We saw Troy (again) last night, and I had a few thoughts.

1. Achilles' impiety -- his lack of respect towards the gods of his time -- resembles Socrates' impiety. He sort of represents the emergence of red egotistic mentality from purple tribalism, just as Socrates represents the orange rationalistic mentality emerging from blue myth.

2. The key line is: "The gods envy us. They envy us because we are mortal. Because every moment could be our last, and everything is more beautiful because we are doomed."

For some odd reason, I connect this with the difference between Aurobindo and Ramana Maharshi. Ramana Maharshi says that waking life is not different from dream life. They are both basically illusion from which one must awaken to realize the Absolute Self.

Aurobindo says (reflecting, I believe, the influence of Western thought): No, that's wrong. Waking life is important. We are here on Earth for a short time. We must grow and evolve in the life we are given, and as we evolve, God grows and evolves.

3. There is a process by which v-memes become mundane. That is, at one point long ago in human history, Romanticism didn't exist except as a stage through which only the most gifted mystics passed. Then in the sixteenth century, it became more common. It sort of came down to Earth from Heaven. Historians refer to that event, when the green meme came down to Earth and became mainstream, as the Romantic Movement. It, of course, had major socio-political ramifications on human history.

Perhaps we can use this example to understand what Aurobindo refers to as something like 'bringing down the Overmind'. He is referring to the process by which mystical, transpersonal realms become common, mainstream memes, features of human history.

Perhaps we could go further and speculate that as Aurobindo was deep in contemplation in Pondicherry for thirty years, he not just gathering a cultish group of followers around him. Perhaps he was, as he claimed, bringing down the oversoul -- making real and concrete and mainstream what was previously rare and fleeting. It would be difficult to know what the effects of Aurobindo's contemplation, but we could speculate.

a. We have now had several political figures who opposed violence with spiritual power. They were called Gandhiji, Martin Luther King Jr., and Nelson Mandela.

b. We also now have a medium by which thoughts can be communicated immediately, without regard for distance or space, which one could call a sphere of the subtle realm. It is called the Internet.

c. We also have a mainstream New Age author who is bringing Aurobindo's theories and Ramana's spirituality to the masses. He is named Ken Wilber.

These thoughts are surely heretically speculative. But they are the thoughts that I had.