Protect Liberty and Modernity by rejecting Mythology

Thursday, January 15, 2015

Hindutva and Vivekananda are barriers

Politics serves as an easy means of boosting self-esteem for the youth but Sri Aurobindo exhorts to work towards Evolution of Consciousness. Before turning inordinately proud of saving the country, the youth of India must learn about what the Veda ordains them, from Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo rescues from the deafening noise pushing Mythology and Medievalism to acquaint with Vedic modes of volitional Self-Evolution. Don't carry misunderstandings and prejudices imbibed from Indian tradition all your life and learn from Sri Aurobindo to enrich civilisation. Hindutva advising women to have 4-5 children proves that it's 4-5 centuries back in intellectual growth & must evolve. http://t.co/ZoP6N9wBQQ

The youth of India must develop adequate intellectual muscle to wrestle with what Sri Aurobindo wrote hundred years ago in 1914 in the ARYA. Indian culture must unshackle itself from Medieval Hindutva & claim Sri Aurobindo's Judeo-Vedic Integralism to keep pace with Economic surge. Nehruvian perspective was okay for adolescence but the Nation must evolve into Sri Aurobindian maturity after a brief Hindutva interregnum. Nehruvian neglect of Sri Aurobindo's Knowledge Capital has cost the country dear and it has to pay the price by way of Hindutva backlash. Sri Aurobindo weans away from Vedic Ritual and initiates into Integral Self-Perfection derived from Psychological interpretation of the Veda. Savitri Era unveiled by The Mother & Sri Aurobindo has robust Philosophy and Psychology and steers clear of Mythology, Astrology, & Rituals. If Hindutva follows Congress example of ignoring Sri Aurobindo, it'd be a colossal loss of opportunity not only for India but also the world. With the aid of Sri Aurobindo, youth of India must be willing to defeat ill effects of Mythology & Hindutva and espouse Science & Modernity. 

Most Hindutva defenders are hardcore Vivekananda disciples who have undertaken the burden to prevent Sri Aurobindo's teaching from spreading. Both Hindutva and Vivekananda are barriers to the sublime Knowledge source and path to Perfection unveiled by The Mother & Sri Aurobindo. Multiple wrong perceptions did penetrate the Indian consciousness through Gandhi, Tagore, and Vivekananda, and Sri Aurobindo rectifies them. Acolytes of Golwalkar, Savarkar, and Vivekananda must make up their minds to receive higher education and understanding from Sri Aurobindo. Winning Power after decades long struggle is bound to make Hindutva blind for a while but faultlines of its clash with Modernity will show up. Hoping to win successive elections through Hindu votes consolidation is a chimera as Democratic aspirations are likely to take precedence. Indian Constitution doesn't give any special weightage to any religion and hence all aggressive mobilisation of Hindus is counterproductive

Present Indian scenario is not a tussle between the Hindu and the rest. It's between Modernity and Freedom vs. Medievalism and Superstition. RW is now on overdrive in growing some theoretical muscle but one substantial mistake they commit is to treat Hindu as a monolithic category. Resolve to protect Liberty and Modernity by rejecting Mythology, Astrology, and Rituals so that children always feel India as their own land. Prevalence of Mythology, Astrology, & Rituals forces many Indians to turn agnostic but The Mother & Sri Aurobindo offer a fascinating option. It's worth the while to get rid of victimhood & negativity and follow the Judeo-Vedic Savitri Era ushered in by The Mother & Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo wades through Mythology, Mysticism, and Philosophy to express his Prophesies through Poetry. Make his SAVITRI a daily habit. All educated Indians should keep a copy of SAVITRI with them to recite a page or two from it whenever they feel like. http://t.co/sT7jU2B8db

Hindutva privileges Mythology and promotes Ritualistic mode of religion while Sr Aurobindo presents an enlightened version of Vedic culture. Just because Modi was able to become PM doesn't exonerate Hindutva of its ills and make it trustworthy for future generations. Buyer beware! [TNM55]

Posted by Tusar Nath Mohapatra at 9:52 PM

Bankruptcy of liberal proceduralism

Matthew David Segall Says: January 18, 2014 at 7:46 pm

Sounds good to me, Levi. We are all children of the Sun, indebted to its self-immolating generosity. But then what is energy, anyway? After several hundred years, techno-science has achieved wonders through the instrumental mastery of energy. But what is it? How is it that the energy studied by physics becomes the libido studied by psychologists? If we are to take thermopolitics seriously, don’t we (we political theorists) also need an account for how free action is possible in a world described by physics as (at least statistically) deterministic? If it is all just the playing out of the laws of thermodynamics, where is there any room left over for politics? 

It seems to me you want to marshall a discourse surrounding energy on behalf of a movement for political liberation. But for this to make any sense, aren’t we going to need to define energy in a more general, perhaps more speculative way than the instrumental definitions of physicists?

Even the Christian mystic Teilhard de Chardin granted that “To think we must eat.” “The highest speculation and the most burning love,” he continues, “must be coupled with, and must be paid for by, an expenditure of physical energy, as we know too well. Sometimes we need bread; sometimes wine, sometimes the infusion of a chemical element or hormone; sometimes the stimulus of color; sometimes the magic of sound passing through our ears as a vibration and emerging in our brain in the form of an inspiration…But on the other hand, so many different thoughts come out of the same piece of bread! Just like the letters of an alphabet, which can produce incoherence as well as the most beautiful poem ever heard, the same calories seem to be as indifferent as they are necessary to the spiritual values they nourish.” (‘The Human Phenomenon,’ p. 29-30). 

Teilhard is committed to the rejection of any dualism between physical and spiritual energies, and he dismisses the idea that these two might somehow transform one into the other. He ends up articulating a form of evolutionary panexperientialism, which rests on the same family of process ontologies articulated in detail by Bergson and Whitehead. There is plenty to be suspicious of in Teilhard’s thermopolitical framework, but nonetheless, he recognizes the profundity of the problem.

Joe Calandrino Says: Saturday, January 3, 2015 at 10:28 am

Of course, the American project in democracy is a moderate version: a democratic republic. The founding fathers were just as concerned with a tyranny of the mob as they were with a centralized tyranny. It never was the case of the exercise of “collective power” so nothing, really, “has given way to democracy as representation”: American democracy was always ‘representative’. 

Although I am uncertain that Adam does not mean ‘representation’ as Vorstellung, he directs some concern to ‘representatives’ of ideals such as inclusiveness and diversity. The ‘democracy to come’ awaits its own advent, and might be undone in the waiting, as ‘to come’ (as Caputo and Derrida might say) might very well crush ‘democracy’ under the pressure of the waiting. Democracy—Vorstellung. Yes, I agree.

Learning leadership lessons from insect larvae - insight-hrc.co.uk

Oct 29, 2014 - Scientists recently discovered that good leadership plays a key role in the success of a particular species of insect. It turns out that the larvae of the Australian steel blue sawfly – known locally as the spitfire – can teach us a lot about the value of democratic leadership.

The larvae might only reach a length of 7cm, but en masse they are a force to be reckoned with. Grouping together in their hundreds, the diminutive creatures thrive by following a leader to forage for food. Unlike other species like baboons and wolves where the leader asserts dominance through taking a greater share of the food, both followers and leaders in these sawfly communities feast on the same amount of Eucalyptus leaves (yum). Working together, the insects can strip an entire tree of its leaves in a matter of days.

The larvae evidently value their democracy – they typically stay together in their large groups for the duration of the larval stage, about seven months. What’s more, scientists observing groups of the creepy crawlies discovered that groups comprised of all leaders and all followers were ultimately less successful than one with a mix of leaders and followers; it was found that in these mixed groups, both leaders and followers were better off than they would otherwise be. 

In rapidly changing, dynamic work environments, democratic leadership of this sort is important. We must work together in these fast changing circumstances, recognising the value of collaboration. The leaders who do best here are those who accept the ideas of their colleagues, taking all options into account before making a decision for the good of the team, benefiting everyone. 

If we can swallow our human pride, there are lessons to be learned from sawfly larvae – here are some tips to keep your team as democratic as a Eucalyptus tree that’s crawling with hungry bugs.

Honeybee Democracy - Page 23 - Google Books Result

Thomas D. Seeley - 2010 - ‎If it is deposited in a standard-size cell in the combs, where after hatching into a larva it will be fed by the workers with standard-quality larval food, then it will ...

Democracy, Intelligent Design, and Evolution: Science for Citizenship

Susan P. Liebell - 2013 - Darwin had claimed that cruelty and imperfections in the natural world— particularly the larval cannibalism ichneumon wasps—might be more easily explained 

Reason why Mythology is pernicious. "The concepts the mind clings to are the most powerful idols." indiafacts.co.in/murti-puja-ant… @IndiaFactsOrg - 7:06am - 22 Jan 15

A polyarchy is a modern representative democracy with universal suffrage

Unearthing cosmopolitanism - Times of India - Jan 25, 2015

... important in their own times" is what Sachidananda Mohanty's book, Cosmopolitan Modernity in the Early 20th Century, sets out to achieve.