Babel : the Tower of Babel; ancient multi-ethnic Babylonian city & tower “with its top in the heavens” to reunite humanity with its Creator. The god of the Genesis condemned this city & tower by making diversity of languages a curse – which why each of the creedal religion it created imposes its own tribal tongue as the only means of communing with the Creator of mankind. Sri Aurobindo: “In reality, this diversity has been rather a blessing than a curse laid on mankind, a gift rather than a disability. For its disadvantages tend more & more to be minimised by the growth of civilisation & increasing intercourse. Diversity of languages serves two important ends of the human spirit: it brings those who speak it into a certain large unity of growing thought, formed temperament, ripening spirit; & most powerful of all, it is not a barren principle of division but a means of a fruitful & helpful differentiation. [CWSA Vol. 25]
... sness, must infiltrate. It is what Mother called with her delightful sense of humor "the Tower of Babel in reverse." They united and divided in the construction, so now, they come together to unite in the construction. That's it: a Tower of Babel... in reverse! 6 Will we undo the mental Babel? That is the whole question of the coming twenty-first century. It is truly the very question... it always corresponds to a certain quality of vibration that causes a sort of swelling—a receptive swelling—and then , the thing can occur. 2 That is what happened in 1968. The Tower of Babel in Reverse There are moments in History that are like dress rehearsals of a particular evolutionary scene of the future, and in them can be discerned not only the flaws, the obstacles, the contending ...
... The Poetry of Kalidasa Early Cultural Writings On Translating Kalidasa Since the different tribes of the human Babel began to study each other's literatures, the problem of poetical translation has constantly defied the earnest experimenter. There have been brilliant versions, successful falsifications, honest renderings, but some few lyrics apart... for instance which is largely the same as the Norwegian is yet largely different, while the Danish generally classed in the same Scandinavian group differs radically from both. This is that curse of Babel, after all quite as much a blessing as a curse, which weighs upon no one so heavily as on the conscientious translator of poetry; for the prose translator being more concerned to render the precise ...
... the Mother often stressed the realization of human unity. (Once she called the city ‘the Tower of Babel in reverse … Then they came together but separated during the construction; now they are coming again to unite during the construction.’ 9 She even made the reflection whether the Tower of Babel — just like Akhetaton — had not been an early essay to build something like Auroville.) She therefore ...
... very amusing things which one sees going on; just now, a thought: "Ah! it's the Tower of Babel in Page 37 reverse". (Mother laughs) It's interesting! They came together and they split up in the construction; so now they've come together again to unite in the construction. There you are: a Tower of Babel... in reverse! (Mother stops for a moment, as if she were seeing something) ...
... resumes ) I see all kinds of very amusing things pass by; just now, this reflection: "Ah, it's a Tower of Babel in reverse." ( Mother laughs ) That's interesting! They united and divided in the construction, so now, they come together to unite in the construction. That's it: a Tower of Babel... in reverse! ( Mother stops for an instant, as if she saw something ) One suddenly sees... It's a certain ...
... much that nothing means anything anymore — everything is suspect, everything is equally credible and incredible. So, “to speak” again? Is not the time of speaking over? It is the end of the mental Babel. I don’t know, I know less and less. I only see everything dissolving. Here, I am sated with hatred. It seems that I am wounded everywhere. It is strange how I am hated on all sides, even in Auroville... depends on our ability to enter this Light or to bear it. Some will not be able. Over-life is right here, among a kind of growing disaster. But it is only the disaster of the Mind. The Tower of Babel is becoming so crazy that one day, suddenly, things will be irreversible — everything will drop from our hands into a Page 241 something that will be on the frontier of madness and of marvelous ...
... world-creative fable Break there—divine truth's silhouette-dance— Black lines of beauty, curvings sable, Like lashes moved by mystery's glance, Dream-signs that trace through all time's babel The calm of a godlike countenance. Page 608 ...
... alone. To put it differently, we who have, by now, become all but distracted by the wordy inconclusiveness of reason must hark back again to faith — not, indeed, in rum our and hearsay but in what no babel of words can muffle: the mystic Flute-call heard by the highest spirits of every age. To us, who have heard his clarion, there can be no question of following a lesser call: we must consecrate all ...
... collaborate for the material realization of that unity; 2. To have the will to collaborate in all that furthers future realizations.’ 57 This is the reason why she called the city ‘the tower of Babel in reverse.’ The people came together to build that tower but separated during the construction, now their representatives would be uniting during the construction of the City of Dawn. (Auroville has ...
... have been able to find him in Latin, Greek or Hebrew.” “German was promoted to the fourth holy language, more admirable than any other and comparable only to the Hebrew spoken before the confusion of Babel, the language of Adam.” 383 Luther was not the only German in those days to think that Adam and Eve conversed in their language. “What we see converging from German humanism is a clearly defined ...
... The regent sits at work and never rests: He is a puppet of the dance of Time; He is driven by the hours, the moment's call Compels him with the thronging of life's need And the babel of the voices of the world. Book Seven, Canto Two, p. 478 * This seed-self sown in the Indeterminate Forfeits its glory of divinity, Concealing the omnipotence of its Force ...
... 119 134, 141, 183, 251 superman, supramental see consciousness T To be a true Aurovilian 206-12 Tower of Babel 37, 52 town plan 16-25, 142-53 transformation 9-12, 69-70, 82, 86, 93-4, 149, 216, 220, 243 transparency 241 ...
... to clinch the connection by an open statement, though in terms of execration rather than admiration, there is for Blake in Milton the lines about a son of Man - Nimrod, builder of the sky-climbing Babel-tower, as viewed in prophetic vision by Adam: "O execrable son, so to aspire Above his brethren, to himself assuming Authority usurpt, from God not giv'n!... to God his tower intends ...
... that's all. But what Sri Aurobindo meant is that the movement, the general movement was towards a catastrophe, and this was to divert the current of force. But I wondered if the Tower of Babel, in so far as it is a true story, wasn't a similar attempt? An attempt to create a harmony among men?... It's presented to us in another way, but I wondered if it wasn't that. We'll see. ...
... destroyed or overshadowed, dwarfed and discouraged the large and free use of the varying natural languages of humanity, could fail to be detrimental to human life and progress. The legend of the Tower of Babel speaks of the diversity of tongues as a curse laid on the race; but whatever its disadvantages, and they tend more and more to be minimised by the growth of civilisation and increasing intercourse, ...
... Rimmed by faint watchers billowing haze-embalmed, Whose legions vast our dream-like raft surround. Nature looks strange. Strange that, e'en so, she's found Closer to man. The dumb do voiceless meet, Babel avoiding. See,—the very ground Is silence-drenched—untrodden by earth's feet. On such a stillness might leap forth the Word, On such sink down to rest Creative Power: All those six days through ...
... in everything else — go on arguing the pros and cons till doomsday: whether sympathy is more likely to be nearer the truth than a cold critical appraisement. I feel no urge to swell the inconclusive babel of such a debate. So I will only repeat what Tagore told me once sighing, with a picturesque charm all his own (which I lack): "I really long to praise, Dilip! Some times it even grows on me like hunger ...
... all. But what Sri Aurobindo meant was that the movement, the general movement was towards a catastrophe, and this was to divert the current of force. But I have wondered whether the Tower of Babel, insofar as the story is true, wasn't a similar attempt, an attempt to harmonize men?... It's presented to us the other way round, but I have wondered if it wasn't that. We'll see. Now there is ...
... write his own history, and in writing it, to make it." 51 The Cantos may thus be almost called a sort of universal congress of epic heroes, or a junction where many epic highways meet, or even a Babel where many epic languages strive towards a basic unity of understanding and harmony. Page 391 ...
... Bengali in college, at the Presidency of all places! This was unprecedented! He could guess immediately what we felt and came out with the Bengali verse, meaning: All over the world there is a babel of tongues; Can anything please unless it's one's own? You can understand how unfailingly he could draw the students towards him. J. C. Bose was a somewhat different type. I did not have ...
... was able to give that kind of world importance to the Bengali language. It may be questioned whether too many languages are not imposed on us in this way and whether it will not mean in the end a Babel and inefficiency. It need not be so and it is not going to be so. We must remember the age we are in, its composite structure, its polyphonic nature. In the ancient and mediaeval ages, the ages of ...
... extraterrestrial paradise; explore to the very end the paths of science, which all opened out onto an almost monstrous earth; plow or struggle on the mind’s paths, which all opened onto a new, worldwide Babel where thoughts and words became like counterfeit money at the service of teeming egoisms and pygmies of power; touch and delve ever deeper into its own misery along all the paths of faith or non-faith ...
... languages, each supremely truthful. And everything is true, everything is false. It is the truth of falsehood or the falsehood of truth. It is the reign of yes-no, good-evil, for-against, the great mental Babel among a rapidly mushrooming four billion humans. It is the age of countless panaceas: against cancer, against recession and poverty, for rain or fine weather; we invent everything to disinvent everything ...
... longer know the language! A universal language, because, in truth, there is but one language—the language of Consciousness. It is our forgetfulness of that language which makes for all our towers of Babel. And there, too, She found a whole gamut that filled her with interest: Certain differences between vibrations resemble differences in tastes. There’s a whole gamut, you see, all vibrations, nothing ...
... direction it is better to be drowned—then the time comes for evolution to smash the fishbowl. That moment has come. Our failure is our most marvelous hope. The last convulsions of the old mental Babel are opening onto a new cycle, a supramental cycle. The most tremendous illusion of all times is collapsing in a crash of rust and dust, as if it had never existed. And indeed, it never did. Separation ...
... at Aden, in Persia; there they witnessed the "gigantic steamer, the wonder of the age," the Great Eastern laying the Anglo-Indian telegraph cable. The Mooltan then passed through the straits of Babel Manded, crossed the Red Sea, and finally entered the Suez Canal. The passengers disembarked on Egyptian soil and entrained for Alexandria. The Bengalis went sightseeing, which included Cleopatra's ...
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