Amod Lele - February 7th, 2012 on 12:49 pm
The best starting point is probably still A
Brief History of Everything. It’s a condensed version of his magnum opus to
date (Sex,
Ecology, Spirituality), in dialogue form. It’s a decade or two old at this
point and he has changed his views significantly in later works, but in many
respects I actually like the older version better. Brief History is
the book I started with and I would continue to recommend it.
I was a “fan” of Wilber’s writings during my days as
a doctoral student in Canada
Breadth? Sure, it is important, but when someone
presumes that his “breadth” can extend to everything (a la “A Brief History of
Everything”), I begin to have serious doubts about the man’s sense of humility
and even the quality of his understanding of the human predicament!
There are so many things about our very own and very
intimate “Brother Donkey” (As St. Francis of Assisi
Sufficient unto the day honest, useful, and solid
work on one thing, however little or limited that thing may be than a torrent
of words “full of sound and fury signifying nothing” on this, that, and the
other!
“his central experiment or observation is based on
meditation or what he has called ‘one taste’.” We surely would like to know
what sort of “meditation” this is, what the alleged truths are, and how this
“meditation” yielded those “truths”.
He may have borrowed this notion from Aurobindo (I
think Wilber has not acknowledged the full extent of Aurobindo’s influence on
his writings). Aurobindo wrote that he was a practitioner of “mystic
empiricism”, an undertaking, he believed, was empirical in just the way
scientific inquiry is empirical!
But then Aurobindo never explained, although he
wrote several big books, the actual process by means of which he allegedly
arrived at knowledge of “occult worlds, entities, and forces”, not to mention
the modus operandi of harnessing them, e.g., “Yogic force”, to allegedly cure
illnesses, influence world events, etc.
Aurobindo’s Baloney – I
AUGUST 22, 2011
Aurobindo Ghose (1872 – 1950) was a prolific writer
on Indian metaphysics, religion, occultism, yoga, literature, art, and
politics. He was also a composer of poems and plays. He is reputed to be one of
the foremost mystics of twentieth century India Pondicherry ), in the province of Tamilnadu , India
Aurobindo made a number of extraordinary and
supernatural claims in his writings, letters, and conversations with his
largely credulous disciples. You will find claims on “occult worlds”, “hostile
forces”, alleged Blackmagic and his efforts to counteract it, alleged
poltergeist phenomena in his ashram, healing or cure of even chronic diseases
by “yogic force”, the possibility of conquering death by harnessing the
“supramental force”, his avowed role in using his “yogic force” to turn the
tide of World War II in favor of the Allied forces, and so on. In this series
of pieces, I intend to examine and uncover the baloney in these claims.
Let’s start with his claim that during his stay in
the Alipore jail (May 1908- 1909) he heard the voice of Vivekananda (1863 –
1902) giving him information on “higher planes of consciousness”, particularly
the so-called “intuitive mentality”. Since Vivekananda died in 1902, this
alleged event happened six years or so after Vivekananda’s
death. Obviously, Aurobindo is claiming that Vivekananda visited him in the
Alipore jail in the form of a “spirit” or disembodied presence and spoke to him.
Posted in Philosophical Baloney
a reader complains about Žižek’s methods of critique from Object-Oriented Philosophy by doctorzamalek (Graham Harman)
I’m generally a big
fan of Žižek, as readers of this blog know, despite disagreeing with the
majority of what he says. There’s a certain energy there that is compelling
beyond all agreement and disagreement. … The reader has a point, in the sense
that Žižek in his writings does have a tendency to treat all incorrect views as
ridiculous. Nonetheless, he also has a good track record of leaving plenty of
free space for contrary opinions outside his written pages. So does Badiou, by
all accounts. … That said, I think the reader is right. This is a fairly
typical Žižekian trope– setting up the traditional reading of a philosopher as
naive or idiotic and then reversing it. Yes, true enough.
22 September 2010
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