Hilary Anderson, PhD
California Institute of Integral Studies
Professor Emeritus
Asian Philosophies & Womens Spirituality
Philosophy and Religion Department
School of Consciousness and Transformation

Friends will gather to share remembrances and honor the life of Hilary Anderson, a long-time devotee of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother and a student of Dr. Haridas Chaudhuri. Hilary worked with Dr. Chaudhuri in the founding of the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco and was a former professor, dean, and founding board member of the university. A well-known lecturer, scholar, therapist, and seminar leader, Dr. Anderson utilized a rich synthesis of East-West mythology and psycho-spiritual symbolism to promote healing and a deep cross cultural understanding of the human condition. Her unique perspective was rooted in a deep appreciation of our common cultural values and ideals expressed in the language of myth, symbol, and ritual. She recognized gods and goddesses of the great world myths as archetypal energy patterns, and developed a profound process through which we can identify the major mythic themes that play in our daily lives. 

Hilary made her transition on Wednesday, December 27, 2017 in Castro Valley, California in the San Francisco Bay Area. She will be dearly missed by her students, friends, and colleagues.

Cultural Integration Fellowship
Saturday, March 31, 2018 from 2:30 – 5:00 pm
2650 Fulton Street, San Francisco, California

415.668.1559 | culturalfellowship@sbcglobal.net

Presented by Bay Area Gitanjali, this program celebrates the life of Swami Vivekananda (Narendranath Datta) (1863-1902) commemorating the anniversary of his birth. Regarded as India’s first great spiritual ambassador to the West, Swami Vivekananda is perhaps best known for his inspiring speech which began, “Sisters and brothers of America …” delivered at the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago in 1893.

We have selected Songs, Shlokas and Bhajans reflecting the philosophy of Swami Vivekananda, generating a secular social order through Religious and Ethnic Pluralism that would transcend differences of caste and creed and result in a unique place for India in the World.

Our singers this morning are Sonali Bhattacharya, Aditya Das, Ashidhara Das, and Shyamoshree Gupta Diamond, with Anoop Bhattacharjya on tabla. All are outstanding artistes who have received praise and recognition for their performances and concerts both in India and in the United States.

a mini-series led by Ted Nordquist, PhD

Sunday mornings, from 9:30 – 10:30

October 22 & 29 and November 5 & 12, 2017

Cost: $10 per person, per class.

• The human mind is an instrument designed to help you navigate temporal reality.
• We are, like all that we experience in the universe, a manifestation of One Source.
• Ultimate reality can be experienced when consciousness unites with Being.

These meditation classes are held in the spirit of Sri Aurobindo and Dr. Haridas Chaudhuri. There is no “method” other than surrendering the consciousness to That Divine Manifestation which we are. We will focus our attention on the breath and the present moment towards uniting consciousness with That One Source which created and runs this universe.

We will open each class with 40 minutes of discussion and then surrender to Being for 20 minutes. As in previous classes, the second class will be open to discussing the experiences we had during the first class and reflecting on how Being expresses itself in our daily lives.

Dr. Chaudhuri said that “prayer is talking to God while meditation is listening to God.”

Ted Nordquist worked with Dr. Haridas Chaudhuri from 1971 – 1973 at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS), then the California Institute of Asian Studies (CIAS). In addition to Asian Studies, Dr. Chaudhuri was Ted’s spiritual guide beginning in 1969. Other influences in Ted’s life were Mahatma Gandhi, Ramana Maharshi, and Sri Aurobindo.

Ted taught at the University of Uppsala, Institute of Religious History, from 1976 to 1985. He founded Sweden’s first tofu manufacturing plant in 1980 and Northern Europe’s first non-dairy soy-based frozen dessert in 1988. Ted moved his Swedish family, his wife Anne-Marie and their three children, to Sonoma, CA in 1994. He continues to work developing non-dairy yogurts.

No reference materials are necessary for these classes.

You are Invited to a Special Presentation

by Pradip Kumar Das

Saturday, July 29, 2017 at 3:00 pm

Cultural Integration Fellowship

2650 Fulton Street, San Francisco, CA 94118

Ragamala paintings are pages from a garland (mala) of visual melodies (ragas). Many centuries before the Islamic invasions of India, perhaps as early as the third century, or even earlier, there existed short poetical descriptions of ragas, usually in the form of brief prayer verses. Although these verses did not indicate pictorial representations of the ragas they show the trend towards musical/poetical/pictorial associations. The paintings are suggestive of the time of day, season and a variety of moods. The presentation will outline the origin, symbolism and representation of Ragamala Paintings, its development as a function of environment and interpretation and resultant impact on culture.

Pradip Kumar Das graduated with Honours in History from the Presidency College Calcutta and the London School of Economics and Political Science, University of London. After a career in the corporate sector in India, he now devotes his time to Indian Classical Music, Research and Writing. His published works include “An Introduction to Classical Hindustani Music,” “A Scent of Clover” a collection of his own memoirs, “A History of the Tollygunge Club since 1895” co-authored with his wife, Dr. Amita Das and “Colonial Calcutta-Religious Architecture as a Mirror of Empire.”

Welcome Reception to Follow

Please rsvp to Rita Pease or Sandy Kepler at 415.668.1559 or culturalfellowship@sbcglobal.net

Please join us for this celebration in honor of Rabindranath Tagore (7 May 1861–7 August 1941), poet, novelist, musician, painter, playwright and philosopher who reshaped Bengali literature and music. Tagore was the first non-European to be awarded the Nobel Prize. His profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse was viewed as spiritual, and he became the voice of India’s spiritual heritage. His songs, popularly known as Rabindrasangeet, have an eternal appeal and are permanently placed in the heart of the Bengalis. Tagore was a social reformer, patriot and above all, a great humanitarian and philosopher. The national anthems of both India and Bangladesh are taken from his composition.

Our singers this morning are Sonali Bhattacharya, Aditya Das, Ashidhara Das, and Shyamoshree Gupta Diamond, with Anoop Bhattacharjya on tabla. All are outstanding artistes who have received praise and recognition for their performances and concerts both in India and in the United States.

Celebration in honor of Swami Vivekananda, with Bay Area Gitanjali artistes Sonali Bhattacharya, Aditya Das, Ashidhara Das, Shyamoshree Gupta Diamond, and Anoop Bhattacharjya

This program celebrates the life and times of Swami Vivekananda (Narendranath Datta) (1863-1902) commemorating the Anniversary of his birth. Regarded as India’s first great spiritual ambassador to the West, Swami Vivekananda is perhaps best known for his inspiring speech which began, “Sisters and brothers of America …” delivered at the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago in 1893.

We have selected Songs, Shlokas and Bhajans reflecting the philosophy of Swami Vivekananda, generating a secular social order through Religious and Ethnic Pluralism that would transcend differences of caste and creed and result in a unique place for India in the World.

Our singers this morning are Sonali Bhattacharya, Aditya Das, Ashidhara Das, and Shyamoshree Gupta Diamond, with Anoop Bhattacharjya on tabla. All are outstanding artistes who have received praise and recognition for their performances and concerts both in India and in the United States.

The question of guidance is a major issue in contemporary yoga practice. The mainstream of yoga culture seems to favor living gurus. In Sri Aurobindo’s own life, there developed a mythos of God-guru around him and the Mother; and after their passing, their followers normatively consider them as immortal beings who continue to guide them. We ask if there are other forms of guidance available to those interested in the Integral yoga. Or is it necessary to join an initiatic circle marked by the acceptance of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother as God-gurus? Should we look rather at the text of their words, the Shastra, to derive a compass for travelling the vast terrains of their thought? What are the advantages and dangers of such compasses? Finally, we consider the praxis of intuition, the purificatory path to the Daemon of Socrates and a reciprocal relationship with the integral consciousness, which is the vanishing point of all perspectivism.

Debashish Banerji is the Haridas Chaudhuri Professor of Indian Philosophy and Culture and the Doshi Professor of Asian Art at the California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco; PhD Indian Art History, University of California, Los Angeles; MA Computer Science, University of Louisville, KY; BA English Literature, Elphinstone College, Bombay University. Since the 1970s, Banerji has been a student of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother’s teaching.

It is with great sadness we announce the passing of Dilip Basu, Research Professor of Humanities, Founding Director of Satyajit Ray Film and Study Collection, University of California Santa Cruz, and since June 2015, Senior Research Fellow, Packard Humanities Institute, Santa Clarita, California. He passed away peacefully of natural causes on February 22, 2016 in Santa Clarita, California.

Dilip was born on August 16, 1938 in Chirirbandar, a village in East Bengal, India prior to the 1947 partition of the subcontinent. The seventh of eleven children (with four brothers and six sisters), he acquired a love of history while a student at the village school. After the partition of India in 1947 and their migration to Calcutta, the Basus became bona fide refugees. For a period the family was scattered, the parents moving away from Calcutta while the elder children remained in the city to attend college.

Dilip attended high school and college in Calcutta, in the process falling in love with modern Bengali poetry, then in a state of resurgence after the partition. However soon after beginning his studies at Presidency College he became seriously ill from malnutrition. As a result his parents had to return to the city, barely managing to stay together, in order to care for him. After his recovery, Dilip completed his B.A. in 1959 from Presidency College, garnering gold medals for excellence in History and in his subsequent M.A. History degree.

This academic success allowed him scholarships that brought him to the U.S. to undertake graduate study in history, in the process becoming interested in the history of modern China. He received an M.A. from Harvard University in Chinese history and began to map out his dissertation topic. He did his doctoral studies at the University of California at Berkeley under Professor Frederick Wakeman. In 1974 he completed his dissertation on “Asian Merchants and Western Trade: A Comparative Study of Calcutta and Canton, 1800-1840.” In this phase of his career, his work was focused primarily on the history of modern China and its relations with British colonial India. Dilip Basu had by this time, in 1971, joined the faculty at the University of California at Santa Cruz as Acting Assistant Professor of History, after stints as a visiting instructor at UC Berkeley and the University of Michigan.

Initially named a Fellow of Stevenson College, Basu joined Herman Blake in the founding of Oakes College in 1972. In 1989 he became a Fellow of Merrill College. In this first phase of his academic career he taught and wrote primarily about European imperialism in East Asia. He chaired the Programs on East Asian Studies and South and Southeast Asian Studies. Publications from this period include the edited volumes Nineteenth Century China: Five Imperialist Perspectives (1972) and The Rise and Growth of Colonial Port Cities in Asia (1985). He recently returned to this subject in a widely praised article, “Chinese Xenology and the Opium War: Reflections on Sinocentrism,” The Journal of Asian Studies, (2014) Vol. 73, 927-940.

By the 1990s Dilip’s research and teaching interests gradually returned to South Asian history, initiating a second phase of his career, one in which he would invest his energies in developing a South Asian Studies program at UCSC. He reworked his South Asian courses to incorporate new cultural approaches, including dance, music, folklore and film. In this period he also helped establish the Ali Akbar Khan Endowment in Classical Indian Music and the Hasan Endowed Chair in Hindustani Music at UC Santa Cruz.

Eventually his fascination with the history of Indian film would lead him to the third and most significant phase of his career, his involvement with the films of Satyajit Ray, the great Indian filmmaker and director. In this period, Dilip’s research and writing focused upon the Cinema of Satyajit Ray and works of Rabindranath Tagore. His translation of Tagore’s famous novel, The Last Poem: A Novel, was published in 2011 by Harper Perennial in India, where it is a best seller. Another book, Satyajit Ray’s Goddess: From Story to Film, is scheduled for publication this year by the Packard Humanities Institute.

Basu’s establishment of the Satyajit Ray Film and Study Center at UC Santa Cruz ranks as his most important accomplishment. Funded by grants from the Packard Humanities Institute, the Ray FASC (http://satyajitray.ucsc.edu) became internationally famous as the principal archive for the work of this master of Indian film.

Among many awards he received in this period, Basu was honored by the Academy of Motions Pictures Arts & Sciences and the Cultural Council of Bengal of New York. In September 2014, the Academy Film Archive in Los Angeles felicitated Dilip for his coordination of the Ray film restoration. He was also the recipient of a major grant from the Indian Council of Cultural Relations in New Delhi for the operations of the Ray Center and for hosting major cultural events and lectures.

In 2013 the Dean of the Humanities Division appointed him a Research Professor of Humanities Division. In 2015, he was named Steward of the Satyajit Ray Film and Study Collection, defined as part of his own research and took up an appointment as Senior Research Fellow at the Packard Humanities Institute in Santa Clarita.

Dilip leaves behind his wife, Dayani Basu and a daughter, Amiya Basu Jackling, from an earlier marriage to Cathy Shender. Other relatives include Chris Jackling; a younger brother, Asish Basu who followed him to the US; his nephews, Rishi Basu and Neil Basu; a stepdaughter Pallavi Sonia Rao and two step-grandchildren; and four surviving siblings, and their children and grandchildren in India. In addition to his family, he leaves behind numerous close friends and admirers in the US, and in India.

A memorial celebration of his life was held at the Cultural Integration Fellowship (CIF) 2650 Fulton Street, San Francisco, CA 94118 at 4 PM May 29, 2016. Condolences may be sent to Mrs. Dayani Basu (c/o The PHI Stoa 26155 Rockwell Canyon Road, Santa Clarita, CA 91355) or to Mr. Asish Basu (328 Troy Road, Rochester, NY 14618). In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in Dilip Basu’s name to the Cultural Integration Fellowship.