Filosofia della Religione (Italian)

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Filosofia della Religione

Il materiale presentato in questo libro è il risultato della trascrizione di una serie di dodici letture date da Rod Hemsell al Savitri Bhavan in Auroville, India. Con dettagli interessanti e intricati Rod dipinge con ampie pennellate un intenso ritratto storico dell’evoluzione del pensiero filosofico e del suo impatto sulla dottrina religiosa che si estende oltre duemila e quattrocento anni di storia. Il tema sottostante, naturalmente, è la lenta e costante evoluzione della coscienza umana che scorre in molti diversi rivoli di pensiero, sbocciando dalla fontana dell’esperienza umana mentre cresce nella conoscenza. La profondità di tale discorso non è per nulla opprimente, tuttavia, qui non stiamo più guadando in una piscina per bambini… In queste letture, Rod ha introdotto un numero di personaggi ed idee familiari, e ne ha introdotte molte altre che potrebbero non essere così ben conosciute; il tutto invita il lettore ad approfondire  proseguendo nella sua personale ricerca. Vengono esplorati antichi sentieri per scoprire le grandi similarità soggiacenti alle maggiori religioni di oggi che potrebbero altrimenti rimanere non notate, e Rod ci convince che ciò era inevitabile fin dall’inizio, da quando abbiamo avuto a che fare con le verità universali.

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Questions and Answers 1950–1951 (CWM Vol.4)

Questions and Answers 1950–1951

Collected Works of the Mother Volume 4

This volume consists of talks given by the Mother in 1950 and 1951 to the students of her French class as well as some sadhaks of the Ashram. She usually began by reading out a passage from one of her works or her French translation of one of Sri Aurobindo’s works, and then invited questions. During this period the Mother discussed several of her recent essays on education, her conversations of 1929, some letters of Sri Aurobindo and his small book The Mother.

It is worth tracing the origin of the Mother’s French class, in which these talks were given. The Ashram school was founded by the Mother in 1943, and by the end of the decade its first students had learned French fairly well. As more and more children joined the school, there were not enough teachers in French. When the new school year began in December 1950, the Mother decided to take the highest class in French three times a week. At first she spoke to the students and some of the teachers, but gradually many sadhaks of the Ashram were allowed to join the class. As a result, the questions they asked arose from many different levels of understanding.

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Questions and Answers 1929–1931 (CWM Vol.3)

Questions and Answers 1929–1931

Collected Works of the Mother Volume 3

Conversations about Yoga and life. The Mother answered questions raised by disciples in 1929 and 1930–1931. The volume also includes her commentaries on The Dhammapada, with a translation of that text.

This volume includes two early collections of conversations by the Mother and her oral commentaries on the Dhammapada. The conversations were spoken in English; the commentaries were spoken in French and appear here in English translation.

Questions and Answers 1929. In 1929 the Mother met weekly with a small group of disciples. After a period of meditation she answered questions raised by them. Most of these questions were asked by an Englishwoman who was living in the Ashram at that time. One of those present noted down the conversations immediately afterwards and later sent a copy of fifteen of them to Sri Aurobindo, who revised them for publication. They were first brought out for private circulation in 1931.

Questions and Answers 1930-1931. During 1930 and 1931 the Mother spoke with a group of disciples who met with her in a room of the Ashram known as Prosperity. One of the participants recorded some of these conversations in abbreviated long-hand and later elaborated his notes. These reports were not revised by Sri Aurobindo or the Mother, but the Mother did approve of their publication and made a French translation. They were first published as a book in 1951.

Commentaries on the Dhammapada. The Mother gave these commentaries on the Buddhist teachings of the Dhammapada between August 1957 and September 1958. She was speaking to a large gathering of Ashram members and students of the Ashram school, members of her “Friday class” at the Ashram Playground. After reading out a chapter of the text, the Mother spoke about the points that interested her and then asked the class to meditate on them. She did not comment systematically on the Dhammapada verses, but she did cover most of the central ideas of the text.

Appendix to Questions and Answers 1929. This appendix contains Sri Aurobindo’s explanations of certain phrases and passages in Questions and Answers 1929. They were written to various disciples between 1933 and 1937.

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Prayers and Meditations (CWM Vol.1)

Prayers And Meditations

Collected Works of the Mother Volume 1

Prayers and Meditations consists of extracts from the Mother’s spiritual diaries. Most of them are from the period 1912 to 1917. The 313 prayers reproduced here were selected by the Mother for publication. Written in French, they appear here in English translation.

A small collection of prayers — about one-fifth of the total — was brought out in English in 1941. Sri Aurobindo translated some of those prayers himself and, in the other cases, revised translations made by disciples.

This book comprises extracts from a diary written during years of intensive yogic discipline. It may serve as a spiritual guide to three principal categories of seekers: those who have undertaken self-mastery, those who want to find the road leading to the Divine, those who aspire to consecrate themselves more and more to the Divine Work. — The Mother

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The English of Savitri Volume 2

The English of Savitri volume 2

The English of Savitri
volume 2

Like the previous book in the series, The English of Savitri Volume 2 is based on transcripts of classes led by the author at Savitri Bhavan, in this case from December 2012 to June 2013. The transcripts have been carefully revised and edited for conciseness and clarity, while aiming to preserve the informal atmosphere of the course. This second volume covers the four cantos of Book Three, The Book of the Divine Mother, of Sri Aurobindo’s epic, Savitria legend and a symbol. Each sentence in the poem is examined closely and explanations are given about vocabulary, sentence-structure and imagery. The aim is to assist a deeper understanding and appreciation of the poem which the Mother has characterised as ‘the supreme revelation of Sri Aurobindo’s vision’.

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Il Coleottero Bombardiere (Italian)

The Bombardier Beetle

Il Coleottero Bombardiere

Questa è la trascrizione di un audio di due letture di un’ora ciascuna date da Georges Van Vrekhem al Savitri Bhavan in Auroville nel 2008 sull’Evoluzione ed il Disegno Intelligente.

 Georges conduce  l’ascoltatore attraverso un percorso critico e spassionato lungo i sentieri della scienza che tenta di inseguire le tracce dell’evoluzione e della nascita della vita sulla terra ed il senso della presenza umana sul pianeta.

Tutto il suo discorso è permeato dalla luce del faro dello Yoga Integrale ed in questa luce ci accompagna  attraverso varie teorie scientifiche messe a confronto con la  visione integrale dell’evoluzione dell’uomo secondo Sri Aurobindo e la Madre.

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The Bombardier Beetle

The Bombardier Beetle

The Bombardier Beetle

This is the transcription from audio of two one-hour lectures presented by Georges Van Vrekhem at the Savitri Bhavan in Auroville in 2008. Georges makes an excursus through science and its tentative to follow the prints of evolution. All his talk is full of the light of the Integral Yoga, and through it Georges accompanies the auditor in this voyage towards the sense of evolution of man.

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The Problem of Rebirth

Sri Aurobindo The Problem of Rebirth

The Problem of Rebirth

In The Problem of Rebirth, Sri Aurobindo assesses the central arguments surrounding the concept of rebirth. He suggests that rebirth is a vehicle conveying the soul forward in its aeonic evolution towards self-knowledge and self-mastery. Evolution through the process of rebirth enables the soul’s indomitable effort through Time; karma engineers its spiritual education. Once seen, the process of karma, the law of consequence, takes a central place among the issues of life: “This evolution is not possible if there is not a connected sequence from life to life, a result of action and experience, an evolutionary consequence to the soul, a law of Karma. ” We have all had occasion to question providence; to ask “why do the good suffer, why do the evil prosper”. Such fundamental questions of life take on a new significance when viewed with an understanding of The Problem of Rebirth.

The true foundation of the theory of rebirth is the evolution of the soul, or rather its efflorescence out of the veil of Matter and its gradual self-finding. Buddhism contained this truth involved in its theory of Karma and emergence out of Karma but failed to bring it to light; Hinduism knew it of old, but afterwards missed the right balance of its expression. Now we are again able to restate the ancient truth in a new language and this is already being done by certain schools of thought, though still the old incrustations tend to tack themselves on to the deeper wisdom. And if this gradual efflorescence be true, then the theory of rebirth is an intellectual necessity, a logically unavoidable corollary. But what is the aim of that evolution? Not conventional or interested virtue and the faultless counting out of the small coin of good in the hope of an apportioned material reward, but the continual growth towards a divine knowledge, strength, love and purity.

 

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India’s Rebirth

Sri Aurobindo India's Rebirth

India’s Rebirth

This book presents Sri Aurobindo’s vision of India as it grew from his return from England in 1893 to his political days in the first decade of the century and finally to his forty-year-long withdrawal from public view during which he plunged into his ‘real work’ of evolutionary action.

This brief chronological selection from all that Sri Aurobindo said or wrote on India, her soul and her destiny, is by no means integral, but we trust it offers a sufficiently wide view of the lines of development Sri Aurobindo wished India to follow if she was to overcome the deep-rooted obstacles standing in the way of her rebirth.

A few notes have been added to help put the excerpts into historical perspective, and a Chronology, list of References and Index have been provided at the end of the book. Read more

Aphorisms

Sri Aurobindo Aphorisms

Aphorisms

In the aphorisms that make up this book, Sri Aurobindo gives pithy and pregnant expression to some of the key ideas of his philosophy and yoga.

Thoughts and Aphorisms was written around 1913. Ten aphorisms from the manuscript were published in the monthly review Arya in 1915 and 1916 as parts of what was later issued as Thoughts and Glimpses. But the bulk of the aphorisms — that is, those included in the Karma, Jnana and Bhakti sections of the present booklet — were never published during Sri Aurobindo’s lifetime. They first appeared in book form in 1958.

The seven “Additional Aphorisms” were first included in the edition of 1977; the last five were written in a separate manuscript notebook, apparently somewhat later than the others.

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