Aurobindonian Ontology: Salient Peculiarities
ABSTRACT: Aurobindo envisages a cosmic salvation via an endlessly open-ended, eternally optimistic, and forward-looking ontology. The purpose of humankind is to go beyond its present form of ordinary (mental) consciousness until it attains the Supermind. Aurobindo says this can be done by a technique he calls Integral Yoga that enables humankind to purposefully cooperate with the cosmic evolutionary urge and thereby rise from the present mental stage to the supramental stage. Another peculiarity of Aurobindo’s ontology is his concept of Brahman. It negates illusionism and gives his metaphysical scheme a religious dimension. There is no room in his system for any adversary, anti-Divine or Satan as an independent entity. Thus, evil and suffering also stand accounted for. Peculiarities of this order make him the very first and, so far, the only ontologist claiming a preordained divination of the universe.
Aurobindo Ghose (1872 - 1950) was extraordinary as a man of learning . His knowledge of the world was encyclopaedic. The Wisdom he derived from it was astonishing in being synthesising, comprehensive and interpretative. Hence his familiarity with the scientific - materialistic nature of the West as also with the spirituality of the East. From 1901 onwards, especially from 1908 , he turned to the study and practice of yoga after unravelling the secret of the Veda, the Upanisads, the Bhagavadgita and other sacred writings of India. Factors like this account for the distinctive nature of the Integral philosophy and Yoga and ontology he has propounded. The most outstanding peculiarity of Aurobindonian ontology is its synthesising integrality leading to holism. It harmonises the western theories of evolution and life sciences with the mystical – spiritual theories of the Absolute as revealed in the Veda. On account of this , "spiritual evolution" or the evolution of consciousness becomes the sheet anchor of Aurobindo’s ontological argument.
"Consciousness" for Aurobindo, is a rich and complex term. He believes that consciousness is inherent as much in seemingly inert matter as in plant, animal, human and suprahuman life. It participates in the various levels of being in various ways. The Spirit or Sachchidananda which means the highest level of "being, consciousness, and bliss" is nothing but the Absolute. Therefore , Aurobindonian ontological argument emerges from his ‘hierarchical view of consciousness or Spirit’. Accordingly Sachchidananda or the Divine is at the transcendent summit.
The Supermind mediates Sachchidananda to the multiplicity of the world.
To live in a world without human connection, is to live an empty and meaningless life. Both Karen Armstrong, and Robert Thurman, highlight the necessity of human contact throughout their essays. In his text “Wisdom,” Robert Thurman shows us the path to discover the selflessness of what we believe is our true and actual self. He claims that no matter how hard one might try to find themselves, they will only find a rigid, fixated self. But when we finally accept our selflessness and turn away from our egos, we can become compassionate and experience the void, which he defines as a free and boundless self. Additionally, Karen Armstrong debates that the universe is driven by concepts such as “Being,” and “Brahman,” which both represent the ultimate
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Rosenberg, Donna. "The Creation of the Titans and the Gods." World Mythology. 3rd ed. Chicago: NTC/Contemporary Publishing Group, Inc., 1999. 82-89. Print.
Pojman said in his introduction, “no other subject has exercised as profound a role in human history as religion.” (Pojman 1). This is important because the way we view religion is the way that philosophical arguments are presented. The way we analyze religion philosophically begins with the notion of a theistic God. The theistic God, in its most general sense, is viewed as an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good deity. Phenomenology, cosmology, teleology, ontology, religious experience, are some ways people attempt to make sense of God and religion in a philosophical way.
ABSTRACT: In this essay I examine the relationship between Sartre's phenomenological description of the "self" as expressed in his early work (especially Being and Nothingness) and elements to be found in some approaches to Buddhism. The vast enormity of this task will be obvious to anyone who is aware of the numerous schools and traditions through which the religion of Buddhism has manifested itself. In order to be brief, I have decided to select specific aspects of what is commonly called the Theravadin tradition as being representative of Buddhist philosophy. By choosing to look primarily at the Theravadin tradition, I am by necessity ignoring a vast number of other Buddhist approaches. However, in my view, the Theravadin sect presents a consistent Buddhist philosophy which is representative of many of the major trends within Buddhism.
At the core of Jean-Paul Sartre’s views was that existence precedes essence. This contrasted with the Aristotelian and Scholastic views that individual existence is an expression of essence or being (Brennan, 2003). Instead, Sartre believed that existence defines the essence of an individual such ...
Reality as a whole, and the nature of it, continues to be a puzzling point in most areas of study. This quest began after men sought to find the “One” (underlying principle) amidst the “Many” variations of life as a way to explain the world around them. Once can simply categorize “One” and “Many” as “Being” continuity, and “Becoming” change, respectively. There is a natural divide among men on this subject due to their subjective understanding of the world. In this paper, I will propose my theory of “Being”, which is in response to Heraclitus’ opinions of the unity of opposites, and the universe, grounded on the concept of innate potential. The goal of this essay is to present the idea that “Being” and “Becoming” can, and does, occur simultaneously,
Although Daoism and Hinduism are two completely separate religions with the former indigenous to China and the latter to India, both of them encompass striking similarities that undeniably make it seem that one influenced the other. However, no known relations between the two religions exist. Comparing the small, but contextually vital part of the Hindu epic Mahabharata known as Bhagavad Gita with the central text to Daoism, Tao Te Ching offers an unparalleled journey of knowledge and understanding. Tao Te Ching emphasizes the crucial concept of Dao, which is translated as the “Way” while Bhagavad Gita stresses the all-encompassing Brahman. Since no sufficient language can express the full meaning of Dao, the most suitable example that shows its operations is the movement of water (TTC 8). Water simply flows with unity with nature – it can transform itself into whatever form is needed to flow. Dao is essentially an indescribable eternal energy and origin of the entire universe. Fully arriving at the Dao is the main goal of Daoism. Similarly, Brahman is the ultimate end to everything in the universe. In the Bhagavad Gita, Brahman is described as the source from which all beings originate from and eventually return. The fundamental principle of both concepts is, therefore, one and the same. I will specifically focus on vital parts of the two concepts in order to illustrate the parallelism of the eventual goal of the Dao and the Brahman. The emphasis on action with no desire for the “fruit” of the action, Dao and Brahman’s inexpressible essence, and following one’s own duty in order to complement the movement of the universe. These concepts illustrate the similarity between Dao and Brahman and ultimately demonstrate that they are ide...
Rosenburg, Donna. World Mythology: An Anthology of the Great Myths and Epics. Third Edition. Chicago: NTC/Contemporary Publishing Group, Inc., 1999. Text.
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In this paper I will be making a comparison between the thoughts of Karl Jaspers and Korean Zen master Seung Sahn on the nature of consciousness and transcendence. The essays in question by Jaspers are his essays “On the Origin of My Philosophy,” written in 1941, and his lectures on the significance of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche and “the Encompassing,” given in 1935 (p. 158). The other text being studied is The Compass of Zen, a compilation of Seung Sahn’s lectures on the three main branches of Buddhism. The Compass of Zen was begun in the 1960s as a basic text to explain the “bone,” or common essence, of Buddhism to Sahn’s Zen students. The 1960s brought a sharp rise on interest in Buddhism among Americans, and The Compass of Zen is often used as a primer to help Westerners understand its teachings. Thus, Sahn has combined teachings from all over Asia (the three main branches of Hinayana, Mahayana, and Zen Buddhism) into one text. Jasper’s philosophy is similarly based on the desire for a “universal historical view.” He considered the three main sources of philosophical thought to be India, the Orient, and the Western tradition beginning with the Greeks. He writes that it is important to understand many different types of philosophies because they all spring from the basic human desire for understanding. As he writes in Kaufmann’s anthology, “there is more than one universal truth in man.” Both Jaspers and Sahn are trying to create a universally applicable philosophy of inner reflection (meditation) to gain transcendence (enlightenment, nirvana, moshka, satori); in practical terms, inner peace.
Religious explanation is much different than scientific and philosophical explanation and when misunderstood can have a great conflict. Religious explanation does not originate from observation or logical deduction, but from belief of there being knowledge we don’t know of a higher being(s) who make and sometimes control us humans and the universe which we live. Religious explanation is where some of the first philosophical claims originat...
Starting with yoga, Yoga is the physical, mental, and spiritual practices, which originatead in ancient India with a view to attain a state of permanent peace of mind in order to experience one's true self (Bryant 2009, p. 10, p.457). The word “yoga” means "union.” Many people think of yoga only as physical exercises — the asanas or postures that have gained widespread popularity in recent decades — these are actually only the most superficial aspect of this profound science of unfolding the infinite potentials of the human mind and soul (What Is Yoga, Really, Self-Realization Fellowship).
The real world of our universe one can present as consisting of the totality of the interconnected (through the known fundamental interactions) units of the nature, for example, photons, atoms, molecules, cells, living organisms, men, stars, galaxies and ets. Their materiality is shown, for example, in the outwards activity (the power), in which the units of nature come forward as integrated formations in the relation of other units of nature; their spirituality, enlightened through the materiality, in the form (in order of the growth of the spirituality) of the inside activity (that is of the spontaneous transitions into their different states), in the form of the senseorganized unity ( regulated by any laws), of the soul, and of the spirit. Different units of nature have different degrees of the spirituality, which are shown in the spontaneity, statisticality, selforganization, freedom of the will and so on, therefore one can say about corresponding spiritual aspects of any units of nature.