... Intuition, but this Age was followed by the Age of Reason. Inspired texts of the Veda and the Upanishads made room for metaphysical philosophy, even as afterwards metaphysical philosophy had to give place to experimental Science. The study of the history of the metaphysical philosophy of India demonstrates the great heights to which the pure reason developed, and the study of the experimental Science... process can be seen as a circle of progress, since the results of the Age of Intuition came to be critically examined and assimilated by the Age of Pure Reason, and similarly the results of metaphysical philosophy came to be critically tested by the experiences and experiments that were meant to meet the demands of the mixed action of Reason and the physical mind and senses. In retrospect, it can be ...
... Intuition, ¹ but this Age was followed by the Age of Reason. Inspired texts of the Veda and the Upanishads made room for metaphysical philosophy, even as afterwards metaphysical philosophy had to give place to experimental Science. The study of the history of the metaphysical philosophy of India demonstrates the great heights to which the pure reason developed, and the study of the experimental Science... process can be seen as a circle of progress, since the results of the Age of Intuition came to be critically examined and assimilated by the Age of Pure Reason, and similarly the results of metaphysical philosophy came to be critically tested by the experiences and experiments that were meant to meet the demands of the mixed action of Reason and the physical mind and senses. In retrospect, it can be ...
... ever." Naveen Chandra smiled and caressed my arm. But soon he became serious and said, "Girish, metaphysical philosophy deals with two inter-related ideas, the idea of infinity and the idea of eternity. From where these ideas originate is itself an important question of metaphysical philosophy. But the more you contemplate on these two ideas, the more you grow in maturity. And one of the keys... existence cannot be proved intellectually. I went even farther and thought that to believe in the existence of God is to be illogical and irrational. For some time, I set aside my study of metaphysical philosophy and turned to the study of economics and politics. I sharpened also my study of ethics. I dabbled in history also. All this led me to study programmes of social reconstruction and, in that ...
... being advanced so overwhelmingly, and it has been largely conceded that materialism cannot be defended as a metaphysical philosophy. This is because, in the first place, those who are inclined psychologically to favour materialism have largely come to the conclusion that no metaphysical philosophy, including materialism, is logically sustainable. 1 It has also come to be recognized increasingly that ...
... intuitive knowledge, represented by the early Vedantic thinking of the Upanishads, had to give place to the age of rational knowledge; inspired Scripture made room for metaphysical philosophy, even as afterwards metaphysical philosophy had to give place to experimental Science. Intuitive thought which is a messenger from the superconscient and therefore our highest faculty, was supplanted by the pure ...
... subsequently represented by the early Vedantic thinking of the Upanishads. This age gave way to the age of rational knowledge, when inspired scriptures made room for metaphysical philosophy, even as afterwards metaphysical philosophy had to give place to experimental science. Sri Aurobindo, in the following Page 9 passage, describes briefly but illuminatingly the course of the development ...
... the former he is attempting to conquer for his own system the entire & exclusive authority of the Sruti. A commentary on the Upanishads should be a work of exegesis; Shankara's is a work of metaphysical philosophy. He does not really approach the Sruti as an exegete; his intention is not to use the philosophical mind in order to arrive at the right explanation of the old Vedanta, but to use explanation ...
... been entirely lost on our nation. Their great movement which denied, limiting itself in rationality, the capacity or the need of the human mind to know beyond the laws of phenomena, seized in metaphysical philosophy upon only so much as was necessary for conduct, sought to establish on pure logic & reason the few fundamental principles it needed and, feeling obscurely the necessity of completing itself ...
... for himself but for all, for a universal realisation and new creation. That is described in the Book of the Divine Mother. As to the Nirvana poem, I have said that the poem announces no metaphysical philosophy but is only the description of a spiritual experience. So how can any metaphysics be derived from it true or false—if you mean truly or falsely derived? If you want to ask whether the metaphysics ...
... habits of metaphysical debate unknown to the Vedic Brahmavadins have never been able to dethrone them from their primaeval supremacy. Let a man present never so finely reasoned a system of metaphysical philosophy, few will turn to hear, none leave his labour to receive, but let a man say as in the old Vedantic times “I have experienced, my soul has seen”, & hundreds in India will yet leave all to share ...
... experience. The experience may lead occasionally to some insight into inner and less obvious processes, but it is also likely to lead to self-delusion. Metaphysics and philosophy, or a metaphysical philosophy, have a greater appeal to the mind. They require hard thinking and the application of logic and reasoning, though all this is necessarily based on some premises, which are presumed to be s ...
... contact with great artists and thinkers like Rouault, Rodin, Matisse, Anatole France. She had read a number of books,—in fact, libraries. But she had not yet done the 'mental' gymnastics of metaphysical philosophy, comparative studies, and systems of law and sociology. And if with Theon, Mother had touched death, with Paul Richard she would touch the world's Falsehood. It was in about 1908 that Mother ...
... the domain of Matter the conceptions and even the very formulas of language which were arrived at, by a very different method, in the Vedan-ta, - the original Vedanta, not of the schools of metaphysical philosophy, but of the Upanishads. And these, on the other hand, often reveal their full significance, their richer contents only when they are viewed in the new light shed by the discoveries of modern ...
... the age of intuitive knowledge gave place to the age of rational knowledge, during which meta-physical philosophy reached great heights of subtlety and excellence, during the third stage, metaphysical philosophy gave way to experimental science. This process which seems to be a descent, is really a circle of progress. For in each case, the lower faculty is compelled to take up as much as it can assimilate ...
... Synthesis of Works, Love and Knowledge Essays on the Gita II The Synthesis of Devotion and Knowledge The Gita is not a treatise of metaphysical philosophy, in spite of the great mass of metaphysical ideas which arise incidentally in its pages; for here no metaphysical truth is brought into expression solely for its own sake. It seeks the highest ...
... civilisation is synonymous and identical with the cult and practice of the materialistic reason and that anything which falls below or goes above that standard does not deserve the name. A too metaphysical philosophy, a too religious religion,—if not indeed all philosophy and all religion,—any too idealistic and all mystic thought and art and every kind of occult knowledge, all that refines and probes beyond ...
... in the domain of Matter the conceptions and even the very formulae of language which were arrived at, by a very different method, in the Vedanta,—the original Vedanta, not of the schools of metaphysical philosophy, but of the Upanishads. And these, on the other hand, often reveal their full significance, their richer contents only when they are viewed in the new light shed by the discoveries of modern ...
... world, not limited by anything in its nature or His nature, but free & Lord. For, since it is the object of the Upanishad to build up a practical rule of life here in the Brahman rather than a metaphysical philosophy for the satisfaction of the intellect, the Seer of the Upanishad selects inevitably the practical rather than the essential relation of God & the world as the starting point of his thought ...
... or hostile, or have even recoiled with indifference, contempt or scepticism from what seem to them the cold, barren and distant or unsubstantial and illusory heights of unreality to which metaphysical Philosophy and Religion aspire. For a time the divorce has been as complete as the one-sided intolerance of the human mind could make it and threatened even to end in a complete extinction of all attempt ...
... and the meaning of existence, should naturally be the determinant of our whole conception of life and attitude to it; the aim of life, as we conceive it, must be structured on that basis. Metaphysical philosophy is an attempt to fix the fundamental realities and principles of being as distinct from its processes and the phenomena which result from those processes. But it is on the fundamental realities ...
... intuitive, esoteric style and discipline of the Mystics, — Vedic and Vedantic seers, Orphic secret teachers, Egyptian priests. From that veil it emerged along the path of Page 9 a metaphysical philosophy still related to the Mystics by the source of its fundamental ideas, its first aphoristic and cryptic style, its attempt to seize directly upon truth by intellectual vision rather than arrive ...
... From this abuse of his parts of knowledge have resulted three illegitimate human activities, of which Philosophy, Religion & Science have severally made themselves guilty, the disputatious metaphysical philosophy of the schools, the theology of the Churches and the scientific philosophy of the laboratories. Philosophy, Religion & Science have each their appointed field and dominion; each can help man ...
... cult, creed or extant system of philosophy. The effort involves a quest for the Truth that underlies existence and the fundamental Law of its self-expression in the universe—the work of metaphysical philosophy and religious thought; the sounding and harmonising of the psychological methods of discipline by which man purifies and perfects himself—the work of psychology, not as it is understood in ...
... intellectual constructions and put us face to face with truth and with assured truth only; it claimed the right to rid man of the fantastic encumbrance of religion and the nebulous futilities of metaphysical philosophy. But religion and philosophy have now turned upon science and convicted her, on her own statement of facts, of an equal liability to the two Page 286 universal difficulties of human ...
... in the symbolic, intuitive, esoteric style and discipline of the Mystics,—Vedic and Vedantic seers, Orphic secret teachers, Egyptian priests. From that veil it emerged along the path of a metaphysical philosophy still related to the Mystics by the source of its fundamental ideas, its first aphoristic and cryptic style, its attempt to seize directly upon truth by intellectual vision rather than arrive ...
... in the domain of Matter the conceptions and even the very formulae of language which were arrived at, by a very different method, in the Vedanta, – the original Vedanta, not the schools of metaphysical philosophy, but of the Upanishads. And these, on the other hand, often reveal their full significance, their richer contents only when they are viewed in the new light shed by the discoveries of modern ...
... had the most splendid good fortune in all literary history. They have been the reputed source not only of some of the world's richest and profoundest religions, but of some of its subtlest metaphysical philosophies. In the fixed tradition of thousands of years they have been revered as the origin and standard of all that can be held as authoritative and true in Brahmana and Upanishad, in Tantra and Purana... religious aspirations. Nor do occasional passages, quite out of harmony with their general spirit, destroy this total impression. The true foundation or starting-point of the later religions and philosophies is the Upanishads, which have then to be conceived as a revolt of philosophical and speculative minds against the ritualistic materialism of the Vedas. But this conception, supported by misleading... conjectures. It is indeed coming to be doubted whether the whole story of an Aryan invasion through the Punjab is not a myth of the philologists. Now, in ancient Europe the schools of intellectual philosophy were preceded by the secret doctrines of the mystics; Orphic and Eleusinian mysteries prepared the rich soil of mentality out of which sprang Pythagoras and Plato. A similar starting-point is at ...
... present themselves they may come up. Withdrawal may lead to a neutral state but that is not our Yoga. We want spiritual dynamism, as the source of action. NIRODBARAN: If one writes about metaphysics or philosophy with a spiritual attitude the spiritual consciousness must be there. SRI AUROBINDO ( laughing ): Must it? Attitude is not enough. There must be an inner change too. Of course if one wrote ...
... pages of history and literature and the broken or crumbling fragments of the past,—those who see only from a distance or fix their eyes only on one aspect, speak of it often as a land of metaphysics, philosophies, dreams and brooding imaginations, and certain artists and writers are apt to write in a strain as if it were a country of the Arabian Nights, a mere glitter of strange hues and fancies and... will and vital force, by pale shadows of humanity in whom the vigorous manhood had been crushed out under the burden of a gloomy and all-effacing asceticism, nor does it look like the sign of a metaphysically minded people of dreamers averse to life and action. It was not men of straw or lifeless and will-less dummies or thin-blooded dreamers who thus acted, planned, conquered, built great systems of... external causes, then we may say that there is a lack of life. Life in its largest sense is the great web of our internal and external action, the play of Shakti, the play of Karma; it is religion and philosophy and thought and science and poetry and art, drama and song and dance and play, politics and society, industry, commerce and trade, adventure and travel, war and peace, conflict and unity, victory ...
... pure metaphysics which have no connection with the constant psychological experience and practice of men, are apt to become, like the modern philosophies of Europe and unlike the old Greek philosophies, merely noble pastimes for the intellectual few. They influence the generality of men, but by a slight and indirect process, not profoundly, not puissantly, not permanently. The Indian metaphysical systems... of Vedic philosophies, the dominance of religions rich with the sap of the old Vedic spirit, the traditional teachings of particular Yogic schools, the theory & practice of the Guru-parampara. It would be as great a mistake to exaggerate as to belittle the importance of any of these aids in themselves. Vedic knowledge was rich, many-sided, elastic, flexible; but the metaphysical philosophies are limited... have shaped the Particularism of Ramanujam and influenced the transcendentalism of Emerson. Great philosophies have been born of them, which, as Europeans have noted with an admiring or patronising wonder and Indians with a sort of obsequious pride, are on a level or almost on a level with the metaphysical ideas of Kant and Hegel! Apart, even, from these baser concessions of the subjugated Indian mind ...
... Orientalists in unearthing and broadcasting the treasures of ancient Indian metaphysics, philosophy and literature contributed to the growth of a vivified sense of national pride and dignity. The aggressive proselytising zeal of Christian missionaries drove the Hindus to an intensive study of their own scriptures and philosophies, so that they might combat the missionary propaganda and save the society... harmony that has got out of tune. The whole heart and action and mind of man must be changed but from within and not from without, not by political and social institutions, not even by creeds and philosophies, but by realisation of God in ourselves and the world and a remoulding of life by that realisation." In the light of these words we understand something of the fiery intensity of love... watch on all that was happening in the world and in India and actively intervened whenever necessary, but solely with a spiritual force and silent spiritual action." His poetry and politics, his philosophy and Yoga were all of a piece - they composed a coherent, integrated, harmonious whole. We shall now offer to the reader the intimate pen-picture of Sri Aurobindo by Dinendra Kumar Roy, which ...
... traceable any longer. The main point of Lawrence is that the metaphysics or philosophy on which the art of an age is built has its curve of developing vision followed by its curve of decline and we are an age of decline with a dead empty metaphysics producing lifeless art and then old values have all to be broken in order that a new metaphysics and a new art founded on a new vision may come. This has not... share in keeping up an Ashram which has at least an appearance to the physical senses of being solid and material! If you deny that these things are material or solid (which of course metaphysically you can), then you land yourself plump into Shankara's illusionism, and there I will leave you. You will say however that it is not the Supramental but at most the Overmind that helped me to... 293 August 22, 1935 (...) Subhash writes about all my friends being eager to welcome me back if I return now—surely I have been in seclusion long enough, etc., etc., etc.—activism philosophy, vous comprenez? I wrote back—a quoi bon, en un mot [what is the use, in a word]. Strange that, is it not? When I am disappointed in Yoga I pout at the Divine but when I am called to return to the ...
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