February 22, 2013

Adam Smith defends the soundness of ordinary human being’s judgments

On the occasion of the Mother's Birthday, an evening performance was held at the Matrimandir amphitheater. Passages were read from Savitri "Book of the Divine Mother" and "The Book of Birth and Quest", accompanied by the flute and tanpura. 
21st of February  important day in Auroville's life, FoodLink takes a gift economy's aspect to celebrate this day. Based on the joy of giving, food shopping is an exchange. Farmers bring their productions, vegetable, fruits, milk .... and people pay the price that they can afford. A different way to estimate value of goods, in a typically Aurovilian way of living. This happened in "Pour Tous" next to solar kitchen, finishing at 3 pm. 

10,000 visitors thronged the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. Over 10,000 visitors are expected to have crossed the portals of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, to have a ...

A mass meditation was held at Sri Aurobindo Ashram to mark the 135th birth anniversary of the Mother here on Thursday. Devotees from the country as well as...

Talk - Matter – Man’s Last spiritual Frontier at Sri Aurobindo Complex ... Feb 21 2013 04:30 PM Sri Aurobindo Complex Trust 21 Feb, 2013. 'Mother's birth anniversary', talk on 'Matter - man's last spiritual frontier' by Bhaskara Reddy.

MOTHER´S BIRTHDAY AT AUROBINDO (Colonel Nirmal Mahajan, EME, Retd) 21 Feb, was Mother’s 135th birthday
It was celebrated with all the fervor, enthusiasm at the Aurobindo Ashram, Rajpur Road. The Prayer hall was packed to capacity with the devotees who had come to pay homage to Mother. Madhu Anjali, energetic Vice Chairperson of Aurbindo Ashram, had splendidly decked up the whole place with marigold flowers. Flurry of white flowers at the entrance add to the ambiance of Ashram. As always, as per the tradition, the program started with meditation and reading of a page of epic, “Savitri” (written by Sri Aurobindo). Later Kiran Sood, Principal of M.K.P (PG) Collage, gave a thought provoking talk on Mother, which the knowledgeable audience heard in pin drop silence. Kiran is a regular speaker and has in-depth knowledge of spiritual matters…
Special message received from Pondicherry was distributed to all. It read, “There is a sacred fire that burns in the heart and envelops the whole being; it is Agni, who illumines and purifies all. I kindle that fire in you each time that you ask me for some progress; but it destroys nothing but falsehood and obscurity.” The Mother
20 boys and girls of Jaswant Modern School sang few melodious Bhajans, befitting the auspicious occasion, in the presence of their principal Meenakashi Ganhotra. Every one in the vast gathering appreciated chorus singing especially “ Om Namo Shivai” in crescendo. In the end Devi Wahi, chairperson of Aurbindo, profusely thanked Kiran Sood and principal, students of Jaswant Modern School. She also informed the devotees that on 24 Feb, Promila Mahajan will give lecture on “Meditation” at 10:30 AM.  All are welcome. The function was attended by large devotees of Dehradun including Gen Agarwal, Thapar, Mohan Sachdev, Narang , Bansal, Sethi , Mehta , Mahajan and many more. Community lunch was served to one and all. It was indeed a memorable day at Aurobindo Ashram.

As the human mind develops beyond its first focus on purely vital success and fulfillment, we see the next stage as the attempt to abstract out of the life experience some basic principles or rules which get framed into the concept of “right”, which became in the ancient Indian philosophy, the concept known as “Dharma”. We see here a more characteristically mental framework developing an independence from the needs for vital success in life, and a corresponding attempt to control life based on these abstract principles…
We see here a real transition from the non-moral law of the vital world, and the first mental developments focused on supporting and achieving success in the world of life and action, to a more purely mental framework that seeks to modify life, and impose itself regardless of the vital desires and fulfillments. Of course, this starts out as a mixed action still highly colored by the desires, demands and needs of the vital being of man, and thus, the ideals and goals set in this initial stage are very much vital goals.

The term noosphere was originally coined by Teilhard de Chardin the Jesuit anthropologist. However it was Vernadsky integrated the emergence of noosphere with the evolutionary history of the planet… His book ‘The Biosphere’ was published in Russian in 1926 and in French in 1929. With 150 pages and unassuming cover, the book’s importance was not understood fully outside a small minority of inter-disciplinary scientists dealing with eco-systems… In 1960, in the centennial year of the publication of ‘Origin of Species’, Sir Julian Huxley coined the term ‘psycho-social evolution’ to characterize the nature of evolution after the advent of humans. Huxley also strongly felt the need for a psychosocial science for guiding this post-biological evolution…
But what makes Vivekananda more relevant to the study of noosphere is the way he shuns the pseudo-science of social Darwinism. This is a remarkable stand because at that time the most of the Western world was under the sway of Herbert Spencer – applying the ‘survival of the fittest’ to human societies, justifying enslaving of non-western societies, colonial exploitation, racism and elimination of mentally challenged individuals in the name of the science of eugenics… He saw in evolution an underlying unity of all life rejecting spontaneous creation with an external factor like God and he also inferred that with the advent of human mind and unity of humanity, a new phase in evolution has commenced… In fact Vernadsky seeing mind as an important factor in planetary geo-bio evolution gets a premonition in Vivekananda’s thought, though in a much larger canvas… Vernadsky in his last days was deeply attracted by the works of Swami Vivekananda. And this year sees the 150th birth anniversary of both Swami Vivekananda and Vernadsky. 

A central thread running through his work is an unusually strong commitment to the soundness of the ordinary human being’s judgments, and a concern to fend off attempts, by philosophers and policy-makers, to replace those judgments with the supposedly better “systems” invented by intellectuals… Perhaps taking a cue from David Hume’s skepticism about the capacity of philosophy to replace the judgments of common life, Smith is suspicious of philosophy as conducted from a foundationalist standpoint, outside the modes of thought and practice it examines. Instead, he maps common life from within, correcting it where necessary with its own tools rather than trying either to justify or to criticize it from an external standpoint. He aims indeed to break down the distinction between theoretical and ordinary thought. This intellectual project is not unconnected with his political interest in guaranteeing to ordinary individuals the “natural liberty” to act in accordance with their own judgments.

Polanyi suffers from ideological blindness.  He has a political point of view that denies the very evidence he quotes!  

Remembering Arumuga Navalar from Centre Right India by Pulitheva Tamizhmannan
There are other equally great figures who are less famous, but who deserve to be known and remembered. Among them is Arumuga Navalar (1822 – 1879) who is regarded as the “father” of modern day Tamil prose and an architect of Hindu destiny in Eelam (Sri Lanka) is the most prominent member…
The school he established was modeled along the lines of the Protestant school he had studied in since he felt that the traditional Tamil schools were inadequate for facing the missionary onslaught which he saw as shiva’s way of chastising the Tamils and awakening them to their own heritage… By 1850 he had managed to set up the printing press and began publishing religious texts and texts like Bala Patam (Children’s Lessons) for the Shaiva school children… To put it simply, Arumuga Navalar created an awakening among the Sri Lankan Tamils and set the standards for modern day Tamil prose; what Swami Dayananda and his Arya Samaj had achieved in North India in stemming conversions, Arumuga Navalar achieved in Eelam.

At a time, when India was suffering from corruption, low economic growth etc, and the common man was left with frustration and anger over the system, Hindi Cinema turned violent and aggressive. Reflecting the anger of the masses, Amitabh Bachchan became the new hero, who had the courage to fight against the wrong and maintaining moral values at the same time… Reflective of "the tumultuous politics of the early 70s" in India, Deewaar (1975 film) was a ground-breaking work. It was one of a few films which established Bachchan as the "angry young man" of Bollywood cinema. ~ How do movies affect yoga practice?

No comments:

Post a Comment