Science, Culture and Integral Yoga

The Soul of a City: The Crystal Cathedral as Organizing Metaphor for (post)Modern Architecture at the Bauhaus

Debashish — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 22:38:12 -0800

The Bauhaus, founded in 1919 at Weimar, Germany by Walter Gropius, was arguably the most influential school of design in modern times, set up in the form of a residential creative community of designers, craftsmen, architects and artists. As part of its central ideal, Water Gropius, the founder of the Bauhaus, envisaged a world made up of creative communities united spiritually in and around a materialized soul, which he likened to "a crystal cathedral." Today, Bauhaus influenced architecture is ubiquitous as the symbol of world modernity, but Gropius' dream is far from fulfilled. This article explores the historical dimensions of this ideal, the causes for its failure and the possible conditions for its postmodern manifestation.

Techno-Capitalism and Post-Human Destinies III

Debashish — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 19:05:34 -0700

The concluding section on Techno-Capitalism and Post-Human Destinies by Debashish Banerji continues its second installment's reflections on the Omniscience, Omnipotence and Omnipresence presented to us as the emerging destiny of post-Enlightenment Modernity and compares this destination with its appropriation and supercession in the Neo-Vedantic teleology of Sri Aurobindo. What are the differences, dangers and promises of these destinies and what are the conditions for achieving an alternate destination? ...

Primrose School of Pondicherry: An experiment in integral education

ronjon — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 13:14:42 -0700

Primrose School, inaugurated in June 1999 in the former French colony of Pondicherry, is a pioneering effort in India to utilise Dr. Glenn Doman’s teaching methods as the basis for a full program of pre-school, primary and secondary education.

The Mother's Service Society, Pondicherry, has been in the field of social development for a quarter of a century now and has been recognised as a "Scientific and Cultural Research Institution" by the Central Government for three decades. The Society has longed believed that new methods of education can transform India into a leading knowledge society and fulfill Sri Aurobindo's dream of India becoming the Jagat guru of the world. Primrose School was founded for this purpose, and after discovering the wonderful educational insights of Dr. Glenn Doman, they have taken them and creatively adapted them to suit Indian conditions.

Most of us believe that geniuses are a very rare breed and only a few children are born with that potential. The truth is, many children have the potential of developing genius. Every child has far more potential than comes to the surface under normal circumstances. The secret is to create conditions that enable the child to discover and express their full potential.

Dr. Doman has shown decisively that young children have an incredible capacity for learning. They can learn to read multiple languages with ease at a very young age, even before entering school. They can imbibe a wide range of general knowledge just as a form of recreation. Children can learn at least twice as fast as they normally do in traditional schools without homework, cramming or strain of any type. ... -- The Mother's Service Society believes that this method could revolutionalise education in India. ...

Integrating the Big Bang: An interview w. Michael Murphy re Integral Enlightenment

ronjon — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 09:46:46 -0700

"Michael Murphy very well might be the single most significant spiritual pioneer of our generation, if for no other reason than the extraordinary spaces that he created in which others could transform," Ken Wilber writes in his book 'The Eye of Spirit.' Indeed, ever since Murphy discovered the pioneering work of Sri Aurobindo almost fifty years ago, his passionate interest in the cultivation of human evolutionary potential has continued unabated. Not only did he found, with his friend the late Richard Price, the by-now-historic testing ground of human potential, Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California, but he has also written several best-selling books about the relationship between sports and the mystical dimension of life and has, together with his colleague George Leonard, painstakingly mapped out a systematic theory and program of what he calls "Integral Transformative Practice." Integral practice, inspired by Sri Aurobindo's Integral Yoga, is now Murphy's main passion, and its role in our understanding of human evolutionary potential is, in his thinking, absolutely essential. ...

Hollywood's spiritual connect

ronjon — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 11:35:25 -0700

She's pretty enough to be mistaken for a Hollywood actress... But Seanne Corn's claim to fame is yoga. And for this reason, Hollywood celebs, businessmen, sports personalities, all seek her out.

"Yoga is evolving and growing in the West. So, I wouldn't call it a fad – no fad can last this long. Now, it is attracting younger, aggressive people who want more from their life. The interesting thing is, once they make yoga a part of their lives, they cease to want those things," says Seanne.

But what is her connect with this ancient Indian practice? Seanne gets candid, "I was a very troubled teenager, doing drugs and alcohol. A friend told me in jest that yoga might make me more stable and level headed, and I took it seriously. I travelled to Mysore, and enrolled in the Aurobindo Ashram. I'm 40 now, and this happened when I was 19. So, for the past 21 years, yoga has been a way of my life," she says. ...

'The Doctrine of the Subtle Worlds: Sri Aurobindo's Cosmology, Modern Science, and the Metaphysics of Alfred North Whitehead'

ronjon — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 23:11:11 -0800

This is an unusually long article for SCIY. It's copyrighted by Eric M. Weiss, and was his dissertation for his Ph.D. at CIIS, the California Institute of Integral Studies, with a concentration in Philosophy, Cosmology and Consciousness. I'm taking the liberty of posting it here because, in my opinion, it's one of the most thorough and insightful treatments of the core concern of SCIY; the multiple & interpenetrating relationships between science, culture, and consciousness, placed within the contextual framework of Sri Aurobindo's Integral Yoga. - Warning: This is challenging material, but I believe working through it and contemplating its implications is well worth the effort. - My deepest appreciation goes to Dr. Eric Weiss for his extraordinary and groundbreaking work. ~ ron

...Here we are, at the dawn of the Twenty First Century, and I have awakened to find myself living in a science fiction novel. If this novel were to be written from the standpoint of the 23rd century, looking back to the beginning of the 21st, it might start something like this:

At that time, the certainties of science had faltered. The great charism of the men in white lab coats had faded. The bastions of materialism had crumbled from within, and the civilization that it had fostered was losing its way.

Meanwhile, three centuries of rapacious assault on the biosphere were, at last, showing decisive results. The globe was poisoned, people were sick, species were being slaughtered by the tens of thousands, global temperatures and global sea levels were both beginning to rise. A civilization was ending, and in its death throes, it was bringing to a close the Cenozoic Era. The Earth was preparing for a fresh creation.

Looking back, too, we can see that the promise of the new civilization had already begun to shine. The iron cage of the material world, in which the species had been trapped for centuries, was starting to dissolve. Here and there, the experiences of the subtle worlds were breaking through. A few intrepid explorers had seen the promise, and had just begun to glimpse the vast freedoms and the limitless horizons that we now enjoy, but the darkness was still thick and Kali was dancing wildly across the face of the globe. This is the story of those early pioneers…

"The Only Journey There Is: An Exploration of Cosmic & Cultural Evolution," Robert Godwin Interview (WIE)

ronjon — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 17:22:03 -0800

Robert Godwin is ... an “outsider” thinker, and a masterful litterateur to boot. In his book "One Cosmos under God," he attempts nothing less than to reenvision the entire story of creation, both scientifically and spiritually, and audaciously and stunningly presents an often poetic, quasi-scriptural rendering of what a new cosmic narrative could be. It’s a book that breaks boundaries, thrills and teases, and ultimately makes very much sense in its Herculean embrace of cosmology, biology, quantum physics, psychology, anthropology, history, mysticism, theology, and more.

A practicing clinical psychologist, Godwin, in his words, became voraciously interested in everything at some point in his mid to late twenties. He also credits himself with having a synthetic versus analytic mind. So in order to make sense of what he was learning, he sought to find relationships and patterns among the truths he had gleaned from disparate fields of study. In short, he wanted to know. To that end, he recognized that the only way to grasp spiritual truths was through direct experience and he became a serious practitioner of Sri Aurobindo’s integral yoga. One Cosmos under God is the result of what he discovered as a follower of the Indian sage’s teachings, together with the fruits of his relentless curiosity. ...

A Second Response to Daniel Gustav Anderson's "Towards a Critical Integral Theory"

Debashish — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 00:30:45 -0800

Sri Aurobindo is not just the "foundational thinker" of "Integral Theory" – in Anderson’s back-handed compliment “To adapt a meme attributed to Whitehead: if European philosophy amounts to a footnoting of Plato, Integral theory may very well amount to a conversation about Aurobindo.” As I proceeded to read I could see how this is possible if one takes Sri Aurobindo’s Vedantic darshan, Purnadvaita Vedanta (inseparable from its corresponding yoga, Purna Yoga) as a western style speculative metaphysics purporting to be a Theory of Everything, an ideology which maintains itself as Truth through the Will-to-Power and becomes the defining hegemonic ideology of late Enlightenment Neoliberalism through the production of its world-subjects, something perhaps possible. But to attribute the foundation of such an ideological field to Sri Aurobindo is, certainly a new wrinkle to the abuses/misuses of his text which seem to be multiplying lately (as for instance through left and right perceptions of it as the foundational text for Hindutva). ...

Comments on "Reflections on Sri Aurobindo's THE IDEAL OF HUMAN UNITY" (cont.)

ronjon — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 15:10:20 -0700

I've taken the liberty of re-posting here all of the comments ("Replies") to Debashish's earlier posting: "Reflections on THE IDEAL OF HUMAN UNITY By Debashish Banerji." -- My reasons:

1) The set of responses in this thread was getting so large that we were starting to experience some oddities in BlogHarbor's reply functions.
2) I was concerned that we could delete the entire thread due to some technical or human error, thus losing this fascinating & important discussion.
3) By posting all of the comments as this article, we can go back in and re-format them if we wish; e.g., correcting typos & adding italics for quoted passages.

PLEASE CONTINUE OUR REPLIES ON THIS TOPIC HERE, IN THIS ARTICLE, NOT IN THE PREVIOUSLY POSTED ONE.

Thanks,
~ ron

Reflections on THE IDEAL OF HUMAN UNITY By Debashish Banerji

Debashish — Mon, 09 Oct 2006 23:33:43 -0700

In these last chapters of The Ideal of Human Unity, Sri Aurobindo draws together the threads that he has introduced earlier in the work, leading to his conclusion. Though Jan Smuts was yet to coin the word "Holism" to encapsulate the idea that a directed tendency towards the formation of ever-larger aggregates is observable in Nature, each such distinct stage marked by the presence of an identity and properties exceeding those of the sum of their parts, Sri Aurobindo's model of History follows this course. Indeed, this teleology follows naturally from Sri Aurobindo's master-idea of the progressive manifestation of intrinsic spiritual Oneness in Time, expressing itself politically as the drive towards world-union.

Integral Transformation: The transmutation of the individual, the transformation of the world, the divinisation of matter.

ronjon — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 12:48:32 -0700

I had a fun experience with this site. I was reading through it, intrigued by the author's (M. Alan Kazlev) deep experience and knowledge about many different esoteric and spiritual paths. I was attracted by his commitment to the work of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, and his comparisons of their work with other approaches to individual and collective tranformation. So I checked out Alan's recommended links to see if there were any that sounded interesting. (This is where the fun begins.) ...

The Role of Money and the Internet in Social Development

ronjon — Thu, 08 Jun 2006 12:00:00 -0700

... We witness today the confluence of factors that characterize the mental stage: unprecedented political freedom, a global affirmation of the individual and the rights of the common man, abundant and overflowing social energy, an irrepressible drive of mental inquisitiveness, the accumulation and codification of knowledge in all fields, the universal aspiration for and spread of education, a worldwide revolution of rising expectations, a veritable explosion of technological inventiveness, and the accelerating pace of organizational creativity and innovation, which is the technology of social development. These factors coming together in the mental stage have given birth to a new form of organization whose creativity and potential contribution to social advancement rival in importance the role played by money over the past millenium.

The emergence of the Internet as a worldwide system of communication, information exchange, education and commerce is opening up vast opportunities for more rapid development. It is eliminating barriers to communication imposed by space and time, leveling the playing field between rich and poor, and making possible universal access to information and services at very low cost. ...

A Comprehensive Theory of Social Development (TMSS)

ronjon — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 15:04:00 -0700

... This paper identifies the central principle of development and traces its expression in different fields and levels of social advancement. Development is a function of society’s capacity to organize human energies and productive resources to respond to opportunities and challenges. The paper traces the emergence of higher, more complex, more productive levels of social organization through the stages of nomadic hunting, rural agrarian, urban, commercial, industrial and post-industrial societies. It examines the process by which new activities are introduced by pioneers, imitated, resisted, accepted, organized, institutionalized and assimilated into the culture.

Organizational development takes place on a foundation of four levels of infrastructure – physical, social, mental and psychological. Four types of resources contribute to development, of which only the most material are inherently limited in nature. The productivity of resources increases enormously as the level of organization and input of knowledge rises. The theory identifies the human resource as the driving force and primary determinant of development. ...

The Mother's Service Society (TMSS)

ronjon — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 14:42:01 -0700

The Mother's Service Society was founded in 1969 in Pondicherry, South India, with a view to studying the basic laws of human development based on the theory of creation propounded by Sri Aurobindo, the sage of Pondicherry, who declared that humanity is not the final goal of creation. Humankind will evolve beyond mind into Supramental being.

This web site includes numerous original essays written over a period of thirty years by members of the Society on a wide range of theoretical and applied subjects including development theory and strategy, economics, business management, literary criticism, science, education and spirituality in life.

Quantum Consciousness, the "Mind of the Cells" and Auroville

ronjon — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 13:18:27 -0800

I gave a presentation at Auroville in Jan. 2006 exploring the possible relationship between recent published research on the neurophysiology of advanced Tibetan Buddhist meditators, new tunneling electron microscopic images revealing complex networks of nano-scale microtubules interpenetrating human neurons which may provide a substrate for room temperature quantum effects in the brain, and the work of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother on the connections between the "Mind of the Cells" and an accelerated evolution of the human species. Examples were presented of a number of unanticipated positive events around the world during the last two decades and their possible relationship to the Mother's vision for Auroville and the Matrimandir. The event was sponsored by Auroville's Centre for International Research on Human Unity (CIRHU). Here are some photos and introductory text from the presentation which was attended by a standing room only audience at the Executive Conference Center of Auroville's Town Hall. ...

The Hour of God

ronjon — Thu, 26 Jan 2006 00:57:11 -0800

When things get tough, I personally find these words by Sri Aurobindo reassuring. If you have Real Audio Player, you can hear them in the Mother's voice. In the Mother's voice : an excerpt from 'The Hour Of God' File size : 770 KB Duration : 6 mins.16secs

Disaster survivors rebuild their lives with ‘tsunamika’

ronjon — Sun, 11 Dec 2005 16:02:46 -0800

CHENNAI: It’s only made of used cloth and thread, but once it leaves the hands of fisherwomen, the materials have been transformed into a “tsunamika” or “child of the tsunami”, a doll that is empowering the lives of its creators.

The December 26 tsunami has pressed the fisherwomen of seven villages in Tamil Nadu state to come up with innovative ways to get their lives in order and earn a living again, and adversity here has become the mother of innovation in the form of the dolls..

Ipsita Sarkar of the Upasana design unit in Auroville, which supports the programme, said 474 women were trained in handicrafts in the area. ...

“There is no fundamental difference” - An introduction to the Sri Aurobindo Ashram - Auroville relationship

ronjon — Wed, 07 Dec 2005 13:45:22 -0800

A few months after the inauguration of Auroville she [the Mother] further clarified, “The Ashram will keep its true role of pioneer, inspirer and guide. Auroville is the attempt towards collective realization.” Thus Mother stressed from the very beginning two of the characteristics which distinguish Auroville from the Ashram – the fact that it is more ‘outward', more involved with the texture and challenges of the ‘real' world, and the emphasis upon collective action as opposed to the more individualistic yoga of the Ashram. ...

Jerry Schwartz

Debashish — Wed, 07 Dec 2005 02:10:35 -0800

Jerry Schwartz, Treasurer of the Foundation for World Education (FWE), presented a 2-day worshop on Money and Spirituality at the Sri Aurobindo Center of Los Angeles initially in May 2004 and followed it up with another workshop in November 2004. Here we carry a brief biographical sketch of Jerry Schwartz.

William Greaves

Debashish — Wed, 07 Dec 2005 01:38:52 -0800

William Greaves, a resident of New York City and friend of Anie Nunnally amnd Connie Buckley of the Sri Aurobindo Center of Los Angeles, is a reputed documentary movie maker and follower of the teachings of Sri Aurobindo. On June 18, 2005, Bill greaves visited the Sri Aurobindo Center of Los Angeles and presented a screening of his documentary on the 1966 Festival of Negro Arts held in Senegal and answered questions about the movie as part of a workshop on Creativity and Yoga. On the first weekend of July, we screened another of his movies, an award-winning documentary on the black awardee of the Nobel Prize for Peace, Ralph Bunche, behind which movie Greaves claimed the central influence of Sri Aurobindo's Ideal of Human Unity. Here is a brief biography of William Greaves.

• The Golden Path by Anie Nunnally

Debashish — Wed, 07 Dec 2005 00:22:24 -0800

Anie Nunnally's book of interviews of twelve senior disciples of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother from the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry and Auroville is reviewed here by Mangesh Nadkarni.

Center for Integral Education, San Diego, CA, USA

ronjon — Sun, 13 Nov 2005 13:33:48 -0800

Integral Education, based on the teachings and philosophy of Sri Aurobindo and Mirra Alfassa (The Mother), focuses on developing the whole child. -- The Center for Integral Education operates the first two Integral Education schools in the United States: ...

"The dragon's tail," by Roger Anger, 'AV Today' - Sept.05

Ron — Mon, 24 Oct 2005 23:18:31 -0700

Our faith should be in a future where the values of the spirit and a new evolutionary emergence of a global mind uniting man and womankind will ultimately prevail over the forces of ignorance, terror and tyranny. The unity of nations would almost demand a new deﬁnition of nationhood ...

055 vr. Fwd: Re: Yoga and eye surgery

ronjon — Sun, 17 Jul 2005 08:43:00 -0700

... It was such an honor to meet Dr. V. He has such a sweet presence and self-effacing manner. When he speaks of his work, it is Mother's work he refers to, and assures one and all that it couldn't have been done by himself alone, but only through Her guidance and shakti. And he insists that this be included in the training for all the staff, and that at the heart of his hospital and any clinics he sets up there be a room set up dedicated to Mother and Sri Aurobindo, for the staff to retire to for inspiration and renewal. ...

051 ap. Re: the secret of action

ronjon — Sat, 16 Jul 2005 10:42:00 -0700

051 ap. Re: the secret of action

Date: Sat, 16 Jul 2005 10:41:55 +0100 (BST)
From: alok pandey <taijasalok@yahoo.co.in>
Subject: Re: the secret of action
To: scienceandspirit@sriaurobindocenter-la.com

Message - 051/149

That's it, the most perfect solution and the most practicable one since it derives its practise from knowing the truth of things.

Thanks for the apt message from the Essays

alok

048 lp. the secret of action

ronjon — Fri, 15 Jul 2005 13:33:00 -0700

As I understand, one of the important questions, that we discussed in the AUM and it continues here, is about what we can DO. The pragmatic man wants deﬁnite action points, like Arjuna, he asks again and again what he should do, and is not satisﬁed with Krishna's answers. His idea of action means something quite different from the Lord's , and therein lies Arjuna's discomfort. Maybe some of us feel a similar discomfort from hearing Alok repeat his 'practical guide' of seeking the inner truth for all solutions of life. It is not practical enough of us. But if we venture on this road and see events from that Light, we might laugh at our undertanding of "being practical." ...

044 am. Re: yoga, culture, choice (post 1973)

ronjon — Fri, 15 Jul 2005 11:38:00 -0700

... To add to Alok's comments, Firstly, I believe that an integral yoga, by its very origin and practise demands a participation in the world, whether on the subjective or objective dimension. Therefore the question itself seems almost contradictory. Except that as Alok said that one need not jump into active participation, unless as Rich puts it, one receives 'a call to action', presumably from a deeper voice within. ...

042 ap. Re: yoga, culture, choice (post 1973)

ronjon — Fri, 15 Jul 2005 07:30:00 -0700

... 1. The events of the world as in the individual are symbolic of a deeper rtruth that is trying to manifest or is being obstructed (though in the last analysis both help in the working but that would be a dangerous stance to begin with). To understand the symbolic truth or the play and balance of forces that are at work one needs ﬁrst of al to get rid of nervous and emotional reaction as well as of the surface reason that is incapable of knowing. This itself would mean a considerable inner advancement following the path of yoga. Till that is available it is better to suspend our judgement and learn to dive deep to get the soul vision of things. Such a vision is possible and accessible and it forms in fact one of the basis of yogic efforts. ...