Sunday, September 27, 2026

Genes and the genius

 Collated by Tusar Nath Mohapatra My life as ideology

What scatters your mind—and what truly focuses it? @PariksithSingh unpacks Bhagavad Gita 2.41, exploring one-pointed बुद्धि, spiritual clarity, and the power of unwavering purpose. Watch youtu.be/VX0QtnAsCcE?si… @MakrandParanspe @AmazingVedas

https://x.com/sriaurobindochr/status/2103832963029041618

Are spiritual promises distracting us from true wisdom? @PariksithSingh unpacks Bhagavad Gita 2.42–43, exploring Vedic कर्मकाण्ड, मोह, ज्ञान & भक्ति beyond material rewards. Watch youtu.be/61Fl1GZ9Ru4?si… @MakrandParanspe @AmazingVedas

https://x.com/sriaurobindochr/status/2103908460006191489

What if one small step on the path of आत्मज्ञान could free you from fear and loss? @PariksithSingh unpacks Bhagavad Gita 2.40 with practical wisdom on श्रद्धा, साधना & perseverance. Watch the full session youtu.be/OVtondg63NQ?si… @MakrandParanspe @AmazingVedas

https://x.com/sriaurobindochr/status/2103591873894121926

Unlocking Our Genius Potential

The term genius comes from the Latin root that means to produce or give birth. In ancient Rome the term came to be associated with a guardian spirit. Over time, the term evolved to be associated with an individual’s capacities, skills or creative powers. This shift from the universal to the individual, however, has subtly misdirected our attention as to the source of ‘genius’. We believe that it is associated with high intelligence or creativity linked to specific favoured individuals. If we reflect, however, on the original meaning of the term, we can come to a quite different conclusion about the nature, source and potential for genius development.

The illusion of the ego-personality, the illusion of the external view of our existence makes us believe that we are born with certain capacities based on our genes, and that we are furthered in our development by the connections we have, the society we are born into, and the interaction between our developed capacities, educational process and our opportunities to put these to work through our network. Nature, and nurture, together bring about the result. In this view, certain favoured individuals are chosen to shine, while everyone else simply finds a way to get along and somehow survive. This view believes that we are the creators of our ideas, our inspirations, our flashes of intuition that lead to extraordinary results.

There is, however, another view. We note that sometimes the same idea, invention, creative inspiration occurs in multiple individuals far separated in the world, around the same time. If the nature of our capabilities lies in our ability to receive, assimilate and express forces at work in the universe, recognising that our being is not independent of that universal consciousness, but a receiving and transmitting station, then the concept of genius can be seen as the ability to receive and the ability to utilise what we receive.

For most people, the chakras are only partially open and active to capture the energies, the vibrations of particular frequencies. The development of the capacity to open up the chakras to receive a higher intensity of energy and utilise it, is one that takes place as the being matures, over lifetimes. As the chakras open, and as the higher chakras develop, the individual can become a nexus of powerful creative forces, dependent on which chakra acts as the receiving and transmitting focus.

The question then turns on what stands in the way of such development. We observe that we live by habits, instincts, protocols about how to live our lives and fit into society that have developed through the socialisation process over countless millennia. We grow with expectations placed on us, we are fixated on various forms of outer status and markers of success, we fear doing something that will make us appear abnormal, different or unusual. These expectations create an obstacle that circumscribes our lives and our willingness to look at and try new avenues of development. In some cases, we allow the external focus to channel our attention and energies into dissipating directions. We participate in the process of our own limitations through our desire to be part of the social network within which we are born.

Those who take up the practices of spiritual development, of yoga, of meditation, devotion, concentration, find ways to systematically enhance the energy flow through the chakras, and thus, may find opening of new capabilities and powers that they had not previously considered. Each chakra reveals new opportunities for growth and expression that were not evident before the opening occurred.

When the individual shifts his standpoint from the external being to the psychic being, he is liberated from the attachments to all the external forms and expectations, and this, too, opens up a pathway for a freer action of the forces, liberated from the fear and limitations we have built as the external personality we wear in life.

The Mother notes: “You can multiply your possibilities, enlarge and increase them; you can suddenly bring up something you did not think you had…. When one discovers one’s psychic being within, at the same time there develop and manifest, quite unexpectedly, things one could not do at all before and which one didn’t think were in one’s nature. Of this too I have had numerous examples….”

“I used to know a young girl who was born in a very ordinary environment, who had not received much education and wrote rather clumsy French, who had not developed her imagination and had absolutely no literary sense: that seemed to be among the possibilities she did not have. Well, when she had the inner experience of contact with her psychic being, and as long as the contact was living and veyr present, she wrote admirable things. When she fell back from that state into an ordinary one, she could not even put two sentences together correctly! And I saw examples of both kinds of her writing.”

“There is a genius within everyone of us — we don’t know it. We must find the way to make it come out — but it is there sleeping, it asks for nothing better than to manifest, we must open the door to it.”

reference: Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, The Psychic Being — Soul: Its Nature, Mission and Evolution, Section 6 More Lights on the Psychic Being, pp. 183-184

https://sriaurobindostudies.wordpress.com/2026/09/26/unlocking-our-genius-potential/

https://x.com/santoshk1/status/2104021657757405655

Belief in God is rising sharply among young people across the West. As more of us look for meaning outside digital life and consumer culture, old theologies are finding new audiences. Iris Murdoch would have resisted the assumption behind that turn. Religious faith, she argued, is not the only route to a spiritual life. Miles Leeson makes the case for Murdoch's third way: transcendence without dogma, and a spirituality that doesn't require God. Tap the link to read more. iai.tv/articles/iris-…

https://x.com/IAI_TV/status/2103899936240640402

The rise of populism has been lauded as the defeat of neoliberalism. So what does the new world that is struggling to be born look like? bit.ly/422Xj6q Join philosopher Wendy Brown in conversation with Sophie Scott Brown as they discuss how antidemocratic politics intertwine with neoliberal economics to create the political climate we see today.

https://x.com/IAI_TV/status/2103869457026232671

Common Iranian people oappressed by their puritanical regime don't understand why the privelaged white liberal Victimarian Left don't care about them. The reason is that Victimarianism is a modern oikophobic religious movement that despises everything about the West, and loves every regime and ideology that wants to destroy it. It has nothing to do with authentic human rights.

https://x.com/akazlev/status/2103860076620677442

This research paper examines Sri Aurobindo's dramatic works through a feminist-spiritual lens, focusing on how womanhood becomes a medium for expressing his ...

https://becausethouart.blogspot.com/2026/06/how-womanhood-becomes-medium.html

SELF - Savitri Era Party: Benefits of modernity that the missionary movement brought to India https://savitrieraparty.blogspot.com/2026/09/benefits-of-modernity-that-missionary.html

SELF - Savitri Era Political Action: Knowledge in fragments, fragmented syntax https://sepact.blogspot.com/2026/09/knowledge-in-fragments-fragmented-syntax.html

SELF - Savitri Era Religious Fraternity: Where Sri Aurobindo and Hayek meet https://serfrat.blogspot.com/2026/09/where-sri-aurobindo-and-hayek-meet.html 

SELF - VIP VAK: Akbar invited Portuguese Jesuits from Goa https://vipvak.blogspot.com/2026/09/akbar-invited-portuguese-jesuits-from.html

SELF - Aurora Mirabilis: Sri Aurobindo did not mean that everything is already perfect https://auroramirabilis.blogspot.com/2026/09/sri-aurobindo-did-not-mean-that.html

SELF - Because Thou Art: What constitutes a mental act? https://becausethouart.blogspot.com/2026/09/what-constitutes-mental-act.html

Savitri Era: My life as ideology https://savitriera.blogspot.com/2026/09/my-life-as-ideology.html  

Reimagining and Refashioning Integral Management

TN Mohapatra - Nitte Management Review, 2015 - scholar.archive.org
… modern civilization, Sri Aurobindo’s ontological formulations … This paper uses select concepts from Sri Aurobindo’s philosophy … beings as emphasised by Levinas or Habermas should also …

The Divine Feminine: The Inevitable Synthesis of Evolutionary Spirituality and the Dawn of a Twenty-First Century Religion

AI Manus - adishakti.org
42 days ago - … This paper emphatically declares that the Divine Feminine… the Divine Feminine, through the incarnation of Shri Mataji … de Chardin, and Sri Aurobindo. The paper concludes …

[PDF] THE EVOLVING CANVAS: INDIA IN NAYANTARA SAHGAL'S FICTION

K Lal
This research paper explores the multifaceted portrayal of India in the fiction of
Nayantara Sahgal, a prominent postcolonial Indian English novelist. Sahgal's
narratives meticulously depict various dimensions of postcolonial Indian society …

[PDF] Cultural Codes and Gendered Hierarchies: A Critical Reading of Women's Status in The Puranas

R Yadav, SK Mishra
… The aspect of interest is the development of graphic novels and independent
comics to become a part of the feminist discourse as a response and further mode of
thinking against the dominant ideologies of Hindutva. The artistic and intellectual …

[PDF] Freedom of Speech VS Hate Speech a Comparative Constitutional Study of India and USA

S Sharma, A Kashyap
… Criticizing the so-called Hindutva or Hindu Rashtra ideology often leads to threats
from right-wing groups. This constant pressure to either work honestly or protect
one's life has become a major problem for many journalists. …

Homo-Islamicus: Piety, Populism and Post-Feminism in Pakistan

A Ranjan, I Talbot, AS Zia - Challenge, Continuity, and Change in Pakistan, 2025
… It permits a revisionist nationalism merged with neoliberal economics as
personified by the Hindutva Homo Economicus leader in the case of Modi. Modi’s
Hindutva-driven policies have destabilized India’s pluralist traditions under the guise …

The Predicament of Rohingya Refugees in Nepal

BKU Bahadur - Scattered Lives of 'Stateless' People: The Rohingyas in …, 2025
The total number of Rohingya people in the world is unknown, neither through
official nor through unofficial figures. Nevertheless, we could estimate the
approximate population of Rohingya in some nations to mould their human …

[HTML] Cui Bono? Kashmir and Indian News Media

C Bono
… Modi’s government and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are heavily invested in
Hindutva, a Hindu nationalist ideology, which calls for the transformation (or
reversion, depending on who you ask) of India into a Hindu-only state – as the only …

[PDF] Unpacking the" Love Jihad" Conspiracy Theory: A Critique of Hindutva Narratives and the Rise of Religious Nationalism in India

A Al Hasan
… Hindutva, deviates significantly from secular or harmonious principles. The party
has adeptly garnered populist backing by often framing the Muslim community within
a discourse of national security threats and the survival of the Hindu nation (Narain …

[PDF] Manifestation of Sacredness in the Pilgrimage Sites of Uttarakhand, India: A Study of Chār Dhām

PSSR Laxmi, RPB Singh
… Partly, this is a reaction to the new militancy of Islam, perhaps partly to increasing
prosperity, but also, partly, it is consequence of the sectarian politics of ‘Hindutva’,
conservative Hindu nationalism, and the rivalry between secular parties, such as …

Hindu Bioethics View on CRISPR-Based Embryo Editing

J Talukdar, L Pathak, R Das, B Pal, J Therrien… - The CRISPR Revolution in …
You should understand that these two, the material and the spiritual, are the origin of
all living beings. I am the origin of this entire existence and its dissolution as well.(Bhagavad
Gita 2.13) Hinduism is based on the teachings of the sacred Vedas as well as …

Political Economy of Social Democracy in Globalizing India

R Ram - The Political Economy of Globalized India, 2025
The raison d’etre of social democracy is to revitalize the protection and promotion of
the interests of lower castes, the downtrodden, minorities, and other politically and
economically weaker sections of society, in part by empowering the state …

Tuesday, September 22, 2026

Perfection at the very inception

 Collated by Tusar Nath Mohapatra

Presented by Dainik Bhaskar Medical doctor Pariksith Singh is also a poet and philosopher. In his book, Sri Aurobindo and the Literary ...

The Literary Genius of the Bhagavad Gita

The Gita follows the literary tradition of the Veda. It uses the seed sounds and plays with Nirukta, the mantrik intonation of its shlokas has the same approach to a vibrational backdrop of sound, but there is no Siksa or Vedic chanting here. The chhanda too is only anushtup or trishtup in the Gita

The Gita is designed in a kaleidoscopic manner too like the Veda but by necessity it has to deliver a clear and pragmatic message while allowing the disciple enough consideration and space to gain a larger outlook for life and his actions

While being Vedic in niyojana and substance, the Gita nonetheless creates its own tropes. The most powerful among them, though hidden, is the visual sleight; we see the whole episode through the eyes of Sanjaya and that changes the whole psychology of the story

And yet, the Gita gives us the essence of the Veda in its shorter span and compact dialogic pedagogic engagement. It is, in its own place, a masterpiece of literature and art though Vedic Vedantic in lineage

https://x.com/AmazingVedas/status/2101319830108283176

The Literary-Musical Genius of the Gita

The Gita, like the Veda, is a work of music. What do I mean? It takes the principles of music and applies it to the organization of words, phrases and shlokas. Best to show this with examples

Let us look at the second chapter. Shloka 11-30 discuss Sankhya, 38-54 karma yoga, and then Sri Krishna talks about the sthita prajna who fulfills the ideals of both Sankhya and Karma yoga. These are the two themes mainly in the first six chapters. He hints at Bhakti in shloka 2.61 but then holds it back till later discussions

The entire Gita on one level is the development of the triune path of jnana, Bhakti and karma. Sri Krishna takes these 3 and weaves them into Purna yoga by chapter 18. Similarly, he discusses the Veda, avatarhood, Vedanta throughout the scripture in unique harmonics and chords

The entire Gita thus is a symphonic work with what Sri Aurobindo calls ‘complex harmonies’ interwoven into new realizations and experiences. The Veda orchestrates similar melodies on a much larger scale. There is another music of seed sounds and refrains throughout the Gita that runs in parallel but that would be another post and another discussion

https://x.com/AmazingVedas/status/2101500272233095512

The Literary Genius of the Bhagavad Gita: The Raga

How does a Raga work? Strange as this definition may sound a Classical Indian Raga is defined by the notes it uses. The raga explores them, builds them up, plays with them within the parameters chosen

The player begins with a note, and introduces others one by one, taking them higher or lower in pitch or creating a kind of dialogue between two notes, and creates combinations, recurrence of certain phrases and builds a mood or experience

Think about it. Isn’t that how the Gita plays with a key idea, two chhandas, a few notes and their interplay in various ascending and descending scales, chapter by chapter?

Please feel free to critique this. I have explored and described this device in more detail elsewhere. To me, this approach to art and literature is extremely creative and multifaceted. The Srutis are great compositions of literary musical arrangement and this gives them a unique everlasting beauty 

https://x.com/AmazingVedas/status/2101647892620439870

The Literary Genius of the Bhagavad Gita: Vadi Svar

Is there a key or king note in the Gita? I would submit that it is Dharma

It all begins with Dharma, does it not? Arjuna has lost his Kshatriya dharma. Sri Krishna offers him a new understanding of dharma but he does so in 18 stages or adhyayas

Notice that the first word of the Gita is dharma. It is also Sri Krishna’s final word in shloka 18.66, the rahasyamam uttamam

Notice also that the word dharma changes in significance chapter to chapter. It is an onion being peeled. In the second chapter we are clear that to be sthitaprajna is the way. In the 4th, Yajna with a deeper understanding refines our understanding of dharma. By the sixth we know that we must combine karma and jnana to live our dharma. Why such an approach and design? To show us the growth in Arjuna’s consciousness and to help us with our own if we follow the Gita

By the last six chapters, Sri Krishna has brought in Bhakti and its combination with karma and jnana. Thus, Dharma seems to be the key note. Once we see this design to the whole scripture the Gita becomes a vast and open meditation that integrates all darshanas. For music is full of multiple suggestions and capable of infinite freshness because it is not mental but living and capable of several interpretations

https://x.com/AmazingVedas/status/2101761283901239563

The Literary Genius of the Bhagavad Gita: Samvadi Svara

Carrying on our analogy of the Gita with a musical composition especially a raga. Is there a samvadi svara to dharma as a motif? There are several notes that play against and upon dharma such as yuddha, yoga, Yajna, etc. But I feel the one that plays most as a counterpoint to dharma is Aham or I. Why so?

You will notice that mamkah or my people is brought in in the third pada of the first shloka of the Gita. They run in parallel throughout the scripture, interweave, intermingle, interplay, until both bloom into spiritual principles in harmony. The ego of Dhritrashtra becomes the egoless I of Sri Krishna. And the note appears with great force in the final revelation of 18.66 along with dharma as the vast Self and Truth of Sri Krishna.

One may even see each chapter of the Gita as a raga in miniature and all these chapters, complete in themselves as a spiritual station, connecting with each other as part of a single upward movement

This is only an analogy to enhance our understanding and appreciation of the great literary work the Gita is. We can discuss other aspects of the raga that we see here adapted to a literary structure, e.g., the concepts of alankara, pakad, jhala etc that we see in the design of the Gita. All to make us realize the intricate connection of various ideas and notes in this Narayana Vak

https://x.com/AmazingVedas/status/2101998477756563606

The Literary Genius of the Bhagavad Gita: The Meta Narrative

Imagine a work of literature which is full of action, exciting characters, an epic scale and enormous stakes and the author suddenly stops all action right at the edge of a most cataclysmic moment to sit back and meditate! What would you think? That would be absurd, right!

Well, the Gita pulls it off with flair. In fact, so well does it accomplish this as literature that there are few works in the history of mankind that have had such an impact

The most curious thing is that narrative collapses completely for those 700 shlokas. And yet, without the Gita, the Mahabharata itself would be of minor significance

How was this made possible? Some commentators theorize that the Gita was inserted into the epic later. It doesn’t matter! If it was then this was the greatest interpolation in the history of world literature. If it wasn’t this was the greatest meta narrative freezing a narrative as it is beginning to build up into a seismic event. Either way it is a masterly trope in one of the greatest epics in world literature that we accept as a fact, a reality, accessible even today in its spiritual realization

https://x.com/AmazingVedas/status/2102256752246825180

Vedic Matrix

The entire Veda and the Bhagavad Gita may be seen as a matrix of seed sounds. Suddenly, their prosody assumes a musical and mathematical substructure with this perspective

We have seen how the music of these masterly creations is a play of Varna, svara, bala, matra, sandhi and Sanatana. Each Chhanda brings in elements of upward and downward movements that we later see in music (आरोह and अवरोह), each chhanda plays within its own restrictions or बंदिश, and other elements such as आलाप and तान too are hinted here 

Mathematically, I believe, the possibilities created by Vedic have not been fully exhausted but that remains a subject of future research and exploration. The great accomplishments of Pingala may yet be extended with a better understanding of seed sounds and their matrix

https://x.com/AmazingVedas/status/2098340033899970711

A Literary Approach to the Veda

Why a literary approach? Because it allows me complete freedom. It seems to me that at present there are two kinds of tyranny blocking the fullest or most open appreciation of the Veda. 

The first is the western tendency or insistence to take the Veda as only external ritual. And to restrict it from the thousands of years of living traditions of interpretation and experience that it has meant for the Indigenous cultures

The second is the Indic insistence again to see it as karma kanda only. To be fair, this insistence is not universal nor as closed as the west. And the multiple meanings of the Veda can be unveiled, in my experience, more easily in India than in the west. For India is still in touch with its spirituality in many forms including the Upanishads which are a part of the Veda

Great teachers have valiantly tried in the last 150 years or so to bring out the multiple dimensions of the Veda. A literary approach allows me to consider all the various commentaries and interpretations of the Veda and to present them to the world and let the reader consider them independently and decide on their own. I am even allowed to present my own thoughts without any attempt to hide them. I have attempted the same with the Bhagavad Gita and found that a multidimensional approach to the Gita was critical to my own development. I find the same with the Veda

https://x.com/AmazingVedas/status/2097648893227860083

Vedic Sahitya

What are the grand literary achievements of the Veda?

1) The first exploration of seed sounds or Beeja Dhvanis in literature

2) The use of the mantra as the basis for meter

3) The unique holographic organization of verse along with the designing of experience

4) A theory of cosmology, sound, prosody and linguistics in action and explanation

5) Unique experiments and figures of speech that still feel modern and fresh

6) The establishment of the bases of meter such as accent, stress, quantity etc and combining them in the enunciation, an experiment that has not been repeated since

7) The use of the most sophisticated human alphabet and grammar to date 

Feel free to add more please if I missed any

Veda is not our first poetry. It is the first poetry we have. How were they created remains a mystery? Historical explanations don’t suffice. In no other human field do we see this. An appearance of perfection at the very inception of the field. How? Why? We don’t really know. 

https://x.com/AmazingVedas/status/2101284690426486824

Vedic Chhanda: The Mantra

The Mantra, to paraphrase Sri Aurobindo, is the highest perfection, poornta, of Vision, Style and Rhythm. It is the music that rises beyond the words and reverberates through the Universe.

That which liberates through meditation is mantra मननात् त्रायते इति मंत्र:

But there is more. The mantra can transform not just the mind but also the praana and the body. For it is alchemic, a process of heightened energy and resonance

But most seekers do not know how to unleash its power. When chanting the mantra remember these fundamentals: श्रद्धा, भाव, ध्यान, ग्राह्य क्षमता, समर्पण 

The whole being must be laser sharp in reciting it, pronunciation must be clear, exact, smooth and melodious, and one must allow the vibration to become one’s DNA. Then something might happen. In the meantime listen quietly to the sound behind the sound, the string that reverberates from worlds hidden to your inmost depths

https://x.com/AmazingVedas/status/2099297947275997324

Vedic Chhanda: Anushtup

Anushtup is a square, balanced classic form that is supposed to have developed or followed the Gayatri which was our first Chhanda

Gayatri seems more lyrical and open to musical point-counterpoint considerations because it comprises three padas of 8 varnas each. The third pada often adds to the suggestions or statements of the first two but it can provide a different perspective or note and widen the consideration

The Anushtup is more solid, compact and is stronger in presenting a narrative with a build up of the story. It can easily move forward and that is why it has been used in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata as the Shloka meter. But it has another quality that is exploited in the Bhagavad Gita. That is, it can break away from narrative and can easily become non-narrative. Each pada is potentially independent which is ideal for concise formulations of thought or Darshana

This dual quality of the Anushtup is adroitly used in the Gita where the Chhanda easily bears both forward progression and vertical movements in a most fluid and flexible manner

https://x.com/AmazingVedas/status/2102356017283506511

निर्विरोधाभास 


इतना स्पष्ट कि दिखाई न दे 

इतना सरल कि समझ न आए 

इतना कल्याणमय कि संशय रहे 

वह सत्य है कि नहीं 


कैसे कह दूँ तुम्हें कि मुझे तुमसे कभी

प्रेम था ही नहीं 

तुमसे अधिक तुम्हें पाने का दुःख मुझे है 


केवल एक भव्य पारदर्शिता 

जो सभी दृश्यों के आरपार देखती 

जो हमारे अकेलेपन के बृहद में 

तरंगों के पोर-पोर समाया एक द्रव्य 


बस वही पारदर्शी जो देखता नहीं 

जिससे देखा जाए केवल हुआ जाए 


बस वही प्रेम जो था तुमसे

https://x.com/AmazingVedas/status/2102006512327541114

Join the reading and discussion on the profound poem "तुमको सुनने के लिए बहुत चुप होना पड़ता है". youtu.be/F8KapxCtaVc?si… Explore its world of microscopic beauty and the deep silence required to truly listen. @PariksithSingh @MakrandParanspe @AmazingVedas

https://x.com/sriaurobindochr/status/2102391397747757200

Enjoyed this clip? Watch the full conversation with poet @PariksithSingh and @MakrandParanspe on his new Hindi poem “ज्ञात-अज्ञात” — a journey beyond knowledge and vision into the profound mystery of self, other, and oneness. youtu.be/MiF-D8PgK8k?si… @AmazingVedas

https://x.com/sriaurobindochr/status/2102097778889330800

Join poet @PariksithSingh as he reads his Hindi poem “विचित्र मिलन” and discusses its meaning with @MakrandParanspe - journey toward another that becomes a journey inward, revealing love, mystery, and the self. youtu.be/NjydY4RSHBc?si… @AmazingVedas

https://x.com/sriaurobindochr/status/2102141064614441295

Join poet @PariksithSingh in conversation with @MakrandParanspe as they explore “नया अंतः स्थल” — a Hindi poem of memory, silence, longing, and the quiet spaces we carry within. @AmazingVedas youtu.be/a3cs_Jb78ic?si…

https://x.com/sriaurobindochr/status/2102037751524643169

To order your copy, click the following link: https://amzn.eu/d/06f74p7 Sri Aurobindo and Philosophy authored by Dr. Pariksith Singh delves ...

Moral emotions are not natural defaults. Love, truth, respect, guilt, compassion and self-restraint are civilizational achievements, developed over centuries through reason, conscience and moral discipline. My latest essay:

https://x.com/JayantBhandari5/status/2100295150903636214

Sri Aurobindo on Art

Part IV: Art and the Spiritual Life (Sadhana)

A. Creative Activity as Sadhana

B. The Practice of Painting as Yoga

C. Sri Aurobindo’s Personal Development in Art Appreciation

Part V: Principles of Aesthetic Appreciation and Criticism

A. The ‘Art for Art’s Sake’ Debate

B. On Different Artistic Styles and Movements

C. The Nature of Artistic Criticism and Appreciation

D. The Nature of Beauty

Part VI: Poetic and Aphoristic Insights on Art

A. From Savitri: The Artist of the Self and the World

B. Aphorisms on Art, Beauty, and Civilisation

Art and the Invisible

Highest Art

Art must be a service of the Divine

Function of Art

The Artist of the Self

Art and hierarchy of values

https://incarnateword.in/compilations/toc/sri-aurobindo-on-art

SELF - Because Thou Art: And then the clarity poured in https://becausethouart.blogspot.com/2026/09/and-then-clarity-poured-in.html

Wednesday, September 16, 2026

Soul of things eternally young, perpetually inexhaustible

 Collated by Tusar Nath Mohapatra

Again if we look at World-Existence rather in its relation to the self-delight of eternally existent being, we may regard, describe and realise it as Lila, the play, the child’s joy, the poet’s joy, the actor’s joy, the mechanician’s joy of the Soul of things eternally young, perpetually inexhaustible, creating and re-creating Himself in Himself for the sheer bliss of that self-creation, of that self-representation,—Himself the play, Himself the player, Himself the playground. - Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine

https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/delight-of-existence-the-solution

From centralisation follows uniformity and control. Such an approach is Asuric in nature and would impede free evolution of humanity for which diversity and liberty are a requirement. Sri Aurobindo elaborates on a more spiritual/integral approach to human unity later in the book.

https://x.com/Shiva_Uvacha/status/2099912531884339274

I’m delighted to share my first book, THE INVENTION OF CATHOLICISM, forthcoming from Oxford University Press on December 1, 2026. Catholicism did not simply survive the Age of Revolutions: it was remade by it. glaucoschettini.com/book/

Yes — one could certainly make that argument about Trent! Part of what my book shows, though, is that even the word “Catholicism,” in something like its modern meaning, only became widely used from the late eighteenth century onward. More importantly, I’m interested in what happened when the old early-modern compact between church and state began to break down. As Catholicism lost state support—even in Catholic countries—it acquired new political and social meanings and had to learn to mobilize in new ways.

https://x.com/GlaucoSchettini/status/2099896520346657198

New review just published online in the Marx and Philosophy Review of Books: Evan Supple on Shannon Hoff's How To Read Hegel Now marxandphilosophy.org.uk/reviews/22890_…

https://x.com/MarxPhilosophy/status/2100097360013517309

The West is in the process of destroying itself from within - and Oswald Spengler saw it coming a century ago. In The Decline of the West (1918), Spengler argued that civilisations rarely perish from external conquest alone. They collapse when they lose faith in their own identity and begin to take pleasure in their own disintegration. Instead of confidently transmitting their traditions, values and achievements, they turn against themselves. They treat their history as a catalogue of crimes, their institutions as systems of oppression, and their core principles as sources of guilt. At that point, they become culturally defenceless. The modern West displays these symptoms with disturbing clarity. Large parts of its elite actively participate in the vilification of Western civilisation.

https://x.com/CreativeDeduct/status/2099943265785032787

His proposition that this thing he calls civilization operates in cycles is a false conclusion. He had nonspecific conditions for the descriptions of the different phases of the cycle. Some were long and some were extremely short. But for many different reasons. He did argue for the collapse of faith as the determinant of a declining civilisation. But there were so many more which work themselves into each history. Natural disaster, disease, war, loss of natrual resources which inflict pressure upon any civilization. Plus he wrote it during World War One. We have come a long way from that point in history!

https://x.com/pragmatic_logic/status/2099945301154926689

The entire round trip depended on correctly reading and timing 2 opposite seasonal wind systems. From roughly late Oct through Feb, the northeast monsoon blows steadily toward Southeast Asia, a window that begins right around the time the southwest monsoon withdraws from this coast, which is exactly why Kartik Purnima sits where it does, at that hinge point, rather than on some unrelated date. So that is when ships departed the east coast of India, riding that wind toward Sri Lanka and onward to Java, Sumatra, and Bali. Then, once trade was done, sailors could not simply turn around and sail back the way they came, the wind would not allow it. They had to wait, sometimes for months, until the southwest monsoon reversed direction from roughly June to Sep, which is precisely the wind system that would carry them home again.

https://x.com/Fintech03/status/2099308357350027725

I’d recommend this piece by Foucault. He breaks away from the usual image of the intellectual who is the voice of all, and proposes the ‘specific intellectual’, who intervenes from within a specific institution or profession. Most interesting to me, the idea that one aspect of political struggle is also a struggle for the production and recognition of truth. But then, I suppose not so great thing about this text is that he never really offers a solid explanation as to how these local conflicts connect to a broader political project.

https://x.com/praxiss/status/2099938491228393494

A review of Saumya Dey’s Indic Kingship in Theory and Practice: Reconsidering Marxist Historiography, which attempts to decouple Indic kingship from the Marxist lens that has long shaped Indian historiography. Article by Sai Priya Chodavarapu (@priya_27_) brhat.in/dhiti/book-rev…

https://x.com/brhat_in/status/2099730083741368796

Where do we begin with Swami Vivekananda? Join @MakrandParanspe as he discusses the sage’s modernity, ideas, writings and teachings—and their relevance to religion, caste, education and India today. youtu.be/i3fzlIkXskA?si… @PariksithSingh @AmazingVedas

https://x.com/sriaurobindochr/status/2099967744040919280

Is the self an illusion? Julian Baggini argues this question is too simple. bit.ly/3SL0miD He argues that the self is both a construction and real, drawing on philosopher Derek Parfit's ideas to describe a complex, ever-changing, many-sided self which better aligns with our everyday experiences.

https://x.com/IAI_TV/status/2099914924868632858

EPW Engage | In an era entwined with artificial intelligence (AI), this article navigates the profound intersection of Maurice Blanchot’s philosophy of death and the advent of AI, contemplating the implications for life, death, and existence.

https://x.com/epw_in/status/2100034487815950341

[HTML] Ambedkar's Vision and the Search for Equitable Federalism

S Pai
… In the 1980s, the party shifted its ideological focus to Hindutva—a political
ideology based on Hindu identity—and, after its victory in the 1987 elections,
established strongholds across Maharashtra. This ideological change enabled the …

French Chivalry in India: The Archival Effect of the Honnête Homme

A Prabhu - Studies in History, 2025
This essay takes up an eventful moment that occurred in 1740 in the port city of
Pondichéry, located on the southeast coast of India. In a battle between the Arcot
kingdom and the Marathas, when the Nawab of Arcot was killed, the latter’s wife fled …

[PDF] and Cameron A. Petrie

A Khan, M Sarmah, V Vidyarthi, R Roberts - REPORTING HERITAGE DESTRUCTION
Damage and destruction of cultural heritage is often a flashpoint for political and
social action at an international level, but the advent of widespread internet usage
from the 1990s onwards and the increasing use of social media (SM) from the early …

'Amra Kara? Bastuhara!': the politics and aesthetics of waste in Manoranjan Byapari's The Runaway Boy (2020) and The Nemesis (2023)

A Bhattacharya, B Meenu - National Identities, 2026
This paper reads Manoranjan Byapari’s novels The Runaway Boy (2020) and The
Nemesis (2023) within the framework of Critical Discard Studies by drawing on
Jacques Rancière’s notion of the ‘distribution of the sensible’. In the two novels, we …

[PDF] Key terms in public communication: a systemic reflection on journalism, politics, and social movements

M Marino-Jiménez, R Rodrich-Portugal… - Cogent Social Sciences, 2025
… ‘Development has gone crazy’: The Gujarat model of ‘unequal’ development
through neoliberalism and hindutva. South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 47(3),
576–595. https://doi.org/10.1080/00856401.2024.2350889 …

[PDF] LINGUIST List 36.3399 Reviews: Weaponizing Language: Ila Nagar

I Nagar - 2025
… 19)—-to demonize and legislate against Muslims in India while simultaneously
reinforcing Hindutva (‘Hindu Nationalism’). Numerous examples are provided in
English, whether original or translated, to illustrate these rhetorical tactics. Similarly …

[HTML] Beyond Threat: Governance-Based Othering and Muslim Representation in BJP Political Discourse (2014–2026)

T Koh - Religions, 2026
… How Hindutva discourse casts Muslims as an other is bound up with how it casts
the Hindu as the rightful subject of the national community… Indian politics cannot
be understood without looking at the historical formation and political development …

[HTML] Militarization, Hindu Nationalist Legitimacy, and Majoritarian Politics in Modi's India

K Sert, FC Aras, G Durmaz - Religions, 2026
… The rise in Hindutva has been further institutionalized through the relationship
between the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a Hindu nationalist volunteer
organization, and the BJP, contributing to the consolidation of a majoritarian political …

[PDF] Ideology and Right-wing Militia Governance: The anti-Maoist Salwa Judum militias in India

S Mukherjee - 2026
What is the impact of ideology on militia governance? This paper analyzes the
literature on ideology and insurgency (Gutiérrez-Sanín & Wood 2014) and applying
it to militias, to analyze how right-wing ideology shapes militia-civilian interactions. I …

Caste conflict in a village society: the study of dominance, resistance and conflict in North Bihar

MA Tarique, M Abusaad, S Khatoon - SN Social Sciences, 2026
This study examines caste-based conflict in Surajpur village, North Bihar, with a
specific focus on intra-subaltern contestation between dominant Other Backward
Classes (OBCs) and Scheduled Castes (SCs). While existing scholarship primarily …