From: "Richard" <rcarlson@>
Date: Wed Mar 9, 2005 9:31 am
Subject: yoga&technology: cross cultural perspectives

There were those in 1950 and 1970 who expected the imminent arrival of the superman, the end of death, the transformation of the world. Are we making a similar mistake here, but tacking part of our hopes on technology? Are we blinded by the most recent example of "exponential change," and in reality the world is going on much as it did before, less likely to transform in 2006 than it was in 1006?

To answer this we must historically assess if this era in which we currently reside is different.

Has any line in the sand which demarcates human evolution been transgressed?

IMO once humanity succeeded in harnessing and instrumentalizing the forces which could annihilate itself, be they in nuclear, chemical or biological weaponry we did cross that line.

But this age is more extraordinary perhaps for its ability to create than destroy. On August 15, 1997 it was announced that the immortal chemistry of the germ line cell had been deciphered, making it theoretically possible to introduce the properties of germ line cell via cloning into somatic cells.

Moreover, now without any need for sexual reproduction we have begun to endow ourselves with the ability to create and enhance human life itself and with this perhaps we are beyond a point of easy return to a pre-1950?s time period.

So IMHO yes we are entering a period in history where 2006 is qualitatively more signicantly for the evolution of consciousness than 1006.

But how is it signicant for the integral yogi?

Since Sri Aurobindo?s yoga makes the unprecedented claim that it is not only the yoga of the individual, but a yoga by which the species is transcended, IMO it concerns itself with at least four different levels of -human- being in the world:

Individual

Community (sadhaks)

Cultural

Species

The importance of technology may differ according to the level we are referencing.

For example while electronic technologies would impact the individual; the biotechnology of cloning, may not directly impact our practice of sadhana (at least for the good of humanity my double has declined incarnation). Bio-technology may not even at this stage impact the community of integral yogis (unless we are talking genetically altered crops or planting hybrid seeds in an agricultural zone in Auroville). So on the individual level advances in technology may mean something different than the community level, then the cultural, or species level. IMO the cultural level serves as a bridge between the IY community and the species.

With that statement I would like to demonstrate from the two examples given a difference in cultural perceptions regarding technology

Shiv Visvanathan a senior fellow at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies in Delhi writes in an article entitled progress and violence - which in part concerns one of history's richest debates on science and technology which occurred in Bengal after the 1904 partition between Ananda Coomaraswamy and PC Ray. - that in India human reproductive technologies are less a center stage ethical issue than in the West

The issues of bio-technology which are at the forefront in India are the ones concerning technological transfer and agriculture. These issues concern the disastrous effect of the 'Green Revolution' on soil erosion, the devastation of crop diversity, monocultures, the patenting of indigenous plant species, the exploitation social systems at the economic gain of the World Bank and huge corporations like Monsanto.

So in the America the cultural concern with bio-technology would lean toward concerns for the plunder of the individual, while in India the concern is with the damage done to social systems and the plunder of the Earth.

So depending on what larger culture we are coming from in the IY the pressing issues of technology may be different.

Cross-cultural feedback?

Rich