Monday, February 09, 2015

Integral portrayal of Sri Aurobindo

Preface and Introduction from Bertrand Russell´s History of Western ... - Bertrand Russell - With the possible exception of Leibniz, every philosopher of whom I treat is better known to some others than to me. If, however, books covering a wide field are to be written at all, it is inevitable, since we are not immortal, that those who write such books should spend less time on any one part than can be spent by a man who concentrates on a single author or a brief period. Some, whose scholarly austerity is unbending, will conclude that books covering a wide field should not be written at all, or, if written, should consist of monographs by a multitude of authors. 
There is, however, something lost when many authors co-operate. If there is any unity in the movement of history, if there is any intimate relation between what goes before and what comes later, it is necessary, for setting this forth, that earlier and later periods should be synthesized in a single mind. The student of Rousseau may have difficulty in doing justice to his connection with the Sparta of Plato and Plutarch; the historian of Sparta may not be prophetically conscious of Hobbes and Fichte and Lenin. To bring out such relations is one of the purposes of this book, and it is a purpose which only a wide survey can fulfil.]

On reading the above years ago, I had felt a certain uneasiness which continues to this day. On Reading Sri Aurobindo by Murali Sivaramkrishnan also raises similar methodological issues with regard to Sri Aurobindo's works. Given the complex history of The Mother & Sri Aurobindo's collaboration and their varied writings, even a reasonably accurate impression of them is difficult to acquire. Further, books and essays by those connected with the Archives like Peter Heehs and Richard Hartz continue to add new dimensions. The recent article on A God's Labour in Mother India (January 2015) is a case in point. How many people can access or appreciate such research output, however, is a moot point. 

How to connect Philosophy to life? That Philosophy literally cultivates the brain and thereby enriches thinking and spurs ideas should be considered as reward enough. But the specific course of life also decides a person's understanding and areas of emphasis. Sri Aurobindo is busy writing his ARYA articles 100 years back in 1915 which constitutes the zenith of Indian genius. http://t.co/c4VLs52xUs. But those who come across a mischievous compilation like India's Rebirth, for instance, never come out of an overall impression of Sri Aurobindo approving religious hatred. Thus, an integral portrayal (and reception) of Sri Aurobindo is, by definition, impossible. [TNM55]

[Sri Aurobindo's Ashram > Jugal Kishore Mukherjee > The Practice Of The Integral Yoga > The Ninefold Daily Sadhana] http://t.co/o6Wv12Rp8W
[ELEVEN BASIC ATTITUDES When a traveller decides to undertake a long and rigorous journey, he first provides himself] http://t.co/xN9eSDVSj1
[Larry Seidlitz — We find in Sri Aurobindo’s treatment of emotions a great paradox and its synthesis and resolution.] http://t.co/y4CMoOfHuu
[limitations and pitfalls in contemporary attempts to integrate Indian philosophic/psychological ideas with contemporary science] http://www.infinityfoundation.com/mandala/i_es/i_es_salmo_psych_frameset.htm
[Philosophy can then be viewed as therapy, the function of which is to purge emotions from the soul (Nussbaum 1994).] http://t.co/w0aQRY5b57
[think.: Why should contemporary philosophy care about Indian Philosophy - Posted by Malcolm Keating] http://t.co/oi0wlOS9ja
[So Prof Juluri Vamsee is son of yesteryear telugu actress Jamuna, good to know] http://t.co/wtgbvlBMvG
[Akeel Bilgrami: ‘Hindu Right’s appropriation of svaraj is hypocrisy’ - The Hindu] http://t.co/m0cwki8JRF



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