Really well-written. I'm stunned at some of the facts marshalled here.

As for this:

He should at least have protested against “Pranab’s Proposal,” posted in the Ashram in October 2008, which demanded, among other “corrective measures”: “The distribution and sale of this book must be stopped. Attempts must be made to procure and destroy all existing copies of this book, and to stop all future editions and reprints.”

Good lord, how in the world does this person expect to "procure" and "destroy" all existing copies of the book (especially in America) without breaking some major laws? And is the rest of the world the Ashram's backyard or something, that people feel they can police it?

Once again a big THANKS for your labor of love for the truth.

You are doing a service misunderstood and unappreciated by some in trying to sift through this controversy and you have my full appreciation. When identity-politics and group-ego try to replace the more-supple collective soul, we all have a problem (whether we agree or strongly disagree with some particular approach or not). We are all representative types in process of transformation. Thank you for your attempt to keep always at the forefront some basic, more-overarching principles of Integral Yoga so that the flame in all its ways does not die out. Unity proceeds with all our resistances through the superficial disunity separating us now to a far greater unity. All this is contained I feel in a far different way within the ocean of the bhakti of Sri Aurobindo himself. Keep up your good work: the flame is freedom and the heart harmony.

Rick Lipschutz

(Unrelated to the main thrust of this post, but ...)

"Always accompanying her manifest support to a range of radical causes, the Mother’s records and writings detail the progress of an agonizing spiritual labor, informed by a conviction that the risky rehearsal of faith facilitates such pluralization of the self as is crucial to the credo of noncoercive relationality with a difference. In her idiom, belief is the only means effectively to countermand that ontological assumption of human singularity (or of unified subjectivity) upon which the manichean divisions of race, class, gender, and species are predicated.... This, we might note, is also the staple of Sri Aurobindo’s askesis, recorded as a series of bizarre experiments in ‘thought sharing’ with crows, butterflies, plants, squirrels, and alien human beings...."

At the risk of sounding fairly stupid, can somebody explain to me what this means? Especially this: "the Mother’s records and writings detail the progress of an agonizing spiritual labor, informed by a conviction that the risky rehearsal of faith facilitates such pluralization of the self as is crucial to the credo of noncoercive relationality with a difference..." (from the essay by Leela Gandhi)

Seriously, this kind of stuff is why I've never been able to seriously get into pomo or postcolonial philosophy (not unless someone sends me the cliff notes anyway ;-) ). How hard can it be to just write simply and clearly? :-P

It's funny that Angiras has chosen to post this particularly unintelligible riff of pure postcolonial jazz from the work of Leela Gandhi (the Mahatma's granddaughter). I can see Homi Bhabha eyeing it with admiring suspicion and Toni Chifton considering it for his next nightclub act.

But where Angiras indicates an omission in the quote between the reference to the Mother's "agonizing spiritual labor" and "the staple of Sri Aurobindo's askesis," come two lines which may be more explanatory of what she is getting at:

So, for instance, one of the first entries in her spiritual diary incants her profound aspiration for the dissolution of personality, "the day when I can no longer say 'I,'" while another laments "the gross illusion of 'me and 'mine,' the intolerable burden of this obscure and cumbersome self." Such pleas for the erasure of personal limits or personality preface Alfassa's fierce resistance to the illusion of separation between "ourselves and others," her desire always to "find the category of affinities which binds us to others."

We can read then the "noncoercive relationality with a difference" as a radical openness to the "other," fully acknowledging its "otherness" while at the same time by an act of faith discovering identity in consciousness and experiencing thereby a "pluralization of the self."

"Sri Aurobindo's askesis recorded as a series of bizarre experiments in ‘thought sharing’ with crows, butterflies, plants, squirrels, and alien human beings...." (given the extra-ordinary nature of the general proposition being made here - i.e. the possibility of knowledge by identity through dissolution of ego and the action of "faith and shakti," the term "bizarre" is an ironic misfit here) refers evidently to the same "pluralization of the self."

I'm sure it could be put differently, but on the other hand, that she has found a vocabulary and turn of language which can assimilate this experience to a primary postmodern concern - the acknowledgment of the non-singular self and the dynamic means to bridge the dialectic of radical oneness and radical plurality - gives it a wider currency than the walled domain of the faithful, and in this, I believe, lies its value.

This most recent exchange with Debashish and Ned I found worthwhile. His inspired act of translation of what seemed obscure from Leela Gandhi has built a radical bridge between the Mother's bringing-unity-to-a-new-level and all that's effective and best in postmodern. What seemed like cheap parlor trick turns before my eyes into yoga. Thanks.

Rick

In fact, if Ned re-reads the Gandhi quote, she might find it less "unrelated to the main thrust of this post" than she thought at first.

Part of the quote, concerning the Mother, also reads

In her idiom, belief is the only means effectively to countermand that ontological assumption of human singularity (or of unified subjectivity) upon which the manichean divisions of race, class, gender, and species are predicated.

It is exactly this "human singularity" and its inevitable "manichean divisions" of 'us' and 'them' that is at the heart of this "main thrust." The point made by Gandhi instantiates by example the subjective distance between cultic religion and integral yoga. The curious bi-polar disjunction of Dr. S and Mr. M is an unfortunate example of a failed project of both postmodernism and integral yoga - an internalized "manichean division" contingent on "human singularity." "Human singularity" or "unified subjectivity" (not really "unified" but "uniformalized") lies behind the fat finger wagging of KR, RR, RR, AR, SR, AP and their hordes. The homily of an irate member of their own ilk, one named Devabrata, who seems to have strayed into alien pastures on sciy recently, should be posted on the doors of all these claimants to ecclesiastical authority: "Do a little sadhana. Stop pricking others."

Thanks for the translation Debashish.

From my limited knowledge of pomo theorists, I do see them as being one step removed from the mystics, in that they point out the limitations of language, the inherently perspectival nature of the human mind, and the distorting influences of unequal power relations. It's just that the academic jargon is a bit too much to take at times.

For instance, here's how John Lennon would say the above:

"I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together.
goo goo goo joob goo goo goo joob"

Perhaps not as articulate, but at least he's accessible. ;-) (Sorry, I'm just trying to lighten the mood here a bit. Plus I really am tired of academese these days. ;-) )

BTW that's goo goo goo joob goo goo goo goo goo joob. Those 2 extra goos make all the difference to the uncoding of the messianic message in walrus-ese (which Lennon picked up while conducting bizarre experiments in "thought-sharing" with penguins, walruses and semolina pilchards high on LSD atop the Eiffel Tower). Derrida happened to be visiting with a tourist-friend and picked up accurately the thought-interference (prakamya) giving him in a flash the key to the pluralization of singular subjectivity through openness to l'avenir.

Strangely, Dr. M and Mr. S were both there on that day too. Dr. M caught one of the extra "goos" and Mr. S the other one. We all know the unfortunate consequence.

What the walrus said: Orthodoxy and heterodoxy may occupy the same home. Pluralization of the self is tricky business. Without preparation, it can lead to results which may be inconsequential (goo goo goo joob), revelatory (goo goo goo goo) or very dangerous (goo joob). Do a little sadhana.

Hahaha! If you happen to teach a course called "Postmodernism for Dummies" (or something thereof), I'd like to enroll in advance. ;-) Aside: Given Traditionalist writers' animosity towards postmodernism (Huston Smith and Co.), someone does need to design a course on postmodernism for mystics, at any rate.

"What the walrus said: Orthodoxy and heterodoxy may occupy the same home."

I completely agree! The orthodox tendency and the heterodox tendency exists in each of us, though perhaps some lean more toward one than the other. But it is precisely the dialectic, the creative tension, between orthodoxy and heterodoxy, that gives rise to new and greater spiritual visions. And what greater example of this for us is there than Sri Aurobindo himself, who engaged with orthodox Vedanta in the light of the modern world and arrived at his own original vision?

I'm also reminded of a great couplet by Abul Fazl, often cited by Pir Zia Inayat Khan in his talks:

Infidelity for the heretic
and orthodoxy for the pious
but the dust of the rose-petal
belongs to the heart of the perfume-seller.

BTW that's goo goo goo joob goo goo goo goo goo joob. Those 2 extra goos make all the difference to the uncoding of the messianic message in walrus-ese (which Lennon picked up while conducting bizarre experiments in "thought-sharing" with penguins, walruses and semolina pilchards high on LSD atop the Eiffel Tower). Derrida happened to be visiting with a tourist-friend and picked up accurately the thought-interference (prakamya) giving him in a flash the key to the pluralization of singular subjectivity through openness to l'avenir.

Ha ha! Debashish, that's the funniest thing I've read in ages. Thank you!

And Ned, thanks for the couplet by Abul Fazl. Wonderful insight, and most appropriate.

Here is a useful crash-course:

HOW TO SPEAK AND WRITE POSTMODERN

by Stephen Katz, Associate Professor, Sociology, Trent University, Peterborough, Ontario, Canada

Excerpts:

Postmodern language requires that one uses play, parody and indeterminacy as critical techniques to point this out. Often this is quite a difficult requirement, so obscurity is a well-acknowledged substitute. For example, let's imagine you want to say something like, ``We should listen to the views of people outside of Western society in order to learn about the cultural biases that affect us''. This is honest but dull. Take the word ``views''. Postmodernspeak would change that to ``voices'', or better, ``vocalities'', or even better, ``multivocalities''. Add an adjective like ``intertextual'', and you're covered. ``People outside'' is also too plain. How about ``postcolonial others''? To speak postmodern properly one must master a bevy of biases besides the familiar racism, sexism, ageism, etc. For example, phallogocentricism (male-centredness combined with rationalistic forms of binary logic). Finally ``affect us'' sounds like plaid pajamas. Use more obscure verbs and phrases, like ``mediate our identities''. So, the final statement should say, ``We should listen to the intertextual, multivocalities of postcolonial others outside of Western culture in order to learn about the phallogocentric biases that mediate our identities''....

You want to say or write something like, ``Contemporary buildings are alienating''. This is a good thought, but, of course, a non-starter. You wouldn't even get offered a second round of crackers and cheese at a conference reception with such a line. In fact, after saying this, you might get asked to stay and clean up the crackers and cheese after the reception. Go to your three columns. First, the prefix. Pre- is useful, as is post-, or several prefixes at once is terrific. Rather than ``contemporary building''", be creative. ``The Pre/post/spatialities of counter-architectural hyper-contemporaneity'' is promising. You would have to drop the weak and dated term ``alienating'' with some well suffixed words from column B. How about ``antisociality'', or be more postmodern and introduce ambiguity with the linked phrase, ``antisociality/seductivity''. Now, go to column C and grab a few names whose work everyone will agree is important and hardly anyone has had the time or the inclination to read. Continental European theorists are best when in doubt. I recommend the sociologist Jean Baudrillard since he has written a great deal of difficult material about postmodern space. Don't forget to make some mention of gender. Finally, add a few smoothing out words to tie the whole garbled mess together and don't forget to pack in the hyphens, slashes and parentheses. What do you get? ``Pre/post/spacialities of counter-architectural hyper-contemporaneity (re)commits us to an ambivalent recurrentiality of antisociality/seductivity, one enunciated in a de/gendered-Baudrillardian discourse of granulated subjectivity''. You should be able to hear a postindustrial pin drop on the retrocultural floor.

At some point someone may actually ask you what you're talking about. This risk faces all those who would speak postmodern and must be carefully avoided. You must always give the questioner the impression that they have missed the point, and so send another verbose salvo of postmodernspeak in their direction as a ``simplification'' or ``clarification'' of your original statement. If that doesn't work, you might be left with the terribly modernist thought of, ``I don't know''. Don't worry, just say, ``The instability of your question leaves me with several contradictorily layered responses whose interconnectivity cannot express the logocentric coherency you seek. I can only say that reality is more uneven and its (mis)representations more untrustworthy than we have time here to explore''. Any more questions? No, then pass the cheese and crackers.

Here is another highly commendable pomo text. Do read it to the very end or, if you get tired, jump to the bottom of the page and read the last screenful.

Sitting on a cornflake, waiting for the van to come...