Monday, February 25, 2019

Hindutva has become more mainstream


The best books on Capitalism and Human Nature recommended by Robert J. Shiller. https://t.co/HDhmOrdOFw
https://twitter.com/NinjaEconomics/status/1099745160865341442?s=19

“For classical theism, whatever else we want to say about God, the core idea is that God is the ultimate explanation of why anything exists at all. ”
https://twitter.com/five_books/status/1099757981212774400?s=19

Does Śāntideva think bodhisattvas are happy? https://t.co/qdG6xpKwSU
https://twitter.com/loveofallwisdom/status/1099791290366078976?s=19

Making art inclusive  | @IamKunalRay : #Art ought to be an enabler but that is perhaps utopian. Exhibitions have now proliferated and there is a plethora of art events, but whom or what are these events for?
https://twitter.com/indiaonthe_move/status/1099759894025068544?s=19

Great #review of my new #book on #Philosophy of #autobiography in print ed of ⁦@Outlookindia⁩ #today!
⁦@tandfnewsroom⁩ ⁦@TandFIndia⁩ ⁦@routledgebooks⁩ #self #body #spirit #gandhi #mishima #ambedkar #hemingway #nietzsche #warhol ⁦@TwitterBooks⁩ https://t.co/HrLwUCyBap
https://twitter.com/Aakash_Ironmann/status/1099910629186461696?s=19

Indian literature and Indian Philosophy both will flourished by embracing the ideas of "Yeats".  - Prof. Margaret Mills Harper @MakrandParanspe https://t.co/TqA5GGVQmc
https://twitter.com/ShimlaIias/status/1099931679488118785?s=19

The Satyajit Ray-Mrinal Sen rivalry that made headlines | @TOI_Pdasgupta:If there is one other debate that has kept Kolkatans engaged as much as the one involving Mohun Bagan and East Bengal, it is abt the rift between Mrinal Sen & Satyajit Ray | #Films 
https://twitter.com/indiaonthe_move/status/1099846991616532480?s=19

Pre performance with Rangamma Didi, teachers, musicians and students at Music and Dance Festival Sri Aurobindo Ashram Delhi India, Children's Music School https://t.co/U3qvxdeXje
https://twitter.com/storydancer/status/1099881050862346240?s=19

Weaknesses and Limitations of Socialism as the Model for Human Society https://t.co/aA2hnAi1FM

Sri Aurobindo on the Secret Delight as the motivator

[The argument that evolution implies involution was made by Swami Vivekananda with compelling logic] https://t.co/r924bsVCI0
Vivekananda’s doctored picture of Ramakrishna https://t.co/QBhGzd44Zy
Vivekananda uses the word involution exactly as in Theosophy https://t.co/4SWINOT5E4

Vivekananda was a product of his time. He was very much influenced by Christian missionaries and that shows in his writings. He deserves our respect but some of his writings should be taken with a pinch of salt. Sri Aurobindo had better clarity in his thoughts.
https://twitter.com/TrueIndology/status/1099651107805192193?s=19

On Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa's so called univesalism https://t.co/eoSx8T4fGb
https://twitter.com/guNagarbhaH/status/1099733722683760640?s=19

Mostly, one invoking a name would make up his mind what he wants to convey, and put only those words in the mouth of the icon. This if done with self-righteousness has very different consequences from doing in a dharmic way.
https://twitter.com/SkandaVeera/status/1099745638089191424?s=19

Among the 3 key foundation principles of the order was a clear statement by Swami Vivekananda that Bhagwan Sri Ramakrishna Paramhamsa came to protect Sanatana Dharma and it's the primary duty of the order to bring back converts. 
Confusions, Dilutions started after 40s.
https://twitter.com/sumanthbharatha/status/1099878886995722240?s=19

We must get over this "screenshot culture" of gauging a Hindu icon by one isolated statement or view. 
Yogis, sanyasis & mystics r often complex figures & their lives may b a tapestry of many experiences & views (in specific contexts)
If we don't read too deeply or fail to pick the core of what they stood for from their teachings, then we only run the risk of being disillusioned by our own Mahans.
This disillusionment often leads to an unhealthy form of idealism whr ppl get obsessed with the glory of some other nation & start silently despising their own; or constantly finding fault even with the best we have; or calling ppl cucks, idiots etc.
Many gr8 Yogis, Sanyasis or Hindu Renaissance figures of the past may have said things which r unpalatable to current Hindu Right sensitivities. It's stupid to dismiss them as false icons just for that alone. View them in their totality. Look at their overall contribution & sacrifice for our nation. Try to tease out the core of their teaching & what they stood for from authentic sources. That would be much better than getting outraged by one quote or view.
https://twitter.com/Gopanarya/status/1099887445800353792?s=19

Not sure, if it's in his personal or official capacity, but typecasting fellow citizens and behaving so patronizingly is utterly indecent and immoral on the part of the Prime Minister of a Democracy. The ritual is nothing but insulting their dignity and violation of human rights.
Succumbing to optics is a compulsion in politics and especially dominant for those with modest intellectuality. Modi regime is replete with gimmickry but this incident takes the cake; and is a sacrilege of Constitutional norms. While Dharma experts are silent, Sri Aurobindo wins.
https://twitter.com/NathTusar/status/1099947043777273857?s=19
On Rakhi Purnima day in Odisha, the draft bullocks are treated to much care and caressing and worshipped with all religious paraphernalia to express gratitude for their labour. This incident reminds of similar connotation which, I think, is not the right social contract with PM.
https://twitter.com/NathTusar/status/1099905674262257664?s=19
Please read the full thread. I'm questioning the rationale, and the criteria, of the very selection of a particular profession over others to be subjected to PM's fancies. Which book or manifesto gives sanction to such an arbitrary act of the State machinery or Party functionary?
https://twitter.com/NathTusar/status/1099909065520476160?s=19
I said the sanitary work profession has its own dignity and must not be reinforced in the minds of the people as lowly in social hierarchy. PM's act is likely to be emulated by heads of each institution or office leading to a very ridiculous situation for the concerned employees.
https://twitter.com/NathTusar/status/1099900779115266049?s=19
Reservation doesn't require certain citizens to be summoned, habeas corpus, by the PM for performing his religious whims or using them as guinea pigs for his experiments in social engineering. Earmarking sanitation work as the lowest grade is again against any sense of modern norms
https://twitter.com/NathTusar/status/1099895396640276480?s=19
From the common sense point of view, it's desirable to treat all available writings as texts without any special consideration, religious or otherwise. The question of Mantra, as emphasised by Sri Aurobindo, is subjective in nature and so the ritual aspect is rendered immaterial.
https://twitter.com/SavitriEraParty/status/1099768409053642757?s=19

Modest intellectuality (sic) These Macaulites..
This is what the colonial powers told Indians. You are uncivilized, inferior and let me make you better. These left over British stuck in same era.  Half literates give themselves certificates as intellectuals. Sickos
https://twitter.com/dwimidhaM/status/1099948867989073920?s=19
PM went as PM. Did what an Indian does. The Macaulite genre who learn western democratic books by rote and regurgitating does not still make a tenth of sense. 
Macaulite don't even know that when they refer to religion, their context is already bust.
Operative - democracy came from West. 
This is the level of people preaching us. Damn https://t.co/lfvpfX2EhR
https://twitter.com/dwimidhaM/status/1099954485047291905?s=19

This is how a leader Inspires and brings change....if you are not aware
https://twitter.com/amarendrasahoo/status/1099960368628142081?s=19
Clearly our perspectives differ and let it be that way ... let’s celebrate our “ own truths” ..
https://twitter.com/aurograph/status/1099955358804647937?s=19

A leader is not a servant, he should inspire people to follow the right path according to their sva dharma, this is the sanatan dharma,  his service to people is through inspiration of the right kind, not pretending servile behavior disregarding the etiquette of his sva dharma
https://twitter.com/krishnarjun108/status/1099705496918024192?s=19
This Gandhian/neo-vedantic  outlook of misguided humility and renunciation  Intruding into the sphere of Kashatra Dharma has caused disastrous consequences to the polity of Bharat Varsha, it has turned even finest of men into wimps
https://twitter.com/krishnarjun108/status/1099703474630152192?s=19
Washing feet of mahatmas among the lowest strata/caste/varna of society is completely different from washing feet just because they are sanitation workers, that too by Raja at top is just misguided humility and spiritual outlook, Modi should first act like a Raja before anything
https://twitter.com/krishnarjun108/status/1099702239793430528?s=19
Deeply moved by Modi's act of washing  feet of sanitation workers, shows his deep personal level of renunciation, but IMO it's not Raja Dharma, Bharat at this time needs leader who follows Kshatra dharma, Modi got mandate to act boldly and liquidate enemies, not for feet washing
https://twitter.com/krishnarjun108/status/1099692532831870982?s=19

PM @narendramodi honours five 'Safai Karmacharis', washes their feet as per ancient tradition at #Prayagraj https://t.co/xqcUnyrDpG
https://twitter.com/DDNewsLive/status/1099629280445616129?s=19

#_Modi_Speak_ | @NarendraModi : The Ramayan of Ram is incomplete without the boatmen ... I am deeply related to you. You consider yourself servant of Ram and I am your Pradhan Sewak (chief servant). You consider yourself sons of the Ganga and I am here on the call of Mother Ganga
https://twitter.com/indiaonthe_move/status/1099864409977933824?s=19

10 years of Mohan Bhagwat: RSS’ Hindutva ideology has become more mainstream, gone global
Makarand Paranjape @MakrandParanspe writes in #ThePrintOpinion: https://t.co/a7abGuIaVA https://t.co/5iyU79ECbw
https://twitter.com/ThePrintIndia/status/1099496635774763008?s=19

243. So they drove a dichotomy into our dharma of totally denying this world which is deliberately and absolutely false.
244. There is an equally long line who opposed them from Swami Dayananda (1824-83) to Bal Gangadhar Tilak (1856-1920) and Aurobindo (1872-1950).
https://twitter.com/Janamejayan/status/1099703778725511169?s=19

Dear Shri Mishraji, 
(and dear Vladimir, Ryd sir, Sl, Madhavrao and other scholars),
आदरपूर्वक प्रणाम॥
1. First of all, let me congratulate Ryd sir for very sweetly and succinctly summarising the longwinding yet erudite discussion on this subject through numerous emails by many of our group.
cf. "Analytical-discursive aids have done their job and now we must acquire perceptive-intuitive modes of looking at knowledge and things of knowledge, luminous and keen and surer post-human faculty as the right methodology in our collective growth and gains in the brightness of the manifesting spirit."

2. Thanks for the video on the स्वर discussion by dear Vladimir! It helps new learners like me who are foreign to Sanskrit (know nothing of it, never learned even a single syllable academically) and the subject of these extensive mails and discussions by you all elites!

3. I believe that you, dear Shriman Mishraji, have almost hit the nail on its head! Original Mantras/Richas are what one would like to deal essentially with, its technicalities of Chhanda, and written annotations etc. being quite secondary to understanding their actual mystic portent, if any, though one dare not say that only certain Mantras are mystic and not others, so far as the Vedas go!

4. Again, I feel affirmation in Dr. Madhavrao Deshpande's emphasis on originally the Vedas being श्रुति and still the same, and not written compositions, as I can understand from his mails. 

5. Originally, it was a taboo to reduce the Vedas into writing, as understood. Dr Deshpande has said about it! 

cf. his mail extract below:
"As one notices from the Shiksha texts, the Veda reciters were opposed to writing down the orally preserved Vedic texts, [reading from a written text was called a Pāṭhaka-Adhama, the worst reciter] and hence the written forms of the Vedic texts developed very late."  

6. Vedas have been passed down the generations, maybe for thousands of years, through oral tradition only. That is why, historically, it is impossible to date them. The question of their chronology in western mindset does not merit any attention since they base it upon when was the first written version of any of the Shrutis (वेद, वेदांग, उपांगे इ.) is traceable. Therefore, the chronology of the Vedas, its अंग and उपांगे, based upon such a criterion is rather useless, and misleading. [...] Pages as referred to remained unattached are enclosed.
Lele

Dear RY Deshpande, this is exactly the point I am making. The Rishis could not have read their composition with Vedic accentuation of anudatta, udatta and svarita, it was a poetry. But to preserve the text with proper accent in each word, the oral tradition used this device to preserve the text and pass it over generations without distortions, similarly to the Greek oral tradition. That's why we have an authentic text with properly marked Udatta! It is amazing! We can read the text the way the Vedic Rishis did with their accents in the words. And this is very valuable for us, for it makes text alive.
Best regards,
Vladimir

So the question is simple. That we have now a well-preserved text should we retain those props which helped to preserve the text? We have a scaffolding to build a house, but once the building is ready should the scaffolding stay? We are of course thankful to the scaffolding, very grateful to it, never ungrateful, but then it has to go, go that we live in the house, live in the house to explore further possibilities of living in the shining richness of living. They have to be functional in this explorative widening flourishing perspective. Analytical-discursive aids have done their job and now we must acquire perceptive-intuitive modes of looking at knowledge and things of knowledge, luminous and keen and surer post-human faculty as the right methodology in our collective growth and gains in the brightness of the manifesting spirit.
RY Deshpande

We don't need the scaffolding anymore, I agree. We have the morphological accent and meter, we have the keys to the meaning given by Sri Aurobindo, the rest is our own journey. Udatta it is not the scaffolding, it is the essential part of the text, it's true power. Anudatta and Svarita is the scaffolding.    
Vladimir

See, I told you about the danger of OIT
https://twitter.com/sanjeevsanyal/status/1099646240415830016?s=19

Savitri Era Learning Forum: 13 problems of Sankhya; Vedanta proposed Brahman https://t.co/nxt1MO2WxF
Aurora Mirabilis: To establish a communication with what's invisible https://t.co/dNqrOOTmQL
Evergreen Essays: Hostility of physicists to nonphysical plane https://t.co/g7yEOmgZaL

Tuesday, December 13, 2016

Reading The Life Divine will change your life

BOSTON: MIT scientists have developed a new artificial intelligence system that can take still images and generate short videos to simulate what happens next, similar to how humans can visually imagine how a scene will evolve.
Humans intuitively understand how the world works, which makes it easier for people, as opposed to machines, to envision how a scene will play out.

Et tu, Evolution?
Et tu, Evolution? https://t.co/bIQ5r5CLEq @ARangarajan1972
ANAND RANGANATHAN | Sat, 10 Dec 2016, DNA
Life has no purpose. We are a creation of chance, a conspiracy hatched by thunder and lightning and water and ammonia and hydrogen and methane and dust, demonstrated so persuasively by Stanley Miller in 1953. Amino-acetonitrile met water and formed glycine three billion years ago; a sperm met an egg and produced a baby yesterday. All random, ... 
Fifty years ago, roughly 30 babies in 1000 found it physically impossible to emerge from the birth canal. Today that figure stands at 36. We are therefore stuck in a compromise, and C-section babies are living proof of this.

Assorted Tweets:
On sentience, sapience and speciesism https://t.co/6WlKbF2Rg4 Finally managed to write this, after a lot of deliberation and reading.

After finding the effect of antivirus, antibiotic and immune system, concept of protecting "all life" looked quite strange to me!

The late AK Ramanujan, one of the finest scholars of Indian literature, and a poet, wrote a brilliant, informal essay published in 1989 titled, “Is there an Indian way of thinking?”
Among the many gems in this essay is a notion that all Indian thinking is context-sensitive, as opposed to the Western way of thinking that creates thoughts that claim to be context-free. To illustrate this, Ramanujan quotes a parable of the Buddha—
"Once a man was drowning in a sudden flood. Just as he was about to drown, he found a raft. He clung to it, and it carried him safely to dry land. And he was so grateful to the raft that he carried it on his back for the rest of his life." Such was the Buddha’s ironic comment on context-free systems. Our Vedas and our glorious epics all begin with a setting of the context...
But your ancient wisdom came to you from your diabetic grandmother. That is called a home truth, not to be confused with ancient wisdom. Health expert @rmantha2 https://t.co/9poUDfp6mr

Contributions of #socialmedia r many. It has given us a glimpse into how Insane, narcissistic most of us are, that truth's matter of belief

Acting ideology-free can be either excellent or awful. Former may come through pragmatism, latter often comes through rank populism.

Pragmatism often suffers from the pitfalls of the fallacies in one's reasoning. Nothing excellent about it except the feel-good factor. https://t.co/p7OWNgqjVZ
@Flyfiddlesticks I mean pragmatism. More often than not, pragmatists rationalise theories according to the ends they seek.
@Flyfiddlesticks Which brings us to the definition of pragmatism. Which could be applied to anything except nihilism. 😀😀
@vimuktaatma 😂 but they're also ideology driven. If pragmatic,  you can go against "pragmatism"  as well.  😈@vimuktaatma I'd argue that they're not pragmatic but merely professing so.

The real truths are heresies. They cannot be spoken. Only discovered, whispered, and perhaps read.

One of the cruxes of the "truth" is to understand and identify those "who" define "truth" to be "heresy", and how they do it. https://t.co/9WkVFvJqas

@naval Repression of Heresy is only in Abrahmic Religions; Western Culture is alter ego of Semetic exclusive Truth claim, joined at Hip

@samAlochaka @naval Alternate Truth claim becomes a heresy to the self-proclaimed guardians of Exclusive Truth claim in Abrahmic thought

@naval “it is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any given epoch of one’s existence--that which makes its truth, its meaning--its subtle and penetrating essence". Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

@samAlochaka Vasudhaiv Kutumbakam is not in any sacred text but in Hitopdasesh story warning against cunning enemy mouthing such philosophy

But seriously, how are you supposed to grow up children?
There would always be things that you tell them to do/not do.

There have been wonderful examples of the academic left standing by the suffering people, joining in struggles, developing powerful discourses, and widening the cause.
an excerpt from my book on Maoists
Maoists in India: Tribals under Siege, Pluto Press London; Amaryllis, India, 2012
The least intellectuals can do, once they have unmasked the propaganda of the State, is to tell the powers that the truth is out. Once the truth is uncovered and laid before the people, someone somewhere will pick up the thread and proceed to develop more sustainable forms of resistance. If intellectuals still have energy and courage, they can use their relative insularity from repression to help raise a protective wall around this resistance so that it can grow inside. So the moral is to protect resistance to protect truth.

[The trouble with this artistic portrayal of fascism is that Benito Mussolini, the suave gentleman, doesn’t fit.] NM https://t.co/OIMbuE0qbS

Books like Shakespeare’s Asian Journeys (ed by Bi-qi B. Lei, JC Ick, & Poonam Trivedi) and Hegel's India (by Rathore & Rimina Mohapatra) bridge East and West.

[PDF] THE POETIC IMAGINATION OF WILLIAM BLAKE: RETRACING THE SYMPHONY BETWEEN THE SONGS OF INNOCENCE AND THE SONGS OF EXPERIENCE
A Maiti
... By Sri Aurobindo WORKS CITED [1]. Blake, William. Songs of Innocence and Experience. Dover Publications. February 5, 1992. Print. [2]. Bloom, Harold. Bloom's Major Poets. Chelsea House Publications 2003. Print. [3]. Martin, William. ...
Shakespeare's Asian Journeys: Critical Encounters, Cultural Geographies, and the Politics of Travel
BB Lei, JC Ick, P Trivedi - 2016

 I find  an identity of views between Sri Aurobindo and CG Jung. Both emphasize self knowledge. Self knowledge automatically leads  one towards  being a super mind and work  for  spiritual unity and good of community. Altruism at surface, without inner awakening and self knowledge, is  merely a display of ego .
             If you  muster the courage to read this  difficult  book, it will change your life. 
Vidya Nand Garg: The Life Divine by Sri Aurobindo https://t.co/cWt7ZLjOnv

@vidyanandgarg Two other booklets, The Mother and The Supramental Manifestation upon Earth are essential supplements https://t.co/wo7CB0TMsK

Friday, November 11, 2016

Empathy, fantasy, and emancipation

Swarajya-03-Sep-2016
Sri Aurobindo's spiritual collaborator was Mother— Mira Alfasa— a ... science are themselves evolving to make us a more empathetic species?

Forbes-10-May-2016
~Sri Aurobindo ... A Shakti leader becomes whole by balancing empathy, cooperation, and openness (feminine power), clarity, competition, ...

Times of India (blog)-20-Apr-2016
... his destination being Sri Aurobindo Ashram, in search of his inner quest. ... Despite being from a feudal family, he was always empathetic ...

Huffington Post-07-Nov-2014
More than 60 years ago, Indian yogi Sri Aurobindo declared that, ... our capacity to feel, connect, collaborate and empathize, all of which are ...

Huffington Post (blog)-05-Apr-2010
The Indian sage Sri Aurobindo spoke of the emergence of superconsciousness ... It inspires empathywith people and with nature; it brings an ...

The Quint-16-May-2016
... Gangadhar (Lokmanya) Tilak and Sri Aurobindo in the development of ... two legendary adversaries treated with equal empathy by this comic ...

Draft of ending of e-course on meditation and the brain I thought I’d post this for fun – it’s a draft of an e-course Jan (my wife) and I are working on. If you’re familiar with Sri Aurobindo’s “Yoga of Self Per...
Training Your Brain is Good For Everyone, Not Just For You
People often say that practicing things like mindfulness and cultivating positive emotions is somehow selfish. It’s just ‘navel gazing’ that’s about being preoccupied with your own well-being.
But this is not true at all. For one thing, to the extent you succeed in becoming more mindful, experiencing more positive emotions and shifting more and more to open, heartful awareness, it will show in your behavior, and you can provide a positive example for others.

Empathy by the Book: How Fiction Affects Behavior

Wall Street Journal -
Only literary fiction, which requires readers to work at guessing characters’ motivations from subtle cues, fostered empathy.
In these studies, the reading of nonfiction not only failed to spur empathy but also predicted loneliness and social isolation, specially among men. Of course, nonfiction reading has its virtues. Other research suggests that various kinds of nonfiction can prompt empathetic feelings—as long as the narrative is moving and transformative.
https://books.google.co.in/books?isbn...

Sri Aurobindo associated yoga practices with practical occurrences to give a comprehensive answer to the complex problems faced by disciples. These letters depict the empathy and solicitousness in Sri Aurobindo's personality. That he had a tremendous understanding and acuity was evident. A CID agent, Biren, entered ...

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

Earlier, I introduced Sri Aurobindo and his concept of spirituality, which he describes as the aim of human life . In The Human ... in her character. Feminists like the relational cultural theorist Judith Jordan who foreground “mutual empathy” in Women's Growth in Diversity further contribute to a theory of the “political sublime.

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

Writing with all too insufficiently acknowledged elitism and xenophobia of the descent from ontological self- care into the relational “solicitude,” and “empathy,” Heidegger describes this motion, vitriolically, as “ subjection,” “leveling down,” and “averageness” (Being and Time, 164, 165). Sri Aurobindo, LifeDivine, part 1 , 99.


of Racism, Revolution and Nationalism (Koenigsberg, 1977), we interpreted the revolutionary behavior patterns of Hitler, Lenin and Sri Aurobindo as constituting a struggle against passivity. I would now view their patterns of revolutionary behavior as a counterphobic defense against the regressive fantasy of merger. Hitler is ...

In a society where human connection seems to either be too difficult, or too scary, or too effortful, ... Fantasy, after all, is a play at the edge of comfortable reality and the unknown. But this territory can be emancipating, can actually feel like freedom, she writes. November 3, 2016 - Radhika Chandiramani

Fantasy is make-believe. We make something up and then we believe it in order to make it exist. However, in some contexts, the make-believe is relegated to the realm of mere ‘play’ (as opposed to the ‘real’), but there’s no denying that make-believing is a crux of human civilisation – children naturally play make-believe games that steer them in their growth, adults use the hypothetical in their thought to make everyday decisions, and both children and adults rely on fantastical stories and myths to construct a common meaning that contributes to creating the world as we know it. November 3, 2016 - TARSHI