Reading from Aster, You and John had me pondering and collecting my thoughts.

Hansa and I just moved to southern California after living in Chicago for 40 years.

An evening walk on the beach to watch the sunset has become a daily pilgrimage. Watching the Sun, bright golden red as it kisses the ocean in the distant horizon, a Light bright yet not overpowering, warming every part of our being with its rays. ...

...The Mother in trance, The Golden Sun in our midst with Infinite Patience waiting for us to awake from our slumber. ...   more »

From: "Rohini Verma" <verma_rohini@yahoo.com> 
To: scienceandspirit@sriaurobindocenter-la.com 
Subject: From Aster  
Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2005 12:36:03 -0400

Message - 162/162

Here u go.

From: "Charles Flores" <auroman302@yahoo.com> 
To: scienceandspirit@sriaurobindocenter-la.com 
Subject: Re: Fw: From Aster  
Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2005 10:45:04 -0700

Message - 161/162

Hi Amrita,
 
Sorry, I was not able to read any of the message - it looks all garbled.
 
Charles
____________

Charles I. Flores, Ph.D.c., NCC
Executive Coordinator, Auroville International USA - www.aviusa.org
Director of Development, Enlighten Games Inc. - www.enlightengamesinc.com

Rich,

Thanks for the article below.

amrita   more »

Nope, I still live in CA - JFK University is on the East Bay. Hope you don't mind my using your recent article on Sri Aurobindo and Transpersonal Psychology, since my course is called "The Fundamentals of Transpersonal Counseling," and there isn't a lot of brief non-Wilber Integral that I can give students in an overview course (and its a great article!) ...   more »

Date: Mon, 19 Sep 2005 05:34:56 -0700 (PDT)
From: MICHAEL MIOVIC <mmiovic@yahoo.com>  
Subject: Re: FYI - Esalen Inst. spring workshop

Message - 158/162

wow—congrats professor! so you are living in NYC now?

michael

Congratulations, Savitra, on gettingthe workshop in Esalen! Sounds a bit like what you did in AV, with some exercises added.

I'd like to hear more about the trip with Kathy and Barbara Hubbard some time.

BTW, I'm now an adjunct prof. at JFK University. ...   more »

FYI, I enclose below the weekend workshop title/description which Esalen Institute has invited me to do next Spring. This workshop will be formally posted on Esalen's website and listed in their 2006 Catalog in December. It reflects a personal sense of urgency to bridge from words and concepts to actions ("And God shall grow up while the wise men talk and sleep") — to heal our disconnects and the tendency toward "spiritual bypass", integrating evolutionary vision with evolutionary practice, in effect, applying Sri Aurobindo's Yoga in the criticality and convergence of 21st Century realities. ...   more »

I just came across an annual award of c795,000 sterling, called the Templeton Prize. The Templeton Prize is awarded annually by an international, multifaith panel of judges to a living person of any religious tradition who has made a unique contribution to progress in research or discoveries about spiritual realities. ...   more »

Interesting, thanks--but it doesn't feel like my brain is evolving:) michael   more »

Interesting article and even more interesting is its prominent placement. On the front page of The New York Times ...   more »

I caught the word "emergence" in one of the recent posts. Here's a letter from the "Journal of Consciousness Studies" egroup which, I think, shows how far the predominantly objectivist viewpoint is from an understanding of consciousness - and this letter is from someone who is trying to get beyond objectivism. ...    more »

In Essays on the Gita, Sri Aurobindo writes about the Avatar, and the necessity for Avatarhood. Don't forget that, in the Aurobindonian world-view, the emergence of the new Consciousness, while involved in, and prepared to some extent by the development in Matter, is precipitated by a Descent from the pre-existent inner world or plane which is the home of that which is to be realized. The Descent of the Supramental, announced by Mother on February 29, 1956, was not in any way caused by the circumstantial or developmental stage of the earth, of Matter. Rather, it was brought about by the concentrated Action of the two-in-one Avatar. ...    more »

Hearing BMH at the end of a weeklong Savitri immersion, puts things in a unique perspective of course, one probably not shared by those not coming out of such an immersion. Tangentially, it should me mentioned that the Mother and her force of consciousness are as present as ever in such a circumstance, and it is not at all the case that she no longer is in the body or prevented from participating directly in these situations, or even these discussions. But if we disappear into technology rather than Being it will appear to be otherwise.   more »

Indeed, the placebo effect goes right to the heart of Richs question about good and bad science. I have two passages here about the placebo one brief one just for fun, and an extended commentary by Alan Wallace, elaborating on the challenge that the placebo presents to those in the scientific community who are members of the church of materialism.    more »

This from today's news — I've always felt that the "Placebo Effect" would be a fruitful venue for study of body-mind-spirit interaction. - will moss    more »

Hi Mike, Thank you for the kind words and your support for the school. I, too, have been thinking to do another hike for Auroville. Perhaps next year or the following one. ...   more »

Hi Lakshman, Welcome to new home, hope all is well. Am sending article in a couple days. We found out from the Chicago consulate that there is absolutely no way for Ananta to return to India. I hesistated to break the news to him, but when I finally did he brushed it off lightly and said "well, never mind—I've got the solution: BUDAPEST!" What a spirit—every day he proposes a new & impossible foreign destination, and most cheerfully.   more »

Hi Prapanna, I admire & feel inspired by your recent hike. I don't have your strength & endurance, but I have long thought it would be great one day to organize a walkathon-type activity to raise funds for the Auroville Land project. A gift from the land of America to the land of Auroville. ...   more »

I've been intrigued by the reports of "high-amplitude gamma synchrony" (coherent 40-70 Hz, with bursts of 80-120 Hz) being measured in long-term (15-40 years of meditation training & practice) Tibetan Buddhist meditators. Importantly, one study showed evidence that "the trained Tibetan meditators had baseline increases in gamma synchrony and amplitude, suggesting long-term changes in their brains from years of meditation. One might say they are more highly conscious in a baseline state, achieving even greater intensity of consciousness during meditation." Stuart Hameroff believes this high coherence measured at spatially distant brain locations is a possible indication of quantum effects in the brain.    more »