Some of the recent Discussions: Part 1

[Guest guest]

Dear Members of the Prapatti/Bhakthi Group:

 

I would like to share with you the excerpts from

two of recent articles from the latest issue of

Tattvaloka. These might give us some additional

food for thought.

 

One is from a letter that Sri Aurobindo,

the one time fire brand revolutionary wrote to his

disciple from Pondichery after his "Tapas". He talks about the

intelelctual approach to spiritual pursuits versus intuitive approach resting

 

largely on one's faith .

 

The second is from the book of

Professor D.S.Sharma ( 1883-1970) , who was the

Principal of Vivekanandha College during the 1949 time period.

The title of his book is " Essence of Hinduism".

 

A . Excerpts from Sri Aurobindo"s Letter

 

"In the relentless pursuit of truth in the West, Intellect

reigns supreme. In the East, however, especially in India,

the first rank has always been given to spiritual intuition,

illumination and experience. "

 

" The intellect is incapable of knowing the supreme truth.

It can only range about seeking for Truth, and catching fragmentary

representations of it, not the thing itself,

and trying to piece them together. Mind can not

arrive at truth; it can only make some constructed

figure that tries to represent it or a combination of figures.

 

Intellect, if it goes sincerely to its own end has to return and give this

report: " I can not know; there is, or at least it seems to me that there

may be or even must be something beyond , some ultimate

reality, but about it struth I can only speculate; it is either

unknowable or can not be known by me...... If the intellect

is our highest possible instrument an dther eis no other means

of arriving at the supreme physical truth , then a wise and large

agnosticism must be our ultimate attitude...... It is the spiritual

way , the road that leads beyond the intelelctual levels , the

passage from the outer being to the inmost self, which has been

lost by the over-intellectuality of the mind of Europe.

 

It is not by thinking out the entire reality , but by a change of

consciousness that one can pass from ignorance to

knowledge -- the knowledge by which we become What we know."

 

In the next posting, I will include the excerpts from Prof. Sharma"s book.

 

Sadagopan

 

P.S; On an autobiographical note, I have been the earner of Six degrees,

three of which are from MIT, the temple of "rational " analysis.

I guess MIT has not fully transformed me . I stay as a recidivist.