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Unitive Philosophy

by: Nataraja Guru

It is a uniquely rewarding book that will open up vast uncharted regions for exploration, especially for the serious thinker unsatisfied by the modern pop philosophy. A meaningful philosophy must have an absolute idea implicit in it and this book investigates several prominent strains of philosophy, to identify the absolute element.

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ISBN: 9788124603390
Year Of Publication: 2005
Edition: 1st
Pages : xiv, 472
Bibliographic Details : Appendix; Index
Language : English
Binding : Hardcover
Publisher: D.K. Printworld Pvt. Ltd.
Size: 23 cm.
Weight: 850

Overview

Nataraja Guru single-handedly revolutionized philosophical thought in the mid-twentieth century. At a time when science had unwittingly followed Marxism into a materialist desert, he never relinquished his insight into what had been omitted. Now that scientists and philosophers everywhere are pausing in perplexity, having bumped up against the limits of their partial outlook, the Guru’s works offer to reintroduce the wisdom that can bring the desert back to life. Stung by the horrors of the Inquisition, western science turned its back on metaphysics for hundreds of years. The extended effort to include as much as possible of the universe under the aegis of physical reality was an interesting experiment, but it has about played itself out. Ideas, memories, emotions and time, among other major categories, are metaphysical entities that have transcended every effort at being reduced to material existence. Matter itself is seen to be brimming with energy as soon as you look beneath the surface. A counterbalancing backlash has occurred recently in which religious and other metaphysical ideas, no matter how divorced from reality, are being embraced as a welcome escape from uncompromising materialism. For a sensible philosophy free of prejudice, which can open the road to further progress in human thought, a balance must be struck between physics and metaphysics. Each must support and verify the other. Nataraja Guru clearly establishes the basis for such an advance in this work, presenting an overarching scheme to integrate all aspects of reality under one roof. Any meaningful philosophy must have some version of an absolute idea or value implicit in it. After presenting his own absolute system Nataraja Guru investigates several prominent strains of philosophy, including the rationalist and the materialist, to identify the absolute element hidden within each of them. Totalitarianism and absolutism are shown to be totally antithetical, the former being highly exclusionary while the latter embraces every possibility. Dialectic thinking is at the heart of the Guru’s philosophy, leading to an absolute vision that incorporates all parts within the whole. For the serious thinker unsatisfied by modern pop philosophy, Unitive Philosophy is a uniquely rewarding book that will open up vast uncharted regions for exploration.

Contents

Part – I
Vedanta Revalued and Restated
Introduction
1. The Background, Origin and a New Approach
2. The Three Categories of Reality
3. The Problem of Transition from Existence to Subsistence
4. The Absolute as Word-Value Significance
5. Semantic Polyvalence of Vedantic Thought
6. Two Certitudes for the Same Truth
7. The Integrated Knowledge Situation of Vedanta
8. The Double Domain of the Word
9. Varieties of Vedantism
10. Favourite Examples in Vedanta
11. Schematic Proto-linguism in Vedanta
12. A Summarized Running Review

Part – II
The Philosophy of a Guru
Introduction
1. Structural Key to Guru philosophy
2. The Element of Wonder
3. Transcending Paradox
4. Horizontal and Vertical Value Worlds
5. The Self and Non-Self in Spiritual Progress
6. The Universe of Contemplative Discourse
7. The Methodology and Epistemology in Guru philosophy
8. Protolinguistic Imagery
9. Ethics, Aesthetics and Religion in Guru philosophy
10. Guru philosophy Summarized
Appendix
Part – III
The Search for a Norm in Western Thought
Introduction
1. Some Background Aspects
2. The Characteristics of Modern Philosophy
3. The Lengthening Shadow of Scepticism
4. The Absolute as the Normative Reference for Philosophy
5. A Normative Methodology for all Philosophy
6. The Search for the Absolute
7. The Absolute Implied in Empiricism
8. The Absolute as Implied in Rationalism
9. The Absolute from Kant to Eddington
10. Bergsonian schema and the Absolute
11. Summarized Elements of the Absolute Norm
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.