PART THREE Insights from the Veda and the Upanishad At the same time, it must be mentioned that we have, in the Veda and the Upanishads, as also in the Gita, great insights which can aid us in exploring this aspect of the integral yoga. (a) Ancient explorations had discovered that all aspects of the world-experience have their fundamental truth in the Supreme Existence. Even the aspect of the power of the Inconscience which seems to be an opposite, a negation of the eternal Reality, it still corresponds to a Truth held in itself by the self-aware and all-conscious Infinite. The Veda had discovered the Inconscience and there is, the image for it in the Veda of

NOTES AND REFERENCES 1Vide, Works of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, particularly, Letters on Yoga [Vols. 23-24, Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library (SABCL), 1971, Pondicherry], and Sri Aurobindo's The Synthesis of Yoga (SABCL, Vols. 20-21, 1971, Pondicherry). 2Vide, Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, SABCL, 1971, Vol. 18, Chapters XIII, XIV and XV. 3Ibid., p. 312. 4Vide, Ibid., pp. 311-2. 5Ibid., p. 122. 6Vide, The Secret of the Veda, SABCL, Vol. X10, 1971, p. 34. Sri Aurobindo's discovery of the supermind was, thus, prior to his knowledge of what the Veda had contained of that highest faculty of consciousness and power. He 'did not learn of

PART FOUR Journey of Evolutionary Ignorance towards Knowledge: Journey of Yoga The human ignorant journey that turns inwards is a reversal of the involutionary movement of Ignorance which was a downward looking movement of consciousness speedily separating itself from the integral consciousness of unity and differentiations resulting in ignoring all that is behind that movement and in exclusive concentration on the workings of energy up to such an acute point that the consciousness becomes totally identified with the workings of energy. In contrast, this inward-looking (antarmukha) concentration recovers increasingly the distinction between the worki

Introduction The new synthesis of the Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother has come to be known as the Integral Yoga1. This yoga has, as its first basis, the Vedantic realization of Existence-Consciousness-Bliss (Sachchidananda) as the ultimate reality and the ultimate foundation of the universe and all that is in the universe. However, the world that we see is the world of divided mentality which does not appear to be a direct manifestation of Sachchidananda. The divided mentality and the life and body, in which we exist on the earth, and the material existence which is governed by the divided mentality, must be, therefore, a development from that which originally manif

PART SEVEN The Aim of Integral Liberation and Integral Perfection Against this background, it may be said that Sri Aurobindo's synthesis of yoga does not aim merely at the liberation of the individual or of the individual Purusha from the ignorance which appears to be inherent in the Nature of Prakriti; it also aims at the liberation of the Prakriti itself from its bondage to ignorance by eliminating all that appears to be inherent in it but which is not really so; since Prakriti of the three gunas is derived from supramental Para Prakriti, it can be liberated from its own limitations and transformed into Supramental Nature. Sri Aurobindo thus speaks of the

PART SIX Review of the Gains of the Earlier Systems of Yoga Against this background, there was a need to review the entire fund of knowledge pertaining to the nature of liberation and perfection as also to the Spirit, Supermind, Mind, Life and Matter. Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, as a result of a vast research, the dimensions of which covered all the planes of existence and intricate secrets of psychology, occultism and spirituality, have provided new answers regarding the issue of the ideals of liberation and perfection. Some of the important points that emerged from this great research work, and which are relevant to our immediate purpose here can be summed u

PART ONE The Veda and the Supermind It is instructive to observe that in the early stages of Sri Aurobindo's own yogic development, an ascent to the supermind was effected; during that stage of development certain lines of his self-development were spontaneously converging towards the ancient and now unfrequented paths followed by the Vedic Rishis. At that time, there had begun to arise in his consciousness an arrangement of symbolic names attached to certain psychological experiences which had begun to regularize themselves; among them there were experiences of the faculties which the Vedic Rishis had described as supramental in character6. Sri Aurobindo, therefore, in ord

I INAUGURAL SESSION VALUE-ORIENTED EDUCATION KIREET JOSHI We are passsing through a critical stage of a battle between the best possibilities and the worst possibilities. At a time when forces of unity and harmony can triumph and science and technology can be used to abolish poverty and deprivation, precisely at that time, the forces of violence and gravitational pulls of impulses of the lower human nature are pressing forward on a global scale. Rationality, in which humanity has placed great trust for arriving at the fulfilment of its ideals of true knowledge and comprehensive knowledge, appears to be overtaken by the forces of Unrea

VIII ANNEXURE IV THE RESOLUTION ADOPTED UNANIMOUSLY AT THE CONCLUSION OF THE SEMINAR The National Seminar organized by the Indian Council of Philosophical Research on "Philosophy of Value-Oriented Education" was inaugurated by the Inaugural Address of the Hon'ble Minister of Human Resource Development on January 18, 2002. The Valedictory Address was delivered by Shri T.N. Chaturvedi, Member of Parliament and Member of the Executive Board of UNESCO on January 20, 2002. The Seminar was held at the Jamia Hamdard at New Delhi. During the course of the Seminar, eminent philosophers, educationists, education administrators, and teachers from variou

PREFACE The Indian Council of Philosophical Research (ICPR) has undertaken exploration in Value-Oriented Education from the point of view of Philosophical Theory as also its practical implications. As the subject is vast, the Council envisaged a series of seminars on the subject during the Tenth Five-Year Plan period (2002-03 to 2006-07). The first Seminar in the series was designed to initiate discussions on the following themes: (a)Basic issues on the meaning of values and the place of Value-Oriented Education at the present juncture of India's historical development; (b)The present system of education, its origin in Macaulay's Minutes on Education, and the defects of