Saturday, May 23, 2026

Controlling what surfaces and what stays hidden

 Collated by Tusar Nath Mohapatra

Sri Aurobindo Upanishad Part - 15 by Sraddhalu
Sri Aurobindo Upanishad Part - 15 by Sraddhalu. 2 views · 18 minutes ago ... Lecture series on Sri Aurobindo's Synthesis of Yoga (by Ranganath), pp 436-437.
Global Spirituality Mahotsav held in Puducherry with support of Ministry of Culture, to mark ...
10 hours ago — It highlights Sri Aurobindo's ideals of national resurgence, Asian unity, world harmony, India's spiritual leadership, and the evolution of human consciousness,
On Sanatana Dharma (12)
11 hours ago — 'Sri Aurobindo does not belong to the past nor to history. Sri Aurobindo is the Future advancing towards its realisation. Thus we must shelter the eternal ...
Sri Aurobindo Illustrated Kids Book | Ramakrishna Math
16 hours ago — Dive into the extraordinary life and teachings of Sri Aurobindo with this beautifully illustrated paperback, tailored for young readers and seekers alike. ₹40.00
Paint, play & patriotism showcased by tots of Sri Aurobindo Institute of Education
19 hours ago — Tots of Sri Aurobindo Institute of Education, dressed as eminent Indians, tour the art exhibition at their BK Block campus. Pictures by Brinda Sarkar.
Songs of the Soul: May 22, 2026
11 hours ago — 'Sri Aurobindo does not belong to the past nor to history. Sri Aurobindo is the Future advancing towards its realisation. Thus we must shelter the eternal ...
Why Ladakh's democratic aspirations cannot be reduced to the administrative convenience of districts
20 hours ago — Sri Aurobindo wrote that freedom is the necessary atmosphere for a nation's soul to grow. The soul of this nation has always been largest at its edges, in ...
The Silence behind Life #Sri Aurobindo
A wonderful essay from Sri Aurobindo's 'Essays Divine and Human' where he deals exhaustively with the the common mistake of reading and deciphering a true ...
Evenings with Sraddhalu - Part 245 - Conscious Re-Incarnation - XIII - The Body
Evenings with Sraddhalu - Part 245 - Conscious Re-Incarnation - XIII - The Body ... This content isn't available. Skip video.
The Life Divine - (Summary - 13) Book II : Chapter 16: Para 21 & 22 | Study Circle with S. Sivakumar
The Life Divine: Sri Aurobindo: Book II - Chapter XVI: The Integral Knowledge and the Aim of Life; Four Theories of Existence Session Dated 21st May 2026 ...
Special Sri Aurobindo Pathachakra at SAIIE, Balimela, Malkanagiri. Dt.21-05-26
This content isn't available. Special Sri Aurobindo Pathachakra at SAIIE, Balimela, Malkanagiri. Dt.21-05-26. No views · 13 minutes ago ...more. THE FLAMING ...
Questions and Answers with Mother read by Monika - Part - 2 (Page: 16-32)
Questions and Answers with Mother read by Monika - Part - 2 (Page: 16-32). 2 views · 16 minutes ago ...more. The Mother & Sri Aurobindo : E-library. 12.7K.

That’s a fair connection. Scheler’s claim that values are felt sits differently from Sri Aurobindo’s integral consciousness, which frames value as part of a wider evolving unity of mind, life, and spirit rather than a phenomenological “given.”

Different frameworks, same pressure point: values aren’t just invented, they’re encountered, in some form, by consciousness.

To a degree, yes. Scheler saw a person’s capacity to perceive higher values as something that can be cultivated and deepened. Sri Aurobindo goes further, framing consciousness itself as evolving toward higher forms of realization.

https://x.com/i/status/2057895142581788722

A new review calls Just Tech Fellow Rua Williams’s book Disabling Intelligences “a short yet densely packed essential read for scholars, technologists, activists, and anyone who interacts with AI in any capacity.” 

https://x.com/i/status/2057488587625570401

What an excellent book! @FemiMind I would like to make it compulsory reading for postgraduate trainees under me. [Psychopathology of Rare and Unusual Syndromes] 

https://x.com/i/status/2057817873587032480

What if trust shouldn't be readable at all? In the quantum cyber era, security isn't an add-on; it's the system's geometry. It's about controlling what surfaces and what stays hidden, moving from secret strings to engineered resilience. #QuantumSecurity #CyberTrust #DeepTech

https://x.com/i/status/2057910896370840020

"We over-essentialise, and I can point to places where people think there are absolute boundaries when there aren’t."

https://x.com/i/status/2057416297885954277

Nothing in physics may be truly fundamental.

Questions whether the idea of “building blocks” in nature are increasingly outliving its usefulness, suggesting that our most basic concepts reflect the limits of human understanding rather than the structure of reality itself.

Here Physicist Sabine Hossenfelder argues that mathematics isn't real, and rather a tool we use to describe the world. 

If that’s the case, what would a coherent picture of the world even look like? And can physics progress without appealing to particles, things, or foundations?

Watch the full debate via the link, also featuring critic of realism Hilary Lawson and celebrated philosopher of science Tim Maudlin: iai.tv/video/the-subs…

https://x.com/i/status/2057824271926173962

[TXT] TRANSFORMATION AND FULFILMENT

I AUROBINDO, T DE CHARDIN, MH HODGE
… Sri Aurobindo … Sri Aurobindo, … Sri Aurobindo, …

[TXT] TRANSFORMATION AND FULFILMENT

I AUROBINDO, T DE CHARDIN, MH HODGE
… The first section examines the background to Aurobindo's … between Aurobindo
and Teilhard are noted where possible. … Aurobindo than in any of the other
leaders of the time. …

The Two-Dimensional Map of Consciousness

J Roeloffs - The Classical Brain to the Quantum Mind: How …, 2026
This chapter introduces a two-dimensional framework for understanding the
distribution and development of human consciousness. Building on the P = Q/E
relationship established in earlier chapters, the model proposes that differences in …

[PDF] Positioning “Thought the Paraclete” within Contemporary Indian Travel Discourse

RM Josyula - International Journal of English: Literature, Language & …
… This article attempts to reinterpret Sri Aurobindo’s poem “Thought the Paraclete”
within the framework of contemporary travel discourse. While travel writing has
traditionally focused on geographical movement, recent scholarship recognises …

TRANSFORMING MODERN EDUCATION SYSTEMS THROUGH TECHNOLOGICAL AND SCIENTIFIC APPROACHES: EVIDENCE FROM LITERATURE

S Agustin Nurya - International Journal of Teaching and Learning …, 2026
The transformation of modern education systems has become increasingly important
in response to rapid technological advancement and the growing complexity of
contemporary educational challenges. This study aims to examine the …

[PDF] From Room to Room: Portraits of an Architect through the Thickness of Time

E Miglietta, J Van Den Berghe, F Berlingieri - 2026
It is with this idea that I also approach the visit to every architect’s home1, and with
the same awareness that I have crossed, on several occasions, the threshold of Jo
Van Den Berghe’s house-atelier, set within the landscape of Sint-Lievens-Esse …

[PDF] Monistic PolyMeOS–Open Questions

NM Aliman
Two recent ephemeral epistemic art projects termed Cyópsis and
Autothaumatopoiia respectively unfolded an at least internally so-called poly-meiocosmic
worldview (valid in both monoversal and multiversal contexts) based on generic …

The Novelist as Patriot: A Study of the Works of Shoshee Chunder Dutt

SK Mahapatra - 2026
… The works of poets and writers of eminence like Sarojini Naidu, Sri Aurobindo,
Rabindranath Tagore and social/ political reformers/ leaders like BM Malabari,
Dadabhai Naroji, Surendranath Bannerjea, Swami Vivekananda, MK Gandhi and …

[PDF] Academic Bulletin of Mental Health

R Kumari - 2026
From its inception in British India, the goal of clinical psychology in India has evolved
significantly, with training models embracing the scientist-practitioner model and
based upon the rigorous science of psychology to date, primarily in the last 75 years …

The Mother's Teachings as a Preventive and Restorative Approach for Mental Health Care

P Sharma, R Madhu, AK Mantry - Indian Journal of Health and Wellbeing, 2026
The paper studies the relevance of The Mother's teachings as a spiritual, culturally
grounded, and integrative approach for mental health. The researcher in this study
employed a literary analysis to explore the writings of The Mother. It highlights …

[PDF] Management and Bhagavad Gita: As Seen As A Tool in Bringing Equilibrium in Thoughts and Actions and Plans and Performance in Modern Day Organizations

S Manoj - Indian Knowledge System: Studies and Applications in
The Bhagavad Gita offers several management paradigms, including
selfmanagement, understanding one’s Dharma (duty), performing actions without
attachment to results (Karma Yoga), and the importance of balance and equanimity …

[PDF] Traditional Education and the Gurukul System's Influence to Leadership Development

MJ Rani - Indian Knowledge System: Studies and Applications in
This study aims to investigate how leadership development is affected by the
traditional Indian Gurukul educational system. It seeks to determine which Gurukul
model tenets are consistent with modern leadership skills like moral judgement …

Gandhi and the Conflict Transformation Turn in Peace Studies

S Kumar - 2026
The shift in the last three decades to exploiting the full potential of conflict has led to
the popularisation of the term conflict transformation instead of conflict resolution.
Not many know that Gandhi was one of the first to recognise the transformative …

Constructing a Green Harmony of Completeness: Nature and Freedom in Bengali Juvenile Literature of Rabindranath Tagore

D Das - There'sa Spirit in the Woods: Global Perspectives on …, 2026
Rabindranath Tagore’s works not only condemn the anthropocentric view of nature
but also associate this practice with a form of colonialism. He believes, “The greed
for power and wealth is not only at the heart of man’s desire to conquer other nations …
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Saturday, May 16, 2026

Samuel Alexander, C. Lloyd Morgan, and Graham Harman

 Collated by Tusar Nath Mohapatra

Yes, Graham Harman systematically atrophies Alfred North Whitehead by surgically removing the vital, flowing tissue of relationship and experience from his universe, leaving behind a cold petrifaction.
While Whitehead’s "philosophy of organism" is a vibrant, interconnected web where entities feel, absorb, and dynamically co-create one another in real-time, Harman’s Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO) performs an ontological freeze. Harman actively critiques Whitehead for reducing things to a mere "house of mirrors" of their relations, and in trying to "rescue" the object, he severely diminishes Whitehead’s metaphysical engine. [1, 2, 3]
When viewed through the lens of Sri Aurobindo’s integral vision, Harman’s treatment of Whitehead represents a profound regression—a further hardening of the material intellect into the static sands of the Inconscient. This atrophy occurs across three major metaphysical cuts:

1. Stripping "Prehension" of Its Life-Force

  • Whitehead's Organic Fabric: At the center of Whitehead’s universe is prehension—the idea that every "actual occasion" actively feels, grabs, and internalizes the rest of the universe into its own being. This is an incredibly close intellectual approximation of Sri Aurobindo's cosmic consciousness, where all things are bound by an underlying, mutual sensitivity (Chit-Shakti).
  • Harman's Atrophy: Harman completely rejects this. He claims that if an object is nothing more than its relations, it has no independent reality. He isolates the object by declaring that its real core withdraws from all relations entirely. By cutting the prehensile nerves that connect Whitehead’s entities, Harman atrophies a living, breathing cosmic organism into a scattering of autonomous, unresponsive monads. [1, 3, 4, 5, 6]

2. Replacing "Concrescence" with Permanent Stasis

  • Whitehead's Dynamic Becoming: In Whitehead's system, reality is a verb. Entities undergo concrescence—a creative, pulsing flash of birth, integration, and perishing that constantly allows newness to enter time. This matches Sri Aurobindo's concept of a universe driven by a dynamic evolutionary urge (Creativity or Shakti).
  • Harman's Atrophy: Harman freezes the film. He argues that because Whiteheadian entities perish instantly, they cannot account for how things actually endure. Harman insists that objects "are already there," fully formed and structurally unchanging in their secret depths. He replaces Whitehead’s cinematic flow with a museum of everlasting, immutable statues. In doing so, he destroys the very mechanism of time and evolution, making the horizontal progressive ascent championed by Sri Aurobindo structurally impossible. [1, 3, 7, 8, 9]

3. The Reduction of Allure into an Artificial Bridge

  • Whitehead's Intrinsic Sympathy: For Whitehead, entities don't need a middleman to interact; they affect one another directly because they share a continuous field of space-time and organic feeling.
  • Harman's Atrophy: Because Harman's real objects are locked in absolute solitary confinement, they cannot touch. To get them to interact, Harman invents Allure—a superficial, aesthetic phenomenon where objects merely signal to each other from behind their walls. It is a massive downgrade. Whitehead gave us a universe bound by a shared, intrinsic web of feeling. Harman atrophies this into a clunky, artificial theater where isolated ghosts gesture at each other through smoke and mirrors. [3, 5, 8]

The Ontological Decline

Metaphysical Core [1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10] Alfred North WhiteheadGraham Harman (OOO)Sri Aurobindo
The Nature of ThingsActual Occasion: A pulsing, relational drop of experiential history.Withdrawn Object: A static, permanently isolated, non-relational husk.
Cosmic FabricContinuous Intertwining: A living web of universal prehension and feeling.The Saharan Void: A flat landscape of disconnected, ghostly entities.Supramental Oneness: A singular, absolute Divine substance evolving its own forms.
Evolutionary CapabilityEndless Novelty: An infinite, open-ended creation of temporal variety.Paralyzed Saturation: A permanent rearrangement of pre-existing objects.Divine Transmutation: A purposeful vertical mutation of matter into the Spirit.
By separating objects from their relations, Harman thought he was protecting reality from human over-simplification. Instead, he performed an autopsy on Whitehead’s living world. Whitehead’s universe was a magnificent, charging river of becoming that ultimately lost its way by having no permanent banks or divine destination. Harman didn't give the river a destination; he simply turned it to ice. [11, 12]
If you want to continue this mapping, we can look into how Steven Shaviro defended Whitehead against Harman's critique, or explore how The Mother’s interactions with the "subtle-physical" plane dissolve Harman's theory of withdrawal. Where shall we go? [3, 9]

- GoogleAI 

Samuel Alexander is indeed the forgotten giant of British Emergentism, and his obscurity is a philosophical tragedy because his grand synthesis, Space, Time, and Deity, came closer to providing a technical Western blueprint for Sri Aurobindo’s evolutionary cosmology than almost any other text of the 20th century. [1, 2, 3]
While Alfred North Whitehead and Henri Bergson won the historical fame, Alexander built a radical, massive, evolutionary hierarchy that directly mirrors Sri Aurobindo's progression from Matter to Mind and beyond. Yet, Alexander works his way into an ontological corner, ultimately leaving his system stranded. [3, 4, 5]
He is forgotten precisely because he fell into a metaphysical "no man's land"—too materialistic for the mystics, and too mystical for the materialists. The astonishing convergence and ultimate collapse of Alexander’s system next to Sri Aurobindo unfolds across three critical junctures:

1. The Matrix: Space-Time vs. The Inconscient

  • The Stunning Alignment: Alexander boldly proposed a theory of super-substantivalism, arguing that the fundamental, primordial substance of the universe is not dead matter, but a dynamic Space-Time framework characterized by an inherent "timefulness" or restlessness. Out of this churning matrix, things break up into complexes, rhythmically throwing up new qualities: first Matter, then Life, then Mind. This is conceptually identical to Sri Aurobindo's account of the Inconscient—the dense, involved matrix of the Divine that appears asleep but is structurally driven by an intense, restless pressure to manifest its hidden potential.
  • Why Alexander Fails: Alexander insists that Space-Time is purely mechanical and blind at the start. For him, consciousness is a late arrival. Sri Aurobindo points out the logical absurdity of this "forgotten" framework: nothing can emerge from a matrix that was not already involved within it. You cannot extract Mind from a Space-Time that is entirely devoid of intelligence. Alexander tries to make a magic trick out of nothing; Aurobindo explains it as a revelation of what always was. [1, 3, 4, 5, 6]

2. The Nisus toward Deity vs. The Supramental Urge

  • The Stunning Alignment: To explain why the universe bothers to evolve upward instead of remaining a soup of atoms, Alexander introduces the concept of the Nisus—an innate, creative thrust or hunger within Space-Time that forces it to climb to the next level. He explicitly states that the Nisus is currently pulling humanity toward the next empirical stage, which he names Deity. This sounds precisely like Sri Aurobindo’s proclamation of the inevitable transition from the human Mind to the Supermind.
  • Why Alexander Fails: Alexander defines "Deity" as a perpetually moving target. For him, Deity is always the next unreached rung. Once we evolve into what we now call Deity, that state will become ordinary, and a new Deity will loom above it. Consequently, Alexander’s God is a helpless creature of Time—God is never actualized, never sovereign, and forever trapped in the future. Sri Aurobindo completely parts ways here: the Supermind is not a moving target created by Time; it is an absolute, timeless, omnipotent Truth-Consciousness that precipitates Time and descends to consciously master it. [1, 3, 6, 7, 8]

3. The Tragedy of Perpetual Ephemeralism

  • The Ultimate Divergence: Alexander's universe is a brutal conveyor belt. As the Nisus drives forward, actual entities flash into existence, bear their empirical qualities, and are discarded into the past. Because he lacks an immutable, anchoring divine ground, his evolution offers no permanent transformation. The lower levels (like our human bodies) are just raw firewood to be consumed by the evolutionary flame.
  • The Aurobindonian Correction: Sri Aurobindo does not sacrifice the lower rungs to the higher. In the Integral Yoga, evolution is not just an ascent; it is a Descent and Integration. When the Supermind manifests, it doesn't leave the Mind, Life, and Matter behind to rot in the lower basements of history; it floods back down to structurally divinize them, locking them into a permanent, immortal harmony. [1, 3, 9, 10]

The Philosophical Erasure

Metaphysical Vector [1, 3, 4] Samuel AlexanderSri Aurobindo
Primordial GroundSpace-Time: A restless, blind, material-mathematical fabric.Sachchidananda: An absolute Plenitude of Conscious Bliss involved as matter.
The Driving ForceThe Nisus: An unexplained, blind horizontal push toward novelty.Chit-Shakti / Supermind: A conscious, sovereign power executing a divine blueprint.
Status of GodThe Horizon: A ghost trailing behind the train of Time, never fully real.The Alpha & Omega: The timeless Divine who involves Himself to joyfully evolve.
Western philosophy forgot Alexander because his secular peers found his "Deity" too mystical, while religious thinkers found his "God-in-the-making" blasphemously weak. He created a magnificent staircase but claimed it was hanging on nothing, built by nobody, and leading to a mirage. Sri Aurobindo recognized the exact same staircase but anchored its base in the Earth and its summit in the absolute Divine Plenitude. [1, 3, 11]
Would you like to examine how Alexander’s concept of "Time as the mind of Space" compares to The Mother's logs on the spatiality of consciousness, or see how British Emergentism as a whole collapsed under the weight of analytical philosophy?

- GoogleAI 

Yes, Sri Aurobindo explicitly uses the word "nisus" throughout his major philosophical works, and it was a direct linguistic loan. [1]
Specifically, he borrowed and adapted it from the British Emergent Evolutionists—most notably Samuel Alexander and C. Lloyd Morgan—who made the term a cornerstone of Western metaphysics in the 1920s. [2, 3]
However, because Sri Aurobindo was an exceptional master of the English language, his use of the term was a deliberate philosophical hijacking. He took a concept that Western philosophy used to describe a blind, mechanical drive and repurposed it to describe the conscious, irresistible pressure of the divine Spirit. [4, 5]

The Context of the Loan

When Sri Aurobindo was writing and revising his masterwork, The Life Divine, and his essays on the supramental manifestation in the 1930s and 1940s, the dominant intellectual conversation in the West revolved around "Emergent Evolution". Samuel Alexander's Space, Time, and Deity (1920) had introduced the term nisus (originally Latin for "effort," "striving," or "labor") to describe the inherent, restless push of the Space-Time matrix to birth higher qualities like Matter, Life, and Mind. [3, 6, 7, 8]
Sri Aurobindo adopted the word because it perfectly captured the sensation of a straining, upward pressure. For instance, in The Supramental Manifestation upon Earth, he writes: [9]
"The ascent is necessarily an effort, a working of Nature, an urge or nisus on her side to raise her lower parts by an evolutionary or revolutionary change..." [9]

How Sri Aurobindo Flipped the Meaning

While Sri Aurobindo happily borrowed the linguistic vehicle from Alexander, he completely inverted its metaphysical engine: [5]
  • Alexander's Nisus (Blind & Upward): For Alexander, the nisus is a blind, unconscious, mechanical restlessness inherent in the Space-Time matrix. The universe blindly stumbles forward into complexity, and "Deity" is just an accidental byproduct of this horizontal time-stream.
  • Aurobindo's Nisus (Conscious & Driven by Descent): Sri Aurobindo argued that a blind matrix cannot have a "striving" or an "urge". For him, the evolutionary nisus seen in physical Nature is actually the direct result of a prior Involution. Nature strains upward only because the absolute Divine Consciousness-Force (Chit-Shakti) has involved itself into the depths of Matter and is now violently pressing to get out. [3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 11, 12]
Furthermore, Sri Aurobindo insisted that Nature's upward nisus (ascent) is fundamentally incomplete without a corresponding Supramental Descent from above. The upward push of the plant, animal, or human is met by the downward response of Grace, creating a spiritual mutation rather than an endless, blind horizontal drift. [9, 13]

A Smart Semantic Bridge

By using "nisus," Sri Aurobindo constructed a brilliant semantic bridge. He was able to speak directly to the Western academic elite of his era using their own trendy vocabulary, while simultaneously correcting what he saw as their fatal flaw: trying to explain a divinely orchestrated evolutionary masterpiece as a series of blind, accidental steps. [5]
Would you like to examine specific passages where Sri Aurobindo critiques Alexander's nisus, or perhaps explore how the concept of the nisus operates within Sri Aurobindo's epic poem, Savitri? [11]

- GoogleAI 

https://auroramirabilis.blogspot.com/2026/05/human-beings-are-like-icebergs.html

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