Emergence of mental purusha as a purifying agent

Comment on The Seven Quartets of Becoming by Debashish Banerji by debbanerji from Comments for Posthuman Destinies by debbanerji

The Mother’s presence and power acted strongly to bring forward the psychic being and her action effected the purification. Sri Aurobindo wrote that the Mother by her look put one in contact with the soul and by her touch connected the psychic to the surface consciousness. The yoga that developed under these circumstances pivileged the emergence of the pychic being through surrender to the Mother… Today, the physical power of the Mother’s action is no longer present to have the same effect on the emergence of the psychic being.

Comment on The Seven Quartets of Becoming by Debashish Banerji by debbanerji from Comments for Posthuman Destinies by debbanerji

I may add that in my opinion, in the physical absence of the Mother, the danger of distortion by the vital emotional being that Sri Aurobindo wrote about in the chapter on the Intuitive Mind is very much increased, so that the demand for the shuddhi of the prana and the importance of the emergence of the mental purusha as a purifying agent, is greater today. Without these, we are seeing the repeated and insistent mouthing of the need for psychic emergence accompanied by fanatical narrowness and disturbed emotionalism.

SA used different terminologies and different formulations in different texts, this doesn’t necessarily mean he abandoned one for the other. debbanerji Posted March 14, 2012 Permalink

Alethetics from Larval Subjects . by larvalsubjects

Wittgenstein says “attend to language games”, Lacan says “attend to the signifier and the real”, Descartes says “attend to the cogito and the ideas found within the cogito“, Hume says “attend to impressions and how mind relates them”, Marx says “attend to labor and production”, Husserl says “attend to lived experience”, Bergson says “attend to duration”. Every great philosopher proposes a frame, a new window through which to encounter the world. And every frame generates its own problems that haunt the thinker for the remainder of her adventure…

The question posed to a philosophy should not be “is it true?”, but rather “what does it allow me to do?”, “can it do any work?”, etc. Just as we don’t ask whether or not a lawn mower is true or false, but rather “what does it do?”, we shouldn’t ask “is the philosophy true or false?”, but rather: what does this frame allow us to do? how does it allow us to remake ourselves? how does it allow us to remake the world in which we find ourselves? how does it allow us to relate to each other differently, etc?

But on the other hand, we should ask “what does this frame conceal, hide, or veil?” A critique of a philosophy shouldn’t be based on whether it’s internally consistent or whether it is veridical, but on whether or not it conceals or veils things that are unacceptable to veil. And here I’m inclined to say that the problems that motivate a philosophy never come from within philosophy… Problems of philosophy always come from elsewhere: love, politics, history, startling scientific discoveries, science, suffering, disease, gregariousness… We no less frame selections of the world than we are seized by selections of the world. 

Cultural models and Rethinking Secularism from The Immanent Frame by Giles Gunn

Rethinking Secularism is the title of a striking new collection of essays, edited by Craig Calhoun, Mark Juergensmeyer, and Jonathan VanAntwerpen that is rich with shrewd, and often detailed and intricate, discussions of the way the political and the social, the public and the personal, are threaded with, and frequently created out of, the interpretive, the symbolic, and the imaginary.

Dr. Gayatri Resigns from the Ashram Nursing Home from A critique of the book "The Lives of Sri Aurobindo" by Peter Heehs by General Editor

Though Dr. Gayatri resigned on the grounds of ill-health, it is obvious why she resigned from the Nursing Home. She had dared to be frank and outspoken on the issue of Peter Heehs and had condemned his book without any fear of retribution from her superior, Dr Dilip Datta, chief of the Ashram medical services and one of the decision-makers in the board of Trustees of Sri Aurobindo Ashram. Dr Dilip Datta and his daughter Shoma have been of late mired in controversy surrounding their racial remarks on the devotees of Orissa who had come to protest against the Ashram Trust’s blatant support of Peter Heehs’s book. Dr. Gayatri will continue to serve her patients from the Dispensary but the patients in the Nursing Home will miss her dedicated 24 x 7 services rendered by her for more than a decade.

On quitting Goldman Sachs  from The Big Picture by T T Ram Mohan

A senior executive of Goldman Sachs has gone public with his decision to quit the firm by writing an article in the New York Times on the subject:

It might sound surprising to a skeptical public, but culture was always a vital part of Goldman Sachs’s success. It revolved around teamwork, integrity, a spirit of humility, and always doing right by our clients. The culture was the secret sauce that made this place great and allowed us to earn our clients’ trust for 143 years. It wasn’t just about making money; this alone will not sustain a firm for so long. It had something to do with pride and belief in the organization. I am sad to say that I look around today and see virtually no trace of the culture that made me love working for this firm for many years. I no longer have the pride, or the belief.

There is no end, it seems, to the public bashing of the investment bank. Wonder how Goldman will respond, if at all. (Thanks to Sidharth Sinha for the pointer)

The right way to make money from Cafe Hayek by Russ Roberts

People are making fun of this piece by Greg Smith where he talks about his disillusionment with the culture at Goldman Sachs.