The Mother was the consort of Sri Aurobindo Ghose. She was a Parisian of Egyptian descent. After experiencing many spiritual experiences she left to Algeria in 1906 in order to study occultism. In 1914 she left to India and met Sri Aurobindo. Later she left for Japan and returned to Europe. In 1920 she returned to India and lived in Pondicherry where she remained for the rest of her life. There with Sri Aurobindo she took on the title of the Mother. With Sri Aurobindo she worked on a new form of spiritual practice of spiritual transformation designed to evolve the world: that is to transform the entire planetary consciousness.
For her there is a divine unity, in her cosmology, that is symbolically represented in the form of eight. The first half of the eight is the supreme that leads towards manifestation. The second half is Nature of the sleep of the unconsciousness. The top of the eight is golden which descends into prismatic and finally blue. As the cycle reverses so do the colors until they reach gold again. This cycle is eternal.
In the vastness of the Universe the Earth is miniscule. Its significance is that it is the center of the transformation of the consciousness of the Cosmos. The Divinity cannot be harmed itself, but yet the world itself can be made uninhabitable making it no longer a unit for transformation. But through the spiritual transformation the world can be made to be the theater in the conflict between good and evil.
The final goal of her teachings was to attain the glorious illumined body. This can be seen as a final and complete break of earlier teachings in mystical philosophy. The divinization of the body leads to the transformation of the world, that is the planetary consciousness. This belief leans toward the concept of a Messiah, but in this case not some external worldly savior. Instead it comes from within us. Thus we are all Messiahs.
The future of the earth is to be luminous. The future of mankind is to be of great integral possibility. Despite of the violence and ignorance along with other possibilities mankind is to rise to divine possibilities. As the new man he will rise to all the hopes and dreams of mankind. Mankind begins at the origin then evolves into the higher self. The time has already come for the transformation of the Earth and human kind, there is no moksa or Nirvana or Heaven. The Earth itself will be transformed.
As for me, I am deeply indebted to the teachings of Haridras Chaudhury: a disciple of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. Based upon their teachings on Integral Yoga he founded the graduate school California Institute of Integral Studies in which I am a doctoral student there. Because of this I am grateful for the Mother and her teachings. According to Dr. Jim Ryan, my professor of Hinduism, “Haridas Chaudhuri chose this symbol as he founded the Institute because it is a visual representation of his Integral philosophy. This world is not to be seen as separate from the transcendent Truth, but as an expression of that Truth in phenomenal form. What is sacred then, is not merely what are beyond our perception, but everything that is present here in this world, all our actions, and our emotions our thoughts. The notion of the integration of body, mind and spirit are symbolized and indicated by the Sri Yantra, making it a perfect visual representation of the Institute’s vision.” Thus am indebted to the Mother and the concept of Integral Yoga.
Everyone, Synchronized Chaos Magazine and I invite everyone to join our international blogging day, Theano’s Day, Thursday, June 24th, where we write to celebrate women in philosophy!
Greek mathematician and philosopher Pythagoras’ wife Theano was a scholar and intellectual in her own right. Along with helping him raise five children, she put together writings on mathematics, art, beauty, philosophy, and child raising. She is credited with developing the Golden Mean, a crucial idea in aesthetic theory.
By participating on Theano’s Day, you honor and celebrate important women by creating a blog post on June 24th concerning a female philosopher whom you admire, or who intrigues you. As with Ada Lovelace Day, spotlighting women’s contributions to technology, the woman you select may be from any nation, culture, or time period, living or dead…and you may blog in any style or format, using any software in any language.
I selected Theano as a mascot as she represents a work/life balance, an apparently decent and loving wife and mother as well as a scholar and professional. Throughout history and on average women have worked very hard in the background keeping things going by raising children, cooking, maintaining households, helping to earn a living through day-jobs…all very respectable activities. And many have made contributions to philosophy or other fields which may have been overlooked because the women are primarily known for work they have done in their other roles. So Theano’s Day celebrates the philosophical contributions of women and attempts to bring their ideas out in the open to help inform modern society.
You may define ‘philosopher’ as you choose – someone need not have specialized in the field to be discussed in a blog for Theano’s Day. For example, a female novelist, businesswoman, teacher, politician, nun, homemaker may have created a philosophical outlook worth discussing that is apparent through the values that come out through her work in other fields.
Some women to start with if you need help thinking of someone: Hypatia of Alexandria (mathematician and scholar), St. Catherine (mystic and humanitarian), Sor Juana (Mexican nun and intellectual) and Florence Nightingale and Jane Austen, each of whom developed a worldview and philosophy through their writings on various subjects.
We encourage as many people as possible from around the world to participate this June 24th. Please make your blogpost public and send us the link so we can read each other’s writing! Also, please pass on the word about Theano’s Day!
If you haven’t written a post for Theano’s Day please go ahead and write one when you see this, and comment to let us know!
For Theano’s Day, I’ll honor the contributions of women thinkers and researchers who kept their philosophical pursuits alive and lived out their values during tough financial times.
Anna Doyle Wheeler http://www.women-philosophers.com/Anna-Doyle-Wheeler.html left a bad marriage and made sacrifices afterwards for her daughters’ education, including not having a home of her own and trading services in exchange for room and board with various friends and family members. She translated major French philosophical works of her time into English and also wrote treatises on the nature and value of education and on women’s freedom and rights.
Laura Bassi http://www.women-philosophers.com/Laura-Bassi.html produced work in physics and fluid dynamics as well as theoretical philosophy. She lived in Italy during the 1700s and raised twelve children together with her husband, so probably had to balance time and money also. She lectured from home at some points when her children were very young.
Christine Pisan http://www.women-philosophers.com/Christine-Pisan.html was left a near-bankrupt widow with children, and supported herself through help from from family and friends and eventually through freelance writing 😉 She wrote on the nature of virtue and ethics, and created some stylized courtly love poems.
Theano, today’s namesake, was part of a larger group of women and men in the Pythagorean school: http://www.women-philosophers.com/Early-Pythagoreans.html Many of their writings survive to this day, and include work in geometry, mathematics, artistic proportion and balance, beauty, and the purpose and meaning of life. Theano had daughters who wrote philosophical documents also, and whose writings form part of the early Pythagorean works.
Theano’s Day, the international day to blog about a female philosopher, past or present, of your choice, is this Wednesday, June 24th. If you would like to participate, simply write a post of any length using whatever blogging or social networking software you already use to talk about the contributions of any woman philosopher. You may comment here with a link to your post and we’ll compile all the posts together on the 24th into one place for easy reading.
The woman you pick does not have to be primarily known for her philosophical work – and Theano was actually picked as a mascot because she represents a work/life balance. As Pythagoras’ wife she helped him raise five children and put together writings on a wide variety of topics, including advanced mathematics, child-raising, and the role of proportion and balance in art/aesthetic theory. The point is that people who tackle the Big Questions – who we are as living beings, our place in the universe, theories of knowledge and how we know what we know, freedom and destiny, etc can still be people with lives and families and other responsibilities. They’re just people who chose to follow that intellectual path and extended the logical framework with some new ideas.
Theano’s Day is intended to honor the contributions of people throughout history who may have had some worthwhile or logical ideas but were not properly recognized for whatever reason. And to stimulate interest in the field of philosophy in general…with the world economic crisis people are turning away from financial/moneymaking enterprises and finding themselves out of work more often than before, and perhaps philosophy is a field which can continue to move ahead as it is dependent more on thought, study, and communication than expensive technology. There is more to life than financial success … coming back to valuing thought and philosophy might bring some balance back into our societies. With the world in the state it’s in, perhaps rediscovering old and unexplored, or looking into new ideas might lead us down different and better paths.
Anyway, everyone here is welcome to participate in Theano’s Day – you may visit the Pledge Bank site for more information or just simply blog on the 24th and comment with the link so we can compile the posts!
Some women to start with if you need help thinking of someone: Hypatia of Alexandria (mathematician and scholar), St. Catherine (mystic and humanitarian), Sor Juana (Mexican nun and intellectual) and Florence Nightingale and Jane Austen, each of whom developed a worldview and philosophy through their writings on various subjects.
