ebuddha said... Alan,
I have no doubt that Aurobindo was the premiere spiritual philospher of the early 20th century. The issue with using Aurobindo as a model, it seems, is the lack of incorporation of the last 50 years of progress. Psychology has gone well beyond Freud and Jung, no matter the giants those two are.
Now, that is a square that can easily be circled, and probably what you are attempting to do, by STARTING with Aurobindo. Is there continuing research into Aurobindo's techniques, improvements, incorporations of new understandings, etc? 10:23 AM m alan kazlev said... Hi ebuddha, you said
"The issue with using Aurobindo as a model, it seems, is the lack of incorporation of the last 50 years of progress. Psychology has gone well beyond Freud and Jung, no matter the giants those two are."
Yes, this is an interesting question! But the problem here is that we are talking about two totally different realities.
What Sri Aurobindo says is timeless. It pertains to the Supreme, the Absolute Reality, God if you will (although I dislike that term because of the exoteric religious connotations, old man in a cloud, only way is through the true church, giving out authoritarian rules in some revealed scripture, etc).
50 years of progress in science, philosophy, psychology, historical criticism, etc etc pertains to the world of the relative intellect, the outer material world. It is not that this is not included in the Aurobindonian compass, it is only that it is one smallpart of the whole.
The situation is different with Freud and Jung. Great genuises that they were, they were still working at the level of the rational intellect. Like explorers of the unknown, but the world they explored is still accessible to our understanding.
Jung certainly touched on the greater reality; he is one of the very few of the 20th century who did. This is probably why many in mainstream psychology are still uncomfortable with him. But Jung's interpretations, a biologiacl racial memory, are nonsense, as any biologist will tell you. So Jung was trying to put a materialistic slant on things. Like Wilber, he was a bridgebuilder and he tried to define non-empirical things in the language of science out of a desire to appear respectable to mainstream academia (and like Wilber, he never did become so, but instead established his own "sacred tradition" if one might call it that). It's only in his older years, when he was no longer concerned with what his collegues thought of him, that he could be himself. That's when he spoke about synchronicity, psychoid archetype, things that were beyond the compass of secular knowledge.
In the intervening 50 years, has any Jungian improved on Jung? Ok you have people like James Hillman, Jospeh Campbell, etc. But has anyone in that tradition gone beyond Jung?
So the myth of progress doesn't apply. It's not like Edison or Tesla or Henry Ford or the Wright Brothers or Baird or other great technological pioneers, and that technology surpassed them and their were more advanced gizmos.
It's not like pure science where you have a Newton or an Einstein and others come along and refine and build upon their discoveries, using experimental method and empirical observation,or even a thought experiemnet, like how Einstein went beyond Newton with the discovery of Relativity.
The only person who was equal to Sri Aurobindo was Mirra Alfassa, the Mother. And yes it is interesting taht she did go beyond him, if you compare the Mother's Agenda (transcribed by her devotee Satprem) with the Aurobindonian corpus, she put what he said philosophically into practice. But since she left her body, there has been no-one of that level.
Is there continuing research into Aurobindo's techniques, improvements, incorporations of new understandings, etc?
Research implies the limited external consciousness. I might equally ask, has there been any research and improvements in the techniques that the Buddha taught? That Rumi taught? That Bodhidharma taught? That Sri Ramana taught? That's what I mean, it's a misplaced metaphor.
But as for incorporations of new understanding, well, that's different. There is also the possibility of greater external insights. Not just commenting, but bringing more things together. That's what I'm trying to do for example. Perhaps that's what the mainstream integral movement is also doing. This is the promise I see in the Integral Movement, and the reason I feel affiliated with it. It's not that anyone there can be another Aurobindo, or another Maharshi. But it is possible to take the outer forms of what these great sages taught, and try to put it together in a greater perspective.
And of course, to do this, one needs to start somewhere. One can start from one's own rational mind, but then why is what one says better than what anyone else says? There are just endless arguments, the mind turning around but not arriving at a higher truth.
That's why I prefer to start with the teachings of the greatest sage(s) I can find. And if there were any greater Sages than Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, I would without a microsecond hesitation switch to their perspective and use that as a starting point isntead. So far I haven't found any, but I am open to all possibilities.
Not sure if that answers your question. The problem truly is about acknowledging both the transcendent Supreme and the relative world, both, together. Reconciling the two, without contradiction. That's the real paradox. 2:41 PM
I have no doubt that Aurobindo was the premiere spiritual philospher of the early 20th century. The issue with using Aurobindo as a model, it seems, is the lack of incorporation of the last 50 years of progress. Psychology has gone well beyond Freud and Jung, no matter the giants those two are.
Now, that is a square that can easily be circled, and probably what you are attempting to do, by STARTING with Aurobindo. Is there continuing research into Aurobindo's techniques, improvements, incorporations of new understandings, etc? 10:23 AM m alan kazlev said... Hi ebuddha, you said
"The issue with using Aurobindo as a model, it seems, is the lack of incorporation of the last 50 years of progress. Psychology has gone well beyond Freud and Jung, no matter the giants those two are."
Yes, this is an interesting question! But the problem here is that we are talking about two totally different realities.
What Sri Aurobindo says is timeless. It pertains to the Supreme, the Absolute Reality, God if you will (although I dislike that term because of the exoteric religious connotations, old man in a cloud, only way is through the true church, giving out authoritarian rules in some revealed scripture, etc).
50 years of progress in science, philosophy, psychology, historical criticism, etc etc pertains to the world of the relative intellect, the outer material world. It is not that this is not included in the Aurobindonian compass, it is only that it is one smallpart of the whole.
The situation is different with Freud and Jung. Great genuises that they were, they were still working at the level of the rational intellect. Like explorers of the unknown, but the world they explored is still accessible to our understanding.
Jung certainly touched on the greater reality; he is one of the very few of the 20th century who did. This is probably why many in mainstream psychology are still uncomfortable with him. But Jung's interpretations, a biologiacl racial memory, are nonsense, as any biologist will tell you. So Jung was trying to put a materialistic slant on things. Like Wilber, he was a bridgebuilder and he tried to define non-empirical things in the language of science out of a desire to appear respectable to mainstream academia (and like Wilber, he never did become so, but instead established his own "sacred tradition" if one might call it that). It's only in his older years, when he was no longer concerned with what his collegues thought of him, that he could be himself. That's when he spoke about synchronicity, psychoid archetype, things that were beyond the compass of secular knowledge.
In the intervening 50 years, has any Jungian improved on Jung? Ok you have people like James Hillman, Jospeh Campbell, etc. But has anyone in that tradition gone beyond Jung?
So the myth of progress doesn't apply. It's not like Edison or Tesla or Henry Ford or the Wright Brothers or Baird or other great technological pioneers, and that technology surpassed them and their were more advanced gizmos.
It's not like pure science where you have a Newton or an Einstein and others come along and refine and build upon their discoveries, using experimental method and empirical observation,or even a thought experiemnet, like how Einstein went beyond Newton with the discovery of Relativity.
The only person who was equal to Sri Aurobindo was Mirra Alfassa, the Mother. And yes it is interesting taht she did go beyond him, if you compare the Mother's Agenda (transcribed by her devotee Satprem) with the Aurobindonian corpus, she put what he said philosophically into practice. But since she left her body, there has been no-one of that level.
Is there continuing research into Aurobindo's techniques, improvements, incorporations of new understandings, etc?
Research implies the limited external consciousness. I might equally ask, has there been any research and improvements in the techniques that the Buddha taught? That Rumi taught? That Bodhidharma taught? That Sri Ramana taught? That's what I mean, it's a misplaced metaphor.
But as for incorporations of new understanding, well, that's different. There is also the possibility of greater external insights. Not just commenting, but bringing more things together. That's what I'm trying to do for example. Perhaps that's what the mainstream integral movement is also doing. This is the promise I see in the Integral Movement, and the reason I feel affiliated with it. It's not that anyone there can be another Aurobindo, or another Maharshi. But it is possible to take the outer forms of what these great sages taught, and try to put it together in a greater perspective.
And of course, to do this, one needs to start somewhere. One can start from one's own rational mind, but then why is what one says better than what anyone else says? There are just endless arguments, the mind turning around but not arriving at a higher truth.
That's why I prefer to start with the teachings of the greatest sage(s) I can find. And if there were any greater Sages than Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, I would without a microsecond hesitation switch to their perspective and use that as a starting point isntead. So far I haven't found any, but I am open to all possibilities.
Not sure if that answers your question. The problem truly is about acknowledging both the transcendent Supreme and the relative world, both, together. Reconciling the two, without contradiction. That's the real paradox. 2:41 PM
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