To be exclusive and illiberal are real virtues

Hindu Nationalist minds must consider the fact that to be exclusive and illiberal are real virtues. To be inclusive or liberal leads to harm - mauna

Is there consensus amongst Hindu Nationalists that reconversions are a positive action & required? (Without linking it to evangelism etc) - mauna

Not going to earn any brownie for innate sense of fairness and decency . Ruthless purge of UPA stooges in academia and babudom needed now - pv

No Mr RSS chief PM NaMo is not just another swayamsevak and you are not his boss, come out of grand delusion http://t.co/VwEnzj2Zeh - ka

Shourie's criticism helps us Indians see true worth or lack thereof of these "academicians". Read their laughable rebuttal. Let us not use religion as a shield to de-criminalise Aurangzeb. Referring to bringing out truth in history as "intellectual terrorism" is hallmark of seculars. - vs

@SudheenKulkarni Have you ever asked successive secular regimes to stop conversions? And stop pontificating about... - ji

enough to demand secularism in India. Do look up this link on Church role in Mizoram. http://t.co/mpPyqAXi76 - gh
Even blaming entire religion or followers on the basis of actions of a few of a religion is unsolicited as well. -ks
@Hashestweets  excellent new piece on the RSS: A new vision of India, 100 percent Hindu http://t.co/7WiijLWyRp via @BV - wd

Quietly passing ordinance after ordinance by keeping people busy outraging about VHP/Bajrang Dal/RSS. Sham of a sarkar. -pc

As ignorance is an Asura, reconverting illiterates has doubtful value, can boomerang. -sb

Role of Spirituality apropos morality

[Morality involves regulating one’s physical and vital desires and impulses by the power of the mental will. Service to others – family, society, country – and other forms of idealism, while helping to discipline and mould human nature, still belong to the mental evolution and are bound by the ego. Exoteric religion serves a purpose in the life of societies to correct collective egoism and provide a support and help to those who have some spiritual devotion. But there is a radical difference between these three approaches to higher life and that of spirituality. Spirituality and yoga depend essentially on a change of consciousness; they reveal to man another realm entirely, beyond the rule of the ego, where one can begin to live more freely and unite with one’s true self.]

Morality, Idealism, Religion and Yoga
The Meaning of Spirituality — Selections from the Works of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother
Publisher: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department, Pondicherry Binding: Soft Cover Pages: 174 Price: Rs 80 ISBN: 979-81-7058-037-8

[Spirituality may often be confused with morality, idealism, and religion, which play significant roles in regulating, controlling, and directing the lives of most men. But spirituality, or yoga in its more general sense, is essentially different because it proceeds directly by a change of consciousness and presents a radical new approach to life. This approach, which goes beyond the ego and its exclusive focus on the common habits of the mind, life, and body, reveals to man how to find his true self and seek union with the Divine. The editor has selected passages from the works of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother that define and clarify these fundamental differences and, in the final section, that describe how to prepare for and take up the path of yoga.]

Letters present a different aspect of Sri Aurobindo

[The letters present to the reader a different aspect of Sri Aurobindo than we meet in his more formal writings. Prior to November 1926, Sri Aurobindo met with his disciples daily. After he retired to his room, his external contact with them was mostly limited to exchanges of letters. The letters from Sri Aurobindo to his disciples are personal, direct, simple, often humorous, always encouraging, and full of his compassion and care. They respond individually to specific questions on every conceivable subject or problem facing the sadhak. Sri Aurobindo cautioned his disciples that it was not advisable to apply to oneself what he had written for another: “Each sadhak is a case by himself and one cannot always or often take a mental rule and apply it rigidly to all who are practising the Yoga.” Yet there is a core of knowledge that emerges – a common theme on the practice of yoga, the foundation of the sadhana, a set of guiding principles for the path of self-perfection, and an explanation of the psychic and spiritual realisations that form the base of the Integral Yoga – that, if taken in the right spirit, can widen and deepen the understanding of any sincere reader.]

[For some time afterwards, his main literary output was his voluminous correspondence with his disciples. His letters, most of which were written in the 1930s, numbered in the several thousands. Many were brief comments made in the margins of his disciple's notebooks in answer to their questions and reports of their spiritual practice—others extended to several pages of carefully composed explanations of practical aspects of his teachings. These were later collected and published in book form in three volumes of Letters on Yoga. In the late 1930s, he resumed work on a poem he had started earlier—he continued to expand and revise this poem for the rest of his life.[41] It became perhaps his greatest literary achievement, Savitri, an epic spiritual poem in blank verse of approximately 24,000 lines.]

1. General EditorNovember 16, 2014 at 10:24 AM

   Anonymous comment:
   
   most ashramites there today, didn't come to imbibe any values or ideals. prime location, free food, no work.... so forget about any evolution. i just hope they don't do the opposite of dragging the rest of us into some dark abyss.
   
   Polite? thats the deviant trait thats found in less than handful of people in the ashram outlets. 
2. 
   jyotirmayi trustNovember 17, 2014 at 11:04 PM

   The state of affairs narrated is quite true as experienced by us often during our visits to Ashram for Darshan. Today only (17/11/14) my wife was misbehaved badly by a male sadhak while she was silently standing in queue in Dining room to deposit utensils in the wash area. It is a pity that there is no one to oversea as to how the visitors/devotees coming from far flung areas are being treated by the so called Ashramites

Sri Aurobindo Ashram has to be run on democratic lines

The biggest change after the Mother’s passing away is the dilution of the spiritual motive in Ashram life, and this is the prime culprit in all the internal conflict in the Ashram. But that cannot be helped with the passing away of the Gurus. In such a situation, when this downward gravitational pull affects everybody in the Ashram, the onus is on the present Trustees to realise that they cannot expect the same kind of obedience from the present Ashramites as what they themselves perhaps gave to the Mother... An Ashram without the Gurus or spiritually mature administrators is not an Ashram but an institution which has to be run on democratic lines...

Everybody in the Ashram and all the devotees who visit the Ashram on a regular basis know that the Ashram does survive on public donations, that it will go bankrupt if the donations and offerings stop, and that its businesses can hardly provide the finance to make both ends meet. In fact Ashram businesses and farms are white elephants and are mostly run at huge losses... But don’t be surprised if the Trustees have to step down sooner or later from their high pedestals! Posted by General Editor at 8/29/2014 12:54:00 PM

Therefore the Ashramites who have filed this “new case” are not against the Ashram but the Ashram Trust, which runs the Ashram in the most irresponsible manner. Their demand is to revamp the present administration through a Government intervention without which no structural changes can be brought about in the governance of the Ashram. The changes will ensure transparency and accountability, the utter lack of which is the hallmark of the present setup. The introduction of some democracy into the highly autocratic functioning of the present Trustees would also be a welcome measure. All these demands are fundamental to any institution in modern times and, if the excuse for not conceding to them is that the Ashram is a spiritual institution and not a secular one, then show me these “highly spiritual disciples” among the present Trustees who can guide the Ashram to its spiritual destiny!

Why don’t the Ashram Trustees hand over the administration to five of their own supporters for a change in order to show that they have no personal stake in it? Posted by General Editor at 8/22/2014 09:30:00 AM

It is more difficult to convince Aurovillians that meditation at the Matrimandir can also become a ritual. It is true that there are no flowers or incense sticks, no deity or Guru, but there are symbols of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother built into the very design of Matrimandir. Beneath the crystal at the centre of the inner chamber is the Mother’s symbol and the crystal itself is supported by four symbols of Sri Aurobindo; also the twelve pillars in the Meditation Hall and the four ramps outside correspond to the twelve outer petals and the four inner petals respectively of the Mother’s symbol. What I mean is that despite the fabulous beauty and perfection of the Matrimandir, the meditation in the inner chamber can still become mechanical and boring, and after a time, artificial and ritualistic, because with the passage of time everything becomes old and customary. Posted by General Editor at 8/09/2014 09:35:00 AM

Avoiding the slightest public homage to Sri Ramakrishna and Vivekananda in spite of knowing their crucial roles in Sri Aurobindo’s and Mother’s sadhana for fear of being branded a religious institution. But regularly commemorating the life and works of  Tagore in poignant speeches and emotive presentations, knowing that he had not the slightest role in Sri Aurobindo’s or Mother’s sadhana; knowing that, in the Mother’s opinion, his spiritual attainments were not exceptional and the fame he has gained in the West is only “because his stature does not go beyond the understanding of the Western mind”, whereas “India has far greater geniuses than him in the most varied fields, scientific, literary, philosophic, spiritual”.[9] Posted by General Editor at 9/04/2014 09:45:00 AM

Contempt for Mythology

@SavitriEraParty You must be a covert Anarchist! :-)

Wow, sad to hear @SavitriEraParty say "stand by English". I'm not anti-English at all, but not at the cost of our Prakrits & Sanskrit.

All in all, @SavitriEraParty seems another transparent attempt to hijack Hindu philosophy for Commie policy. Virulently anti-Modi, too.

Only thing @SavitriEraParty takes from Aurobindo is "evolution". Hence the contempt for "mythology". Left only with Hegelian nonsense.

A lot of Bengali Commies are also into some half-baked "Vedanta". Same with @SavitriEraParty

@Parikramah examples also include Anandmargis @SavitriEraParty

@Parikramah Also who decides what Mythology is to be shunned? A large chunk of our history will disappear that way. @SavitriEraParty

Two books stand on entirely different grounds

1. Tusar Nath Mohapatra says: March 12th, 2014 at 3:41 pm
   The author is an insider as regards his subject while the same cannot be said about the Professor and therefore the two books stand on entirely different grounds. How strange that he has no remorse for injuring the intimate feelings of thousands of people who choose to adore The Mother! [TNM55]