Everyone longs for another Arjuna

Re: Untold Potentialities: India and the Third World. by Richard Hartz (2)
by Rich on Mon 06 Aug 2007 09:39 AM PDT Profile Permanent Link

YS wrote: It has been observed, " the cultured peoples can never be safe against the onslaught of barbarian hordes until they armed themselves with developed scientific weapons of self-defense and aggression." There is a modern version of this. Who is the 'Modern Barbaric' Human? Today, India, who supports the age-old spirituality including the divine Auroville and Pondicherry's spiritual Laboratory, faces such an imminent prospect. This aggression is not only physical from the neighboring countries and their cultures, but also from the so-called secular Global Governance and so-called Secular intellectuals within and outside. In fact, the evolution from the infra rational to Rational and spiritual, requires the continuity of human existence on Earth, both physically and culturally. But this is under direct threat. What are our means of defense? The wisdom of Bhagvad gita as interpreted and disclosed by Mahayogi Aurobindo is needed here.

RC: The belief that one's community, nation, race has been victimized in the past is a myth of equal power to the faith in a former Golden Age. Both myths are equally effective when manipulated by political leaders in carving out territory for their narrow self interest by effectively branding the historical descendants of the ancestors who have suffered with the mark of victimhood itself.

The issue then becomes to redress the slings and arrows of the outrageous fortunes of the past. Of course this can only be done by force, because the leadership declares “we wont be helpless any longer”: Whether its Hitler restoring the glory of the Fatherland, Milosevic telling the Kosovo Serbs, "I wont let this happen to you again", Ariel Sharon bulldozing Palestinian Homes to redress the wrongs of the Holocaust, or Modi cheer leading a crowd of Hindu toughs pouring burning oil down the throats of Muslim women, this myth of victimhood generally plays itself out violently. But what to be done have another Arjuna do penance to Lord Shiva to obtain the magic weapon, the "Pashupatashatra", a magic arrow or even nukes?

This is why I especially find all the references to the Gita (and of course the noticeable disregard for the Sri Aurobindo's social thought in the Human Cycle) so problematic; especially in regards to the repression of Hinduism. Because if anything the war described in the Gita is between Hindus themselves!!! Which brings one to another myth namely "a monolithic Hinduism" rich

by Vladimir on Mon 06 Aug 2007 01:51 AM PDT Profile Permanent Link

Dear Rich, I am glad you brought this topic in for discussion. What I thought about the language of the future is that it will appeal to us as ‘integral men’ where we always will be able to find some deeper meaning, either on the mythic, religious, rational or suprarational level, for all the levels, as I understand it now, will sustain their presence even after they will be integrated and transformed, for they will represent the depth of one Being.

The word which appeals to man as holistic being will always trigger in him the perception of the truth of his being, even if he is on the infrarational level of his development.

The language of the specialists which evolved out of this infrarational stage to the rational level will have to be also deconstructed, be it of Science or the Humanities, and find its way back to the individual use, involving him into his self-discovery and world-discovery subjectively, as it were, and not only informing him about it objectively.

In other words, the faculty of the Word is be realised in its full potential of communicative, cognitive and creative aspects, and not only to be used in its communicative function as it is nowadays mainly used and understood to be used by the modern Linguistics.