Saturday, January 30, 2016

Virtues and morals and ethics and character

The abuse of Indian history: Obsession over Subhas Chandra ... by Rajeev Srinivasan  Jan 30, 2016 www.firstpost.com › India News Thus, no leader (except some spiritual leaders – for instance Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo and the Dalai Lama)  ...

So, on balance, we need to deconstruct Bose carefully. In fact, to be cynical, I’d say that the principal value of Bose today is as a stick to beat the Nehruvian Stalinists with; the latter do have reason to be embarrassed. There are those who do not understand this, and indulge in absurd hero-worship. One possible reason is Bengali chauvinism. I was reminded of this when I had a brief Twitter argument with one Saswati Sarkar, a Bengali-American professor. Well, ‘argument’ is the wrong word, because she attacked me; I was polite, but she kept abusing me till I finally gave up in disgust.
Sarkar’s contention was that I was ‘ignorant’ and ‘bigoted’. Ok, fine. She had written a very long essay on the Durga Puja where she quoted a few writings by Bose, and my crime was that I had not read it. But I did read it, and it did not change my mind. If you are a committed leftist, by definition you are converted to that pseudo-religion, and you can no longer be a Hindu: I see daily the gyrations of communists in Kerala to pretend to be Hindus (especially now that they are concerned about losing the Hindu vote). What she quotes could well have been cynical and calculated for effect.
To sum it up, we need to take a look at Netaji dispassionately and without prejudice, and evaluate him not only based on today’s 20:20 hindsight, but also based on the prevalent wisdom of his time. I believe he will come across as a hero still, but not some demi-god beyond criticism. We must do the same for all of our other beloved leaders. No, there are no messiahs, and if you believe in them, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you.

Subhas Chandra Bose: The myths, the distortions and the biases

Firstpost-06-Feb-2016
28, [6], and considered B Tilak and Aurobindo Ghosh as leftists (clearly .... of Sri Ramkrishna and Swami Vivekananda which had so moved Bose and were still ...

Pilar Miro  2 hours ago

Sure India has heros, but Bose is not one of them.
The only reason why his dead horse has been flogged by Bengalis and lately the Hindu right is that they themselves have nothing to show by way of contributions to Indian nationalism between 1920 and 1947. Bose's life had been slowly unraveling since the early 1930s, and after 1939, when he was evicted from the Indian National Congress, became one of desperation and ever more tenuous connection to reality...
There is a good reasons why Indians chose Gandhi to lead them---he had his feet firmly planted on the ground. But Gandhi was a great deal more. He is one of the seminal thinkers of the age who has changed the categories of the human intellect. He is a universal hero even where I sit half a world away. India should consider itself lucky that a Gandhi appeared on ts soil.
Mike
February 14, 2012 • 6:29 pm
Good enough, but if you are not going to rely on people’s character, pray do tell, how will institutions or structures help. After all they are staffed by people themselves.
Incentives are not a cure either, it is a tool, and as with any tool, it will be used as per the whims and fancies of the ‘people’. Example: witness the role played by incentives in the global economic crisis of 2008.
Obviously, this argument fails, if Skynet is up and running; but then we might run into a case of ‘benevolent dictatorship’.
However much we might dislike it, and whatever we do, virtues and morals and ethics and yes character are the things which ensure the continued existence of justice, equality and freedom.
froginthewell
February 14, 2012 • 7:30 pm
It accounts for my scepticism over the idea that the dynasty represents everything that is wrong with the country
Isn’t that a strawman?
or that if only the country rediscovered its Hindu soul, we would be great.
First a couple of comments on this : (1) a lot of the argument in this regard is actually made using “structures and incentives”, using “Swami(monk)”-type theories on satisfaction in life. Of course, I do see that you have a different “Steve Jobs”-ish theory of self-satisfaction, and I had sort of concurred with you, though that is beside the point. (2) While this point of yours is not entirely strawman, relatively few people insist on rediscovery of Hindu soul as a necessary and sufficient criterion for greatness; at least this sort of mentality is not disruptive in Indian society by any means, and no more depleting of productivity than say, cricket or bollywood (your favorite candidate bases for Indian nationalism).
The Romantic Story of Vivekananda, Tesla, And The Akashic Field. (via @swarajyamag) https://t.co/i5CaX3SFYD

@subhashkak1 @SwarajyaMag Dec 30, 1896. Swami Vivekananda had a vivid dream. “You are now in the island of Crete" https://t.co/DVZ41TVQ9N

Comment on Sri Aurobindo on Nationalism by Sandeep February 4, 2013
The Uttarpara speech was made after deep God-realization, although it has been misinterpreted and appropriated for sectarian purposes by those who do not understand the universality of Sanatana Dharma. I don’t think he ever rejected the speech, because the same theme is repeated in the “five dreams” message he gave when India became free in 1947.


  • mike
    ”Shankara‘s Doctrine of Maya was like a thorn in my flesh. I could not accommodate my life to it nor could I easily get rid of it. I required another philosophy to take its place. The reconciliation between the One and the Many, between God and Creation, which Ramakrishna and Vivekananda had preached, had indeed impressed me but had not till then succeeded in liberating me from the cobwebs of Maya (the theory that the world is an Illusion). In this task of emancipation, Arabindo came as an additional help”
    Yes, this business about the world/creation being an ‘lllusion’ confused me for a long time. Everything l read seemed to be saying this. lt was only When l read Sri Aurobindo [letter’s on Yoga, l think] saying that the world is NOT an lllusion, only the WAY WE SEE IT is an lllusion. This totally cleared up my confusion – the way SA said the Divine is everything, so everything is Divinely REAL. Only, until we see the Divine in all things we are not seeing the whole Reality, just a small part of it – the surface reflection, lf you will , but even so, everything in the creation IS a REAL manifestation of the Divine. At least l think that’s what SA mean’t].
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Monday, January 25, 2016

Faith is a fundamental dimension of the psycho-social and spiritual structure of the human being

The Cardinal Newman Society-10-Dec-2015
In comments to the Catholic Schools Parents’ Association (AGESC) on Monday, Pope Francis encouraged parents to strengthen the Catholic identity of schools by defending their “inalienable right” to educate their children and request that Catholic schools embrace Christian values and a proper understanding of the human person.
“It is your right to request an appropriate education for your children, an integral education open to the most authentic human and Christian values,” Pope Francis stressed, according to Zenit’s translation of his comments. “As parents, you are the depositories of the duty and the primary and inalienable right to educate your children, thus helping in a positive and constant way the task of the school.”
“It is up to you, however, to see that the school is up to the measure of the educational task entrusted to it, in particular when the education proposed is expressed as ‘Catholic,’” he told the parents gathered at the Vatican.
While much of the media attention has centered on the Pope’s remarks that Catholic education should be “inclusive” and avoid becoming “elitist,” he also emphasized that this cannot be done without particular attention to the formative and moral aspects of Catholic education.

YourStory.com-21-Nov-2015
Exactly two years ago, I was thinking about becoming rich with my first startup. We were reaching out to potential customers for our half-baked product. But my ...

Daily Pioneer-15-Dec-2015
... the fine blending of culture and education in Sri Aurobindo's Integral Education were some of the manifestations of that quest for cultural education. A sense of ...

AllAfrica.com-01-Sep-2015
Dr Levira said Mwecau has a mission to provide quality and integral education to the society of Tanzania and beyond and that it has an open access equal ...

Catholic Leader-01-Dec-2015
... are pressing on us.” Another discussion centred on “integral education”, concerned with a focus not just on the head but on the heart and on service to others.

Huffington Post-12-Aug-2015
Anatoly Ulianov, "Integral Education," designed to help us develop integral thinking - a comprehensive and encompassing approach, which offers an alternative ...

Daijiworld.com-30-Nov-2015
Sports is an integral education in itself. Through sports one can overcome nervousness and boost up team spirit", he added. Vice principal of the school Belita ...

The Cardinal Newman Society-25-Nov-2015
While not entirely new, there was an added focus on integral education, that is, educating “the full human person, intellectually, spiritually, physically and morally ...

Red Pepper-06-Sep-2015
Within weeks the Communards established free secular public education, and were debating the principles of an 'integral' education which would bridge ...

Inc42 Magazine-20-Jun-2015
My co-founder joined integral education school (Coveda) in Chandigarh while I started personal finance blog, CashOverflow to educate young people about ...

Vatican Radio-24-Sep-2015
In the family we receive an integral education, which enables us to grow harmoniously in personal maturity. In the family we learn to ask without demanding, ...

Deccan Herald-12-Aug-2015
... a Free Progress and integral education school. Free Progress means there is no syllabus, there are no standardised books and there are no tests and exams.

The Indian Express-14-Jun-2015
Her 10-year-old daughter, Hariti, goes to CoVeda in Sector 18, a parent's initiative to bring up children based on tenets of integral education. “Classrooms where ...

Times of India-28-Apr-2015
... The Mirambika Free Progress School that parents had entrusted their kids to a wide campus, a building specially designed to promote "integral education".

Manila Bulletin-27-Oct-2015
The most integral education is what's received at home. If your child's values are so WEAK as to take his own life for such trivial reasons then the parents are to ...

First Things-29-Jun-2015
In the family we receive an integral education, which enables us to grow harmoniously in personal maturity.” Jesus Christ is Lord and Master of the Universe, ...

Huffington Post-08-Jul-2015
Over the last few years we have developed Integral Education, in which we conduct Round Table discussions and Connection Circles, which are a special type ...

Live Law-02-Dec-2015
Judges for the Event included Dr. Kudan Singh, Director of Centre for Integral Education, Auro University, Prof. RohitMalhotra, Assistant Professor, School of ...

iamWire-15-Jul-2015
I learned digital marketing, content writing, integral education and a lot of life lessons from my co-founder & the Morpheus gang. But things did not work out in our ...

Open Democracy-07-Sep-2015
By eliminating indigenous educational autonomy, the government impoverishes the plurinational and multicultural character of the Ecuadorian State. Español ...

Catholic World Report (blog)-19-Jun-2015
In the family we receive an integral education, which enables us to grow harmoniously in personal maturity. In the family we learn to ask without demanding, ...

The Guardian-19-May-2015
Researchers collated 2,748 studies involving more than 14.5 million pairs of twins and found the average variation for human traits and disease is 49% due to ...

Patheos (blog)-26-Jun-2015
In the family we receive an integral education, which enables us to grow harmoniously in personal maturity. In the family we learn to ask without demanding, ...

Reuters-11-Jun-2015
Loan Fac Integral Education Society TL CRISIL BBB+ 80 Reaffirmed Kalyani Renewable Energy India Ltd Proposed LT Bk CRISIL D 145 Reaffirmed. Loan Fac ...

Project Syndicate-27-May-2015
MISHIMA – Recent breakthroughs in our understanding of molecular mechanisms have revolutionized many fields of biology, including cell biology and ...

ChristianToday-15-May-2015
Archbishop Monsignor Edmundo Valenzuela, head of the Paraguyan Catholic Church, has reportedly accused the UN of promoting a culture of death in ...

Odisha Sun Times-09-Jul-2015
Prior to his death, he was the president of the New Life Education Trust for Promotion of Sri Aurobindo Integral Education in Odisha, national vice president of ...
The Indian Talks-09-Jul-2015 More articles (23)

Sportskeeda-20-Jun-2015
... medical and pedagogical fields, combined with a unique philosophy for every academy, guarantee an integral education of young players – and ensure that ...

Examiner.com-22-Sep-2015
If you couldn't tell, the system is deep, but the tutorial serves as integral education to picking up the nuance. You'll find yourself making key decisions on if your ...

nation.lk - The Nation Newspaper-17-Apr-2015
The importance and the need for quality integral education, training in professional skills in all spheres of human activity has to be focused on. This means ...

Huffington Post UK-24-Feb-2015
Wasn't it him who established an integral education programme at the bourgeois Berlin Philharmonic? It seems to me that all those against the prospect of the ...

Catholic News Agency-26-Feb-2015
He further stated, “The moral strength of a nation is found in its beliefs and values which, lived in accord with a healthy integral education that takes into account ...
“Faithful to its founding spirit, the U.N. needs to respect the cultural tradition of peoples, their core values and their beliefs, and recognize that the role of moral and spiritual mentoring belongs to the family and to religion,” the archbishop said.
He further stated, “The moral strength of a nation is found in its beliefs and values which, lived in accord with a healthy integral education that takes into account all the dimensions of the person, must not reject faith, which is a fundamental dimension of the psycho-social and spiritual structure of the human being.”
“Unfortunately, various recommendations from the U.N. on human rights for Paraguay and other countries include supposedly new rights such as those proclaimed by radical groups that are dedicated to promoting the legalization of abortion, euthanasia, homosexual and other kinds of unions, with the possibility that these couples can adopt children.”

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Sunday, January 10, 2016

What it is to be educated

Indrani Sanyal and Krishna Roy
D K Printworld, New Delhi 2007 318 pp.

Contents 
Introduction. 
I. Philosophy 
1. Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo - Kireet Joshi. 
2. Integralism the distinctive feature of Sri Aurobindo's philosophy - U.C. Dubey. 

II. On Evolution 
3. Sri Aurobindo on Heraclitus A hermeneutic overview - Krishna Roy. 
4. Theories of evolution and Sri Aurobindo - Kireet Joshi. 
5. Sri Aurobindo's doctrine of evolution - Arabinda Basu. 
6. Sri Aurobindo's integral approach to the concept of evolution - Dilip Kumar Roy. 

III. On education 
7. What it is to be educated In the light of Sri Aurobindo's philosophy - Indrani Sanyal. 
8. Relevance of Sri Aurobindo's thoughts on education to teachers - Priya M. Vaidya. 
9. Education A faithful transcription - Rashmi Sethi. 

IV. On Poetry and Art 
10. The word that knows Sri Aurobindo's metaphysics of poetry - Pabitrakumar Roy. 
11. Sri Aurobindo's understanding of Indian Art - Supriyo Bhattacharya. 
12. The myth of Savitri and Satyavan the four boons - Vladimir. 
13. Some reflections on Sri Aurobindo's Essays on the Gita  - Sarnath Basu. 

V. On man and relation 
14. Sri Aurobindo's concept of man - KH. Gokulchandra. 
15. Towards a theory of true human relation Jean Paul Sartre vis–à–vis Sri Aurobindo - Susmita Bhattacharya. 

VI. On state and politics 
16. Sri Aurobindo and the uplift of humanity - Sushmita Bhowmik. 
17. The problem of state in Sri Aurobindo's political philosophy - Dasharathi Sengupta. 

VII. On yoga and psychology 18. Relevance of Sri Aurobindo in modern India - Kittu Reddy. 
19. Sri Aurobindo's conception of integral yoga - V.N. Seshagiri Rao. 
20. The mother's prayers and meditations Another manifesto of Sri Aurobindo's yoga - Goutam Ghosal. 
21. Sri Aurobindo's views on psychology Can it offer a better therapeutic model than psychoanalysis - Soumitra Basu. 

VIII. Sri Aurobindo A century in perspective 
22. Sri Aurobindo a century in perspective/Aster Patel. 
The contributors. 
Index. 

Understanding thoughts of Sri Aurobindo explores various dimensions of thoughts of Sri Aurobindo (1872 1950) who is being respected as a patriot nationalist social reformer educationist historian poet visionary yogi and philosopher. Sri Aurobindo is the interpreter of the Indian philosophical and spiritual tradition and one of the ablest exponents of this tradition dating back to the Vedas and the Upanisads. Sri Aurobindo's emphasis on national education more in the cultural and spiritual sense may provide an answer to the intellectual moral and spiritual crisis. This volume focuses upon the holistic interdisciplinary approach to the thoughts of Sri Aurobindo whose views and actions have left a lasting influence on the development of modern India. Referring to his three major works The Life Divine The Synthesis of Yoga and Savitri as well as over thirty other works where he expounded his thoughts the well researched writings reveal the special features of his vision. They focus on his integral approach to the concept of evolution his notion of integral philosophy and his concept of integral Yoga. The essays include an in depth study of Sri Aurobindo's concept of man of state and views regarding uplift of humanity. This book contains scholarly articles that seek to unravel the may dimensions of his thoughts. Students researchers and persons interested in Sri Aurobindo studies will be immensely benefited from this volume.

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Wednesday, November 18, 2015

Hear and follow the voice of the inmost soul

Devotees throng Aurobindo Ashram to pay tributes to Mother


www.uniindia.com › others › news Puducherry, Nov 17 (UNI) Thousands of devotees from all over the country and abroad thronged the Sri Aurobindo Ashram here today to pay tributes to the Mother, a leading disciple of Sri Aurobindo, on the occasion of her 42nd death anniversary.
A mass meditation was organised by the ashramites to mark the occasion .
The rooms used by Aurobindo and the Mother were thrown open for public darshan today. Posted at: Nov 17 2015 1:32PM
Read more at http://www.uniindia.com/devotees-throng-aurobindo-ashram-to-pay-tributes-to-mother/others/news/274028.html#1jkv7SxhzZuSy0LW.99

Savitri Era of those who adore, Om Sri Aurobindo & The Mother.
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Thursday, November 12, 2015

Losers and sacrifice

The Guardian (blog) - ‎Marcus Browne Thursday 12 November 2015
The aim is to produce the reader you want for each story
“I think an author should write what the reader does not expect. The problem is not to ask what they need, but to change them … to produce the kind of reader you want for each story.”

50% of public opinion is shaped by fakes
“I am a philosopher; I write novels only on the weekends,” said Eco. “As a philosopher I am interested in truth. Since it is very difficult to decide what’s true or not I discovered that it’s easier to arrive at truth through the analysis of fakes.”
“I would say that 50% or more of public opinion is shaped by fakes. We are blackmailed by them,” he said.

Real literature is always about losers
Mullan later quoted one of his favourite lines from Numero Zero – “the pleasures of erudition are reserved for losers” – before going on to ask Eco why he chose to tell the story from the point of view of a thwarted character.
“Because that’s literature,” said Eco. “Dostoevsky was writing about losers. The main character of The Iliad, Hector, is a loser. It’s very boring to talk about winners. The real literature always talks about losers. Madame Bovary is a loser. Julien Sorel is a loser. I am doing only the same job. Losers are more fascinating.
“Winners are stupid … because usually they win by chance.”

January 29, 2014 Interview with Paul W. Kahn, Author of Finding Ourselves at the Movies - Hope Leman (@hleman)
Every movie imagines the possible through the construction of a narrative. An account of natural development does not include the possible. We don’t say that an earthquake was one of several possible events. We say it happened and it had to happen because of shifts in the tectonic plates that preceded it. A narrative does not work that way. A narrative always sets the actual against the possible. We are interested in human stories because of the choices made, but choice requires a belief that other possibilities were present – the choice could have been different.

A central argument of the book is that films show us the origin of the state in an act of sacrifice. This is a challenge to social contract theories that understand the state as solving a collective action problem: to advance the interests of all, without sacrificing the interests of any particular individual.

That is not what we see when we look at the representation of the political in films. Instead of a state advancing individual interests, we see a state for which individuals take up the burden of sacrifice. Films often pose the question: for what are we willing to give up the self? They always answer: for the sake of love, we will sacrifice the self. The state, in popular films, often appears to rest upon love and sacrifice, not contract and interest.

That the body might be given in act of sacrifice is exactly what pornography denies. Pornography relies upon a representation of a kind of ecstatic moment, but it is contained within the body. It is the ecstasy of pleasure – an extreme – not of sacrifice. For this reason as well, political drama always blends into family drama because both dramas are about the sacrificial character of love. Pornography, on the other hand, strips the individual away from family. Yet this idea is so difficult to sustain that pornography often falls back into a banal plot of reaffirmation of the traditional family once the exploration of the pleasures of the self alone have been experienced.

Love, I suggest in the book, may be the central theme of popular films. I have noticed lately that this seems more true of American than of foreign films. That probably tells us something about our optimism, the Christian roots of our culture, and our sense of what is most important in a life.

The center of these dramas of love remains the family – a common theme of television as well. I don’t think it is a matter of identifying films that are better or worse with respect to this theme. The strategy of the book is not to look for great or excellent films, but to pursue a kind of anthropological approach of looking to whatever is playing at the cinema.

Popular culture, after all, is not ordinarily high culture. A bad film, I argue, can tell us as much about ourselves as a good film in its choice of themes, characters, and problems to be resolved. As for enriching the experience of viewers with respect to the topic of love, my main suggestion would be to pay attention to the dynamic of sacrifice. One way we know who or what we love is to ask for whom or what we are willing to sacrifice. Films often explore just his question: for what will the subject sacrifice?

Movies involve us in a problem, a site of tension, and they ask, “What would you do?” Of course, they often represent this in fantastical ways, but so does religion speak of miracles and fables. The movies are always “preaching” to us not because they are trying to be didactic, but because we are eager for narrative. We come out of a movie with a sense that something has happened. We want to think about it. Thinking about the meaning of parables is, of course, one of our oldest experiences of religion.

Films interest us because they are both a result of and a reflection on free action. We don’t interpret a natural event; we analyze its causes. A free act is one that occurs for reasons. The meaning of a free act is a function of the reasons we assign to it. We might disagree about the reasons; we may be uncertain. Reasons, accordingly, call for interpretation.

I do not engage the professional scholarship of film studies. Rather, the book addresses the questions that have always motivated philosophy: for example, freedom, faith, love, death, and justice. I hope readers will engage these questions and learn that they are still very relevant to our modern experience.

The Pinocchio Theory - Freedman on Mieville - I just finished reading Carl Freedman’s excellent book on China Mieville, which I can heartily recommend to anybody who’s interested in Mieville. The book ...

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