The language itself has fallen silent

The place of Sanskrit in India today is much like that of Latin in the West. It is part of the bedrock of our history and its words are the root words of our contemporary speech, but it has long ceased to play a role in the commerce of daily life and, like all dead languages, it has become the preserve of priests and schoolchildren. Many of the greatest works of Indian literature are written in Sanskrit, but apart from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, their influence upon us is muted because the language itself has fallen silent.

Now an ambitious new publishing project, the Clay Sanskrit Library, brings together leading Sanskrit translators and scholars of Indology from around the world to celebrate in translating the beauty and range of classical Sanskrit literature. Two dozen volumes of a projected 100 titles have been issued already. Published as smart green hardbacks that are small enough to fit into a jeans pocket, the volumes are meant to satisfy both the scholar and the lay reader. Each volume has a transliteration of the original Sanskrit text on the left-hand page and an English translation on the right, as also a helpful introduction and notes.

Alongside definitive translations of the great Indian epics—30 or so volumes will be devoted to the Mahabharata itself—Clay Sanskrit Library makes available to the English-speaking reader many other delights: The earthy verse of Bhartrhari, the pungent satire of Jayanta Bhatta and the roving narratives of Dandin, among others. All these writers belong properly not just to Indian literature, but to world literature. Sunday, February 25, 2007 This piece on the Clay Sanskrit Library project and on Kalidasa's play The Recognition of Shakuntala appeared yesterday in Mint. Chandrahas, 7:52 AM

Inventing their own book

“How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read?” has become a best seller here, with translation rights snapped up across Europe and under negotiation in Britain and the United States. “I am surprised because I hadn’t imagined how guilty nonreaders feel,” Mr. Bayard, 52, said in an interview. “With this book, they can shake off their guilt without psychoanalysis, so it’s much cheaper.”

Mr. Bayard reassures them that there is no obligation to read, and confesses to lecturing students on books that he has either not read or has merely skimmed. And he recalls passionate exchanges with people who also have not read the book under discussion. He further cites writers like Montaigne, who could not remember what he read, and Paul Valéry, who found ways of praising authors whose books he had never opened. Mr. Bayard finds characters in novels by Graham Greene, David Lodge and others who cheerfully question the need to read at all. And he refuses to be intimidated by Proust or Joyce...

Students, he noted from experience, are skilled at opining about books they have not read, building on elements he may have provided in a lecture. This approach can also work in the more exposed arena of social gatherings: the book’s cover, reviews and other public reaction to it, gossip about the author and even the current conversation can all provide food for sounding informed.

One alternative, he said, is to try to change the subject. Another is to admit not knowing a particular book while suggesting knowledge of the so-called “collective library” into which the book fits. But Mr. Bayard’s most daring suggestion is that nonreaders should talk about themselves, using the pretext of the book without dwelling on its contents. In this way, he said, they are forced to tap their imagination and, in effect, invent their own book...

But he chose this device, he said, because he wanted to help people conquer their fear of culture by challenging the way that literature is presented to students and the public in France...“They see culture as a huge wall, as a terrifying specter of ‘knowledge,’ ” he went on. “But we intellectuals, who are avid readers, know there are many ways of reading a book. You can skim it, you can start and not finish it, you can look at the index. You learn to live with a book.” By ALAN RIDING The New York Times: February 24, 2007

Dance needs to be portrayed in a spirit of total ecstasy

A Dancer's Quest for Prema or Divine Love

Padmaja Suresh The Times of India 20 Feb, 2007

The role of prema or devotional love is pivotal in divine dance forms such as Bharatanatyam. The combination of nritta or pure dance, abhinaya or pure expression and nritya or expressive dancing leads the dancer close to the infinite domain of the cosmic self. For this, dance needs to be portrayed in a spirit of total ecstasy, rising above the physical realm and parameters of the body. Natyopasana or devotional fervour in dance wherein the dance assumes worshipful nature, leads to natyabrahmn:

Realising the Universe within the individual self, a dancer uses her own personality comprising physical form and mental states as the primary vehicle in the first stage. She then acquires the personality of the various charac-ters represented as the secondary vehicle in the second stage and unwinds shackles of personal traits as the dance level evolves and deepens. Finally she gets elevated to the highest spiritual sphere, sringara or love. This is the first among rasas that are aesthetic flavours of dance and drama. Sringara considered as rasa raja as its portrayal alone has the scope to touch upon other bhavas too, taking its three basic delineations as vatsalya or motherly affection, rati or union of male and female principles and bhakti or self-surrender and devotion to the Almighty.

Sringara becomes delectable in any form and offers the easiest path to be one with the ethereal world: that's natya yoga. A dancer could be skilled and sincere too, but unless there is sublimation of ego, the dance cannot create rasanubhava, the impact of splendour. The dancer merges in the spirit of dance, surrenders to its magnificence and spontaneously expresses a divine energy, and transports the audience to similar experiences. Through inspiration and intuition, dance makes the audience feel divine energy. The dancer's quest is to negate egoistic tendencies by submitting herself as an instrument to experience divinity. It is said that true movement cannot lie. True joy can be experienced through devotional love. This cannot always be taught but can perhaps be imbibed from eminent gurus.

We can assess philosophical terms like advaita, vishishta advaita and dvaita in the context of dance. The concept of a dancer becoming one with the dance through natya yoga is holistic and advaitic, while the aesthetic representation and appreciation of manifestations of divinity incorporated in dance are examples of admitting to theosophies like vishishta advaita. Again, the bhakti-marg or pathway to God prescribed by saints is so suffused with infectious love, humble devotion and self-surrender, that dancing to their innumerable compositions has the potency to infuse spiritual well-being. Creating, adding form — from nirguna to saguna — and placing this divinity on the highest pedestal become tools for communication, a must for successful dramatic representation.

Advaitam, true shantam, resting in Monism can be the 'end'. Indeed where there cannot be any mundane expression but natya, in order to carry the dancer and spectators, it has to be thoroughly expressive and appear world-related. It is multidimensional, physically externalising through movement and emotions using eyes, parts of face, neck, limbs... and also all along internalising by correlating the mind. Witnessing all these ephemeral states is the 'mystical eye' that can make one see divine reality in dance. Hence, one can understand dance as life itself... as cosmic movement... as infinite cycle of creation, sustenance and destruction. Presented at the first international indology conference, Goa, Feb 7-10.

Phantom of the Opera, Cats & West Side story

Musicale program @ Auroville Went for a weekend to auroville, listened to musicale - Phantom of the Opera, Cats & West Side story. The choir sang really well, specialy liked the songs - Phantom of the opera & Macavity the mystery Cat. Posted by Tluanga at 1:09 PM Monday, February 12, 2007 Labels: Pondy

The rasikas passionately responded to our dance and communicated their appreciation in cheers and tears of joy

Arts & Fashion Sunday January 28, 2007 Star Publications (Malaysia) Bhd Dancing through India By RAMLI IBRAHIM Pictures by KARTHIK VENKATARAMAN

The Sutra Dance Theatre overcame long, tedious train journeys, rickety makeshift stages and even threats to win the hearts of Indian audiences across the sub-continent with their performances of the odissi and the bharatanatyam.

RIGHT after our Canada-Europe Tour (September/October 2006), we embarked on our “Circumambulatory” India Tour 2006 (Nov 19 – Dec 31)). It was an ambitious and gruelling six-week round India tour, mainly by train. Our first destination in India was New Delhi and a bus immediately took us to Jaipur. We began our marathon performance schedule the next day.

Performing the odissi for schoolchildren with the City Palace as a backdrop.After five back-to-back performances in Jaipur, we returned to Delhi and proceeded to Neemrana in Rajasthan for another series of performances. We then travelled by train to Mumbai, Bangalore, Belur, Coimbatore, Chennai, Pondicherry, Auroville and finally, Bhubaneswar. As the tour took its own momentum, we stopped counting the number of performances we had done. Six weeks later, the Sutra team found themselves once again in New Delhi for their return flight to Malaysia. We were ourselves amazed that we had literally circumambulated the Indian sub-continent by train and performed no fewer than 25 performances watched by at least 50,000 people!

We took two programmes, “Vision of Forever” (odissi) and “Divine Encounters” (bharatanatyam) and a new contemporary work “Kamala”. Ramli does sentry duty with the guards at the City Palace in Jaipur.

Now, tracing our performance route in retrospect, we are amazed at what we had achieved! We had danced in gloriously wonderful venues, from ancient fort palaces (Neemrana), major cultural centres (Jawarhalal Cultural Centre Jaipur, designed by famous India architect Charles Correa; the Kamani Auditorium; National Centre of Performing Arts, Mumbai), ancient temples (Belur, 12th century, Karnataka), ashrams (Isha Foundation, Pondicherry;) to constructed make-shift stages on esplanades and parks in front of huge crowds. We were greatly appreciated everywhere we went. The pattern was the same in each city. We arrived, danced and conquered! ...

There were performances at the Isha and Pondicherry Ashrams where the audiences’ reaction completely floored us – the rasikas passionately responded to our dance and communicated their appreciation in cheers and tears of joy. These are the highlights that will forever be etched in our memories.

Ramli and Sutra dancers peeking out of a shack that served as their dressing room as they wait to perform on a makeshift stage in a Pondicherry night market.But two performances were landmarks in establishing Sutra as a major Indian dance group in India.

The first was in New Delhi, organised by Aurodhan Gallery (Pondicherry). This performance managed to capture art connoisseurs and the crème de la crème of dance in India’s capital city. Lalit Verma, the director of Aurodhan Gallery brought Dr Karan Singh (member of the Raja Sabha and chairman of Council for Cultural Relations) and Parvan Varma (director of ICCR) to see us for the first time.

In it is life new-born to live and move in the Time of Eternity

Re: 04: Now her Life Shared the Cosmic Load by RY Deshpande on Sat 10 Feb 2007 06:32 AM PST Profile Permanent Link

The sonnet is a perfect piece of poetry; it easily ranks as one of the best Amal has written. I am sure, Sri Aurobindo himself would have remarked: “Very fine indeed. This time you have got the sonnet movement very well.” The images are Amalian and daring; the sequencing of poetic thought is impeccable; phrases like “blind force of mortal doom”, “Parthenon’s pillars” massive and beautiful in exquisite proportion lifting up a whole civilisation to the blue of the sky, “brute hands” of Time breaking the leaden chains of authority, “this one death” coming as a master-stroke, all these and many more are amply artistic to make the “paradox of a death that is a breakthrough into a new life for humanity” sufficiently convincing. The phrase “divine Aurobindo died” is heart-shattering no doubt, unacceptable, unbearable to the tradition-bound and the feeble with his small soul of bhakti or worshipful timid devotion; but it has the inspirational magic of transforming the Gita’s “transience and unhappiness” into the enduring and the blissful, proclaiming forcefully of the triumph through willed death. To quote a phrase from Amal’s another poem we have here a “fire of mystic mind” ready to leap into the great Flame. In it is life new-born to live and move in the Time of Eternity.

And yet the sonnet looks to be too perfect to be occult-spiritually acceptable with the connotations it should carry; for, I wonder, if the “divine Aurobindo died” does plunge at all deep enough into the mystery of the deathless embracing death. It sounds too loud, trumpeting a triumph which should have come from the womb of the omniscient hush—to use a Savitri-phrase. Its “overhead”-ness is patently mental, though perhaps of a very high order; the absoluteness of the spiritual demanded for such a theme is not there. Contrast this with “This was the day when Satyavan must die.” Its foundation is luminous peace and its birth is in the creative transcendent, simple and bare in its beauty. We could look into it in more detail, at least from one or two points of view. RYD

Chuvanistic tendencies to dismiss, demean or patronize the experience of "the other"

Re: Post Human Variations by Richard Carlson by Rich on Sun 04 Feb 2007 07:30 PM PST Profile Permanent Link

That we would tend to privilege ideas or poetics, which find inspiration in the experience of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother maybe natural for those of us who find an affinity with their teachings. However, while recognizing the difference in teaching between Integral Yoga and Other disciplines, I do not believe such recognition necessities a “Go Team” sensibility which excludes other experiences of inner praxis or narratives of other spiritual topography. Such exclusivist practices I have found become chuvanistic over time and inspire ideological tendencies to dismiss, demean or patronize the experience of "the other" . This is in fact contrary to my understanding (however slight) of integral spirituality.

My own concern is to open up the dialog to others besides the IY faithful. And if we are attempting inter-subjective dialog with those who may share our concerns but not our beliefs, there would be little proof we could demonstrate to champion our cause over theirs. Similarly I think it impossible to conclusively demonstrate that one form of (esp. spiritual) poetry is superior to any other. Now one can argue about style, meter, imagery, complexity or simplicity of expression and their utility for accomplishing the poetic intention, but the valorization of poetry, and especially the championing of its particular imaginative source is largely a matter of personal taste and/or cultural preference. rc 2:47 AM

Six divergent writers

Indian Imagination Critical Essays On by K D Verma More Books by K D Verma Synopses & Reviews Publisher Comments:
The Indian Imagination focuses on literary developments in English both in the colonial and postcolonial periods of Indian history. Six divergent writers—Aurobindo Ghose (Sri Aurobindo), Mulk Raj Anand, Balachandra Rajan, Nissim Ezekiel, Anita Desai, and Arun Joshi—represent a consciousness that has emerged from the confrontation between tradition and modernity. The colonial fantasy of British India was finally dissolved in the first half of this century, only to be succeeded by another fantasy, that of the reinstituted sovereign nation-state. This study argues that the two phases of history—like the two phases of Indian writing in English— together represent the sociohistorical process of colonization and decolonization and the affirmation of identity.
About the Author: K.D. Verma is Professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown. Table of Contents
Indian Writing in English: Structure of Consciousness, Literary History, and Critical Theory * Sri Aurobindo as a Poet: A Reassessment * The Social and Political Vision of Sri Aurobindo * Sri Aurobindo as Critic * Mulk Raj Anand: A Reappraisal * Ideological Confrontation and Synthesis in Mulk Raj Anand’s Conversations in Bloomsbury * Balachandra Rajan’s The Dark Dancer : A Critical Reading * Humanity Defrauded: Notes Toward a Reading of Anita Desai’s Baumgartner’s Bombay * Myth and Imagery in Nissim Ezekiel’s The Unfinished Man : A Critical Reading * Alienation, Identity and Structure in Arun Joshi’s The Apprentice * The Metaphysics and Metastructure of Appearance and Reality in Arun Joshi’s The Last Labyrinth

An Artist of Transformation

The Concept of the Poet in the Aesthetics of Sri Aurobindo

By Dr. Ranjan Ghosh Darjeeling Government College, University of North Bengal (India)

Sri Aurobindo is, like all true poets, an artist of transformation that extends the experiential self to embrace the reality of the world and obeying the higher law that has the body's cells holding the immortal flame. Like the vedic rishi, he climbs beyond himself where the Ineffable has a secret voice and the Imperishable burns through "Matter's Screen." His awareness knows the harmonious and the luminous totality of man's Being, the genuine voyant possessed with Samyakdrishti or Totalitatdenken (Joshi 52). So "all problems of existence are essentially problems of harmony" (Aurobindo, Life Divine 4). However, this harmony cannot be monochromatic in the sense that intellectual knowledge and the will of action are not the ultimate instruments of our consciousness and energy.

The cognate of supra-rationality is vital for it creates the spaces of creation. Tagore believed that our realisation should not end with the reasoning mind, for it must acknowledge the creative imagination in the same breath. "The rational or intellectual man is not the last and the highest ideal of manhood. The spirit that manifests itself in man and dominates secretly the phases of his development is greater and profounder than his intellect" (Aurobindo, Human Cycle 124).

For Aurobindo, the rational is surpassed and left behind by the genius, for the rational only constructs, but does not create. In this light one must better understand Kant’s celebrated view that creations of the mind which do not owe their origin in any way to the spiritual faculty in man (freedom and autonomy) are only a product of mechanical operations, of association of ideas, or even of mere lucky accidents. "Rule and precept are incapable of serving as the requisite subjective standard for . . . the aesthetic and unconditioned finality in fine art" (Meredith 212). Kant finds the explanation of genius in "the supersensible substrate of all the subjects (unattainable by any concept of understanding), and consequently in that which forms the point of reference for the harmonious accord of all our faculties of cognition . . . ." (Meredith 212).

Despite obvious differences between Kant’s and Sri Aurobindo’s respective philosophical positions, the points of accord also are striking. It may be noted in this context that Sri Aurobindo is not an advocate of reductionism. Though art or the aesthetic impulse, properly speaking, springs from the infra-rational parts of our being, it does seek the help of the rational. Reason lays down the laws of aesthetics, purifies our appreciation and improves our taste. Within restricted bounds, reason corrects and sets aright our aesthetic instinct and impulse, by making it self-conscious and rationally discriminative. The rational as such may not also be the artistic but it is the creator of our aesthetic conscience, judge and guide.

So the super-existentialist Sri Aurobindo, manifests a supra-normal familiarity with the intensities of our subliminal and supraliminal being. Spirituality for him is a much wider thing than formal religion. Art reaches its highest self expression when it is pressed into the service of spirituality. And spirituality denotes a threefold line of human aspiration – divine knowledge, strength, love and joy. Art needs to reach beyond what the best European Art satisfies – "the physical requirements of the aesthetic sense, the laws of formal beauty, the emotional demand of humanity, the portrayal of life and outward reality" – to manifest the inner spiritual truth, the "deeper not obvious reality of things, the joy of God in the world and its beauty and desirableness and the manifestation of divine face and energy in phenomenal creation" (Aurbindo, National Value 46).

So Sri Aurobindo’s integralism delimits the content of art that clearly emphasizes the supreme intellectual value of art and his weltanchauung smoothes all the rough zones of our stratified existence. His theory of art is impregnated with the poignant belief that "what nature is, what God is, what man is, can be triumphantly revealed in stone or on canvas" (Aurbindo, National Value 48). So it is for the poet to realize the three tier use of art - aesthetic, intellectual or educative, and the spiritual which is the highest.
In the dead wall closing us from wider self,
Into a secrecy of apparent sleep,
The mystic tract beyond our waking thoughts,
A door parted, built in by Matter’s force,
Releasing things unseized by earthly sense:
A world unseen, unknown by outward mind
Appeared in the silent spaces of the soul. (Savitri, 27)

WORKS CITED
Sri Aurobindo. Collected Poems. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1994.
---. Future Poetry, The. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1994.
---. Human Cycle, The. New York, New York: Sri Aurobindo Library, 1949.
---. Hymns to the Mystic Fire. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1991.
---. Letters of Sri Aurobindo. Bombay: Sri Aurobindo Circle, 1949.
---. Life Divine, The. Twin Lakes, Wisconsin: Lotus Press, 1949/2000.
---. National Value of Art. Calcutta: Arya Publishing, 1936.
---. Savitri. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1996.
---. Synthesis of Yoga, The. New York: Sri Aurobindo Library, 1950.
---. Talks on Poetry. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, 1989.
Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library, Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram 1972 vol 15.
Heidegger, Martin. On the Way to Language. (trans.) Stambaugh, New York: Harper & Row, 1971.
Joshi, V.C. Ed. Sri Aurobindo, An Interpretation. Delhi: Vikas Publishing, 1973.
Nandi, S.K. Studies in Modern Indian Aesthetics. Simla: Indian Institute of Advanced Study, 1975.

Purani, A.B. Evening Talks with Sri Aurobindo. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1970.
Sethna, K.D. The Poetic Genius of Sri Aurobindo. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1974.

Beauty is a ceremony of symmetry and form that turns into a ballet

A Philosophy of Beauty Emil Michelle

The first action of philosophy, the inital step, is to reduce uniformity to exception: what distinguishes one person from another is her/his beauty.

• Beauty is unreachable, not because it is impenetrable, but because it approaches the infinite. Each beautiful person hides an infinity.
• Beauty is deceptive, for essentially, we see ourselves in it, we never see the other person.
• Beauty is concrete -- it rests upon its own reality. It only becomes abstract when we think about it. Thinking mutates beauty into an instrument or a concept -- it abandons reality. And by that I mean this: that a beautiful person cannot be turned into a thing without ceasing to be a person.
• For beauty is not settled in itself. Beautiful people are not a reality -- they create their own realities. The beautiful person is neither a person nor a thing, but perhaps a relation, or more precisely, a function: a solipsistic autonomy that alters in accordance with the perspectives of those that determine it.
• The victim of beauty is a function of the beautiful, not in the physioligical sense of the word, but in the mathematical sense: beauty has mutated into a number, a sign, a symbol. And mankind is seduced by numbers. Every number hides an infinity -- every number contains all the totality of all numbers, total enumeration. Beauty takes on a mathematical form.
• The reality of beauty is cerebral. It is easier, almost, to think of beauty than to see it. Beauty represents magnitudes of sensations. Beauty is a ceremony of symmetry and form that turns into a ballet -- a mathematical, mystical sacrifice to the organs of sense. A situation, or perhaps, a demonstration -- a theater of pulchritude. But since beauty is mathetical, it cannot be destroyed because numbers are immortal -- it cannot be nullified by time or by age.
• The whole of beauty is greater than all the beauty it contains. And in that sense, beauty is unreal. Beauty is supermortal, that is, a mortal who neutralizes all else -- insensate in sensation. It is the mystical paradox: the wonderment of insensibility which has its foundation in sensibility.
• Beauty is hyaline matter. It is the supreme pleasure, the most natural of pleasures. All of history, legend, memoirs, and medical observation prove the point: beauty is a ferocious copulation of viewer and viewed. The recognition of beauty is a triumph of intelligence and sensation and emotion.
• Beauty is immense and unique -- wherever it is discovered. Beauty is a tyrranical philosophy. For beauty postulates a curious despotism over all mankind -- beauty does not liberate, it tosses mankind into dungeons, it binds, it imprisons, it compels, coerces and enslaves. And it enthralls. It is an incubator for a whole congerie of neuroses. Although, what a way to go, huh?!
• What, then, is beauty? What is the epistemology of beauty? In a sense, it is indefinable -- but it may be perceived: its only feature is that it is an exception, through this it may be isolated and determined. Beauty is an exception among the beautiful exceptions, a reflection among the beautiful reflections. A true consensus may be impossible. Still, I will make an attempt: beauty is a miraculous concatenation which tittilates my soul when I look upon it. posted by Emil Michelle at 8:43 AM Saturday, January 13, 2007

The Heaven of Indra where Apsaras dance on gleaming crystal floors

Re: 01: Savitri Awakes among the Human Tribes

RY Deshpande Fri 12 Jan 2007 05:32 AM PST

Savitri had brought with her power, wide consciousness, bliss, calm delight, the delight that the Upanishads would say weds one soul to all, the delight that is the key to the flaming doors of ecstasy. But the unfortunate fact is the littleness of life that is ours, ignorant and death-bound. It denied all that she had brought with her, did not use the key for the doors of ecstasy. Consequently life must suffer. The key to the flaming doors of ecstasy is to a life that is vaster and brighter than the life that is in heavens. It is also a life that does not remain static in its typal joy, confined to its own form of happiness, forms that are only expressive and not determinative of the world to which they belong...

In the Life Heavens is the music that wanders behind the mortal ear; the notes of rapture heap one over another; forms and senses are a-thrill there; beauty has her enchantment in the voluptuous and affective.

But suddenly there soared a dateless cry,

Deep as Night, imperishable as Time;

It seemed Death’s dire appeal to Eternity,

Earth’s outcry to the limitless Sublime.

(The Life Heavens, Collected Poems pp. 574-75.)

And the result is, Eternity gets broken into fleeting lives and Godhead pents in the mire and the stone. But beyond the flaming doors of ecstasy are forms that are at once expressive and determinative and progressive in their flaming moods and wide-sweeping manners of truth-and-beauty-and delight-and-life-and-spirit. That is the aspect of Savitri’s waking up on the fated day.

To which worlds do the flaming doors of ecstasy open? Surely, they are far beyond the frail or gossamer Life Heavens, beyond the celestial worlds, beyond swargaloka, the Heaven of Indra where Apsaras dance on gleaming crystal floors, with tiny jingling silver bells tied to their anklets, and their rich bosoms heaving in luxurious delight. Savitri’s flaming doors open to the worlds of the transcendent spirit. The Upanishad speaks of passing through the solar gate, sūryasya dwāra, into the world of immortality. Such must be the flaming gates of ecstasy through which Savitri can move in and out in her full freedom, in the joy that is and that shall be. RYD

The Muse of Poetry sighed and waited — to kiss me once in a while

Abiding faith SACHIDANANDA MOHANTY
Manoj Das, eminent author, talks about his work and the place of a writer in an era of cultural globalisation. Belief in the permanence of words: Manoj Das. Sachidananda Mohanty is Professor of English at the University of Hyderabad.

A bilingual author who has received wide recognition, Manoj Das is perhaps the most influential writer in post-independence Orissa. Born in 1934 in a remote coastal village, Manoj Das has to his credit about 40 books in English and an equal number in his mother tongue. A critic, columnist, educationist and a devoted student of mysticism and Integral Yoga, he lives in Pondicherry and is a Professor of English Literature at the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education. He has received numerous literary awards including the Central and Orissa State Sahitya Akademi Awards. Excerpts from an interview... The Hindu Literary Review Sunday, Jan 07, 2007

Your first book in Oriya was published at the age of 14. How did it happen?
Writing came to me like several other functions in life — beholding the splendour of a rainbow or the beauty of a garden. It mattered when the little book received attention and appreciation came from connoisseurs in the field of literature.

Although an acclaimed novelist and short story writer, you also wrote remarkable poetry early in your career. Why did you give it up?
Alas, for reasons quite pragmatic. Poetry and fiction came to me spontaneously. But certain themes could be worked out only through fiction. Not only the editors and publishers, but also the readership demanded more and more of fiction .The creative force of this mode made me its captive. The Muse of Poetry sighed and waited — to kiss me once in a while.

At 15, you launched Diganta a reputed literary journal in Oriya. What was your inspiration?
Few periodicals then existed in Oriya, unlike today. Diganta was my humble effort to improve the situation. I struggled, and was happy to see it growing as a forum where renowned talent mingled with the new.

What prompted you to join radical politics and the Students' Federation of India?
Mine was a charming village on the sea, inhabited by people kind and courteous. A terrible cyclone ruined all, ushering in famine and epidemic. The human misery kindled in me the search for a panacea. I found the answer in Marxism. That was an exciting time: the Communist movement was still undivided.

In 1956 you attended the historic Bandung Conference in Indonesia. How did this experience shape your literary imagination?
The Afro-Asian Students Conference following the great Conference of Afro-Asian leaders who formulated the famous Panchsheel. It had no direct impact on my creativity, but it changed my attitude to reality. 11:10 AM

Finally arrives the Sun

Re: Savitri Awakes among the Human Tribes
by RY Deshpande on Wed 03 Jan 2007 07:12 AM PST Profile Permanent Link

Let us look into the first two lines of the above passage:
And Savitri too awoke among these tribes
That hastened to join the brilliant Summoner's chant

Savitri awakes and joins the brilliant Summoner’s chant. But who is this brilliant Summoner, and what is his chant? With that chant Savitri awakes from her sleep, the sleep of Prajna consciousness, of perfect knowledge. The Summoner calls her and she is here now to do her work in the dynamism of perfect knowledge.

Savitri’s waking is described as the beginning of the day on which Satyavan is to die. Narad has already foretold the exact place and time when this death is going to occur, and Savitri is aware of it. On the fated day she gets up early in the morning, offers her worships to Goddess Durga, the Protectress of the Worlds, and is now ready to face the God of Death. The death will occur by a kingly tree in the Shalwa woods and the Goddess is already present there.

The Sun-God is the brilliant Summoner. He is the divine Aditya beckoning her early in the morning. The second half of the night itself has two parts: between midnight and 3.00 am, tamasobhāga, the dark part, and between 3.00 to 6.00 am jyotirbhāga, the bright part. The divine Ashwinikumars appear in the sky on horseback heralding the advent of Light. Running through the night, they then hand over the charge to Usha, the Dawn, and the sky is aglow with her rosy light, the rosy-fingered dawn of Homer. She is then followed by Savita, the Progenitor of Light. After him comes Bhaga with his aiśwarya, with his majesty and richness. Finally arrives the Sun. The Sun himself attains the full form in Pushan the Nourisher. The highest form of Light reaches its zenith in the highest heavens presided by Vishnu. Sri Krishna in the Gita says that among the Adityas he is Vishnu. He then becomes the Summoner to whose call awakes Savitri.

And what is his chant? Narad is Vishnu’s devotee, bhakta, and he is always immersed in him. From his home in Paradise when he starts journeying towards King Aswapati’s palace in Madra, to deliver the Word of Fate, he sings on the way the Name of Vishnu. He sings in it of (Savitri, pp. 416-17) ...

Sri Aurobindo Institute of Mass Communication: short films festival

Publish Date : 1/2/2007 1:47:00 PM Source : Entertainment News Onlypunjab.com

Cine buffs in the capital will get to see a selection of 50 short films at a three-day festival, Twilight 07, from Wednesday. The festival will start with the Indo-Belgian co-production "Akhnoor", a film on terrorism by Sudipto Sen, which stars Yashpal Sharma in the main lead. It will be followed by Anurag Kashyap's "When God said Cheers" featuring Tom Alter and Cyrus Dastur. The closing film Friday will be Gitanjali Rao's award winning animation film "Printed Rainbow". The 15-minute film won the critic's award at Cannes Film Festival in 2006.

Organised by the Sri Aurobindo Institute of Mass Communication, 50 short films in the festival will be screened under two sections - open and competitive. All the screenings will be held at the India International Centre and Alliance Francaise.

"Twilight is primarily aimed at students and young filmmakers," said Shankhajeet De, festival coordinator and a teacher of filmmaking at the Sri Aurobindo Institute of Mass Communication.

"Our endeavour is to encourage young talent by providing a platform for budding filmmakers and filmmaking students across the country to showcase their creativity and tell a story in 30 minutes. The basic idea of the short films is to experiment with a little money and get recognised," Shankhajeet said in a statement.

To bring the ashram to the student

Ashrams are forever Kiran Seth THE TIMES OF INDIA 26 Dec, 2006

As a child, my parents took me to many ashrams. I have fond memories of watching The Mother playing tennis at Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry, of the smell of freshly baked brown bread and of witnessing the table football game there. I remember the serenity of the Shahenshahi Ashram in Rajpur, the beautiful bhajans of the Swamiji and the gushing waterfall not very far away.

The Sivananda Ashram in Rishikesh was very special. Swami Chidananda had an all-pervading glow in his eyes. He would attract people without saying anything. As I grew up I visited ashrams in different parts of the world, all by myself.

I went to the retreat of Swami Muktananda in the Catskill mountains in New York, stayed at a monastery in France where the monks meditated with Gregorian chants, practised dhrupad at the ashrams of Ustad Aminuddin Dagar in Kolkata and Ustad Fariduddin Dagar at Panvel, visited the gurukuls of Shri Ammanur Madhava Chakyar in Irinjalakuda and Pandit Kishan Maharaj in Varanasi, attended a two-week camp at the Bihar School of Yoga in Munger and visited many other ashrams.

These experiences helped me realise that ashrams are scientific laboratories where inmates experiment with their lives, following the results of research carried out by our ancestors and directed step by step by the gurus.

All of us do not have to live in an ashram but as Swami Niranjananda Saraswati of the Munger Ashram says, we should visit a true ashram at least once a year.

What we call spirituality is at one level a scientific method of applying distilled wisdom and information on a large scale. This truth has been verified by perceptive people at various places at different points of time. We know that Einstein was a great scientist and Otto Hahn a great technologist who converted his theories into an actual fission reaction — the atomic bomb, which later engineers replicated for more useful purposes, namely, atomic energy.

Similarly, Jesus Christ was the originator of some very great concepts which his apostles used to propagate a method of good living; the church copied this prototype and spread it in an organised manner.

We could be the engineers who could use ideas developed in different ashrams to enhance our own lives. Different methods have been developed to connect with our inner selves and each human being would have a natural preference for a particular method. The more the number of routes, the more the number of people likely to reach the goal.

Each true ashram provides us with a route traversed initially by the original master. Taking ideas from these various ashrams, we can come up with a route which is most suited to each one of us. The atmosphere of total giving at the Sivananda Ashram, the humility, even of the Abbot of the monastery in France, the intensity in Ustad Aminuddin Dagar's ashram and the rigorous riyaz at Ustad Fariduddin Dagar's ashram have left indelible marks on my being.

Today, young people visit different cities in the world during their vacations, take up fancy jobs or simply while away their time. Very few visit ashrams. The SPIC MACAY National School Intensive, which will be held from December 26-31 at Modern School, Barakhamba Road, New Delhi, is an attempt to bring the ashram to the student.

As the saying goes, if the mountain does not come to Mohammed, Mohammed must go to the mountain. Children attending the Intensive will do yoga and meditation from 4-7 a.m., have holistic food, do shramdaan, hear talks and attend workshops by inspiring dancers, singers, artists, puppeteers and yoga-charyas, watch film classics and witness performances by top artistes of our country for five days.

This will include a full night of classical music by five great musicians. It will give them an experience of staying in the proximity of great masters in different areas of human endeavour, learning from them and watching them perform. May this experience enrich the lives of many of my young friends. The writer is founder, SPIC MACAY.

Characters as though they were real people

The outcome of the five years as Professor of Poetry in Oxford were A. C. Bradley’s two major works, Shakespearean Tragedy, published in 1904, and Oxford Lectures on Poetry, published in 1909. All his published work was originally delivered as lectures. A. C. Bradley pedagogical manner and his self-confidence made him to a real guide for many students to the meaning of Shakespeare.

Though Bradley has sometimes been criticised for writing of Shakespeare's characters as though they were real people, his book is probably the most influential single work of Shakespearean criticism ever published. It has been reprinted more than two dozen times and is itself the subject of a scholarly book, Katherine Cooke's A. C. Bradley and His Influence in Twentieth-Century Shakespeare Criticism (Oxford: Clarendon, 1972)[2].

However, more recently his work has been greatly discredited by many, often said to make anachronistic errors and attempt to apply late 19th century conceptions of morality to early 17th century society. Since the 1980's, the importance of poststructuralist methods of criticism has resulted in students turning away from his work. His other works were: Poetry for Poetry's Sake (1901), A Commentary on Tennyson's In Memoriam (1901), and A Miscellany (1929). Directory > Reference > Wikipedia

Poetry would replace religion

Some consider Arnold to be the bridge between Romanticism and Modernism. His use of symbolic landscapes was typical of the Romantic era, while his skeptical and pessimistic perspective was typical of the Modern era. The rationalistic tendency of certain of his writings gave offence to many readers, and the sufficiency of his equipment in scholarship for dealing with some of the subjects which he handled was called in question; but he undoubtedly exercised a stimulating influence on his time; his writings are characterised by the finest culture, high purpose, sincerity, and a style of great distinction, and much of his poetry has an exquisite and subtle beauty, though here also it has been doubted whether high culture and wide knowledge of poetry did not sometimes take the place of true poetic fire. Henry James wrote that Matthew Arnold's poetry will appeal to those who "like their pleasures rare" and who like to hear the poet "taking breath." Directory > Reference > Wikipedia

Arnold's verse is characterized by restraint, directness, and symmetry. Though he believed that poetry should be objective, his verse exemplifies the romantic pessimism of the 19th cent., an age torn between science and religion. His feelings of spiritual isolation are reflected in such poems as “Dover Beach” and “Isolation: To Marguerite.”

Arnold was the apostle of a new culture, one that would pursue perfection through a knowledge and understanding of the best that has been thought and said in the world. He attacked the taste and manners of 19th-century English society, particularly as displayed by the “Philistines,” the narrow and provincial middle class. Strongly believing that the welfare of a nation is contingent upon its intellectual life, he proclaimed that intellectual life is best served by an unrestricted, objective criticism that is free from personal, political, and practical considerations. Directory > People > Encyclopedia - People

Culture and Anarchy (1869), his central work of criticism, is a masterpiece of ridicule as well as a searching analysis of Victorian society. In a later essay, “The Study of Poetry,” he argued that, in an age of crumbling creeds, poetry would replace religion and that therefore readers would have to understand how to distinguish the best poetry from the inferior. Directory > Reference > Britannica Concise Arnold, Matthew

Soulful flutes, silky guitar and piano tell the story

1995 — Savitri (192 Kbps) 2002.(Pamela.&.Randy.Copus).-1995-.Savitri.(mp3.192Kbps).rar (93.34 MB)

An epic musical interpretation of a timeless love story, rich with piano, strings, flute, wind chimes and lush, angelic textures. These twelve gentle, romantic songs transport the listener to 5th century B.C. India where the Princess Savitri discovers that true love can conquer death.

2006 — The Emerald Way (320 Kbps) 2002.(Pamela.&.Randy.Copus).-2006-.The.Emerald.Way.(mp3.320Kbps).zip (116.48 MB)

The Emerald Way refers to the moment in life when a pivotal choice must be made - to choose the way that is customary and expected of us - or to head down the overgrown hidden path leading to the unknown. In Savitri by Sri Aurobindo, Savitri discovers that Satyavan has only one year left to live. She must decide whether or not she will stay with him in the emerald forest or search for a new love. Soulful flutes, silky guitar and piano tell the story, accompanied by lush strings, harp and chimes blending into 2002's signature sound, renowned for comfort and deep relaxation. Enjoy your musical journey!... Add 9 links to ed2k client Electronic Music Collection: http://eMusic.pisem.net/

Penthesilea stands apart in her fiery epic grandeur

When Collected Poems and Plays appeared in 1942 on Sri Aurobindo's seventieth birthday, readers were overwhelmed at once by the rich and varied content of the two sumptuous volumes. But easily the most unexpected item was Ilion - an epic fragment running to 381 lines - at the end of the second volume, given as if in illustration of Sri Aurobindo's views on the adaptability of quantitative hexameters in English verse...Homering Homer in the fullness of the delineation and the gorgeousness of the imagery. In attempting a continuation of the Iliad of Homer, Sri Aurobindo was taking no small risk, but it was also an irresistible challenge...The Penthesilea-Achilles motif had been obscurely essayed by Sri Aurobindo earlier in the narrative poems Uloupie and Chitrangada, both incomplete, referred to in an earlier chapter (IV. vi). The warrior-woman, and the heroic hero - the forged antagonism, the fateful attraction! ...

In Sri Aurobindo's play, Eric, as we saw earlier (Chapter VI), the end-note is "not Thor... but Freya"; in Perseus the Deliverer, the change is from ruthless Poseidon's to enlightened Pallas Athene's rule. There is on the terrestrial as well as the cosmic scale a continual push of evolution - from war and revenge to peace and compassion, from the reign of violence and hate to the rule of reason and enlightenment - and behind the monumental clash of arms and the destruction of the towered city and the doom of empire, obscure forces are at work to usher in a new era, to compel new life to rise phoenix-like out of the ashes of the old...

The bold "unwomanly" woman, woman as uncompromising Shakti, had been sketched earlier by Sri Aurobindo in Vidula (after the Mahabharata), in Chitrangada, in Cleopatra of Rodogune, of Aslaug of Eric, in Cassiopea of Perseus the Deliverer; and Andromeda was the portrait of a woman fearless as well as compassionate, her Shakti playing the role of triumphant Grace rather than that of ruthless power. But Penthesilea still stands apart in her fiery epic grandeur. She comes partly as the would-be saviour of Troy and partly - or chiefly - as the seeker of Achilles, half in hate and half in love. Staking all, daring all, she is the committed uncalculating woman made up of beauty and love and valour and hate. Nevertheless, she is neither the whole nor the really wholesome efflorescence of Woman as Shakti. In the Western tradition, Penthesilea could be linked with Atlanta and Artemis and even Ishtar of the still earlier myths. But Sri Aurobindo sees her in other possible lights as well.

- K.R. Srinivasa Iyengar from "Sri Aurobindo - a biography and a history"revised and enlarged fourth edition August 1985 (The first edition in 1945 had been carefully revised by Sri Aurobindo himself before publishing) Chapter 25 "Poet of Yoga" - Subchapter 4 (pages 618-625)published by Sri Aurobindo Ashram - Pondicherrydiffusion by SABDA

What is Integral Aestheticism?

What is Integral Aestheticism? The answer cannot be made in a one simple sentence because integral and aesthetics can be regarded as highly symbolic and abstract. Should art remained as art instead of theorizing it? Is there need for anyone to theorize what art is and can be, what music does to people... what integral art is supposed to aim for? Is there need for artists to write treatise on art? I do think that artists' visions are far different from many others...but artists communicate with their work of arts... should artists also theorize what there art is? theory only confines it... theory relies on logic. Theory is boxed ... theory equals ism... ideology. an interesting paradox is when integral theory is called integral theory. If the theory denotes the truth, theory must be contradictory to a certain extent. Cecilia Suhr 8:35 PM - 1 Comments Friday, December 15, 2006

One may keep reading the epic for half a century

"The Ascent of Sight in Sri Aurobindo's Savitri" - by J.K. Mukherjee Review by Prema Nandakumar Sabda Newsletter, June 2002: sabdsriaurobindoashram.org/pdf/news/jun2002.pdfa. by rjon on Fri 15 Dec 2006 06:12 PM PST Permanent Link

Re-reading Savitri is ever a new experience. One may keep reading the epic for half a century like Jugalda, and each reading brings a fresh insight into the inexhaustible springs of the narrative. The process of ascent from an ordinary seeing to the spiritual vision in the higher ranges of thought and beyond as stated in Savitri is a fascinating phenomenon. Especially so, when Jugalda is our Paraclete. As always, Jugalda does not tease us with an impossible mystic diction. He is the ideal acharya who swoops down like the eagle in the classroom and then rises slowly and majestically past the green crests of life holding the hands of the reader-student.

In the course of his precise teaching, he jots down points for us to memorise and meditate upon as we go about our chores. There are the innumerable references to “sight” (also allied terms like gaze, eye) with or without adjectives in the epic. The physical eye’s co-extensive association with the inner eye of consciousness is a marvel that defies explanation. Eight elements are at play in this act and no object or thought can be seen in clinical isolation, for necessarily we have the riches of all our yesterdays and the possibilties of all our tomorrows converging in the present moment of time. The same object can be seen from many stances and thus it may acquire different contours as well. What we see in the physical is not the same as what we perceive in the subtle-physical. Such a two-fold vision (the surface and the inscape) is familiar enough for many aspirants in their spiritual journey. The physical sight is, of course, woefully limited to the “here”: on the other hand, visions bring the aspirant into “a first contact with the Divine in his forms and powers”. It was because Sri Aurobindo plunged his spiritual gaze “into the siege of mist” that the lines of Savitri appeared before him. As he wrote in a 1947 letter: “Savitri is the record of a seeing”; hence the Mother’s advice that reading Savitri is yoga. The reading repeatedly turns our gaze inward and helps us rise in consciousness; the rise being in proportion to the aspirations of the reader.

Pointing out significant passages from the epic where every rift is loaded with spiritual ore, Jugalda also speaks of the pitfalls in taking up the yoga of consciousness-probe without a proper guide. By keeping oneself safe from the allure of false visions and tempting sights, it should be possible to stand at the threshold of sight in the Superconscient, since “there is a range of being and consciousness far transcending all these elements of our constitution, which is superconscient to all the other provinces of our existence.” The supramental sight, of course has the capacity to see “the Eternal’s many-sided-oneness”. It does not miss any attention to detail, nor does it ignore the Whole. In the supramental seeing, time also gets annihilated, since there is no artificial barrier imposed on what needs be understood as an eternal present in an “unpartitioned time-vision”. The Ascent of Sight concludes with an enormously challenging question: Does the Divine have a supra-physical form for being envisioned? Or is the Supreme formless? Jugalda, rising from the milky ocean of Aurobindoneana with droplets of Aurobindonian phrases dripping, gives the answer with gentle understanding. Form and Formlessness are not mutually exclusive after all. We are dealing with “Absolute Existence as a reality” and its mystery is illimitable. Well, the Flute Player of Brindaban could not have appeared from a positive zero!

There is then the possibility that the supramental transformation might change our sense of sight (physical, spiritual) also and give us a natural sense of unity which is the need of today’s fractured world. One may conclude reading The Ascent of Sight; but the conclusion also begins our own personal endeavour to tune our physical sight with the psychic and the spiritual. For such is the magic of the teacher in Jugalda who can transform a student of today into an achiever of tomorrow.Prema Nandakumar

Hymn of Affirmation

Amal-kiran—the Fire-Worshipper R. Y. Deshpande

Sri Aurobindo’s modernism does not rest at all in the sordid and the ugly. In him there is a kind of assimilated richness. He exploits, so to say, everything that can tellingly if not revealingly serve his purpose. Kalidasian moods of seasons and the featurelessness of Nirvana, for example, are as important to it as Homeric similes or the correlative expressions of the Modernists. It is so because his epics or short lyrical verses come from an original source of inspiration inaccessible to us. That incapacity of ours cannot be a reflection on the quality of his creations. Thus Savitri is full of Rasas—Madhura, Karuna, Vatsalya, Adbhuta, Veera, Bibhatsa, Shanta, etc. Quintessentially, however, it is founded on the Shanta. It is in this great Silence that the Epic was born—Silence the true home of Overhead Poetry. To really appreciate it one has to enter into it. Poetry is not only image and symbol; it is also sound and silence; if there is sight’s sound, there is also sound’s sight. And when leMusicien deSilence becomes one with leMusicien de Son we have an unsurpassable marvel.

Listen to Ezra Pound: “When we know more of overtones we shall see that the tempo of every masterpiece is absolute, and is exactly set by some further law of rhythmic accord. Whence it should be possible to show that any given rhythm implies about it a complete musical form, perfect, complete. Ergo, the rhythm set in a line of poetry connects its symphony, which, had we a little more skill, we could score for orchestra.” If one is deaf to these sounds, to these rhythmic accords, to these happinesses rushing from the creative possibilities of the inevitable Word, then what can the creative poet do? In the Overhead Poetry as given to us by Sri Aurobindo what we have are the perfect rhythm and thought-substance and soul-vision fused into one, the supreme Mantra itself.

Sri Aurobindo wrote prophetically, long ago, that the future poetry “transcending the more intellectualised or externally vital and sensational expression” would speak “wholly in the language of an intuitive mind and vision and imagination, intuitive sense, intuitive emotion, intuitive vital feeling, which can seize in a peculiarly intimate light of knowledge by a spiritual identity the inmost thought, sight, image, sense, life, feeling of that which it is missioned to utter. The voice of poetry comes from a region above us, a plane of our being above and beyond our personal intelligence, a supermind which sees things in their inmost and largest truth by a spiritual identity and a lustrous effulgency and rapture and its native language is a revelatory, inspired, intuitive word limpid or subtly vibrant or densely packed with the glory of this ecstasy.” He saw five suns of truth-beauty-delight-life-spirit in the sky of poetry waiting for us to receive their glow and warmth. Our creative endeavour should be to open ourselves to them.

Students who graduated themselves from Sri Aurobindo’s Department of Poetry received magnificences of these suns in Sri Aurobindo’s plenty. “The silent wonders of eternity” that were waiting for the inspired utterance suddenly found in rock-hewn images the quivering lips that speak of the blue skies and the golden truths. We witness the ear of ears and the eye of eyes waking to the subtleties of sense and sound, marvelling at the mystery of God’s creation even in Time. Not only did Sri Aurobindo himself write seizing “the absolute in shapes that pass”; he also encouraged actively and positively his disciples who came forward to participate in such an apocalyptic adventure.

Amal-kiran was one among the most prominent practitioners of this new poetry, Poetry of the Future. He invoked heaven’s light in the inner chamber and called out the occult fire from the depths of the being to take the form of the deeply expressive and intuitive Word. His was the Hymn of Affirmation welcoming the Aurobindonian Muse, a chant in the praise of Ahana of the Eternal. Glory to the New Dawn appearing on the poetic horizon!

Literature and The Evolution of Consciousness

Literature And The Evolution Of Consciousness

Kishore Gandhi (editor) (Jan 1985) (ISBN: 0391023578)

Contributors include R. W. Kutzen, Roland Fivaz, Max Nann, C. C. Narasimhaiah, Vinod Sena, T. Devadoss, Karan Singh, Prem Kripal, R. A. Dave, S. Kandaswami, J. L. W. Cheyne, Omolara-Ogundipe-Leslie, and many more.

Integral music

Call for Musicians Cecilia Suhr

I am looking for musicians in and around NYC area who are influenced by Ken Wilber and Sri Aurobindo, Integral Theory, or who associate their music with Avant Garde... It's not just for playing music but also for a dissertation research. Thanks much love, cecilia suhr. 12:32 AM -Tuesday, December 05, 2006 #