Bengal was under the influence of William Carey

ANNIVERSARY OF SRI AUROBINDO'S ARRIVAL TO PONDICHERRY – APRIL 4

#SriAurobindo came to Pondicherry on 4 April 1910. While engaged in the freedom struggle in Bengal, Sri Aurobindo received an ‘adesh’ (a Divine Command) to go to #Pondicherry.

#Puducherry #April4th #IntegralYoga https://t.co/pSJeL7Hphz

https://twitter.com/AuroSociety/status/1113414245851336704?s=19

Sri Aurobindo arrived in Puducherry on April 4, 1910 at the age of 37 which marks an important turning point in his life. The Mother would come four years later on March 29, 1914 and they launch the monthly magazine ARYA on August 15, 1914. Why #August15? https://t.co/q62YroLgoG

https://twitter.com/SavitriEraParty/status/1113333801575342081?s=19

The Mother came to #Puducherry to meet Sri Aurobindo on March 29, 1914. This single event is the only tangible reason to believe that there is some meaning in our existence and what all the philosophies and religions have been searching for will certainly be found out. Gratitude.

https://twitter.com/SavitriEraParty/status/1111486944364716032?s=19

Happy #SavitriEraDay on the sacred occasion of 104th anniversary of The Mother's first arrival in Puducherry and meeting Sri Aurobindo on March 29, 1914. May the whole world come under her love and grace #MirraAlfassa #SriAurobindo #Pondicherry #SavitriEra #FiveDreams #WorldUnion

https://twitter.com/SavitriEraParty/status/979213947281821696?s=19

Spiritual significance of flowers by The Mother and Psychological interpretation of Vedic deities by Sri Aurobindo are original works and have much in common. Both highlight ethics and virtues without being tethered to any rewards mechanism of Karma theory https://t.co/r7Z8aybMq8

https://twitter.com/SavitriEraParty/status/1110123638479601664?s=19

While the theories of Presocratic philosophers on natural elements like earth, air, fire, and water are well known, Vedic pronouncements on the same like agni etc are not very popular. Sri Aurobindo explains them as rungs of consciousness not far removed from inquiries in physics

https://twitter.com/NathTusar/status/1110130835896893441?s=19

For us the devotees of course these outward details or a chronological account of their gradual progress in spiritual realisation are just a distraction but some dates are important pointers of planetary Evolution like WWI or Hitler hoping to be in Buckingham Palace on August 15.

https://twitter.com/NathTusar/status/1113341320532070400?s=19

Raja Ram Mohan Roy was born on May 22, 1772, Giuseppe Mazzini died on March 10, 1872; and Sri Aurobindo was born on August 15, 1872. William Carey arrived in India in 1793; Sri Aurobindo returned in 1893. Interplay of diverse ideological strands is obvious https://t.co/wLA9S3iEMQ

https://twitter.com/SavitriEraParty/status/1113352699129421824?s=19

Sri Aurobindo is caustic in his criticism of religion including Hinduism. While delivering the Veda from the clutches of rituals is one of his great breakthroughs, throwing away the crutches of external props in favour of living within is his idea of Yoga. https://t.co/dz2ISSOAT7

https://twitter.com/NathTusar/status/1113359578614390784?s=19

Vivekananda was a product of his time. He was very much influenced by Christian missionaries and that shows in his writings. He deserves our respect but some of his writings should be taken with a pinch of salt. Sri Aurobindo had better clarity in his thoughts.

https://twitter.com/TrueIndology/status/1099651107805192193?s=19

Do you understand the difference between influence and collaboration? He fought against Christian missionaries but was still influenced by their writings.

@rajivvarma42 Bengal was under the influence of William Carey. His shishya #RamMohanRoy,#Ramakrishna, #Vivekananda all experimented with ONE GOD but in some speeches Swami Vivekananda does acknowledge the influence of #cryptochristianity in #NeoVedanta.But he passed away too soon

https://twitter.com/pburavalli/status/1100083258807734272?s=19

No. My pt is that Ramakrishna and Vivekananda also fell for british narrative and insidious propaganda that Hinduism was regressive and needed to be reformed

No one reads Ramakrishna, Vivekananda, Raja Rammohan Roy in detail. Although you are right, people are still in awe of the so called Hindu Reform Movement. It is therefore advisable not to undermine the current set of heroes irrespective of their faults

https://twitter.com/pburavalli/status/1100081228747816961?s=19

Sri Aurobindo: His Early Life and Entry to Indian Independence Struggle - India's Stories From Indian Perspectives https://t.co/cQRFheFQCX

https://twitter.com/pburavalli/status/1111246198818721792?s=19

One more. Every reformer of Hindu religion has called Hindus regressive and have said they need to reform. What was Ramanujacharya if not a reformer? Buddha, Mahaveera? Can we say that they were all influenced by Christian/Western thought?

https://twitter.com/Chintana2020/status/1100235670218366979?s=19

There is some more proof that বন্দে মাতরম্ is a Bengali song, not a Sanskrit one. Quite apart from the fact that some of the stanzas are purely Bangla, there is the fact that Bankim Babu wrote শস্যশ্যামলাং, not সস্যশ্যামলাং as he would have if he used the Sanskrit spelling.

https://twitter.com/maidros78/status/1113173111417913344?s=19

This is quite in keeping with Bankim's way of writing his songs and invocations in the middle of his stories. He does the same thing in কমলাকান্তের দপ্তর, using hyper Sanskritised Bangla with Sanskrit consonant grammar.

Further, there is the point that বন্দে মাতরম্ does not fit the Sanskrit ছন্দস্ which mandates very specific rules for the style of writing. Even for a বিষম বৃত্ত, বন্দে মাতরম্ does not fit the rules of any ছন্দস্ in Sanskrit. Consequently, it has to be regarded as a Bangla song.

https://twitter.com/maidros78/status/1113178077905924096?s=19

The wellspring of our revolutionaries was in Hindu ethos. Most of them were Hindu revolutionaries in that they drew their inspiration from Hindu ideas and ideals, even those would go on to become Leftist revolutionaries later on.

https://twitter.com/maidros78/status/1113172290886295552?s=19

I was thinking of people like Birendranath Chattopadhyaya and MN Roy, who, though not imprisoned, became exiles from India, and left amidst hardcore Leftists. But even their beginnings were in purely Hindu ideals, with MN Roy especially worshipping in graveyards for power.

https://twitter.com/maidros78/status/1113176008511774720?s=19

You are speaking of a long dead Left that actually had a Hindu component - Baba Ramachandra, Swami Sahajananda, Dal Bahadur Giri, etc. Post 1970s Left never had any Indic inclinations.

https://twitter.com/maidros78/status/1113462870094647296?s=19

The  Sanghi Ji s like Tathagata Ji, @swapan55 Ji, @KanchanGupta Ji, @sanjeevsanyal Ji ought to be ashamed at the yeoman service Shanmukh is doing to the Bengalis. A parallel contrast in history - Netra Sen vs Sakharam Deuskar. Unlikely the racists would have heard of either: https://t.co/XhkaN9ZJjd

https://twitter.com/sarkar_swati/status/1113261985314025478?s=19

Subhas Chandra Bose repeatedly spoke of Hindu Bengalis and identified himself as one. I am yet to read Aurobindo Ghosh or Swami Vivekananda in full to comment on your claim.

https://twitter.com/sarkar_swati/status/1113273174903480320?s=19

@LenteCurrite Have you read about Brahmabandhav Upadhyay? I had heard of him before but didn’t know much about him until @dikgaj mentioned him to me. May interest you.

https://twitter.com/sarkar_swati/status/1107851150534082560?s=19

I don’t reside in spirit, and won’t have much in common with Aurobindo-ites. Sorry. I have said what I had to about him his pre-jail days, in our latest article, and what I think about him post his release is in the above tweets. Will ignore trolls. Bye

https://twitter.com/sarkar_swati/status/1109792222705303552?s=19

One last time, some of Aurobindo Ghosh’s statements post his release were theater of the absurd. And that doesn’t take away from the sheer brilliance & ingenuity  of his writings before going to jail. No amount of trolling will change my views on the same.

https://twitter.com/sarkar_swati/status/1109792997477093377?s=19

#Saileena,no one said our #Revolutionaries were in the #FreedomFight as #Hindu Vs #Christians, in fact #Saswati never even brought up "Christian" angle in the discussion, was 1st raised by you. 

#Hindu was "already" made into a #Terrorist by #Racist #Audrey & then you amplified it. https://t.co/Q1dKzQvRL6

https://twitter.com/PradzWorLd/status/1113388004410908672?s=19

Huge difference is motivated from their religious roots and fighting as 'Hindus against Christians'.

Also in Bengal, Muslims were mostly peasants...poor&struggling to survive..& revolution doesn't happen on an empty stomach.

https://twitter.com/saileenas/status/1113320514892832768?s=19

Too bad you understood what you wanted to. My counter was to both audrey Ts tweet and the half sanghis like saswati...This new club of Muslim hating, bengali pride lot is no different from Muslim hating & Bengali hating bjp. & clearly you have chosen your side.

https://twitter.com/saileenas/status/1113392313483563009?s=19

Active freedom fighters were from the middle and intellectual classes. Vande Mataram proved a catalyst; evangelism a trigger. Peasants and the poor have no time or energy left to fight. Christian and Muslim intellectuals apparently did not participate in any remarkable numbers.

https://twitter.com/Swami_843/status/1113483505713917961?s=19

[She was the first person to address Sri Aurobindo as ‘Lord’ while the other inmates considered him nothing more than a friend and a guide. Her entire life was consecrated to the Divine. We are talking of Dorothy Mary Hodgson who is better known as Datta.] https://t.co/noYRAY8wm0

https://twitter.com/SavitriEraParty/status/1113132125459447811?s=19

Which biography of Sri Aurobindo matches this description? Lamentably, perhaps none. Let's hope @SpiritWithBody undertakes

[too much must not be expected from any humble effort to produce, rather a pleasing but faithful miniature, than a grand and commanding full-sized portrait.]

Odisha was busy fighting for a separate State and the leaders then were of a different make; many were poets with a universal outlook. No wonder, Odisha admires Sri Aurobindo at a mass level. Sri Aurobindo too was not enthusiastic about Subhas; saw some strains of negative energy

https://twitter.com/NathTusar/status/1109778234663682049?s=19

Two books, Sri Aurobindo and Karl Marx by D.P. Chattopadhyaya and The Meeting of the East and the West in Sri Aurobindo's Philosophy by S.K. Maitra, helped me substantially to understand theory. Later, The Humanization of Transcendental Philosophy by R. Sundara Rajan was pivotal.

https://twitter.com/NathTusar/status/973195556028784641?s=19

Be it Herder or Hegel or "ever-living, ever-working Chaos of Being" of Carlyle, deciphering history has always involved dollops of speculation. But for Sri Aurobindo "random seem the ways...Yet...are foreseen above. Infallibly the curves of life are drawn" https://t.co/GGX9uSDmco

https://twitter.com/SavitriEraParty/status/973218733333213184?s=19

My original contributions to understanding or interpreting Sri Aurobindo can be summarised under a number of heads:

1) Against Hindutva, Mythology, & Astrology

2) Vedas against Rituals

3) Against Vivekananda

4) Espousing Modernity & Democracy

5) Nationhood to States & languages.

https://twitter.com/NathTusar/status/1097133810544562176?s=19

People of my generation have been brought up on distorted history. Just read a thread by a foreigner recounting assassination of Gandhi and other "truths." Unless we write down our own history correctly, anyone can challenge the facts and put our academic standards to shame. Sad!

https://twitter.com/NathTusar/status/1113143237823225856?s=19

Whether it is TI, AT, MT, or SS/S/D, a certain agenda drives them and not the urge to establish the truth. Taking revenge or victimhood is a dominant sentiment always. Of course, everyone is toiling for some money or name and so, history without any slant has a scant possibility.

https://twitter.com/NathTusar/status/1113143237823225856?s=19

Plain & Simple: Savitri Era Party has this priority of removing castes from Indian Constitution https://t.co/AoRsSog7dw [THE MESSAGE OF SRI AUROBINDO: GOD, ROMANTIC LOVE, AND PHYSICAL IMMORTALITY by Seth Farber, PhD] https://t.co/4G62Sn71lL - https://t.co/iGvavt6NZC #SriAurobindo

https://twitter.com/SavitriEraParty/status/1113100347189288965?s=19

Aurora Mirabilis: Sri Aurobindo's theo-political reconfiguration of Hinduism https://t.co/DtTdut4wrK

[The Making of an Avatar: Reading Sri Aurobindo Ghose (1872–1950): 6 Sep 2018 - Alex Wolfers] #MirraAlfassa #SriAurobindo #IntegralYoga #WorldUnion #SavitriEraDay @NathTusar

https://twitter.com/SavitriEraParty/status/1111562458353803269?s=19

Scholarship is a lifelong affair and narratives keep changing. Apart from his intellectual prowess, Sri Aurobindo did disclose in public (Uttarpara speech) that he can see the future, unlike other mortals. Contesting that claim is way beyond our faculties. https://t.co/6JSzvwkDPU

https://twitter.com/NathTusar/status/1109787616734371841?s=19

With the blessings of the Mother, #LifeDivine is my humble attempt to understand magnum opus by #SriAurobindo ! It’s surprising to note that the 1st one-volume edition was brought out in the US in 1949!! As Directed by Her, ✍️ is the Best way to understand the Words of SA!! https://t.co/ukhFYUys0R

https://twitter.com/Sanjays81301051/status/1112731777448185856?s=19

Let us go through 'The Life Divine', #SriAurobindo's major philosophical work

https://t.co/Phrdvuyjgm https://t.co/VwA3AzxJy7

https://twitter.com/Auro_Mere/status/745317659340726273?s=19

Actually much earlier. We had Girilal Jain, in his own subtle way, defending te rising stars(then) of the Hindutva bandwagon. https://t.co/qwESJf4xI3

https://twitter.com/nesoron/status/894217927464853504?s=19

Sardar Patel worked tirelessly towards forcing unity on a set of people as diverse as chalk, cheese, cotton & coal. Nothing noble about it.

https://twitter.com/vimuktaatma/status/660281850141634561?s=19

Shorn of euphemisms, what he did can also be referred to as the largest slave conquest in modern history.

Patel & other so-called "leaders" were  a pack of vultures who swooped down on the leftovers of British rule and homesteaded all of it.

[Prerna Singh’s book, How Solidarity Works for Welfare: Subnationalism and Social Development in India] @thewire_in  https://t.co/K3s4kYXhYw

https://twitter.com/SavitriEraParty/status/863886586185777152?s=19

By all accounts, Modi's rally in Kolkata today was unprecedented in attendance. Mamata won't be able to sleep for weeks now.

https://twitter.com/India_Policy/status/1113442158164488194?s=19

Seems like BJP has finally cracked Bengal, along with Odisha.

East is going to be the new West! https://t.co/fKwEe2WsMg

Hostility of physicists to a non-physical plane of after-life

Do photons really exist? Has anyone ever observed them directly? It is actually not possible, since we can only observe energy change in other massive particles, and then infer the existence of photons and other massless particles through our mathematical models. The photon exists in our Physics models due to our insistence on locality. If we accept that the universe is fundamentally non-local, we should be able to build a mathematical theory of physics without needing any massless particles.

Kushal Shah 

Hi Kushal:

You are correct: "If we accept that the universe is fundamentally non-local, we should be able to build a mathematical theory of physics without needing any massless particles."

URM is such an model based on non-zero rest mass particles including photon. "Mass-less particle" is an oxymoron in itself. A mass-less entity is nothing but a wave hence cannot be a particle. It is ironic that the mainstream physics believes in wave-particle duality but without a non-zero rest mass of a photon particle. No experiments are possible to prove exactly zero Rest mass of a photon. Experiments can only measure the lowest possible non-zero mass quantities but can never measure exactly zero rest mass, which is no more than a blind belief based in Maxwell's theory and standard model.

URM shows that a photon has a non-zero rest mass howsoever negligible and immeasurable. However, its mass dilates further as it approaches to V=C. This model predicts and explains dark energy and the observed empirical spontaneous expansion of the universe.

Best Regards

Avtar Singh

Hi Ram:

“Self” (the experiencer) is the temporal body (senses) and ego or mind that dissolve after death into the mass-energy of the universe. However, the true authentic "Self" or the awareness is eternal Cosmic Consciousness.

Hence, the purpose of life is to attain the true "Self" realization via enlightenment or dissolution of the ego or mind into cosmic consciousness.

Best Regards

Avtar

[i] As per (Stankovich & Durdevich, 2016), “We discuss the possibility of the existence of consciousness after physical death, within the conceptual frameworks of quantum psychology, and higher-dimensional and non-classical geometries. […]

But unlike the naturalistic view, quantum psychology states that man, in his development, has acquired the faculty of orienting himself based on his own experiences and making a choice from among them, free of any instinctive protection that govern all the animals. This has turned him into a new genus. His belief in an “afterlife” was typical of the ignorance of human beings who started to orient themselves on the basis of their own experience. It took him to another dimension of reality, inaccessible to animals, which remain governed by instincts that come from the accumulation of experiences related to nature. […] Some of them were wrong, others developed in a positive manner. However, some others still remain problematic up to the present times. One of them is the existence of different unknown things and forces. We now face, in a completely different fashion, the possibility of survival of human consciousness after the biological death of a person. […] In this attempt we face another point of view that has been formed over time, which emphatically affirms that even mentally man is still an animal. It ignores his capacity to make a choice free of the influence of instincts. It understands human psychic life as the exclusive result of neural development without any influence of ideas. (By denying ideas and the logic, it denies existence beyond its time-space expression). In the same context, it also denies the possibility of existence of a conscious mind not governed exclusively by biological laws. […]

In the same context, consciousness is a very complex concept that encompasses several processes of human mental life. It is explained in different manners but in short, it distinguishes its own self from another person, preserves its memory and teleological reasoning capacity. Biological death is in turn considered as cessation of the elementary faculties necessary to survive as a living being. But we must add that all these faculties do not have to be simultaneous. According to this, mind is not limited to any biological reaction of the brain, but involves the existence and organization of the psychic life of a person as a whole. Therefore, its conscious survival after death refers to this whole. Within the common biological reality, this survival of consciousness is impossible. But theoretically, in a reality that is yet to be known, it could possibly exist. The following are the reasons that support such possibility. […]

Due to the differences between the third and the fourth dimension, we can assume that the effects of the physical death of a human being in the third dimension are not the same in the fourth dimension, especially because of the

characteristics of person’s psychic life. The most important consequences deduced from the above are the hypotheses that:

(A) After physical death of a person in the third dimension, his/her existence in the fourth dimension can, somehow, continue.

(B) Person’s psychic existence, linked to biophysical factors in terms of energy, no longer receives this energy, but does receive the one that has always had in the fourth dimension.

(C) Therefore, even though the human being can continue indefinitely in the fourth dimension, he/she cannot go back to the third.

(D) Psychically, an individual that stops existing in the third dimension, continues to exist in the fourth at the same level he/she had in the third.

Kind regards,

Rām

Hi Ronald,

I read your interesting article Death, Consciousness and the Quantum Paradigm. As per (Glasberg, 2016), “The question of death as either the extinction or continuation of consciousness is intimately connected with the question of the nature of consciousness, which is itself connected to the question of how consciousness is connected to the material world as understood by physics in general and quantum theory in particular […] The purpose of the present study – my anaesthetic experience notwithstanding – is to challenge the prevailing paradigm with respect to consciousness and death […] I am not denying that physical processes can explain consciousness. […] If death is not to be taken as a termination, but as a hiatic breakpoint between consciousness with a body and consciousness without a body and if consciousness is a world-creative force, how might the quantum paradigm bring these two ideas together in a theoretical framework for an after-life? […] I have in this discussion tried to normalize the idea of an after-life (with its apparently quantized planes of consciousness) by placing it in a theoretical framework informed by the hiatic behavior of the quantum paradigm.  […] the external world behaves the way it does because it appears to be infused with an internal or consciousness-like aspect […] Moreover, the hostility of physicists to the idea of a non-physical plane associated with an after-life or mind somehow independent of matter makes sense in the theoretical framework I am attempting to put forward.”

I have the following queries:

Q1. What is the definition of the used term “consciousness”? There are over 40 different meanings assigned to this term as elaborated in (Vimal, 2009e). Do you mean that “consciousness” is “experiencer”/“Self”?

Q2. It seems that you are challenging a reductionism/materialism but “not denying that physical processes can explain consciousness”. You also write, “… the external world behaves the way it does because it appears to be infused with an internal or consciousness-like aspect” So what is the metaphysics?  Is it dualism, materialism, or dual-aspect monism?

Q3. You propose “consciousness with a body and consciousness without a body”. Do you mean that consciousness (experiencer/Self) does not need a brain, i.e., the brainless experiencer is possible?

Q4. Are you proposing that cosmic consciousness can be quantized in terms of many individual “Self”? This individual “Self” survives physical death?

Q5. Why do you reject the clue (materialism is true) if you realized/experienced that the general anesthesia abolishes a conscious state completely?

Cheers!

Kind regards,

Rām

--

Rām Lakhan Pāndey Vimal, Ph.D.

[Accent marks force you to read the text in a given fixed manner, robbing it of the subtleness that can be there depending upon each individual's preparation and perception. -R.Y. Deshpande] SELF: In the face of Positive thinking, we always feel inadequate https://t.co/QQciM0Ao0q

Aurora Mirabilis: To establish a communication with what is invisible https://t.co/dNqrOOTmQL The dominant narrative needs to be replaced with #SriAurobindo occupying the central position. All should collaborate for wide dissemination of messages through shares & likes @NathTusar

1 Relation between authority and social compromise https://t.co/QVdfJzzvzV

2 Spreading awareness on Prenatal Education and conscious parenting in the light of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother https://t.co/eTq8VvrHps

3 Vedantic philosophy in a political context https://t.co/IokBSBn5BI

[If you want to read one book on Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, read this! - June 19, 2014 - Georges Van Vrekhem's book on the life of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother is one of the most well written accounts] https://t.co/amVdcadmIY

#multilearning On January 1, 1969, Sri Aurobindo’s Integral yoga co-worker and disciple, The Mother (at age 90) announced the "arrival" of the "superman consciousness" – "the intermediary between man and the supramental being".[9] https://t.co/01bL90Nbrz

https://twitter.com/RobDreamrealist/status/1099465311936491520?s=19

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) developed a system of yoga called Integral yoga to transform selected humans into a new super race called the Supermen that would have a fully and permanently awakened kundalini and thus become siddhas with various siddhis(paranormal powers) such as the ability to observe chakras and auras with the third eye, to travel by astral travel at will, to be able to subsist adequately with full bodily functions on small amounts of vegetarian food, to go long periods without sleep, to communicate by telepathy, and to levitate. The function of this new super race would not be to dominate others but to lead humanity toward world peace.^[3] According to Sri Aurobindo, the central theme of Integral Yoga^[4] is the evolution of life into a "life divine". In Sri Aurobindo’s words: "Man is a transitional being. He is not final. The step from man to superman is the next approaching achievement in the earth evolution. It is inevitable because it is at once the intention of the inner spirit and the logic of Nature's process".^{[citation needed]}

Sri Aurobindo’s disciple The Mother established an ashram-city called Auroville in Viluppuram district in the state of Tamil Nadu, India in 1968 to train and develop this new super-race through yogic practices.^[5][6][7]

According to Aurobindo, "The supramental transformation is the final stage in the integral yoga, enabling the birth of a new individual fully formed by the supramental power. Such individuals would be the forerunners of a new truth-consciousness based supra-humanity. All aspects of division and ignorance of consciousness at the vital and mental levels would be overcome, replaced with a unity of consciousness at every plane, and even the physical body transformed and divinised. A new supramental species would then emerge, living a supramental, gnostic, divine life on earth".^[8]

On January 1, 1969, Sri Aurobindo’s Integral yoga co-worker and disciple, The Mother (at age 90) announced the "arrival" of the "superman consciousness" – "the intermediary between man and the supramental being".^[9]

This is also an Aryan concept—the title of Sri Aurobindo's monthly magazine from 1914 to 1921 was Arya: A Philosophical Review. Arya is the Sanskrit and Hindi word for Aryan.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_race

In 2005, the inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil predicted that over a 40-year period between 2005 and 2045, most human beings will gradually evolve into a super race of immortalcyborgs called Transhumans with super-bodies and super-brains (the super brains of the humanoid androids will have greater capacity not only in and of themselves, but also because they will be able to function more efficiently by storing some of their mental capacity in the cloud of the future greatly expanded Internet through brain-computer interfacing) by gradually replacing their biological cells with new cells having a more efficient cellular energy processing system that will be based on nanobots manufactured using nanotechnology. 

Science is ontology free

priyedarshi jetli Apr 27, 2017

Dear Jonathan,

Thanks for the clarity of your writing. I am not a physicist but as a working scientist you have clarified the issues raised by Vinod. Terms like 'reductionism' are definitely in the domain of philosophers. Even philosophers of science today, who pay a great deal of attention to what scientists do, shy away from such terms. Science is ontology free: it is neither materialist nor dualist nor idealist not mechanist; as you say, it is concerned with explanation. It is a simple truism to say that science cannot explain what is beyond it, that is, assuming that there is something beyond the domain of the explanations of science. There may or may not be. One gross error that the non scientist perception of science makes is to say that whatever the science of the day says is the final word and if something is left unexplained by science then it is beyond science. If we just look at medical science we see how misguided this conception is.

Even philosophers of science like Karl Popper wrote about the progress of science. Many call the logical positivists reductionists. The Vienna Circle consisted of many physicists. They had a common agenda of the unity of science but they were a diverse group that do not even fit under the label of 'positivists' and they would not have called themselves 'reductioinists'. But all of this does not matter for common perceptions in which those with these perceptions are neither scientists nor are they familiar with the history of philosophy of science going back to physicists Mach and Helmholtz who began the subdiscipline of philosophy of science.

Thanks again!

Priyedarshi

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/Online_Sadhu_Sanga/CAG9qgfCNYSo9BU6WXvQNHB6%3DWOCVjGuV1PeLM1CTXcC6NPcLkg%40mail.gmail.com

priyedarshi jetli Apr 27, 2017

Vinod,

The matter here is not of shallow or deep view but about what is plausible or not. I am happy being a shallow person as long as I don't make implausible conjectures. I am no better a person by becoming deeper. You keep using the word "consciousness" as if there is a consensus on whether there is consciousness or what consciousness is. There is no consensus on either. And it is very shallow and narrow minded of you to think that there is consensus on both. It is an unsupported dogma. 

As for Samadhi, meditation and spiritual experience, all of these are done by the body within the body. There are a lot of empirical studies on meditation which show how some of the activity of the brain is shifted from one lobe to another which causes less stress. However, one cannot remain in such a state permanently, otherwise day to day functioning will become difficult. This is why we have the grahasti stage of life.

Priyedarshi

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Vinod,

What you say establishes the exact opposite of what you want to claim. We do not experience the "I" in deep coma because our body has virtually stopped functioning. This shows that the "I" is nothing beyond the body. You start with the unestablished premise, which you repeat hundred times like a gospel that without consciousness there is no existence. I don't accept this premise and many don't. This actually has to be established not stated like I am right now typing on my laptop. That  is where you are begging the question. You are assuming as true what needs to be proved. All of this is based on your definition of "consciosness" as something beyond the body.

Priyedarshi

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Vinod,

As Jonathan has aptly pointed out in a reply to you, science does not claim to understand or rather explain everything. However, it continues to progress. In medical science, less than 50% is known. Yet it keeps striving to know more. First of all, you need to make a distinction between what is explainable now and what is in principle explainable. To substantiate your claim you need to demonstrated those regions of what you call 'mind' and 'consciousness' that are in principle not explainable. This will not be an easy task at all except for just saying it and repeating it, which is what you always do. 

Why are mind and brain distinct? Why just adopt the dualism or rather trialism of cosciousness, mind and brain? Why not say there is mind, legs, arms, ..., brain and so on? Why reduce everything to the three holy substances of mind, body and consciousness, especially when you do not like reductionism. Leave the world of nature as it is, the beauty of diversity, of birds chirping in the morning, the sound of the water reaching the shores of the beach, and so on! Let science explain whatever it can and whatever it cannot explain now is not beyond explanation.

Priyedarshi

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Apr 27, 2017

The map of issues to be solved! Great task ahead!

Such interconnected islands of problems exist within the cell biology, within our brain, within psyche, within society, within universe and especially within our language. How our knowledge of consciousness can solve all such problems is  the task of this group. How all-pervading consciousness clears all such issues from our cognitive territory will be nice to watch!

Cheers!

A.K. Mukhopadhyay, MD.

Prof. & Head, Department of Laboratory Medicine

All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi 110 029

Website: http://www.akmukhopadhyayconsciousness.com

Savitri Era: Marxists knew they can't argue with Sri Aurobindo https://t.co/gQxT9ygr6z

Savitri Era Learning Forum: Science is business of finding the most parsimonious or consistent explanation or reason https://t.co/Bs4jaOmE7Z

Savitri Era Learning Forum: The Reality is one and not a sum or concourse https://t.co/FoGinwO0zE #SriAurobindo

Savitri Era Learning Forum: Leibniz understood process and is a richer source than Whitehead https://t.co/6MNhgrdSre #SriAurobindo

[Sri Aurobindo and the Revolution of India: Luc Venet has written a new biography of Sri Aurobindo’s life 1893-1910] https://t.co/qNbUysdvbe

Mind in man poses new evolutionary challenges for the body

Dr Alok Pandey

• Veda of the Body – Preface

Let’s take the example of a typical stress response. It is designed to prepare the body for fight or flight. Thus faced with any stress, the animal body reacts spontaneously and automatically with the release of chemicals that activate the muscles and redirect blood in ways and to organs that would be useful to undertake the flight or fight. The heart beats faster, the brain and the muscles fill with blood while the skin becomes pale as blood is redirected. Our breath becomes heavy to draw more oxygen, the sphincters contract, there is a shot of adrenaline from within the body leading to heightened alertness, glucose is rapidly transferred to the blood as it is the energy provider – the whole body is in a state of heightened activity ready to act in a moment. This remains for a while and once the danger is passed the response relaxes. If stress continues for long then other sets of hormones come into play, the foremost of them being steroids. Now this is very useful in the animal world where the danger and the response are largely physical and usually short-lived. 

However with the advent and development of mind in man, new situations arise that are very different from the animal world. In addition, new possibilities of intervention also begin to take shape. Thus, human beings can get stressed by the mere anticipation of a distant event that is still in the realm of a remote possibility only. They harbour grudges and make friends and foes for life leading to an escalation of stress with time. Many of these stresses cannot be solved simply by an increased blood flow to the heart and the muscles. We need to think and plan and act, find solutions through mental processes rather than pure physical ones. Nevertheless the atavistic reactions continue just as in the animal world. Even anticipatory stress leads to a heightened state of alarm, an increase in blood glucose, loss of sleep leading to diseases such as high blood pressure, diabetes mellitus, cardiac arrhythmias, mental imbalance and all the rest. The very past habit of the body, the highly beneficial response of the animal world becomes a source of problem and disease in the human world. 

It is in this sense that we can truly say that disease is indeed an evolutionary challenge. Indeed we can see today how certain meditative practices have come into mainstream modern medicine due to the stress disorders. Passing through the doors of a crisis that he alone can face, thanks to his mind, he discovers new ways and modes of life, again thanks to his mind! But the human body has still higher and deeper possibilities than we can envisage. 

• 2.2 The Human Body: A Mystery’s Workshop

A methodical programme of physical exercises can turn our muscles into steel, our legs into powerful wheels and our heart into an extraordinary pumping machine. But that would not really be a forward march but a sliding back to a left behind past. The physical consciousness has however not only the imprints of the past but also and more importantly the blueprints of the future. 

It is in this evolutionary direction that we need to develop the hardware of the body. This would need a twofold effort. First, an awakening and development of the body to its own highest human possibilities, that is, to bring the now automatic functions under a wilful, conscious and voluntary control. Next, to further sublimate the possibilities by the pressure of higher and higher energies accessible to us. The body consciousness has first to be awakened out of its animal sleep and next opened to the spiritual influences from above.

Sri Aurobindo Studies

Manas: the Basic Sense Mind and Its Action - All of the sense impressions delivered along the nervous pathways from the physical senses are delivered to the basic sense mind, called “manas” in yogic parlance. Seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling and touching are functions that utilize physical organs of sense, but only can be organized and interpreted through this sense mind. Without the attachment to the mind, the organs may mechanically record vibrations, but this does not constitute any form of observation or knowledge. Western psychology, starting from the external senses, has at times believed that the physical senses are primary and determinative, but as the science developed it began to recognize that mechanical “seeing” is not the same as observation. It takes the interpreting mind to observe.

Sri Aurobindo notes: “The superficial and outward action of the senses is physical and nervous in its character, and they may easily be thought to be merely results of nerve-action; they are sometimes called in the old books pranas, nervous or life activities. But still the essential thing in them is not the nervous excitation, but the consciousness, the action of the Chitta, which makes use of the organ and of the nervous impact of which it is the channel. Manas, sense-mind, is the activity, emerging from the basic consciousness, which makes up the whole essentiality of what we call sense. Sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch are really properties of the mind, not of the body; but the physical mind which we ordinarily use, limits itself to a translation into sense of so much of the outer impacts as it receives through the nervous system and the physical organs.”

Because the inner instrument of mind is actually the observer, not the physical senses, the speculation naturally arises as to whether it is possible to cognize without reliance on the outer physical sense organs. A considerable amount of effort has been made to experiment with powers of mind that perceive and know without reliance on the sense organs. Clairvoyance, clairaudience, telepathy, and other occult powers are actions of the manas without intervention of the physical senses. Both Western and Eastern traditions have established the factual basis for these powers. Raja Yoga makes it clear that such powers exist and can be developed and harnessed through various forms of practice and concentration. 

“Mind is able to alter, modify, inhibit the incidence, values, intensities of sense impacts. These powers of the mind we do not ordinarily use or develop; they remain subliminal and emerge sometimes in an irregular and fitful action, more readily in some minds than in others, or come to the surface in abnormal states of the being.” “Mind physical, mind supraphysical,–we have and can use this double sense mentality.” Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga, Part Four: The Yoga of Self-Perfection, Chapter 5, The Instruments of the Spirit

Key words: Sri Aurobindo, Integral Yoga, Savitri, Veda

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