150 Years of Sri Aurobindo, Pioneer of Integral Consciousness

Circle For Original Thinking

In today’s very special podcast we will re-air a discussion that was originally recorded and produced by our good friends at the East-West Psychology Department of the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) for their own program, the East-West Psychology Podcast (https://east-westpsychologypodcast.com/). The discussion itself is an introduction to a set of two conferences to be held at the California Institute of Integral Studies in celebration of “150 Years of Sri Aurobindo, the Pioneer of Integral Consciousness.” The conferences will take place over the course of a week, starting on September 23, 2023 and concluding on September 30. This discussion is hosted by the East-West Psychology Podcast producers, Stephen Julich and Jonathan Kay. In this conversation, Circle for Original Thinking host and current Jean Gebser Society president, Glenn Aparicio Parry is a guest, along with Debashish Banerji, Chairman of the East-West Psychology Department.

We hope this program will provide our listeners with some background on these very important conferences, and the life and work of Sri Aurobindo (1872-1950) who was the key figure in the development of a form of spiritual practice he called “integral yoga,” as well as the life and work of the Swiss philosopher and visionary, Jean Gebser, author of the magnum opus, The Everpresent Origin.

THE CONFERENCES:

• The first conference, “Sustainability and Contemplative Civilization: The Integral Vision of Sri Aurobindo,” organized by the East-West Psychology Department (EWP) and the Asian Contemplative and Transcultural Studies concentration (ACTS), will engage with the possibilities, problems and potential of a sustainable civilization based on a contemplative praxis of deep relationality and extended identity as implicit in the vision and teaching of Sri Aurobindo and as explicit in the experimental community of Auroville.
• The second conference, “The Emergence of Integral Consciousness: Jean Gebser, Sri Aurobindo, Carl Jung, Teilhard De Chardin,” organized by the Jean Gebser Society, will address the coming integral age as foreseen by Gebser, Aurobindo, Jung, and Teilhard de Chardin. Each of these visionary thinkers in their own way foresaw the emergence of a new structure of consciousness beyond the limits of rational thought.

Debashish Banerji is a Bengali scholar and Haridas Chaudhuri Professor of Indian Philosophies and Cultures and the Doshi Professor of Asian Art at CIIS. He is also the Program Chair for the East-West Psychology department. Prior to CIIS, he served as Professor of Indian Studies and Dean of Academics at the University of Philosophical Research in Los Angeles, CA.

Stephen Julich is currently core faculty in the East-West Psychology Department at the California Institute of Integral Studies where he teaches classes Jungian Depth Psychology and Western Mysticism, Magic and Esotericism.

Jonathan Kay is a transcultural musician, and is currently a PhD student in the department of East-West Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco under the mentorship of Dr. Debashish Banerji.

We wish to again state our very deep gratitude to the people at the East-West Psychology Department and the California Institute of Integral Studies for the critical work that they do every day, and their generosity in sharing the content of this episode with Circle for Original Thinking.

For more information about the conferences:

https://www.ciis.edu/events/150-years-of-sri-aurobindo-pioneer-of-integral-consciousness

Also please visit:

https://www.ciis.edu/

https://www.ciis.edu/academics/department-east-west-psychology

https://east-westpsychologypodcast.com/

https://gebser.org/

www.jonathankay.ca