Savitri Era Political Action

Free economic system within a free political system

2012-01-23T11:53:00.000+05:30

Google Reader (68): 'via Blog this' THE WINGS OF ENVY AND RESENTMENT from Dr. Sanity by Dr. Sanity

The modern Democratic party is almost entirely based on hyping both envy and resentment, and appealing to the worse of human nature. By doing so, they have created destructive and wealth-destroying armys of entitlement whose goal, whether they admit it or not, is to destroy wealth and the source of wealth. Without envy, there would be no Democratic Party today. And when Sowell says that, "Whole totalitarian governments have risen to dictatorial power on the wings of envy and resentment ideologies", it is clear to even the least observant that this is the destructive path which is being foisted on this country by the mostly clueless minions of the political left.

I have to ask again with some exasperation, why aren't Republicans making a case for the essential morality of capitalism? An entire cultural war is being fought against capitalism, and instead of making the case for why economic freedom and the free market is the best possible means to economic betterment for ALL PEOPLE, regardless of whether they are rich or poor; black or white; gay or straight; male or female or along any other divide the progressives can think of. Instead, Republicans are busy legitimizing the narrative of the Democrats and their progressive left leaders. This is sheer stupidity and represents (sadly) how ubiquitous such narratives (such as "the 1% vs the 99%") have become.

Only in a free economic system within a free political system is it even possible to be moral, since benevolence toward others, compassion, charity, and generosity cannot exist without freedom. Benevolence, generosity, charity, and compassion that are mandated by the state, or by a religion (on pain of death or other consequence); or by any regulations on behavior; or by force--are meaningless insofar as individual morality is concerned. So yes, we must make the moral case for capitalism. We must continually put forth these ideas in debate and argument because they are good ideas and shining through them is the essential morality of America and Americans.

Democracy in India is only a top-dressing on an Indian soil that is undemocratic

2012-01-23T11:27:00.000+05:30

Democratic Meaning ofthe Anna Movement: One View by SATISH K. JHA

MAINSTREAM, VOL L, NO 1, DECEMBER 24, 2011 (ANNUAL2011)

The true meaning of the Anna phenomenon would beknown only in due course of time. In the meantime, the debate surrounding theAnna movement has got so much charged up that it is becoming difficult to makea political judgment (…) Ambedkar,quoting Greek historian Grote, had extensively dwelt on the importance of‘constitutional morality’ in the representative democracy due to thepossibility of a distance between the people and their representatives. He said‘constitutional morality is not a natural sentiment. It has to be cultivated.We must realise that our people have yet to learn it.

Democracy in India is only a top-dressing on anIndian soil, which is essentially undemocratic. The upshot of his statement isquite clear—the spectre of the ‘grammar of anarchy’ is the speed-governor ininstitutional democracy whereas ‘constitutional morality’ as self-restraintshould constitute the ground rule for the free play of democratic politics. Butthe moot point is: whether the political class in today’s India can claimadherence to it. Does not this appropriation of Ambedkar’s argument from theConstituent Assembly debates by all and sundry today look insincere, selectiveand insensitive to the larger context in which it was presented, with theobvious intention of just running away from a more nuanced and reasoned debateon the issues in question?

However, the question as to whether therepresentative is a trustee of the people’s will or a mere delegate, who is tobe continuously commanded by the constituents, is itself an open and unresolvedissue in the annals of representative democracy since the time of Burke andMill, who had strained their nerves to come to a definite answer to thisdilemma. The present turmoil on the issue of enacting a Lokpal Bill seems tohave further aggravated this unresolved riddle of democratic politics, whichhas been smouldering since the time direct democracy of a participatory modemade way for the indirect one; along with the resultant question as to whetherauthorisation through election implies giving a carte blanche to therepresentatives till the next election to do whatever they may consider andconstrue to be the constituents’ interests. Or, are the representatives onlydelegates, who have to take directive and command from the people, whom theyrepresent, from time to time and at different stages of political transactions?Not only this. Would the represented, when they feel that their mandate hasbeen betrayed, be within their democratic right to demand an account from theirrepresentatives and foist their will on them through democratic means, evenbefore the expiry of their electoral term?

Though, what constitutes democratic means in ademocratic polity is itself an unsettled matter in today’s context, aselectoral politics no longer performs its role as the only dependable channelof democratic transactions for the people due to a number of its operativedeformities. And one thing is very clear that these posers are growing inimportance by the day due to the legitimacy-deficit of the electedrepresentatives and each time they are put forth by a discontented civilsociety, they only cast a longer shadow on the fate of representative democracywhich often waxes eloquent about the procedural legitimacy, institutionalefficacy and neutrality of its political space. One of the members of TeamAnna, Prashant Bhushan, observes that ‘the representative democracy wasdeveloped at a time and in the circumstances when there was no mechanismavailable to know the views of the people on various issues on a continuousbasis. But with the technological advances attained over the years, we can nowmove in the direction of more meaningful involvement of the civil society in thegovernance through dialogue and deliberations.’ By saying so, he rakes up acrucial issue; that is, the issue of accountability and responsiveness of therepresentatives towards their constituents in a democracy.

One of the authorities on the political representation,Hanna Pitkin, has said that ‘responsiveness need not to be constant activity inthe representative democratic system. But there has to be a constant conditionof responsiveness in the sense that the potential readiness of therepresentatives to respond should ever be present. … The age-old conundrum ofdemocratic accountability is as relevant today as it was when directparticipatory democracy transited towards a representative system. Now it isbeing proved again and again that the accountability and responsiveness issuesare valid in themselves and have to be settled on their own terms. They canneither be taken care of within the emotive politics of group rights, as thefailure of the social justice politics and their champions in some of theIndian States to stand accountable to their own social constituency, which hadreposed so much faith in them, would bear it out. Nor can they be mortgaged tothe abstract liberal democratic discourse of institutional neutrality,constitutional oath and secular fidelity, as their omissions and commissionshave now become political folklore. Hence, if such meanings are derived fromthe Anna phenomenon, it would be a better service to the cause of Indiandemocracy than hiding behind the political rhetoric of parliamentarysovereignty and the civil society’s deformities in India.

It hardly needs any mention that

India

has neither gone forparliamentary sovereignty of the British type, nor has it adopted the judicialsupremacy of the American variety. It has, instead, settled for a doctrine of‘constitutional supremacy’, which proclaims sovereignty of the people. Cananyone overlook the fact that the Constitution of India swears in the name of‘we the people’ at the very outset and this precedes everything else includingthe institution of Parliament? The author is an Associate Professor inPolitical Science, RLAE College, University of Delhi.

Democracy is just a new name for plutocracy

2012-01-23T11:05:00.001+05:30

A fundamental question: What is democracy and how does itfunction? from AV's politics by A. V. Satish Chandra

From two different vantage points, Naidu and Reddyhave now been espousing the cause of the farmers in Andhra Pradesh. To say thatthe espousal of the cause of the farmers is an electoral gambit is stating theobvious. Electoral politics by their very nature demand that politicalparties and their leaders be in touch with their constituents. Irrespective of the next election in Andhra Pradesh being mid-term or onschedule, it is increasingly clear that the separate Telangana is not happeningbefore that. … So what does this tell us about democracy? It tellsus that democracy is actually a surrogate for plutocracy, where the rich inorder to control society and become richer still co-opt or coerce othersections of the populations in to their scheme of things by promising theearth, sky, moon and the stars. … Politicians apparently pay lip serviceto those sections of society that are in distress and chalk out a strategy muchlike a macro-marketing strategy to draw the votes of those in distress. So in India,democracy is a plutocracy of people who become legislators by hook sometimesand by crook oftentimes but claim to have the legitimate support of the people.

So is this peculiar to India then? The answer willbe an emphatic no. The answer is so emphatic not because I have any firsthand experience of politics in other countries but because I have studied theevolution of modern day democracy. The Greeks equated democracy to mobrule, it was only in the modern capitalist period that democracy found somerespect. The champions of modern capitalism such as John Locke and AdamSmith were also champions of democracy, but they never believed in or advocatedthe concept of Universal Suffrage or Universal Adult Franchise. What theyhad advocated was a democratic plutocracy in which only the propertied and therich would have any rights and say in decision making for society. It isfor this reason that they advocated concepts of free markets and limited governments. Over the years, some sections from the mobs that the Greek politicalphilosophers feared, were able to find their way into the process of democracy. Once such people find entry into the democratic process, they lose notime in dissociating themselves from the mobs to which they once belonged andaspire to be plutocrats.

Therefore, theorists such as Hamza Alavi and SamirAmin are right when they say that politicians constitute a separate class muchlike the traditional intellectuals (to borrow a term from Antonio Gramsci)think of themselves as a distinct class. The difference is that intellectualsplay around with words and concepts and feel gratified if somebody notices whatthey say (they do not do anything, and I know I am implicating myself here eventhough I don't see myself as an intellectual in anyway) while the politiciansfind economic and financial gratification; something that is far more tangible. People's aspirations incidental to this grander scheme of politicians andsome benefits that sometimes get passed on to some people are also incidentaland just by products of the games that politicians play. To concludethen, democracy is not will of the people, democracy is not fairness, democracyis not justice, democracy is not empowerment of all; modern democracy is just anew name, a legitimation for plutocracy and the furtherance of the agendas ofthe rich, be they individuals or corporations.

Cartels are formed not by collusion alone

2012-01-20T23:41:00.000+05:30

Cartels Are an Emergent Phenomenon, Say Complexity Theorists - Technology Review: 'via Blog this'

"This cartel organization is not due to an explicit collusion among agents; instead it arises spontaneously from the maximization of the individual payoﬀs," say Peixoto and Bornholdt. These guys are clearly studying a parameter space displaying a rich variety of patters. And the cartel-like region of this space has its own patterns of behaviour. It is categorised by sudden and dramatic price variations, particularly moving suddenly upwards but decaying only slowly. These variations can also appear cyclical (but are actually aperiodic).

This more or less exactly matches the price behaviour at gas stations and many other economic areas, such as electricity and natural gas prices in Europe. It would be interesting to see if this kind of behaviour emerges in other markets such as eBay. The big question of course is what to do. Cartels that form by collusion are illegal and clearly not in the interests of the general population. But this work muddies the waters somewhat. If cartel-like behaviour is an emergent property of an ordinary market, how should it be controlled, regulated and punished?

Jeffrey Sachs: Libertarian Illusions

2012-01-17T15:05:00.000+05:30

Jeffrey Sachs: Libertarian Illusions: 'via Blog this'

Libertarianism is the single-minded defense of liberty. Many young people flock to libertarianism out of the thrill of defending such a valiant cause. They also like the moral freedom that libertarianism seems to offer: it's okay to follow one's one desires, even to embrace selfishness and self-interest, as long as it doesn't directly harm someone else.

Yet the error of libertarianism lies not in championing liberty, but in championing liberty to the exclusion of all other values. Libertarians hold that individual liberty should never be sacrificed in the pursuit of other values or causes. Compassion, justice, civic responsibility, honesty, decency, humility, respect, and even survival of the poor, weak, and vulnerable -- all are to take a back seat.

When libertarians translate the idea of liberty into the political and economic spheres, they argue that government should operate only to protect personal liberty and not for any other cause. According to libertarians, the sole role of government is to enforce private contracts and to keep the peace so that no one can use force to deprive the liberty of another. In English political theory, this is called the "night watchman state."

Columbia Economist Slays Straw Man from Cafe Hayek by Don Boudreaux

Mr. Sachs here performs the equivalent of, say, accusing someone who advocates sobriety of thereby being indifferent to other values such parental responsibility, financial prudence, and neighborliness. But just as being sober in no way precludes – and likely promotes – other values such as parental responsibility, being a libertarian in no way precludes any of the values and causes that Mr. Sachs lists. Indeed, libertarians argue that these other values and causes are best promoted by individual liberty, and that too many people who insist that achieving these other values requires the suppression of liberty are cynically seeking convenient cover for their own self-aggrandizement.

IIC Book Discussion on January 19, 2012 at 6.30 PM

2012-01-15T13:18:00.004+05:30

There will be a discussion of this book on 19 January 2012 at the India International Centre, 40 Max Muller Marg, New Delhi at the Conference Room No. 1 of the IIC). The discussion will be chaired by Dr. Karan Singh, President, Indian Council of Cultural Relations and will have Dr. Kavita Sharma (Director,IIC), Professor Indra Nath Chaudhury (former Member Secretary, IGNCA) and Professor Sachidananda Mohanty, Editor of this book, as discussants.

[Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, has published Barindra Kumar Ghose’s book The Tale of My Exile:Twelve Years in the Andamans (introduced and edited by Dr. Sachidananda Mohanty of the Department of English, University of Hyderabad) in December 2011.] With warm regards, Anurag Banerjee, Founder, Overman Foundation.

19 January 2012 At 18:30 - C. D. Deshmukh Auditorium
Category	:	DISCUSSIONS
Programme Name	:	BOOK DISCUSSION GROUP
Description	:	Dr. Kavita Sharma, Director, IIC; Professor Indra Nath Chaudhury, former Member Secretary, IGNCA; and Professor Sachidananda Mohanty, former Head, Department of English, University of Hyderabad will discuss The Tale of My Exile (Pondicherry, Arya Office, 1972) by Barindra Kumar Ghose Chair: Dr. Karan Singh, MP

The 70:20 ratio

2012-01-15T12:55:00.000+05:30

BJP 70% pure, every party has to compromise: Yashwant Sinha - Hindustan Times: 'via Blog this'

"Every party in Parliamentary democracy has to do this (compromise). It has not been done for the first time and also certainly not for the last time." Contending that "Nobody or party can claim to be 100 % pure", he said, "But, BJP is 70 % pure while others are only 20 % (pure). So, still BJP is a party with a difference."

He was reacting when asked how BJP could claim to be a "party with a difference" even after induction of Kushwaha, which came on top of the party forming government in Jharkhand with the support of JMM against whose leader Shibu Soren who is facing corruption charges. "No political party runs as a theological or charitable organisation. As per age-old dictum that politics is an art of possible, every party has to combine ideology and practical wisdom," he said.

Political ideals vs. religious practices

2011-10-21T13:06:00.001+05:30

Secularism: Its content and context - The Immanent Frame by Akeel Bilgrami on Oct 20, 2011 8:29 PM

It should be possible to think that a devout Muslim or Christian or Hindu can be committed to keeping some aspects of the reach of his religion out of the polity, without altogether giving up on being a Muslim, Christian, or Hindu. And it seems natural today to express that thought by saying that such a person, for all his devoutness, is committed to secularism. And one can say this while noticing and saying something that it is also natural to think and say: such a devout person, in being devout, is holding out against the tendencies unleashed by the long social and ideational processes of secularization. And we can appreciate the naturalness of this restriction of the term ‘secularism’ to the polity when we observe that the slogan ‘separation of church and state’ (which, whatever we think of it, is part of what is conveyed to many by the ordinary usage of the term ‘secularism’) allows one the church, even as it separates it from the state, or, more generally, from the polity. If we did not believe that the term was to be restricted in this way, we would either have to collapse secularism with secularization or—if we insisted on some more subtle difference between those two terms—we would have to invent another term altogether (a term that has no cognate relation to this family of terms—secular, secularization, secularism) to capture the aspiration of a polity to seek relative independence from a society’s religiosity. ...

Secularism as a political doctrine arose to repair what were perceived as damages that flowed from historical harms that were, in turn, perceived as owing, in some broad sense, to religion. Thus, for instance, when it is said that secularism had as its vast cradle the prolonged and internecine religious conflicts in Europe of some centuries ago, something like this normative force of serving goods and correcting harms is detectably implied. But if all this is right, then it follows that one would have to equally grant that, should there be contexts in which those goods were not seen necessarily to be goods, or to the extent that those goods were being well served by political arrangements that were not secularist, or to the extent that there were no existing harms, actual or potential, that secularism would be correcting, then one could take the opposing normative stance and fail to see the point and rationale for secularism. ...

Charles Taylor has convincingly argued that in a religiously plural society, secularism should be adopted on the basis of what Rawls called an ‘overlapping consensus.’ An overlapping consensus, in Rawls’s understanding of that term, is a consensus on some policy that is arrived at by people with very different moral and religious and political commitments, who sign on to the policy from within their differing points of view, and therefore on possibly very different grounds from each other. It contrasts with the idea that when one converges on a policy one must all do so for the same reason. ...

In a very interesting recent paper, Charles Taylor, has argued that we need to redefine ‘secularism.’ ... In modern societies, we seek various goods and the three in particular (echoing the trio of goods expressed in a familiar slogan) that remain relevant to secular aspirations are, the liberty of worship, the equality of different faiths, and finally, more than just equality, we need to give each faith a voice in determining the shape of the society, so there must be fraternal relations within which negotiations, with each voice being equally heard, is crucial. What is more, because the first aspect’s stress on separation of church and state was too focused on religion, the second aspect’s stress on religious diversity should be modified and expanded to include the fact that in late modernity, the diversity of pluralist societies contains not just a variety of religious people, but non-religious people as well. Their point of view must also be included in the mix. All this is now included in the idea and ideal of a redefined secularism. ...

I propose, then, something like the following non-arbitrary stipulation as a characterization of secularism that contains all of the three features I had mentioned at the outset.

(S): Should we be living in a religiously plural society, secularism requires that all religions should have the privilege of free exercise and be evenhandedly treated except when a religion’s practices are inconsistent with the ideals that a polity seeks to achieve (ideals, often, though not always, enshrined in stated fundamental rights and other constitutional commitments) in which case there is a lexical ordering in which the political ideals are placed first. Much commentary is needed on this minimal and basic characterization.

Redefining the Secular in Indian Society from SAHMAT NEWS by SAHMAT

Sukumar Muralidharan

IT is a word that has been tossed around in political contests and minutely dissected in scholarly circles. But “secularism” still remains an elusive concept. And in practice, “secular” politics is besieged at a number of levels, unable at any time to rise above particular, sectional interests.

An event on December 7, organised by the Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust (SAHMAT) and Social Scientist, was the occasion for a scholarly inquiry into the deeper meanings and definitions of the “secular” in Indian society. There are numerous --- and mostly irreconcilable --- definitions already in circulation. December 7 became, for this reason, an exercise in redefinition and rediscovery, in retrieving a principle from depths of conceptual confusion.

The event had to be organised on December 7 as it was the Muharram on December 6, the anniversary of Babri Masjid demolition. [...]

REDEFINING THE SECULAR: A PROGRAMME OF URGENCY
Secularism accorded priority to the political values of liberty and equality, over the codes of duty and obedience ordained by religion. Concluding the discussion, Prabhat Patnaik argued that what is often taken to be the purely ethical impulse towards freedom has a basis in reason. Every individual has a rational cause to struggle for freedom as part of a human collective, since nobody can call himself free while there are many who are unfree.
This collective endeavour for freedom fosters the domain of the “secular.” It creates the community that strives for a transcendence of narrower values imposed by religion. But it is threatened by the forces of reaction which seek to impose an order based on religious values. More subtly, the bourgeois order which retains a formal commitment to secularism, may seek to engineer schisms in the collective struggle for freedom, reducing each individual to an atomised existence, impelling him in turn to seek an anchorage in an older, familiar network of religious community.
The denial of human freedom then is the logical course of a bourgeois political order which exalts an individual’s seeming gain at the expense of society, as the ultimate benchmark of achievement. With the untold riches foretold on that pathway now proving illusory and the world order built on the unfettered and unaccountable rampage of finance capital in palpable crisis, the forces of reaction seem poised to resume their push towards absolute political power. A redefinition of the secular in Indian society is clearly a political programme of surpassing urgency.

To follow Sri Aurobindo in this great adventure one has to be a warrior and a heroic soul

2011-08-19T21:57:00.000+05:30

Contents Sraddha, August 2011

Our Ideal Sri Aurobindo 7

Aurobindo Ghosh Paul Richard 12

Prophet Of Nationalism And His Call Dasharathi Sengupta 15

Identity And Difference:Some Reflections On Sri Aurobindo’s Socio-Political Views Aparna Banerjee 27

The Dynamics Of India’s Culture Radharaman Chakrabarti 34

“Is India Civilised?” By Sri Aurobindo Makarand Paranjape 42

Indian Democracy – Part 1 Kittu Reddy 50

Humanity At The Crossroads : Does Sri Aurobindo Offer An Alternative? Shakuntala A and Ajai R Singh 62

The Foundations Of Social Sustainability M. S. Srinivasan 77

Emerging Concerns And Procedures Related To Education Of Values: The Vision Of Sri Aurobindo Neeltje Huppes 92

Realising Sri Aurobindo’s Ideal Law Of Social Development : Possibilities And Challenges For Psychology As a Discipline Of Study Monica Gupta 104

Spirituality And Prison Life: Sri Aurobindo And Barindra Kumar Ghose Sachidananda Mohanty 110

Veda Vyasa’s Mahabharata In Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri Prema NandaKumar 122

The Development Of Sri Aurobindo’s Thought Georges van Vrekhem 131

Notes On Authors 141 Index To Authors And Articles

In Sraddha, August 2010 – April 2011 142

Cover : Krishnalal’s painting Towards Inner Light

Editorial August 2011

Mother once said ‘Sri Aurobindo does not belong to the past nor to history. Sri Aurobindo is the Future advancing towards its realisation’. What is this Future that beckons us? Sri Aurobindo’s message is very simple and clear. He says that man is a transitional being, a growing organism, that he is not the last term or the end product in the evolutionary process. He has to grow further and expand in consciousness till he reaches the perfect and complete consciousness. And what is that state of perfect consciousness? Sri Aurobindo says that just as life has evolved out of matter and mind out of life, so there rise beyond mind other statuses of consciousness, tier upon tier, where man can go, live and even bring down their powers into his normal life and transform it into their pattern. And the highest of these planes is what Sri Aurobindo calls Supermind or Truth-Consciousness. Its original stuff is made not of ignorance, but of truth. Unlike in the mental ranges, where there is always an element of doubt, uncertainty, groping and partial perception and realisation, where one moves from greater darkness to a shade of lesser hue, here in the Truth-Consciousness one lives always in full daylight and in the plenitude of consciousness and delight and ‘fulfilled harmony’ and the only progress is from light to a greater light, from knowledge to a superior knowledge. Such was the life mission of Sri Aurobindo, ‘the builder of the Life Divine’ – to build a new foundation for a new world. To follow Sri Aurobindo in this great adventure one has to be a warrior and a heroic soul. On this hallowed day of his 139^th birth anniversary, let us once again rededicate ourselves unreservedly with a total submission and complete surrender of all the parts and planes of our being to his ideal and lay ourselves open to the dynamic or the supramental Divine which he calls the incarnate Divine Mother.

We have chosen to name this anniversary number a special issue on the Social and Political Writings of Sri Aurobindo as the bulk of the papers, with a few exceptions, concentrates on this theme. Readers will find special interest in the article by Paul Richard on Sri Aurobindo, taken from his book The Dawn of Asia published by Ganesh & Co. of Madras in 1919. The article has been translated by Sri Aurobindo himself.

http://selforum.blogspot.com/2011/08/passing-away-of-ranajit-sarkar-and-kd.html

Editorial Sraddha, April 2011

These are times of great moment, of unforeseen happenings and huge upheavals. Mighty unseen powers appear to be at play to take possession of this earthly life. The forces of darkness loom large over the horizon and seem to gain from strength to strength and there are signs of things growing from bad to worse and even worse than the worst if that is possible. Amid the spiralling gloom and uncertainty, amid ‘the wrestle of force’ and the cries of anguish and despair we seem to flounder and lose our way. The battle is now being waged on matter’s turf, and it is the physical mind with the vital as its ally with its brute and stubborn obduracy, its arrogance and ignorant pride that is refusing to budge from its small, safe territory for fear of ceding its fiefdom and losing itself in a larger continent of light and power and bliss and freedom and infinitude. The churning, the murk and the slime that are being thrown up, this mindless fighting, the rise of the demoniac forces lurking in man’s depths are a direct result of this resistance of the ‘cold material intellect’ to change and transform itself. It is at such times that we have to shed all self-deceit, insincerity and hypocrisy and make the irrevocable choice of standing firmly by the side of the Truth, the Higher Power that is pressing down to make earth its home. It is at times like these that we have to remain calm and vigilant and look straight into the spirit within and open ourselves to the light, the freedom, the bliss, the all-transforming power of love that is awaiting to descend. It is to such ‘calm continents of potency’, ‘homelands of beauty shut to human eyes’, ‘sunbelts of knowledge, moonbelts of delight’, ‘immortal spaces of cerulean hue’ that Savitri beckons us. As already stated in our previous issue, the remaining papers on Savitri, left over from the previous issue, appear in this number.

http://auroramirabilis.blogspot.com/2011/08/narad-worked-personally-with-mother-on.html

http://motherorissa.com/Files/magazine/Sraddha%20Apr'11.pdf

Can I act? Need I? What is action?

2011-08-11T18:45:00.000+05:30

The Betrayal of the Intellectuals Posted by: Murali Sivaramakrishnan | August 8, 2011

I am perfectly aware that I can recourse to the tremendous energy of Sri Aurobindo’s action! Remembering the life and times of an extraordinary intellectual, mystic and rishi, who gazed unflinchingly at the face of truth, history, reason and life. But however, how am I to act in troubled times like the present? Aren’t I also an accomplice in betraying the people? Knowing fully well the consequence of my silence I continue to exist in poignant silence and watch all the misdeeds and atrocities of the cut-throats who parade the present day world’s active stage. Perhaps, my role is simply to bear witness to tragedy and misdeeds? Like Ceslaw Milosz, who wrote A witness to Poetry? I, a poet and painter, simply bearing witness to all the acts and misdeeds of the present, silently, compliantly? Can I act? Need I? What is action?

Troubled times, these, no doubt. People are floundering without radical guidance and leadership. They dance to the tune of idiots and scoundrels who somehow manage to stray into the lime light through lobbying, cold shouldering and hobnobbing. They meekly follow the strange gods of science and technology without bothering to stop to think for themselves and seek the truth. Without bothering to ask the right questions. Without critical inquiry.

Modern narratives of progress hide their normative and moral judgments

2011-08-05T06:03:00.000+05:30

Although critical of discourses and practices which inculcate desires and beliefs antithetical to key aspects of Christian faith and praxis—humility, truth-speaking, relational dependence, an acknowledgement of our finitude, and so forth—Augustine understood the need to develop institutions beneficial to society as a whole and which would promote as much harmony as possible among its various members.[3] Concomitant with this constructive social project, Augustine also engaged in a deconstructive project. That is, he was acutely aware of the need to critically examine the accepted political and religious narratives of the day, narratives whose incandescent surfaces dazzled, concealing the often violent, greedy, self-serving agenda of the political elites. Like Foucault, Augustine employs his own variant of reverse discourse and counter-hegemonic narratives in order both to unmask the ideologies at play in Roman political discourse and to put forth alternative ways of being in the world with others.

The first five books of the City of God, as Robert Dodaro observes, “constitute the core of Augustine’s critique of Roman imperium”;[4] in these opening books, Augustine analyzes “the ideology of Roman literary and ceremonial forms,” whose theoretical foundations “were found primarily in Sallust, Cicero, and Varro.”[5] In light of his own training as a rhetor and his service at the imperial court in Milan prior to his baptism and later ordination to the priesthood and bishopric, Augustine was thoroughly versed in the art of persuasion and the various ways it was used to further political objectives. As Dodaro explains, Augustine understood that “Roman society was founded upon an extreme patriotism, a love for the patria above all else, which was promoted by means of Roman education, folklore, literature, civil religion, and theatre.”[6]

Like Augustine, Foucault also manifests concern for the marginalized of society, devoting himself to the study of prisons and mental institutions and to the ways in which these structures and their associated discourses, disciplines, and practices produce new, characteristically modern subjectivities. As Schuld explains, rather than uncovering how “rhetoric of imperial glory” masks the reality of violence and self-interest, Foucault analyzes how modern institutions and practices “garner and preserve power most effectively by relying upon a scientific sounding rhetoric of progress.”[7] With the transition from a sovereign-based political model wherein power is centralized and associated with the person of the king to a modern context wherein power is dispersed and diffused in a netlike fashion, a more “neutral,” “objective” discourse comes into play. That is, in contrast with, for example, Roman glory narratives and their overt conspicuous appeals to the political realm, modern scientific narratives present themselves as apolitical and unbiased.[8] By “posing as a coldly antiseptic science,” modern narratives of progress hide their normative and moral judgments;[9] the more successfully the new rhetoric hides its “political leverage,” the more politically efficacious its possibilities and widespread its socially produced realities.[10]

Notes [1] This post is indebted Robert Dodaro and Joyce Schuld’s work. See, for example, Dodaro, “Eloquent Lies, Just Wars and the Politics of Persuasion,” and Schuld, “Augustine, Foucault, and the Politics of Imperfection.” Part I: Un-Masking Marauders à la Augustine and Foucault from Per Caritatem by Cynthia R. Nielsen

Open propagandism and debate

2011-08-04T06:16:00.000+05:30

Sri Aurobindo Ashram - Sri Aurobindo Ashram - -09 E-Library - -01 ...

The first necessary element of democratic politics is difference of opinion, robust, frank, avowed, firmly and passionately held, and the first test of political capacity in a democratic nation is to bear these differences of opinion, however strong and even vehement, without disruption. In a monarchy differences of opinion are either stifled by an all-powerful absolute will or subordinated and kept in check by the supreme kingly arbiter; in an aristocracy the jealousy of a close body discourages free opinion and its free expression; in a bureaucracy stereotyped habits of action and method lead to a fixed and inelastic way of thinking and difference of opinion, when tolerated, is kept by the exigencies of administration private and largely ineffective.

It is democracy alone that demands free divergence of opinion in politics and open propagandism and debate as the very breath of its nostrils. The tendency to democracy creates freedom of speech and thought and these in their turn hasten the advent of democracy. All attempts to silence by force or evasion important differences of opinion are anti-democratic and though they do not necessarily show an incapacity for government, do show an incapacity for democratic politics. The democratic tendency in humanity is and has long been pressing forward victoriously to self-fulfilment and the modern attempt of the banded forces of autocracy, bureaucracy, plutocracy and theocracy to turn its march can only result in its growing stronger by the check and urging forward with greater impetuosity to its goal. It is therefore the democratic tendency and the democratic capacity which must be accepted and shown by any nation which aspires to go forward and be among the leaders of the world. Home > E-Library > Works Of Sri Aurobindo > English > Cwsa > Karmayogin > Bengal And The Congress

Appeal to people's self-interests, never to their mercy or gratitude.

2011-07-20T13:28:00.000+05:30

The 48 laws of power books.google.co.in Robert Greene, Joost Elffers - 2000 - 452 pages - Preview

Cunning, instructive, and amoral, this controversial bestseller distills 3,000 years of the history of power into 48 well-explicated laws.

The 48 Laws of Power - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The Laws

Law 1 Never outshine the master.
Law 2 Never put too much trust in friends; learn how to use enemies.
Law 3 Conceal your intentions.
Law 4 Always say less than necessary.
Law 5 So much depends on reputation. Guard it with your life.
Law 6 Court attention at all costs.
Law 7 Get others to do the work for you, but always take the credit.
Law 8 Make other people come to you; use bait if necessary.
Law 9 Win through your actions, never through argument.
Law 10 Infection: avoid the unhappy and unlucky.
Law 11 Learn to keep people dependent on you.
Law 12 Use selective honesty and generosity to disarm your victim.
Law 13 When asking for help, appeal to people's self-interests, never to their mercy or gratitude.
Law 14 Pose as a friend, work as a spy.
Law 15 Crush your enemy totally.
Law 16 Use absence to increase respect and honor.
Law 17 Keep others in suspended terror: cultivate an air of unpredictability.
Law 18 Do not build fortresses to protect yourself. Isolation is dangerous.
Law 19 Know who you're dealing with; do not offend the wrong person.
Law 20 Do not commit to anyone.
Law 21 Play a sucker to catch a sucker: play dumber than your mark.
Law 22 Use the surrender tactic: transform weakness into power.
Law 23 Concentrate your forces.
Law 24 Play the perfect courtier.
Law 25 Re-create yourself.
Law 26 Keep your hands clean.
Law 27 Play on people's need to believe to create a cultlike following.
Law 28 Enter action with boldness.
Law 29 Plan all the way to the end.
Law 30 Make your accomplishments seem effortless.
Law 31 Control the options: get others to play with the cards you deal.
Law 32 Play to people's fantasies.
Law 33 Discover each man's thumbscrew.
Law 34 Be royal in your fashion: act like a king to be treated like one.
Law 35 Master the art of timing.
Law 36 Disdain things you cannot have: Ignoring them is the best revenge.
Law 37 Create compelling spectacles.
Law 38 Think as you like but behave like others.
Law 39 Stir up waters to catch fish.
Law 40 Despise the free lunch.
Law 41 Avoid stepping into a great man's shoes.
Law 42 Strike the shepherd and the sheep will scatter.
Law 43 Work on the hearts and minds of others.
Law 44 Disarm and infuriate with the mirror effect.
Law 45 Preach the need for change, but never reform too much at once.
Law 46 Never appear perfect.
Law 47 Do not go past the mark you aimed for; in victory, learn when to stop.
Law 48 Assume formlessness.

The nation should remember Rao as the man who changed India

2011-07-19T20:14:00.000+05:30

Neo-illiberalism is India’s bane JUL 17TH

Dear Justices Nijjar and Reddy, Many of us welcome your decision in the Supreme Court case on black money, castigating the government for its inaction and setting up an independent special investigative team. This approach needs to be institutionalized: i have long argued for an independent Police Commission, analogous to the Election Commission. However, in MORE >

Unsung hero of the India story JUN 26TH

Twenty years ago, Narasimha Rao became Prime Minister and initiated economic reforms that transformed India. The Congress party doesn’t want to remember him: it is based entirely on loyalty to the Gandhi family, and Rao was not a family member. But the nation should remember Rao as the man who changed India, and the world MORE >

20 years to an economic miracle JUN 22ND

Twenty years ago, on June 21, 1991, Narasimha Rao became head of a weak minority government grappling with a terrible financial crisis. Yet he initiated economic reforms that eventually transformed India, and even the world. India in 1991 was a poor, misgoverned country, derided as a bottomless pit for foreign aid. Today it is called MORE >

Social democracy, not communism MAY 22ND

As we approach the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Soviet Union and its red empire, one minor principality of that empire, West Bengal, has also fallen. A post-election analysis by Brinda Karat shows how blind the CPM is to why first the Soviet Union and now West Bengal have fallen. British imperialists claimed MORE >

Don’t worry about inequality MAY 11TH

If people are totally free, the most talented (and lucky) will get far richer than the dullest and unluckiest. So, freedom will create inequality. Communist countries aimed for equality of outcome through totalitarian controls, but this was hypocrisy: there was no equality of power between those laying down the rules and those forced to obey. MORE >

Freedom means faster growth MAR 16TH

How do we measure economic freedom, and how relevant is it for economic growth? Some answers come from Economic Freedom of the States of India 2011, a report just brought out by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, Cato Institute and Indicus Analytics. The report shows that measuring economic freedom at the state level is a difficult MORE >

India’s great escape from the socialist zoo APR 18TH

(This is an edited version of the author’s acceptance speech on receiving the Manavata Vikas Award of the IIPM on April 15) I view myself as a freedom-fighter, who for 45 years has sought to promote every kind of freedom—economic, political and social. “Escape from the Benevolent Zookeepers”, a 2008 collection of Swaminomics columns, emphasized MORE >

20 years later: why the Berlin Wall fell OCT 25TH

We are approaching the 20th anniversary of the fall of communism. This comprehensively refuted the communist claim to represent the people. Yet the claim continues, sometimes dazzling a new generation of youngsters with no inkling of why the Berlin Wall fell on November 9, 1989. In democratic capitalism, said Karl Marx, the rich became richer MORE >

Socialism Versus Socialism AUG 30TH

WITH the collapse of the Soviet Union, it has become commonplace to say that capitalism has triumphed over communism. I think this is misleading and inaccurate notion. What has triumphed is the market-driven welfare state, the mixture of private enterprise and government paternalism that has become standard in western democracies. This is as different from MORE >

True change will come from each profession discharging its responsibilities

2011-06-03T18:54:00.000+05:30

Playing fast and loose – Pratap Bhanu Mehta Indian Express, Fri, Jun 03 2011

But civil society is, unconsciously, abetting its own brand of authoritarianism.

First, the sensibility at work in this self-appointed civil society is to enhance state power. Most of them hate the one thing that has made a brighter future possible for India: liberalisation. It took us decades to struggle against the stranglehold of the state and concentrations of power. Under the guise of combating terrorism, the state encroached on our freedoms. Under the guise of promoting accountability, civil society now wants new concentrations of power. How else do you explain that a Baba who advocates the extension of the death penalty to economic offenders, whose views on sexual minorities border on the fascist, is now the saviour of our moral fibre? How else do you explain the fact that every bill the NAC touches is closing doors to experiments in the social sector? It played fast and loose with important constitutional values in the prevention of communal violence bill. How else do you explain the sensibility that says the solution to the problems of the state is more state, the solution to weaknesses of existing institutions is more institutions, and the key to dealing with the fact that most laws remain unimplemented is more laws?

The second element of creeping authoritarianism is the punitive mood. The presumptions that should remain dear to a liberal society, even though there may be costs attached to them, are all being tossed out of the window: like the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. In this climate, can you even think of a judge being able to give someone bail fairly? Merely that act will expose her to the censure that she is corrupt. This is the tenor of much of the allegations our civil society representatives are bandying about as gospel truth. No one denies that “due process” has been a fig leaf to let many holders of power off the hook. But that is no justification for creating a climate of opinion about whole classes of people that is punitive rather than discriminating.

The third element of creeping authoritarianism is the erosion of a proper sense of balance. Each group is pursuing a single-point agenda as if that is the only thing that mattered. Each value like transparency is being taken to an extreme point where it could become dangerous. Sunlight may be a disinfectant. It can also blur your eyes. Disclosure of the assets of public servants may serve some functions, properly handled. But there is something invasive and unseemly about the way in which the whole persona of public servants is being defined in public discourse through an obsession with assets. The RTI Act is a wonderful instrument. But its use has to be measured. Recently, the CIC ruled that all confidential reports be made public. We can debate that ruling from an organisational point of view. But the large philosophical premise behind it is disturbing: information is a right. Privacy is not a right. Therefore the former trumps the latter. Remember the core of all authoritarianism is the claim that the individual is always subordinate to the collective interest. Transparency always trumps privacy. The core of totalitarianism was the claim that individuals be subject to a field of total visibility, so that slowly the whole notion of public and private disappears. A whole range of institutions is taking us down that path.

The fourth element of creeping authoritarianism is the invocation of the people as an abstract concept. All authoritarianisms mistrust the representative process. The concept of the people then becomes an abstraction; each group can claim to represent it simply by their self-proclaimed virtue. Each disagreement becomes a sign of treason. The people must be a unity. If anyone disagrees, they must, by definition be against the people. If you have different views on the Lokpal it must be because you are against the people: classic authoritarian rhetoric.

The fifth element of authoritarianism is endless confusion of roles. Baba Ramdev has solid achievements to his credit in raising consciousness about yoga. It is heartening that citizens take more interest in public affairs. But there is a presumption that accomplished individuals, by virtue of their achievements in one sphere, can leverage that authority everywhere. This confusion of roles is almost everywhere. Parts of the media cannot decide whether they want to be trustworthy institutions of record or tools of partisan, rabble-rousing demagoguery, with editors donning the mantle of revolutionaries. But the short-term gains of this activism will come at the price of long-term credibility. True change will not come from this confusion of roles; it will come from each profession discharging its responsibilities to the best.

A morally insidious vacuum in government. A self-proclaimed civil society displaying its own will to power. A media age where being off-balance gets you visibility. A public whose mood is punitive. An intellectual climate that peddles the politics of illusion. And all this in a context where government paralysis is enhancing the two biggest risks to the well-being of the poor — entrenched inflation and slowdown in growth. Instead of clamouring for visibility, we should follow old Baba Ramdev’s advice: take a deep breath. The writer is president, Centre for Policy Research, Delhi express@expressindia.com

What’s in a solution? Thursday 14 April '11, The search for one-shot cures to our problem is in itself a problem. Of the few, by the few Thursday 7 April '11, Lokpal Bill agitation has a contempt for politics and democracy. A battle for Parliament Friday 25 February '11, The sidelining of individual MPs carries costs for our democracy.

Antagonistic becomes complementary

2011-05-22T12:05:00.000+05:30

Auroville Council self-appraisal 2011

Self-appraisal at the end of 2011 term of office

The term of office of the members of the Working Committee and Auroville Council ends on June 22nd. Both groups have published an appraisal of their functioning over the past two years. Here we share excerpts from these self-appraisals.

Since the beginning of our tenure, the team has worked reasonably well. It was possible to find mutual agreement between us and work through consensus, however long it may have taken at times to arrive at it. None of us had any particular agenda in mind and that is probably an important condition for a consensus.

Most of the members of the present Council were quite new to this type of task and it took us a long time to understand the complexity of the job and the full nature of the problems and how to address them effectively.

We felt as if we were thrown inat the deep end, with no continuity with theprevious group except for the saving graceof our secretary Sathya's presence as Council secretary.

Therefore, keeping in mind that it takes members quite some time before they can be pro-active within the group and contribute significantly, we think it would be advisable to renew some of the members every year, in order to allow new members time to get acquainted with the work, or to allow some members of the previous group to stay on with the new group for a period of a few months to ensure continuity in the work.

Having a totally new group, new to its job every two years, is not a good working formula. The members spend half their time reinventing the wheel.

The mandate of the Council is very wide and diverse, but more than 90% of our time was taken up by conflict resolution. The most essential part of our mandate, which concernsfinding living ways to manifest the ideal of Auroville, is thus continually put on hold as our time is consumed by conflict resolutions.

To avoid this overburdening of the Council, we propose that a Conflict Resolution cell be created under the Council with permanent members having the required profile to assist the Council in this aspect of the work.

Most of these conflicts are irrelevant to Auroville's aims and ideals. Most of the people involved just want recognition that they are right and that the other party is wrong. We have therefore come up with a set of requirements for bringing issues to us that puts the emphasis on the individuals involved working towards a true solution.

We are convinced of the impossibility of arriving at a true solution if the parties in a conflict do not want to make the necessary efforts to arrive at a mutual understanding. It is a progress that we cannot do for them and any decision taken then is a decision by default, not the truest one. It is far below what The Mother expected of us, when she mentioned several times the need to arrive at a point where what is antagonistic becomes complementary. As long as this effort is not made, we are not in the context of a society of unending education and constant progress.

Most of the Council members already have a full-time job and therefore cannot offer the needed time to follow-up on all of the issues which are generally brought to us when all else has failed and the situation has reached crisis point. This is hardly a way to function serenely. Help is needed to assist the Council members in their task by preparing and following up on the issues, as well in keeping a channel of communication open with the community and with the other working groups.

One of the areas where attention is needed is the communication/information aspect. The Residents Assembly Service needs to emerge as the group responsible for seeing to it that a living communication between the community at large and the working groups is maintained, perhaps through a certain minimum number of general meetings a year. A culture of consultation on key topics through forums with concerned community members who are determined to seek a comprehensive way forward and to stay with the process, also needs to be nurtured.

The Council mandate is obsolete in its wording. It is too vast and vague. It deserves to be more accurately formulated. There is a confusion of functions because the Council is asked to act as an executive body implementing decisions, as a judiciary in conflict resolution and as a supreme court of appeal in deciding conflicts between individuals or between individuals and working groups. We need to separate these functions because they have to be independent of each other and because they require people with different profiles and abilities.

To summarise, what is needed is to take organisational steps to allow more availability of the Council, more facilitated transition between two Councils, more coordination with other groups and more communication with the Community.

Home > Organisation & Credentials > Internal organisation > Internal structure > Auroville Council > Auroville Council self-appraisal 2011

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Sri Aurobindo's Writings - The Mother's Collected Works

Village is a more representative unit of Indian civilization and culture

2011-05-19T11:47:00.000+05:30

SARVAM: An Experiment in Integral Community Building

A unique project of Sri Aurobindo Society in Rural Development.

Senthil, Chitra and Chiranjeevi

An integral approach to village development which includes the inner growth of people as well as the outer development of the community; with a people-centric inclusive and participatory process of growth; where development programmes and activities are identified, planned, organized and managed by the village community with SARVAM acting only as a catalyst of the development process.

Key Perspectives

Background; the strategic vision; manaveli, a model hamlet: vision in action; village journal & TV; village coordinators & social workers; practices for inner growth.

Background

There are two factors, which make the Indian Village important for the future of India. First is that, the village in India, even now in our modern age, is a more representative unit of Indian civilization and culture than the urban towns and metros, which have become more or less westernized. However we need a more integral approach to Rural Development. The integral view looks at a community not merely as an economic and social unit but as a living human organism with a collective soul, mind and life. In this view the main emphasis is on inner growth of the community, which means mental, moral and spiritual development of the group, through education and yoga but without ignoring or neglecting the outer growth in the economic and social dimension. For, our approach cannot be integral if we ignore the development of the outer life. But the integral ideal is that outer growth has to be a spontaneous expression of the inner growth.

The Strategic Vision

Sri Aurobindo Rural Village Action and Movement (SARVAM), is the Rural Development wing of Sri Aurobindo Society. The SARVAM can be considered as an experimental “action-research” in integral community development. The programme of action is four-fold, covering the following areas:

Physical and economic development using available local materials and technology.
Development of the family and community, particularly empowerment of women, skills enhancement and entrepreneurship.
Psychological and cultural development through education and training.
Spiritual development through the right understanding of religion, spirituality and Yoga, and their role in life.

Sri Aurobindo's Writings - The Mother's Collected Works

Reforms introduced by the British were of benefit only to upper caste women

2011-05-15T18:50:00.000+05:30

Politics and ethics of the Indian Constitution - Rajeev Bhargava - 2008 - Thus, the first task before us is to ask just what it is that the Constitution is trying to say, to identify the broadest possible range within which all of us, coming as we do from diverse background and different presuppositions, ...

Religion and law in independent India - Robert D. Baird - 2005 - India's Constitution and Traditional Presuppositions Regarding Human Nature Harold G. Coward A major conflict exists between the Constitution of India and the traditional presuppositions of karma and guna theory. The Constitution ...

India's living constitution: ideas, practices, controversies - Zoya Hasan, Eswaran Sridharan, R. Sudarshan - 2005 - EgGP Verma, Caste Reservation in India: Law and the Constitution, Chugh Publications, Allahabad, 1980; BAV Sharma and ... related example of the transnational discourse is, Clark D. Cunningham and NR Madhava Menon, 'Race, Class, Caste . ...

Power and contestation: India since 1989 - Page 15 - Nivedita Menon, Aditya Nigam - 2007 - The recalcitrance of caste The "backward castes" in power The period since the mid- to late 1980s has seen a dramatic collapse of old political formations and parties, which had dominated politics in the Nehruvian era.1 Even the ...

Recovering subversion: feminist politics beyond the law - Page 170 - Nivedita Menon - 2004 - the growing presence of backward castes through successive elections is an equally significant development. I will argue that these processes produced two very different (even opposed) sets of concerns ...

Sexualities - Nivedita Menon - 2007 - The grounds of restriction are caste 'purity', a notion passed down through the caste hierarchy. Notions of caste purity have something to do with economic forces, the means of production and control over these, with such division of ...

The blindness of insight: essays on caste in modern India - Dilip M. Menon - 2006 - See Dilip M. Menon, "Caste and Colonial Modernity: Reading Saraswativijayam" , Studies in History, XIII, 2, 1997; also reproduced in this book, 110-144. 27 CA Bayly, "Returning the British to South Asian History: The Limits of...

Cultural history of modern India - Page 77 - Dilip M. Menon - 2006 - What is important to stress is that the upholding of genealogy is perhaps stronger in the low-caste groups than in the ... The Bhats charge the lower castes large sums of money to maintain their genealogy, and their poor patrons have no ...

The caste question: Dalits and the politics of modern India - Page 288 - Anupama Rao - 2009 - With regard to Christian conversion of the lower and untouchable castes in western and central India, ... Dilip Menon, Caste, Nationalism and Communism in India: Malabar, 1900–1948 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994); ...

Gendered citizenship: historical and conceptual explorations - Page 222 - Anupama Roy - 2005 - The period also saw a vehement and vociferous rise in upper- caste opposition to caste-based reservations in jobs. ... Menon shows how upper-caste opposition to the Mandal Commission reservations in jobs for the scheduled castes and ...

Everyday nationalism: women of the Hindu right in India - Page 176 - Kalyani Devaki Menon - 2009 - Caste in particular is of concern to the movement, which faces serious threats to its electoral base as well as its moral image from political groups and parties affiliated with lower-caste and dalit groups. Several women spoke of the ...

Borders & boundaries: women in India's partition - Page 21 - Ritu Menon, Kamla Bhasin - 1998 - The issue of gendered identities is central to any discussion on the interplay of community, class and caste with wider political, economic and social forces. The adoption of a perspective that locates women at the intersection of these ...

From Mathura to Manorama: resisting violence against women in India - Kalpana Kannabirān, Ritu Menon, International Centre for Ethnic Studies - 2007 - By the same token, demonstrating control by humiliating women of another caste is a sure-fire way of reducing the "manhood" of those castes.25 Spaces, domestic and public, are similarly structured along lines of caste and gender. ...

Women empowerment and challenge of change - Latika Menon - 1998 - Most of the reforms introduced by the British administrations were of benefit only to upper caste women who were the ones who were denied the right to remarry if widowed, and whose families could afford to educate them, if education ...

Every sort of national chauvinism is to be rejected

2011-02-15T14:11:00.000+05:30

Strangers Nowhere in the World rom Coordination Problem by Peter Boettke

That phrase comes from Kant, but it is also the title of an excellent book that I am reading at the moment by Margaret Jacob (U of Penn Press, 2006). Jacob's book is about the rise of cosmopolitanism in Early Modern Europe. It is, in short, about the rise of European Liberalism.

This last point I want to stress because too often in the popular media the teachings of the Austrian school are identified with conservative politics when in fact the great Austrian economists, such as Menger, Mises and Hayek were in fact European Liberals. Radical liberals that opposed intolerance, militarism, and arbitrary state authority. Yes they were economic liberals, but their views on economic policy were part of a larger world view that followed consistently from an embracing of the cosmopolitanism that Jacob writes about.

For anyone who doubts this, read Mises's Liberalism. As he says on p. 56, "Liberalism demands toleration as a matter of principle, not from opportunism." Only toleration, he continues, "can create and preserve the condition of social peace without which humanity must relapse into barbarism and penury of centuries long past."

On colonialism, Mises wrote: "No chapter of history is steeped further in blood than the history of colonialism. Blood was shed uselessly and senselessly. Flourishing lands were laid waste; whole peoples destroyed and exterminated. All this can in no way be extenuated or justified." (see p. 125)

Every sort of national chauvinism is to be rejected, and instead the free mobility of people and goods is to be pursued. We are to be citizens of the world. Cosmopolitanism, toleration, trade are the hallmarks of liberalism. That is what Ludwig von Mises stood for in his politics.

Bengal discovered a Mazzini in Sri Aurobindo

2011-02-09T19:59:00.000+05:30

Right to freedom of religion: a study in Indian secularism - Kanan Gahrana - 2001 - 195 pages

With most of the leaders of the modern renaissance in India, Sri Aurobindo shared an abhorrence of quietism, asceticism and illusionism. He was more thorough going in his opposition to these tendencies than the rest of them. ...

The Indian Encyclopaedia: Gautami Ganga -Himmat Bahadur - Page 2604 - Subodh Kapoor - 2002 - 322 pages - Preview

Ghosh exhibited his abhorrence for terrorist style militant resistance. He had propagated the idea of an open armed ... Ghosh came to be known as Sri Aurobindo to the world. Aurobindo completed his "Savitri", which he began writing in ...

The Mother: the story of her life - George Van Vrekhem - 2000 - 545 pages

'He felt no call for the ICS and was seeking some way to escape from that bondage,' Sri Aurobindo would write about himself ... Besides, he abhorred the administrative aspect of all ICS offices, with their routine and dreary paper work. ...

Decolonization and development: Hind svaraj revisioned - Makarand R. Paranjape - 1993 - 240 pages

Both had a deep abhorrence for this civilization. Aurobindo, though, accepted a whole set of liberal values, including parliamentary government, democracy, human rights, and so on. Gandhi, on the other hand, had little respect for ...

Colonialism, tradition, and reform: an analysis of Gandhi's ... - Bhikhu C. Parekh - 1989 - 288 pages

Aurobindo expressed a similar view:" Liberty is the life-breath of a nation; and when the life is attacked, ... On occasion after occasion, they expressed their abhorrence of violence and insisted that they would have preferred to ...

Human consciousness and its evolution: a multidimensional view - Richard W. Coan - 1987 - 189 pages

Both Aurobindo and Wilber argue that the concept of evolution logically implies involution or that the one process requires the ... or psychological state that seems ideal to one person may be viewed with abhorrence by someone else. ...

Netaji, a realist and a visionary - Amita Ghosh - 1986 - 276 pages - Snippet view

... Cuttack who roused the feelings of wrath and abhorrence against British imperialism in Bose's heart. ... The ideas of Aurobindo also influenced him to some extent. Indeed, Bose was also influenced by Candhi's non-violent ...

Through different eyes: foreign responses to Indian writing in English - Kirpal Singh - 1984 - 284 pages - Snippet view

Even P. Lal in his introduction to Modern Indian Poetry in English cites Aurobindo as the major influence that had to be ... This New Poetry was new because it abhorred the old conventional jargon (sociological as well as literary) and ...

The intimate enemy: loss and recovery of self under colonialism - Ashis Nandy - 1983 - 121 pages

On his yogic intervention in the war, see Sri Aurobindo, On Himself (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1972), pp. 38-9, 393-9; see also p. 388 for his comments on Lenin and the Russian Revolution which seem to suggest that Aurobindo ...

Kundalini, evolution, and enlightenment - John Warren White - 1979 - 482 pages

In the integral approach of Sri Aurobindo, there is a full appreciation of the many-sided perspective of tantra on the ... Therefore it is not to be neglected, abhorred, or condemned, but understood and transmuted for the higher purpose ...

Glory of India: Volumes 3-4 - 1979

Sri Aurobindo, the great Yogi and philosopher of modern times, discusses here the principal ideas of all the variations of Yoga ... however which is based mainly upon those aspects of Tantrism formerly looked on with so much abhorrence. ...

The Quarterly review of historical studies: Volumes 17-18 - Institute of Historical Studies (Calcutta, India) - 1978

Bengal discovered a Mazzini in Aurobindo. He joined, while in London, a secret society called 'Lotus and Dagger', ... spirit of Mazzini as the foundation stone of his actions and motives, although he abhorred Mazzini's violent method. ...

Economic and political weekly: Volume 12 - 1977

The reflection of this 'reaction' can be found in Dadabhai Naoroji, Aurobindo. Wadia, Tilak, and Gandhi as well as ... movement very often coincided with tendencies towards national regeneration and abhorrence for modernisation and...

The Hindu personality in education: Tagore, Gandhi, Aurobindo - William Cenkner - 1976 - 230 pages

What urged him to place his theory on a national scale was an abhorrence of the British system of education imposed upon India. Considering the British system as impractical and destructive of the Indian imagination, Gandhi called it an ...

Long journey home: a biography of Margaret Noble (Nivedita) - Barbara Foxe - 1975 - 239 pages

More dangerous to her was her friendship with Aurobindo. His aims were frankly revolutionary at this period of his life. ... and the rock which finally smashed the Kali-symbol as a rallying-point for a united India was Muslim abhorrence ...

Social and political ideas of Bipin Chandra Pal - Amalendu Prasad Mookerjee - 1974 - 184 pages

What, therefore, can fairly be said about Pal is that in the ultimate analysis, he differed from all the three — Tilak, Lajpat Rai and Aurobindo in the matter of religion and philosophy. He abhorred revivalism and medievalism of any ...

Evolution and the earthly destiny - Nolini Kanta Gupta - 1976 - 378 pages

Its dislike and even abhorrence for things it chooses to call immoral is the ransom it pays for rescuing its sense of morality, and paradoxically this very abhorrence for unholy things has pushed it all the more into their grasp. ...

Integral Yoga is the ultimate of social activism

2010-12-18T11:01:00.000+05:30

The Gita, like Aurobindo , elucidates the divine human who has the ability to perform the work of God, like the soldier Arjuna, firm in transcendent worldly action. From here Aurobindo extends the Gita into evolutionary possibilities for the liberation of all humanity, for as the Gita brings hope to the individual for liberation why not also the collective?

Here again we see a slight expansion from Hindu tradition. Aurobindo is inspiring in his ability to take the tradition into modernity adapting for the purpose. Aurobindo remains true to the heart of the tradition and it seems that he succeeds in carrying out the spirit of Hinduism to its simple, logical, spiritual heights. If, according to the Gita, there is hope for every human no matter how wretched in their transgressions against the will of Spirit, why not also provide hope for humanity as a whole. Just as Aurobindo succeeded in offering the spirit of acceptance, inclusion and adaptation from the tradition to modernity, he succeeds in transmitting the message of the Gita and further the spirit of its cause by adapting it to the global community and the modern subject. Aurobindo seems to have the vast tradition, the yogis, the gurus of the past cheering him on into modernity. Aurobindo, at the same time, exemplifies the spirit of the Western exploration by pioneering new territory for the Indian tradition. Posted by Adam Dietz at 9:04 AM TUESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2010

Integral Yoga and Social Concern

Just as Aurobindo shows us the social-political ramifications, outer ramifications, Western necessity, for pursuing the divine for the sake of fulfilling a sort of divine evolution, he also examines the inner tradition in terms of Yoga. Aurobindo refers to the various Indian traditions in which we find inner experience such as the Kundalini experience. He examines the various yogas as separate and distinct paths that must become synthesized. He explains that as we advance in one arena of spirit its effects manifest themselves in the other arenas. If we advance in the mental we will see the fruits of our relation to spirit manifest in action and devotion as well. Aurobindo ties these together with the additional benefit seen in Tantric yoga, the benefit of enjoying the outer universe as an extended experience of the Divine. Again we see the pattern of Aurobindo to synthesize the ancient tradition, and again we see him take it to its logical conclusion. If the yoga benefits the practitioner in all arenas of experience then would not, from the modern, global perspective, the yoga benefit humanity as a whole? Wouldn't Tantric yoga have implications in the broader social and political realms of experience. Aurobindo asks the practitioner of any yoga to, upon the growth in relation to spirit in the realm of the personal exercise, begin to seek the growth of the spiritual relation in all realms of life. Yoga for Aurobindo is the discipline by which the individual may free the self from the many egoic veils that obscure the manifestation of spirit.
SOCIAL CONCERN
Again, if this is the possibility for the individual why then is it not also the possibility for the group? In this sense Aurobindo believes that Integral Yoga is the ultimate of social activism. To lower the veils obscuring our relation to the Divine through discipline, to begin to see those veils being lowered in integral life, and to begin to see the possibility of lowering those veils through sympathetic, or better, empathetic action, is the beginning of the next stage in evolution. Again this is where Aurobindo simply extends the spirit of the Hindu tradition into realms that were not as widely understood in the 'smaller' ancient world. Aurobindo simply applies the spirit of the tradition to suit his experience with the modern world, a world in which social, global questions are increasingly significant. Many efforts are made by many people for social justice, Aurobindo’s own philosophy arose partly out of grave concern for changing

India

. But his answers come in the form of intense spiritual practice, a synthesizing practice that plays within the outer world but always remains rooted in its relationship to Divinity. The cultivation of spirit in oneself and in the larger social sphere is for Aurobindo the ultimate act of social concern. If, as the Gita illustrates, each human no matter their transgressions has the capacity for spiritual achievement then the logical extension of this would be the capacity for large scale group achievement. Posted by Adam Dietz at 6:20 AM FRIDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2010 Ethics and Spirituality Today

Discrimination and persecution in the Ashram are the first things that have to go

2010-10-20T20:49:00.000+05:30

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "This is Sri Aurobindo’s Ashram not yours and not P...":

There is certainly truth in what you are saying. Indians today do have a long way to go in improving the lives of other Indians. […]

Indians are at least taught, through her teachers, to find the Divine in all things and beings. It is this and not some extremem discrimination that makes India unique among peoples and nations. This is a fundamental truth that even Sri Aurobindo repeats throughout His Works. If we have fallen from that state and strayed from that teaching then it is because of some fundamental weakness and error for which Sri Aurobindo provides the necessary corrective. If you feel that there is still a sense of discrimination and persecution in the Ashram then that is absolutely one of the first things that have to go, even as a preliminary to entering the spiritual life, which fundamentally rests on seeing and loving the One Divine Truth in all things and beings. Posted by Anonymous to Savitri Era Open Forum at 8:54 PM, October 19, 2010

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "This is Sri Aurobindo’s Ashram not yours and not P...":

ashramites are deeply conscious of their "chosen ones", superior air.
they talk about being equal amongst themselves but it is in theory.the bengalis consider themselves superior, due to art, culture, intellect. the business class gujarati/marwari is inferior, the working class oriyas are treated worse in the ashram as brainless, poor etc. […]

gave some books on dalits to the ashram school/library and the response was uncomfortable, as if the problem does not exist or is not their agenda. okay agree on it.
just a few kms. outside pondy near villupuram and other areas, dalit discrimination is in full force. such as 2 tumbler system in tea shops. etc.
on ecr road before pondy university, after tsunami, the upper castes did not allow dalit bodies to go through certain areas.
okay ashramites/devotees are not supposed to solve these problems, but to talk about equality and toilet cleaner as archivist etc, is not fair. these issues and work of archives is not easy, takes years to learn, and the archives always, had to take help of experts, as many owrking there were not trained, so this talk of anyone doing it is not fair. Posted by Anonymous to Savitri Era Open Forum at 7:52 PM, October 20, 2010

Standing by the authentic and the elevating

2010-09-29T19:29:00.000+05:30

Comment posted by RY Deshpande Re: Sraddhalu Ranade writes to Manoj Das ... Manoj Das’s Disastrous Advice

These are all human problems arising out of human clumsiness. As long as it is there, they are there. But one goes to a spiritual institution for spiritual progress and not for, for instance, writing academic treatises for the sake of treatises. Unless these turn into spiritual aids, they have no value and any representation of such things to the ‘outside’ world then becomes a misrepresentation. It is that which becomes the source of annoyance.

Intolerance of such an annoyance may not be absolutely yogic, but fighting against hostility that always surrounds it is also an aspect of yogic business, including fighting against authorities that uphold it. Repugnance towards untruth is to promote greater sincerity in the values that are cherished. Never can truth and falsehood stay together if spiritual pursuit is the concern, and dismissing falsehood is a part of that concern. In it precisely lies the hero-warriorship and standing by it is an act of spiritual nobility. There is no other identity in it except standing by the authentic and the elevating which comes only by developing finer perceptions. ~ RYD

Seven distinctive features of Indian secularism

2010-09-12T18:48:00.000+05:30

Social citizenship rights of Canadian Muslim youth: youth resiliencies and the claims for social inclusion. CONCLUSION: THE BEGINNINGS OF A WAY FORWARD

Given the discussion so far that point to the very serious limitations of the Canadian secular welfare state to recognize social citizenship rights of Canadian-Muslims in socially inclusionary ways, alternative ways of defining secular welfare state's relationship with its faith-based communities need to be conceived. Rajeev Bhargava (2008), an eminent Indian political theorist has undertaken compelling theoretical work in this direction, by grounding his analysis from lessons learnt through expressions of secularism found in India. Starting with the admission that the Indian state has its own failings, Bhargava analyzes the constitutional claims that the Indian State offers an ideal for a rearticulation of secularism that takes the rights, interests and values of the multiple faith-based communities within which social citizenship rights are negotiated.

There are seven features of Indian secularism that Bhargava (2008: 101-103) feels can provide western welfare states with alternative definitions of secularism and which correspond to the earlier critique of the Canadian welfare state as an example of western secularism discussed in this paper. The first is its multi-value character. Bhargava argues that the Indian state takes seriously values that have been forgotten in western secular states, such as peace between communities as well as defining values of autonomy and equality in both individualistic as well as non-individualistic ways. This recalls the earlier discussion in this paper which was concerned with the limitations that were placed on faith-based communities through individualistic definitions of autonomy that overlooked the resiliencies that Muslim youth spoke of when they envisioned themselves as being part of something greater than their self. Thus Indian state supports the rights of faith-based communities to establish and maintain educational institutions that are crucial to the survival of these communities. This is very unlike Canada where the state feels it has no role to play in relation to such educational institutions unless it is a policing role.

Second, India is concerned with issues of domination in inter-religious as well as intra-religious relations. Thus it recognizes community-specific socio-cultural rights of faith based communities. Within Canada recognition of the socio-cultural rights of faith-based communities is withheld and rationalized in terms of the harm that can occur to citizens' individual rights of autonomy and equality within faith-based communities. In particular the state invokes Muslim women's rights of equality within their faith-based communities to make the case (Kymlicka 1995). Hence, as discussed earlier, faith is relegated to a private space. In the example of the Indian state, these thorny issues of community and individual rights of autonomy are viewed as maters of state concern and the effort is to set up institutions that can help negotiate and balance these sometimes conflicting claims to autonomy, rather than turning a blind eye to the lives of citizens for whom their communities of faith are central to their lived experiences of being citizens.

Third, building on the first two features discussed above, is that the Indian state is committed to the idea of principled distance rather than the mutual exclusion model of secularism that is characteristic of the Canadian welfare state. The mutual exclusion model, as has been previously discussed sees the state as having no connection to religion and vice versa. India recognizes some level of inclusion at the level of law and public policy, so long as the principles of autonomy and equality (defined in more communal terms) are not trammeled. India recognizes the falsity of a separation that is mutually exclusive because it recognizes that for some of her citizens such a separation would be meaningless in terms of their lived experiences. In the following quote Bhargava defines what he means by principled separation in an eloquent and nuanced fashion that resonates with many of the arguments made in this paper:

... for mainstream western secularism, separation means mutual exclusion. The idea of principled distance unpacks the metaphor of separation differently. It accepts a disconnection between state and religion at the level of ends and institutions but does not make a fetish of it at the third level of policy and law.... How else can it be in a society where religion frames some of its deepest interests?.... a secularism based on principled distance s not committed to the mainstream Enlightenment idea of religion. It accepts that humans have an interest in relating to something beyond themselves including God, and this manifests itself as individual belief and feeling as well as social practice in the public domain. (2008: 103)

A fourth characteristic of Indian secularism is the distinction that it makes between unpublicized and depoliticization. It does not depublicize religion, as mentioned earlier; it provides public space for faith-based groups through its laws and public policy; however it depoliticizes religion in one form, by insisting on a disconnection between the ends of its own activities and those of religious organizations. In other words the state does not exist to serve the ends of religious organizations; it exists to serve its own political ends. Similarly at an institutional level it remains disconnected from religious organizations whose own institutions and personnel are different from the personnel that run and maintain state organizations. This is in contrast to theocratic states like Iran who's political and religious institutions are run more explicitly by the same people and on the basis of their attachment to faith.

Fifth, the Indian definition of state secularism is defined by active hostility to some aspects of religion that are incommensurate with secular liberal notions of social justice whilst maintaining active respect for its other dimensions. This allows for faith-based communities to have a voice and visibility in society but disallows it from using that voice to discriminate against its own or others. Faith communities are open to critique but not to active hostility or "respectful indifference," which could work as a wonderful alternative to address the concerns of Canadian citizens who fear limitations on their freedom of speech to critiques religious organizations, while addressing the needs of faith-based communities for respect.

A sixth feature is the malleability of the Indian state to allow for various and multiple definitions of secularism. The rather rigid definition of Canadian state secularism does not allow for such fluidity leaving secular Muslims at a loss of accounting for and articulating the complex characteristics of their identity.

Finally Indian secularism challenges normative notions modern welfare secular states by providing an alternative that is both modern but departs significantly from mainstream conceptions of western secularism (Bhargava 2008: 103). It speaks to the importance of young Canadian-Muslims to be both a part of modern Canadian society as well as deeply attached to the world vies offered by their faith, without having them choose between the two as incompatible.

In summary the Indian example of secularism treats faith-based communities as participating citizens whose voice is made visible in their own terms and as members of faith-based groups through a vision of social justice that is inclusionary of liberal conceptions of autonomy and equality--and much more. COPYRIGHT 2009 Association of Arab-American University Graduates. No portion of this article can be reproduced without the express written permission from the copyright holder. Copyright 2009 Gale, Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

World Union & Religion of Humanity

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Volumes 6-7		PDF last updated: 15 Aug 09 Bande Mataram — I–II All surviving political writings and speeches from 1890 to 1908. The two volumes consist primarily of 353 articles originally published in the nationalist newspaper Bande Mataram between August 1906 and May 1908. Also included are political articles written by Sri Aurobindo before the start of Bande Mataram, speeches delivered by him between 1907 and 1908, articles from his manuscripts of that period that were not published in his lifetime, and an interview of 1908.	3.56MB
Volume 8		PDF last updated: 15 Aug 09 Karmayogin All surviving political writings and speeches of 1909 and 1910. This volume consists primarily of articles originally published in the nationalist newspaper Karmayogin between June 1909 and February 1910. It also includes speeches delivered by Sri Auro bindo in 1909.	1.60MB

Volume 25

PDF last updated: 15 Aug 09

The Human Cycle — The Ideal of Human Unity — War and Self-Determination
Three works of social and political philosophy.
In The Human Cycle, Sri Aurobindo traces the evolution of human society and suggests where it is headed. In The Ideal of Human Unity, he examines the possibility of the unification of the human race. In War and Self-Determination, he discusses the sovereignty of nations in the aftermath of the First World War. These works were first serialised in the monthly review Arya between 1915 and 1920; later Sri Aurobindo revised them for publication.

2.06MB

Volume 36	PDF last updated: 15 Aug 09 Autobiographical Notes and Other Writings of Historical Interest Sri Aurobindo's writings on himself (excluding the letters in volume 35,Letters on Himself and the Ashram) and other material of historical importance. The volume is divided into four parts: (1) brief life sketches, autobiographical notes, and corrections of statements made by others in biographies and other publications; (2) letters of historical interest to family, friends, political and profession al associates, public figures, etc; also letters on yoga and spiritual life to disciples and others; (3) public statements and other communications on Indian and world events; (4) public statements and notices concerning Sri Aurobindo's ashram and yoga. Much of the material is being published here for the first time in a book.	1.93MB
Volume 37	Reference Volume (TO BE PUBLISHED) Index, glossary, editorial notes, supplementary texts. This volume will include a complete index to the Complete Works, a glossary of Sanskrit and other Indian terms, a chronology of Sri Aurobindo's life, a bibliography of his works, a note on editorial method, a list of emendations and errata, and supple mentary texts not included in the main works.
	Glossary to the Record of Yoga (TO BE PUBLISHED) A glossary to and structural outline of the Record of Yoga (volumes 10 and 11). This unnumbered volume — an appendix to Record of Yoga — will contain an alphabetical index of Sanskrit words and a structural outline of the seven-limbed yoga that Sri Aurobindo practised between 1912 and 1927. (A temporary glossary is available on this website under the heading "Research".)

Limit the tenure of Trustees to a fixed number of years

2010-08-04T03:21:00.000+05:30

From bijan ghosh solitude24@gmail.com to … "Tusar N. Mohapatra" tusarnmohapatra@gmail.comdate 3 August 2010 14:34 subject Fwd: Reply to Manoj Das from Sraddhalu Ranade --- Forwarded message --- From: Sraddhalu Ranade sraddhalu@auromail.net Date: Thu, Jul 29, 2010 at 2:24 PM Subject: Reply to Manoj Das from Sraddhalu Ranade To: Manoj Das prof.manojdas@gmail.com Reply attached as PDF file.

The Mother did not lay down any procedures for selection of subsequent Trustees other than the first Trustee to replace her. In any case the question is not of procedures but of values and interests. I care a whit what procedure is followed as long as the selection of Trustees is by the highest standards of conduct and wisdom. But this has not been the case at all. Every Trustee selected after the Mother has been chosen purely on grounds of personal loyalty, obedience and servitude to entrenched interests. We are already in the third generation of Trustees after the Mother – the servile of the servile to vested interests. Is it any wonder that the entire Trust Board withdrew the unanimous decision of its conscience on command from MDG! If you see nothing wrong in this, then you are only pretending to be short-sighted. […]

We need not wait for the “golden age” to be operationally free of the rule of dictators, vested interests or the merely incompetent. The Mother chose Trustees around her not for their administrative skills – that she left to the department heads; She chose them for their wideness of vision and openness of mind and heart. In the declining steps of interested appointments, each subsequent Trustee has been chosen for smallness and narrow subservience bringing us to the present sorry pass. This can still be reversed. Human problems will remain, but the vested interests and blatant favouritisms can easily be avoided even now, without needing to wait for the golden age. And I can assure you that the golden age will be greatly delayed as long as the repressive rule of vested interests continues to suffocate the life of the Ashram community.

Instead of justifying the rule of autocrats, you should more usefully direct your energies in helping our present Trustees to broaden their minds and hearts and open to a higher intuitive vision. Otherwise, it is better to limit the tenure of Trustees to a fixed number of years so that absolute power does not corrupt absolutely, and vested interests do not entrench themselves to the detriment of the Ashram. […]

In fact Pranab-da had wanted to take over the Archives by force in 1989 and throw out PH right then. Had he done it, none of this or the numerous Savitri-related court cases would have happened. In retrospect he showed more foresight than the Trustees then.

If the Trustees are ordinary “mortals like us” (as you have said) who get selected for personal

loyalties, how do they mysteriously gain greater wisdom after their appointment? Did you find yourself infused with new wisdom when you were made a Trustee? Did you lose that wisdom when you resigned? In what way have MDG or other Trustees become more wise than others merely from sitting on their chairs? On the contrary, absolute power is heady, and very likely they have lost the little wisdom they might have had from the unavoidable exaggeration of their egos. A long tenure in absolute power has an intoxicating effect. I have seen one of our

Trustees take technical engineering decisions when he was not capable of a simple sum. Another recently declared, “Ashramites should be grateful to us because we give them food”. A dose of normal life as an Ashramite without political privileges will surely do them good.

As a rule, the collective wisdom of a community is superior to the wisdom of an entrenched oligarchy because entrenched interests fear competence and so push out capable people from the centre of community life. The only exception is when the oligarchy is selected for wisdom and not for personal loyalty or other interests. Therefore our present Trustees must learn to be humble before the community and seek guidance constantly from its best minds and most

compassionate hearts. To claim superior or sufficient wisdom amounts to hypocrisy, self deception and betrayal of their responsibility to the Ashram community. […]

The Trustees’ actions are intentional, led by their emotions, thoughts and as in this case their vested interests. Their actions have no relation to Providence. And if the right thing is for Ashramites “to leave it to Providence”, should not the Trustees do the same? Why not then simply discard the institution of the Trustees playing the role of administrators – Mother never structured it this way in any case. As She formulated it in the Ashram Trust Deed, the role of the Trustees is merely to complete the statutory legal requirements for holding the properties and finances of the Ashram community. They were never meant to rule over others. If at all there is a hierarchy of authority and responsibilities, it is thus:

1. First and foremost are Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, above all else. There is no Ashram without Them and all are individually and collectively answerable to Them alone. If someone cannot accept Their authority, he should not be in Their Ashram.

2. Second are the Ashram community members – all equally children of the Mother; none superior, none inferior; all serving and working for Them alone. (The day you can meet Abala as your sister and respect her for her commitment to Sri Aurobindo, you will be closer to the Mother and to the Truth of what the Ashram represents.)

3. Third are the coordinators of activities, the so-called “heads” of services and “departments”. They were chosen by the Mother not for their amenability to the Trust Board, but because of their competence and commitment to the work. Their working is decentralised, and attuned to the specific needs of their domain of responsibilities. Sri Aurobindo once corrected an official notice striking out the word “department” and replacing it with “service”. If we recognise the profound import of this word, we will be able to act more closely to what He intended.

4. Fourth comes the Trust Board as a legal entity. The Board does not rule over the Ashram or its inmates, and has no spiritual authority. Its only task is to hold the Trust properties in service of the objects of the Trust as decreed in the Trust Deed formed by the Mother. The Board must interface with the Government for statutory requirements and functions only. The actions of the Board should not depend on the personalities or vested interests of its Board members.

5. Last come the Trustees, “mere mortals” as any, whose only responsibility is to serve Sri Aurobindo and the Mother by serving Their children, the inmates of the Ashram community. They do not represent Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. They should not rule over the Ashram or its inmates. Ideally, sadhaks of wide minds and open hearts, they should serve the interests of the Ashram community as a whole. If they do not have the requisite wideness, humility and spirit of service, they are unfit for this function.

As long as the Trustees appointed by the Mother were alive, this was largely the working of the Ashram Trust and the Ashram community-life. […]

As the original departmental heads that the Mother had chosen passed on, our narrow-minded rulers appointed their stooges and minions, deliberately sidelining the more competent and committed. But mediocrity breeds further mediocrity because it fears the more capable. The end result today is a widespread mediocrity in the administration of departments/services, and a complete loss of autonomy and freedom in their working. Today nothing moves without sanction from the one man who has placed himself at the centre of the entire Ashram’s working, in place of the Mother. The Mother herself, although holding absolute power, was never as autocratic: she empowered people, encouraged personal initiative, and cared for each one’s feelings. Even Sri Aurobindo went out of his way to try and keep the sadhaks happy as is evidenced from Nirodbaran’s correspondence with him.

Today favouritism and nepotism are rampant, and few appointed heads are respected for their competence. We have already crossed the threshold of the danger zone. The warning signs are most obvious when we consider that practically all the commercial units which were vibrant and creative centres barely twenty years ago are either shut down or in the doldrums. The rapidly declining condition of the Ashram school is painful to see, more so because it was once at the forefront of innovative education, and its decline was entirely preventable because it was foreseen by many who warned of it but who were sidelined and silenced. […]

Even as the inmates enjoy “a range of freedom”, the Trustees have been granted absolute freedom with absolute power and zero accountability, by the inmates. If the Trustees tamper too much with the limited range of the inmates’ freedom, you can be sure that eventually the inmates will withdraw the absolute freedom and power that they grant to the Trustees.

You have mentioned earlier that “the trustees are not elected by a body of voters”. This in itself is a great privilege that the Ashram community bestows upon them, and which the Trustees must strive to be worthy of, but which they have over time increasingly abused. In all other “normal” institutions that you refer to, the selection of a powerful post involves detailed background checks, years of vetting for competence and intentions, long-term training and tests, and their exercise of power includes continuing checks and balances to prevent abuse of power. […]

If at all the Trustees are to have a special position of authority in the Ashram, then surely being a spiritual institution first and foremost, their selection should be primarily by standards of spiritual development. In other words, only a more spiritually developed person should be selected to the Trust Board. Do our present Trustees even remotely fit this standard? Have any of their actions expressed a higher spiritual truth, insight or inspiration?

In the absence of a “certified” spiritual person, nobody can claim spiritual judgment, neither the Trustees nor others. But it is important that the community sets for itself some standards, whatever they be, and ensures that our Trustees and heads of services meet those criteria, along with suitable checks and balances. We have already lost too much from the entrenchment of vested interests. […]

The freedom we enjoy is not a gift of the Trustees. This framework of freedom was created by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother from the very beginning for the practice of the Integral Yoga. The Trustees have enjoyed it just as much, nay, much more than the common Ashramite. But in the last 20 years, this gift of freedom has been increasingly abused by the Trustees as regards themselves, even as it has been curtailed by them with regard to others. Sraddhalu 28.7.2010

People are massively irrational & loyalty, a form of irrationality

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Loyalty from Philosophy Talk: The Blog - Jul 17, 2010 posted by Ken Taylor

Loyalty binds people together. Friendships, marriages, even nations are built on loyalty. Try imagining a person who has no loyalty whatsoever to anything or anyone.   Such a person would be friendless, loveless, nationless. She would feel no devotion to any higher cause or principle – like truth or justice.   She would not even be a fan of any sports team.   A life like that would be empty, devoid of many of the things that make us fully human.

Of course, loyalties are not all created equal though. Loyalty to a sports team is a shallow form of loyalty. Loyalty to a nation can sometimes demand too much. Or think of the loyalty that some battered wives display to their abusive husbands.   There’s a misplaced loyalty if there ever was one.

Loyalty goes hand in hand with trustworthiness. If you can’t trust your spouse not to beat you or cheat on you, then your spouse doesn’t deserve your loyalty. If you can’t trust your government not to send young men off to fight in fruitless, forlorn wars, then your government doesn’t deserve your loyalty.

That’s connected to something else. Earlier I said that loyalty unites and that’s a good thing. But loyalty also divides. And that’s a bad thing. For example, soldiers at war are driven to kill each other by their competing loyalties. Or think of a parent who lavishes more toys on his/her children than they really need, out of a sense of loyalty and devotion, while entirely ignoring the needs of poor, abused, malnourished children around the world. If he would just spend a little bit of his wealth elsewhere, he could do a tremendous amount of good. But his loyalty has blinded him to the needs of others.

Loyalties can also divide a person from herself. Loyalty and devotion to your family, for example, can pull in one direction, while loyalty to an employer can pull you in an entirely different direction. Managing such conflicting loyalties is no easy task.

You could think that you just have to decide. You have to decide where your highest loyalty lies. Do you most want to be a better parent or a better philosophy professor and radio host?

But it doesn’t seem quite right to me that choosing between conflicting loyalties is a brute decision, a matter of simply deciding for yourself to whom or what you owe the higher allegiance.   There must be some principles -- some moral principles -- that tell you who and what you owe loyalty to and to what degree you owe loyalty. Such moral principles should help you resolve such conflicts on an objective moral basis.

Speaking of abstract moral principles, though, depending on your moral outlook, the very idea of loyalty can seem morally problematic. Take utilitarianism, for example. Its highest principle is that you should always act so as to produce the greatest good for the greatest number. But it’s actually pretty hard to make sense of the very idea of loyalty if you are a utilitarian – at least if you are a crude act utilitarian.

To see why think about two people drowning. You’re in a boat and can save only one of them. One of them happens to be a Nobel Laureate who has discovered a cure for cancer. The other happens to be your spouse. Which one do you save?

The obvious answer to me is that I’d save my wife. But you’d have a hard time justifying that answer on utilitarian grounds. That’s because utilitarian morality has a hard time justifying giving the kind of special weight to one’s wife that loyalty demands. In deciding what to do, her well-being should count, to be sure, but no more, and no less, in your calculations than the well being of any arbitrary person.

That seems wrong to me. But I have to admit that I have hard time putting my finger on just why. My wife means a whole lot more to me than just any arbitrary other person. But does my loyalty and devotion really morally obligate or entitle me to give more weight to her well-being than to the well-being other people?

Consider a further test of just how much added moral weight loyalty endows my wife’s well being with. Suppose it was a matter of saving my wife, while letting two other people or three or four other people drown. Would I still be inclined to save her and let the others drown?

Here I feel something of a quandary – perhaps divided loyalties are tugging at me. On balance loyalty, and the special concern that goes with it, seem to me like very good things. But loyalty can be taken too far and can demand too much. And drawing the line is a tricky matter.

Clearly, we need some help sorting this all out.   And luckily for us, help is on the way, in the form of our guest, poet and philosopher, Troy Jollimore. Troy has thought long and hard about loyalty, love, friendship and morality.   So it should be a fun episode.   If you’ve got the time, give a listen. Maybe even call in.

The Irrationality of Human Decision Making from Philosophy Talk: The Blog - Jul 23, 2010 posted by Ken Taylor

As philosophers,   I’m sure that John and I would like to believe that we make decisions in a perfectly rational way. Indeed, I’m sure that most people think of themselves as pretty rational decision makers.   How would thoroughly rational decision making go? Well, first, you’d decide what things you want, and how much you really want them. Second, you’d survey your options for getting what you want. Third, you would assess the upside benefits and downside costs of each alternative. And last but certainly not least, you’d choose the alternative that has either the greatest upside or the least downside, depending on whether you were risk-averse or risk seeking. It’s pretty simple really.

Decades of psychological research has shown, thought, that although philosophers may be paragons of rationality -- ahem, ahen – in fact most people (and probably most philosophers too) are pretty irrational in their decision-making.   People go wrong at every turn. We aren’t so good at figuring out what we want. Our preferences aren’t very stable or coherent. We’re bad at assessing risks and reward.   You name it, when it comes to decision making, we’re bad at it.

Here’s a little game you can play with a partner that helps illustrate how irrational we can be. Let’s call it Sellers and Choosers. If you’re reading this alone and you want to play along, go get a partner now and let’s play the game together. I’ll be the referee. I’ve got two mugs – one for you, one for your partner. The mugs are exactly alike. I’m just going to flat out give you one of the mugs. (I can’t really do that over the internet just yet. But use your imagination and play along.) Anyway, the mug is yours to keep. It’s a really beautiful mug and very well made. Or, if you like, you can sell it.   No doubt you’d be willing to sell the mug for the right price. So go ahead, write down the price at which you’d be willing to sell your lovely little mug.

Now as for your partner.   I’m going to offer your partner a choice. I’m not going to flat out give her (or him) the identical mug. She or he has to choose.   She has to choose between an identical mug and a sum of money.  How much money, you ask? Well, I’ve written an amount of money on the bottom of the mug.   She doesn’t get to see it.    Instead what she has to do is write down an amount of money such that if she had a choice between the mug and the money, the choice between the two would be a wash.   She gets the mug only if the price she writes down as a fair price for the mug is higher than price I’ve written on the bottom of the mug.

You may be wondering going with this and what it has to do with irrational decision-making. Don’t worry, the punch line is about to come. Here’s the thing, suppose we run this little experiment thousands of times and put people in different roles – sometimes the role of Seller and sometimes in the role of a Chooser. You know what we find? Well we find that people in the role of the seller place a significantly higher price – like more than twice the price -- on the mug than people in the role of the chooser do. What that means is that if the mug is already yours (and you have to set a sell price) you’ll think it’s worth a lot more than a similar mug that isn’t yet yours (on which you have to place a “willing to purchase it” price.)

One way to think of this is as an instance of loss aversion. You’ve got your precious mug in hand and you don’t want to lose it. It means a lot to you.   And so you set a very high price on it. That is, people tend to value things they already have and might lose, much more highly than things they don’t have, but could get.

That seems pretty irrational, doesn’t it? Go back to what I was saying earlier about calculating upside benefits and downside costs. It looks like those calculations are highly skewed, depending on whether we’re talking about gains or losses. That doesn’t make any sense.

We’ve looked at just one tiny little example of apparent human irrationality. There are literally hundreds of experiments that demonstrate that people are massively irrational in the way we make decisions. And luckily for us, we’ve got one of the world’s leading investigators of human irrationality as our guest this week. Dan Ariely, author of the bestselling Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions.

By the way, Ariely has a follow up book out – The Upside of Irrationality: The Unexpected Benefits of Defying Logic at Work and at Home. We’d love to have him back on the show to talk about the new book. This week’s episode, though, is less about the upside of irrationality than the downside. But I think one can get a glimmer of how irrationality might have an upside by considering last week’s topic – loyalty. From pure self-centered cost-benefit analysis, it can be hard to make sense of loyalty. You might even call loyalty a form of irrationality. But without loyalty (and trust) all kinds of relationships wouldn’t be possible. So if loyalty is a form of irrationality, it may be a darned good thing that we are irrational in that way.   But that’s a topic for another show.

Sri Aurobindo equates Political Vedantism with ethical relativism and neutrality

2010-06-22T23:33:00.000+05:30

Faith & philosophy of Hinduism - Page 32 Rajeev Verma - 2009 - 333 pages
Violent struggle in her defence was a sacred duty which Aurobindo equated with a Vedic sacrifice. Such appeals aroused Hindus but antagonized Muslims, who welcomed the partition because the new province had a Muslim majority. ...

The Edinburgh companion to twentieth-century philosophies - Page 651 Constantin V. Boundas - 2007 - 740 pages
The 'field of being' thus 'enlightened' Aurobindo equates with a 'divine birth' – the telos toward which all of one's previous births are laborious steps. He writes: 'All this evolution is a growing of the Self in material nature to the ... Columbia companion to twentieth-century philosophies

Social and political thought of Mahatma Gandhi - Page 44 Bidyut Chakrabarty - 2006 - 234 pages
India he visualized as 'democratic and federal [comprising] republican states (British Indian provinces) and constitutional monarchies (native states)'.63 In contrast with Pal, Aurobindo equated swaraj with absolute political ...

Hindutva: exploring the idea of Hindu nationalism Jyotirmaya Sharma - 2003 - 205 pages
What is absolutely clear, however, is that Aurobindo equated this principle with manliness. This is yet another inversion in his thought which inaugurates a separate set of problems. In the Indian cosmology, it was the cerebral, ...

Tradition and the rhetoric of right: popular political argument in ... - Page 113 David J. Lorenzo - 1999 - 339 pages
Where Hegel saw the rationalist bureaucracy of the German state as approximating the apex of human achievement, Aurobindo equated rationalism with the oppression and alienation produced by the British Empire, and he pointed to a ...

The Advent Sri Aurobindo Ashram - 1998
Sri Aurobindo equates the Vedic ' 'truth-consciousness' ' with the supermind, with the Gita 's concept of Para prakriti and with supreme Shakti of Tantra, and builds up a path to the ascent to the supermind and of the descent of the ...

Encyclopaedia of Eminent Thinkers: The political thought of Aurobindo - Page 92 K. S. Bharathi - 1998 - 111 pages
Aurobindo equates Political Vedantism with ethical relativism and neutrality, bordering almost upon Machiavellism. He said, Vedantism accepts no distinction of true or false religions, but considers only what will lead more or less ...

The Political Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo - Page 229, V. P. Varma - 1990 - 494 pages
But perhaps the most astounding example of the secularization of the Vedanta is obtained when Aurobindo equates "Political Vedantism" with ethical relativism and neutrality, bordering almost upon Machiavellism. "Vedantism accepts no distinction of true or false religions, ... The Indian journal of political science Indian Political Science Association – 1957

Modern Indian interpreters of the Bhagavadgita - Page 64 Robert Neil Minor - 1986 - 273 pages
Aurobindo equates the deity Krishna with Brahman, identifying him with the "imperishable, undefinable, unmanifest" which the Gita actually teaches is, inferior to Krishna himself in 12.1-7.13 Thus, quoting 12.3-12, he inserts the terms ...

The Advent Sri Aurobindo Ashram - 1984
Sri Aurobindo equates the recovery of the lost cows from the caves with the release of light and knowledge from the caves of ignorance and inconscience. Similarly Sarama for him is the power of intuition. Such images and new meanings...

Towards the life divine: Sri Aurobindo's vision, Louis Thomas O'Neil - 1979 - 103 pages
Aurobindo equates his lower Maya with Sankara's understanding and maintains that it is for this reason that Sankara fell, as it were, into qualified illusionism. But Aurobindo sees lower Maya as a way which evolves into higher Maya. ...

Nolini: Arjuna of our age Nolini Kanta Gupta, V. Madhusudan Reddy - 1979 - 239 pages
Sri Aurobindo equates Brindavan with the paradise that existed before the dawn of Creation and with the u-orld of Bliss secret within us. ... Hindu social philosophy, Subramania Gopalan - 1979 - 293 pages Sri Aurobindo equates ... The Calcutta historical journal University of Calcutta - 1979 As the radical and millenarian Milton equated monarchy with Antichrist, Aurobindo equated British rule with ... Towards eternity; Sri Aurobindo birth centenary volume, 15th ... Aurobindo Ghose - 1973 - 526 pages ... so it appears appropriate that Sri Aurobindo equated his ...

Soul of India Satyavrata R. Patel - 1974 - 232 pages

on it to be a beacon to others in a pursuit so different and difficult, for somebody has to keep the flame burning till it burns everywhere. In a brilliant speech, Aurobindo equated the Indian land with Sanatana Dharma or Hindu religion which is but another name for the yearning of the Divine or the quest of the Spirit. He also said that in

India

religion and nationalism ...

Contemporary Indian idealism (with special reference to Swami ..., Ripusudan Prasad Srivastava - 1973 - 212 pages
Creation Sri Aurobindo equates the nature of the universe with the nature of Reality. In other words creation follows from dhe very nature of existence or being. Thus the problem of creation is the problem of existence. ...

Sri Aurobindo: a biography and a history K. R. Srinivasa Iyengar - 1972 - 1471 pages
Brutus, who is forced in the end to answer her defiance with disarming acquiescence, and exclaim prayerfully: "O ye gods, render me worthy of this noble wife!" With his sure instinct, Sri Aurobindo equated the ...

The extremist challenge: India between 1890 and 1910, Amales Tripathi - 1967 - 246 pages
blade of knife that comes from Leeds". He would not allow British capital to be invested. "But we shall apply for foreign loans in the open market of the whole world", guaranteeing the credit of the Government.48 Aurobindo equated ...

A critical study of Aurobindo: with special reference to his ..., Laxman Ganpatrao Chincholkar - 1966 - 216 pages
Aurobindo equates the Real-Idea with the supermind. Aurobindo occasionally says that the supermind is the Truth-Consciousness itself. The difference is of the terms than of substance. It is the perfection incarnate, and transcends all ...

100th anniversary of Sri Aurobindo’s Uttarpara Speech

2010-06-16T11:15:00.001+05:30

Times of India Publications - 15 Jun 2010 Special programme to honour Aurobindo TIMES NEWS NETWORK Bangalore:

For the first time, the state government will hold a special programme to commemorate the 100th anniversary of revolutionary-turned-philosopher Sri Aurobindo’s Uttarpara Speech delivered in 1909 in the suburbs of Calcutta.
We have formed a high level committee headed by chief minister B S Yeddyurappa to decide on the date and the features of the centenary celebration programme, home minister V S Acharya told reporters on Monday.
Acharya said Uttarpara Speech delivered by Aurobindo on 30th May, 1909 is his first public pronouncement after he was released from Alipore jail in connection with the bomb case. This speech is a valuable work for understanding Hinduism and Sanatan dharma as envisaged by Sri Aurobindo.

Shri Ashok Singhal article / spiritual state / India / Bharat

मुझे स्मरण है जब भारत को राजनीतिक स्वतंत्रता प्राप्त हुई थी, महर्षि अरविन्द ने कहा था, हमें आज केवल राजनीतिक स्वतंत्रता प्राप्त हुई है, इस स्वतंत्रता के लिए हमें एक मंत्र प्राप्त हुआ था 'वन्देमातरम्', जिसने असंख्य बलिदान की प्रेरणा और स्फूर्ति हमें प्रदान की, किन्तु हम सांस्कृतिक दृष्टि से आज भी स्वाधीन नहीं है और इसके लिए हमें राजनीतिक स्वतंत्रता के लिए किए गए आन्दोलन से भी कहीं बड़ा आन्दोलन करना पड़ेगा। उन्होंने कहा था, यह आन्दोलन मुझे सम्पूर्ण भारत में ज्वार के समान उठता दिखाई दे रहा है, किन्तु इसका वह मंत्र मुझे सुनाई नहीं दे रहा है, जो इसे सांस्कृतिक स्वाधीनता प्राप्त कराने के लिए असंख्य बलिदान देने की प्रेरणा प्राप्त कराएगा।

A Journey from Politics to Yoga: From the Early Political Writings of Sri Aurobindo by Sri Aurobindo

These selections from Bande Mataram and Karmayogin reveal "how even politics can and has to be reoriented and imbued with spirituality". "Though written several decades ago ... they present thoughts which are still very relevant and provide guidelines to present-day politicians and statesmen." The editor hopes "this compilation will help in reforming our political system on the lines of Sri Aurobindo's thought and vision".

On Nationalism: Selected Writings and Speeches by Sri Aurobindo

Selections from Sri Aurobindo's early political writings and speeches which mostly appeared in three journals he edited between 1906-1910: Bande Mataram, Karmayogin and Dharma. These are of striking contemporary relevance.

Glimpses of Vedantism in Sri Aurobindo's Political Thought

The philospohy of the Vedanta was an integral vision of life. In its view no area of human activity, including politics, can be fully understood without an insight into the source and goal of life itself. Sri Aurobindo wrote "All political ideals must have relation to the temperament and past history of the race. The genius of

India

is separate from that of any other race." This book presents the "New Ideal" advocated by Sri Aurobindo ninety years ago. Though the roots of the ideal are ancient, it is of striking relevance to the problems of politics today. [Glimpses of Vedantism in Sri Aurobindo's political thought, Samar Basu Glimpses of Vedantism in Sri Aurobindo's Political Thought.(Book Review): An article from: International Journal of Humanities and Peace Ananda Reddy]

Habermas famously pronounced modernity an “unfinished project”

2010-06-15T10:10:00.001+05:30

Europe and its intellectual property from LENIN'S TOMB by lenin

“The peculiar tenor of current ideological campaigns against fanaticism derives from the smug conviction that ‘we’ are indeed enlightened, and the concomitant notion that the Enlightenment is something to be preserved rather than enacted, furthered or repeated. Especially prevalent is the idea that Enlightenment is something like a cultural patrimony (a ‘value’, precisely) which defines our civilization. It would perhaps be otiose to point out the many ways in which contemporary, rationalist visions originating in the French Lumière or German Aufklärungare systematically denied in the contemporary political panorama. If we can indeed speak of it as a project, much of the Enlightenment is not merely unfinished: it has been ignored, buried or traduced.” — Alberto Toscano, Fanaticism: The Uses of An Idea, Verso, 2010, p. 99 review forthcoming) Copyleft of Lenin's Tomb

Secularism, secularization, and why the difference matters from The Immanent Frame by Vincent P. Pecora

Several decades ago, well before there had been any concerted effort among historians and sociologists of religion to trash the standard model of the “secularization thesis,” Jürgen Habermas famously pronounced modernity an “unfinished project,” and then proceeded to outline both the conditions needed to complete the project and the barriers that the twentieth century had thrown up in its way. This is obviously not the place to rehearse Habermas’s ideas, especially since so many others have done it well. . . . But, for the present purposes, I think we can usefully boil the conditions down to two.

Vellupillai Murugesu - 'An inspirational life' The Island Anil Tittawella, President’s Counsel

Vellupillai Murugesu (fondly known as "Freddie") passed away on Saturday 20th March 2010 at the age of 86. … Born a Hindu he later became an ardent follower of the teachings and the philosophy of Sri Aurobindo. He was instrumental in creating the Sri Aurobindo Society and spearheaded the movement’s work in Sri Lanka.

Retirement, after such an assiduous career, might have been sadly anticlimactic, but Mr. Murugesu went on to derive much pleasure by concentrating his energies on the unfinished business of completing the Sri Aurobindo Centre and spent his days in meditation, teaching and propagating the philosophical teachings of Sri Aurobindo. Even in retirement and in a vastly different endeavour his appetite for perfectionism never waned. He was relentless in his pursuit and the result is the now completed Sri Aurobindo Centre. Like the law firm he created and fostered with much devotion he left a fine legacy in Colombo for the Sri Aurobindo Movement, which has evolved to be a fine seat of learning and meditation.

Nandini Satpathy Fondly Recalled from Orissa Matters by Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Nandini Satpathy had epitomized the determination against gender discrimination and was in her assertive best in the male dominated political scenario. In this respect she was the first in Orissa and one of the first few in India that have made their marks in applied democracy.

Orissa, to her credit, had, before emergence of Nandini, excellent leaders amongst the women like Sarala Devi, Rama Devi and Malati Choudhury. But, though legendary Gandhians, none of these leaders had ever been in assertive politics. […]

She was in fact a wonderful personality in politics. […] Her birthday was celebrated on 8th at the State Information Center she had founded in Bhubaneswar. The day had begun with an exhibition of her photos that are preserved by her son Tathagat Satpathy, M.P. and editor of Dharitri. In the evening, its auditorium was jam-packed to remember her and to hear eminent writer and activist Indira Goswamy as well as Sarojini Sahoo. Both of them, famous for emancipatory writing in interest of women, paid their rich tributes to Mrs Satpathy who had personified women emancipation even as they dealt with the unending psycho-physical trauma females are yet being subjected to in the male-dominated society. Juxtaposing the present time with the time of the formative stage of Mrs Satpathy, they praised her for having pioneered the rise of a new epoch where females feel free to face the challenge from the gender-supremacists.

Barindranath Chaki commented on Lalit Kumar's blog post 'Review Article of Peter Heehs’ ‘The Lives of Sri Aurobindo’' Comment by Barindranath Chaki

Having come to read and know all that is written by Heehs on Sri Aurobindo, I feel and understand that an anti-Divine force is active in and through him, and in course of time, he will be swept away by the current and force of Time into oblivion! from ASPIRATION - Aspiration is a call to the Divine. — The Mother

Sri Aurobindo was not afraid to use the word terrorist

2010-06-13T13:52:00.001+05:30

Violent and Non-Violent Modes of Resistance in India’s Freedom Movement

By Peter Heehs A Talk Delivered at the University of Colorado, Boulder, April 5, 2010

I have just used the word “terrorist” in connection with the actions of Barin Ghose’s group. In 2010, no word in the English language elicits a more visceral reaction. To most of us, “terrorism” brings to mind the 9/11 tragedy, suicide bombers, and the targeting of innocent civilians. These associations, all legitimate, obscure the more precise meaning, or rather meanings, assigned to “terrorism” by social scientists and historians. Properly speaking, “terrorism” is the use of intimidation and terror to bring about political ends. Originally used for policies carried out by the French revolutionary government during the Reign of Terror, it came to be applied to any policy or mode of action meant to strike terror in those it is directed against.

Terrorism has passed through a number of phases since the time of the French Revolution. Roughly speaking one may distinguish a stage of revolutionary terrorism – which I subdivide into an anarchistic, an anticolonial and an insurrectionary phase – and a later stage that I call apocalyptic terrorism. The revolutionary period in its three forms extended from the late nineteenth century to the late twentieth century, and beyond. Anarchistic terrorists, who were active in

Russia

and Western Europe from the 1870s until the first world war, sought the overthrow of nation-states. Anticolonial groups, such as the one Aurobindo was connected with, were active throughout the twentieth century in

India

Ireland

and other places. They played a significant role in bringing an end to the rule of the great colonial powers. Insurrectionary groups, active since the mid twentieth century, have had less success in bringing down postcolonial regimes in

Sri Lanka

Israel

, and other states. Faced with the might of a well-organized national military force, and the condemnation of much of the world, insurrectionary groups developed techniques such as suicide bombing, which were later taken up by the sort of groups I refer to as apocalyptic terrorists.

Unlike the three sorts of revolutionary terrorists, apocalyptic terror groups do not have a clear, attainable aim, such as the overthrow of a national regime. Rather they long to “bring down the system” or to wipe out the enemies of the true faith. Groups that fall into this category, such as AUM Shinrikyo and al-Qaeda, typically treat innocent civilians as stand-ins for unattainable governments. They can and do inflict enormous damage, but they are unlikely to attain their aims since these aims are cast in such apocalyptic terms as to be unattainable.

Few terrorists of any sort have ever applied the term “terrorist” to themselves. This brings us to the popular cliché, “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.” As with all clichés, there is a grain of truth in this saying, but it muddles useful distinctions. The question to ask members of a revolutionary group is not whether they want freedom, but whether their methods are realistic, effective, and avoid what is euphemistically referred to as “collateral damage.” By these measures, the revolutionaries with whom Aurobindo Ghose was associated were indeed freedom fighters, although some of their methods – attempts to assassinate British officials and collaborators, and the intimidation and robbing of rich and powerful Indians – could rightly be referred to as terrorist methods.

Aurobindo was not afraid to use the word terrorist, though one should keep in mind that the term did not then have the connotations that encumber it today: […]

The Bomb in Bengal: The Rise of Revolutionary Terrorism in India 1900-1910 Peter Heehs (Paperback - Aug 2005)

Nationalism, Terrorism, Communalism: Essays in Modern Indian History (Oxford India Paperbacks) Peter Heehs (Paperback - Jul 2000)

Netaji Subhas Confronted the Indian Ethos (1900-1921): Yogi Sri Aurobindo's " Terrorism " , Poet Tagore's " Universalism " , and Mahatma Gandhi's " Experimental Non-Violence " Adwaita P. Ganguly (Hardcover - Sep 5, 2003)

Terrorism in India, Shaileshwar Nath - 1980 - 350 pages
held in their articles in The Modern Review of the twenties that with the renaissance of Bengal began not only the renaissance of India but that of whole Asia. As early as 1908, Aurobindo pointed out through the columns of the Bande...

Bengal: change and continuity Ingrid Aall - 1971 - 270 pages
Calling for inner freedom, Aurobindo pointed to a new age which men should work towards. One means for reaching this pinnacle of human destiny which lay ahead was by yoga and the gathering of men's inner forces. ... 12:39 PM

Sri Aurobindo draws close attention to the transition between reason and what transcends it

2010-06-01T13:57:00.000+05:30

Sri Aurobindo and the Bengal Renaissance by Debashsish Banerji
By debbanerji Posthuman Destinies

Sri Aurobindo does not reject rationality but exploits its own uncertainties to indicate ways to the experience of greater clarities. In this kind of exploitation, Sri Aurobindo is not the first nor the only thinker. Indeed, we find that most of the principal thinkers of the Bengal Renaissance strongly embrace rationality. This is an important revisionary factor because the Enlightenment was, in fact, largely a reaction against the irrationalism of religion in Europe and in the colonized domain of

India

, a purely revivalist impulse could very well have asserted a spirit of pre-modern religion that rejected reason. […] In fact, we may surmise that the reason we have not been able to engage seriously with the solutions that were opened up during the Bengal Renaissance, is the continuing presence of that gulf in our times. During the Bengal Renaissance an attempt was made to close that gulf. Rationality and spirituality walked hand in hand.

From the late 18^th c., whether we consider Ram Mohun Roy (1774-1833), Debendranath Tagore (1817-1905), the foundations of the Brahmo movement, or whether we look at Vivekananda, or later Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) or Sri Aurobindo, in all of them there was an attempt to build a bridge between rationality and the life of the spirit. Once more, in this, these thinkers were not creating in a vacuum, but rekindling the rich intellectual discursive tradition of darshana (yoga philosophy), bhashya (commentary) and vitarka (debate), now translated into a hybrid engagement with an occidental philosophical discourse.

Sri Aurobindo’s contribution here too, is profound because he draws close attention to the transition between reason and what transcends it. He demonstrated the limits of Reason, why the Enlightenmet was blighted by principled internal conflict and impotence in the achievement of its own goals of knowledge. Like Immanuel Kant, who used the tools of logic to demonstrate the limits of Reason, Sri Aurobindo engaged the discourses of Philosophy and Psychology to work out the properties and office of Reason. He then indicated the transition from the power of rationality to the power of a spiritual rationality, a supra-rationality, through the mediation of an intuitive mind. In this, he critiqued the mainstream Enlightenment notion of a static rational definition of the human by translating the premises of Indian yoga and echoing Nietzsche at the same time – “Man is a transitional being.”[iii]

This transitionality opens up a post-humanist possibility, seen by Sri Aurobindo as the transformation of human Reason to an individualized cosmic Mind and what he calls Supermind. Thus, Sri Aurobindo, in his engagements with the discursive grounds of the Enlightenment, demonstrated its fulfillment through the marriage of rationality and spirit. But this discourse found its voice in Sri Aurobindo due to the ground prepared by earlier thinkers of the Bengal Renaisaance. The Bengal Renaissance provided the rich soil and Sri Aurobindo planted the tree which yields the flower of an alternate fulfillment to the Enlightenment. Though we have largely swept aside (or under) this discourse, a contemporary postmodernist critique of the Enlightenment makes its consideration possible and urgent. […]

In all these voices, the ideal of a spiritual reconstitution of individual and social life is powerfully present as an alternative form of living modernity. It seeks to express itself not outside of the modern but within the modern and not outside of life but as a transformed definition of life. Each of these figures represents a powerful social force through which a spiritual practice expresses itself in its own way. Sri Aurobindo’s contribution to this core concern of the Bengal Renaissance is perhaps the most profound, in that he heralds a new age of spiritual experimentation and development which treats all life as yoga. […] […]

Two of the thinkers who took this discourse furthest, were Rabindranath Tagore and Sri Aurobindo. They both saw that, given the ubiquitous world-wide sweep of modernity, such an alternative destining could only be secure in islands dedicated to subjective exploration where the expansion of the inner life would provide a selective filter for the assimilation and reconstitution of modernity. In this, they both rethought the pre-modern form of the ashrama, a communitarian habitus of continuous learning and spiritual growth, in engagement with the forces of the world.

Tagore’s ashrama of universal man-making, Visva-Bharati, at Shantiniketan and Sri Aurobindo’s ashrama at Pondicherry may be seen as the materialized topoi of these creative social ideas. To what extent these strategies and experiments have been successful in their intent in the long run is questionable, but the compromised realities of these social forms today cannot be seen as lack of insight of their founders, since continuous subjective engagement, critique and furtherance by living milieus would be needed to keep them alive, something dependent on succeeding generations. […] […]

The Bengal Renaissance … was largely creative and progressive in seeing this long cultural discourse as a living and mutating one, something lending itself to innovation in different contexts and demanding ongoing adaptations in the present. This redefinition of Hinduism was one which made it evolutionary, not something which embraced only a specific ideology but one which engaged with all histories of spiritual practice, making up the fabric of its unfinished body. This indeed, is how Sri Aurobindo presented his definition of Sanatan Dharma in the famous Uttarpara speech (1909).[vi]

Sri Aurobindo saw clearly that the difficulty of defining a national identity in terms of religious ideology went back to the limitations of the mind. The mind divides reality in terms of binaries. Thus, we can dwell on unity and we can dwell on infinity, but the mind cannot hold these radically different realities at the same time. But the Brahman is both one and infinite. Hence we see that though Universalism seems to be an all-inclusive idea, what this implies to the mind is problematic, because true universality, or more properly integrality, is not within the power of human reason to grasp. […]

Sri Aurobindo was among those of the later generations of the Bengal Renaissance who were deeply influenced by Bankim’s vision and actively promoted a form of nationalism in which Indians were asked to perceive the nation as the living form of the Divine Mother. He and his revolutionary collaborators published their rousing articles in a journal by the name of Bande Mataram. Songs addressing the Divine Mother, adapted from the rich tradition of Bengali Kali and Durga worship, carrying obvious nationalist overtones appeared in large numbers, including in the songs of Rabindranath Tagore and Kazi Nazrul Islam (1899-1976). Abanindranath Tagore (1871-1951) painted a poster of Bharat Mata which was used in a political rally. […]

The properly theorized idea of “nation soul” in modern times makes its appearance in late 18^th century

Germany

. It is voiced in the writings of a philosopher named Johann Herder (1744-1803) and soon, through Herder’s contemporary, G.W.F. Hegel (1770-1831). Hegel takes Herder’s idea and makes it the cornerstone of his Philosophy of History which is a theory of evolution consonant with the ideology of the Enlightenment.[xvi] One could argue in fact, that Hegel’s Philosophy of History provides the best philosophical description for the teleology of the Enlightenment. In Hegel’s scheme, it is Reason (he calls this Consciousness) which is God, trapped in matter. Matter has laws but these laws are not self-conscious, they are expressed unconsciously. But they evolve in time creating forms that have greater and greater power of consciousness, leading to the human being, who has rational choice. For Hegel, the human being is the pinnacle of this evolution of Reason. As we know, according to the Enlightenment idea (and the Renaissance which preceded it), Man, as possessor of Reason, is the measure of all things. Hegel’s Philosophy of History then proceeds to trace the further evolution of Reason through human collectivities, the nation-souls.

For those who know of the evolutionary philosophy of Sri Aurobindo, we can see how close, and yet how subtly different Hegel’s idea is from that of Sri Aurobindo. At the start of this discussion, I spoke of the changes in epochs being guided by what Hegel calls the Zeitgeist, the Time-Spirit according to Sri Aurobindo. […]

In passing, we may note the apparent similarity between Hegel’s Metaphysics and Sri Aurobindo’s idea of evolution as stated in The Life Divine. Though a similar process of the Involution-Evolution of Consciousness forms the basis of Sri Aurobindo’s theory, Consciousness does not equate to Rationality in Sri Aurobindo’s case, nor does it eschew Reason. As mentioned earlier, the hybrid form of this Metaphysics straddles two discourses, that of western speculative Metaphysics and of the Indian dasrhana-yoga tradition, which invites subjective verification through the praxis of yoga. This dependence on praxis renders Sri Aurobindo’s evolutionary theory closer to Nietzsche’s project of self-transcendence. Even prior to the human with its location in terms of a “reversal of consciousness’ and agency in his scheme, the steps of the evolution are not continuous and determinable but having discontinuities and processes involving agency. Finally, the source of Consciousness in the evolution reveals itself to be the Supermind, with its transcendental freedom from cosmic conditions and ability to transform them, as discussed above. In this cosmic evolution, souls (including individual and collective souls, such as nation-soul) have a part to play, but none of these are static. […]

We have also noted earlier the equation of this nation soul with the image of Mother India. We find a continuation of the matristic and spiritual ideas of this image and its form of address in the yogic praxis and teaching of Sri Aurobindo. Thus, Sri Aurobindo does not reject the idea of the nation soul but theorizes it so as to introduce a variant response to the Eurocentric discourse. The reality given by him to the nation soul is not that of a simplistic ahistorical essence. This is something to be noted, since the idea of “

India

” as an eternal Hindu nation has made its appearance in today’s world with religious nationalism, staking its claim of identity on the nation soul.

The idea of nation soul in Sri Aurobindo has a basis in historicity. In Sri Aurobindo’s yoga philosophy, there are two aspects to the nation soul, just as there are two aspects to the human soul – a psychic entity and a psychic being. The psychic entity is an unformed matrix or reservoir of psychic energy out of which, through historical processes, a psychic personality or psychic being gets formed. These historical processes are determined by the relationship between soul and nature. Again, as we saw with the cosmopolitanism of the Bengal Renaissance, collective entities are not restricted to nations. So, too, in Sri Aurobindo’s idea of a cosmic evolution, the collective soul is not restricted to nations, and includes sub-national and supra-national conscious agencies.