Welcome to the SCI-Y Home of Debashish Banerji

All postings, reflections, selections and writing projects by SCI-Y author Debashish Banerji are archived here in the following subcategory structure:

The following is a revised transcript of a talk given by me at the Cultural Integration Fellowship, San Francisco in 2008 and carried in the current edition of Sraddha, a journal of the Sri Aurobindo Bhavan, Kolkata.

In this, I bring into dialog the epistemic boundaries of the western academic discipline of Psychology and Sri Aurobindo's formulation of Integral Yoga, so as to reflect on the disciplinary formation of a field of Integral Psychology. What would such a field hold out and how would it impact the existing assumptions of both Psychology and Yoga? The insertion of such a discipline into the academy is not a trivial task. It is a project fraught with danger and possibility, which needs to be carefully negotiated. - db   more »

Since some of my friends at the Sri Aurobindo ashram have expressed puzzlement at my stand against the "Brahmins of Pondicherry" in the matter of the book The Lives of Sri Aurobindo, I am copying here a letter written by me to a senior and respected member of the ashram. That the views expressed here are not "popular" is well known. But I am wondering how many others who have read the book share any of these views. I would encourage them to express themselves in the comments following this posting.   more »

When this conference was formulated, in the mind of Richard Carlson, he had certain pressing objectives in mind. And we started an email forum to discuss some of these; and at this conference it is hoped that some of these objectives, issues, debates will come to surface in the minds of all the people here, and we take back with us something that fertilizes our lives and our sadhana, our yoga, our engagement with the world, our orientation towards the future.    more »

In spite of some surface infelicities, a very fine collection of essays on various aspects of Sri Aurobindo's "thought."

...The book concludes with an article “Sri Aurobindo – A Century in Perspective” by Aster Patel. Sri Aurobindo became the first principal of National College, Calcutta, now known as the Jadavpur College, about a hundred years ago. In the century which has elapsed since then, humankind has experienced its most intense period of collective growth and crisis throughout the world. Human consciousness is poised on a brink where it is faced either with the specter of oblivion, the horror of the abyss or a leap into another modality of being, the integral consciousness of the overman. Mediating this critical choice is the life and work of Sri Aurobindo, throwing a powerful beacon ahead of us into the century to come. Aster Patel draws out some of the implications of this work ahead of us in following the light of Sri Aurobindo in the coming century. Can we equal in consciousness the integral vision of reality which contemporary Science is indicating to our minds and our technological practice? Are we even ready to engage with the fullness of the term “integral”? How can we draw together our past and our present, our fractured personalities, our fragmented disciplines, our physical matter and our mental, vital and spiritual substance into the Oneness of integral being which Sri Aurobindo lived and wrote about? His integral consciousness is still fully alive in his words and each word is an invitation and a fire to kindle in us his life and reality. This is the ever-living fire of Heraclitus, the living legacy of the “thoughts” of Sri Aurobindo.   more »

Any such complete transformation of the earth-life in a number of human beings could not establish itself altogether at once; even when the turning-point has been reached, the decisive line crossed, the new life in its beginnings would have to pass through a period of ordeal and arduous development. A general change from the old consciousness taking up the whole life into the spiritual principle would be the necessary first step; the preparation for this might be long and the transformation itself once begun proceed by stages. In the individual it might after a certain point be rapid and even effect itself by a bound, an evolutionary saltus; but an individual transformation would not be the creation of a new type of beings or a new collective life. One might conceive of a number of individuals thus evolving separately in the midst of the old life and then joining together to establish the nucleus of the new existence. But it is not likely that Nature would operate in this fashion, ...   more »

Happy Darshan to all. Matthijs has edited the transcript of his talk and the corrected version has now been archived. You can access it at: http://www.sriaurobindocenter-la.com/postaum2005/MatthijsAUM05.doc   more »

It is this mentally incomprehensible co-existence of Unity and Infinity in the Truth that it is critical to meditate on. It results in a great diversity of conclusions, not least of all the very possibility of this relational evolutionary universe and the unending self-discovery of Being. ...    more »

I have been browsing with interest the posts flying at supersonic speed on this list without being able to take much part due to a very pressured present schedule. However, on the subject of intersubjectivity and the collective yoga, I would like to add a few words for now (and maybe elaborate later, when time permits). ...   more »

Rich, From your post, I extracted the following concerns: 1) Do we need to interpret the events happening around us as a part of the integral yoga? ... ... These are all very loaded quations that merit our deepest consideration. At this moment it is difficult for me to find the time to give adequate answers, but I do hope others will give them due attention. ...   more »

029 db. Matthij's AUM talk

Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2005 18:29:42 -0700
From: "Debashish Banerji" <ewcc@verizon.net>
Subject: Matthij's AUM talk
To: scienceandspirit@sriaurobindocenter-la.com

Message - 029/149

And now, Shyam Maniyedath has transcribed Matthij"s AUM talk and it has also been archived.

Please access for reading or download from:

http://www.sriaurobindocenter-la.com/postaum2005/MatthijsAUM05.doc

Matthijs, it will be nice if you could download this yourself and browse is for correctness; and if you wish to make any changes, pass on the edited version to me. In the meantime, members of this list can go through what has been transcribed and hopefully comment, question or add their own contributions.

Debashish

Michael has supplied a Microsoft Word version of his article re Integral
Yoga in the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology and it is now archived
in the text area.

You can access it for browsing or download at:

http://www.sriaurobindocenter-la.com/postaum2005/MMiovicJTP.doc

   more »

Ron Anastasia has been kind enough to transcribe my AUM talk and I have uploaded the talk to the text file area. Please access it at: ...    more »

Preceeding AUM 2005, whose theme was Science and Spirituality, a mailing list had been set up to allow speakers and panelists to share views prior to the event and get to know each others' standpoints. Now, following the AUM, we have expanded the list and changed its name to reflect the oreintation for the future. It is now called postaum2005 and members can post to it by sending mail to: ...   more »

Since some people have had difficulty opening or saving the Microsoft Word
text file TheVision.doc upon clicking the link, I am giving the link
once more. It is:

http://www.sriaurobindocenter-la.com/postaum2005/TheVision.doc

   more »

File archiving for this forum has been temporarily enabled at
http://www.sriaurobindocenter-la.com/postaum2005. Presently, the
Microsoft Word version of The Vision can be found there by going to: ...    more »

In our world of ignorance, omniscience is stepped down from its spiritual poise to be expressed as a quest for knowledge which is embodied by science and omnipotence is stepped down from its original source to be articulated in technology as a will to power. The intent of the post-AUM list is to explore the exponential evolution of the species as it is driven by both efficient and deficient forms of knowledge as well as efficient and deficient forms of power. The meaning assigned to the term efficient refers to those forces which facilitate the spiritual evolution of consciousness as envisioned by Sri Aurobindo. The term deficient refers to those forces driving culture and science which appear to impede the progression of the spiritualization of consciousness. ...   more »

Since circumstances have conspired to make it impossible to put out a new issue of the Jyoti online journal of late, and since AUM2005 is just around the corner, I am posting here independently the lead article meant for the new Jyoti by Richard Carlson. ...   more »

We are pleased to announce that Anie Nunnally's book THE GOLDEN PATH, has just arrived from the Ashram press in Pondicherry and is now available for sale at the East West Cultural Center. This little gem of a book is certain to be viewed as a treasure by all involved in the yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. ...   more »