Materialism and Sense-Perception The scientific account of the complex of agencies involved in sense-perception is worth viewing in its correct bearings on the question whether materialism is a valid doctrine. There is a tendency today in certain scientific quarters to declare: "Matter is only the version which sense-perception gives of an unknown reality. An impact comes upon the sense- organs; the nerve-terminals are stimulated; nerve- currents start moving; they reach the brain-cells and there is sense-perception as of actual objective matter existing. Now, evidently, the perception is an image. What proof have we that this image is tru

Heisenberg's Principle of Indeterminacy Q: Heisenberg's principle of uncertainty or indeterminacy has it that we can never measure with accuracy both the position and the velocity of an elementary particle. Why is this principle regarded as most revolutionary? Not all scientists regard this principle as effecting a fundamental revolution. All agree that it marks an absolute physical limit to the measurement of two basic quantities together and that, since correct predictions demand the knowledge of both of them at the same time, we can never have anything except a play of probability at the core of our knowledge in microphysics. From these admiss

New Trends in Biological Theory and Psycho-physiology Some Scientific Approaches Towards Sri Aurobindo's Vision 1 Perhaps the most interesting finger-post in recent science to the presence, in general, of a psychic energy in evolution such as Sri Aurobindo discerns as ascending to homo sapiens and pointing beyond him has been put up by the English biologist. Sir Alister Hardy. The import of Hardy's most impressive book. The Living Stream, based on his first series of Gifford Lectures, is twofold. It lies not only in suggesting at the end more persuasively than ever before a background of psychism to the evolutionary process, which se

-033_Tennis with the Mother (Poem).htm TENNIS WITH THE MOTHER     She seems but playing tennis — The whole world is in that game! A little ball she is striking — What is struck is a huge white flame Leaping across time's barrier Between God's hush, man's heart, And while the exchange goes speeding The two shall never part. In scoring the play's progress The result of minds that move, One word in constant usage Is the mystic syllable "Love". And the one high act repeated Over and over again By either side is "Service", And it never is done in vain. For, whether defeat or triumph Is the end, each movement goes

-052_A Crucial Dream and the Mother's Interpretation.htm A CRUCIAL DREAM AND THE MOTHER'S       INTERPRETATION     14.6.1970   Dearest Mother Some time back I said to you that I would like to tell you something about my state of health and mind. In 1956 or 1957 I had a dream. Some being was saying to me what my life would be like if I stayed here with you. I was shown everything. There was darkness, and big stones were thrown from all sides on my body, completely breaking it. Then the being showing me this said: "If you live with the Mother, this is what she will do to you." I replied: "Never mind. Let the body break." Then again the being said: "Not o

WHEN NEHRU MET SHAW The history of our times is full of memorable meetings between the Modern East and the Modern West, Perhaps the meeting that took place in May 1949 was the most imaginatively significant — not only because two outstanding representatives met but also because of what the one gave to the other. Both the meeting and the gift were eminently in the fitness of things. Immediately after achieving what seemed like "squaring the circle" — the reconciliation of the concept of India the sovereign independent Republic with the concept of the British Commonwealth of Nations — Jawaharlal Nehru could not have acted more appropriately than by meeting that

TWO INDEPENDENT REMEMBRANCES     (These remembrances are independent not only in .the sense that both record individual impressions that arose spontaneously on the two occasions mentioned but also in the sense that neither author saw the writing of the other before putting down his own vision.)     1     SEHRA — LAST VIEW (25.4.1980)     by Ravindra Khanna   I entered the room a little trepidant — expecting to see a face with all the mental agonies and physical afflictions engraved on it. But a most marvellous sight met my gaze. Such beauty of a blissful calm enveloped it that its ripples could be felt all ov

THE PAST RELIGIONS, THE OLD YOGAS AND SRI AUROBINDO'S IDEAL     1   Time and again the question has cropped up: Can Sri Aurobindo's ideal be realised by means of the past religions and the old Yogas? An answer in the negative, insisting on the newness of the ideal and the consequent need of a new spiritual praxis, is usually given. But a very positive criticism is couched in the following terms which call for our notice by the striking quotations they incorporate from Sri Aurobindo himself and the sweeping conclusions drawn on the strength of them: "Many people are of the opinion that for the Supramental Yoga we requ

THE FIRST AMERICANS IN THE SRI AUROBINDO ASHRAM     RECOLLECTIONS OF THEM AND NOTES ON SOME PERSONAL TOPICS RELATED TO AMERICA     1   The first American name to fly about in the Ashram's air was one that significantly had a plural ring: McPheeters. It was two Americans who jointly started the flow of the New World to the Newer World which Sri Aurobindo and the Mother had begun to build in the Old. They were husband and wife: Vaun and Janet McPheeters. They were here already before I stepped into Pondicherry on December 16, 1927. The Mother had given them the upper floor of a two-s

A DREAM AND AN ATTEMPT AT ITS READING     "I had a dream some days back. I am in a shop to buy an umbrella. I ask for the colours. I pick up an emer- ald-green umbrella from those set before me. It is very fine but somehow has marks of birds' droppings on it! Still, I decide to take it. Then suddenly I am by the Pondicherry sea. Many Ashramites are there. Some are sitting on rocks in the water. All of them are children — except Lalubhai. I ask why all are there and am told that the Mother is coming and it is best to be in or near the water. I wonder why then people are not in th