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Some of the recent Discussions: Part 1

From the Bhakti List Archives

V. Sadagopan • May 3, 1996 


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.