Sri Aurobindo was certainly not for the Disintegration of India – by Raman Reddy

Secular intellectuals obfuscate the obvious, by which I mean, they use every intellectual argument to undermine what is pretty obvious to the common man. Of late, the idea of breaking India has been so flaunted about by the secular brigade under the cover of free speech (especially in the columns of a national newspaper) that one wonders what is happening to the country. Why would one support free speech when it undermines national security, especially when it supports criminals and Asuras and denigrates Hindu goddesses?  Fortunately, the majority of Indians will not give much credence to this outright falsehood, so that we can rest in peace and not bother about its practical consequences.

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Sri Aurobindo’s Concept of the Nation-Soul (2) – Kishor Gandhi

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Admitting that the society or group, like the individual has, besides its soul, also a mind, life and body, the important question immediately arises: What exactly is the nature of the group-mind, group-life, group-body? We have a fairly clear idea of the mind, life and body of the individual man by direct experience aided by scientific knowledge, but our notions of these parts of the group-being, even when we admit their real existence, are altogether vague and un­certain. Taking first the most external part, the physical body, what really is meant by the body of a society or a group?

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Sri Aurobindo’s Concept of the Nation-Soul – Kishor Gandhi

“Mother India is not a piece of earth; she is a Power, a Godhead, for all nations have such a Devi supporting their separate existence and keeping it in being. Such beings are as real and more permanently real than the men they influence, but they belong to a higher plane, are part of the cosmic consciousness and being and act here on earth by shaping the human consciousness on which they exercise their influence. It is natural for man who sees only his own consciousness individual, national or racial at work and does not see what works upon it and shapes it, to think that all is created by him and there is nothing cosmic or greater behind it.”[1]

[Extract – read full article below. Title provided by Compiler and references updated. From Kishor Gandhi’s “Social Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo and The New Age”, pp 33-36 (First Edition in 1965).]

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Myths about Sanskrit – by Dr. Kapil Kapoor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2O4oaDaO36Y

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Response to FIRSTPOST on the Scheme Suit issue – by Bireshwar Choudhury

On 14 January 2016, the Editor of the FIRSTPOST has referred in passing to the petitioners of the Scheme Suit in a most disparaging manner in an article titled “SC has shown great foresight in striking against proxy PILs as instruments of intimidation”.  As an admirer of this website, which has dared to take on the likes of Wendy Doniger, it is strange that it has now decided to support one of “Wendy’s children” – Peter Heehs (read this post). But I hope I can attribute this error to factual ignorance and unfamiliarity with the recent problems in Sri Aurobindo Ashram. If that be the case, I would like to point out a few outright errors in the write-up for the clarification of the larger readership connected with the FIRSTPOST, which hopefully would set the record right or at least give us a chance to give our version of events on its website. I quote from the article:

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Praise for “The Battle for Sanskrit” by Rajiv Malhotra

“Is Sanskrit political or sacred, oppressive or liberating, dead or alive?”

For the past sixty years my primary activity has been to interpret Sanskrit and sanskriti. Indeed, Malhotra and I are sailing in the same boat. This book provokes a debate between the ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’ of our heritage. It exposes that many outsiders pretend to be insiders, but their hidden agenda is to convince ignorant Hindus that the Vedas are myths and that the traditional claims are nonsensical. They pretend to know our traditions even better than our highest exponents.

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Subramanian Swamy on "Breaking India" by Rajiv Malhotra

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKDkjFc1Muc

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Dismissal of the Scheme Suit in the Supreme Court – by Bireshwar Choudury

The Scheme Suit filed against the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust has been dismissed on technical grounds by the Supreme Court of India on 6 January, 2016. Unlike what the supporters of Peter Heehs and the cronies of the Ashram Trust are projecting on the Net, the Supreme Court has not exonerated the author of the Lives of Sri Aurobindo. The Scheme Suit has been dismissed because the case against the Lives of Sri Aurobindo by Peter Heehs is still pending in the High Court of Orissa.

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Spiritual Distortions – All Life is Yoga! – by Baikunth

There is a need to define at present what is not the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, more perhaps than the need to define what it is. Of course, the two functions are interdependent and cannot be dealt in an exclusive manner, for one often defines something by what it is not. But the mere positive definition leaves out the hidden distortions which you only come to know after a long period of gestation, and not in a one-hour lecture on the Integral Yoga, however inspiring it may be. There have been in the past, and there still are a number of brilliant speakers who mostly fulfil their role in the positive definition of the Yoga and philosophy of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, but very few as yet have sufficiently dwelt on its negative definition, by which I mean explaining elaborately what it is not.

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The Right and Left in India - Dr. David Frawley - India Inspires Talks

https://youtu.be/EMY6lwj52dw

Published on Nov 26, 2015

In this Talk, Dr. Frawley clearly explains the intellectual roots of "The Right" and "The Left" in India. He states that in India, the political terminology of right and left is defined by Marxists, who like to call anyone that opposes them right-wing or fascists. According to their view anything traditionally Hindu would have to be right-wing on principle, just as only their views are deemed progressive, even if supporting Stalinist tactics. This means that in India such subjects as Yoga, natural healing, vegetarianism and animal rights are all automatically right-wing because they are causes of the Hindu mind, with antecedents in ancient Indian culture. Great Hindu yogis and sages from Shankaracharya to Sri Aurobindo are classified by modern Marxists as right-wing, if not fascist.

However, the Indian left is mainly the Old Left, emphasizing a failed communist ideology and state economic planning such as dominated Eastern Europe in the decades following World War II and took it nowhere. It wreaked the same havoc with the economy and educational systems of India and kept the country backward. Indian communists are among the few in the world that still proudly honor Stalin and Mao (while warning of the danger of Hindu fundamentalism)! 

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Tarak Fateh - Partition of India and the forgotten question of Baluchistan

https://youtu.be/tlrEHJ3jlY4

Published on Dec 7, 2015

While India is known to have taken birth in 1947 as a modern state, the civilisational ethos of India has survived for ages. Mr. Fatah proposes the need to develop a grand narrative of the Indian civilisation that extends beyond the geographical boundaries of the Indian Territory. Narrating the horror of the continuing conflict in Baluchistan, Tarek Fatah supports the cause of Baloch nationalists to be liberated from the control of Pakistan.

Writer, Broadcaster, a Secular and Liberal Activist. Tarek Fatah is a scholar par excellence with command over a range of subjects.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

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The Necessity of Proper Procedures in Sri Aurobindo Ashram – by Baikunth

It is therefore high time that some proper procedures are introduced in the current administrative setup of the Ashram without, at the same time, paralysing it with procedures as we see in various Government institutions. It is true we have made a parody of democracy in our country, but that cannot be a justification for not introducing basic democratic structures in the Ashram. It is also true that spirituality and democracy may be incompatible, but in the present predicament of the Ashram when the Integral Yoga has become an excuse to enjoy the ordinary life at other people’s expense, it is time to put in place a few checks and balances on the unlimited powers of the Trustees to prevent the most arrogant human errors in the name of divine justice. [read full article below]

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