It is enough to reach out half way around the world

From: "Don Robertson" donaldwrobertson@yahoo.com To: "Tusar N. Mohapatra" tusarnmohapatra@mail.com CC: Subject: Re: Savitri Era Learning Forum: Witticisms are in their least part philosophy Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2006 05:32:32 -0700 (PDT)

Tusar-

It's a good and excellent morning for me. Good evening, to you. I am gratified to find someone who found some enchantment in my words. I wish I could say more, but at this moment I fail with words too proud to tempt a stumble.

Perhaps later at another time when the fond sensations I feel have settled calmly into me, the pride at having passed myself off as the American Philosopher, like Twain, and like all the great philosophers of the world, ancient, young and old.

Life is good. And today, I feel immortal. It is enough to reach out half way around the world to touch, feel and sense, and to find a kindred soul there? There is almost too much joy. It is as if I were there with you now, each of us laughing at the paradox with no care about any inconguity of the distance that enhances by our marvel at it, the feeling of closeness.

Attached is a picture of myself and a close pal. I'm the one with the less pointed ears. dadkitty1.jpeg, 655 x 412 Please on your blog post it and these words of gratitude for such a life as mine has become, and for yours, as it has become for me too. Best-

Don Robertson, The American PhilosopherLimestone, Maine -U.S.
An Illustrated Philosophy Primer for Young Readers Precious Life - Empirical Knowledge The Grand Unifying Theory & The Theory of Time http://www.geocities.com/donaldwrobertson/index.html

Tom and Eva’s pastoral frolickings

Cabin Fever By HENRY LOUIS GATES Jr. NY Times Published: October 22, 2006
I first read “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” in an eighth-grade class in 1964, when it was probably just going out of fashion as required reading for American school children — and the phrase “Uncle Tom” was about to come into widespread use as the ultimate instrument of black-on-black derogation.

The scholar Stephen Railton traces the first printed uses of the term to the black nationalist Marcus Garvey and his followers, in about 1919, a year of bloody race riots as black World War I veterans demanded their civil rights. “The Uncle Tom nigger has got to go,” the Rev. George Alexander McGuire declared at Garvey’s first convention in 1920, “and his place must be taken by the new leader of the Negro race ... not a black man with a white heart, but a black man with a black heart.” Intense cultural clashes emerged within the race, as Southern, rural migrants — the proverbial children of Uncle Tom — flooded north, and as black people, spurred on by a variety of warring political organizations, became ever more vocal about ending Jim Crow segregation.
Black nationalists in subsequent decades turned Uncle Tom into a swear word, but it was with the rise of popular black militancy in the 60’s that poor old Uncle Tom became the quintessential symbol that separated the good black guys from the servile sellouts. He was the embodiment of “race betrayal,” an object of scorn, a scapegoat for all of our political self-doubts. In 1966, Stokely Carmichael called the N.A.A.C.P.’s executive director, Roy Wilkins, an “Uncle Tom,” while the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee asked, in its position paper on black power: “Who is the real villain — Uncle Tom or Simon Legree?” Muhammad Ali pinned the epithet on Floyd Patterson, Ernie Terrell and Joe Frazier as he pummeled them.
I doubt that many of those who tossed around the insult had actually read Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel. But James Baldwin had. In a scathing 1949 critique, “Everybody’s Protest Novel,” Baldwin boldly linked the sentimentality of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” to the melodrama of Richard Wright’s 1940 novel “Native Son,” a work far more appealing to black power types. “Uncle Tom” had become such a potent brand of political impotence that nobody really cared how far its public usages had traveled from the reality of its literary prototype.
When I returned to “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” not long ago, it struck me as far more culturally capacious — and sexually charged — than either Baldwin or the 60’s militants had acknowledged. Half a century after Baldwin denounced it as “a very bad novel” in its “self-righteous, virtuous sentimentality” and promotion of feminine tears and anguish as a form of political protest, both the novel and Baldwin’s now canonical critique are ripe for reassessment.
Baldwin wrote that Tom “has been robbed of his humanity and divested of his sex.” Tom’s political impotence, for Baldwin, is symbolized by his sexual impotence. In fact, Tom and his wife, Aunt Chloe, do have children, but Baldwin has a point: the question of Uncle Tom’s relation to his family and his marital status has long intrigued Stowe scholars. Stowe shows us a devoted — even doting — father, but not a lover. Where Stowe conveys a sense of physical intimacy among the other married couples in the novel, Tom and Chloe share a pointedly “snowy spread” in their cabin.
And so when, early in the novel, a kindly owner sells Tom to pay his plantation’s debts, the slave leaves his cabin free from domestic bonds. For the fact of the matter — which has not escaped the attention of generations of the novel’s illustrators and parodists — is that once Tom leaves his home he almost immediately becomes involved with a young blonde. She is, of course, Eva, the lovely daughter of his next master.
Indeed, Stowe all but dares the reader to see something untoward in the obsessive closeness of Uncle Tom and Little Eva. While their relationship is not sexual, it is remarkably physical: Eva spends hours in Tom’s room, drapes him with flowers and perches on his knee, causing some concern: “How can you let her?” says her cousin, Miss Ophelia; “Why not?” answers Eva’s father. “You would think no harm in a child’s caressing a large dog, even if he was black.” Eva puts “her little golden head close to his,” kisses him and throws her arms around him. From the traditional children’s edition book cover images of a beaming Tom and Eva to such popularizations as the 1933 Disney short “Mickey’s Mellerdrammer” (in which Mickey plays Tom and Minnie plays Eva) or the 1947 Tex Avery short “Uncle Tom’s Cabaña” (starring a sultry animated Eva), the public has always seen Tom and Eva as a couple.
Baldwin, for his part, saw nothing subversive in Tom and Eva’s pastoral frolickings. His view was that of the book’s illustrators, who had always been careful to depict Tom as sweet, gray haired and bespectacled when Eva is in his lap. Yet Baldwin did sense something dark and secret beneath the surface. Sentimentality was not to be trusted: “The ostentatious parading of excessive and spurious emotion, is the mark of dishonesty, the inability to feel,” he wrote. “It is always, therefore, the signal of secret and violent inhumanity, the mask of cruelty.” Real men, for Baldwin, don’t sigh, don’t cry, and certainly are not satisfied with a kiss on the cheek.
Baldwin’s writings make clear that his distaste for sentimentality had everything to do with the perception that sentiment undermined what it meant to be a desiring being. Sentiment focuses on a person’s exterior, whereas art, he thought, privileges the interior, the soul, the seat of desire. Yet sentimentality doesn’t deny the existence of wayward appetites; it merely provides a protective distance from them. In antebellum America, sentimentalism was the only mode Stowe could employ to write about sex — especially interracial sex. It made possible the story’s barely submerged sexual content, most apparent in the sensuality of nearly every desperate young slave woman (“The brown of her complexion gave way on the cheek to a perceptible flush, which deepened as she saw the gaze of the strange man fixed upon her in bold and undisguised admiration. Her dress ... set off to advantage her finely molded shape”).
Nor could Baldwin ever acknowledge his own indebtedness to Stowe. In “Everybody’s Protest Novel,” Baldwin insisted that “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” scarcely qualified as literature and that Stowe was “not so much a novelist as an impassioned pamphleteer.” Baldwin denounced the fundamental assumptions about the relationship between literature and politics underlying Stowe’s self-righteous tone. Her novel’s characters “spurned and were terrified of the darkness, striving mightily for the light.”
But this sort of Manichean simplicity is a central feature of some of Baldwin’s own work, like the plays “The Amen Corner” and “Blues for Mr. Charlie” and the novels “Another Country” and “Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone.” The suppleness of his prose gives way to stereotypical depictions of two-dimensional characters, both black and white — individuals who seem to exist as set pieces for ideological diatribes rather than nuanced explorations of their full humanity. The paradox of Baldwin’s career is that he wrote essays with all of the lyricism and subtlety of a great novelist; yet he approached the craft of the novel with an essayistic didacticism.
The hallmark of most 19th- and many 20th-century American novels about race is the tendency toward the sort of melodrama we see in Stowe. Much of the emotional energy is a matter of shackled love. Baldwin was right to see the penchant for melodrama at the heart of even a novel as “black” as “Native Son.” As the critic Albert Murray first pointed out, though, what Baldwin decried in Stowe and Wright he could not relinquish in his own work. Even his early novel “Giovanni’s Room” — a pioneering depiction of a gay love affair — is characterized by impossible love and even more impossible plot coincidences. By the time Baldwin wrote his most carelessly crafted novels, “Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone” and “Just Above My Head,” melodrama had become the narrative register he could not escape.
Why would Baldwin, in his attack on Stowe, speak so harshly against the power of the fiction to persuade? Surely it was because he was, however unconsciously, speaking to his own deepest fears: that as a novelist, he was guilty of the very thing he disdained in Stowe. When Baldwin looked in the mirror of his literary antecedents, what he saw, to his horror, was Harriet Beecher Stowe in blackface. Stowe’s most vigorous detractor was destined to become her true 20th-century literary heir.
Henry Louis Gates Jr. is the W. E. B. Du Bois professor of the humanities at Harvard. He is the editor, with Hollis Robbins, of the forthcoming “Annotated Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” from which this essay is adapted, and the author of “Finding Oprah’s Roots,” to be published in February.

India's contribution to World Thought and Culture

India's World-Wide Cultural Diffusion paras_ramoutar@yahoo.com TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO, October 20, 2006: "The diffusion of India's cultural immensity over the vast expanses of Asia and other continents is a glorious epic of human achievement in the domain of thought and its _expression in space and time." This summarized former UNC Senator Suren Capildeo's feature address at the 20th annual Divali Nagar on October 12, 2006, before a packed assembly. Theme of this year's Divali Nagar was "The Hindu Contribution to World Thought and Culture." The Nagar ends Friday, October 20.

"Beyond the shimmering blue waters of Lake Baikal in the heart of Eastern Siberia lie monasteries studded with Indian images and silken scrolls of Tantric Deities. A little below lies the Mongolian People's Republic which has one of the richest treasures of translations of thousands of Sanskrit works and rare icons of India's Divinities like Maha Kala, Kali, Ayushi, Tara Devi and many others," Capildeo said. From the Central Asian sands have been exhumed Sanskrit manuscripts, rare works of art, unique administrative documents in Prakit, exquisite murals and objects of a high material culture - all imbued with the spirit and form of India, Capildeo reported. "In the Far East, the sprawling mainland of China has preserved a rich heritage of the art, literature and philosophy of India. Stories of the Mahabharata in the classical Japanese theater, the art traditions of Ajanta at Horyuji Temples, or Sanskrit mantras, all are ageless symbols of India's contribution to Japan's evolution. The Tibetan books on medicine, astronomy, grammar, rhetoric and poetics are inspired by Indian works of similar description."

Capildeo said that the skyline of temples in Bangkok, Sanskrit words in the Thai language, Ramayana as the supreme _expression of Thai theatre, Shiva ceremonies at the Royal Court - are parts of the stream that flows in the heart of Thailand from the deep of India's being. The enthralling stupa Borobudur, the Shiva Temple of Prambanan, the living presence of Hinduism in Bali, are some of the facets of the dynamics of India's cultural spectrum in the Isles of Indonesia. "Modern research reveals that the dispersal of Indian culture, at least in the former Soviet Central Asia can be traced from the early stone age which will take us back over half a million years ago. But such studies of cultural contact between primitive peoples, being based solely on stone tools or other artifacts can only give us very meager and vague ideas on the subject of what we properly recognize as human culture," Capildeo said.

"The great truth about Hinduism was hither-to-ignored or obscured by the fact there is no evidence of such missionary spirit of the Hindus during the last thousands years or more. It was Swami Vivekananda who revived the old missionary spirit of Hinduism towards the close of 19th century. Capildeo went on to say that there is no denying the fact that the whole of the Far East is in India's debt for Buddhism which helped to mould the distinctive civilizations of China, Korea, Japan and Tibet. As well her special gifts to Asia, India has conferred many practical blessings on the world, notably rice, cotton, sugar cane, spices, the domestic fowl, the game of chess and most important of all, the decimal system of numeral notation, the invention of an unknown Indian mathematician.

Capildeo, had his audience spell bound, as he continued, "The extent of the spiritual influence of India on the ancient West is much disputed. The heterodox Jewish sect of the Essenes, which probably influenced early Christianity, followed monastic practices in some respects similar to those of Buddhism. Parallels may be traced between the passages in the New Testament and the Pali Scriptures. Similarities between the teachings of Western philosophers and mystics from Pythagoras to Plotinus and those of the Upanishads have been frequently noticed.

"Deokienanan Sharma, president of the NCIC, in his address, said that the impact of Divali Nagar has extended beyond our shores and has triggered the revival of the almost lost Indian cultural practices in our sister isles of Martinique and Guadeloupe where substantial populations of East Indians live. Sharma said that the Divali Nagar festival has also spread to Canada where some years ago, a Divali Nagar festival was staged in Montreal and Toronto." The NCIC is proud of these developments having been not only the inspiration but has also assisted in whatever way its limited resources would allow," Sharma said. "My only hope is that they will continue to serve selflessly as before so that not only the Divali Nagar, but the NCIC will grow and develop into an even more formidable cultural organization," he said. hpi@hindu.org

God as 'He' or 'Lord'

Anglicans: 'HE' God = Wife Bashing by Grant Swank October 08, 2006 09:00 AM EST

The Anglican Church is in such drastic damage level that it comes to this: "Church of England leaders warned yesterday that calling God 'He' encourages men to beat their wives. "They told churchgoers they must think twice before they refer to God as 'He' or 'Lord' because of the dangers that it will lead to domestic abuse.," per The Daily Mail. Anglicans accept homosexual lifestyle as divinely blessed. This equals that religious body furthering AIDS / HIV as well as labeling themselves apostates. In other words, they endorse that which the biblical God abhors. Christ told His own to go into all the world, preaching the gospel. What is the gospel? Preaching personal salvation via Christ the sinless sacrifice upon Calvarys cross. Anglicans have sidelined Gods chief purpose for the church in favor of kissing the Devils feet.

"In new guidelines for bishops and priests on such abuse, they blamed uncritical use of masculine imagery for encouraging men to behave violently towards women." Let it be known that Anglican churches basically are empty today. And those who show are female or men who are female wannabes. Many of the clergy are the latter. Therefore, there are not that many robust wife-beating potential males attending the Anglican sanctuaries any more. So where comes the wife beating throughout Anglican laity? I want the stats on that one."

They also warned that clergy must reconsider the language they use in sermons and check the hymns they sing to remove signs of male oppression. "The recommendation - fully endorsed by Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams - puts a question mark over huge swathes of Christian teaching and practice. "The Archbishop has shown himself to be as spiritually deprived as Pope Benedict XVI. They are both maximum wafflers and so will answer seveerely at the Judgment Seat of Christ. Their souls are in grave danger for backsliding before God. They also further their backsliding by counseling followers to betray the Bible. Christ said such persons will go to a deeper hell for leading laity astray.These two men substitute biblical data with human hodgepodge called "theology." It wont wash before the eternal throne."

It (the Anglican guideline publication) throws doubt on whether the principal Christian prayer should continue to be known as the Lord's Prayer and begin 'Our Father'. "It means well-loved hymns such as Fight the Good Fight and Onward Christian Soldiers may be headed for the dustbin." While the world goes to hell in a liturgy printout, the religious leaders so-called write their own religion. The Bible warns against adding to or subtracting from its divine revelation. One does not tamper with the eternal Word. Yet these men and their blind followers do just that – brazenly, without apology. End Times signals?

"The rules also throw into question the role of the Bible by calling for reinterpretations of stories in which God uses violence. "The guidelines also claim that abuse is common within marriage and says this is because marriage heightens a sense among husbands that they own their wives."

The document prompted an outcry from conservative clergy. They accused the Archbishops' Council, the CofE's cabinet that produced the guidelines, of distorting theology for a 'feminist agenda'. Rod Thomas, a Plymouth vicar and spokesman for the influential evangelical Reform movement, said: “There is a danger that this document has veered too much towards political correctness.”

"The Bible says God has both female and male characteristics but it does not feel inhibited about referring to God as male.” Simon Calvert of the evangelical Christian Institute think tank, said: “They appear to suggest seriously that we should ditch many centuries of Judeo-Christian teaching because of some half-baked feminist theory. The guidelines - Responding to Domestic Abuse - say that centuries of Christian teaching have led to “questionable assumptions” about the Bible and moral teaching."

With biblical conservatives up in arms, it reveals the righteous remnant who are in every quarter of Christendom. These are those who defend Scripture against all costs. These are those who could be the martyred during the Tribulation in our near future. These are those who will be persecuted by the very church leaders they once looked up to. Yet the righteous remnant will remain on the Earth till the Second Coming of Christ. This bride will welcome back the Groom Christ as He returns to rule the planet for a millennium. The bride will keep herself soul-spotless for her approaching Groom, not yielding to the religious harlots who attempt to plunge the worldwide church into The Pit.

A harmony between the secular and the sacred

by Rev. Mark Creech Faith and Conservative American Politics October 07, 2006 09:00 AM EST

Churches of the late Middle Ages are well known for embodying a Christian worldview in their architecture. No where is this better demonstrated than in the Gothic Cathedral at Chartes, France. This cathedral, which was built during the 12th century, supposedly pictures the kingdom of heaven on earth. In his book, Earth Restored, John Barber says "[t]he west façade, one of the most glorious of all Gothic structures, is harmonized through decoration and proportion to give it an upward, reaching effect -- reaching toward the purity of paradise itself." Barber further adds: "The south side of the cathedral displays Old Testament figures whose message is to proclaim that the rulers of France are not independent of God, but in fact stand in the line of the great kings and prophets from before the time of Christ. The worldview of the cathedral is summed up through a figure of Christ appearing as Judge and Lord of the Universe above the doorway with an assembly of twenty-four elders in the archivolts." The message of the Cathedral is clear, claims Barber: "the ideal society consists in a harmony of spiritual and secular injunction, where Christ is the head of both." [1]
Interestingly, America was founded on a similar view. Dating all the way back to the Mayflower Compact, the nation’s birth certificate reads: "... Having undertaken for the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith ... a voyage to plant the first colony in the Northern parts of Virginia ... do by these presents solemnly ... covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic." [2] When the New England settlements gathered, they formed what is known as the Constitution of the New England Confederation, which reads: "Whereas we all came to these parts of America with the same end and aim, namely, to advance the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to enjoy the liberties of the Gospel thereof with purities and peace, and for preserving and propagating the truth and liberties of the gospel." [3]
The documentary evidence that the United States was based on the concept that society should be built on a harmony between the secular and the sacred is solid. In 1832, Noah Webster published his History of the United States, in which he concluded: "The brief exposition of the constitution of the United States will unfold to young persons the principles of republican government; and it is the sincere desire of the writer that our citizens should early understand that the genuine source of correct republican principles is the Bible, particularly the New Testament or the Christian religion." [4]
Today, however, the religious premise of the nation has largely been wiped from the collective mind. Failing to realize all nations that ever existed were founded on some theistic basis (with exception of anti-theistic countries such as the former Soviet Union) -- whether it is the Hinduism of India, the Confucianism of Asia, the Islamic religion of the Arabic states, or the Christianity of the western nations -- Americans have offered little resistance to the radical effort of "progressives" to remove every vestige of America’s Christian heritage and completely secularize matters of public policy.
Certainly the mantra of progressives has been the so-called doctrine of the "separation of church and state." Terry L. Johnson, a Presbyterian minister from Savannah, Georgia, best summarizes the current circumstances, contending:
"The progressives have been saying for a generation or more that there is an impenetrable 'wall of separation' between church and state. This phrase, by the way, is not found in our national documents ... What is wrong with a manger scene at City Hall? What is wrong with a Menorah on city property? What is wrong with a prayer at graduation, or at the beginning of a football game, or at the beginning of the day in our public schools? Common sense, tells us, of course, that nothing is wrong with it. The Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution at a time when ten of thirteen colonies had state-supported churches, and authorized government-paid chaplains for the military, opening the daily sessions of the Supreme Court and Senate with prayer. Moreover, the printing of the Bible at public expense never imagined the degree to which fanatics would go to remove religion from the public square." [5]
Unfortunately, this wrong-headed approach by progressives, who have dominated the political landscape in recent decades, has wreaked havoc on the nation’s character and institutions. Their misguided intent to unite the country under a secular multi-cultural banner has instead deeply divided it by removing its moral compass.
Such has precipitated a cultural war with a revival of sorts for "orthodox" or "conservative" values, which are fundamentally biblical in nature. A number of areas where the battles are currently being fought and must be won if the nation would be redeemed are:
1. The battle to preserve the sanctity of human life (Psalm 139:13-16; Isaiah 42:2, 24; Luke 1:41-44; Exodus 20:13). America’s wholesale slaughter of innocent life at its earliest stages through abortion and destructive embryonic stem-cell research is unacceptable. Neither is the practice of euthanasia or forms of assisted suicide tolerable. The Bible argues life is sacred at every stage and that government has a responsibility to vigorously protect it. The late Mother Teresa said at the 1996 National Prayer Breakfast, "If a child is not safe in his mother’s womb, nothing is safe." The attack on innocent human life at any juncture is an attack on all of life.
2. The battle to preserve the traditional monogamous family (Genesis 2:21-24; Ephesians 5:22-33). Divorce is epidemic in America with nearly half of all marriages failing. For the first time in the nation’s history more people are cohabitating than are married. Diverse forms of family such as homosexual marriage, polygamy, and group marriages are being advocated. These family scenarios are rejected by God. Moreover, they open a Pandora’s Box of ills that strike at the very heart of a stable society. They create circumstances where, unfortunately, children suffer the most. The ideal plan God ordained for the family simply begins with one man and one woman who legally marry for life.
3. The battle to preserve common decency (Proverbs 14:34). Alcohol and drug abuse is rampant, costing the nation nearly $400 billion annually, not to mention the destruction of countless American youth. Pornography is a multi-billion dollar business. Television programs and the movies are rift with obscenity, profanity and vulgarity. Yet many of the "liberal/progressive" persuasion promote the legalization of illicit drugs and advocate for lesser government regulation of the media.
Nevertheless, the best way to protect a representative republic is for the state to defend the national morality. John Adams, the second President of the United States argued: "Religion and virtue are the only foundations, not only of republicanism and of all free government, but of social felicity under all governments and in all the combinations of human society." [6]
4. The battle to preserve a limited government (Romans 13:1-7). The Scriptures teach that government’s primary responsibility is to procure justice by protecting the life, liberty and property of its citizenry. It may legitimately tax in order to carry out this particular function. But contrary to the notions of progressives, God never authorized government to tax in order to provide matters such as housing, food, child-care, health-care, etc. Just as individuals have no right to play Robin Hood and use their coercive powers to relieve poverty, neither does the government. In fact, governments are charged to do just the opposite -- to protect the private property of its citizens. Governments, as well as individuals, are required to obey the eighth commandment of God: "Thou shalt not steal." Although Christianity is concerned with the needs of the poor, it teaches "the poor you will have with you always" and poverty concerns are best addressed by acts of private charity.
Sadly, modern America has evolved into a welfare state that has made government "the opiate of the people." Americans look to the government to solve nearly all of their problems. Because government is involved in funding countless projects it was never authorized to take on, there is now an outrageous tax rate, Eminent Domain abuses, and even state promotion of vices such as gambling in order to supply the government’s insatiable desire for additional revenue. America must return to its moorings, once again embracing the biblical concept of limited government.
5. The battle to preserve the diffusion of government powers. ( Romans 3:10-18, 23; Jeremiah 17:9 ) Most of America’s founders were devout Christians who believed human nature is sinful and depraved. This conviction led them to conclude that liberty could only be protected when power was shared -- no person or group of persons should ever be trusted with total authority. Thus they established that federal power should be divided into executive, legislative and judicial branches.
Lately, these lines of power have been blurred significantly, especially by the judicial branches. Nearly every issue currently tearing away at America’s moral fabric -- no school prayer, no posting of the Ten Commandments, abortion, the repeal of sodomy laws, homosexual marriage, etc. -- have been foisted on the public, not legitimately by the executive or legislative branches, but solely by activists judges bent more on making law rather than interpreting it according to the original intent of the founding fathers in the Constitution. Essentially, this has placed the neck of the nation under the foot of a judicial dictatorship.
Only a healthy respect for the Bible’s teaching about human nature’s tendency for corruption will lead Americans to reject, as well as be leery of any concentration of power, whether it’s an imperial Presidency, Congress, Judiciary, or something else.
6. The battle to preserve a faith-based educational system (Deuteronomy 6:4-9; Ephesians 6:4). Public schools today are the "golden calf" of the left. Their influence has literally removed the name of God from the campus. The worst effect by far is not simply that school prayer, the Bible, the Ten Commandments, Creationism or Intelligent Design are not allowed in the classroom, but that students are led to believe that faith in God, reliance in the Holy Scriptures, or obedience to God’s commands has no place in the process of education.
The late great Peter Marshall, Chaplain to the U.S. Senate during the late 1940s, warned: "Let us not fool ourselves -- without Christianity, without Christian education, without the principles of Christ inculcated into young life, we are simply rearing pagans." [7]
Obviously, faith is the source of conservative values. Progressives may often assert that faith is also the premise for their values. But it should be realized as James Davidson Hunter, (professor of sociology and religious studies at the University of Virginia) in his book, Culture Wars, The Struggle To Define America, notes: Progressives embrace the view that "moral and spiritual truth can only be conditional and relative." [8] In other words, they seek to supplant the eternal verities of the historic Christian tradition by imposing a faith or dogma of their own.
In a letter to General Benjamin Lincoln, dated June 29, 1788, George Washington’s words are a challenge, as well as a word of encouragement for modern America: "Much to be regretted indeed would it be, were we to neglect the means and depart from the road which Providence has pointed us to, so plainly ... The Great Governor of the Universe has led us too long and too far ... to forsake us in the midst of it ... We may, now and then, get bewildered; but I hope and trust that there is good sense and virtue enough left to recover the right path."
Indeed! And may God hasten the day when as pictured in the great Gothic Cathedral at Chartes, France, American jurisprudence will once again reach toward the "purity of paradise itself" -- harmonizing the secular and the spiritual, acknowledging Christ as the Lord of both. Rev. Mark H. Creech (calact@aol.com) is the executive director of the Christian Action League of North Carolina, Inc.[1] Barber, John, Earth Restored: Calling the Church to a New Christian Activism (Christian Focus Publications, Ltd., 2002), pp. 43, 44[2] William J., Federer, America’s God and Country: Encyclopedia of Quotations (Amerisearch, Inc., 1999), p. 435-436 [3] Ibid at p. 466[4] Ibid at p. 678[5] David W., Hall, Election Day Sermons, (The Kuyper Institute, 1996), p. 107[6] William J., Federer, America’s God and Country: Encyclopedia of Quotations (Amerisearch, Inc., 1999), p. 12[7] Marshall, Catherine, The Best of Peter Marshall, (Guideposts, published by special arrangement with Chosen Books), pp. 73, 74[8] James Davidson, Hunter, Culture Wars, The Struggle to Define America, (Basic Books 1991), p. 123

Michael Miovic

Back Next Home Initiation: Spiritual Insights on Life, Art, and Psychology Michael Miovic. - Prema Nandakumar
Initiation: Spiritual Insights on Life, Art, and Psychology Michael Miovic. (Sri Aurobindo Society, Hyderabad. 2004. xxiii +296 pages. Price Rs.250/- )
You could count the sand particles on earth but not the human beings who have entered this planet and exited from it after a brief stay. Down the ages, those who looked beyond their sustenance and dwelling, what did they think about? What do people who have a minute to spare beyond their food, residence and clothes think of now? Sri Aurobindo gave the answer in the opening sentence of The Life Divine:
“The earliest preoccupation of man in his awakened thoughts and, as it seems, his inevitable and ultimate preoccupation - for it survives the longest periods of skepticism and returns after every banishment, — is also the highest which his thought can envisage. It manifests itself in the divination of Godhead, the impulse towards perfection, the search after pure Truth and unmixed Bliss, the sense of a secret immortality. The ancient dawn of human knowledge have left us their witness to this constant aspiration; today we see a humanity satiated but not satisfied by victorious analysis of the externalities of Nature preparing to return to its primeval longings. The earliest formula of Wisdom promises to be its last,
God, Light, Freedom, Immortality.”
Among the westerners who have peregrinated towards the east in search of Pure Truth in the last century and who were visible in the print media, mention may be made of Annie Besant, Sister Nivedita, Mirra Richard and Paul Brunton. Some of them like Sister Nivedita and Mirra Richard have not only scaled the heights of spirituality but have also been acclaimed as gurus. Subramania Bharati, the great poet of Tamil Nadu considered the former as his acharya who showed him the pathway to patriotism and social work. He dedicated his first two publications of patriotic songs to her and has indited a powerful poem about this Irish lady who became a disciple of Swami Vivekananda and dedicated herself for the cause of women’s education and political liberation in India:
“Nivedita, Mother,Thou, Temple consecrated to Love,Thou, Sun dispelling my soul’s darkness. Thou, Rain to the parched land of our lives, Thou, helper of the helpless and lost. Thou, offering to Grace,Thou, divine spark of Truth.My salutations to Thee!”(Tr. Prema Nandakumar)
Buddhism exploded in the western consciousness with The Light of Asia; theosophy created waves with the theory of Mahatmas; the Avatara statement in the Bhagavata has been the source of devotional ecstasy and Vedic ritualism in the west with the coming of Swami Bhaktivedanta Prabhupada who founded the International Society of Krishna Consciousness. Explorations by the westerners satiated with materialism continues and so it did not surprise one to read the pointed review of Michael Miovic’s Initiation in Triveni in an earlier issue. What surprised me when reading the book was the readiness of the author to experiment, to accept, to deny, to draw closer or move away from the varied Paths in India. He has imbibed well the ancient Indian dictum about there being various ways of attaining one’s spiritual goal.
Dr. Miovic being a psychologist is a great help in this adventure in the realms of the spirit. For, it is one’s psyche that turns one towards light, as the sunflower towards the sun. Our author’s psyche has obviously been carefully nurtured from the dangers of pomposity and self-righteousness. Where there is eagerness to learn, sincerity to practice and firmness to go on forward to reach the aim, success is ‘an assured gift of grace. But not before the aspirant is put through the wringer. Both Prof. LV. Chalapati Rao and Prof. M.V. Nadkarni use Sanskrit terms to describe the anabasis of Dr. Miovic. The former speaks of anubhufi and darsana. The latter of shraddha. Initiation is all this and much more, a busy mixing of various emotions of which humour is one. For as Sri Aurobindo said pithily: “Without a sense of humour the world would have gone to blazes long ago!”
What makes Initiation so special is the perfectly circular movement of the aspirant whose journey inwards began when he was still in his teens. He read Sri Aurobindo and the Adventure of Consciousness by Satprem and at one kick-start the staunch atheist had become a pilgrim in search of God. However, the transformation was not so simplistic. What had attracted him first was Sri Aurobindo’s mastery of western poetry and so he decided “to give this most literate of all Indian mystics a chance.” A description that would have annoyed Sri Aurobindo himself. But the Mahayogi would have realized that what Dr. Miovic meant was that he was “the most literate in the English language of all Indian mystics”, and would have enjoyed the joke with his amanuensis.
For Miovic, the spiritual adventure with the Aurobindonian stream had to wait. Still in his teens, Miovic anxiously looked around for a living guru of Indian sadhana. This was how he came to the Kriya Yoga center at Santa Cruz which was headed by the absentee-guru, Yogi S.A.A Ramiah. Based on the tradition of the eighteen spiritual siddhas, the Kriya Yoga is primarily one of breath-control. Miovic dressed and chanted like a Tamilian. Obviously, he followed the systematized programme of the center that included the Ayyappa Sadhana though, according to Miovic, one needs guts to follow the rituals which includes worshipping a coconut bound in cloth: “After thus carrying out the cult of the crucified coconut in this continuous cacophony to clamoring completion, I turned over my much-worshipped nut, which was beginning to rot and stink, to the president of the local ashram.” The coconuts were offered by Yogi Ramiah into a yajna fire. Before long, Miovic found that Kriya Yoga was not his plate of pizza. Nor was the Sai Saba movement his mug of cappuccino. After taking a few of such ballet steps, Miovic wisely completed medical school and entered the widening sphere of Integral Psychology. Since then there has been no distortion of the spiritual mirror for him. He does not deny any of the mysticism he had encountered in the earlier experiments. How do you generalize a land where a Tantric yogi (Oharmananda Swami in this instance) predicts the marriage of an Indian girl to a westerner years and years earlier? Miovic has married the Telugu girl Madhavi and Varun has completed his domestic bliss and given him an assured base to deal with the analyses required for integral psychology.
Sufficiently divorced from all that is frivolous, Initiation gives us an idea to get back to our own first impressions of peoples and places. Pondicherry, for instance. What do we expect to find in an Ashram in India? Footpaths through wooded land, silently murmuring streams, palm-frond cottages, bearded sages with kamandalus in hand, chanting, the homa fire ... We do have an excellent first view of Ppndicherry in 1939 from a Punjabi of the N0l1h West Frontier, Surendranath Jauhaf. In his essay,
‘My Supreme Discovery’ he .speaks of his first impressions: “We saw no such distinctive feature in the design and architecture of the building which could even faintly suggest that it was an Ashram. When we got into the building, we saw a number of people, all in simple and neat dresses, and some even in pants, coats and neck-ties but no saints or sannyasis, no monks or mahants, no shaven heads or jafadharis, no bare-bodied bhaktas or saffron-robed sadhus, no tilak dharis or kan-phatas. Neither did we spot any temple, moortis or granfhs (scriptures).”
Jauhar proceeds further till he sits in the meditation hall and watches the Mother coming down the stairs. In those moments an extraordinary change comes over him, this Divine Mother being his Supreme Discovery, “the miracle of Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, where I lost my heart and won the soul and the real life.” A like change comes over Miovic as he sits in meditation near the Samadhi: “The vibration in the area was overwhelmingly powerful, almost unbearable; it felt as heavy as lead, a buzz in my very bones that blotted out my mind, emotions, bodily sensations, everything. Only that crushing vibration existed.” For the rest it remains a chatty day for him as he goes round the Ashram and Auroville with the Gujarati couple, Kartick and Deval. At the same time the friendship with the Ashramite Ashesh reveals to him the right approach to the Mother and his own spiritual progression, for Ashesh rejected Satprem’s works on the Mother as too mental and western.
“It was a simple observation, yet profound. Ashesh was right. I had mentalized Mother, jumped to the idea of some grand bodily transformation without developing the rudimentary sense of devotion to the Divine upon which the entire superstructure of Sri Aurobindo’s supramental yoga is based. In that instant I felt liberated from my past, as if a great burden of spiritual failure had been lifted from my shoulders.”
However, if Pondicherry is here for Miovic, can Ramanashram be far behind? He goes to Tiruvannamalai, “the Indian India, the real thing.” It is of course sparkling fun to watch him eat his first meal off a plantain frond and equally sobering to learn of the supra-physical pull Mount Arunachala exercises on Miovic. He circumambulates the hill, salutes the cow Lakshmi”s samadhi and helps Valli. The next expected stop is Puttaparthi. Unspecified miracles are in the air but they leave Miovic unimpressed. Was there more experimental running around? Whatever that, with the Matrimandir experience of 1997, the wheel of Belier had come full circle for him:
“Since that initiation to Auroville, the supramental force has never returned to me so physically, however, there have been little reminders along the way of the great, Solar living into which we must all eventually emerge ... Progress is often painfully slow, but now I have no doubt that the Supermind is real and that everything Sri Aurobindo has said about the evolution of consciousness is in fact, true.”
The rest of Initiation is a clustering and chirrupy flight as of sparrows, essays and poems that give us a glimpse or the Delight of Existence. Setting foot in the Howing waters of the Ganges at Dhakshineshvvar dissolves all tension, and everything becomes an “undulating vastness and peace, perfect clarity”~ of Cezanne who suffered from psychological complexes reaching an exalting mood akin to “theme in his last Ste. Victoire; overmind’s global sweep of a\Vareness”~ of Jefferson’s Monticello which is shaded by “a glow from some realm of the Ideal”, in keeping with his visionary character that was “touched by the promise of a New Creation”~ of Sunil “whose unschooled but highly intuitive use of the electronic synthesiszer to set Savitri to music explores new vistas of consciousness.” Miovic can find good in Hollywood too, and why not? When he finds Pleasantville to be “a symbol of the manifestation of the psychic being on a collective scale”, his arguments are perfectly ratiocinative.
When such a fine gazer of the skies above and the earth below enters the grove of creative writing, he remains as interesting and star-spangled as ever. A bit of archaeological exploration in the Mayan Palenque that ought to set our nerves a-tingle~ reciting passages from Ilion in Apollo’s temple at Basses during an imaginary travel to Greece would certainly make us reach out for this unfinished epic in hexameters by Sri Aurobindo; giggles a-plenty through the adventure of a boy acting as a Kelly girl~ and all of such stories garnished with a bit of Japan in conclusion. There are also poems of Aurobindonian inspiration. A charming sonnet to Madhavi. Ever since the ancient Tamil poet wondered about the different paths he and his wife had taken only to meet and merge now as the rains from above and the red earth below, the miracle has been recurring all the time.
Somewhere in the middle of Initiation is the solid chunk of essays on integral psychology which bring us to a better understanding of therapies and miracles, of memories cutting across birth and death and of faith as a power by itself. Allopathy stands revealed now as a cure that only creates new complications. The time is come for exploring alternative medicines in a big way and practitioners like Michael Miovic surely hold the key to the secret cave where the East and the West meet as a creative helix. Not mere anllbhllli, darsalla and shraddha then: Initiation is adhula and ananda as well.

Direct experience, sound reasoning, and intuition

From self to Self Tuesday, September 19, 2006 Vivekananda, Aurobindo and Ramakrishna

These personalities play a very important role in my life. They profusely inspire me to discover my inner being, my spirit, my peace, my divine nature. I'm just fascinated even at the suggestion that in reality I'm not the body and the mind, that all this while I have been erroneously identifying myself exclusively with them, and that they are mere instruments of my true being. I'm very much open to these ideas. I believe that there may be something really useful coming out of spiritual practice. I'll postpone my judgment until I do the spiritual experiments, and directly experience for myself!

I feel fortunate to have come into touch with Vivekananda, Aurobindo and Ramakrishna in the last 7 years or so. I'm trying to follow the spiritual path as exemplified and inspired by their lives, teachings, writings. I'm in general interested in ancient Indian philosophy, the Vedanta in particular. Many a times we hear of Vivekananda as a Vibhuti, Aurobindo as a Maharshi and Ramakrishna as an Avatara! Different people revere them differently, as per their faith. I sometimes ask myself what do I think about them? Frankly, I feel at this stage I'm not competent even to think about measuring their Divinity? Avatara is usually understood to be the highest manifestation of the Divine that is possible within a human body. Was Sri Ramakrishna an Avatara then? I don't know. Realisation, as I understand, has many levels of attainment ranging from a non-Avatara (Asura may be!) to an Avatara. My conviction for now is that the above trio were at definitely much, much higher levels of realisation when compared to average human beings. Would I disseminate their spiritual contributions?

First of all, I will never claim or help spread anything with exclusivity. I'll only talk to others about them only to the extent I'm convinced through direct experience, sound reasoning, and intuition in that order. I believe that the methods which work right for me may not be well-suited for another person. I also believe there are many ways to approach the same Truth. My idea of Truth is that by which one knows everything, fears nothing, becomes free of all limitations. I theoretically have problems with anybody fanatically professing just one path, who endorses and/or accepts blind faith, and who follows intolerance and discrimination of any kind. posted by Jiva at 1:16 AM

Four Events in the Life of Vivekananda that Shaped his Thought

Vivekananda, i.e., Narendranath Datta, was born in 1863 in Calcutta. He was a member of the kayastha, a scribe caste that viewed itself as a sub-caste of the kshatriyas. In 1879 he entered Presidency College in Calcutta, and later he studied at Scottish Church College. In 1884, he received a B.A. degree.
During his time at college, Narendra became acquainted with European philosophy. He studied the positivism of John Stuart Mill and Auguste Comte, the scepticism of David Hume, and the agnostic thought of Herbert Spencer. The works of these European philosophers had been exerting their influence in Bengal for some time. Comte was particularly well known in Bengal. Enthusiasts in Europe had sent positivist "missionaries" to Bengal at one time to spread the word, and Comte came to have a dedicated following there. Thomas Paine's Age of Reason (1794) had, over a period of time, been translated into Bengali. Hume was taught at the Hindu College in Calcutta. And the empiricism and Utilitarianism of J.S. Mill were well known among Bengali intellectuals. Rammohan Roy himself had corresponded with Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart's mentor.
Throughout most of his youth, Narendra maintained a belief in God, a belief that was in part shaped by the teachings of the Brahma Samaj. But as a result of his study of European positivism, in particular Mill's Three Essays on Religion, his faith in theism collapsed. This shattering of his faith was a significant event in the life of young Narendra, and it eventually helped orient him away from theism and motivate him to move toward the Vedanta and Yoga. We find evidence in his later writings of the perceived effects of the Enlightenment critique of religion:
Modern science and its sledge hammer blows are pulverising the porcelain foundations of all dualistic religions everywhere. "The Vedanta," Selections, p. 229
Under the terrific onset of modern scientific research, all the old forts of Western dogmatic religions are crumbling into dust; ... the sledge-hammer blows of modern science are pulverising the porcelain mass of systems whose foundation is either in faith or in belief... "In Defence of Hinduism," Selections, p. 419.
Some time after these events, one of Narendra's friends, Bajendranath Seal, introduced him to the metaphysical monism of Advaita Vedanta and to the Hegelian concept of reason ("the real is the rational, and the rational is the real"). With Bajendra's help, Narendra was able to construct a philosophical perspective that allowed him to ameliorate the effect that positivism and scepticism had exerted upon him. This perspective combined Vedanta with elements of rationalism. This amalgam remained with Narendra throughout his life, and he eventually came to understand Advaita Vedanta as particularly capable of resisting the Enlightenment critique of religion. On the Vedanta, he later writes:
We have seen how here alone we can take a firm stand against all the onrush of logic and scientific knowledge. Here at last reason has a firm foundation.... Therefore, preach the Advaita to everyone so that religion may withstand the shock of modern science. "The Vedanta," Selections, pp. 220; 230.
The influence of empiricism can also be discerned in his later writings; we will return to the question of how he adapted classical empiricism to the Indian tradition by fusing it with yogic mysticism. For now, we can note that he did not agree with the classical empirical view that experience is primarily sensory experience. Concerning empiricism, he asks rhetorically, "Who dares say that the senses are the all-in-all of man?" "The Sages of India," Selections, p. 235
In the years immediately following the death of his spiritual master in 1886, Narendra lived in a small monastery in Baranagore with others disciples. But he grew restless, and so he began wandering the country as samnyasin. During this period, we find Narendra continuing to seek out knowledge and spiritual experience -- meeting with various religious leaders and teachers, receiving instruction in Sanskrit from pandits, and living life as a traditional ascetic.
Narendra's letters from this time display a concern that his growing interest in the welfare of others might be hampering his own quest for spiritual enlightenment and liberation. But sometime during 1893, a change in his attitude begins to take place. A letter written in 1894 reveals that his interest had grown to the point where he had become alarmed by the despair and impoverishment of the people of India. This experience of Indian humiliation was another determinative event in his life, and it proved to be something of a turning point for him.
Other Hindu modernists and Neo-Hindu thinkers had experienced this sense of humiliation as well, and there was a general feeling among them that India, and Hinduism in particular, had grown too accustomed to its spiritual resignation and political inertia. S. Radhakrishnan describes the state of dejection he experienced as a student at Madras Christian College:
I was strongly persuaded of the inferiority of the Hindu religion to which I attributed a political downfall of India.... I remember the cold sense of reality, the depressing feeling that crept over me, as a causal relation between the anaemic Hindu religion and our political failure forced itself on my mind. ("The Spirit of Man")
No doubt, this feeling of inferiority was directly related to India's years of political subjugation. But it was also related to the Indian encounter with European civilization and culture. To an extent, this involved its confrontation with European science, technology, and rationality. But it also involved the social and ethical challenge presented to Hinduism by the Christian missionaries and others. Vivekananda refers to this challenge at various points in his writings; he writes:
Look at the books published in Madras against the Hindu religion. If a Hindu writes such a line against the Christian religion, the missionaries will cry fire and vengeance. "In Defence of Hinduism," Selections, p. 416
This critique of Hinduism took particular aim at Advaita Vedanta. In their attack on the Vedanta, the Christian apologists enlisted the aid of the principle of utility. An article from the Calcutta Review of 1852 reads, "Let Utility then answer if she prefers Vedantism to Christianity." When referring to the superiority of Christianity, the Christian apologists often pointed to the social and ethical consequences of adopting Vedanta. The implication was that the Vedanta lacked the ability to address properly ethical and social concerns.
This idea, that Advaita Vedanta suffers from a kind of "ethical apathy," is traced by its critics to the doctrine of the witness (sakshin), that is, to the teaching that the soul is, in its essence, merely a passive spectator and never truly an active agent (kartr). This is the familiar charge of "quietism," the accusation that contemplative traditions are negligent of the needs of society and theoretically inadequate to the task of social activism. Again, we find evidence that Vivekananda was aware of this critique:
"Oh" they say, "you Hindus have become quiescent and good for nothing, through this doctrine that you are witnesses!" "The Vedanta," Selections, p. 217
The critics of Vedanta also related this doctrine to another problem: Under the auspices of eternalism, any action becomes possible since any action can be rationalized. Bhagavad Gita 2.19 reads, "Neither he who sees the Self as a killer, nor he who sees the Self as killed, sees things correctly. For the Self is not a killer and nor is it killed." Surely, they argued, this sort of teaching is anathema to ethically justifiable conduct. Many centuries earlier, the Jains and Buddhists had raised a similar objection. They pointed out that any doctrine that teaches that the real can only be the permanent (nitya) and unchanging (avicalita; kutastha) reality will teach the akriya-vada, the teaching that nothing can be done, since all action is impossible.
Another way that monism was viewed as ethically challenged was related by its critics to its inability to provide an adequate frame of reference for morality. Again, it is worth noting that the Indian tradition itself had noticed this problem well before the appearance of Christian missionaries in India. The classical critics of Vedanta posed the problem thus: If we are all one Self, then moral retribution in the case of individuals is senseless; and if we are all essentially one with God, then our sins will attach to God. The modernist critique of Advaita continues this line of thought, if in a less sophisticated manner: If duality is illusory, then good and evil do not exist; and if we are all God, then we can do no wrong. In his later writings, Vivekananda also shows an awareness of this type of critique; he writes:
Our boys blithely talk nowadays, they learn from somebody -- the Lord knows whom -- that Advaita makes people immoral, because if we are all one and all God, what need of morality will there be at all! "The Vedanta," Selections, p. 222
With regard to the question of Hinduism, and religion in general, some Indian reformers of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries had come to the conclusion that Hinduism itself was to blame for India's political and social stagnation. But there is little indication in his writings that Vivekananda ever seriously entertained this idea. Since his discovery of Vedanta, and his encounter with Ramakrishna, he appears convinced that Hinduism, and Advaita Vedanta in particular, is not the problem, but the solution. For Vivekananda, "spirituality" is India's strength. This meant that, "religion was not to blame; men were to blame."
Determined that he should seek to find a way to improve the lot of the people of India, Narendranath, who at this time begins calling himself Vivekananda, decided to leave India in search of the resources needed to improve the well-being of India's masses. And so, in 1893, he set sail for America. He remained there until 1896, taking occasional excursions to England and Continental Europe. While in the West, he experienced American and European civilization and culture. This exposure to Western lifestyles, and culture in general, was another formative factor in the thought of Vivekananda.
Throughout Vivekananda's writings we find stereotyped descriptions of the "West." Most typically, the West is "materialistic" and dominated, as he puts it, by the ideals of "eating and drinking." But he acknowledges that Europe and America have mastered the "outer world," and he contrasts this with the Indian mastery of the "inner world." Like Keshab Chandra Sen, Vivekananda speaks of the value of an exchange of learning between the two "complementary" cultures:
I would say, the combination of the Greek mind represented by the external European energy added to the Hindu spirituality would be the ideal society for India.... India has to learn from Europe the conquest of external nature, and Europe has to learn from India the conquest of the internal nature.... We have developed one phase of humanity, and they another. It is the union of the two that is wanted. Interview from "The Hindu," (Madras) 1897, Selections, pp. 290-291
At the same time, however, Vivekananda is not as conciliatory toward the West as Rammohan Roy or Keshab Chandra Sen. He insists that India should resist Western social norms and cultural attitudes, and make no concessions to Christianity. It must discover its own hidden potential and recover its forgotten greatness; if anything, it must follow the lead of Japan, which found and maintained its own identity even while learning from the West:
There in Japan you find a fine assimilation of knowledge, and not its indigestion, as we have here. They have taken everything from the Europeans, but they remain Japanese all the same, and they have not turned into Europeans; while in our country, the terrible mania of becoming Westernized has seized upon us like a plague. "Conversations," Selections, p. 386
Nonetheless, there are a number of features of American and European civilization that Vivekananda comes to admire. He admires its technical expertise and science; he admires its industry, vigour and work ethic; he admires its social order, in particular the organization of its educational systems; he admires its ideals of equality and liberty; he admires its traditions of philanthropy, altruism, and cooperative action; and perhaps above all, he admires the self-confidence of the West, to which he attributes its strong sense of national identity.
Upon returning from his travels abroad, Vivekananda founded the Ramakrishna Mission, the principle aims of which were to be practical philanthropy and education. In his speeches, Vivekananda himself says that his establishing of the Ramakrishna Mission was directly influenced by his life in America. His opening statement at the inaugural meeting of what will become the Ramakrishna Mission begins thus:
The conviction has grown in my mind after my travels in various lands that no great cause can succeed without an organization. "Conversations," Selections, p. 343.
But the most significant event in the life of Vivekananda was undoubtedly his encounter with Ramakrishna. Ramakrishna (i.e., Gadadhara Chattopadhyaya, 1836-1886) was a temple priest at Daskshineshwar, Bengal, and devotee of the goddess Kali. An ecstatic and mystic, he viewed Hinduism as an organic whole comprised of several different, yet equal, paths to the divine. For Ramakrishna, this equality was a demonstrable truth, and for periods of time, he was alternately a devotee of Rama and Krishna, receiving religious visions of both while practising as their devotee. At the same time, Ramakrishna was also a universalist whose inclusivism went beyond the various forms of cultic Hinduism. He believed that Islam and Christianity were equally paths to God, to the "one water that we all drink," and he thought he could demonstrate, experientially, that this was the case.
We find present in the person and teaching of Ramakrishna the familiar themes of "experience" and "inclusivism." But Ramakrishna was no Hindu modernist, and nor was his teaching, strictly speaking, a form of Neo-Hinduism. He distanced himself from modernist Hindu movements; his negative view of the Brahma Samaj was closer to that of the traditional pandits. Like some of his contemporaries, Ramakrishna referred to the Hindu tradition as the "sanatana dharma," "the eternal religion," and for him this meant that Hinduism was in no need of "reform." Nonetheless, Ramakrishna's universalism, and his conception of Hinduism as a unity, was also a response to the situation of modernity and to the Indian encounter with the West. His teaching can thus be seen as a form of a Hindu self-assertion in that it implies that Hinduism is capable of absorbing the foreign while retaining its self-identity.
Narendra first met with Ramakrishna in 1881, while he was a student at college. At first, Narendra was reticent toward Ramakrishna. He was sceptical of Ramakrishna's "visions" and suspicious of the idolatry practiced around him; nor did he did not share Ramakrishna's emotional and ebullient religiosity. But after several years of association with him, he acquired a fondness for Ramakrishna, and became one of his disciples. He was soon Ramakrishna's favourite, and he would become the best known apostle of Ramakrishna's gospel of universalism. In time, Vivekananda came to share some of his master's fervour for the religious life, though he continued to distance himself from religious sentimentality and emotionalism.
While Narendra did not seek to relive the various devotional experiences of his master, Ramakrishna did immerse him in mystical spirituality, and under his tutelage, Narendra underwent a series of mystical experiences. For Narendra, such experience was the final proof of religion, the refutation of scepticism, and the answer to positivism.
As a mature devotee, Vivekananda came to regard Ramakrishna as an incarnation of God. He viewed him as a kind of "living commentary" on Hinduism, as the embodiment of its vitality and truth, and the fulfilment of its potential. While there is no reason to doubt that Vivekananda's devotion to his master was real, he also made use of the traditional cult of the guru to forward his own agenda and to propagate his own teachings. After the death of his teacher in 1886, Vivekananda believed that the spirit of Ramakrishna was working through him. But while Ramakrishna may have been a source of inspiration and grounding for Vivekananda, he was not the primary source of Vivekananda's ideas. Ramakrishna was not a Neo-Vedantin; nor did he share Vivekananda's later interests in "practical Vedanta," philanthropy and education. Nonetheless, when confronted by these differences, Vivekananda presented himself as the "instrument" of his master. posted by kelamuni at 11:35 AM

Where we come from and where we are

Teaching Hinduism in America can be a challenge The Associated Press SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2006-->Published: September 9, 2006

"To be Hindu in America is much more an intentional choice than it is in India," said Diana Eck, professor of comparative religion and Indian studies and director of The Pluralism Project at Harvard University. "Even if you're first generation, you have to decide if you perpetuate it or if you just kind of let it go." ...

When Indian immigrants started coming to the United States in larger numbers, after the 1965 revamping of immigration laws, they carried their religious traditions on as best they could, meeting for prayers and worship at one another's homes, or renting public spaces, said Anantanand Rambachan, professor of religion at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota.

The first temples started being built in the late 1970s — the Ganesh Temple among them — and construction continues to this day, as Hindu communities around the country continue to grow. But while those temples are designed like temples in India, the founders realized over the years they would have to operate differently than they do in India, Rambachan said.

That's because religious culture is different in the United States. The various Christian denominations separate themselves from each other and define themselves by the doctrines they follow, he noted, but Hinduism in India doesn't operate the same way. There, a single religion covers a wide spectrum of gods and beliefs. In America, Hindus "are increasingly being challenged to articulate the Hindu tradition in a manner that places more emphasis on doctrine," Rambachan said. "People will ask, 'What do you believe?'"

Faced with that, temples and cultural organizations that had been working to make outsiders understand more about the faith realized they needed to help young Indian-Americans know what they believed, if the religion was going to be passed on. "If we don't do our part, we will lose these youngsters," Mysorekar said. "There was a lot of foundation we had to lay even to exist as Hindus among non-Hindus," she said. "Now it is for us to do the job within our own community."

They looked for inspiration at the institutions here, like the formal religious education of Sunday school classes, Rambachan said. That wasn't the only inspiration, though. Around the country, some organizations have decided to use the method of that most American of summer pastimes — camp. Shivraj spent a couple of weeks this summer helping her mother, a classical Indian singer, run a weeklong camp on Indian heritage, which included sessions on religion. And in Rochester, New York, more than 150 children between the ages of 8 and 15 took part in the Hindu Heritage Summer Camp, where lessons in philosophy and religious practice were followed by swimming sessions and arts and crafts.

With a heavy emphasis on having college-age Indian-Americans leading the camp and teaching the younger attendees, camp organizers hope to pass on a solid understanding of Hindu philosophy and culture while still giving the children a fun summer experience. "If we don't know where we come from and where we are," said Dr. Padmanabh Kamath, president of the camp, "we are lost."

Intuition: The Faculty of the Future

Way to learning: Bookish And Mechanical System Must End Mohit Chakrabarty The Statesman

Education today is under stress and strain. Learners are burdened, teachers bewildered, parents and guardians perturbed. Apart from the fact that Sri Aurobindo has spoken of integral education for the future, his primary concern was education to kindle consciousness which would bring a vibration in the mind. Sri Aurobindo observes: “The intellectual understanding is only the lower buddhi; there is another and a higher buddhi which is not intelligence but vision, is not understanding but overstanding in knowledge, and does not seek knowledge and attain it in subjection to the data it observes but possesses already the truth and brings it out in the terms of a revelatory and intuitional thought.

Intuitive mind“The nearest the human mind usually gets to this truth-conscious knowledge is that imperfect action of illumined finding which occurs when there is a great stress of thought and the intellect electrified by constant discharges from behind the veil and yielding to a higher enthusiasm admits a considerable instreaming from the intuitive and inspired faculty of knowledge. For there is an intuitive mind in man which serves as a recipient and channel for these instreamings from a supramental faculty.” (The Writings of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother).

This “instreaming” in education refers to the fact that our true teacher is neither knowledge nor understanding but careful, judicious, foolproof, scientific, objective and dynamic application of intuition which, according to Sri Aurobindo, is “our first teacher”. He asserts: “Intuition always stands veiled behind our mental operations. “Intuition brings to man those brilliant messages from the Unknown which are the beginning of his higher knowledge. Reason only comes in afterwards to see what profit it can have of the shining harvest. Intuition gives us that idea of something behind and beyond all that we know and seem to be which pursues man always in contradiction of his lower reason and all his normal experience and impels him to formulate that formless perception in the more positive ideas of God. Immortality, Heaven and the rest by which we strive to express it to the mind”. (Intuition: The Faculty of the Future).

Apart from the fact that the future of education depends on a total overhauling of the stereotyped system of bookish and mechanical learning and teaching, the three things that, according to Sri Aurobindo, are necessary are elimination of the so-called schools in the name of educational institutions, the replacement of teachers with those from the immediate community who would voluntarily and spontaneously contribute to creativity, aesthetic advancement and critical thinking, and finally, the replacement of education itself making room for an evolving, thrilling and a new way of life. Nevertheless, what is of absolute importance in creating a new future of education is revelation.

• What sort of revelation does Sri Aurobindo consider significant and apposite?
• Should a teacher or a learner be satisfied with inspiration alone?

The world of education or, more prominently and meaningfully, the world of the way of life now and for centuries to come, looks forward to nurturing of direct knowledge and vision with freshness and spontaneity leading to intuitive inspiration and crystallised action. Not suggestive intuition but quick and judicious discrimination between right and wrong, the genuine and the artificial, the core and the superfluous. In the words of Sri Aurobindo, ”The action of the intuitive mind must complete the action of the rational intelligence and it may wholly replace it and do more powerfully the peculiar and proper work of the intellect itself; it may explain more intimately to us the secret of the form, the strands of the process, the inner cause, essence, mechanism of the defects and limitations of the work as well as of its qualities.

“For the intuitive intelligence when it has been sufficiently trained and developed, can take up always the work of the intellect and do it with a power and light and insight greater and surer than the power and light of the intellectual judgment in its widest scope. There is an intuitive discrimination which is more keen and precise in its sight than the reasoning intelligence”. The crisis of education lies in our inability to identify the loopholes that stand in the way of a new future. The education of apathy and ignorance must be replaced by the education of harmony and sympathy. True to his vision of the new education of the future, Sri Aurobindo wanted us to create a new global village of humanity where education stands for an all-embracing effort to build an integrated personality.

In creating a new future of education, exploring, experimenting and disseminating the education of the heart is not only essential but also obligatory. The ideal of human unity, as Sri Aurobindo advocates, is entirely based on how to revitalise education that promises ascent and excellence of man. A new approach to creating a new future in and through education will always welcome a regeneration of consciousness of the beyond that has its starting point with excellence leading to further excellence that beckons beyond humanity. Learner’s attitudeThe emergence of a new future in education ought to be rooted in the attitude towards the learner. This is particularly relevant to the child who looks forward to catholicity of attitude, love and understanding, appreciation and feeling.

As regards the principles of true teaching, Sri Aurobindo’s invaluable observation might serve as a permanent guideline to the future teacher: “The first principle of true teaching is that nothing can be taught. The teacher is not a task-master, he is a helper and a guide. His business is to suggest and not to impose. He does not actually train the pupil’s mind, he only shows him how to perfect his instruments of knowledge and helps and encourages him in the process. He does not impart knowledge to him, he shows him how to acquire knowledge that is within; he only shows him where it lies and how it can be habituated to rise to the surface. The distinction that reserves this principle for the teaching of the adolescent and adult minds and denies its application to the child is a conservative and unintelligent doctrine. “Child or man, boy or girl, there is only one sound principle of good teaching. Difference of age only serves to diminish or increase the amount of help and guidance necessary; it does not change its nature”. (A System of National Education).

Why I sometimes feel ashamed to be a Muslim

An evil means to an evil end Firoz Bakht Ahmed Indian Express: Wednesday, August 16, 2006

As a Muslim, my head goes down in shame each time I find a Muslim name attached with the inhuman and insane acts of terrorism. I feel let down by those marauders who follow the same religion as I do and bow before the same God. It agonises me when I hear that Muslim tenants are refused accommodation in cities.

Muslim voices of sanity aren’t loud enough. Even the London Muslims, while condemning the July 7 killings, added a ‘but’ about the ‘root cause’ of it. We must agree to the principle that killings of innocents cannot be justified irrespective of race, religion, place or ethnicity. Many Muslims are guilty of not speaking out against what happened in Darfur; many are guilty of being sympathetic towards a despot like Saddam Hussein. Many don’t speak out against unjust acts of Muslims against non-Muslims.

Extremists’ attacks anywhere are acts of depravity and wickedness. They are not the weapon of the weak against the strong but the rage of the angry against the defenceless and innocent. An evil means to an evil end. Jihad is the most misunderstood concept by our non-Muslim brethren and even by Muslims. The true meaning of jihad in Islam is not to be against other communities, groups or religions but against the vices and shortcomings within Muslim society. First an individual fights jihad against himself. After that he continues the efforts with his wife, family, locality and the community. This is Jihad-e-Akbar, the real meaning of jihad.

Muslims must come out openly against outfits like Lashkar-e-Toiba, Al-Qaeda, Harkat-ul-Ansar, Jaish-e-Mohammed, Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, Sipah-e-Sahaba and others, all committed to desecrating peaceful co-existence and harmony in the world. In line with the jihadis, however, is the mentality of the US. It didn’t attack Israel for occupying Palestinian land; it did attack Iraq for aggression against Kuwait. This is how they interpret their war against terror — according to their whim and fancy.

Indian Hindus and Muslims are to be congratulated on acting with restraint after Mumbai’s tragedy. Saner elements in both communities should take steps to thwart attempts by communalists to play up such incidents. editor@expressindia.com

Inspiration, heightened sensitivity

Postmodern spirituality A dialogue in five parts Part IV: The positive Core Concept atthe Center of late Postmodern Philosophy: Inspiration Roland Benedikter integralworld.net THE CORE PROCEEDING AND THE ULTIMATE GOAL OF LATE POSTMODERN PHILOSOPHY: INSPIRATION

Let's put it this way: Postmodernist thinkers tried to make one step beyond modernity - to go one step further than classical modernity (which's reign ended, in a certain sense, with 1968, when the fundaments of emancipative postmodernity where laid). They tried to develop a more evolved way of being modern. They tried, as I said, to transform the first enlightenment into a second enlightenment: From a diachronic into a synchronistic, “doubled” consciousness of thinking - in the very moment it happens...

As a postmodernist, you are, in every second, very critical towards your own thoughts, towards the contents of thinking you are producing. You are, in every moment, very sensitive about what is going on in your mind. You are sensitive about what is said by yourself; about what is said about yourself by the language you are using; about what you actually say; and about the hidden difference to what you really wanted to say with those words you were pronouncing. Jean Francois Lyotard called this “synchronistic” sensitivity a kind of “heightened sensitivity or attention” or a “strengthened aesthetic suspense of mind” - saying that it would be more a feeling or a basic human attitude in the “reign of the will” than a thought in the traditional sense. He said this sensitivity derived from “deconstructive” freedom (cf. Jean Francois Lyotard: Philosophy And Painting In Their Epoch Of Experiment, 1981. In: Andrew Benjamin, ed.: The Lyotard Reader, Blackwell 1989).

And he said that this heightened sensitivity occurs in the very moment it is perceived by the subject. It is, by its basic characteristic, a self-conscious sensitivity of thinking, which he linked to the growing “erotization of the will” we talked of earlier. And indeed: That permanently self-conscious sensitivity towards the activities of your own mind is what postmodernity is about...

Now, the important thing is that postmodern philosophy made of this feeling (or altered, synchronic sensitivity) a whole cultural paradigm, a whole socio-political program and the core goal of the enlightend emancipation of the subject in general. It is very important to take that aspect in consideration, in order to avoid falling into the prejudice that postmodern thinking is about critizising reason. Yes, it is, to a certain extend. But the main focus is on the “doubling” or “making synchronistic” of the self-aware mind...

I think you can call such a synchronically heightened attention, which feels like a “permanent origin out of itself” (Jean Gebser) - an inspiration. Inspiration: That is the true name for that state of mind. Inspiration, from my point of view, is the congenial state of mind of postmodernity...

Because of these core characteristics, the state of mind of inspiration, according to Steiner, seems to have some “parental” relationships with two central cognitive proceedings of the postmodern subject (even if those proceedings, as I said, remain, so far, in most cases pre- or subconscious, and are not fully reflected, but only instinctively done by postmodern philosophy and its core method of deconstruction):

- Inspiration coincides with the proceeding of “the self-awareness of the idea in the very moment it is being born”, which is the core presumption for a “free subject”. Because “the (postmodern) subject must simultaneously contrapose itself to the idea which is raising in its mind and thus observe it in the very moment it occurs; if not, the subject falls under the reign of the idea and becomes unfree” (cf. the “bible of postmodern anarchism”: Rudolf Steiner: The Philosophy Of Freedom. Principles Of A Modern World View, 1894. In: Collected Works No. 4, Dornach 1997).

- Inspiration coincides with observing the permanent emergence of the “living sphere” of the “individual moral intuition” as core experience of a “higher self” or “witness” parallel to my ego - with “this inner voice that the subject has to identify with free conscience”. (Cf. Steiner, ibid.; cf. Erich Fromm: Beyond Illusions. The importance of Marx and Freud, Munich 1989; cf. Andrew Cohen and Ken Wilber in Dialogue: Moral Judgment in a Postmodern World. In: What Is Enlightenment, Issue 24: Morality Bites! Searching for Ethics in a Postmodern Age, February-April 2004).

So summing up, you could say that, if we try to put the whole core proceeding and methodology, but also the problem and goal of postmodern englightenment into one single concept, into one signal word, than we should choose “Inspiration”. Postmodernity is about the state of mind of “Inspiration”, because “Inspiration” is congenial to “deconstruction”. Inspiration is the result of deconstruction – a pure flux and flow of a mind which became conscious of its own pre-conceptual life-stream and concept-building “happening”. That exactly is, what postmodern philosophy, at least in its late period, was (and is) about, with its whole heart and soul - but still without knowing fully what it is doing and what it is searching for.

Inspiration is a “different” (or différend, as Jean Francois Lyotard said) kind of aesthetic, a different kind of feeling, a different kind of approach to reality – and, first of all, it is a different approach towards your normal ego, towards yourself. That approach is not anti-rational or irrational, not at all. Instead, it is another form, in my opinion, a more evolved form of rationality. At least in its goals, in what it wants. And at least in those crucial dimensions of “borderline rationality” which some of the main postmodern thinkers, in their late works, tried to evoke and to understand.

This kind of “sensitive” or “perceiving” rationality seems to lead almost necessarily to a certain point beyond modern rationality, but always hoping that it could include the best of it and enlarge it into a broader horizon. It seems to lead from the “splitted” rationality of modernity to a kind of “double-I”- (or ego/witness-) rationality of postmodernity. It seems to lead to a certain dimension of “witness” rationality in the form of Inspiration, so to say. And exactly this may be one possibility of a sustainable bridge between the European-Western concepts of “the productive void” of Postmodernity on the one hand and the Eastern concepts of “nothingness” at the other hand. PART ONE PART FIVE rolandbenedikter@yahoo.de

Erotization of the will

Postmodern spirituality A dialogue in five parts Part II: Perspectives of the proto-spirituality of late postmodernity Roland Benedikter integralworld.net

For me, this is the most important, the crucial point regarding the whole of the postmodern period from 1979-2001: from Jean Francois Lyotards “The postmodern condition” (1979) to September 11, 2001, and to Roger Rosenblatt's famous, outstandingly bitter an aggressive article “The age of irony comes to an end. No longer will we fail to take things seriously” appeared in Time Magazine, two weeks after the terrorist attacks. This little, but heavily debated article was, in my viewpoint, a first, even if pre-scientific and certainly not philosophically consistent, but symptomatic indication of the beginning of the end of radical postmodern constructivism, as we knew it until then - and of the beginning of a new, “subjective-objective” epoch of “post-postmodernity”, that will have to re-integrate appropriately, and in a rational, empirical and intersubjective way, nominalism with realism into a new, progressive paradigmatic framework for Western-European societies...

The turn to traditional religion may be helpful for many people, and I'm not against it. Not at all...I instead think that the new, inclusive and integrative paradigm we need now could rather come from a rationally evolved, truly enlightend subjective mind. And the most evolved rational mind that we probably have so far - the mind that begins to know about its own ontological act, about its own activity beyond the ego, the “thinking that begins to think itself and to discover what lies in its shadow” (Foucault) - seems to be a certain potential of the deconstructive postmodern mind. This potential seems to be located not primarily in the intellect, but in the realm of the will. That is very important. Jean Francois Lyotard called the place, where the strongest innovative potential in postmodern culture could be found, “the progressive, universal erotization of the will” (Epitaph Of The Intellectual, 1984). And I think, with that philosophical metaphor he grasped indeed an important movement of consciousness development in the personal and in the cultural sphere of European-Western societies. A movement of transformation and progress that is not, like the renaissance of religions, collective and belief-oriented, but primarily oriented towards the consciousness of the subject. And therefore it is, even if often in strange ways, like in the late works of Lyotard or Derrida, half-, proto- or pre-gnostic, if you want to put it in these terms...

Some day, which is maybe not too far ahead, the postmodern mind may reach the border of total auto-deconstruction, not only as a personal, but also as a cultural achievement. Then it will be forced to discover an “objective” dimension which lives in the subjective void. It will have to take the step forward into the perceiving will. A step that must be at the same time rational, subjectively controllable and “essential”. If you observe, what is secretely already happening with the “deconstructed” subject in our postmodern culture, and with that culture as a whole, you can see: There is already a broad “erotization of the will” (Lyotard) at work. You see it in the mass media, in advertising, in popular culture. And you can see it in most of the average lifestyles of the “postmodern” citizens of the European-Western world. It is, in large parts, a world of the will – individually, and culturally. It is the world that has been anticipated by Friedrich Nietzsche in its negative (consciousness-diminuishing) aspects, and by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel in its positive (consciousness-growing) potentials. The “erotization of the will” begins to penetrate every moment and every space in our late or “mature” postmodern societies.

The atoms will have the last laugh

ray harris Says: August 12th, 2006 at 3:19 pm Hi Andy, Two thoughts: Do atoms exist without humans? I’d suggest, but this is of course speculation, that any sentient being at the same cognitive level would perceive atoms. This is because the data leads one to that conclusion. For me there’s a balance. Sentient beings still have to contend with a real, physical cosmos. They can imagine all sorts of possibilities but that imagination is always tested by what really happens.

I firmly believe that tomorrow the sun will rise in the north and it will be green (but I might be wrong about that). The cosmos is reasonably predictable which means that sentient beings will generally be able to arrive at similar conclusions. 1+1=2. The creation of an intersubjective space is predicated on a certain degree of common experience. Even if a remote tribe encounters others and they have a magical view of the world, we can find enough common experience from which to build an intersubjective space. Without such a common ground we could not learn each others languages.

As for free will - how someone will react is not predictable. Yes, you can create a chain of events that - in hind sight - can be said to have caused a certain decision, but you will never be able to predict a decision. If there is no ‘free will’ then theoretically all decisions can be predicted assuming you have all the relevant information. Human behaviour is not completely predictable, there is a randomness to it. But then, I have never assumed that free will is a decision made free of any contributing factors. When asked why a decision was made people will give a reason which necessarily includes a causal chain. We do exercise choice and sometimes the choices we make are extraordinary and with an equally extraordinary causal chain and reasoning.

Are atoms aware of the causal chain and do they reason? You are right about complexity. I would say that the idea of agency and interiors only has real meaning at a certain level of complexity, namely that at which holons can create and participate in an intersubjective space. And given that I’m not an atom whisperer the idea of an atom having an interior has no meaning for me. It’s just an intellectual slight of hand.

David Swedlow Says: August 12th, 2006 at 10:09 pm Very nice discussion with the relevent points brought into focus. I’d like to caution the reader toward skepticism of understanding interiority simply because we can understand the language of another. I very much like the “degrees of freedom” argument for sentience. This weeks New Scientist has a story on Quantum Loop Gravity which seems to support the notion of some kind of interiority of fundamental-like particles.

We think that we can infer a bit about what is going on in the mind of a dog, and even more in the mind of an ape that can use rudimentary sign-language. I think we must remember how common it is to misinterpret the interiors of those with whom we share the same primary language and many years of co-habitation. Married couples would argue pretty vehemently that the success rate of gauging another’s interiors even with a common contextual framework is pretty low. Trying to infer the interior of quarks or galaxies is so far removed from our native contextua framework that it can seem like nothing more than alien randomness, though perhaps sometimes beautiful.

I recall a story someone recounted about the experiments to talk with dolphins. We try to get them to repeat our signals, as in “me Human, you Dolphin.” But when the Dolphin’s make unique noises not in the lexicon we are trying to fashion, we stupidly interpret it as failure for them to comprehend our linguistic structures, rather than wondering if the dolphins aren’t responding with their own tests of our lexical flexibility.

Which further reminds me of Albert Hoffman’s notes from his first animal trials of LSD-25, when he noted that it apparently had no effect on dogs. After he later deteremined that there was an effect, he justified his previous observations of lack of significant response as meaning that dogs lacked any kind of substantive interiority. How weird is that? How would he expect a dog to communicate “oooh, wow, the floor is melting into rivers of kibbles.” It seems that the true expression of anthropocentrism is something closer to: since I can’t infer that your interior is in any way similar to my own despite the phenomenally reduced perspective I have based on my interpretations of your exterior, I can only conclude that you have no interior. And we wonder why we go to war? The atoms will have the last laugh.