Science, Culture and Integral Yoga

Welcome to the SCI-Y Home of Debashish Banerji

Debashish — Mon, 09 Oct 2006 22:33:00 -0700

Welcome to the SCI-Y Home of Debashish Banerji

All postings, reflections, selections and writing projects by SCI-Y author Debashish Banerji are archived here in the following subcategory structure:

Articles

Sri Aurobindo Studies

Reviews

Creative

Reflections

Editorials

Manuscripts

Techno-Capitalism and Post-Human Destinies III

Debashish — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 19:05:00 -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? ...

Techno-Capitalism and Post-Human Destinies - II

Debashish — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 19:04:00 -0700

This is a fragment constituting a continuation of Debashish Banerji's reflections on Techno-Capitalism as the epistemic regime of modernity and posible post-human futures at the eschatological cusp of history. Here the alignment of Marx and Hegel with the Enlightenment vision/teleology is contemplated and questions asked regarding a comparative alignment with the Neo-Vedantic teleology (if it can be called that) of Sri Aurobindo.

Techno-Capitalism and Post-Human Destinies - I

Debashish — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 19:03:00 -0700

Some relections on the continuing issue of techno-capitalism and post-human futures by Debashish Banerji. This is a first fragment highlighting Moishe Postone's commentaries on the late writings of Marx.

Sri Aurobindo and the Future of Humanity

Debashish — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 19:36:00 -0700

This article attempts to sketch out Sri Aurobindo's contribution to the future of humanity as carried in his major texts. In doing so, it also tries to underline the cross-cultural nature of these texts and the disciplinary redefinitions implicit in them.

• Review of Sri Aurobindo and his Contemporary Thinkers

Debashish — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 11:32:00 -0700

Following the publication of “Understanding Thoughts of Sri Aurobindo,” Indrani Sanyal and Krishna Roy of the Centre for Sri Aurobindo Studies, Calcutta have complied a set of eighteen scholarly essays on Sri Aurobindo and his contemporaries in the ideational context of what has been called the Bengal Renaissance. Sri Aurobindo’s physical involvement in the politics and culture of early Bengal nationalism was of relatively short duration (1905-1910), albeit an intense and all-sided participation which internalized the entire regional history of the movement and left a powerful creative impress in the milieu of its time and space. Moreover, the discursive background of this involvement continued to develop organically and find voice throughout his life in his subjective articulation just as his own situated contribution continued to resonate in later Indian nationalism. Thus this collection of considered interpretive contemplation fills an important need in our historical understanding. But more importantly, it is the post-colonial legacy of these engagements which draws us today by their fertile and future-gazing content, inviting reflection not merely for India’s but the world’s re-generation at a time of global ferment.

• Understanding Thoughts of Sri Aurobindo, Ed: Indrani Sanyl & Krishna Roy

Debashish — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 00:48:00 -0700

In spite of some surface infelicities, a very fine collection of essays on various aspects of Sri Aurobindo's "thought."

...The book concludes with an article “Sri Aurobindo – A Century in Perspective” by Aster Patel. Sri Aurobindo became the first principal of National College, Calcutta, now known as the Jadavpur College, about a hundred years ago. In the century which has elapsed since then, humankind has experienced its most intense period of collective growth and crisis throughout the world. Human consciousness is poised on a brink where it is faced either with the specter of oblivion, the horror of the abyss or a leap into another modality of being, the integral consciousness of the overman. Mediating this critical choice is the life and work of Sri Aurobindo, throwing a powerful beacon ahead of us into the century to come. Aster Patel draws out some of the implications of this work ahead of us in following the light of Sri Aurobindo in the coming century. Can we equal in consciousness the integral vision of reality which contemporary Science is indicating to our minds and our technological practice? Are we even ready to engage with the fullness of the term “integral”? How can we draw together our past and our present, our fractured personalities, our fragmented disciplines, our physical matter and our mental, vital and spiritual substance into the Oneness of integral being which Sri Aurobindo lived and wrote about? His integral consciousness is still fully alive in his words and each word is an invitation and a fire to kindle in us his life and reality. This is the ever-living fire of Heraclitus, the living legacy of the “thoughts” of Sri Aurobindo.

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

Debashish — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 00:30:00 -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). ...

Derrida the Movie - a Review by Debashish Banerji

Debashish — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 01:28:00 -0800

"Derrida" - a 2002 documentary on the French philosopher Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) directed by Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering Kofman is reviewed here by Debashish Banerji. In the course of the review the principal ideas and neologisms by this founder of the seminal reading practice termed deconstruction, are briefly introduced and the reflections on self, other, biography, deconstruction and singularity within the movie are discussed.

Derrida, Death and Forgiveness by Andrew J. McKenna

Debashish — Sat, 04 Nov 2006 00:26:00 -0800

Andrew McKenna's essay from the online journal "First Things" reviews Graham Ward's comparative study of the French poststructualist philosopher Jacques Derrida and the modern mystical theologian Karl Barth. In addition, McKenna also considers a late text of Derrida's "The Gift of Death" which pursues further the thinker's mystical and messianic approaches to the "secret", the "promise", the "future" and the "Other."

Introductory Notes to "Hinduism"

Debashish — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 23:19:00 -0800

These Introductory Notes on "Hinduism" (a body of Indian religious and spiritual systems which follow the primacy of the Vedas) by Debashish Banerji attempts a cross-cultural description of this complex field seen as an unified discourse. Aspects covered include productive dualities within Hinduism, textual history of Hinduism, major Puranic gods, Hindu practices and the Hindu temple.

The Psychology of Creativity Course Outline

Debashish — Sun, 29 Oct 2006 15:06:00 -0800

The initial draft for the course outline for the Psychology of Creativity course as presented by Debashish Banerji

• The Religious, the Spiritual and the Secular by Robert Minor

Debashish — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 01:21:00 -0700

In this slim paperback, Robert Minor sets out with a double intention: (a) to tell the legal story of the power struggle between the Sri Aurobindo Society and Auroville; and (b) an exploration of the legal and cultural epistemological ambiguities surrounding the terms "religion", "spirituality" and "secularism" and their shaping of the discourse of modern political contestation in India, as exemplified in the story of Auroville.

Reflections on THE IDEAL OF HUMAN UNITY By Debashish Banerji

Debashish — Mon, 09 Oct 2006 23:33:00 -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.

Detachment and The Integral Yoga

Debashish — Sat, 07 Oct 2006 23:53:00 -0700

Detachment in a spiritual sense is the development of another dimension within us, a dimension which coexists with our active personality but is outside of it. It is to find an inner freedom, to discover a part of the being that cannot be touched by external circumstances or by the outer being’s activities – a separation within between what we know as ourselves in the world and something which is intrinsic and connected to an infinite being, a sort of an immutable witnessing.

Jyoti Editorial - February 2006

Debashish — Tue, 14 Feb 2006 06:21:00 -0800

The convulsive forces of the bio and psycho spheres are breaking through the outer crust once again today, since a new Divine manifestation is in the making and the earth will not rest content with our half-successes. The apathy of the faithful will not serve us here. To believe that the Divine will quell these forces while we remain their puppets in our inner and outer lives will bring no succor. What we are called upon to respond with today is the active aspiration that allows Shiva to act though us, to give us the Force and even more, the Skill, not merely to defeat or destroy, but to transform, to turn to song.

Savitri Classes at LA Center

ronjon — Fri, 09 Dec 2005 02:10:00 -0800

This topic includes past & ongoing audio recordings of "Savitri" classes led by Debashish Banerji, at the Los Angeles Sri Aurobindo Center. They're also available as podcasts on Apple's iTunes site. Read the rest of this article for instructions ...

April 23 and 24, 2005 - Debashish Banerji at Arcosanti

Debashish — Thu, 08 Dec 2005 00:12:00 -0800

On April 23 and 24, 2005, Debashish Banerji of the Sri Aurobindo Center of Los Angeles offered a presentation on "Visions of Future Societies" and engaged in a dialog on "An Improved Tomorrow" with Paolo Soleri at Arcosanti, the future-oriented community combining architecture and ecology started by architect-philosopher Paolo Soleri. The talk was a prelude to the dialog, where Paolo Soleri's atheistic conscious evolutionism was engaged counteractively with the interventionist evolutionism of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.

A Chronology of Modern Indian Art and Thematic Considerations By Debashish Banerji

Debashish — Fri, 18 Nov 2005 22:25:00 -0800

An Introduction to the history of modern Indian art along with an approach to its categorization, as expressed in the curatorial practice of the exhibition "Contours of Modernity" held at the SOKA University, Irvine from February-April, 2005 and curated by Debashish Banerji and Nalini Rao.

Contours of Modernity - A Picture Gallery

Debashish — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 18:23:00 -0800

Contours of Modernity: An Exhibition of Contemporary Indian Art was held at the Founder's Hall of SOKA University in Irvine from February to April 2005. The exhibiiton was curated by Debashish Banerji and Nalini Rao. Here we present a gallery of images from the exhibition with brief artist biographies.

Modern and Contemporary Indian Art - an Encyclopedia Article

Debashish — Mon, 03 Oct 2005 00:33:00 -0700

The regime of modernity in India can be said to begin from the turn of the 17th/18th c. with the setting up of trading interests in Calcutta by the British East India Company. The British occupation of India swiftly replaced the indigenous miniature schools with naturalistic Company Painting and institutional forms such as art salons and art schools generated a new breed of Indian elite painters who turned to oils and water colors in a British style, though often with Indian subjects from myth, portraiture or landscape. ...

097 rc. Msg. from Guy Burneko, linguist philosopher who spoke at AUM05.

ronjon — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 18:48:00 -0700

just to add a bit to Debashish's excellent assessment of affective intersubjectivity, I'd like to forward a message (edited) sent to me by Guy Burneko, which seems to compliment this notion of shifting from an ideological to an affective intersubjectivity. (or a co-worlding) ...

096 db. Co-existence of Unity and Infinity in the Truth

ronjon — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 18:22:00 -0700

It is this mentally incomprehensible co-existence of Unity and Infinity in the Truth that it is critical to meditate on. It results in a great diversity of conclusions, not least of all the very possibility of this relational evolutionary universe and the unending self-discovery of Being. ...

094 db. I'd like to see an "affective intersubjective space" based on a real community

ronjon — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 11:30:00 -0700

I have been browsing with interest the posts ﬂying at supersonic speed on this list without being able to take much part due to a very pressured present schedule. However, on the subject of intersubjectivity and the collective yoga, I would like to add a few words for now (and maybe elaborate later, when time permits). ...

040 db. Questions re Rich’s post

ronjon — Thu, 14 Jul 2005 15:01:00 -0700

Rich, From your post, I extracted the following concerns: 1) Do we need to interpret the events happening around us as a part of the integral yoga? ... ... These are all very loaded quations that merit our deepest consideration. At this moment it is difficult for me to find the time to give adequate answers, but I do hope others will give them due attention. ...

029 db. Matthij's AUM talk

ronjon — Sun, 10 Jul 2005 18:30:00 -0700

029 db. Matthij's AUM talk

Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2005 18:29:42 -0700
From: "Debashish Banerji" <ewcc@verizon.net>
Subject: Matthij's AUM talk
To: scienceandspirit@sriaurobindocenter-la.com

Message - 029/149

And now, Shyam Maniyedath has transcribed Matthij"s AUM talk and it has also been archived.

Please access for reading or download from:

http://www.sriaurobindocenter-la.com/postaum2005/MatthijsAUM05.doc

Matthijs, it will be nice if you could download this yourself and browse is for correctness; and if you wish to make any changes, pass on the edited version to me. In the meantime, members of this list can go through what has been transcribed and hopefully comment, question or add their own contributions.

Debashish

028 db. Shyam Maniyedath has transcribed Matthij"s AUM talk

ronjon — Sun, 10 Jul 2005 01:19:00 -0700

Michael has supplied a Microsoft Word version of his article re Integral
Yoga in the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology and it is now archived
in the text area.

You can access it for browsing or download at:

http://www.sriaurobindocenter-la.com/postaum2005/MMiovicJTP.doc

005 a. db. Link to The Promise of the Future

ronjon — Thu, 30 Jun 2005 17:53:00 -0700

Ron Anastasia has been kind enough to transcribe my AUM talk and I have uploaded the talk to the text file area. Please access it at: ...

Invitation to the Post-AUM2005 discussion group

ronjon — Wed, 29 Jun 2005 11:43:00 -0700

Preceeding AUM 2005, whose theme was Science and Spirituality, a mailing list had been set up to allow speakers and panelists to share views prior to the event and get to know each others' standpoints. Now, following the AUM, we have expanded the list and changed its name to reﬂect the oreintation for the future. It is now called postaum2005 and members can post to it by sending mail to: ...

004 db. Link to The Vision

ronjon — Wed, 29 Jun 2005 01:46:00 -0700

Since some people have had difficulty opening or saving the Microsoft Word
text file TheVision.doc upon clicking the link, I am giving the link
once more. It is:

http://www.sriaurobindocenter-la.com/postaum2005/TheVision.doc

002 db. File Archiving Enabled

ronjon — Tue, 28 Jun 2005 20:10:00 -0700

File archiving for this forum has been temporarily enabled at
http://www.sriaurobindocenter-la.com/postaum2005. Presently, the
Microsoft Word version of The Vision can be found there by going to: ...

001.db.Vision Statement for the postaum2005 Message Board

ronjon — Tue, 28 Jun 2005 19:32:00 -0700

In our world of ignorance, omniscience is stepped down from its spiritual poise to be expressed as a quest for knowledge which is embodied by science and omnipotence is stepped down from its original source to be articulated in technology as a will to power. The intent of the post-AUM list is to explore the exponential evolution of the species as it is driven by both efﬁcient and deﬁcient forms of knowledge as well as efﬁcient and deﬁcient forms of power. The meaning assigned to the term efﬁcient refers to those forces which facilitate the spiritual evolution of consciousness as envisioned by Sri Aurobindo. The term deﬁcient refers to those forces driving culture and science which appear to impede the progression of the spiritualization of consciousness. ...

The Promise of the Future #1

ronjon — Sun, 05 Jun 2005 10:42:00 -0700

Since circumstances have conspired to make it impossible to put out a new issue of the Jyoti online journal of late, and since AUM2005 is just around the corner, I am posting here independently the lead article meant for the new Jyoti by Richard Carlson. ...

Availability of Anie Nunnally's book - "The Golden Path"

ronjon — Fri, 04 Mar 2005 16:52:00 -0800

We are pleased to announce that Anie Nunnally's book THE GOLDEN PATH, has just arrived from the Ashram press in Pondicherry and is now available for sale at the East West Cultural Center. This little gem of a book is certain to be viewed as a treasure by all involved in the yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. ...

From Amrita - an older preAum posting which never got onto jyotilist

ronjon — Thu, 03 Mar 2005 00:26:00 -0800

While I am still wondering what 'one-celled immortal cells' are, I have once again resumed following the pre-AUM dialogs with interest.

Here are my comments, questions and quotes that I would like to share. ...

the immortal cell

ronjon — Wed, 23 Feb 2005 12:35:00 -0800

First of all I think your response to my initial email might serve as a good intro to the email list for all particpants coming to AUM. that said Glad to hear you are recovering from you surgery. Hope you will be all put back together by the time of the AUM. I hope this email formats correctly as I have had some trouble sending from a distance and today I am in New Orleans.

you wrote: ...

The preAUM2005 elist

ronjon — Wed, 23 Feb 2005 12:22:00 -0800

A new elist has been set up for discussions leading up to the AUM2005, sponsored by Richard Carlson and to be held in the state of Washington in June of this year. ...