Amal Kiran   Shyam Sunder Jhunjhunwala   When you are asked to write about someone you know personally, you usually go down memory lane to your first encounter with him. So do I when I sit to write about Amal Kiran who is going to step into his 100th year soon. The first encounter, in the middle of the last century, was a bit funny though.   I went to Bombay a few times in those years in connection with a litigation between my father and Raja Narayanlal Bansilal Pittic and once I wanted to consult a specialist in company law there. My friend and well-wisher Keshavdeo R. Poddar (later named Navajata by the Mother), who was still

Part I Amal Kiran: Reminiscences   What's a Hundred Years! Aster Patel   When the youthfulness of the Spirit grows with vintage time...  When the bloom on the visage is richer by far... in tone and hue... When the fullness of Being brims over into space and time... When the Timeless meets us in the gaze...   And our mortal boundaries stretch... to look spellbound into that other world...   ...   To such a 'Being', these lines are offered with great affection... One who 'befriended' us...     And who once asked, "What are sculptured waters?" Swift came the response, "Trans

-035_PartIII Sri Aurobindo's Vision-Aster Patel Matter as 'Substance of the Spirit' Aster Patel   I   Not from Mind to Supermind... the ways are 'other'!   THIS is not - and, perhaps, cannot be - a paper like the usual ones! There is nothing 'usual' about the subject itself.   A presentation - sequential and standing complete by itself - would not be a true rendering of this experience. An experience which is taking place in the life of humanity - in the being of man and in the new structures of his life and his civilisations, in the upheavals and movements that mark our times.   We will be true to experience as it is being lived - in its concreteness and in its s

"Karpasa" in Prehistoric India*   Richard Hartz   SELDOM does a work of historical scholarship confront us with such far-reaching new insights as this companion volume to The Problem of Aryan Origins, which was published in 1980 by the same keen-sighted, energetic and wide-ranging thinker. That earlier book was an incisive reexamination of the "Aryan invasion" theory, a doctrine that was long accepted much too uncritically in most academic discussion of Indian history and has continued to exert a divisive influence on Indian life decades after the departure of the colonialists who conceived it. With abundant documentation and persuasive logic, Mr.

Celebrating a Centenary   Alok Pandey   A CENTENARY, if it has not to become a brief evanescent moment inspired by some faithful sentiments, is a time to look back. It is a looking back in a special way, to look back so as to move ahead, since that is the general direction in which flows the Time-spirit. And when we look back, especially upon the life of someone as great and many-sided a personality as our very own Amal Kiran, we have to be even more careful that we do not lose sight of the person who stands behind the personality. For, our persona is a mask that hides behind its veil of many hues, the face of the One Eternal whom we love in di

Theories of Evolution and Sri Aurobindo's Concept of Supramental Manifestation   Kireet Joshi   THE process of evolution was detected in ancient times. Both in India and in Greece, there were important ideas of evolution. In modern times, the theory of evolution is mainly the work of Linnaeus (1707-78), Buffon (1707-88), Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802), Lamarck (1744-1829), Charles Darwin (1809-82) and his followers.   On the Origin of Species written by Charles Darwin (1859) gave details and demonstrations of his scientific theory of evolution, according to which, life on the earth evolved by a gradual and yet continuous process from the earliest forms of living or

-036_PartIII Sri Aurobindo's Vision-A.S.Dalal Yoga and Psychology   The Relationship Between Yoga and Psychology in Sri Aurobindo's Yoga     AS. Dalai   Sri Aurobindo, writing on his teaching and the method of its practice, refers to yoga as "the ancient psychological discipline".1 He has also described yoga as "nothing but practical psychology.".2 Regarding the method of yoga he states: "the whole method of Yoga is psychological; it might almost be termed the consummate practice of a perfect psychological knowledge."3 All these statements point to the intimate relationship between yoga and psychology.   This relationship becomes more obvious when we look at the objects of yoga.

Long Live Amal Kiran!   Kailas Jhaveri   It is difficult to write anything on Amal, who is a profound scholar, skilled in many arts and sciences. He is a prolific writer on so many subjects, - literary, historic, scientific, archaeological and spiritual. To read his books is to sharpen one's intellect and to widen one's mind. But I would not go into the details of these studies. I would rather leave the reader to discover for himself Amal's perceptive insight and be thrilled with the delight of the reading.   I would like to share here what touches me the most: his correspondence with Sri Aurobindo on Savitri, in the early stages of its

Amal Kiran - The Pilgrim of Truth   Arun Vaidya   Sri Aurobindo gave him the name Amal Kiran, a Sanskrit name that means The Clear Ray. With this name, Sri Aurobindo revealed K.D. Sethna's spiritual identity and his life's goal-of integral transformation for the Su-pramental Truth - the Supreme Light. On September 3,1930, at the age of nearly 27, thus began with Sri Aurobindo's santion this Pilgrim of Truth's exalted yoga sadhana of commitment and consecration in search of his destiny and its fulfilment. Sri Aurobindo had early on delineated to him the very nature of his personal Integral Yoga sadhana,   .. .There is only one truth in you

-034_PartIII Sri Aurobindo's Vision-Manoj Das Is Progress Possible Without Culture?   Manoj Das   SEVERAL readers are likely to find the title of this article rather superfluous. This author's impression was not different when the chief organiser of a seminar on the theme of culture asked him to answer this question in his inaugural address.   But, luckily, when at a casual meeting of a few intellectuals I casually introduced this subject, I woke up with a shock, taking careful note of their spontaneous reactions, that there could be highly divergent thinking on this apparently simple issue. The divergence could be articulated through two questions opposed to each other. One: Who doubts