January 13, 2013

Vivekananda’s doctored picture of Ramakrishna

Swami Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo Spiritual Events Info ... Spiritual Event on Speaking Tree By: Ramesh Bijlani on Jan 13, 2013
A talk highlighting the landmark role Swami Vivekananda played in creating a receptivity for ancient Indian wisdom in the West, and how other spiritual masters have continued the work. Ramesh Bijlani Date: Jan 13, 2013 Time:10:00 am to 11:30 am Venue: Meditation Hall, SRI AUROBINDO ASHRAM -- DELHI BRANCH, Sri Aurobindo Marg, New Delhi 110 016. Entry through Gate No. 6. Phone: 011-2656-7863, E-mail: aurobindo@vsnl.com
Harisharan Walia 09:02 am Swami Vivekanada believed in vedantic philosophy of Brahma satyam jagat mithya, where as Shri Aurbindo saw the gross Sagun changing world and the subtle unchangig Nirguna Brahma as two layers/aspects of God. Both believed in service of the universe. Please elaborate what are their views on Gyan, Karma and Bhakti, Karma-Akarma- Vikarma.

Auroville is an experimental city, located a few miles out of town, that grew out of the Sri Aurobindo ashram that dominates social and educational life in Pondi.

Swami Vivekananda's connection to Puducherry The Hindu KAVITA KISHORE PUDUCHERRY, January 12, 2013 With the 150th birth anniversary of the philosopher providing a fitting backdrop, Kavita Kishore explores the threads that link him to Puducherry
When Swami Vivekananda travelled from Kanyakumari to Chennai, it is said that he stopped in Puducherry for a few days. According to popular belief, he is said to have stayed in the house on Vysial Street that Sri Aurobindo and Subramania Bharathiyar occupied when they first came to the town…
According to Aurobindonian Scholar, Prema Nandakumar, since Swami Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo were born only nine years apart, they were almost contemporaries. Swami Vivekananda was the inspiration for the Vande Mataram movement that a young Sri Aurobindo and several of his contemporaries participated in. When Sri Aurobindo was imprisoned in Alipore Jail from 1908 to 1909 in the Alipur Bomb Case, he read the Bhagavat Gita and other spiritual books to gain higher consciousness. It was then that Swami Vivekananda played a role in his achievement of spirituality, she said… Vivekananda’s influence was felt all over India at the time, especially in Bengal. So, it is not surprising that he played a role in Sri Aurobindo’s rise to spirituality as well…
Although the route that Swami Vivekananda’s spirituality took was different from that of Sri Aurobindo, there are some similarities between their philosophies, including the importance given to Indian culture, the dedication to social service and education and tolerance of all religions, said Ms. Nandakumar.

Jyotirmaya Sharma busts many myths around Swami Vivekananda From: Outlook Magazine, 21 January 2013 Interview ‘His Inclusiveness Is A Powerful Myth’ Vivekananda comes across as a Hindu supremacist, and not so much a social reformist - Satish Padmanabhan Interviews Jyotirmaya Sharma
In his third book in the quartet on Hindu identity and self-images, academic-author Jyotirmaya Sharma busts many myths around Swami Vivekananda. He comes across as a Hindu supremacist, and not so much a social reformist. Excerpts from an interview with Satish Padmanabhan: …
This book, like the previous two (Hindutva: Exploring the Idea of Hindu Nationalism and Terrifying Vision: M.S. Golwalkar, the RSS and India), is an attempt to delineate a genealogy of Hindu identity. In this context, Vivekananda provides the most influential restatement of Hinduism. His religious nationalism is the decisive influence behind Hindu nationalism. Also, unlike many writers, I do not distinguish between Hinduism and Hindutva. For me, Hindutva is merely the politically dominant face of Hinduism today…
This idea of his inclusiveness and liberality is a powerful shared myth in our country but entirely based on a limited, partial reading of his works. Forget Islam and Christianity, Vivekananda wasn't particularly generous towards many sects and schools of thought within Hinduism.
Vivekananda, more than anyone else, helped construct the elements that constituted this carefully edited, censored and wilfully misleading version of his master’s ‘catholicity’. He used it to mean what he thought was Ramakrishna’s tolerance, generosity and inclusiveness in relation to other faiths while carefully glossing over the sources and influences that produced this ‘catholicity’. The continued use of the term has had a longevity independent of Vivekananda’s remoulding of Ramakrishna from a “religious ecstatic to a religious eclectic”, and continues to be used even to this day by perceptive and critical readers of the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda story…
Vivekananda’s interpretation of Ramakrishna is a simultaneous act of fidelity and distortion… In 1896, Vivekananda gave two lectures in America and England on Ramakrishna. At the outset, he confesses that he speaks on behalf of his Master, but the errors in interpreting the message are entirely his own. The bare bones of Ramakrishna’s message are all there, beginning with renunciation, devotion, love, and ending with Ramakrishna’s love of all sects and religions. But the moment one unravels the details, a very carefully doctored picture emerges.  

Tweets 16h - Prasanna Viswanathan @prasannavishy To be fair to Jyotirmaya Sharma, he has always held that Rishi Aurobindo & Swami Vivekananda as spiritual progenitors of Hindutva project
23h - Pritish Nandy @PritishNandy Nice to see Swami Vivekananda back in the news. Time to rediscover Sri Aurobindo.
21h - Anil Kumar Gupta @anilguptarsd @PritishNandy Sri Aurobindo's 150th birth anniversary will fall in 2022. Enough time to make grand preparations for rediscover him. Start now.
23h - Pacifist @iHindu - @PritishNandy sir, request you to share your thoughts on Sri Aurobindo. Please.  View conversation
23h - jagdish sharma @ivorysharma - @PritishNandy You are a master communicator. Please start with yourself writing about the philosophy and thoughts of Sri Aurobindo & Sri Ma
11 Jan - Gautam Chikermane @gchikermane And Peter Heehs on 'Roots, trunk, branches & seeds: Similarities and differences in SV's and Sri Aurobindo's approach to Vedanta and Yoga.'

Having penned all this appreciative remarks, one has to admit and point out the presence of  a just  few  flaws  in the book. We feel as if we are reading just a recorded history—the evocative fire of aspirational afflatus is missing at some points. The author seems to get lost in the quagmire of facts and figures in his enthusiasm to offer information and more informations. However,  dedication and devotion of the author overrule all these  minor errors and  we have the privilege and joy to read through the book—The Book of The Divine Mother. 

Comment on Predictions of Sri Aurobindo by nizken More cents from me then…. Start in this order: 1. The Mother 2. Synthesis of Yoga 3. Letters on Yoga (vol. 2) 4. The Agenda
You don’t have to finish everything in them nor does it have to be in a linear cover-to-cover fashion. Just my recommendations although many other books like Essays on Gita are also quite fascinating.
“Jason: a book that tells most about the particular changes he and the Mother aimed at inaugurating in the mind and body of humanity?”
Are you referring to the supramental consciousness ? If not, then Nizken’s recommendations are fine. Otherwise, check out the Life Divine and the Mother’s Agenda.
Sri Aurobindo added 12 new chapters to the Life Divine in the 1940s and these represent his final detailed notes on the subject. A discussion of the changes he made can be read at the end of the book in the section entitled “Note on the Text” (CWSA vol 21-22, pages 1109-1117). The last two chapters “Gnostic Being” and “Divine Life” are especially relevant. On page 1004, he says power of intuition will increase in the immediate future : “A freer play of intuition and sympathy and understanding would enter into human life, a clearer sense of the truth of self and things and a more enlightened dealing with the opportunities and difficulties of existence”.
There are also some conversations with disciples, where he cautioned against over-interpreting the consequences of the supramental change. Cats and dogs won’t change, for instance… Georges van Vrekhem, who passed away recently, has aggregated a lot of this material in his books. See his website http://www.beyondman.org
l think satprems books cover it a lot, especially ‘On The Way To Suparmanhood’ which is meantioned in the Agenda, l believe a Power was given to this book by the Mother and SA [as said in Agenda] and SA seemed to be writing it through Satprem.

Science advances and works within a “paradigm” as written by Thomas Kuhn. The materialistic clockwork mechanistic paradigm that Don Salmon talks about has been overthrown by the work in quantum mechanics by Einstein/de Broglie etc but yes it does persist to a large degree in the public mind. I think Thomas Kuhn’s book (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions) would be the best way to visualize and understand these scientific paradigms and how they are overthrown by scientific ‘revolutions.’ Another great book which I found very helpful and short was What is this thing called Science written by A.F. Chalmers. Thomas Kuhn after Karl Popper probably gave us the basic framework in which to understand the history and progress of science of past 300 years.

Sri Aurobindo’s view of rebirth takes issue with the near-exclusive concentration laid upon the concept in the traditional viewpoint. This traditional viewpoint looks upon life on the earth as some kind of short-term interlude, with the goal being to return to the original source and therein to dissolve ourselves. The entire focus then revolves around individual salvation. It is, however, impossible to understand the larger significance of the manifestation and evolution of the world and all the other beings in the world from a viewpoint that starts with this level of fragmentation. This has led many to consider the world to be an illusion. Sri Aurobindo integrates the evolutionary development of the individual with the universal manifestation.

Hymns to the Mystic Fire_Volume-11 - Sri Aurobindo Ashram Home E-Library  Works Of Sri Aurobindo English Sabcl 
The integral Advaitism of Sri Aurobindo - Page 342 Ram Shankar Misra - 1957 - It is true that Sri Aurobindo's integral view of Reality cannot be said to be perfectly original. The transcendence and immanence of the Absolute or Brahman has been advocated in the Upanisads and the different systems of the Vedanta.
Political Thinkers of Modern India: Sri Aurobindo Ghose - Volume 11 - Page 336 - Verinder Grover - 1993 - Preview Unlike Christianity, Hinduism did not find it difficult to assimilate Darwinian ideas, because from the beginning Vedanta viewed God as both transcendent and immanent in nature. Aurobindo could easily spiritualise the concept of evolution and ...

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