The Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo, Part Three: Future Evolution of Humanity, with Debashish Banerji

Debashish Banerji, PhD, is former Dean of Academic Affairs at the University of Philosophical Research in Los Angeles as well as an adjunct faculty member at Pasadena City College and the California Institute of Integral Studies. He is also the former director of the East West Cultural Center in Los Angeles. He is author of Seven Quartets of Becoming: A Transformative Yoga Psychology Based on the Diaries of Sri Aurobindo and also The Alternate Nation of Abanindranath Tagore, a book about his great grandfather. He edited an anthology about his great uncle, Rabindranath Tagore in the Twenty-First Century.

Here he notes that Aurobindo emphasized both Vedanta and Tantra. In other words, he emphasized both escape from the bonds of attachment and the attainment of many varieties of pleasure. He emphasized the enhancement of the supernormal powers, or Siddhis, within humanity. These included levitation, being able to view things at a distance, being able to view microscopic objects, and being able to influence things at a distance. He was particularly interested in the future evolution of the human race and in understanding the potential of the human body itself. In that sense, he was a major influence in the development of the Human Potential Movement in the United States. He viewed paranormal powers as a natural aspect of what he called “the divine life.”

New Thinking Allowed host, Jeffrey Mishlove, PhD, is author of The Roots of Consciousness, Psi Development Systems, and The PK Man. Between 1986 and 2002 he hosted and co-produced the original Thinking Allowed public television series. He is the recipient of the only doctoral diploma in “parapsychology” ever awarded by an accredited university (University of California, Berkeley, 1980). He serves as dean of transformational psychology at the University of Philosophical Research. He teaches parapsychology for ministers in training with the Centers for Spiritual Living through the Holmes Institute. He has served as vice-president of the Association for Humanistic Psychology, and is the recipient of its Pathfinder Award for outstanding contributions to the field of human consciousness. He is also past-president of the non-profit Intuition Network, an organization dedicated to creating a world in which all people are encouraged to cultivate and apply their inner, intuitive abilities.

(Recorded on December 20, 2015)