Blanket condescension towards the devoted and the religious

Re: Corrections to textual excerpts of The Lives of Sri Aurobindo by Peter Heehs - The Regime of Quotation by Debashish on Tue 14 Oct 2008 11:16 AM PDT Profile Permanent Link

One of the first tenets of religion is the self-justification of Ignorance on the basis of quotes. The Divine is reduced to a slot machine or ventriloquist's puppet which spits out the appropriate quote in a sonorous voice at the bidding of its master. And this becomes the "acceptable representation" with the threat of the electric chair behind it.

Reply Re: The Regime of Quotation by Srikanth on Tue 14 Oct 2008 12:12 PM PDT Profile Permanent Link

It is pointless to want to convince everyone that the intellect is infallible. One doesn’t need to be a yogi to see how limited it can be. True, quotations can be taken out of context and misused…but the opposite is also true. Seeing them as mere quotations and as inapplicable when inconvenient or contending at all times that “the Divine” had wished to convey more (or other) than what the quotations suggest is equally an artifice and (a technically self-contradicting) conceit of the intellect. Thus, an intellectual standpoint can be as much steeped in ignorance and as intimidating when it threatens to label all those who oppose it as ignorant, unintellectual, or religious and to banish them, if not to the death-chamber, at least to the valley of the untouchables.

Reply Re: The Regime of Quotation by Debashish on Tue 14 Oct 2008 04:20 PM PDT Profile Permanent Link

It stretches the imagination that someone may think this is a discussion about the infallibility of the intellect. The intellect, like all other faculties at our disposal in this discussion, is a power of the Ignorance. The entire discussion is about the arrogance of the Ignorance and in this case, the abuse of "quotations" to act as if it is a power of truth.

The utility of the shatra is entirely personal, to aid in and test our inner experience in the growth of consciousness, not to enforce on others as a weapon of the Ignorance in the name of Knowledge.

Reply Re: The Regime of Quotation by Srikanth on Tue 14 Oct 2008 10:28 PM PDT Profile Permanent Link

The blanket condescension towards the devoted and the religious has not exactly been hidden in any of the posts in this thread and yours are no exception. The implications cannot be easily denied. Whether the quotations are being abused or not is a subjective assessment and cannot be dismissed as "arrogance of the Ignorance". That, in essence, those who quote are not only ignorant and enforcers of the Ignorance but are also anti-knowledge is an odd conclusion that only reinforces what I already said.

Regardless, the main points being made in all these posts are insubstantial. They are only centered around a few corrections here and some substantiation there and a few demands to let people have their freedom to write a book but not for others to criticize, and around reassurances that a historian is somehow going to convince a few hard-core psychoanalysts in academia and how it will all in the end be very good for Sri Aurobindo's yoga for the world.

Reply 7:04 AM 8:39 AM 9:39 AM 7:51 AM 7:03 AM 9:03 AM 7:46 AM7:26 AM 11:39 AM 10:15 AM 12:21 PM 11:45 AM 7:13 AM 12:02 PM Devotee's prerogative to condemn blaspheme