From: "Richard" <rcarlson@>
Date: Wed Mar 2, 2005 3:51 pm
Subject: Re: [jyotilist] Critical reason and common sense

Debashish.

Thanks for splitting the differences between common sense and critical reason.

I have always set common sense as opposite to book sense, and thought of critical judgment as a processes of not only taking stock of those things which are self-evident but in also becoming aware of discerning what one's underlying social and cultural presuppositions are when approaching a problem, in an attempt to open up possibilities for new discovery .

I can readily accept however your explanation, of Sri Aurobindo's usage

This brings me to my second point. If as you say the integral yoga picks up where Kant's critical inquiry leaves off, it would seem to indicate that a higher faculty of mental processing has been evolved, and one can make decisions without throwing the issues through the mind's critical laundry machine.

Now while this makes perfect sense to me concerning ones individual sadhana, how to proceed with the decision making processes on a collective level'

Does one submit things to a hierarchical authority, who are thought to possess such higher mental discernment'

Or are we still to acknowledge the need to trust in - for lack of a better concept - democratic processes along with their standards of critical inquiry, debate, objective proofs, checks and balances'

I am making reference to the here and now of 2005, and not the Gnostic community because I think we would all acknowledge we are not there yet.

In short what would be the best protocols and practices to establish for leadership of a community currently attempting the transition from the rational to the supra-rational realms'

A community in which some members maybe more advanced on the path than others, but where the majority - although engaged in a sincere aspiration to strengthen the physical, to purify the vital, and surpass the rational - by virtue of our default mode in the evolution must pass most issues before the critical intellect'

The challenge for the collective body would be to establish a supra-rational standard or community action, in the transcendence of the normal critical debate and processes of a democratic organization.

Of course if this can be successfully demonstrated we are on the way to a new golden age. The huge problem however, which could arise for such a community would be if critical reason were supplanted by an impure attempt to exceed it. In that regards if the attempt fails the standard of governance may become more of an infra-rational order, where authority is placed in a 'sacred text' or authoritative body whose supra-rational revelations may fall prey to competing interpretations and the all too normal capacity for the hidden power play.

In short how can a community -even of yogis - in this day and age dispense with critical reasoning in the process of self-governance'

Rich