Stephen Phillips, The University of Texas at Austin [Minor, Robert N., The Religious the Spiritual and the Secular ... File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - View as HTML , The Religious the Spiritual and the Secular: Auroville and Secular India. State University of New York Press, Albany, 1999.]
Aurobindo endorses no scripture as revelation, holding that his views are supported by mystical evidence (and arguing that the Upanisads themselves are reports of and reasonings based on yogic experiences). The experiences to which yogic practice leads have cognitive value, Aurobindo says. But he also complains about the difficulty of capturing in precise language what the experiences indicate. More broadly, he finds arguments of ‘‘natural theology,’’ as we would say in the West, to converge with the testimony of mystical experiences. Like all free-thinking metaphysicians not parroting some predecessor, Aurobindo has his own peculiar ontological positions.
For Minor this seems to be why the views are religious. Apparently, all metaphysical views as distinct from rival views are arbitrary and as arbitrary are religious. The best we can do is admit that our own view, our own religion, is one among many, all without reason staking their claims. Aurobindo’s views center on the reality of what he calls the Divine in relation to the world as explained by science and in relation to us as revealed mystically. For Minor, the religion of Aurobindoism centers on (an irrational) acceptance of these views…
‘‘The Mother’’ (Mirra Alfassa, 1878-1973) picked up his anti-intellectualism, though, like him, she also had a lot to say about how one might make progress spiritually. She insisted to a growing number of disciples that beliefs could be severe obstacles on a yogic path, and that not even Aurobindo’s philosophy should be believed dogmatically, that a person’s own experiences are what matter. Minor depicts Aurobindoism as the religion where the Mother’s words, as well as Aurobindo’s, have to be obeyed, whereas what in fact they teach is that no words are to be obeyed but rather a mysterious Divine contact is to be fostered.
For Minor this seems to be why the views are religious. Apparently, all metaphysical views as distinct from rival views are arbitrary and as arbitrary are religious. The best we can do is admit that our own view, our own religion, is one among many, all without reason staking their claims. Aurobindo’s views center on the reality of what he calls the Divine in relation to the world as explained by science and in relation to us as revealed mystically. For Minor, the religion of Aurobindoism centers on (an irrational) acceptance of these views…
‘‘The Mother’’ (Mirra Alfassa, 1878-1973) picked up his anti-intellectualism, though, like him, she also had a lot to say about how one might make progress spiritually. She insisted to a growing number of disciples that beliefs could be severe obstacles on a yogic path, and that not even Aurobindo’s philosophy should be believed dogmatically, that a person’s own experiences are what matter. Minor depicts Aurobindoism as the religion where the Mother’s words, as well as Aurobindo’s, have to be obeyed, whereas what in fact they teach is that no words are to be obeyed but rather a mysterious Divine contact is to be fostered.
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