight for justice, human rights, and the like, there must be some common bond, some unity that connects us and yet allows difference to manifest and even be celebrated. In other words, I see in King a desire to hold unity and difference in tension rather than to exalt one over the other.

Joy of being: Practical life and spiritual path The Hindu

Sri Aurobindo calls it 'to watch the thought'. This means, we do not identify with the thought but sit above and watch it. What happens when we sit above ...

Understanding women on spiritual basis

Spiritual Basis of Feminism: Women in Sri Aurobindo’s Philosophy
Deepak Sharma, Associate Professor, SGND Khalsa College, University of Delhi, Delhi – 110005

The present paper attempts a study of the problem of feminism as a spiritual problem with special reference to the philosophical traditions of Sri Aurobindo. By Aurobindo’s philosophy we mean the writings of Sri Aurobindo as well as those of The Mother. For, a spiritual reality is at the basis of all others; the divine world is the eternal foundation on which are built all the other worlds. In regard to this Supreme Reality all are equal, men and women, in rights and in duties; the only distinction which can exist in this domain being based on the sincerity and ardour of aspiration, on the constancy of the will. And it is in the recognition of this fundamental spiritual equality that can be found the only serious and lasting solution for this problem of the relation of the sexes. In view of the above the philosophy of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother devotes a place to the understanding of women in the society. The Mother’s, writings on the subject form a crucial and enlightening study of women and their true role. She has highlighted various natural qualities of woman like a great organising capacity, and psychic and intutitive faculties etc. The Mother reminds woman that she should remember that she comes from the same supreme source as man, and so is in no way inferior to him. According to Mother, woman has a distinct, a unique role to play for the future humanity. The Women's Council, an integral part of Sri Aurobindo Society, lays emphasis on `Woman' herself than on her rights, condition and circumstances. The Mother has studied the role of woman as a mother, as a conscientious worker, as a shakti the goddess of power. The paper attempts a comprehensive study of the views of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother as enshrined in their writings.

Boita Bandana 2011

Bal Jagruti Association celebrating Boita Bandana Utsav for 8th time in Delhi on 10th November 2011 at India Gate Boating Place.
http://boitabandana.com/about-us.html

Sri Aurobindo’s theory of a spiritualised Ethics

Home > E-Library > Magazines >  Sraddha > November 2010 > Contents

What is the Significance of the name“Arya”? Sri Aurobindo 7

Sri Aurobindo and The Mystery of Death Srimat Anirvan 11

Sri Aurobindo’s Commentary on Kenopanishad Sarnath Basu 17

Veda Vyasa’s Mahabharata in Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri Prema Nandakumar 23

Sri Aurobindo on ‘The Two Negations’: Reconsideration of the Materialism Spiritualism Debate R C Pradhan 35

Charles Darwin and Sri Aurobindo: Evolutionists With a Difference Tapan Banerjee 46

Reviving the Vedic Aryan Anuradha Choudry 62

Sanskrit: A Language of Integral Perfection Sampadananda Mishra 81

Modes and Aspects of Self in Hindu Philosophy in the Light of Sri Aurobindo’s Explanation Arun Chatterjee 92

Epistemology of Perception Sandeep Joshi 111

Emotion and its Transformation Larry Seidlitz 120

Reflections on Jouissance as Ananda Prithwindra Mukherjee 134

Genius of Civilisations M S Srinivasan 152

Spiritualty and the Crisis in Contemporary Multiculturalism Sachidananda Mohanty 165

“Seer Deep-Hearted”: A Metrical Fragment by Sri Aurobindo : Sri Aurobindo’s

Contributions Toward a Global Spiritual Culture Shraddhavan 174

The Theme of Urvashi in the Indian Renaissance : Madhusudan Datta, Rabindranath Tagore, Sri Aurobindo Ranajit Sarkar 188

Editorial

To a few are given the vision and dream to build a new world, a new earth. Fewer still are those who have the daring and the courage to tread the thorny path that leads to our summit selves ever resplendent with an unsetting sun, and bring down from those glorious ‘splendour-peaks’ into this vale of tears ‘the calm, the light, the power, the bliss, the freedom, the wideness, the heights of knowledge, the seas of Ananda’. It is left to the Avatar to accomplish that task and make it happen. Such was the mission of Sri Aurobindo, the Avatar of the Supermind. […]

December 5, 1950 being the day when Sri Aurobindo left his earthly body to help more fully his work of transformation, we have included in this issue an early writing of Srimat Anirvan, the great yogi, mystic, Vedic scholar and philosopher, which was published in Asia No.2 from Saigon, Vietnam in 1951.

Emotion and its transformation

Larry Seidlitz

As with many things in Sri Aurobindo’s writings, we find in his treatment of emotions a great paradox together with its synthesis and resolution. On one hand, emotions are presented in the most disparaging terms, as the centre stage for all suffering, perversion, and sordid obscurity. On the other hand, emotions are viewed as not only deriving from the ineffable Ananda or Bliss which is the very nature and substance of the Divine Existence, but they are also a powerful means into the very heart of that Ananda. So let us look at this mystery of emotions, examine their nature, and trace the lines of their transmutation and divinisation as explained by Sri Aurobindo. […]

We see this character most clearly in certain emotions such as anger, irritation, hatred, jealousy, envy, greed, and lust. But similarly, sadness, despair, and grief typically arise in reaction to the disappointment of an egoistic demand or claim, however justifiable it may seem. Fear and anxiety both have an instinctive quality, and may arise spontaneously due to conditioning with various harmless stimuli.

These negative emotions are the source of much human suffering, but what about our positive emotions, such as love and joy? Here, too, when we scratch the surface we often find them to be egoistic in nature and not very pure. […] The fullness of Ananda comes with Oneness of our consciousness and nature with the Divine; suffering comes from limitation and separation of our consciousness and nature from the Divine. A purified Love and a sincere surrender of our whole being to the Divine are at once a path towards, and the very nature of, that Oneness and Delight. [Consciousness and its transformation: Papers presented at the Second International Conference on Integral Psychology]

Reflections On Jouissance As Ananda

Prithwindra Mukherjee

Introduction

Ego as conceived in the West seems to have attracted quite a number of contemporary investigations as well as - very often - misled them. Recently I have gone through an original, ambitious and complex essay to explore its limits and the way to determine how such an enterprise can be of any help to any ethical or spiritual quest. The author, an Indian “feminist” teaching abroad, offers a critique of European psychoanalysis with references to Indian philosophy, and a selective examination of colonial to post-colonial literature.

The book rightly deplores the staunch resistance of Freud and Lacan to any theory of the ‘sublime’ (so to say spirituality), even before  situating - in contrast – a French “feminist” like Luce Irigaray’s welcoming approach to  jouissance as the closest to  ananda or ‘Joy’  (which, in Indian tradition, is the first of  the three attributes of the Divine, the other two being  chit or ‘Consciousness’ and  sat or ‘Existence’). The author strives to find in her extended idea of jouissance the simultaneous juxtaposition of the corporeal and the spiritual dimensions perceptible in  a human being. For her, ananda is not only the means of “ego-transcendence” — as suggested by as yet living and traditional scriptures like the Upanishads — but, once the “absolute” (Divine) is achieved, in a complementary process this transcendence can lead even to bring the same “absolute” down to the more or less material sheaths — body, life and mind — of our being, as has been viewed and most logically elaborated in the recent years in Sri Aurobindo’s vast synthesis, especially in his magnum opus,  The Life Divine.

Hailing from a land where — down three thousand years at least, extended over an area of a full-blooded continent — a score of languages share the daily experiences of the common citizen practising, apparently, several parallel religious creeds, food habits, clothing styles, our scholar is no exception to other birds of feather aiming at a cross-cultural approach to any given subject, in order to do justice to the full implications embedded in the themes chosen.

Spirituality And The Crisis In Contemporary Multiculturalism

Sachidananda Mohanty

My entry point into the subject will be through the following set of questions: What is the link between contemporary Multiculturalism and the search for a new ethics in late capitalism?  What role do we envision for languages of the world in the ongoing identity politics in civil society? How does this search translate itself in our communitarian lives? And finally, how does it go beyond the conventional understanding of education and culture to newer paradigms?

Conventional reading of Sri Aurobindo tends to make a rigid and somewhat trenchant distinction between Morality, Ethics and Spirituality. In some quarters, the polarisation has been accentuated in order to deny any creative interface among the three categories. Viewed from this rigid angle, Spirituality is supposed to supplant Morality or Ethics. Some argue that no judgment is ever possible regarding human actions. Can we have cultural relativism of the Post-Modern kind? How can communities govern themselves in the absence of a code of conduct howsoever flexible it may be?

The aim of this essay is to take a fresh look at a problem that has come to be at the forefront of spiritual communities, the State and the Civil Society today. Basing myself on some of the best thought in the field, I shall argue that Sri Aurobindo’s theory of a spiritualised Ethics offers an alternative set of life values that can serve the interests of a growing individual, as indeed an enlightened social order.

In the first part of this essay, I shall try and sum up the achievements and limitations of contemporary multiculturalism, especially the Anglo-American kind as theorised in the metropolitan academia. Although my thinking is grounded in a multidisciplinary terrain, I am primarily concerned with the debates in literary studies. The public face of this debate, in recent times, has been the question of the literary canon formations and sensibilities. I shall argue that the key aspects of these debates centre on the question of defining an alternative ethics.

In the second part, I shall suggest that we have regrettably limited our effort by considering primarily two dominant models: namely that of religious nationalism and secular modernity.  We need to go beyond these polarities and bring in hitherto marginalised paradigms that could mediate between competing identities rooted to rival claims of language and culture.

I

The question of the use of languages for inter-cultural dialogue acquires a new urgency in the context of India’s 9 X 11. In a tragi-comic sense, language has taken centre stage in the cross-border blame game. Always central to intelligence and espionage, language today seems to have gone beyond its traditional role in international relations. Asked to explain about the weapons of mass destruction, after the so called liberation of Iraq by the coalition forces, Donald Rumsfeld, the U.S Defence Secretary is reported to have said in a somewhat Derridean manner: “the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence!” […] How then can we restore to language the power of wonder in late capitalism?

Languages are more than a means of communication and civic convenience. They typify our life experience and shape our troubled past and fragile futures. It is time we made them part of the solution we desperately seek. It is only then that a new spiritualised ethics can truly promote a dialogue of civilisations.

Notes on Authors

Anirvan, Srimat, a Bengali/Hindu monk, writer, Vedic scholar and philosopher, was born on July 8, 1896 in the town of Mymensingh, then a part of British India and now in Bangladesh. His birth name was Narendrachandra Dhar. He was the son of Rajchandra Dhar, a doctor, and Sushila Devi. He was a spiritually and intellectually-inclined child, who by age 11 had memorised the Astadhyayi of Panini and the Bhagavad Gita. He was named  Baroda Brahmachari after going through the sacred thread ceremony. He also won a state scholarship as a teen and completed university IA and BA degrees at the University of Dhaka and an MA from the Sanskrit College of the University of Calcutta. At 16, he joined the Assam Bangiya Saraswata Math ashram, located in the village of Kokilamukh near Jorhat in Assam. He was a disciple of the ashram’s founder, Paramahansa Srimat Swami Nigamananda Saraswati Dev, who initiated him into sannyas. Anirvan’s new monastic name was Nirvanananda Saraswati. He taught at the ashram school and edited its monthly magazine Aryadarpan. Some time after 1930, Nirvanananda changed his name to Anirvan. He travelled widely in North India, eventually returning to Assam and establishing an ashram in Kamakhya near Guwahati. However, he continued to travel. In the 1940s, when he was living in Almora, Madame Lizelle Reymond documented some of this period in My Life with a Brahmin Family (1958) and To Live Within (1971). During this time, Sri Anirvan translated Sri Aurobindo’s The Life Divine into Bengali (as Divya Jeevan Prasanga); which was hailed by Sri Aurobindo himself as ‘a living translation’. In 1953, Sri Anirvan moved to Shillong in Assam. His reputation as a Vedic scholar grew; and he wrote chiefly in Bengali on various aspects of Hindu philosophy, particularly Samkhya, the Upanishads, the Gita and Vedanta and the parallels between Rigvedic, Puranic, Tantric and Buddhist thought. His magnum opus, Veda Mimamsa, was published in three volumes in 1961, 1965 and 1970. This work won him the Rabindra award. Sri Anirvan made his final move, to Kolkata, in 1965, where he died on May 31, 1978, after a six-year illness.

Anuradha Choudry, a graduate from the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, Puducherry, completed her Ph.D in Sanskrit on Vedic Psychology from Pondicherry University and became an Erasmus Mundus Scholar for an MLitt in European Humanities at the Universities of St. Andrews, Scotland and Bergamo, Italy. Presently, she is a free lance instructor for Sanskrit as Yoga for organisations like Auroville International, the Netherlands, the School of Philosophy and others. As a volunteer with Samskrita Bharati, Anuradha is an active advocate of Spoken Sanskrit and regularly conducts workshops on experiencing the transformative power of Sanskrit sounds. Apart from her passion for Sanskrit she is deeply committed to the cause of human harmony and has recently started a project called Ekataa which invites all human beings to celebrate our common humanness for 11 minutes at midnight on 1.1.11 (One.One.Eleven).

Arun Chatterjee is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Tennessee in USA, where he taught for 34 years.  He currently lives in Knoxville, Tennessee, with his wife Kalpana.  He grew up in Kolkata, and he did postgraduate study (Master’s and Ph.D.) in USA.  Although his formal education is in Engineering, he has been studying philosophy and religion informally at the university for many years. He came to Pondicherry with his parents in 1949 when he was a child and had the Darshan of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. His father late Shyama Charan Chatterji translated three books of Sri Aurobindo in Bengali for the Ashram.

Larry Seidlitz  (lseidlitz@gmail.com) is a faculty member of Sri Aurobindo Centre for Advanced Research (SACAR) in Pondicherry, where he facilitates online university courses on Sri Aurobindo’s teachings. Originally from the USA, he has worked at SACAR for the past six years. He also is editor of Collaboration, a USA based journal on the Integral Yoga (also available in India), and co-editor of New Race: A Journal of Integral Studies published by the Institute of Human Study, Hyderabad. Before coming to India, Larry was involved with several Sri Aurobindo Centres in the USA, and worked as a psychologist at the University of Rochester Medical Centre.

Prema Nandakumar obtained her Ph.D  in 1961 for her study of Sri Aurobindo’s epic poem Savitri.  Since then, she has been an independent researcher, publishing critical and biographical works. As a translator, her career spans half a

century, with the UNESCO publishing her book on Subramania Bharati.  Dr. Nandakumar’s translation into English of Manimekalai, the ancient Buddhist epic in Tamil has been received with enthusiasm. She is also a creative writer in English and Tamil.  One of her recent  publications is K.R. Srinivasa Iyengar, a monograph on her father for Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi (2008).  Dr. Nandakumar is a frequent keynote speaker and draws her inspiration from sources as varied as the Vedas, ancient Hindu and Buddhist epics, ancient and modern Indian literature.  She is a recipient of several awards, including the Sri Aurobindo Puraskar and Panditha Ratna.

Prithwindra Mukherjee (Kolkata, 1936) joined the Ashram in 1948; after his studies - languages, literature, philosophy, history, music (North and South Indian, Western) - he taught at the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education (1955-66). The Mother opened his eyes to the art and the science of translation. With a French Government Scholarship (1966-70), he defended his University Doctorate, and the State Doctorate (1986) on pre-Gandhian freedom movement in India. Taught in two Paris faculties and produced features for Radio France (1972-81). Visited the U.S. archives with a Fulbright Scholarship, before joining the department of ethnomusicology, CNRS  (1981-2003). Author of more than 60 books, 400 articles. Henri Dutilleux has set to music one of PM’s French poems for an opus for voice and orchestra.   Recipient of the Sri Aurobindo Award. The French Government appointed him Knight in the Order of Arts & Letters (2009).

Ramesh Chandra Pradhan is at present Professor of Philosophy at the University of Hyderabad. He has specialised in the area of Western Philosophy, especially in Analytic Philosophy, Philosophy of Language and the Philosophy of Wittgenstein. He has authored several books in these areas. He has also interest in Metaphysics, both Indian and Western. He has keen interest in the philosophy of Sri  Aurobindo.

Ranajit Sarkar (b.1932) At the age of 12, he joined Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry; studied and later taught there at the International Centre of Education. In 1965 went to France, studied at the Sorbonne; he got his doctorate at the University of Aix-Marseille. From 1970 until his retirement he taught Sanskrit literature and Indian culture at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. He has published poems, literary studies and Sri Aurobindo’s thoughts. He lives in the Netherlands.

Sachidananda Mohanty is Professor, Department of English, University of Hyderabad. He is the recipient of several national and international awards including those from the British Council, the Salzburg, the Katha and the Fulbright and the U.G.C. He has to his credit  21 books in English and in Oriya including D.H.Lawrence Studies in India, 1990,  Lawrence’s Leadership Politics and the Defeat of Fascism, 1992,  Understanding Cultural Exchange, Vision Books 1997,  Literature and Culture, Prestige, 2000 Travel Writing and the Empire, Katha, 2002; 2003, Early Women’s writing in Orissa, 1898-1950: A Lost Tradition, Sage Publications,2005, Gender and Cultural Identity in Colonial Orissa, Orient Longman 2008, and  Sri Aurobindo: A Contemporary Reader, Routledge India,2008. His essays and articles have appeared in some of the leading journals and forums in the country including India Today, The Hindu, The Indian Express, The New Quest, The Book Review and Economic and Political Weekly.

Sampadananda Mishra is working as Chief Coordinator, Sanskrit and Indian culture, in Sri Aurobindo Society, Puducherry. He is the author of several books including ”Sanskrit and the Evolution of Human Speech”, “Sri Aurobindo and Sanskrit”, “Chandovallri: A Handbook of Sanskrit Prosody,”The Wonder that is Sanskrit”. Dr. Mishra also conducts workshops, teacher’s training programmes, orientation courses, gives talks, presents papers in National and International seminars and conferences. He also writes popular articles related to India and Sanskrit in English, Oriya and Sanskrit, and composes verses and songs. He conducts special workshops on Sanskrit Alphabet and effective chanting of mantras in Sanskrit.

Sandeep Joshi is a computer engineer by profession currently living in the USA. He received initiation into Raja Yoga at the age of fifteen through a teacher in Bombay (Mumbai), who was also instrumental in introducing him to the teachings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. He writes an Integral Yoga blog at http://auromere.wordpress.com

Sarnath Basu is a retired Professor of Philosophy from Burdwan University. He had been teaching at Jogmaya Devi College and also at the University of North Bengal. His special areas of study are the Nyaya Vaisesika, Advaita Vedanta and the philosophy of Sri Aurobindo. He was a Sectional President of the 62^nd  session of the Indian Philosophical Congress held at the University of Kashmir in 1987. He had delivered the Maharshi Devendranath Thakur Memorial lecture at Visva Bharati, Santiniketan in 2004.

Shraddhavan “Shraddhavan” is the Sanskrit name given by the Mother in June 1972 to a young Englishwoman who had left her country, after completing studies in English Language and Literature as well as Librarianship, to join the up-coming project of Auroville. The Mother asked her to work in the Aspiration School, which was just being started at the time of her arrival in Auroville in November 1970. She has continued to be associated with a wide range of educational projects in Auroville. Since August 1999 she has been the Coordinator of the “Savitri Bhavan” unit of SAIIER  (Sri Aurobindo International Institute of Educational Research) which is a centre of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother Studies in Auroville.

Srinivasan, M.S.  is a Research Associate at Sri Aurobindo Institute for Research in Social Sciences, a unit of Sri Aurobindo Society, Puducherry. His main areas of interest are Management, Indian Culture, Yogic Psychology and History.

Tapan Banerjee Following his post-graduation and research works in Botany from Calcutta University, Tapan Banerjee (53 yrs.) served, for the most part of his profession in the Ministry Of Agriculture, Govt. of India, wherefrom he voluntarily retired to passionately consecrate himself to his long-cherished search

for the marvels and mysteries of the Indian cultural heritage. So far Sri Banerjee has, to his credit, more than a dozen valued papers in both English and Bengali journals of countrywide esteem.