| Genesis of Sri Aurobindo Darshan: The University of Tomorrow, SACAR The genesis of Sri Aurobindo Darshan: The University of Tomorrow, the educational wing of SACAR was pure inspiration. The making of this inspirational vision into a reality was dependent upon Prof. V. Madhusudan Reddy's devotion to the great contemporary spiritual masters of India, Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. Professor Reddy was an inspired scholar who wrote prolifically on Indian philosophy and culture, specialising in Sri Aurobindo's and the Mother's spiritual work for India and the world. He was also the founder of several educational institutions such as the Institute of Human Study, and Matridarshan. Sri Aurobindo Darshan: The University of Tomorrow was a recurring dream-vision that Professor Reddy experienced in 1966 while travelling widely throughout southern India. These dreams were "grandiose and utopian, apocalyptic and revelatory – of a sprawling campus of education and culture, of a living laboratory of Light and Truth-seeking, an academy of seeker-souls with a spiritual focus." (V. M. Reddy, The Alchemy of Her Grace, p.108). The Mother was living at the time that the vision of the University came to Professor V. Madhusudhan Reddy and so it was to her that he wrote to ask whether the vision could indeed be realised. The relevant parts of the letter he wrote to the Mother are reproduced below: "Ma, I am submitting at your Lotus Feet the programme of studies that the Institute of Human Study proposes to undertake during 1972-1973… Gracious Mother, since November 1971 I have been trying for the setting up of a Central University by the Government of India at Hyderabad named after Sri Aurobindo – truly a new University and a true University – a University | without Walls. …there is a growing feeling in me that without waiting for or asking the government to set up such a University, the Institute itself should undertake this project and start it during the Centenary Year, especially in August.… It… shall try to evolve a system of education which will not be a system, but a dynamic movement, an endless expansion of knowledge. This world University centre, to start with, will have three departments: I. Human Unity II. Theatre of the Future III. Philosophy or the Quest for Truth These will be more like movements rather than departments. The students will have a flexible curriculum and a free and creative environment of study and learning. …If it meets with the Mother's Approval I have the following names at Her Lotus Feet for this project. I) Sri Aurobindo Darshan: A World University Centre II) Sri Aurobindo Darshan: The University of Tomorrow." | |
| (quoted in V. M. Reddy, The Alchemy of Her Grace, p.110) | ||
| The reply sent through the Managing Trustee of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram read as follows: "Dear Dr Madhusudhan Reddy, Your letter…has been placed before the Mother. The Mother has approved the following items…The Mother has also approved the University project of the Institute. The name approved by the Mother is your second proposal: Sri Aurobindo Darshan: The University of Tomorrow. She has underlined [this name] and put Her blessing [upon it]." | ||
| (quoted in V. M. Reddy, The Alchemy of Her Grace, p.110) | ||
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