Sri Aurobindo e l'avventura della coscienza

by Satprem

The age of adventure is over. Even if we go to the seventh galaxy we shall go there masked and mechanized, and we shall find ourselves once again such as we children in front of death, living beings who do not know very well how they are going.... We are hence pushed to the wall before the last ground that remains for us to explore, the final ourselves. -Satprem (from book's back cover)

Genres: Philosophy, Spirituality, Biography, Nonfiction, India, Psychology, Mysticism

384 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1968

Reviews

[Kristen Ringman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was so enraptured while reading this book on the 30-hour train from Calcutta to Delhi that my camera was stolen and I screamed for hours over the loss of all my Calcutta pictures...but I still love this book.

[Jamuna · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the best introduction to Sri Aurobindo's work and yoga.
Clear, simple, it is a tool for the whole life.

[Cristina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whatever the maximum star rating, I'd give it more. It's more than a book.

[Neelesh Marik · Rating 5 out of 5]

Arguably the best introduction to the work before diving deep into the Integral Yoga

[Benjamin Felser · Rating 4 out of 5]

Incredibly clear and concise summary of Sri Aurobindo's life, teachings and legacy. I deeply admire integral yoga's dedication to spiritual and material work. It acknowledges that material circumstances shape spirit, even as spirit can shape people's conditions. Spiritual ascendence does nothing if does not lift others with it, and so the energy must return to this earth.

I disagreed with their use of evolution and found hypocrisy in their relationship to matter, especially the body. Sri Aurobindo's discusses human as the highest point of spiritual evolutionary progress, which we must harness to create a "master race" of humans at the apex of spiritual potential. While informed by anti-colonial struggles, Satprem and Aurobindo evidently neglect the dangers of such language. Evolution is a useful idea to bring into social spaces, but also dangerous. Biological evolution is not in pursuit of "progress" but simply moves onwards.

Satprem also repeatedly claimed both that matter and spirit are equally meaningful, while maintaining that the material trappings of the body were "lower" and more base states. They neglect the liberating potential of sensuality and somatic work in favor of liberating body as a passive vessel for spirit. Even while trying to validate prakriti ("nature") as a powerful feminine force ("prakriti" is female in sanskrit) they undo that work by claiming that "Her" most evolved form is as a passive receptacle to be shaped by Spirit which is male. Inevitably, feminine forces whether prakriti or shakti are to be shaped willingly by the male force of spirit.

Started out incredible, but the end visions feel shortsighted in the context of their inevitably colonial and mysoginistic implications.

[Dr Chandra Shekhar Bhatt · Rating 5 out of 5]

When i read this book never thought it can be put into screen.fortunately for humanity Director Bernardo Bertolucci and his cinematographer Vittaro Strario did that, both of them were living with is book for ten years, then they had put the philosophy of light and sound into picture as if writing with the light. The movie was little Buddha i had mentioned deeply in my book WHO AM I ?. Shri Arobindo's work were beyond the level of normal consciousness. Besides Churchate station there is one room in building donated by someone,had many books of his and also a big hall for meditation I spent many hours there.Thanks to all those who kept those books and to all who help readers and writers of all kind.

[Genara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decided not to finish this reading because I wasn't really catching up the ideas. I believe it is a good book but my level of consciousness didn't allow me to follow it through. I still have hope that one day I'll come back to it and grasp every word of it.

[Eugene Pustoshkin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Блестящая книга. Читать и перечитывать.

[Carolyn Gearig · Rating 4 out of 5]

several times while reading this i thought to myself “this might be the best book i have ever read”

I read this over a long period of time. I read the first half of it twice when I was in India, starting in Pondicherry, and then got through the second half in like, 4 days in December. I underlined like, a third of the book and took so many notes in it that it's like an extension of my diary so that has to tell you something.

This is an excellent introduction to the philosophy and works of Sri Aurobindo. Satprem takes you through a journey through the chakras, the psychic center (soul), consciousness outside of the body, sleep and death as new planes of awareness and other methods to illustrate Sri Aurobindo's understanding of consciousness and his theories of human evolution. This is a pretty dense work and it's difficult to sum it up. But as someone who has had many spiritual and mystical experiences, which have occurred as I've experienced new planes of consciousness through psychedelics, MDMA, meditation, intense physical experiences and long periods of time alone, this book helped me make sense of consciousness and the relationship between the mind, body and universe. It gave me a lot of tools to understand the energetic world. I consider it a bit of a bible and I'm certain I'll revisit it many times in my life.

The end of the book outlines Sri Aurobindo's theory of the evolution of human consciousness to a greater conscious being. Deducted a star because I don't fully get it? And echoing some of the reviews it feels a bit eugenicist and strange

but I still think this dude is a genius

[Shyam Bodhisattva · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is commonly suggested as a general introduction to Sri Aurobindo's works. It seems to be so. Other than that, philosophically viewed, it is much ado about nothing. Satprem in his eagerness to assert the originality of Sri Aurobindo's vision, mostly maintains a certain dismissiveness regarding all the wisdom traditions/seers so far, with the sole exception of Vedas. But, I find his quotations from Vedas as taken out of context and skewed to make it fit for his above mentioned intention. Also, he thoroughly fails to discriminate between what is Philosophical and what is scientific (experimental).

[Freed · Rating 4 out of 5]

As for so many, this was my first book on the eminent r/evolutionary Sri Aurobindo. It was a surprising recognition of the core message - the whole life is yoga. - I read the book in German, back in 1974.

[Santosh · Rating 5 out of 5]

outstanding introduction to the work of Sri Aurobindo and in particular the meaning of our lives, human evolutionary development and the role that individuals can play as conscious participants in this evolutionary progress.

[Svetlana Wesley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love the way going down. So unlike we used to hear

[Pierre Fortier · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un classique pour la méditation et le savoir de la conscience.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Intense read, but well worth it. It transforms you, and is truly just the beginning. If this book finds you, read it.

[Rafael Montilla · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent

[Kumerjit Chajgotra · Rating 2 out of 5]

didn't enjoyed reading the book .

[Vicky Pattyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essential reading.

[Ameet Kallarackal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this with Prof. Cohen during our independent study and made me consider the idea of expanding consciousness for the first time in my life

[Stevo Ilišković]

And our faith is not foolish; it is not a credulous stupidity but a
foreknowledge, something within us that knows before we do, sees before we do, and which sends its vision and knowledge to the surface
in the form of a yearning, a seeking, an inexplicable faith. Faith, says
Sri Aurobindo, is an intuition not only waiting for experience to
justify it, but leading towards experience.

Our feeling of sadness – any sadness – at a friend's betrayal,
for example, is the sure sign of our ego's involvement, for if we truly
loved people for themselves, and not for ourselves, we would love
them in any circumstances, even as adversaries; we would feel the joy
of their existence in all cases.

we start speaking of "soul,"
which means we've lost it.

I looked at the jail that secluded me from
men and it was no longer by its high walls that I was imprisoned; no,
it was Vasudeva who surrounded me.

The reason of man struggling with life becomes
either an empiric or a doctrinaires. It seizes upon a bit of truth, one
drop of divine illumination, and makes it a universal law; it constantly
confuses unity with uniformity.

We think we are separate, each
in our own little sack of skin, with an "inside" and an "outside," an
individual and a collective, like the tiny borders around our countries
– but, in reality, everything perfectly interconnects! There is not a
single perversion, not a single disease in the world that is not also
rooted in ourselves, not a death in which we are not an accomplice.

[Kolnikov Bertalanffy · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best introduction to Sri Aurobindo´s world and work.

[Ly Dang]

One of the top books read