A Mental View of the Supramental from Auromira Yoga by Dr. Ramesh Bijlani
The process of evolution can be accelerated by us
because human beings have the capacity for rising in consciousness. If a
sufficient number of persons work for raising their consciousness, they would
also contribute to building up the critical mass of people that is necessary
for influencing positively the way the world runs. Thus each of us can
contribute to ushering in a new world order based on compassion, cooperation and
contentment. As the Mother said, “The world is preparing for a big change. Will
you help?”
The
Nones: a Growing Non-tribe Religion is one of the finest products of the
human mind. Its origins are in the yearning of man for knowing the Truth, and
organizing his life in light of that Truth. The Truth can be known only by
going deep within to a level higher than the mental. The reason is that the
Truth is infinite, whereas thoughts and words are finite. Thoughts can deal
effectively only with what can be measured, whereas the Truth is immeasurable.
The mind trusts only what can be perceived by the senses, whereas senses can
perceive only a part of the Reality. But, being mental constructs, religions
have a tendency to gravitate to the mental level. That is why, although
religions are rooted in spirituality, they settle down for visible symbols,
rituals, and dogmas…
In short, what repels in religions are their dogmas
and rituals. And what attracts in spirituality is that it does not throw out
the baby with the bathwater. It gets rid of the dogmas and rituals, but retains
faith in the One Supreme Consciousness that most of us are at least dimly aware
of. POSTED BY DR. RAMESH BIJLANI AT 6:33 PM MARCH 21, 2012 Currently he is attached
to Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Delhi Branch, where he gives talks and conducts
programs on yoga. VIEW
MY COMPLETE PROFILE
Comment on Introduction to The Seven Quartets of Becoming by R
from Comments for Posthuman Destinies by R
K: This conversation is also only possible at all
because of the existing techno-medium. Should we dismantle the medium since it
has a certain flattening effect and also serves streaming global markets? The
facts being demonstrated seem to me to be just the rather obvious ones that
technology serves various ends and can be used in various ways, all mixed up
with the various motives and qualities of human nature.
R: The fact a medium makes something possible does
not mean it does not fundamentally alter the message transmitted through it. By
in large citizens of developed societies live lives today that are engulfed
within the medium of ubiquitous technologies. One could argue for scientific
studies that note the destruction of deep attention in children and the diminishing of
empathic response in young adults, or site the flattening or waning of affect in postmodernity that
has been well argued by a number of prominent psychologist, philosophers and
cultural theorist but, even so perhaps you would be still be unconvinced that
our evolving techno-cultural environment has any impact on human subjectivity.
If so and you believe that the dramatic acceleration
of technological mediation (along with its corresponding ideology of
consumption) that increasingly pervades our LifeWorld, and which is wholly
unprecedented in human history, has had no impact on human subjectivity then
you would have to marshal facts to support that thesis.
K: There’s also a global history of mystics writing
about their essential experiences across time and culture in which one can
observe certain common or repeating features. This might count as some evidence
that human essential subjectivity is not entirely a creation of a specific
culture at a specific historical time, and that this essence is accessible,
although not easily.
R: I agree that there are mystics across time who
have written about their internal experience but in my reading they all do so
by employing explanatory narratives derived from the mythological and/or
spiritual systems they are culturally embedded in. This is why Aurobindo
borrows heavily from Vedantic thought and even uses the term Jivatman and by
contrast it also explains why Teilhard frames the future through a Christian
lens.
It seems to me impossible to prove that there is any
essence of human subjectivity, apart from its embededness in culture or that an
individual mind can exist apart from a shared group mind. For example, Sri Aurobindo had to be
raised in a family of humans to learn language, the language he employs in his
discourse is by in large a result of his Cambridge India not Ireland
Comment on Introduction to The Seven Quartets of Becoming by
Kepler from Comments for Posthuman Destinies by Kepler
I’m not at all committed to the idea that our
unprecedented techno-cultural environment has no impact on human subjectivity.
My problem is with the utterly opposite idea that the present techno-cultural
environment is now determining human subjectivity, and has in fact so radically
altered human subjectivity that it can now be divided into two distinct
categories: the present techno-cultural subjectivity, and
all-the-rest-of-history subjectivity. And that this determination goes so deep
that it affects not just ordinary surface psychological movements but also the
inner spaces of yoga. Maybe I’m mis-reading DB but it seemed to me these are
the things he’s saying.
R: It seems to me impossible to prove that there is
any essence of human subjectivity…
K: Right, I granted you that, at least not an
inter-subjective proof. I.e. one might be able to prove it to oneself via yogic
experience.
R: Dare I say that if any mystic throughout history
had been raised by wolves they would be howling at moon rather than offering
confessions or chanting mantras.
K: If said mystic realized the Atman, he may indeed
express his realization by howling at the moon – but he would still be living
in the inner Atman consciousness. Note I’m not saying a wolf man is likely to
realize the Atman, or that this is a proof of anything, I’m just carrying on
your thought experiment. The obvious cultural embeddedness of various aspects
of human subjectivity is not necessarily inconsistent with there also being a
non culturally-embedded essence.
Comment on Introduction to The Seven Quartets of Becoming by R
from Comments for Posthuman Destinies by R
I dont interpret D as saying that but what I am
saying is the effects of techno-culture upon humans are different than those
that preceded it. And I am not just saying all the effects of this emerging
culture are negative, if I look at my own kids who have grown up within this techno-culture,
they are way smarter and than myself.
I do think however, there is evidence to support the
thesis that some of the consequences of the evolving techno-culture have
important implications for human relational and affective responses, that I would
not categorize as positive.
A non-culturally embedded essence would be very
difficult to prove, But even if I am arguing that human subjectivity is
fundamentally determined by culture in fact, I see yoga as an important key to
achieving freedom from ones culturally determined responses. But that said,
this does not take me back to any subjective essence, because yoga itself is a
culturally determined practice
Comment on Introduction to The Seven Quartets of Becoming by
Kepler from Comments for Posthuman Destinies by Kepler
I agree with this modest and sober claim. Must “culturally determined” be a binary
attribute? Couldn’t some aspects of the phenomenon called yoga be culturally
embedded and some not? If there were nothing at all about yoga that escaped
cultural determination, that would probably imply there’s no such thing as yoga
as we usually conceive of it (i.e. it would be an illusion).
Comment on Introduction to The Seven Quartets of Becoming by R
from Comments for Posthuman Destinies by R
There are in fact inner technologies of
transformation and attention spread across multiple world cultures many of
which are called other things than yoga. I would say that what they share is
that they aim at liberation of the subject and all are culturally embedded to
some extent. But that said I do not think that makes the goals aimed at by
these practices necessarily illusionary or less profound. I also do not think
that denoting an inner technology -such as yoga- as culturally embedded
subtracts anything from the liberatory potential it offers the human subject. I
would also add that if one is inclined to see the Divine in everything that to
see the Divine pervading our cultural practices is not to stretch the
imagination.
Comment on Introduction to The Seven Quartets of Becoming by
Kepler from Comments for Posthuman Destinies by Kepler
DB: Again, how completely these things are
accomplished is not what I am debating, but pointing to the need to be aware of
these forces and developing alternate technologies of consciousness against
their grain to aim for another kind of human subjectivity and global
fulfillment, one that pertains to a divine life.
K: Okay, I’m with you there.
Manual DeLanda, Philosophy and Simulation, the Emergence of
Synthetic Reason from Posthuman Destinies by R
In this new title, DeLanda proposes a philosophy of
emergence by defending what he calls synthetic reason, one that cannot be
reduced to deduction and its principles, one that exceeds both the linear,
simple mechanisms and the logical operation of the human brain, one that can
better be thought by computation and mathematical models. The book, in its
modest words, according to DeLanda, is to study the various mechanisms of
emergence and its ontological status through computer simulations.
New Book by François Laruelle from An und für sich by Anthony Paul Smith
Today I received Laruelle’s new book, Théorié générale des victimes, which promises to
continue work he has done in Future Christ and some soon to be
translated texts (like Éthique de l’étranger and
the interview bookL’Ultime Honneur des intellectels). I’ve translated
the short blurb for our readers below:
A theory of victims as such still does not exist in
philosophy, which is more interested in force, power and domination. Victims
have become a privileged object for intellectual who take up their defence, but
also of the mass media who actualize them in witnessing them. A little more
rigorous theory would assume that the Victim-in-person is the symbolic
condition that determines the victimology soaked through with philosophy.
We draw two figures of the intellectual. The
media-friendly [médiatique] intellectual under ultimate philosophical
dominance, committed to or embedded with power, who is happy to represent the
victims, to photograph them whether through speech, writing or images. And the
generic intellectual who works under the determining condition of the victim
rather than philosophy.
We examine different aspects of the intellectual,
his sickness and treachery, according to the victim. Then we examine the
victimization as a process of the double punishment inflicted on the victim,
the notions of a “weak force” and “strong force” , of the “survivor” and the
“resurrected”, the problem of persecution and extermination (why do we kill?).
All of this concerns founding ethics on the victim
rather than on philosophical force. Compassion is not the philosophical pity of
animals participating in universal life, it is the final living experience,
that of the defeated who tethers death and so gives it its meaning. Another
idea of man, one we call “generic”.
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