Friday, November 27, 2015

History-rewriting shouldn't mean restating Puranic accounts of history

It is in the #Ayodhya debate that I have learned the power of historical scholarship, says @Koenraad_Elst: http://indiafacts.co.in/examining-the-marxist-version-of-indias-past/ … #ICHR

There are very few hold-outs of Hindu-minded history, and these are admittedly not very creative, nor have they got international standing. The Marxists have always had their eye on the cultural sector, but after Indira Gandhi needed their support in a power struggle, some fifty years ago, they really got their chance. Thapar’s collaborators PN Haksar and Nurul Hasan changed the face of India. “Hindu” became a dirty word, and any young historian classified as a conscious Hindu could forget an academic career.

This power equation was aggravated by the passivity of the Hindu Nationalists. As the only nationally organized Hindu force, they claim to be the vanguard of Hindu society. If so, they should not be proud of their achievements in this field, where Hinduism has only been losing ground. They have never invested in scholarship.

The result can now be seen, when Narendra Modi’s government would like to pack the universities with pro-Hindu or pro-Modi vice-chancellors and other prominent professors, but fail to find qualified people.

But there was no session about what Hindus themselves had done wrong in MM Joshi’s textbook reforms of ca. 2002, a horror show of incompetence.

But organized Hinduism has produced nothing except some obscurantist repetition of scripture as if it were history.

To be sure, historians have to navigate between many uncertainties and unknowns. Some of these may be resolved through research or by unexpected discoveries, others will be your companion throughout your career. So you ought to exercise some clemency here and accept that the rules of the hard sciences do not always apply to history. Even so, her school could indeed have done better in the Aryan origins debate.

In terms of the evidence now available, you are right to call the Invasion Theory (which some weasels now prefer to call a Migration Theory, though it amounts to the same thing) “discredited”. But in terms of academic opinion, it is not yet discredited at all.

Historians ignoring the astro-chronological evidence, linguists ignoring the archaeological evidence: this is abnormal and unhealthy, and the first thing to do now is to break through these walls and get people to listen to the other side. 

Yes, there is plenty of criticism of the Hindutva movement (I myself have written quite a bit of it), but here it is really on the right side. Opposing the Aryan Invasion Theory is not only defensible from a scholarly viewpoint, it also happens to be politically correct.

This is my own initiative: the organized Hindu movement should take an advance on the results, and it will eventually reap the fruits, but it is not doing anything at all to further this research and this debate.

And this makes me think of one more important aspect of the Aryan debate. A debater confident of his position will seek to debate the strongest version of the opposing position.
The Thapar School is very status-conscious. When I studied the RSS, I thought it was an RSS trait that they will hire as a guest speaker an enemy with status rather than a friend without it.

Puranic Hindus paid lip-service to the God-given revealed Vedas whereas the Vedic seers themselves knew that the hymns were not revealed by a Supreme Being but skillfully composed by human poets.
Ancient Hindus wrote the Vedas, medieval Hindus crawled before the Vedas. Most Hindus believe that the seers Vishvamitra and Vasishtha had a caste-based rivalry, because at a later time caste had become very important, whereas the Rg-Veda doesn’t mention anything about caste. So, the distant past is distorted by the recent past and by the present, and it is part of the historians’ job to reconstruct the events as they looked to their own agents.

I am not impressed by all the rhetoric with which the RK Mission is trying to leave the sinking ship of Hinduism.
“Hindu” is now a dirty word, the secularists have seen to this, and so everybody is running towards the exit, saying: “We are not Hindu.”
Just watch how Hindutva spokesmen perform in TV debates: their communication skills are dismal, because they have always despised intellectual work, both in scholarship and on the media front.

@jothishnair1010 @TRILOKHNATH Please go through latest scientific findings which favour AIT/AMT without any bias. https://manasataramgini.wordpress.com

Follow Sri Aurobindo's Ideal of Human Unity http://savitriera.blogspot.in/2015/11/follow-sri-aurobindos-ideal-of-human.html … Savitri Era of those who adore, Om Sri Aurobindo & The Mother.

Without trying to understand Sanskrit as per Sri Aurobindo's hermeneutics, pedantic conclusions are bound to be flawed http://indiafacts.co.in/exploring-the-world-of-varna/ …

@curbset @Openthemag Consulting Sri Aurobindo what he wrote a century back can solve many of our ideological dilemma http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/25/the-religion-of-humanity …

The Mahabharata in Sri Aurobindo Ashram – by Sampdas - This has reference to an interesting write-up titled *The Bhishmacharya Complex*in Sri Aurobindo Ashram (posted on this site on 25 October, 2015). The writ...

Save Mirambika - Justice Delayed is Justice Denied - While for over 5 months Mirambika children continue to be exposed to danger in a fire safety failed unsanctioned building built on land whose ownership by ...

Wednesday, November 18, 2015

Israel, Ireland, and the Indian Renaissance

Israel is keen on building a dynamic cultural relationship with the Union Territory of Puducherry by facilitating exchange visits of exponents of art, film and theatre, Dov Segev-Steinberg, Israel’s acting Consul General in Bengaluru said on Tuesday.
Visits Ashram
They met a group of artists from Puducherry, visited the Sri Aurobindo Ashram and also participated in a seminar at Pondicherry University.
“We would like to promote relations with Puducherry at many levels,” Mr. Segev-Steinberg said.
According to the diplomat, Israel’s missions in India are focused on evolving strong people-to-people ties alongside a robust business relationship.

The Acting Consul General, who had earlier visited the Aurobindo Ashram and paid homage at the memorials of Aurobindo and his spiritual ...
Sri Aurobindo observes: “If the highest height of spiritual experience, the sheer summit of all realisation is the absolute union of the soul with the ...
"Geeta is universally acknowledged as one of the world's great scriptures, although in Europe its thought is better understood than its secret of spritual ...
Mother's Q & A – 14 Sept 1955. Mother's Questions and Answers, September 14, 1955. Mother reads to the children from a play she wrote to teach ...
Auroville Beach, Pondicherry Review by Piyush Rt - A place of fun and enjoyment, Airoville beach also known as Auro beach combines the exotic ...

(e) Explain Sri Aurobindo's conception of cosmic salvation through spiritual evolution of the individual. 6. Write answers to the following in about 200 ...

[PDF] Sri Aurohindo: High Priest of Terror or happy Merchant?

JHS IE
Page 1. Sri Aurohindo: High Priest of Terror or happy Merchant? JH Stone IE Before his elevation to the status of “the greatest mystic-philosopher of present— day India,” Sri Aurobindo was among lndia's most radical Nationalist leaders. ... References Sri Aurobindo (Ghoshe). ...

[PDF] Liquid Geographies: India in the Oceanic Imaginary

MR Paranjape - 2015
... It always aimed at more than “mere” nation formation; Aurobindo, Tagore, Gandhi and other leaders who resorted to this word implied by it a much wider vision of society and human destiny.7 Svaraj to them was a cosmopolitan, not sectarian ideal. ...

[PDF] A case study of BPL Students at DDU–GKY Central Government Sponsored BPO Training Center, Anand, Gujarat

KB Rao
... Abstract A teacher's job is much more than to just instruct and share information. 'A teacher is a guide' as per the vision of Sri Aurobindo. ... Shradhallu Rande (2006) Introduction to Integral Education-An Inspirational Guide.Sri Aurobindo ...

[HTML] ZAEHNER, ROBERT CHARLES

RC ZAEHNER
... Tr., Bhagavad-Gītā, with a Commentary Based on the Original Sources, Oxford, 1969. Evolution in Religion: A Study of Sri Aurobindo and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Oxford, 1971a. Dialectical Christianity and Christian Materialism, London, 1971b. ...

Articulation of'Selfhood'with the Intervention of Postmodernism in Monica Ali's In the Kitchen

A Prajapati - IUP Journal of English Studies, 2015
... perspective, man has two lives-one outer, involved in the outer world of 'maya' in the physical body which lives within birth and death; the other our true vital being behind the curtain of outer living throwing light on this duality in the matter of our being, Aurobindo (1977) states: ...

[PDF] Religion and Politics in Indian English Novel

APGR Lanjewar - AN INTERNATIONAL BI-ANNUAL …
... Sri Aurobindo examines Indian Renaissance as a cultural movement experienced by Ireland:- “The Indian Renaissance was less like the European one and more like the Celtic Movement in Ireland, the attempt of a reawakened national spirit to find a new impulse of self ...

Islam and Nationalism in India: South Indian contexts

MT Ansari - 2015

Gandhi and Tagore: Politics, truth and conscience

G Mukherji - 2015

[PDF] ART-RESEARCH IN MEMORY INSTITUTIONS: A BRIEF REVIEW OF THEIR RESOURCES FROM VISUAL-ARTS-RESEARCH PERSPECTIVE

S Kumar
... Http://www.granthaalayah.com ©International Journal of Research - GRANTHAALAYAH [84-99] Aurobindo Ghosh, etc.) and business leaders (Jamshedji Tata, etc.), social activists (Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Martin Luther King, etc.), and others. ...

[PDF] A SKETCH OF EVOLUTION IN INDIAN PHILOSOPHY

ALMSK Marwan - Global Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies, 2015
... strongly the philosophic thought during the last one and half century, however, as discussed earlier, this conception is as old as philosophy itself.12 Evolution, in philosophy, deals with evolutionary process concerning to matter, life, mind.13 As Sri Aurobindo says, “Not Matter...

RELIGIOUS STUDI ES

FC COPLESTON - 2015
... and The Brothers Karamazov, by Stewart R. Sutherland, 555 review of Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis, ed. by Steven J. Katz, 132 MILLAR, ALAN, review of Reason and Religion, ed. by Stuart C. Brown, I I9 MINOR, ROBERT N., article: 'Sri Aurobindo's integral view of ...

VÄTA-VÄYU

JR Joshi
... ' may not be connected with Väyu in the original nature of that divinity. Similar observation may be made regarding the view of Aurobindo ( Gurukula Patrikā , XIX ( vi ), 320 ) who equates Väyu with the presiding divinity of life.. ... Aurobindo: 1956, p. 351 ). ...

[PDF] FEMINIST STUDIES: CREATING NEW SPACES, PATTERNS AND PERSPECTIVES

P Walia - International Journal, 2015
... Aurobindo's Savitri, projecting the image of the selfless Savitri's purity, her selfless wifely devotion, her powerlessness that contains the power to save Satyavan (in this case not only the nation but the human condition) is a representation of the deification of the mother role in the ...

[HTML] Re: P: Adolf Hitler-The Truth

L all Jews
Talk it Up - Powered by vBulletin. P: Adolf Hitler - The Truth. Printable View. ...


[PDF] Urbanization, Planning and Spirituality for a Sustainable World

C Woiwode, S Selvakumar
... Feuerstein and Feuerstein 2007). Some of the more recent approaches like the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo or Roy Bhaskar's philosophy of meta-reality (Bhaskar, 2002), are rooted in the Vedas. However, the growing number ...

[PDF] Revealing the Hidden Harmony

P Hague - 2015
... The Hidden Harmony, defined as the union of all opposites, is the ultimate Integral Tantric Yoga, providing a synthesis of all forms of yoga, including Aurobindo's integral yoga. (Aurobindo... To explain what this means, we need to modify Aurobindo's notions of evolution ...

An Integral Approach to Systems Engineering

K Devaney - INCOSE International Symposium, 2015
... Integral Theory has its roots in the work of the German philosopher Jean Gebser (1905-1973) who developed a theory of the structures of human consciousness, and Indian philosopher Sri 
Aurobindo (1872-1950), whose work on the Inner and Outer Being is regarded as the ...

[PDF] COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS AND SOUL REALITY: A STUDY OF SELECTED VERSES OF SRI AUROBINDO

S Karthick, OT Poongodi
ABSTRACT Soul reality is an innate psychic force and a consciousness of Sri Aurobindonian dynamics of 'self'. Self as an evolving entity is critically dealt in Sri Aurobindonism. Endorsing the Vedantic philosophical system of sadhana and darsan, Sri ...

Readings in Sri Aurobindo's The Synthesis of Yoga Volume 1: The Conditions of the Synthesis and the Yoga of Divine Works

S Krinsky - 2015
In The Synthesis of Yoga Sri Aurobindo unfolds his vision of an integral (also called “purna” or “complete”) yoga embracing all the powers and activities of man. He provides an 
overview of the main paths of yoga, their primary methodologies and the necessity for ...

[HTML] Education in India+ Search for Videos

SZ Irani
... Islamic Madrasah+ schools, whose boards are controlled by local state governments, or autonomous, or affiliated with Darul Uloom Deoband+. * Autonomous schools like Woodstock School, The Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education Puducherry, Auroville+, Patha ...

Friday, November 13, 2015

Paradox of solitude in an overcrowded place

Peter Heehs on the Crisis in Sri Aurobindo Ashram – by Bireshwar ChouduryPeter Heehs says that the crisis in the Ashram can be solved by offering career “advancement prospects” to the senior sadhaks who are unhappy with the pres...

Peter Heehs: It was relatively easy [for members of the Ashram] to accept subordination in an organization headed by the Mother; it is not so easy to accept it when the final authority is the trust board. Indeed, the lack of advancement prospects for senior sadhaks may have driven some of them to join the anti-Trust group. One potential solution to the problem of overcrowding at the top is that used by the Hutterites, who allow mature colonies to establish daughter colonies, thus providing ‘‘new job opportunities’’ for young men ‘‘anxious to obtain leadership positions’’ upon finding themselves ‘‘blocked by a lack of available positions, with older men holding onto their positions for life.’’ Each colony has its ‘‘own leadership structure,’’ and daughter colonies are not regarded as inherently inferior to mother colonies.  Some such mechanism might help relieve pressure in the ashram, but it would be difficult to implement owing to the strong attachment to the original establishment, the site of the samadhi or tomb of the founders. In the absence of such a solution, it looks as though the conflict will continue until the pro- and anti-Trust factions either realize that a diverse, united community is in everyone’s best interest, or else decide to go their own ways.

Peter Heehs, Sri Aurobindo and His Ashram 1910-2010, An Unfinished History, p 81.
Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions, Vol. 19, No. 1 (August 2015), pp. 65-86
Published by: University of California Press

Sri Aurobindo and his Ashram, 1910–2010

P Heehs - Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent …, 2015 - nr.ucpress.edu
101 days ago - Abstract The Sri Aurobindo Ashram was founded by Sri Aurobindo Ghose and 
Mirra Alfassa as a place for individuals to practice yoga in a community setting. Some 
observers regard the ashram as the center of a religious movement, but Aurobindo said ...

Comment on Sri Aurobindo on Nationalism by Sandeep Peter Berger in his book “Many Globalizations” says people develop layered identities. On the inside, they remain attached to their birth culture while on the outside, they adopt the global consumer culture.

https://books.google.co.in/books?isbn=1407072390

Here is the Naked Ape at his most primal - in love, at work, at war. 

The Human Zoo

27 October 1994
The human zoo is a superb book that analyses one by one the many aspects of urban life such as the paradox of solitude on an overcrowded place, dominance mimic versus status symbol, and of course the rewards of living in an exciting environment where just about everything is possible. By Leonardo Alves 

Thursday, November 5, 2015

Marxism is not an approach based upon reason or cultural sensitivity

05-11-2015 - DR DAVID FRAWLEY - @davidfrawleyved - How following great yogis like Sri Aurobindo made me a "fascist" opened my eyes as to how Indian Marxists deal with dissent. I soon discovered that historical studies in India were dominated by the far left, which had its own investment in power. I learned that other scholars who challenged Marxist historians in India were subject to the same type of personal attacks.


Marxist politics of history
Marxist scholars in India like Romila Thapar and Irfan Habib have, until recently, controlled the interpretation of ancient India at an institutional level. Being Marxists, there is naturally little of yoga or dharma in their views, and not much regard for any indigenous tradition of India. Chinese communists similarly rejected the Dalai Lama and Chinese Buddhism as fascist.
Marxists dictated historical studies in communist and socialist countries like the Soviet Union and China, using history for propaganda to promote class warfare, which became caste warfare in India. Today Marxist historians have been removed from power in Russia, which has gone back to honouring its Tsars, and the Chinese are taking up Confucius and Buddhism. It is time for India's Marxist historians to go the way of history as well.
Marxists have rejected such scholarly views that opposed their historical theories primarily on political grounds, not owing to their own research in archaeology or geology. Almost every scholar, in the East or West, who has questioned the Marxist view of ancient India has been subject to political, if not personal defamation by the same leftist scholars who today portray themselves as the victims of intolerance. They have not been the victims but rather the perpetrators of intolerance for decades.
Marxism is not an approach based upon reason or cultural sensitivity but puts political ideology above the pursuit of knowledge. It lacks the deeper insight necessary to understand India's great civilisation and its dharmic traditions.

Behind the charge of intolerance
So when Indian Marxists speak of intolerance, particularly relating to historical issues, we must take a good look at their own biases and their efforts to suppress evidence and inhibit any scholarship that does not agree with them.

Also read: Irfan Habib needs an SRK the way a Romila Thapar needs a Deepika Padukone

The Pinocchio Theory - Accelerationism Without Accelerationism - Here is my review of Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams’ INVENTING THE FUTURE. Cross-posted from The Disorder of Things. Steven Shaviro

The term accelerationism was coined by Benjamin Noys in 2010, in order to designate a political position that he rejected. In Noys’ account, accelerationism is the idea that things have to get worse before they can get better. The only way out of capitalism is the way through. The more abstract, violent, inhuman, contradictory, and destructive capitalism becomes, the closer it gets to tearing itself apart. Such a vision derives, ultimately, from the famous account of capitalism’s inherent dynamism in the Communist Manifesto. For Marx and Engels, capitalism is characterized by “constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation… All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned.” Far from deploring such developments, Marx and Engels see them as necessary preconditions for the overthrow of capitalism itself. [...]

But it still remains that they — like nearly all “Western Marxists” over the course of the past century — are a bit too quick in making the leap from economic matters to political ones. Still, I don’t want to end my comments on such a negative note. The greatest strength of Inventing the Future, to my mind, is that it does indeed turn our attention towards the future, instead of the past. A big problem for the left today is that we have too long been stuck in the backward-looking, defensive project of trying to rescue whatever might be left of the mid-twentieth-century welfare state. While it is perfectly reasonable to lament our loss of the safety net that was provided by mid-twentieth-century social democracy, the restoration of those benefits is not enough to fuel a radical economic and political program. Looking nostalgically towards the past is far too deeply ingrained in our habits of thought. We need to reclaim our sense of the future from Silicon Valley and Hollywood. 

****
Related books:
  • C. J. Townsend, The Singularity & Socialism: Marx, Mises, Complexity Theory, Techno-Optimism and the Way to the Age of Abundance (Rancho Cordova, CA: Createspace Independent Publishing, 2015).
  • Paul Mason, Postcapitalism: A Guide to Our Future (London: Allen Lane, Penguin Books, 2015).
  • Edward F. Kelly, Adam Crabtree and Paul Marshall, Beyond Physicalism: Toward Reconciliation of Science and Spirituality (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015). 
  • David Harvey, Justice, Nature, and the Geography of Difference (Cambridge, Mass: Blackwell Publishers, 1996).