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Autobiography of an Absolutist

by: Nataraja Guru

This book talks about the guruhood of Nataraja Guru, a true absolutist and a disciple of Narayana Guru, how he grafted it on to a global background, how his discoveries in philosophy open up a new age in human understanding, and his genius in restating yoga as a modern perennial science of dialectics applicable in all fields.

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ISBN: 9788124605646
Year Of Publication: 2011
Edition: 1st
Pages : xviii, 803 [16] p.
Bibliographic Details : 33 b/w photographs; Index
Language : English
Binding : Hardcover
Publisher: D.K. Printworld Pvt. Ltd.
Size: 23
Weight: 1500

Overview

Nataraja Guru’s guruhood is pure and philosophically correct, making as few concessions as possible to relativistic or social notions. He is a guru of absolutist truth. It is too rare to be popularly understood. It is not the popular conception of the Upanishadic or the ashramic pattern. It is a new form of guruhood, made for a really global world. The Guru Narayana did the initial spadework here in breaking through the fixed Indian orthodox patterns, as far as he was able in his own lifetime to do so, without entirely destroying the background. His work was experimental, and his success showed the way to the one disciple, Natarajan, to plunge ahead on a wider and entirely universal scale. Nataraja Guru therefore has grafted guruhood on to a global background. For this work the absolutism of guruhood has to be stressed more than the religious or even the conventional yogi aspect as known to India.
Nataraja Guru never wanted a following, least of all of blind believers. He only asks for reasonable understanding of the pure principles for which he stands and not in any cloud-soaring sense either, but in immediately applicable relationship with any or every given actual situation; nor in works but in understanding alone.
His discoveries in the field of philosophy open up a new age in human understanding. Through his genius, for the first time clear sense emerges out of the hitherto baffling expressions of Indian thought, while the ways of Indian spirituality cease to be a mystery. So at one stroke minds are cleared and much delusion and superstitions trickery in the philosophic-religious field are destroyed. How bold and wonderful is his genius in restating yoga as a modern perennial science of dialectics applicable in all fields!

Contents

Preface
Prelude
1. My Earliest Memories
2. Trinity College, Kandy
3. Adolescent Ideals and Hero Worship
4. Glimpses of Guruhood
5. Academic Life in Colonial Style
6. Sex and Ideals
7. The Tao and My Destiny
8. Finding My Svadharma
9. Ultimate Surrender to the Guru
10. Trials of Discipleship
11. Weaning from Relativism
12. From Home to Homelessness
13. The Birth of the Gurukula
14. Fernhill: The Hard Years
15. A Hungry Man’s “Love Affair”
16. Reaffirming My Svadharma
17. Passage to Europe
18. Chance Brings Me to Geneva
19. The Criminal Conscience of an Honest Man
20. I Settle in a Swiss Lakeside School
21. Walking the Corridors of the University
22. In Europe Between the Wars
23. Holidays on the Continent
24. European Winter Tours
25. The Close of my First Chapter in Europe
26. Homecoming and After
27. Adventures in Job-hunting
28. Chequered Patterns of Indifferent Fortune
29. Occupational Vacuity Gets Filled
30. The End of the Second World War and After
31. Geneva Once More
32. Atlantic Crossing And After
33. After the World Conference of Religions at New York
34. I Make up for My Neglected Education
35. Second Visits to Europe and America before Returning to India
36. I Return to India to be Recognized as a Guru
37. The Guru Centenary Coincides with My Sixtieth Birthday
38. Dialectical Dragons and Near Murder
39. Wanderings and Encounters with Providence
40. A Holiday Cruise to Europe
41. Art Reflections and Happy Hobos
42. European Contacts Old and New
43. Searching for a Gurukula in the South of France
44. Summer Dreams in Italy
45. Eventful Escapades Across Europe
46. In Good Old England Again
47. Rare Gifts From the Tao
48. In India Again
49. The Magnum Opus and Call of the Island
50. Festivals and Forewarnings
51. Autumnal Depressions and After
52. Hospital Life Without Tears
53. Still to Turn the Corner
54. Turning to the Prospective
55. Bolder Flights into the Unknown
56. Prophets, Idols and Hippies
57. The Role of Protolinguism in Unifying Science
58. More thoughts on Hippiedom
59. Intimate Meditations
60. A Visit to Moscow
61. Time and Springtime in Belgium
62. Contacts with Hippies and Highbrows
63. Hippie Adventures in England
64. Iceland, the Nordic Paradise
65. At the New Jersey Gurukula
66. With Professors and Dropouts in Chicago
67. The Benares of the Dropouts
68. Trips in Inner and Outer Space
69. Californian Midsummer Orgy
70. Strange Meetings in Honolulu
71. Crossing the Date Line
72. Globe-circling
73. Busy Days in Malaysia
74. Midnight Cheese and other Problems
75. Problems Solved and Unsolved
76. Mysticism and Travel Twilights
77. Two kinds of Resources and Initiatives
78. Colour Film Language
79. The Game Between Men and Women
80. Coincidences in Kerala
81. At the Tomb of the Mother of Shankara
82. Absolutist Community Problems
83. Wandering in the Realm of Kalidasa
84. Reveries of a Solitary Pilgrim
85. Gurukula Movement Broadens Out
86. From the World Parliament to Tholpetty
87. Summer Sessions at Ooty
Epilogue
Index

Meet the Author
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1895-1973
Nataraja Guru is the disciple-successor of Narayana Guru (1854-1928), whose dialectical revaluation and restatement of Sankaracarya’s Advaita Vedanta conformed for the first time to the requirements of a normative or experimental science, to the extent that will probably ever be possible. Sankara himself may be said to be a continuator of Vyasa, who in his turn revised and restated the wisdom of the Upanishads as understood in his time. Nataraja Guru is thus a representative of the same pure, direct and vertical line of succession of philosophical revaluators extending back through time to the most ancient phase of the recorded history of human thought. The Guru may thus be seen to be uniquely qualified to undertake the present work, which he did at the instance of Narayana Guru himself. Sent by Narayana Guru to study in the West, Nataraja Guru was awarded the D. Lit. degree from the University of Paris. In 1923 he established the Narayana Gurukula, with headquarters at Varkala in Kerala State, a Guru-disciple foundation which welcomes all who seek the wisdom of the Absolute in open and living terms. The Guru has translated into English and commented on all of the major works of Narayana Guru, and has written on a wide variety of subjects, employing throughout a protolinguistic or structural approach which could be said to be his unique contribution to the perennial wisdom heritage of mankind.