"A Great Adventure of the Soul": Sri Aurobindo's Vedāntic Theodicy of Spiritual Evolution (International Journal of Hindu Studies, 2021) (original) (raw)
Related papers
The Monist (Oxford UP), vol. 105 (2022): 92–109
This article argues that the Indian philosopher-mystic Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) espoused a sophisticated form of cosmopsychism that has great contemporary relevance. After first discussing Aurobindo’s prescient reflections on the “central problem of consciousness” and his arguments against materialist reductionism, I explain how he developed a panentheistic philosophy of “realistic Adwaita” on the basis of his own spiritual experiences and his intensive study of the Vedāntic scriptures. He derived from this realistic Advaita philosophy a highly original doctrine of evolutionary cosmopsychism, according to which the Divine Saccidānanda is “involved” in everything in the universe and gradually manifests itself at each stage of the evolutionary process from matter to life to mind, and ultimately, to Supermind—the final stage that is yet to come, upon the attainment of which we will attain knowledge of our true divine nature as Saccidānanda. I then reconstruct Aurobindo’s novel solution to the individuation problem, according to which the Divine Saccidānanda individuates into various distinct consciousnesses by playfully limiting itself through a process of “exclusive concentration.” Finally, I highlight the continued relevance of Aurobindo’s evolutionary cosmopsychism by bringing him into conversation with Itay Shani, a contemporary proponent of cosmopsychism.
The problem of evil is the philosophical problem of how to resolve the conceptual tension between two beliefs: firstly, that the universe is created by a God who is both omnipotent and perfectly benevolent, and secondly, that the universe contains evil. The problem is how the good God can allow that which is the direct opposite of His nature to exist. Sri Aurobindo adopts a fresh approach to this ever-baffling problem. He avoids the extreme views of absolute denial or complete affirmation of evil, but accepts the reality of evil, without allowing it any absolute status. According to Aurobindo evil is only an accidental characteristic of the world. The world as such is not evil, and it is only in the middle stage of the world-evolution that there is the possibility of evil. There are two types of evil, namely, physical evil or pain, and moral evil or sin. Physical evil is a cosmic experience common to both animal and man. Since animals have only the consciousnesss of pain and not of sin, they do not have moral evil. It is man who has moral consciousness and, therefore, it is he who suffers from evil. Evil does not exist in saccidananda. It is the mind that is the seat of evil. The contradictions of the world and of human life are due to the fact that the Absolute has not yet manifested itsef fully in the world. The world is still ruled by the principles of inconscience and ignorance which are the cause of Pain and evil. They will be eliminated in the higher stages of evolution. The world is not destined to be ruled by ignorance and inconscience forever, and there will be the transformation of consciousness. Thus Sri Aurobindo offers the principle of evolution as an integral solution to the problem of evil. In this regard, the present article deals with comparing and contrasting the views of Aurobindo with those of Vedantic, Upanishadic and Stoic thinkers
Religions, 2021
This article proposes to examine in detail Aurobindo’s searching—and often quite original— criticisms of Advaita Vedānta, which have not yet received the sustained scholarly attention they deserve. After discussing his early spiritual experiences and the formative influence of Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda on his thought, I outline Aurobindo’s philosophy of “realistic Adwaita”. According to Aurobindo, the sole reality is the Divine Saccidānanda, which is not only the static impersonal Brahman but also the personal, dynamic Cit-Śakti (Consciousness-Force), which manifests as everything in this universe. At various points in his corpus, Aurobindo criticizes Advaita Vedānta on three fronts. From the standpoint of spiritual experience, Aurobindo argues that Śaṅkara’s philosophy is based on a genuine, but partial, experience of the Infinite Divine Reality: namely, the experience of the impersonal nondual Absolute and the corresponding conviction of the unreality of everything else. Aurobindo claims, on the basis of his own spiritual experiences, that there is a further stage of spiritual experience, when one realizes that the impersonal-personal Divine Reality manifests as everything in the universe. From a philosophical standpoint, Aurobindo questions the logical tenability of key Advaitic doctrines, including māyā, the exclusively impersonal nature of Brahman, and the metaphysics of an illusory bondage and liberation. Finally, from a scriptural standpoint, Aurobindo argues that the ancient Vedic hymns, the Upaniṣads, and the Bhagavad-Gītā, propound an all-encompassing Advaita philosophy rather than the world-denying Advaita philosophy Śaṅkara claims to find in them. This article focuses on Aurobindo’s experiential and philosophical critiques of Advaita Vedānta, as I have already discussed his new interpretations of the Vedāntic scriptures in detail elsewhere. The article’s final section explores the implications of Aurobindo’s life-affirming Advaitic philosophy for our current ecological crisis.
In Ayon Maharaj (ed.),The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta (London, Bloomsbury), pp. 309–340 , 2020
This chapter examines the Bengali philosopher-mystic Sri Aurobindo’s highly original and sophisticated commentary on the Īśā Upaniṣad—which was first published in 1924—and brings him into dialogue with both traditional and modern commentators. Militating against the reductive view that he simply read his own mystical experiences into the Īśā Upaniṣad, the author argues that Sri Aurobindo consciously strove to avoid eisegesis by adopting a “hermeneutics of mystical immanence.” According to Sri Aurobindo, the fundamental principle of the Īśā Upaniṣad is the reconciliation of opposites. This chapter makes the case that Sri Aurobindo’s distinctive reading of the Īśā Upaniṣad in the light of this principle provides new ways of resolving numerous interpretive puzzles and difficulties that have preoccupied commentators for centuries. Drawing on the hermeneutic insights of Hans-Georg Gadamer and Francis X. Clooney, the author demonstrates that Sri Aurobindo combines a traditional commitment to the transformative power of scripture with a historico-philological method favored by recent scholars. On this basis, the author contends that Sri Aurobindo’s unduly neglected commentary on the Īśā Upaniṣad deserves a prominent place in contemporary scholarly discussions.
The Religious Philosophy of Consciousness of Sri Aurobindo
2005
ion from the system of the universe, and that it is the business of speculative philosophy to exhibit this truth; this character is its coherence. Whitehead mentions the concept 'adequacy' of the scheme and says that what is required is that the texture of observed experience, in illustrating the philosophic scheme, is such that all related experience must exhibit the same texture. Thus the philosophic scheme should be 'necessary,' in the sense of bearing in itself its own warrant of universality throughout all experience, provided that we confine ourselves to that which communicates with immediate matter of fact. He says that what does not so communicate is unknowable, and the unknowable is unknown; and so this universality defined by 'communication' can suffice. This doctrine of necessity in universality means that there is an instance in the universe which forbids relationships beyond itself, as a violation of its rationality. Speculative philosophy seeks ...
Religious Studies 59, pp. 67–81, 2023
This article outlines and defends an 'Integral Advaitic' theodicy that takes its bearings from the thought of three modern Indian mystics: Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda, and Sri Aurobindo. Their Integral Advaitic theodicy has two key dimensions: a doctrine of spiritual evolution and a panentheistic metaphysics. God has created this world as an arena for our moral and spiritual evolution in which evil and suffering are as necessary as good. The doctrine of spiritual evolution presupposes karma, rebirth, and universal salvation. The doctrines of karma and rebirth shift moral responsibility for evil from God to His creatures by explaining all instances of evil and suffering as the karmic consequence of their own past deeds, either in this life or in a previous life. The doctrine of universal salvation also has important theodical implications: the various finite evils of this life are outweighed by the infinite good of salvation that awaits us all. After outlining this Integral Advaitic theodicy, I address some of the main objections to it and then argue that it has a number of comparative advantages over John Hick's well-known 'soul-making' theodicy.
Integral Musings
Sri Aurobindo is a versatile spiritual genius, who is not only a Master-Yogi with profound spiritual realizations, but also a great scholar and thinker who wrote extensively on various topics ranging from politics to yoga. His writings shine with a penetrating spiritual insight which brings out the deeper, psychological and spiritual dimensions of the human, terrestrial and cosmic life. In this article, we present a brief and synoptic overview of the contents of Sri Aurobindo’s major works.