January 08, 2013

Adam Smith, Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, and Sri Aurobindo

People left “to pursue their own self-interests” will choose a variety of policies that tend to be mutually contradictory and some of them work against “free markets”. 

The Thatcher Parallel from Centre Right India by Amar Jan 8, 2013 
But there also exist a few handpicked men and women whom fortune places in such circumstances from the vantage of which these rare personalities enjoy a clear view of the socio-political trends of the era. These are leaders who by virtue of their position and awareness are able to significantly advance or reverse the ideas that shape the lives of massive chunks of humanity. These politicians defy the stereotypical self-effacing humility and vacuousness that passes off for leadership in our modern age. Leaders of this hue embrace the idea of power. Their unapologetic pursuit and application of political power is wholly inconsistent with rhetorical conventions of populist politics.

These are typical characteristic of anonymous cities. Highly individualized, personally thin cultures and it is so not only in India, I repeat, but perhaps all over the world from which we have data. In anonymous societies kinship dies and community ties weaken and become superficial. 

It is this goodwill that has made the RSS the largest network of its kind in the world. Name just one other voluntary organization in the world which has this awe-inspiring network of people dedicated only to serve a nation…
The media fears the RSS. Here’s a vast organization made entirely of voluntary workers intent only on serving the country that has stood its ground amidst severe adversities and which takes the most strident criticism in its stride. Here’s an organization which has sustained for more than seven decades and despite best efforts, hasn’t budged or accepted defeat much less been broken. Courts have consistently taken its side. Every effort to tarnish its reputation has failed. All these are eminently plausible reasons for someone to fear its moral strength…
Whatever be the ideological or intellectual failures of the RSS, they are patriots of the highest order and their record of national service is both unparalleled and unbeatable anywhere in the world. And I say this as an outsider.

View - The Global Journals
INDIAN JOURNAL OF APPLIED RESEARCH Volume: 3 Issue: 1 January 2013 Remembering the Ancient Master of Education: Twentieth First Century Reception of Sri Aurobindo - Dr. Birbal Saha, Associate Professor in Education, Sidho-Kanho-Birsha University, Purulia, W.B. India & Mr. Sambhunath Maji, Assistant Professor in English, Sidho-Kanho-Birsha University, Purulia, W.B. India
In his life span of 78 years Sri Aurobindo dedicated his major part of his life in elevating the tradition of experimentation for the best education and educating methods. This research article will conceptualize Sri Aurobindo’s concept of ideal education. This paper will also concentrate Aurobindo’s idea of just educational methods. Finally, this will be our endeavour to locate Aurobindo in the 21st century and understand his relevance in the ultra modern civilization… Sri Aurobindo was almost parent like figure for all the people of the world…
In the educating method the teacher will be an icon figure in terms of virtue and quality. The teacher will not be task master or instructor. A good teacher should be a good helper. Sri Aurobindo rightly commented: “one must be a saint and a hero to be a good teacher. One must become a great ‘yogi’ to be a good teacher.” A successful teacher will not intervene the learning of the learners. Teacher will encourage and stimulate. He will not shape the mind of the learners. He justly remarked, “Teacher is a man helping his brothers, a child leading children, a light kindling other lights, and awakened soul awaking other souls, at the highest a power of presence of the divine calling to him other powers of the divine.” …
Sri Aurobindo viewed that a child is a part of the Greater Existence. It is duty of the child to look for this Greater Existence. The true religion of education is communication. A group of Western dramatists like Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter came with the belief that after the Second World War the world is terribly cut off from God. God has locked his grace for mankind. Mankind is treated as fallen. Our existence is deprived existence. When mankind is awfully cut off from the grace of God, how can we communicate with this Greater Existence? ... But Sri Aurobindo has thought one such education system where the teacher will say: vos es amo mihi, vos es meus amicus (“You are like me, you are my friend”).

Due to the habitual action of mind to divide and fragment, we tend to look at things as “either/or” options and to then set up clear demarcations between one thing and another. This action has been extremely useful when it comes to analyzing and breaking down a complex set of processes into distinct steps and thereby gain the ability to act in the material world. However, it has a tendency to overlook the factors that unify and integrate into a larger whole, a “gestalt”, the “big picture”, and it is just this integrated viewpoint which Sri Aurobindo takes pains to enunciate while at the same time not undervaluing the analytical mind’s contribution… Today scientists are beginning to explore the question of Consciousness and advancing concepts of universal creation that bring us to the frontiers of spirituality with a unified field and complex manifestation of multiple universes contained within one all-embracing consciousness.

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