SAIIER 2013:Savitri Bhavan research projects

Savitri Bhavan		Savitri Bhavan learning materials
Savitri Bhavan research projects

Objective

The aim of all the research undertaken at Entity::Savitri Bhavan is to foster a deeper understanding of the vision and teachings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, which underlie the aims and ideals of Auroville. Through the work done here it is intended to make this deeper understanding more widely accessible in the world to support the evolutionary movement towards a higher consciousness and a better future for the earth and the whole human family.

Outputs

7 major research projects were pursued during the year, as follows:

Savitri Study Circle

To gain a deeper appreciation and understanding of Sri Aurobindo‘s mantric epic, which the Mother has called “the supreme revelation of Sri Aurobindo's vision”. Since Auroville has been created as a field for the realization of Sri Aurobindo‘s vision in life, it seems important for people here in Auroville to gain as deep an understanding as possible of that vision. The object is not mere intellectual scrutiny of Sri Aurobindo‘s language and thought but to approach his writings for help and light, for the psychological insights and spiritual support that can show the way to a new and higher human life and society.

53 weekly sessions of 1⅟2 hours each with an average attendance of about 40 people. Digital recordings were made of all these sessions. In August 2012 a new cycle of reading of the whole poem was started. It was found that as an outcome of the earlier cycles of reading from November 1994 onwards, a much profounder level of understanding had been reached and the shared study was correspondingly more inspiring. It was decided to undertake transcriptions of the recordings of the sessions with a view to sharing them more widely as publications. By March 2013 the study had reached the end of Book One. Transcripts of all the study sessions covering Cantos One, Two, Three Four and Five of Book One were completed.

An ever-deepening understanding and appreciation of the poem and of Sri Aurobindo's vision and teaching is being shared with ever larger numbers of people: during the winter months attendance at the sessions rose to over 70 participants. Many of these were from outside Auroville; some expressed their eagerness to be able to continue keeping up with the sessions from their homes. It was therefore decided that from April 2013 onwards the weekly recordings would be made available on request through the internet, as well as in the Digital Library.

This Study Circle is the core activity of Savitri Bhavan from which all other activities and all the facilities have developed.

The Science of Living

A compilation of audio recordings from the Mother‘s Entretiens.

Mother stated several times that the sound of her voice had the power to transmit some part at least of the experience she was describing. The aim of this project is to facilitate access to some of Mother‘s special recordings, for people who don't have the time to go through the entire bulk of the material available. It will also facilitate access to the Mother‘s voice for people who don‘t speak French. It could serve as a base for people who want to learn French while increasing their knowledge and understanding of the Integral Yoga simultaneously and benefiting from the vibration of the Mother‘s voice.

A CD compilation of 58 audio passages from the Mother‘s Entretiens in French from 1955 till 1958, accompanied by a book containing all the selected texts in French with their English translation on facing pages.

It is hoped that the power of the vibration of Mother‘s voice will spread more widely, thereby touching the lives of more and more individuals and helping humanity in its difficult endeavour towards a higher level of consciousness.

The Human Cycle – a course of study

Creation of a study-course based on Sri Aurobindo‘s book The Human Cycle that will serve as a support for teaching and facilitate an easier understanding of the main concepts of the book. The syllabus of The Human Cycle is presented in the form of a Power Point presentation with titles and subtitles, bullet points, diagrams, tables and pictures to make it livelier and easier to grasp. The aim is to encourage high school and college students to explore Sri Aurobindo‘s insights into the psychology of social evolution.

About 600 animated slides have been created covering the first 20 (of 24) chapters of the book. Most slides contain pictures illustrating the text and some contain audio as well. It is planned to add short abstracts of video material wherever suitable.

Knowledge Management System for Savitri Bhavan

Knowledge Management (KM) is key requirement in any organization. Being the only internationally recognized experiment in Human Unity, KM assumes a greater importance in Auroville. At present, Auroville has little or no formal KM system in place and it was felt that a beginning needs to be made in this critical area.

The objective of the project is to implement a KMS pilot at Savitri Bhavan to enable more effective and efficient accomplishment of the vision viz. “Savitri Bhavan is a centre dedicated to fostering a living sense of Human Unity through spiritual education based on the vision and teachings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother”.

Deploy a pilot KMS project in Savitri Bhavan to improve role and goal clarity and facilitate knowledge sharing amongst the staff of Savitri Bhavan so as to make more knowledge explicit and visible to all engaged in the work of Savitri Bhavan. The functions include:

• Share the vision, mission and organizational structure along with role and goal clarity.
• Capture implicit knowledge related to processes.
• Facilitate collaboration in research activities of Savitri Bhavan.
• Simple “blog-like” functionality to share experiences, knowledge and wisdom.
• Calendars for external events, internal events and individuals.

Version 1.0 of the KMS pilot was implemented on Joomla and was released on 12 July 2012. The IT infrastructure and the need for stable, trained manpower to administer the infrastructure and KMS became a limiting factor along with the need for people to adapt to the new tools. After addressing these issues, the KMS system which has been initiated can be taken on to the next phase.

Towards a Bibliography of Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri

The overall aim of the project is to provide a comprehensive bibliography of a wide range of Savitri-related materials. That means, to provide up-to-date listings of all editions, translations and recordings of Sri Aurobindo‘s Savitri, as well as Savitri studies, published and un-published, in book and non-book form, as well as other Savitri-related materials for the assistance of readers, students and researchers.

This is obviously an on-going work. In the current year the aim was to keep track of all new materials appearing during the year, and to prepare an updated list for publication.

With the help of a volunteer, a full list of articles on Savitri, compiled from the journal holdings in the Savitri Bhavan Reading Room, was completed and maintained up to date. The reference collection of books and non-book materials was enlarged, and a list of all known Savitri-related materials available up to 31 March 2013 is ready to be prepared for publication in 2013.

These lists of books, journal articles, theses, recordings and art-works related to Sri Aurobindo‘s Savitri will be of assistance to the many researchers who apply to us for help in their studies, as well as to our staff in answering reference queries. They are being made available for consultation in soft copy in the Digital Library.

Vivekachudamani and the Mother’s Agenda

The unity of Knowledge based on spiritual experience is to be established. There is only one Reality but it is experienced differently by seers and thinkers: Ekam sat viprah bahudha vadanti. (RV 1.164.46). The study aims to show the rationale of tolerance by showing that seeming contradictions simply express different points of view. This corresponds to Mother‘s statement that the time of exclusivity is gone and we approach the time of an all-inclusive integrality based on direct spiritual experience.

A research paper of about 100 pages.

Enlargement of consciousness, plasticity of mental and spiritual perception, preparing human unity by all-comprehensive appreciation of the different paths of philosophical and spiritual orientations.

In fact everybody should be affected as overcoming sectarian differences is of prime importance in the India and all over the world (terrorism etc.) The required change will take place when people start to go inside and break the narrow limitations.

A computational approach to the text of Savitri

To explore the nature of Sri Aurobindo‘s epic poem using computational tools, such as have already been used to analyse prose texts. This would be the first study of this kind to be applied to poetry. Acknowledging an irreducible essence to poetry, future studies on the relationship among words, sounds and ideas may provide invaluable hints of the origin of language and its intimate relationship with the evolution of human consciousness.

A connectivity matrix was built between all main word pairs in order to analyse structure of the text. As a result concepts emerged as directions that can explain the variance of the data in such a hyperspace of words. When projected to the low dimensional space of concepts, the vector of attention as the reader moves through the text shows a large correlation across sections of the poem. A research paper describing the methods, processes used and findings has been submitted for publication.

While the computational methods of analysis and the tools created for them in the course of this study will be of interest to specialists in this kind of linguistic analysis, readers of the paper may also be intrigued by the text itself and wish to explore Sri Aurobindo‘s poem and other writings also.

Outcome

Deepened understanding of the texts and the originating vision inspiring them.