Viren Swami calls on Greek philosophers, Renaissance artists, evolutionary psychologists, poets, playwrights and cultural historians, in his attempt to discover the essence of the body beautiful.

"Swami Vivekananda, the nineteenth-century Hindu monk who introduced Vedåanta to the West, is undoubtedly one of modern India's most influential philosophers. Unfortunately, his philosophy has too often been interpreted through reductive hermeneutic lenses. Typically, scholars have viewed him either as a modern-day exponent of âSaçnkara's Advaita Vedåanta or as a "Neo-Vedåantin" influenced more by Western ideas than indigenous Indian traditions. In Swami Vivekananda's Vedåantic Cosmopolitanism, Swami Medhananda rejects both of these prevailing approaches to offer a new interpretation (...) of Vivekananda's philosophy, highlighting its originality, contemporary relevance, and cross-cultural significance. Vivekananda, the book argues, is best understood as a cosmopolitan Vedåantin who developed novel philosophical positions through creative dialectical engagement with both Indian and Western thinkers. Inspired by his guru Sri Ramakrishna, Vivekananda reconceived Advaita Vedåanta as a nonsectarian, life-affirming philosophy that provides an ontological basis for religious cosmopolitanism and a spiritual ethics of social service. He defended the scientific credentials of religion while criticizing the climate of scientism beginning to develop in the late nineteenth century. He was also one of the first philosophers to defend the evidential value of supersensuous perception on the basis of general epistemic principles. Finally, he adopted innovative cosmopolitan approaches to long-standing philosophical problems. Bringing him into dialogue with a galaxy of contemporary philosophers, Medhananda demonstrates the sophistication and enduring value of Vivekananda's views on the limits of reason, the dynamics of religious faith, and the hard problem of consciousness"--. (shrink)

This article argues that the Indian philosopher-mystic Sri Aurobindo 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. (shrink)

This article reexamines Sri Aurobindo’s multifaceted response to the problem of evil in The Life Divine. According to my reconstruction, his response has three key dimensions: first, a skeptical theist refutation of arguments from evil against God’s existence; second, a theodicy of “spiritual evolution,” according to which the experience of suffering is necessary for the soul’s spiritual growth; and third, a panentheistic conception of the Divine Saccidānanda as the sole reality which playfully manifests as everything and everyone in the universe. (...) While a number of scholars have already discussed Aurobindo’s theodicy, I highlight the significance of three aspects of his theodicy that have been largely neglected. First, I emphasize the crucial theodical role of the “psychic entity,” Aurobindo’s term for the evolving, reincarnating soul within each of us. Second, I elucidate the skeptical theist dimension of his theodicy, which previous scholars have overlooked. Third, I argue that Aurobindo’s approach to the problem of evil may have been shaped, in part, by the teachings of Śrī Rāmakṛṣṇa. Along the way, I also reconstruct the subtle chain of reasoning underlying Aurobindo’s various theodical arguments. In the concluding section, I suggest that there are conceptual resources within Aurobindo’s thought for responding to some of the most serious objections scholars have leveled against his theodicy. (shrink)

In the past several decades, numerous scholars have contended that Swami Vivekananda was a Hindu supremacist in the guise of a liberal preacher of the harmony of all religions. Jyotirmaya Sharma follows their lead in his provocative book, A Restatement of Religion: Swami Vivekananda and the Making of Hindu Nationalism (2013). According to Sharma, Vivekananda was “the father and preceptor of Hindutva,” a Hindu chauvinist who favored the existing caste system, denigrated non-Hindu religions, and deviated from his guru (...) Sri Ramakrishna’s more liberal and egalitarian teachings. This article has two main aims. First, I critically examine the central arguments of Sharma’s book and identify serious weaknesses in his methodology and his specific interpretations of Vivekananda’s work. Second, I try to shed new light on Vivekananda’s views on Hinduism, religious diversity, the caste system, and Ramakrishna by building on the existing scholarship, taking into account various facets of his complex thought, and examining the ways that his views evolved in certain respects. I argue that Vivekananda was not a Hindu supremacist but a cosmopolitan patriot who strove to prepare the spiritual foundations for the Indian freedom movement, scathingly criticized the hereditary caste system, and followed Ramakrishna in championing the pluralist doctrine that various religions are equally capable of leading to salvation. (shrink)

The Book Begins By Re-Examining The Imagery Of The Vedas And The Upanisads, Highlighting Some Aspects Of Early Speculative Thought Which Influenced The Enunciation Of Aesthetic Theories, Particularly Of Bharata In The Natyasastra.

In this paper I argue that although the Confucian idea of 'minben' is not synonymous with democracy, some its tenets are conducive to the promotion of a regime in which citizens are politically and economically empowered. In particular, I focus on the way that Confucius, Mencius and Jia Yi stress that government should meet the basic needs of its people. Material well-being is an important precondition of democracy that is often overlooked in contemporary discussions of Chinese government, which usually focus (...) on negative rights or the authoritarian state. (shrink)

Introduction : Zhang Taiyan and Chinese modernity -- Zhang's critique of Kang Youwei : anti-Manchuism, the national essence, and revolution -- Buddhist epistemology and modern self-identity : Zhang Taiyan's "On establishing religion" -- Transfiguring modern temporality : Zhang Taiyan's critique of evolutionary history -- Daoist equalization against the universal principle : Zhang Taiyan's critique of late Qing political theory -- Conclusion : Zhang Taiyan, Lu Xun and Wang Hui : the politics of imagining a better future.

Hegel's Eurocentrism has become something of an elephant in the room, too obvious to merit discussion. The secondary literature on Hegel often concedes that many of Hegel's comments about the Orient are misguided and uninformed, and then declares that such remarks are of no consequence to his philosophy. However, recently, some scholars have contended that Hegel's view of freedom is fundamentally connected to his negative vision of the Orient and Africa. For example, Alison Stone asserts that Hegel's idea of freedom (...) is premised on his Eurocentrism and colonialism. Drawing on Peter Sahota's essay on Hegel and Hinduism, she argues that Hegel's idea of freedom as liberation from nature tends to exclude non-Western conceptions of freedom. If Stone's contention is true, there would be no way to, as she puts it, save Hegel from himself. I argue that we can move some way towards rescuing Hegel by noting how scholars from modern Asia incorporated some of Hegel's ideas to struggle against Eurocentrism. This essay will read Hegel's comments on the Orient in light of his larger philosophy and then examine how Japanese scholars, specifically Okakura Tenshin (1863–1913) construct what could be called a Hegel-inspired defense of the concept of Asia or the Orient. I claim that if one understands the excesses of Western life to be linked to a vision of freedom based merely on self-interest and pleasure, when scholars and activists from Asia question Western culture, they actually follow Hegel's insights. Okakura, who studied Hegel in college, rethought Asia as overcoming the abstract individualist freedom of the West and replacing it a more holistic, and partially, Hegelian form of freedom. (shrink)

Exhaustive explanation of the Yogasūtra of Patañjali, work on Yoga philosophy; includes Sanskrit text with Gujarati translation.

Lectures delivered by the author during Sadhana Week held at Divine Life Society in 1973.

This groundbreaking work is for serious seekers and scholars about spontaneous yoga--the yoga of liberation. Instead of discussing the physical exercises or meditations usually understood to be yoga in the West, this book focuses on a proven process by which one can achieve liberation from the limitations of time and space and cultivate unlimited divine powers, and an immortal, physically perfect divine body that is retained forever. Illustrations.

"Traduction d'un des plus complets traités de Hatha-yoga qui nous soit parvenu, précédée d'une étude sur les différentes formes de yoga dans les traditions shivaïte et tantrique, accompagnée d'une traduction du commentaire sanskrit "Clair de lune" par Brahmânanda.

This six volume set from the International Library of Psychology explores the interface between pschology and religion looking at a number of areas. The relevance of Hindu belief systems and thier perception are also looked at.

The German philosopher K.C.F. Krause found deep conceptual parallels between his panentheistic system and the Indian philosophy of Vedānta. This article critically examines Krause’s understanding of Vedānta and popular Hindu religion. I argue that while Krause was correct in viewing the mystical panentheistic doctrine of Vedānta as a precursor to his own philosophy, he was also frequently misled by unreliable translations and secondary texts. Krause, I suggest, was mistaken in characterizing the Hindu practice of image worship as “polytheism” and “idolatry,” (...) and I contend, from a Vedāntic standpoint, that Krause’s denial of the divinity of Jesus is inconsistent with his own panentheistic metaphysics. (shrink)

This chapter explores the interrelation of religious pluralism and eschatology in the thought of John Hick and brings him into dialogue with the nineteenth-century Hindu mystic Sri Ramakrishna. According to Hick’s mature position, various world religions are equally capable of leading to salvation, since all the various religious conceptions of ultimate reality are different culturally conditioned ways of conceiving one and the same unknowable “Real an sich.” The contemporary Christian theologian S. Mark Heim convincingly argues that Hick’s theory of religious (...) pluralism is less pluralistic than it appears, since Hick conceives the final postmortem state of salvation in vague and monolithic terms, thereby failing to honor the variety of specific religious fulfillments taught by the world religions. Building on Heim’s critique of Hick, I make the case that Ramakrishna’s experientially grounded theory of religious pluralism has significant philosophical advantages over Hick’s theory, since Ramakrishna accepts the equal reality and value of both theistic and non-theistic forms of salvation. According to Ramakrishna’s expansive eschatology, some souls choose to “eat sugar” by remaining in eternal loving communion with the personal God, while other souls prefer to “become sugar” by merging their individuality in the impersonal Absolute. (shrink)

English translation and commentary on the selected, highly philosophical verses from the Yogavasishtha, a famous scripture of Hinduism. It deals with the monistic concept of God. In Hindu tradition Monism is called Advaita. Advaita is one of the principal Vedantic schools. It asserts that Brahman alone exists, and because of illusion resulting from ignorance, Brahman appears as this world.Along with the English translation and commentary, the Sanskrit text is included in Devanagary script.