First break down and then control

Fundamentalism's two faces: the naïve and the power peddlers BY GAUTAM CHIKERMANE ON WEDNESDAY, MAY 9, 2012 AT 8:36 PM Hindustan Times › Just Faith

It is the power peddlers, the highly-intelligent vested interests that we need to be alive to, guard against. These are people who in essence are not interested in religion or faiths or belief systems. Their motive is to use an existing constituency for their petty power games. Here again, existing organisations, following a particular philosophy, ideology or religion are the most vulnerable.

Using bits and pieces of the same intellectual or spiritual infrastructure, this group seeks to first break down and then control the mother organisation. Too lazy to start afresh, not intellectually equipped to be able to garner new ideas, with no interest in or affinity to spiritual heights that can carry all the rest, this group of reductionists can do only one thing: destroy.

It is around these two demons that we need to rethink democratic ideas like free speech and lofty ideals like spirituality. While dealing with them, however, we need to be able to distinguish those led by blind faith from those driven by a power lust. The former are relatively harmless, for in essence they seek to push a point of view they ‘believe’ in. It is the latter, who very often uses the naïve, that we need to stop. Sri Aurobindo, Heehs and the fragility of faith

A betrayal of Sri Aurobindo May 9, 2012 by auroleaks This brings us to the real issue. The sinister aim of Govind, Deshpande, and Co. is to dilute the force of Sri Aurobindo’s message by reducing it to a footnote to the Indian religious traditions of the past. They mean to achieve this by casting themselves as the Devas and us as the Asuras in a cosmic struggle between the religious traditions of India and the rationalism of the West. What drops out of the picture is the real Sri Aurobindo, along with the fact that He rejected both the rationalism of the West and the religious traditions of the East. “The traditions of the past are very great in their own place, in the past,” he wrote in a letter to Dilip Kumar Roy (Sri Aurobindo On Himself, SABCL 26, page 122). There can hardly be a greater betrayal of Sri Aurobindo than annexing him to the traditions of the past.

Seven Quartets of Becoming: A Review by J. Kepler: MAY 5, 2012

This leads to a deeper question of how far it’s even possible to bring Integral Yoga into relation with contemporary continental philosophy. Yoga is not religion, but it is not philosophy either. It is related to both (as well as to other domains, e.g. psychology, empirical science), but it is also a distinct range of experience and theory. Within intellectual discourse, Yoga fits more naturally with Indian philosophy, where traditionally the topics of consciousness and subjectivity are not limited to the ordinary surface mental-ego awareness, but are grounded in the mystic experience of inner and higher ranges of Self and Consciousness. DB attempts to thread this discursive needle in part by talking in terms of “yoga psychology”.

Would an academic reader steeped in the (possibly brilliant) theorizing of Deleuze, but also moored to the generally atheistic and materialistic framework of meaning this theorizing self-locates within, really feel at home in DB’s text with its talk of such things as faith in the Divine Shakti, surrender to the Master of the Yoga, etc? In any event DB makes a serious attempt at this project and the results can be gauged later. He is to be congratulated now for the effort.

Zakir Naik and Idol worship Written by: Sameer Thakkar May 5th, 2012

The field of consciousness as we know has originated from the Indian sciences, expounded further by Sri Aurobindo and further propagated by westerners like Ken Wilber. It is a science which revolves around the art of detachment to free the mind from attachment to name, fame, power, lust, greed, anger etc which blinds the person from perceiving the truth and obstructs the psychological evolution.

Sandeep says: May 6, 2012 at 2:24 pm

Nietzsche may have caught a glimpse of the idea through some capricious intuitive process but he did not have complete insight into the workings of the universal consciousness. The “eternal recurrence of the same” that he speaks of originates from Indian philosophy which has always viewed Time as cyclic – unlike Christianity which sees Time as linear. …

Rajiv Malhotra in his book “Being Different” says educated Indians suffer from “difference anxiety”. They are eager to map all their ancient concepts to Western philosophy, even when it is not compatible, in order to be accepted. Maybe we are seeing something similar here May 6, 2012 at 10:16 am

The connection between Nietzsche’s Ubermensch and the evolutionary insights of seers is tenuous, especially since the latter derive their knowledge from deeper zones of consciousness. Otherwise, one might as well compare Sri Aurobindo’s superman with Ayn Rand’s John Galt character, who tried to rise above humanity! May 6, 2012 at 5:11 pm

Andrew Cohen also talks about evolutionary enlightenment. He was influenced by the teachings of Sri Aurobindo but never acknowledges that.

Re: What is Soul? Where is Soul? Chris,

Both Surya and Rudra have succumbed to the western assault that seeks to project itself as the gold standard for all knowledge systems now extant. View minutes 6-9 at this video here: http://beingdifferentbook.com/iit-washington-dc-2/ 

Gulati - Wed May 9, 2012 6:14 am devindersingh gulati dgulhati [TheBecoming]

Auroleaks Ajay May 7, 2012 at 8:55 pm | #6

Paulette is right, Ananda Reddy is a key player in this affair who has just underground to make sure that his business interests don’t suffer as much Sraddhalu’s have. But just watch this “Aurobindonian” and “expert” on Integral Yoga how he can in the same breath say that the influence of the “West” on India and Indians is a form of “pollution”. Watch how Ananda Reddy praises Rajiv Malhotra on this video for not having got “polluted” by the West (go to 3 min., 50 sec.).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=g-xyM5pVESg#!

Bringing back exiled tales IBNLive.com Hera Shakil Hyderabad | Posted on May 07, 2012 at 09:34am IST

Dr Mohanty has worked almost four years on reviving this book, spending his own personal time and money. During the course of his extensive study he visited the libraries in Port Blair and Pondicherry to gain enough information on the life and works of Barin Ghose and his family. A firm believer in multi-disciplinary studies, the professor has tried to converge colonial history, island settlements, literature and a deep study of sociology of tyranny and says that he believes in gaining insight from the British and American text and applying it to the Indian context.

On being asked about his source of inspiration he says, “I have always been interested in obscure history and forgotten figures of the past and felt that Barin Ghose definitely needs to be introduced to the present generation. Historical texts today have given so much importance to the non-violent freedom struggle that ignoring the armed revolutionary struggle has impoverished us from the true story of our freedom struggle.”