Sunday, June 24, 2018

What is true indology?

Daily Pioneer-21 hours ago
The Yoga as conceptualised in India when the civilisation dawned on the eastern horizon is no exception. Sri Aurobindo writes, “The child of immemorial ages, ...
Generally what happens to one who is seriously initiated into Yoga is that it presents in him the enormous complexity of his nature, something which at the same time stimulates and embarrasses him with the multiplicity of his personality, myriad personalities dragging him powerfully into different directions. Things which lurk undetected-a colossal vastness living behind the veil- spring up into the surface. It is a stupendous challenge placed in the way of yogic development by the universal nature which does not yield an inch without the Yogi transforming himself completely in the new yogic consciousness.  As one progresses in the path of Yoga one discovers to his utter despair that every part of his being, be it intellect, sense mind, desire self, heart, body, has all its natural formation, living independently of the rest. They do not concord and they fiercely resist every attempt made to bring them into a harmony around a deeper self which the Yoga helps to emerge out of the veil of the surface personality which dominates him till the flower of the soul starts opening up, petal by petal.

Assorted tweets for general information:

Oh, just to clarify, I have read Secret of the Veda & found it a genuine, sincere & interesting book. I am not sure if this has come off clearly elsewhere but I do not treat aurobindo on the same plane as dayAnanda of AryasamAja or vivekAnanda. ++
It has several insights, sure. Just that it cannot be taken as a "scripture" in its own right. That is, it does not have independent value as an "authority". Now, we DO have an abundance of textual treasures which are "fit" to be authorities.++
If it contradicts, it must be reinterpreted & if impossible to do that, it must be dismissed as a special case of an otherwise sincere thinker's misunderstanding. Same logic applies to others I mentioned (AryasamAj/vivekAnanda)...Just that I don't esteem their approach highly.
I am no scholar, just a typical Hindu deeply committed to preserving the treasures traditional sampradAya-s have to offer, & their esteem & status. Anyway, it was meant to be a rather generic/minor point that both of them could not resist superimposing abrahamic constructs on their reading of dharma or the urge to conform to certain Western expectations. I.e "Superstitious to interpret vedic texts in terms of rituals; so, interpret them in the light of science/technology", or "polytheism is demeaning, monotheism is original religion of veda"

I didn't mean it in any derogatory way sir..
My limited point is that there have been new insights offered by Sri Aurobindo in matters of Vedic Interpretation (especially Samhita portion) & much progress has been made in providing a coherent picture of the Vedic corpus by scholars such as Kapali Sastriar and R.L Kashyap (https://t.co/fne2QAl564). To dismiss them summarily b/c they apparently don't respect tradition doesn't seem to be the sincere thing to do..
BTW thank you for the informative thread :)

SA (and every other luminary) accepts such evolution anyway. 
The point of contention was post-puranic evolution. SA himself criticizes this tendency to stagnate at Shankar in case of Adwait eg. He says, we r separated from Shankar by centuries while Shankar was seperated from Vedas by many millenia, in that sense, Shankar is himself modern.

Dayanand was an acclaimed vedic scholar and a scholar(like urself) might perceive his scholarship more profound than SA. But why Vivekanand ? He produced no scholarly work comparable to SA (They might be compared on basis of yogic attainment, but i don't think u meant that) PS: this wasn't to demean SV. Sri Aurobindo himself held SV in highest regard, but not for scholarship.

Oh boy, you are too complicated for them.
Read what nonsense they spew in name of "Civilizational perspective" to defend every evil and regression. Targigrade is a great exponent of it.
In the end the question is:if everything good&liberal is to be traded away to "win" the war /1
Then what are they fighting for ?
It's like selling one's children to build a nice house. /2
Well u r spot on. Some who were extremely aggressive in my interactions with them and hv actually joined a trad sampradaya admit that they were debauchees in college. It's a "return to our roots" phase for them. Some will hopefully grow out of it.

Well sir mostly these anon folks never care to actually implement their own views in their https://t.co/JwfjFsIxkq reality,the more regressive an online hindutva Vadi is,chances are that he/she leads a more liberal real life in some lib nation of the west or some metro city :)
U are absolutely spot on Sir. _/\_ taking a high traditionalist stance feels so liberating online :) in reality, as per my understanding, nontrad saints known to our nation like kabir dev, tukaram or the nath tradition yogis of dattatreya lineage are our true civilizational gems.
problem with any form of strict adherence to shastra is that,it will sooner or later contradict with the fundamental principle of evolution of soul/nature.whole of creation is constantly evolving,nothing is stagnant,not even the primordial bigbang with which everything began.
https://twitter.com/TIKU321/status/1010798311060561920?s=19
Adherence to absolute truth in speech,action and thought is tough as hell for us in this age. yet if we can do that,as rk paramhamsa said,slowly the inner 5 koshas and the 5 tattvas will be purified in us.eventually it will lead to total liberation.

His views on Swamigal and Sri Aurobindo are of a parochial nature.. He seems to be of the opinion that there cannot be any new revelations in matters of religion.. I think that is the case with most "trads"..

If that was how ancient Rishis perceived religion, we would still be dancing around a Tree god.
I asked him about SA. He said he has read Secret of the Veda and admires SA's intent but he prefers going to the original meaning and content of shrutis.
Most trads seem rather mute on SA and Raman Maharshi as they cannot be dismissed as neo-blah blah or "babas" and yet do not endorse their entrenched positions on rituals and texts. 
Dunno what's TI's view on this is though.
I also didn't get to read it either. But it was about defining yoga as seperation of Purush and Prakriti which an Art of Living teacher called out.
TI then posted a link to an extract of Life Divine to prove his point(which wasn't actually proving his point) /1
His link was:
I posted this comment on it, to which he didn't reply:
Then he wrote another tweet saying that he fully respects all traditional acharyas of all traditional sampradayas and is only calling out neo-babas etc.(His original argument was against babas dissociating Yoga from Hinduism).
I asked:
Not asking malafide. Just curious: You mentioned Sri Aurobindo to back your view. But he too is far from traditional. Infact he was quite opposed to Sayana's ritualistic and literal approach to the Vedas(disregarding their deeper yogic truths) while the trads rever Sayana.Ur view ?
Btw, he was deeply respected by extremely learned trads like Ganpati Muni and Kapali Shastri who even became his disciple.
Also, Raman Maharshi too was not a trad at all. He had no interest in rituals & very little in texts. But the above mentioned trads bowed to him. Ur view ?

Arpan Ji I would say I have formed my opinion over a long period of time and I think certain people have narcissistic tendencies. People like me when we don't know something we are eager to learn from someone who knows and without any inhibitions we do so then there r others.+
Reluctance to accept that 1 might not necessarily be an expert in all fields related to Hinduism is also part of his attitude which I dislike.Deleting tweets according 2 me shows his fear dat others will start gaining "followers"& his position as d know it all will be diminished
The so-called Traditionalist I am talking about obviously hates Savarkar. But it does not end with him they dislike Aurobindo, Swami Vivekananda, Swami Dayanand Saraswati and everyone else from the Hindu side of that particular Era. Also acc to them Avaidik Hindus are not Hindus.

The Emergency Revisited – Part-I (3-Part Series) - The Circumstances Leading to the Imposition of Emergency https://t.co/AzG3EgS9RQ

Recounting this episode is pregnant with possibilities of a genuine meeting of hearts of dominant political formations by abdicating shrill sectarianism, factionalism, and fanaticism. The example of JP forging such a grand alliance then should serve as a template for the future.

Very useful article. I have also found the papers published in this book - Indian Philosophical systems, published by Ramakrishna Mission to be very interesting, as they propound a basic unity of Indian Philosophical systems. https://t.co/e6BMFP0aGs

A thread where I examine the false dichotomy often drawn in academia between the Vedic religion and modern Hinduism
https://t.co/w63cjdb3Yz

Reading #SriAurobindo provides a rich perspective on the secret of the Veda and how to avoid literal and superficial impressions on it. Indispensable for any scholar on Indian wisdom https://t.co/Wkh1jrgnby @thesecretofveda @supremefelicity @SavitriProject @sakshitrust @bennedose

Sri Aurobindo was not merely a revolutionary leader but an astute political theorist. So, politics of today can't ignore his prophesies. He didn't simply wrote commentary on the Gita and Upanishads etc; rather he has transformed the very tenor of religions and nature of practice.

Marketime: Historical law as natural selection of accidents https://t.co/ipUZHv1WsJ @NathTusar @GabbarSanghi @vakibs
This mire must harbour the orchid and the rose,
From her blind unwilling substance must emerge
A beauty that belongs to happier spheres.
#SriAurobindo (SAVITRI)

No comments:

Post a Comment