Saturday, June 27, 2015

Transnational history of democracy

American Veda: From Emerson and the Beatles to Yoga and ...

https://books.google.co.in/books?isbn=0307719618
With these words, Philip Goldberg begins his monumental work, American Veda, a fascinating look at India’s remarkable impact on Western culture.

https://books.google.co.in/books?isbn=9351362485
Rajiv Malhotra - 2014 - ‎Preview

Originating in the Atharva Veda, the concept of Indra’s Net is a powerful metaphor for interconnectedness.

https://books.google.co.in/books?isbn=0226453774

The work is now marked by both critical acclaim and cross-cultural controversy. In a substantial new Preface to this second edition, Kripal answers his critics and addresses the controversy.

https://books.google.co.in/books?isbn=0230203590
Patrick Hayden, ‎Chamsy El-Ojeili - 2009 - ‎Snippet view

In these ways, the Indian philosopher-yogi Sri Aurobindo suggests, the practice of newness (as inducement for spiritual ... and inclusive future affectivity as commencing with the foundational eccentricity of re-imagining the heart Leela Gandhi 69.

https://books.google.co.in/books?isbn=8172149050

Andrews, C.F., Mahatma Gandhi's Ideas, London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd., 1929. Appadorai, A. Indian ... Aurobindo, Sri, The Secret of the Veda, Pondicherry : Sri. Aurobindo Ashram ... Balakrishnan V. and R. Leela devi, (ed.), Sri Matsya  ...

https://books.google.co.in/books?isbn=019151327X

Davis, R. P., 'Griffith and Gandhi: A Study in Non-violent Resistance', Threshold, 3.2 (1959). Davitt ... Dijk, A. M. G. van, 'Europese Invloeden op het Denken van SriAurobindo', unpublished Ph.D. thesis (Utrecht: Rijksuniversiteit te ... Gandhi,Leela,Postcolonial Theory: A Critical Introduction (Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 1998).

https://books.google.co.in/books?isbn=0231149867

This project paved the way for the work of later Hindu reformers, such as Vivekananda, Radhakrishnan, and Gandhi, whose teachings promoted the notion that all world religions belong to a single spiritual unity.

https://books.google.co.in/books?isbn=1402081928
Rita Sherma, ‎Arvind Sharma - 2008 - ‎Preview

Aurobindo, Sri (1984) (1915) Swami Dayananda, Pondicherry: All India Books. Carman, John and Narayanan, ... Gandhi, Leela (1998) Postcolonial Theory: A Critical Introduction, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. King, Richard (1999 ) ...

https://books.google.co.in/books?isbn=022602007X
Leela Gandhi - 2014 - ‎Preview - ‎More editions

Europeans and Americans tend to hold the opinion that democracy is a uniquely Western inheritance, but in The Common Cause, Leela Gandhi recovers stories of an alternate version, describing a transnational history of democracy in the first ...

https://books.google.co.in/books?isbn=1107033950
Shruti Kapila, ‎Faisal Devji - 2013 - ‎Preview

(a title bestowed on her by Aurobindo), gradually assume the leadership of the increasingly international Aurobindo ... 9446; and Leela Gandhi, Afirective Communities: Anticolonial Thought, FinedeeS'iecle Radicalism, and the Politics of  ...

https://books.google.co.in/books?isbn=8132220382
Debashish Banerji - 2015 - ‎Preview - ‎More editions

Instead, they may be better visible in terms of transnational “affective communities” that Leela Gandhi postulated. I would suggest that certain Indian nationalists like Tagore and Sri Aurobindo and to a lesser extent Gandhi, also belong to this  ...

https://books.google.co.in/books?isbn=0231511841
Peter Heehs - 2013 - ‎Preview - ‎More editions

Special thanks to the late Jayantilal Parekh of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Archives and to Michael Murphy ofthe ... Francis Bertaud, Anuradha Bhattacharya, Liviu Bordas, Ratan Lal Chakraborty, A. K. Dutta, P.L. Dutta, Leela Gandhi, Aloka  ...

https://books.google.co.in/books?isbn=0822337150
Leela Gandhi - 2006 - ‎Preview - ‎More editions

Anticolonial Thought, Fin-de-Siècle Radicalism, and the Politics of FriendshipLeela Gandhi. 13 See A. B. Purani, Evening Talks with Sri Aurobindo, 2d edn ( Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Society, 1995), 52 -53. The meeting between Devdas ...

https://books.google.co.in/books?isbn=0195145372

This book provides biographical profiles of the following female gurus plus sensitive scholarly analysis of their spiritual paths: Ammachi, Anandamayi Ma, Gauri Ma, Gurumayi, Jayashri Ma, Karunamayi Ma, Ma Jaya Sati Bhagavati, Mother Meera, ...

https://books.google.co.in/books?isbn=0415911052

12 s WESTERN HOLY MOTHERS AS SOUL MATES OF INDIAN GURUS Let me tell you frankly that I am now cominced that you have a great future in the work torIndia. What was wanted was no man, but a woman; a real lioness, to work for  ...

https://books.google.co.in/books?id=cAJuAAAAMAAJ
Jeffery Paine - 1998 - ‎Snippet view - ‎More editions

A collection of short biographies bears witness to the influence of India on the lives, thought, and desires of such twentieth-century Western writers and thinkers as E. M. Forster, Carl Jung, W. B. Yeats, and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Justice: Rights and Wrongs

https://books.google.co.in/books?isbn=0691146306
Not only does this book reflect the clarity and acuity of thought that characterize Wolterstorff's work, it also reflects the humane sensibilities of someone who has thought and felt deeply about these matters for a long time.

Human Rights in the Twentieth Century

https://books.google.co.in/books?isbn=1139494104
Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann - 2010 - ‎Preview - ‎More editions
In doing so, this volume captures the state of the art in a field that historians have only recently begun to explore.

The Alternate Nation of Abanindranath Tagore - Page ix

https://books.google.co.in/books?isbn=8132104854
i.1 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8 3.9 Bharat Mata (abanindranath Tagore, 1905) Krishna Lila—Bhabollasa (abanindranath Tagore, 1897) abhisarika (abanindranath Tagore, 1897) Krishna Lila—Nau ...

Guru English: South Asian Religion in a Cosmopolitan ... - Page 265

https://books.google.co.in/books?isbn=1400826853
—John Lennon, “Instant Karma” WHILE THIS STUDY SKETCHES some historical and literary instances of Guru English in multiple contexts and investigates a number of ancillary phenomena under the rubric, it is neither a full- fledged survey ...


Wednesday, February 04, 2015

Active simulation of other's state

[The whole burden of our human progress has been an attempt to escape from the bondage to the body and the vital impulses.] ~Sri Aurobindo
[An ever-enlarging self takes the place of the old narrow self which is confined to our individual mind and body, and it is this moral growth which society helps and organises.] http://t.co/qV7brwoxUF

The Divine Humanity To Be Evolved Through the Yoga - Humanity acts based on the motive force of desire, and much of our mental development and focus is based on ways to both satisfy and justify this vital for...

Emotion and its transformation in Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga Psychology. Larry Seidlitz — Sri Aurobindo Center for Advanced Research, Pondicherry.
We find presented in Sri Aurobindo’s treatment of emotions a great paradox and its synthesis and resolution. On one hand, emotions are presented in the most disparaging terms, as the center stage for all suffering, perversion, and 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.] http://t.co/y4CMoOfHuu 

Efforts have been expended, in particular, on the rehabilitation of some emotions commonly described as “negative”, such as guilt (Greenspan 1995), shame (Deonna et al. 2011), envy (D'Arms and Jacobson 2005), disgust (Rozin, Lowery, Haidt et al. 1999), and sentimentality (Solomon 2004; Howard 2012). The very idea that some emotions are “negative” has come under fire: philosophers have been critical of a simplistic notion of “valence” that is widely taken for granted in psychology (Krisjansson 2003).
The role of emotions in our experience of art and literature is an obviously promising area which has received much attention in recent decades. Robert Gordon (1987) was one of the first to suggest that the knowledge we have of the states of mind of others, and particularly of their emotional condition, is derived not from any psychological theory, but from an active simulation of that other's state. There is suggestive neurological evidence that this might be on the right track from the discovery of “mirror neurons” that are similarly activated both by a concrete action and by the sight of the same concrete action in another (Gallese and Goldman 1998). The idea has been developed by Keith Oatley (2012), as an approach to literature. Fiction, he argues on the basis of much empirical work, works as a simulation run on the wetware of the reader's mind, and has the power to change us. This view is also supported by Martha Nussbaum, who despite being firmly in the cognitive camp, has insisted that the kind of knowledge involved in moral appraisal is both affective and cognitive. For that reason, the full force of certain moral truths can best be grasped through the medium of literature rather than philosophical argument. (Nussbaum 1990; 1994; 2001; Baier 1995; Hogan 2011).
There has been a good deal of work on the role of emotions in music, although there is little consensus about how that works. (Budd 1985; Juslin and Sloboda 2001; Robinson 2005; Nussbaum 2007). Emotions in film have also come under scrutiny from philosophers (Plantinga 1999; French, Wettstein and Saint 2010.)
One area that has mushroomed since the last couple of decades of the twentieth Century is the philosophy of sex and love. At least one book has explored the prospects for love and sex with robots (Levy 2007). More usually, controversies have centered on the role of reason in generating love, as well as the kinds of reasons for action that love produces or can justify. As might be expected, contemporary contributions to the philosophy of love have on the whole been less sanguine about love, particularly erotic love, than the general run of self-help or popular books in praise of love. Surprisingly, however, the idea that we love for reasons continues to find defenders among philosophers. (Singer 2009; Frankfurt 2004; Jollimore 2011; Lamb 1997; Nussbaum 1997; Soble 1998; Solomon and Higgins 1991; Stewart 1995; Vannoy 1980; Blackburn 2004).
In debates about the nature of emotions, feminist voices have been important participants, particularly on issues concerning the role of emotions in morality (Gilligan 1982; Larrabee 1993) and the question of gender.
Cameron Woloshyn made invaluable contributions to the current(2013) revision of this entry. Wyndham Thiessen helped with an earlier version. David Chalmers made judicious suggestions for improving the original (2000) version. Thanks to Amélie Rorty for suggestions and advice. Also, the editors would like to thank Kyle Helms for pointing out several typos in the first published version of the entry.

Friday, January 09, 2015

Storyline has no bottom line

Of those serial killers - The Hindu http://t.co/66j2HIFJHj
[The beauty of the storyline is that it has no bottom line. It is like a meandering river, finding its way as it goes on.] @nishaVijesh
[Show Monday episode’s trailer on Friday, leave women to fret over whether the evil bahu manages to add poison to her poor husband’s kheer.]

STORY OF PONDY SISTERS: The sister act http://t.co/E5RmhU60fT via @IndianExpress

The sum total of our childhood tribuneindia.com Harish Dhillon Posted at: Jan 6 2015
I am never bored and I am not afraid of being alone. I have honed my skill at storytelling and earned some fame on this account. I am not fussy as far as food is concerned

why handwritten letters are so much better than a normal text message http://t.co/6GXq3DNQZJ

A must read. Even @smritiirani's astrologers will be floored. @mitalisaran   http://t.co/sN9OMPGf1d

The Need For An External Form Of the Divine http://t.co/FCRCO0cmuF

#6080 narendra on Wed, Jan 07 2015 
Modest women never tell others the sweet words of love whispered into their ears by their fond husbands, nor of their connubial experiences. A foolish woman thought, in her extreme pride of her husband’s love, that if she told others how dearly her husband loved her and illustrated this with the words he had uttered in her ears and the happiness she has derived from his company, people would admire her and congratulate her on her good fortune. When she began broadcasting these experiences of hers, people laughed at her and mocked her and her own relations avoided the company of this immodest woman. Eventually, even the husband began to hate the wife for such immodest behaviours on her part. Thus she lost everything and spent the rest of her life in utter misery.

Similarly, good Sadhakas never tell others of their Guru’s Upadesa or their spiritual experiences. But foolish Sadhakas, proud of their initial spiritual experiences, begin to advertise them in order to draw public attention and admiration. But alas, the public discover his vanity; and he becomes the laughing stock of the people. Brother-Sadhakas shun his company as he is a man of vanity. Overweening pride makes him lose even the initial contact with the Divine that he had and thus he forfeits the spiritual experiences granted to him. Thus abandoned by all he spends the rest of his life in utter misery.

O Sadhaka! Keep your Guru‘s Sacred Upadesa and your spiritual experiences a secret. Then you will grow spiritually and reach the goal quickly.

The Fount And Foundation Of A Perennial Spiritual Culture
In the Indian context the Veda is the greatest, sublimest and most authentic odyssey of cosmic unfoldment that promises to link up man's destiny with the One Purusha, tad ekam. The Vedic mantras are revelations granted to their authors, apauruṣeya, the transliterations of Vac, the first manifest form of the Infinite and Eternal.
It is true that the vision of the Rishis is couched in a language that is too difficult to decipher; it is camouflaged in symbols and figures, but for the initiates it lays itself bare, as the Veda itself puts it, as a bride to her lover. The allusions and legends, images and enigmas all then fall in line to signify a coherent and consistent psychological truth underlying the universe. The mind by itself is incapable of comprehending the in- ~VMR


Saturday, January 03, 2015

Respect, love, and charity

These two lovers are to blame for our idea of a “perfect love” or a “perfect relationship”. Romeo and Juliet are also responsible for the staggering number of divorces in our country. Couple seek the passionate romance that these two people have in their marriage, and when they don’t feel it, they then think that the marriage have failed. Even though in reality, just respect, love, and charity is all whats needed in a beautiful and everlasting marriage.

Dr Yuval Noah Harari answers all questions regarding the beginning of humanity until now in his book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. He raises fascinating questions on gender, many species of humans and more
50,000 years ago — which is a very short time in evolutionary terms — earth was home to at least six different human species. Homo sapiens lived in East Africa. The Neanderthals lived in Europe and the Middle East. In East and South Asia lived Homo erectus and Homo denisova. And other species lived on the islands of Indonesia. Just imagine how different our view of the world would have been, if at least one of these other species had survived alongside us. Try to imagine India of today, if besides all the other divisions, there was also a division between Sapiens and Neanderthals. Another shocking discovery is that there were sometimes mixed-couples from different species. Four years ago scientists mapped the entire Neanderthal genome, and it turned out that up to 4% of the unique human genes of modern Europeans come from Neanderthal ancestors. This means that tens of thousands of years ago, people from our species, Homo sapiens, not only had sex with Neanderthals, but even had children together. It is quite amazing to think that we can have children together with animals from a different species. - See more at: 

Has fast paced life got on Mumbai's nerves? http://t.co/vHljrJOFj3
Exponential real-estate development in Mumbai’s extended suburbs has led to the working and middle classes, (the victims of the politician, babus and developer nexus), commuting for hours to work. The resultant stress, physical exertion and pressures of a fast-paced life have led to them going on a hair trigger, lashing out at others at an individual level or against a system at a mass level, as demonstrated during Friday’s violence.

“This gradually affects society,” pointed out PG Jogdand, dean, faculty of arts and head of the department of sociology, MU, pointing out that life on a treadmill has led to the blunting of finer sentiments, selfishness, collapsing interpersonal relationships, rise in individualism and decline in social bonding, and a propensity to violate rules.

He noted that pressures of commuting often forced people to act, without regard to needs of the aged, women, children and disabled and give vent to their personal tensions. “People are not willing to sacrifice and fight for others, they want to protect personal interests and those of their families. A sense of belonging is almost over,” said Jogdand.

“Pressures of urbanisation translate into mental health problems,” said Dr Sanjay Kumavat, former deputy director (mental health), government of maharashtra, pointing to the need to focus on anger management to manage violent reactions. He added that instigation of even a single authoritarian man could trigger violence. “Patience and tolerance reduces because of fast-paced lives while frustrations rise,” noted Kumavat.

Of those serial killers - The Hindu http://t.co/66j2HIFJHj


Friday, December 26, 2014

Goa to Puducherry

Males assumed that any romantic attraction they experienced was mutual & assume its mutual !!
http://t.co/kAAUkbogmj October 23, 2012 |By Adrian F. Ward

Men were much more attracted to their female friends than vice versa. Men were also more likely than women to think that their opposite-sex friends were attracted to them—a clearly misguided belief. In fact, men’s estimates of how attractive they were to their female friends had virtually nothing to do with how these women actually felt, and almost everything to do with how the men themselves felt—basically, males assumed that any romantic attraction they experienced was mutual, and were blind to the actual level of romantic interest felt by their female friends. Women, too, were blind to the mindset of their opposite-sex friends; because females generally were not attracted to their male friends, they assumed that this lack of attraction was mutual. As a result, men consistently overestimatedthe level of attraction felt by their female friends and women consistentlyunderestimated the level of attraction felt by their male friends.

Taken together, these studies suggest that men and women have vastly different views of what it means to be “just friends”—and that these differing views have the potential to lead to trouble. Although women seem to be genuine in their belief that opposite-sex friendships are platonic, men seem unable to turn off their desire for something more. And even though both genders agree overall that attraction between platonic friends is more negative than positive, males are less likely than females to hold this view.
So, can men and women be “just friends?” If we all thought like women, almost certainly.  But if we all thought like men, we’d probably be facing a serious overpopulation crisis.

MEN’S POWER WITH OTHER MEN By Joseph Pleck, PhD http://t.co/9xQ56k6FeH
In recent years, we have come to understand that relations between men and women are governed by a sexual politics that exists outside individual men’s and women’s needs and choices.  It has taken us much longer to recognize that there is a systematic sexual politics of male-male relationships as well.  Under patriarchy, men’s relationships with other men cannot help but be shaped and patterned by patriarchal norms, though they are less obvious than the norms governing male-female relationships.  A society could not have the kinds of power dynamics that exist between women and men in our society without certain kinds of systematic power dynamics operating among men as well.
Men do not just happily bond together to oppress women.  In addition to hierarchy over women, men create hierarchies and rankings among themselves according to criteria of “masculinity.” Men at each rank of masculinity compete with each other, with whatever resources they have, for the differential payoffs that patriarchy allows men.

He had some difficulty in keeping his trousers zipped up: Vinod ...

https://www.saddahaq.com The revelation about his former colleague at Outlook and former editor-in-chief of Tehelka magazine- Tarun Tejpal- who was accused of sexually assaulting a female colleague in Goa has give new twist to the infamous tale.
Mehta in his book writes that he was aware that Tejpal was using his official position to hit on interns and juniors for both consensual and presumably non-consensual carnal favours.

A critique of "The Lives of Sri Aurobindo" by Peter Heehs and its consequences in the Ashram life: Raj TV programme in Tamil on Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust on 23 December, 2014

www.thelivesofsriaurobindo.com/.../raj-tv-programme-in-tamil-on-sri.html
Summary in English of Koppium Raj TV programme on Sri Aurobindo ... The Ashram Trust complained to the police against the sisters; the matter went to ...

Ashram's Administration Refuses Hemalatha Prasad's Allegation Against Ashram - Thanthi TV

Aurobindo Ashram terms suicide of two sisters, their mother 'heart 

timesofindia.indiatimes.com › City PUDUCHERRY: Terming the suicide attempt by the five sisters and their parents in which two of the sisters and their mother lost their lives as "very unfortunate ...


  • AUROBINDO ASHRAM EVICTION: Surviving sister says raped after ...

    indianexpress.com/.../aurobindo-ashram-eviction-surviving-sister-says-rape...
    7 days ago - On Thursday, five sisters and their parents attempted to commit suicide by wading into the sea.
  • Evicted from Aurobindo ashram, 7 of family jump into sea, 3 die | The ...

    indianexpress.com/.../aurobindo-ashram-case-two-of-five-puducherry-sister...
    Dec 18, 2014 - On Wednesday, another member of the family -- Hemlata Prasad, one of the five sisters, made a suicide attempt.
  • Two sisters, mother end life after eviction from Aurobindo ashram

    www.deccanherald.com › National
    Dec 18, 2014 - A day after five sisters from Bihar were evicted by police from the Aurobindo ... two of them and their mother allegedly committed suicide by jumping into the sea  ...

  • Tuesday, January 28, 2014

    Prostitution, pornography, and gay sex - the jury is out

    Somnath Bharti is facing cases and criticism from political opponents for a midnight raid against some African women in south Delhi.

    Trying to find nuance in the Khirki Extension raid BY VIDYUT JANUARY 24, 2014 POLITICS & POLITICAL COMMENTARY The story, as many media superhits are, is polarized.

    Internet Service Providers (ISPs) on Monday asked the Supreme Court to define pornography and wondered whether the erotic sculptures at ...

    Under the SC rules, advocates cannot argue review petitions unless ordered by the court. Rejecting the petitioners' plea to hold a hearing of ...

    Unusual places netas love to visit Times of India - Jan 30, 2014 NEW DELHI: What is the mystery behind the frequent official trips of certain top politicians and bureaucrats to some unusual destinations? The author also wonders why George Fernandes visited Siachen at least 18 times - "some newspapers referred to 32 visits" — during his ... 

    Wednesday, July 10, 2013

    Makarand Paranjape’s Body Offering

    A man-woman relationship is as complex as it can get. It’s an equation where there are too many variables like sex, love, marriage that never balance each other. Few other external variables make it even more complex like age, social norms and perceived notion of expectations and hypocrisy to settle for much lesser in life.

    Some say it’s much easier to decipher the code of entire universe than to really decipher a man-woman relationship. Makarand Paranjape’s Body Offering deals with one such emotion. It is a riveting novel about the persistence of a complex relationship and the essence of what it means to be human.

    The author opens the book of love and shows how to read relationships in a whole new light. What is it that draws us so strongly to some people and repels’ us from others? What makes some work so smoothly while others burst into flames? Paranjape gives new answers to these questions by showing that the kind of relationship we create depends on the kind of love stories we carry inside us. In this contemporary, urban love story set in Delhi, Sunayana, a young, vivacious editor at a leading publishing house, finds herself drawn into a disorienting but compelling liaison with Ashok, a reserved but well-known middle-aged surgeon. She seeks a centre that has eluded her scattered self, while he struggles to come to terms with a broken marriage.

    The uneasy attraction between this odd couple triggers profound questions. What is the quintessence of human coupling – desire, fear, need, or just habit? Is love a hormonal reflex or a romantic fantasy? Can carnal passion reveal deeper realities? Both embark on a passionate journey, leading to fresh discoveries and unchartered longings. But both have to push the boundaries to see how far they can go to be with each other. The book is a layered, erotic tale, suffused with intense emotions, leading up to a poignant, unforeseen climax. 

    The strong points of the book are many: an interesting read; excellent writing; and a true desire, on the part of the author, to communicate with the reader. The weak points are a wealth of concepts and ideas, tossed about liberally. There are so many, that the reader might just lose track, and actually lose sight of the initial idea behind the book.
    Bottom line: Not a bad way to waste an afternoon. 1 June 2013, Neha Jain [Author: Makarand Paranjape Publisher: Rupa Price: Rs.395] The book is an erotic tale, suffused with intense emotions, leading up to a poignant, unforeseen climax.