In these last chapters of The Ideal of Human Unity, Sri Aurobindo draws together the threads that he has introduced earlier in the work, leading to his conclusion. Though Jan Smuts was yet to coin the word "Holism" to encapsulate the idea that a directed tendency towards the formation of ever-larger aggregates is observable in Nature, each such distinct stage marked by the presence of an identity and properties exceeding those of the sum of their parts, Sri Aurobindo's model of History follows this course. Indeed, this teleology follows naturally from Sri Aurobindo's master-idea of the progressive manifestation of intrinsic spiritual Oneness in Time, expressing itself politically as the drive towards world-union.    more »

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:

Detachment in a spiritual sense is the development of another dimension within us, a dimension which coexists with our active personality but is outside of it. It is to find an inner freedom, to discover a part of the being that cannot be touched by external circumstances or by the outer being’s activities – a separation within between what we know as ourselves in the world and something which is intrinsic and connected to an infinite being, a sort of an immutable witnessing.   more »

The convulsive forces of the bio and psycho spheres are breaking through the outer crust once again today, since a new Divine manifestation is in the making and the earth will not rest content with our half-successes. The apathy of the faithful will not serve us here. To believe that the Divine will quell these forces while we remain their puppets in our inner and outer lives will bring no succor. What we are called upon to respond with today is the active aspiration that allows Shiva to act though us, to give us the Force and even more, the Skill, not merely to defeat or destroy, but to transform, to turn to song.   more »

This topic includes past & ongoing audio recordings of "Savitri" classes led by Debashish Banerji, at the Los Angeles Sri Aurobindo Center. They're also available as podcasts on Apple's iTunes site. Read the rest of this article for instructions ...   more »

On April 23 and 24, 2005, Debashish Banerji of the Sri Aurobindo Center of Los Angeles offered a presentation on "Visions of Future Societies" and engaged in a dialog on "An Improved Tomorrow" with Paolo Soleri at Arcosanti, the future-oriented community combining architecture and ecology started by architect-philosopher Paolo Soleri. The talk was a prelude to the dialog, where Paolo Soleri's atheistic conscious evolutionism was engaged counteractively with the interventionist evolutionism of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.   more »

Contours of Modernity: An Exhibition of Contemporary Indian Art was held at the Founder's Hall of SOKA University in Irvine from February to April 2005. The exhibiiton was curated by Debashish Banerji and Nalini Rao. Here we present a gallery of images from the exhibition with brief artist biographies.   more »

The regime of modernity in India can be said to begin from the turn of the 17th/18th c. with the setting up of trading interests in Calcutta by the British East India Company. The British occupation of India swiftly replaced the indigenous miniature schools with naturalistic Company Painting and institutional forms such as art salons and art schools generated a new breed of Indian elite painters who turned to oils and water colors in a British style, though often with Indian subjects from myth, portraiture or landscape. ...   more »

just to add a bit to Debashish's excellent assessment of affective intersubjectivity, I'd like to forward a message (edited) sent to me by Guy Burneko, which seems to compliment this notion of shifting from an ideological to an affective intersubjectivity. (or a co-worlding) ...    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 »