INSERT INTO `wp_posts` VALUES (1499,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:36','2021-11-23 17:21:36','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2 Final//EN\">\r\n<html>\r\n<head>\r\n<title>14 vive.htm</title>\r\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html;charset=windows-1252\">\r\n</head>\r\n<body>\r\n\r\n<table border=\"0\" width=\"100%\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\">\r\n	<tr>\r\n		<td>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\n		<b>\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>Vivekananda</i></font></b></p>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">A PERSONAL reminiscence. A young man in prison, accused&nbsp;\r\nof conspiracy and waging war against the British Empire. If\r\nconvicted he might have to suffer the extreme penalty, at least,\r\ntransportation to the Andamans. The case is dragging on for\r\nlong months. And the young man is in a\' solitary cell. He\r\ncannot always keep up his spirits high. Moments of sadness\r\nand gloom and despair come and almost overwhelm him. Who&nbsp;\r\nwas there to console and cheer him up ? Vivekananda. Vivekananda\'s speeches, <i>From Colombo to Almora,</i> came, as a\r\ngodsend, into the hands of the young man. Invariably, when\r\nthe period of despondency came he used to open the book,\r\nread a few pages, read them over again, and the cloud was\r\nthere no longer. Instead there was hope and courage and\r\nfaith and future and light and air.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Such is Vivekananda, the embodiment of Fearlessness—\r\n<i>abhih,</i> the Upanishadic word, the <i>mantra,</i> he was so fond of.\r\nThe life and vision of Vivekananda can be indeed summed up\r\nin the mighty phrase of the Upanishads, <i>nayam atma balahinena\r\nlabhyah.</i> \'This soul no weakling can attain. Strength! More\r\nstrength! Strength evermore! One remembers the motto of Danton, the famous leader in the French Revolution: <i>De\r\nI\'audace, encore de I\'audace, toujours de I\'audace!</i></font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The gospel, of strength that Vivekananda spread was very\r\ncharacteristic of the man. For it is not mere physical or nervous\r\nbravery, although that too is indispensable, and it is something\r\nmore than moral courage. In the speeches referred to, the\r\nsubject-matter (as well as the manner to a large extent) is\r\nphilosophical, metaphysical, even abstract in outlook and\r\ntreatment: they are not a call to arms, like the French National\r\nAnthem, for example; they are not merely an ethical exhortation, </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 124<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">a moral lesson either. They speak of the inner spirit, the\r\ndivine in man, the supreme realities that lie beyond. And yet\r\nthe words are permeated through and through with a vibration\r\nlife-giving and heroic—not so much in the explicit and apparent\r\nmeaning as in the style and manner and atmosphere: it is\r\ncatching, even or precisely when he refers, for example, to\r\nthese passages in the Vedas and the Upanishads, magnificent\r\nin their poetic beauty, sublime in their spiritual truth, <i>nee plus\r\nultra,</i> one can say, in the grand style supreme:</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Yasyaite himavanto mahitva\r\n</i></font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<i><font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </font></i>\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">He whose greatness these snowy ranges declare</font>&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<font face=\"Times New Roman\">or<b>,</b></font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Na tatra suryo bhati na candratarakam....</i></font><p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<i><font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </font></i>\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>&nbsp;</i>There the sun shines not, nor the moon nor the stars</font><p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp; or again,</font>&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>Nasad asit na sad asit tadanim:</i></font>&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>nasit rajo no vyoma paro&nbsp; yat....</i></font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Then existence was not nor non-existence, the mid- world was not nor the Ether nor what is beyond.</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The consciousness that breathed out these mighty words,\r\nthese heavenly sounds was in itself mighty and heavenly and\r\nit is that that touches you, penetrates you, vibrates in you a\r\nkindred chord, &quot;awakening in you someone dead&quot; till then— <i>mrtam kancana bodhayanti,</i> More than the matter, the thing that\r\nwas said, was the personality, the being who embodied the\r\ntruth expressed, the living consciousness behind the words\r\nand the speech that set fire to your soul. Indeed it was the\r\nsoul that Vivekananda could awaken and stir in you. Any\r\norator, any speaker with some kind of belief, even if it is for\r\nthe moment, in what he says, by the sheer force of assertion,\r\ncan convince your mind and draw your acquiescence and\r\nadhesion. A leader of men, self-confident and bold and fiery,</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 125<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">can carry you off your feet and make you do brave things.\r\nBut that is a lower degree of character and nature, ephemeral\r\nand superficial, that is touched in you thereby. The spiritual\r\nleader, the Guide, goes straight to the spirit in you—it is the\r\ncall of the deep unto the deep. That was what Vivekananda\r\nmeant when he said that Brahman is asleep in you, awaken it,\r\nyou are the Brahman, awaken it, you are free and almighty.\r\nIt is the spirit consciousness—Sachchidananda—that is the\r\nreal man in you and that is supremely mighty and invincible\r\nand free absolutely. The courage and fearlessness that Vivekananda gave you was the natural attribute of the lordship of\r\nyour spiritual reality. Vivekananda spoke and roused the\r\nAtman in man.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Vivekananda spoke to the Atman in man, he spoke to the\r\nAtman of the world, and he spoke specially to the Atman of\r\nIndia. India had a large place in Vivekananda\'s consciousness:</font>\r\n\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">for the future of humanity and the world is wedded to India\'s\r\nfuture. India has a great mission, it has a spiritual, rather <i>the\r\n</i>spiritual work to do. Here is India\'s work as Vivekananda\r\nconceived it in a nutshell:</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &quot;Shall India die? Then from the world all spirituality will\r\nbe extinct.&quot; And wherefore is this call for the life spiritual?\r\nThus the aspiring soul would answer:</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &quot;If I do not find bliss in the life of the spirit, shall I seek\r\nsatisfaction in the life of the senses? If I cannot get nectar,\r\nshall I, fall back upon ditch water?&quot;</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The answer is as old as that of Nachiketas: &quot;These horses\r\nand these songs and dances of yours, let them remain yours,\r\nman is not appeased with riches&quot;; or that of Maitreyi, &quot;What\r\nam I to do with that which will not bring me immortality?&quot;\r\nThis is then man\'s mission upon earth:</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &quot;Man is higher than all animals, than all angels: none is\r\ngreater than man. Even the Devas will have to come down\r\nagain and attain to salvation though a human body. Man\r\nalone attains to perfection, not even the Devas.&quot; Indeed, men\r\nare gods upon earth, come down here below to perfect themselves and perfect the world—only, they have to be conscious\r\nof themselves. They do not know what they are, they have to\r\nbe actually and sovereignly what they are really and potentially. This then is the life-work of everyone:</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 126<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &quot;First, let us be Gods, and then help others to be Gods. Be and make\', let this be our motto.&quot;</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; That is indeed the only way of securing a harmonious and\r\nperfected humanity:</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &quot;Manifest the divinity within you, and everything will be\r\nharmoniously arranged around it.&quot;</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The path to this higher harmonious divine life is that of\r\nhard labour, of scrupulously untiring, conscientious work:</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &quot;It is struggle against nature and not conformity to nature\r\nthat makes man what he is.&quot;</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Work and not abstention from work is the way, but not\r\nwork for ignorant enjoyment:</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &quot;The dwelling-place of the Jivatman, this body, is a veritable means of work, and he who converts this into an infernal\r\nden is guilty, and he who neglects it is also to blame.\'\'</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &quot;No work is petty.... He who can property prepare a\r\n<i>chilam</i> (pipe of tobacco) can also properly meditate.&quot;</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; These are luminous life-giving mantras and the world and\r\nhumanity of today, sore distressed and utterly confounded,\r\nhave great need of them to live them by and be saved.</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">Page 127</p>\r\n		<hr>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"right\"><b><font size=\"2\"><a href=\"-00_Contents\">\r\n			<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">HOME</span></a></font></b></p></td>\r\n	</tr>\r\n	</table>\r\n</body>\r\n</html>','-16_Vivekananda','','publish','closed','open','','16_vivekananda','','','2021-11-23 17:21:36','2021-11-23 17:21:36','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/16_vivekananda/',0,'post','',0),(1500,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:37','2021-11-23 17:21:37','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2 Final//EN\">\r\n<html>\r\n<head>\r\n<title>33 the appo.htm</title>\r\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html;charset=windows-1252\">\r\n</head>\r\n<body>\r\n\r\n\r\n<table border=\"0\" width=\"100%\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\">\r\n	<tr>\r\n		<td>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\n		<b><font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>The Approach to Mysticism</i> </font>\r\n		</b></p>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">MYSTICISM is not only a science but also, and in a greater\r\ndegree, an art. To approach it merely as a science, as the\r\nmodern mind attempts to do, is to move towards futility, if\r\nnot to land in positive disaster. Sufficient stress is not laid on\r\nthis aspect of the matter, although the very crux of the situation lies here. The mystic domain has to be apprehended not\r\nmerely by the true mind and understanding but by the right\r\ntemperament and character. Mysticism is not merely an\r\nobject of knowledge, a problem for inquiry and solution, it is\r\nan end, an ideal that has to be achieved, a life that has to be\r\nlived. The mystics themselves have declared long ago with no\r\nuncertain or faltering voice: this cannot be attained by intelligence or much learning, it can be seized only by a purified\r\nand clear temperament.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The warning seems to have fallen, in the modern age, on\r\nunheeding ears. For the modern mind, being pre-eminently\r\nand uncompromisingly scientific, can entertain no doubt as\r\nto the perfect competency of science and the scientific method\r\nto seize and unveil any secret of Nature. If, it is argued,\r\nmysticism <i>is</i> a secret, if there is at all a truth and reality\r\nin it, then it is and must be amenable to the rules and\r\nregulations of science; for science is the revealer of Nature\'s\r\nsecrecies.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; But what is not recognised \r\nin this view of things is that there are secrecies and secrecies. The material \r\nsecrecies o f Nature are of one category, the mystic secrecies are of another. \r\nThe o are not only disparate but incommensurable. Any man with a mind and understanding of average culture can see and handle the \'scientific\' forces, but not the mystic forces. A</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 287<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">scientist once thought that he had clinched the issue and cut\r\nthe Gordian knot when he declared triumphantly with reference to spirit seances: \r\n&quot;Very significant is the fact that spirits appear only in closed chambers, in \r\nhalf obscurity, to somnolent minds; they are nowhere in the open air, in broad \r\ndaylight to the wide awake and vigilant intellect!&quot; Well, if the fact is as it \r\nis stated, what does it prove ? Night alone reveals the stars, during the day \r\nthey vanish, but that is no proof that stars are not existent. Rather the true \r\nscientific spirit should seek to know why (or how) it is so, if it is so, and \r\nsuch a fact would exactly serve as a pointer, a significant starting ground. The attitude of the jesting Pilate is not helpful\r\neven to scientific inquiry. This matter of the Spirits we have\r\ntaken only as an illustration and it must not be understood\r\nthat this is a domain of high mysticism; rather the contrary.\r\nThe spiritualists approach to Mysticism is not the right one\r\nand is fraught with not only errors but dangers. For the spiritualists approach their subject with the entire scientific apparatus—the only difference being that the scientist does not\r\nbelieve while the spiritualist believes.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Mystic realities cannot be reached by the \r\nscientific consciousness, because they are far more subtle than the subtlest\r\nobject that science can contemplate. The neutrons and positrons are for science today the finest and profoundest object-forces; they belong, it is said, almost to a borderland where\r\nphysics ends. Nor for that reason is a mystic reality something\r\nlike a mathematical abstraction, &#8730;-n for example. The mystic\r\nreality is subtler than the subtlest of physical things and yet,\r\nparadoxical to say, more concrete than the most concrete\r\nthing that the senses apprehend.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Furthermore, being so, the mystic domain is of infinitely\r\ngreater potency than the domain of intra-atomic forces. If one\r\ncomes, all on a sudden, into contact with a force here without\r\nthe necessary preparation to hold and handle it, he may get\r\nseriously bruised, morally and physically. The adventure into\r\nthe mystic domain has its own toll of casualties—one can lose the mind, one can \r\nlose one\'s body even and it is a very common experience among those who have tried the path. It is<br>\r\nnot in vain and merely as a poetic metaphor that the ancient\r\nseers have said</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 288<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<i>\r\n<font face=\"Arial\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</font><font face=\"Times New Roman\"> Ksurasya dhara nisita duratyqya<sup>1</sup></font></i><p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<i><font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\r\n</font></i><font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>&nbsp;nayamatma balahinena labhyah<sup>2</sup></i><sup>\r\n</sup> </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The mystic forces are not only of immense potency but of a\r\ndefinite moral disposition and character, that is to say, they\r\nare of immense potency either for good or for evil. They are\r\nnot mechanical and <i>amoral</i> forces like those that physical\r\nsciences deal with; they are forces of consciousness and\r\nthey are conscious forces, they act with an aim and a purpose.\r\nThe mystic forces are forces either of light or of darkness,\r\neither Divine or Titanic. And it is most often the powers\r\nof darkness that the naturally ignorant consciousness of man\r\ncontacts when it seeks to cross the borderline without training or guidance, by the sheer arrogant self-sufficiency of mental\r\nscientific reason.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Ignorance, certainly, is not man\'s ideal condition—it leads\r\nto death and dissolution. But knowledge also can be equally\r\ndisastrous if it is not of the right kind. The knowledge that is\r\nborn of spiritual disobedience, inspired by the Dark ones, leads\r\nto the soul\'s fall and its calvary through pain and suffering on\r\nearth. The seeker of true enlightenment has got to make a distinction, learn to separate the true and the right from the false\r\nand the wrong, unmask the luring <i>Mara,</i> say clearly and unfalteringly to the dark light of Lucifer—<i>apage Satana,</i> if he is to\r\ncome out into the true light and command the right forces. The\r\nsearch for knowledge alone, knowledge for the sake of knowledge, the path of pure scientific inquiry and inquisitiveness,\r\nin relation to the mystic world, is a dangerous thing. For such\r\na spirit serves only to encourage and enhance man\'s arrogance\r\nand in the end not only limits but warps and falsifies the knowledge itself. A knowledge based on and secured exclusively\r\nthrough the reason and mental light can go only so far as that\r\nfaculty can be reasonably stretched and not infinitely—to\r\nstretch it to infinity means to snap it. This is the warning that\r\nYajnavalkya gave to Gargi when the latter started renewing\r\nher question <i>ad infinitum.</i> Yajnavalkya said, &quot;If you do not\r\nstop, your head will fall off.&quot;</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; text-indent:25px\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">1 &quot;Sharp as a razor\'s edge, difficult of going, hard to traverse is that path!&quot;</font><font size=\"2\">\r\n</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; text-indent:25px\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">2 &quot;This spirit is a thing no weakling can gain.&quot;</font><font size=\"2\">\r\n</font><p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 289<hr>\r\n\r\n		<p align=center style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<b>\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">II</font></b>\r\n\r\n		<p align=center style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The mystic truth has to be approached through the heart.\r\n&quot;In the heart is established the Truth,&quot; says the Upanishad:</font>\r\n\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">it is there that is seated eternally the soul, the real being, who\r\nappears no bigger than the thumb. Even if the mind is utilised\r\nas an instrument of knowledge, the heart must be there behind\r\nas the guide and inspiration. It is precisely because, as I have\r\njust mentioned, Gargi sought to shoot up—like &quot;vaulting ambition that o\'erleaps itself&quot; of which Shakespeare speaks—through\r\nthe mind alone to the highest truth that Yajriavalkya had to\r\npull her up and give the warning that she risked losing her<br>\r\nhead if she persisted in her questioning endlessly.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; For true knowledge comes of, and means, identity of being.\r\nAll other knowledge may be an apprehension of things but not\r\ncomprehension. In the former, the knower stands apart from\r\nthe object and so can envisage only the outskirts, the contour,\r\nthe surface nature; the mind is capable of this alone. But\r\ncomprehension means an embracing and penetration which\r\nis possible when the knower identifies himself with the object.\r\nAnd when we are so identified we not merely know the object,\r\nbut becoming it in our consciousness, we love it and live it.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The mystic\'s knowledge is a part and a formation of his life.\r\nThat is why it is a knowledge not abstract and remote but\r\nliving and intimate and concrete. It is a knowledge that pulsates\r\nwith delight: indeed it is the radiance that is shed by the purest\r\nand intensest joy. For this reason it may be that in approaching\r\nthrough the heart there is a chance of one\'s getting arrested\r\nthere and not caring for the still higher, the solar lights; but\r\nthis need not be so. In the heart there is a golden door leading to the deepest \r\ndelights, but there is also a diamond door opening up into the skies of the brightest luminosities.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; For it must be understood that the heart, the mystic heart,\r\nis not the external thing which is the seat of emotion or passion;</font>\r\n\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">it is the secret heart that is behind, the inner heart—<i>antarhrdaya\r\n</i>of the Upanishad—which is the centre of the individual consciousness, where all the divergent lines of that consciousness\r\nmeet and from where they take their rise. That is what the\r\nUpanishad means when it says that the heart has a hundred\r\nchannels which feed the human vehicle. That is the source, the</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 290<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">fount and origin, the very substance of the true personality.\r\nMystic knowledge—the true mystic knowledge which saves and\r\nfulfils—begins with the awakening or the entrance into this\r\nreal being. This being is pure and luminous and blissful and\r\nsovereignly real, because it is a portion, a spark of the Divine\r\nConsciousness and Nature: a contact and communion with it\r\nbrings automatically into play the light and the truth that are\r\nits substance. At the same time it is an uprising flame that reaches out naturally to higher domains of consciousness and\r\nmanifests -them through .its translucid dynamism.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The knowledge that is obtained without the heart\'s instrumentation or co-operation is liable to be what the Gita \r\ndescribes as Asuric. First of all, from the point of view of knowledge itself, it would be, as I have already said, egocentric, a\r\nproduct and agent of one\'s limited and isolated self, easily\r\nput at the service of desire and passion. This knowledge,\r\nwhether rationalistic or occult, is, as it were, hard and dry\r\nin its constitution, and oftener than not, negative and destructive—withering and blasting in its career like the desert\r\nsimoom.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; There are modes of knowledge that are occult—and to that\r\nextent mystic—and can be mastered by practices in which the\r\nheart has no share. But they have not the saving grace that\r\ncomes by the touch of the Divine. They are not truly mystic—the truly mystic belongs to the ultimate realities, the deepest\r\nand the highest,—they, on the other hand, are transverse and\r\ntangential movements belonging to an intermediate region\r\nwhere light and obscurity are mixed up and even for the greater\r\npart the light is swallowed up in the obscurity or utilised by it.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The mystic\'s knowledge and experience is not only true and\r\nreal: it is delightful and blissful. It has a supremely healing\r\nvirtue. It brings a sovereign freedom and ease and peace to the\r\nmystic himself, but also to those around him, who come in\r\ncontact with him. For truth and reality are made up of love\r\nand harmony, because truth is, in its essence, unity.</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">Page 291</p>\r\n		<hr>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\" align=\"right\"><b><font size=\"2\"><a href=\"-00_Contents\">\r\n			<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">HOME</span></a></font></b></td>\r\n	</tr>\r\n	</table>\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;\r\n</body>\r\n</html>','-44_The Approach to Mysticism','','publish','closed','open','','44_the-approach-to-mysticism','','','2021-11-23 17:21:37','2021-11-23 17:21:37','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/44_the-approach-to-mysticism/',0,'post','',0),(1501,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:37','2021-11-23 17:21:37','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2 Final//EN\">\r\n<html>\r\n<head>\r\n<title>38 a v c.htm</title>\r\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html;charset=windows-1252\">\r\n</head>\r\n<body>\r\n\r\n<table border=\"0\" width=\"100%\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\">\r\n	<tr>\r\n		<td>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\n		<b><i>A. Vedic Conception of the Poet</i> </b></p>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>\'Kavi\'</i> is an invariable epithet of the gods. The Vedas mean by\r\nthis attribute to bring out a most fundamental character, an\r\ninalienable <i>dharma</i> of the heavenly host. All the gods are poets;</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">and a human being can become a poet only in so far as he\r\nattains to the nature and status of a god.. Who is then a <i>kavi?\r\n</i>The Poet is he who by his poetic power raises forms of beauty\r\nin heaven—<i>kavih kavitva divi rupam asajat.<sup>1</sup></i> Thus the essence of\r\npoetic power is to fashion divine Beauty, to reveal heavenly\r\nforms. What is this Heaven whose forms the Poet discovers and\r\nembodies? Heaven—Dyaus—has a very definite connotation\r\nin the Veda. It means the luminous or divine Mind<sup>2</sup>—the\r\nmind purified of its obscurity and limitations, due to subjection to the \r\nexternal senses, thus opening to the higher Light, receiving and recording \r\nfaithfully the deeper and vaster movements and vibrations of the Truth, giving them a form, a\r\nperfect body of the right thought and the right word. Indra\r\nis the lord of this world and he can be approached only with\r\nan enkindled intelligence, <i>didhaya manlsa,<sup>3</sup></i> a faultless understanding, <i>sumedha.<sup>3</sup></i> He is the supreme Artisan of the poetic\r\npower, <i>Tashta4,</i> the maker of perfect forms, <i>surupa krtnum.*</i> All\r\nthe gods turn towards Indra and become gods and poets,\r\nattain their Great Names of Supreme Beauty.<sup>5</sup> Indra is also\r\nthe master of the senses, <i>indnyas,</i> who are his hosts. It is through\r\nthis mind and the senses that the poetic creation has to be\r\nmanifested. The mind spreads out wide the Poet\'s weaving;<sup>6</sup></font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i><font size=\"2\">Rig Veda, X. 124. 7.</font></i></font><font size=\"2\">\r\n</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i><font size=\"2\">1The Secret of the Veda,</font></i><font size=\"2\"> by Sri Aurobindo.<br>\r\n3 <i>Rig Veda, III. 38. 1.<br>\r\n</i>3 <i>Ibid., I. 4. 1.<br>\r\n</i>4 <i>Ibid., III. 54. 17.<br>\r\n5Ibid., X. S. 3.</i></font></font><font size=\"2\"> </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 335<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">the poet is the priest who calls down and works out the right\r\nthinking in the sacrificial labour of creation,<sup>1</sup> But that creation\r\nis made in and through the inner mind and the inner senses\r\nthat are alive to the subtle formation of a vaster knowledge.<sup>2</sup>\r\nThe poet envisages the golden, forms fashioned out of the very profundity of the \r\nconsciousness.<sup>3</sup> For the substance, the material on which the Poet works, is Truth. The seat of the Truth\r\nthe poets guard, they uphold the supreme secret Names.<sup>4</sup> The\r\npoet has the expressive utterance, the creative word; the poet\r\nis a poet by his poetic creation—the shape faultlessly wrought\r\nout that unveils and holds the Truth.<sup>5</sup> The form of beauty is\r\nthe body of the Truth.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The poet is a trinity in himself. A triune consciousness\r\nforms his personality. First of all, he is the Knower—the Seer\r\nof the Truth, <i>kavayah satyadrastarah.</i> He has the direct vision,\r\nthe luminous intelligence, the immediate perception.<sup>6</sup> A\r\nsubtle and profound and penetrating consciousness is his, <i>ninyam, pracetas;</i> his is the eye of the Sun, <i>surya caksuh.<sup>7</sup></i> He\r\nsecures an increased being through his effulgent understanding.<sup>8</sup> In the second place, the Poet is not only Seer but Doer;</font>&nbsp;\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">he is knower as well as creator. He has a dynamic knowledge\r\nand his vision itself is power, <i>nrcaksah;<sup>9</sup></i> he is the Seer-Will, <i>kavikratuh.<sup>10</sup></i> He has the blazing radiance of the Sun and is\r\nsupremely potent in his self-luminousness.<sup>11</sup> The Sun is the light\r\nand the energy of the Truth. Even like the Sun the Poet gives\r\nbirth to the Truth, <i>surya satyasava, satyaya satyaprasavaya.</i> But\r\nthe Poet as Power is not only the revealer or creator, <i>savita,</i> he\r\nis also the builder or fashioner, <i>tasta,</i> and he is the organiser, <i>vedhah,</i> of the Truth.<sup>12</sup> As Savita he manifests the Truth, as Tashta he gives a perfected body and form to the Truth, and<br>\r\nas Vedha he maintains the Truth in its dynamic working. The</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">1 <i>Ibid. I. 151. 7.</i></font><font size=\"2\">\r\n</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">2 <i>Ibid. IV. 16. 3.</i></font><font size=\"2\">\r\n</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">3 <i>Ibid. VIII. 8. 2.</i></font><font size=\"2\">\r\n</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">4 <i>Ibid. X. S. 2.</i></font><font size=\"2\">\r\n</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">« <i>Ibid. IX. 96. 17;</i></font><font size=\"2\">\r\n</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i><font size=\"2\">\'Ibid. I. 71. 10; kavmi ketim-VH. 6. 2.</font></i></font><font size=\"2\">\r\n</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">7 <i>Ibid. IX. 10. 8-9.</i></font><font size=\"2\">\r\n</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">« <i>Rig., Veda, VIII. 44.12.</i></font><font size=\"2\">\r\n</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i><font size=\"2\">&quot;Ibid. III. 54. 6.<br>\r\nu Ibid. I. I. 5.<br>\r\n</font>\r\n</i><font size=\"2\">» <i>Ibid. VII. 59. 11.<br>\r\n</i>u <i>Ibid. V. 52. 13.</i></font></font><font size=\"2\"> </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 336<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">effective marshalling and organisation of the Truth is what is\r\ncalled Ritam, the Right; it is also called Dharma,<sup>1</sup> the Law or\r\nthe Rhythm, the ordered movement and invincible execution\r\nof the Truth. The Poet pursues the Path of the Right;<sup>2</sup> it is he\r\nwho lays out the Path for the march of the Truth, the progress\r\nof the Sacrifice.<sup>3</sup> He is like a fast steed well-yoked, pressing\r\nforward;<sup>4</sup> he is the charger that moves straight and unswerving\r\nand carries us beyond<sup>5</sup>—into the world of felicity.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Indeed delight is the third and the supremely intimate element of the poetic personality. Dear and delightful is the poet,\r\ndear and delightful his works, <i>priya, priyani.</i> His hand is dripping with sweetness, <i>kavir hi madhuhastyah.<sup>6</sup></i> The Poet-God\r\nshines in his pristine beauty and is showering delight.<sup>7</sup> He is\r\nfilled with utter ecstasy so that he may rise to the very source\r\nof the luminous Energy.<sup>8</sup>? Pure is the Divine Joy and it enters\r\nand purifies all forms as it moves to the seat of the Immortals.<sup>9</sup>\r\nIndeed this sparkling Delight is the Poet-Seer and it is that\r\nthat brings forth the creative word, the utterance of Indra.<sup>10</sup></font><sup>\r\n</sup>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The solar vision of the Poet encompasses in its might the\r\nwide Earth and Heaven, fuses them in supreme Delight in the\r\nwomb of the Truth.11 The Earth is lifted up and given marriage\r\nto Heaven in the home of Truth, for the creation and expression of the Truth in its varied beauty, <i>\r\ncaru citram.</i></font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The Poet creates forms of beauty in Heaven; but these\r\nforms are not made out of the void. It is the Earth that is raised\r\nto Heaven and transmuted into divine truthforms. The union\r\nof Earth and Heaven is the source of the Joy, the Ananda, that\r\nthe Poet unseals and distributes. Heaven and Earth join and\r\nmeet in the world of Delight; between them they press out\r\nSoma, the drink of the gods.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The Mind and the Body are held together by means of the\r\nLife, the mid-world. The Divine Mind by raising the body-</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<i><font size=\"2\">1 Ibid., III. 38. 2.</font></i><font size=\"2\"> </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\">2 <i>Ibid., VIII. 8. 23.</i>\r\n\r\n</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\">3<i>Taittiriya Samhita,<b> </b> III. 5S. 3.</i>\r\n\r\n</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\">4<b> </b> <i>Rig Veda,<b> </b> III<b>.</b> 38. 1.</i>\r\n\r\n</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\">5 <i>Ibid., IV. 16. 11.</i>\r\n\r\n</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<i><font size=\"2\">&nbsp;6Ibid., V. 5. 2.</font></i><font size=\"2\"> </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<i><font size=\"2\">&nbsp; 7 Ibid., IX. 25. 2.</font></i><font size=\"2\"> </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<i><font size=\"2\">&nbsp; 8 Ibid., IX. 25. 6.</font></i><font size=\"2\"> </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<i><font size=\"2\">&nbsp;9 Ibid., IX. 25. 4.<br>\r\n</font>\r\n</i><font size=\"2\">10 <i>Ibid., IX. 25. 5.<br>\r\n</i>11 <i>Ibid: III. 54.6.</i>\r\n\r\n</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 337<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">consciousness into itself gathers up too, by that act, the delight\r\nof life and releases the fountain of immortal Bliss. That is the\r\nwork and achievement of the gods as poets.</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">Where then is the birth of the Poets ? Ask it of the Masters. The Poets have seized and mastered the Mind, they have\r\nthe perfect working and they fashion the Heaven.\r\nOn this Earth they hold everywhere in themselves all the\r\nsecrets. They make Earth and Heaven move together, so\r\nthat they may realise their heroic strength. They measure\r\nthem with their rhythmic measurings, they hold in their\r\ncontrolled grasp the vast and great twins, and unite them\r\nand establish between them the mid-world of Delight for\r\nthe perfect poise.<sup>1</sup></font><sup> </sup>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; All the gods are poets—their forms are perfect, <i>surupa,\r\nsudrsa,</i> their Names full of beauty, <i>cam devasya nama,<sup>2</sup></i> This\r\nmeans also that the gods embody the different powers that\r\nconstitute the poetic consciousness. Agni is the Seer-Will, the&nbsp;\r\ncreative vision of the Poet—the luminous energy born of an\r\nexperience by identity with the Truth. Indra is the Idea- Form, the \r\narchitectonic conception of the work or achievement. Mitra and Varuna are the large harmony, the vast\r\ncadence and sweep of movement. The Aswins, the Divine\r\nRiders, represent the intense zest of well-yoked Life-Energy.\r\nSoma is Rasa, Ananda, the Supreme Bliss and Delight.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The Vedic Poet is doubtless the poet of Life, the architect\r\nof Divinity in man, of Heaven upon earth. But what is true of\r\nLife is fundamentally true of Art too—at least true of the Art as it was \r\nconceived by the ancient seers and as it found expression at their hands.<sup>3</sup></font><sup>\r\n</sup>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<i><font size=\"2\">1 Rig Veda, 111. 38. 2. 3.</font></i><font size=\"2\"> </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\">2 <i>Ibid., 1. 24. I.</i> </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\">3 The Vedic term <i>Kavi</i> means literally \'a seer\', \'one who has the vision\', as the\r\nword \'poet\' means etymologically \'a doer\', \'a creator\'. I have combined the two\r\nsenses to equate the terms and bring out the meaning involved in their more\r\ncurrent acceptation. </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 338<hr>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\" align=\"right\"><b><font size=\"2\"><a href=\"-00_Contents\">\r\n			<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">HOME</span></a></font></b></td>\r\n	</tr>\r\n	</table>\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n</body>\r\n</html>','-49_A. Vedic Conception of the Poet','','publish','closed','open','','49_a-vedic-conception-of-the-poet','','','2021-11-23 17:21:37','2021-11-23 17:21:37','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/49_a-vedic-conception-of-the-poet/',0,'post','',0),(1502,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:37','2021-11-23 17:21:37','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2 Final//EN\">\r\n<html>\r\n<head>\r\n<title>8 the creative.htm</title>\r\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html;charset=windows-1252\">\r\n</head>\r\n<body>\r\n\r\n<table border=\"0\" width=\"100%\" cellpadding=\"6\">\r\n	<tr>\r\n		<td>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\n<b>\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>The Creative Soul</i> </font>\r\n\r\n		</b>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">THE difference between living organism and dead matter is\r\nthat while the former is endowed, with creative activity the\r\nlatter has only passive receptivity. Life adds, synthetises, new-\r\ncreates—gives more than what it receives; matter only sums up,\r\ngathers, reflects, gives just what it receives. Life is living, glad\r\nand green through its creative genius. Creation in some form or\r\nother must be the core of everything that seeks vitality and\r\ngrowth, vigour and delight. Not only so, but a thing in order to\r\nbe real must possess a creative function. We consider a shadow\r\nor an echo unreal precisely because they do not create but\r\nmerely image or repeat, they do not bring out anything new\r\nbut simply reflect what is given. The whole of existence is real\r\nbecause it is eternally creative.&nbsp; </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; So the problem that concerns man, the riddle that humanity\r\nhas to solve is how to find out and follow the path of creativity.\r\nIf we are not to be dead matter nor mere shadowy illusions we\r\nmust be creative. A misconception that has vitiated our outlook\r\nin general and has been the most potent cause of a sterilising\r\natavism in the moral evolution of humanity is that creativity is\r\nan aristocratic virtue, that it belongs only to the chosen few.\r\nA great poet or a mighty man of action creates indeed, but\r\nsuch a creator does not appear very frequently. A Shakespeare\r\nor a Napoleon is a rare phenomenon; they are, in reality, an\r\nexception to the general run of mankind. It is enough if we\r\nothers can understand and follow them—<i>Mahajano yena gatah—\r\n</i>let the great souls initiate and create, the common souls have\r\nonly to repeat and imitate. </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; But this is not as it should be, nor is it the truth of the matter.\r\nEvery individual soul, however placed it may be, is by nature creative; every individual being lives to discover and to create. </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 77<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">The inmost reality of man is not a passive receptacle, a mere\r\nresponsive medium but it is a dynamo—a power-station\r\ngenerating and throwing out energy that produces and\r\ncreates.&nbsp; </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Now the centre of this energy, the matrix of creativity is the\r\nsoul itself, one\'s own soul. If you want to create—live, grow and\r\nbe real—find yourself, be yourself. The simple old wisdom still\r\nremains the eternal wisdom. It is because we fall off from our\r\nsoul that we wander into side-paths, paths that do not belong<br>\r\nto our real nature and hence that lead to imitation and repetition, decay and death. This is what happens to what we call\r\ncommon souls. The force of circumstances, the pressure of environment or simply \r\nthe momentum of custom or habit compel them to choose the easiest and the readiest way that may lie\r\nbefore them. They do not consult the demand of the inner being\r\nbut the requirement of the moment. Our bodily needs, our\r\nvital hungers and our mental prejudices obsess and obscure the\r\nimpulsions that thrill the hidden spirit. We hasten to gratify\r\nthe immediate and forget the eternal, we clutch at the shadow\r\nand let go the substance. We are carried away in the flux and\r\ntumult of life. It is a mixed and collective whirl—a <i>Weltgeist\r\n</i>that moves and governs us. We are helpless straws drifting in\r\nthe current. But manhood demands that we stop and pause, pull\r\nourselves out of the Maelstrom and be what we are. We must\r\nshape things as we want and not allow things to shape us as\r\nthey want. </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Let each take cognisance of the godhead that is within him—for self is God—and in the strength of the soul-divinity create\r\nhis universe. It does not matter what sort of universe he creates,\r\nso long as he creates it. The world created by a Buddha is not\r\nthe same as that created by a Napoleon, nor should they be the<br>\r\nsame. It does not prove anything that I cannot become a\r\nKalidasa; for that matter Kalidasa cannot become what I am.\r\nIf you have not the genius of a Shankara it does not mean that\r\nyou have no genius at all. Be and become yourself—<i>ma gridhah\r\nkasyachit dhanam,</i> says the Upanishad. The fountain-head of\r\ncreative genius lies there, in the free choice and the particular\r\ndelight—the self-determination of the spirit within you and\r\nnot in the desire for your neighbour\'s riches. The world has\r\nbecome dull and uniform and mechanical, since everybody </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">Page 78</font><hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">endeavours to become not himself, but always somebody else.\r\nImitation is servitude and servitude brings in grief. </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In one\'s own soul lies the very height and profundity of a god-head. Each soul by bringing out the note that is his, makes for\r\nthe most wondrous symphony. Once a man knows what he is\r\n. and holds fast to it, refusing to be drawn away by any necessity\r\nor temptation, he begins to uncover himself, to do what his\r\ninmost nature demands and takes joy in, that is to say, begins to\r\ncreate. Indeed there may be much difference in the forms that\r\ndifferent souls take. But because each is itself, therefore each is\r\ngrounded upon the fundamental equality of things. All our\r\nvaluations are in reference to some standard or other set up\r\nwith a particular end in view, but that is a question of the\r\npractical world which in no way takes away from the intrinsic\r\nvalue of the greatness of the soul. So long as the thing is there,<br>\r\nthe how of it does not matter. Infinite are the ways of manifestation and all of them the very highest and the most sublime,\r\nprovided they are a manifestation of the soul itself, provided\r\nthey rise and flow from the same level. Whether it is Agni or\r\nIndra, Varuna, Mitra or the Aswins, it is the same supreme\r\nand divine inflatus. </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The cosmic soul is true. But that truth is borne out, effectuated only by the truth of the individual soul. When the\r\nindividual soul becomes itself fully and integrally, by that very\r\nfact it becomes also the cosmic soul. The individuals are the\r\nchannels through which flows the Universal and the Infinite\r\nin its multiple emphasis. Each is a particular figure, aspect— <i>Bhava,</i> a particular angle of vision of All. The vision is entire\r\nand the figure perfect if it is not refracted by the lower and\r\ndenser parts of our being. And for that the individual must first\r\ncome to itself and shine in its opal clarity and translucency. </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Not to do what others do, but what your soul impels you to\r\ndo. Not to be others but your own self. Not to be anything but\r\nthe very cosmic and infinite divinity of your soul. Therein lies\r\nyour highest freedom and perfect delight. And there you are\r\nsupremely creative. Each soul has a consort—<i>Prakriti,</i> Nature\r\n—which it creates out of its own rib. And in this field of infinite\r\ncreativity the soul lives, moves and has its being. </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">Page 79</p>\r\n		<hr>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"right\"><b><font size=\"2\"><a href=\"-00_Contents\">\r\n			<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">HOME</span></a></font></b></p></td>\r\n	</tr>\r\n	</table>\r\n</body>\r\n</html>','-10_The Creative Soul','','publish','closed','open','','10_the-creative-soul','','','2021-11-23 17:21:37','2021-11-23 17:21:37','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/10_the-creative-soul/',0,'post','',0),(1503,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:37','2021-11-23 17:21:37','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2 Final//EN\">\r\n<html>\r\n<head>\r\n<title>nature.htm</title>\r\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html;charset=windows-1252\">\r\n</head>\r\n<body>\r\n\r\n<table border=\"0\" width=\"100%\">\r\n	<tr>\r\n		<td>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i><b>Nature\'s Own Yoga</b></i><b> </b> </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\n&nbsp;<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\r\n		<b>I</b></p>\r\n		<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">SRI Aurobindo\'s Yoga is in the direct line of Nature\'s own\r\nYoga. Nature has a Yoga which she follows unfailingly and\r\ninevitably—for it is her innermost law of being. Yoga means,\r\nin essence, a change or transformation of consciousness, a\r\nheightening and broadening of consciousness which is effected&nbsp; . by communion or union or identification with&quot; a higher and\r\nvaster consciousness. </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; This process of a developing consciousness in Nature is\r\nprecisely what is known as Evolution. It is the bringing out\r\nand fixing of a higher and higher principle of consciousness,\r\nhitherto involved and concealed behind the veil, in the earth\r\nconsciousness as a dynamic factor in Nature\'s manifest working.\r\nThus, the first stage of evolution is the status of inconscient\r\nMatter, of the lifeless physical elements; the second stage is\r\nthat of the semi-conscious life in the plant, the third that of\r\nthe conscious life in the animal, and finally the fourth stage, where we stand \r\nat present, is that of the embodied self-conscious life in man. </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The course of evolution has not come to a stop with man\r\nand the next stage, Sri Aurobindo says, which Nature envisages and is labouring to bring out and establish is the life\r\nnow superconscious to us, embodied in a still higher type of\r\ncreated being, that of the superman or god-man. The principle\r\nof consciousness which will determine the nature and build of\r\nthis new being is a spiritual principle beyond the mental\r\nprinciple which man now incarnates: it may be called the\r\nSupermind or Gnosis. </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; For, till now Mind has been the last term of the evolutionary </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">Page 16</font><hr align=\"justify\">\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">consciousness—Mind as developed in man is the highest\r\ninstrument built up and organised by Nature through which\r\nthe self-conscious being can express itself. That is why the\r\nBuddha said: Mind is the first of all principles, Mind is the\r\nhighest of all principles: indeed Mind is the constituent of\r\nall principles—<i>mano puvvangama dhamma<sup>1</sup> </i>The consciousness\r\nbeyond mind has not yet been made a patent and dynamic\r\nelement in the life upon earth; it has been glimpsed or entered\r\ninto in varying degrees and modes by saints and seers; it has\r\ncast its derivative illuminations in the creative activities of\r\npoets and artists, in the finer and nobler urges of heroes and\r\ngreat men of action. But the utmost that has been achieved,\r\nthe summit reached in that direction, as exampled in spiritual\r\ndisciplines, involves a withdrawal from the evolutionary\r\ncycle, a merging and an absorption into the static status that\r\nis altogether beyond it, that lies, as it were, at the other ex-<br>\r\ntreme—the Spirit in itself, Atman, Brahman, Sachchidananda, Nirvana, the One without a second, the Zero without\r\na first. </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The first contact that one has with this static supra-reality\r\nis through the higher ranges of the mind: a direct and closer\r\ncommunion is established through a plane which is just above\r\nthe mind—the Overmind, as Sri Aurobindo calls it. The\r\nOvermind dissolves or transcends the ego-consciousness which\r\nlimits the being to its individualised formation bounded by\r\nan outward and narrow frame or sheath of mind, life and\r\nbody; it reveals the universal Self and Spirit, the cosmic\r\ngodhead and its myriad forces throwing up myriad forms; the\r\nworld-existence there appears as a play of ever-shifting veils\r\nupon the face of one ineffable reality, as a mysterious cycle of\r\nperpetual creation and destruction—it is the overwhelming\r\nvision given by Sri Krishna to Arjuna in the Gita. At the\r\nsame time, the initial and most intense experience which this cosmic \r\nconsciousness brings is the extreme relativity, contingency and transitoriness of the whole flux, and a necessity\r\nseems logically and psychologically imperative to escape into\r\nthe abiding substratum, the ineffable Absoluteness. </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; This has been the highest consummation, the supreme goal \r\nwhich the purest spiritual experience and the deepest aspiration of the human consciousness generally sought to attain. </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\" size=\"2\">1 <i>The Dhammapada,</i> I. 1 </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">Page 17</font><hr align=\"justify\">\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">But in this view, the world or creation or Nature came in the end\r\nto be looked upon as fundamentally a product of Ignorance:&nbsp; ignorance and suffering and incapacity and death were declared\r\nto be the very hallmark of things terrestrial. The Light that\r\ndwells above and beyond can be made to shed for a while\r\nsome kind of lustre upon the mortal darkness but never altogether to remove or change it—to live in the full light, to be\r\nin and of the Light means to pass beyond. Not that there have\r\nnot been other strands and types of spiritual experiences and\r\naspirations, but the one we are considering has always struck\r\nthe major chord and dominated and drowned all the rest. </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; But the initial illusory consciousness of the Overmind need\r\nnot at all lead to the static Brahmic consciousness or Sunyam\r\nalone. As a matter of fact, there is in this particular processus\r\nof consciousness a hiatus between the two, between Maya and\r\nBrahman, as though one has to leap from the one into the\r\nother <i>somehow.</i> This hiatus is filled up in Sri Aurobindo\'s Yoga\r\nby the principle of Supermind, not synthetic-analytic<sup>1</sup> in\r\nknowledge like Overmind and the highest mental intelligence,\r\nbut inescapably unitarian even in the utmost diversity.\r\nSupermind is the Truth-consciousness at once static and\r\ndynamic, self-existent and creative: in Supermind the Brahmic\r\nConsciousness—Sachchidananda—is ever self-aware and ever\r\nmanifested and embodied in fundamental truth-powers and\r\ntruth-forms for the play of creation; it is the plane where the\r\nOne breaks out into the Many and the\' Many still remain\r\none, being and knowing themselves to be but various self-expressions of the One; it develops the spiritual archetypes,\r\nthe divine names and forms of all individualisations of an\r\nevolving existence. </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The Upanishads speak of a solar and a lunar Path in the\r\nSpiritual consciousness. Perhaps they have some reference to\r\nthese two lines—one through the Mayic consciousness of the\r\nOvermind enters into the static Bliss, ecstatic Nihil, and the </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><sup>1</sup> <font size=\"2\">The Supermind is not merely synthetic. &quot;The Supermind is synthetic only on the lowest spaces of itself, where it has to prepare the principles of Overmind,<br>\r\n—synthesis is necessary only where analysis has taken place, one has dissected\r\neverything, put in pieces (analysis), so one has to piece together. But Supermind<br>\r\nis unitarian, has never divided up, so it does not need to add and piece together the parts and fragments. It has always held the conscious Many together in the<br>\r\nconscious<b> </b> One<b>.&quot;</b> </font> </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"right\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><font size=\"2\">SRI AUROBINDO</font> </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">Page 18</font><hr align=\"justify\">\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">other mounts still farther to the solar status which is a mass,\r\na sea, an infinity of that light and ecstasy but which can at\r\nthe same time express and embody itself as the creative Truth-\r\nconsciousness <i>(surya savitri).</i> </font>\r\n\r\n<p align=justify style=\"margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; text-indent:25px; line-height:150%\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In the Supermind things exist in their perfect spiritual\r\nreality; each is consciously the divine reality in its transcendent\r\nessence, its cosmic extension, its spiritual individuality; the\r\ndiversity of a manifested existence is there, but the mutually\r\nexclusive separativeness has not yet arisen. The ego, the knot\r\nof separativity, appears at a later and lower stage of involution ; what is here is indivisible nexus of individualising centres\r\nof the one eternal truth of being. Where Supermind and\r\nOvermind meet, one can see the multiple godheads, each\r\ndistinct in his own truth and beauty and power and yet all\r\ntogether forming the one supreme consciousness infinitely\r\ncomposite and inalienably integral. But stepping back into\r\nSupermind one sees something more—Oneness gathering into itself all diversity, \r\nnot destroying it, but annulling and forbidding the separative consciousness that is the beginning of\r\nIgnorance. The first shadow of the Illusory Consciousness,\r\nthe initial possibility of the movement of Ignorance comes in\r\nwhen the supramental light enters the penumbra of the\r\nmental sphere. The movement of Supermind is the movement\r\nof light without obscurity, straight, unwavering, unswerving,\r\nabsolute. The Force here contains and holds in their oneness\r\nof Reality the manifold but not separated lines of essential\r\nand unalloyed truth: its march is the inevitable progression\r\nof each one assured truth entering into and upholding every\r\nother and therefore its creation, play or action admits of no\r\ntrial or stumble or groping or deviation; for each truth rests\r\non all others and on that which harmonises them all and does\r\nnot act as a Power diverging from and even competing with\r\nother Powers of being. In the Overmind commences the play\r\nof divergent possibilities—the simple, direct, united and\r\nabsolute certainties of the supramental consciousness retire,\r\nas it were, a step behind and begin to work themselves out\r\nthrough the interaction first of separately individualised and\r\nthen of contrary and contradictory forces. In the Overmind\r\nthere is a conscious underlying Unity but yet each Power,\r\nTruth, Aspect of that Unity is encouraged to work out its </font>\r\n		<p align=center style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">Page 19</font><hr align=\"justify\">\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">possibilities as if it were sufficient to itself and the others are\r\nused by it for its own enhancement until in the denser and\r\ndarker reaches below Overmind this turns out a thing of\r\nblind conflict and battle and, as it would appear, of chance survival. Creation \r\nor manifestation originally means the concretisation or devolution of the powers of Conscious Being\r\ninto a play of united diversity; but on the line which ends in\r\nMatter it enters into more and more obscure forms and forces\r\nand finally the virtual eclipse of the supreme light of the\r\nDivine Consciousness. Creation as it descends towards the\r\nIgnorance becomes an involution of the Spirit through\r\nMind and Life into Matter; evolution is a movement backward, a return journey from Matter towards the Spirit: it is\r\nthe unravelling, the gradual disclosure and deliverance of the\r\nSpirit, the ascension and revelation of the involved consciousness through a series of awakenings—Matter awakening\r\ninto Life, Life awakening into Mind and Mind now seeking to\r\nawaken into something beyond the Mind, into a power of\r\nconscious Spirit. </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The apparent or actual result of the movement of Nescience&nbsp;\r\n—of Involution—has been an increasing negation of the\r\nSpirit, but its hidden purpose is ultimately to embody the\r\nSpirit in Matter, to express here below in cosmic Time-Space\r\nthe splendours of the timeless Reality. The material body\r\ncame into existence bringing with it inevitably, as it seemed,\r\nmortality; it appeared even to be fashioned out of mortality,\r\nin order that in this very frame and field of mortality, Immortality, the eternal Spirit Consciousness which is the secret\r\ntruth and reality in Time itself as well as behind it, might be\r\nestablished and that the Divine might be possessed, or rather,\r\npossess itself not in one unvarying mode of the static consciousness, as it does even now behind the cosmic play, but in the\r\nplay itself and in the multiple mode of the terrestrial existence. </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\n<b>\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">2</font></b><p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The secret of evolution, I have said, is an urge towards the\r\nrelease and unfoldment of consciousness out of an apparent\r\nunconsciousness. In the early stages the movement is very </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">Page 20</font><hr align=\"justify\">\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">slow and gradual; there it is Nature\'s original unconscious\r\nprocess. In man it acquires the possibility of a conscious and\r\ntherefore swifter and concentrated process. And this is in\r\nfact the function of Yoga proper, viz, to bring about the\r\nevolution of consciousness by hastening the process of Nature\r\nthrough the self-conscious will of man. </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; An organ in the human being has been especially developed\r\nto become the effective instrument of this accelerated Yogic\r\nprocess—the self-consciousness which I referred to as being\r\nthe distinctive characteristic of man is a function of this organ.\r\nIt is his soul, his &quot;psychic being&quot;; originally it is the spark\r\nof the Divine Consciousness which came down and became\r\ninvolved in Matter and has been endeavouring ever since to\r\nrelease itself through the upward march of evolution. It is\r\nthis which presses on continually as the stimulus to the evolutionary movement; and in man it has attained sufficient\r\ngrowth and power and has come so far to the front from\r\nbehind the veil that it can now lead and mould his external\r\nconsciousness. It is also the channel through which the Divine\r\nConsciousness can flow down into the inferior levels of human\r\nnature. It is the &quot;being no bigger than the thumb ever seated\r\nwithin the heart&quot;, spoken of in the Upanishads. It is likewise\r\nthe basis of true individuality and personal identity. It is\r\nagain the reflection or expression in evolutionary Nature of\r\none\'s essential self<i>—jivatman—</i>that is above, an eternal portion\r\nof the Divine, one with the Divine and yet not dissolved and\r\nlost in it. The psychic being is thus on the one hand in direct\r\ncontact with the Divine and the higher consciousness, and on\r\nthe other it is the secret upholder and controller <i>(bharta,\r\nantaryamin)</i> of the inferior consciousness, the hidden nucleus<br>\r\nround which the body and the life and the mind of the individual are built up and organised. </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The first decisive step in Yoga is taken when one becomes\r\nconscious of the psychic being, or, looked at from the other side, when the \r\npsychic being comes forward and takes possession of the external being, begins to initiate and influence the\r\nmovements of the mind and life and body and gradually free them from the \r\nordinary round of ignorant nature. The awakening of the psychic being means, as I have said, not only a\r\ndeepening and heightening of the consciousness and its release </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">Page 21</font><hr align=\"justify\">\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;from the obscurity and limitation of the inferior Prakriti,\r\nconfined to the lower threefold status, into what is behind\r\nand beyond; it means also a return of the deeper and higher\r\nconsciousness upon the lower hemisphere and a consequent\r\npurification and illumination and regeneration of the latter. Fin ally, when the psychic being is in full self-possession and\r\npower, it can be the vehicle of the direct supramental consciousness—which will then be able to act freely and absolutely&nbsp;\r\nfor the entire transformation of the external nature, its transfiguration into a perfect body of the Truth-consciousness—in\r\na word, its divinisation. </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; This then is the supreme secret, not the renunciation and annulment, but the transformation of the ordinary human\r\nnature:—first of all, its <i>psychicisation,</i> that is to say, making\r\nit move and live and be in communion\' and identification\r\nwith the light of the psychic being, and, secondly, through\r\nthe soul and the ensouled mind and life and body, to open\r\nout into the supramental consciousness and let it come down\r\nhere below and work and achieve. </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The soul or the true being in man uplifted in the supramental consciousness and at the same time coming forward\r\nto possess a divinised mind and life and body as an instrument\r\nand channel of its self-expression and an embodiment of the\r\nDivine Will and Purpose—such is the goal that Nature is\r\nseeking to realise at present through her evolutionary <i>elan. </i>It is to this labour that man has been called so that in and\r\nthrough him the destined transcendence and transformation\r\ncan take place. </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; It is not easy, however, nor is it necessary for the moment\r\nto envisage in detail what this divinised man would be like,\r\nexternally—his mode of outward being and living, <i>kim asita\r\nvrajeta kim,</i> as Arjuna queried—or how the collective life of\r\nthe new humanity would function or what would be the composition of its social fabric. For what is happening is a living\r\nprocess, an organic growth; it is being elaborated through the\r\nactions and reactions of multitudinous forces and conditions,<br>\r\nknown and unknown; the precise configuration of the final\r\noutcome cannot be predicted with exactitude. But the Power that is at work is \r\nomniscient; it is selecting, rejecting, correcting, fashioning, creating, co-ordinating elements in accordance </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">Page 22</font><hr align=\"justify\">\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">with and by the drive of the inviolable law of Truth and\r\nHarmony that reigns in Light\'s &quot;own home&quot;—<i>swe dame—</i>the\r\nSupermind. </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; It is also to be noted that as mind is not the last limit of\r\nthe march of evolution, even so the progress of evolution will\r\nnot stop with the manifestation and embodiment of the Supermind. There are other still higher principles beyond\r\nand they too presumably await manifestation and embodiment on earth. Creation has no beginning in time\r\n<i>(anadi)</i> nor\r\nhas it an end <i>(ananta).</i> It is an eternal process of the unravelling\r\nof the mysteries of the Infinite. Only, it may be said that with<br>\r\nthe Supermind the creation here enters into a different order\r\nof existence. Before it there was .the domain of Ignorance,\r\nafter it will come the reign of Light and Knowledge. Mortality\r\nhas been the governing principle of life on earth till now; it\r\nwill be replaced by the consciousness of immortality. Evolution\r\nhas proceeded through struggle and pain; hereafter it will be\r\na spontaneous, harmonious and happy flowering. </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Now, with regard to the time that the present stage of\r\nevolution is likely to take for its fulfilment, one can presume\r\nthat since or if the specific urge and stress has manifested and\r\ncome up to the front, this very fact would show that the\r\nproblem has become a problem of actuality, and even that\r\nit can be dealt with as if it had to be solved now or never.\r\nWe have said that in man, with man\'s self-consciousness or the\r\nconsciousness of the psychic being as the instrument, evolution<br>\r\nhas attained the capacity of a swift and concentrated process,\r\nwhich is the process of Yoga; the process will become swifter\r\nand more concentrated, the more that instrument grows and\r\ngathers power and is infused with the divine afflatus. In fact,\r\nevolution has been such a process of gradual acceleration in\r\ntempo from the very beginning. The earliest stage, for example, the stage of dead Matter, of the play of the mere\r\nchemical forces was a very, very long one; it took millions<br>\r\nand millions of years to come to the point when the manifestation of life became possible. But the period of elementary life,\r\nas manifested in the plant world that followed, although it\r\ntoo lasted a good many millions of years, was much briefer\r\nthan the preceding period—it ended with the advent of the\r\nfirst animal form. The age of animal life, again, has been very </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">Page 23</font><hr align=\"justify\">\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">much shorter than that of the plant life before man came\r\nupon earth. And man is already more than a million or two\r\nyears old—it is fully time that a higher order of being should\r\nbe created out of him. </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">Page 24</font><hr align=\"justify\">\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"right\"><b><font size=\"2\"><a href=\"-00_Contents\">\r\n			<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">HOME</span></a></font></b></td>\r\n	</tr>\r\n	</table>\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">\r\n\r\n<br>\r\n&nbsp;<br clear=all>\r\n\r\n\r\n</font>\r\n\r\n\r\n</body>\r\n</html>','-04_Natures Own Yoga','','publish','closed','open','','04_natures-own-yoga','','','2021-11-23 17:21:37','2021-11-23 17:21:37','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/04_natures-own-yoga/',0,'post','',0),(1504,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:37','2021-11-23 17:21:37','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2 Final//EN\">\r\n<html>\r\n<head>\r\n<title>29 physic.htm</title>\r\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html;charset=windows-1252\">\r\n</head>\r\n<body>\r\n\r\n<table border=\"0\" width=\"100%\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\">\r\n	<tr>\r\n		<td>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\n		<b><font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>Physics or Philosophy</i></font></b></p>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">WHAT is the world that we see really like? Is it mental, is\r\nit material? This is a question, we know, philosophers are familiar with, and \r\nthey have answered and are still answering, each in his own way, taking up one side or other of the\r\nantinomy. There is nothing new or uncommon in that. The\r\nextraordinary novelty comes in when we see today even\r\nscientists forced to tackle the problem, give an answer to it,—\r\nscientists who used to smile at philosophers, because they\r\nseemed&nbsp; to assault seriously the windmills of abstract notions\r\nand airy concepts, instead of reposing on the <i>terra firma</i> of\r\nreality. The tables are turned now. The scientists have had to\r\nstart the same business—the <i>terra firma</i> on which they stood\r\nas on the securest rock of ages is slipping away under their\r\nfeet and fast vanishing into smoke and thin air. Not only\r\nthat, it is discovered today that the scientist has always been a\r\nphilosopher, without his knowledge—a crypto-philosopher,—<br>\r\nonly he has become conscious of it at last. And further— <i>mirabile dictu</i>!—many a scientist is busy demonstrating that the\r\nscientist is, in his essence, a philosopher of the Idealist school!</font>&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Physical Science in the nineteenth century did indeed\r\ndevelop or presuppose a philosophy of its own; it had, that\r\nis to say, a definite outlook on the fundamental quality of\r\nthings and the nature of the universe. Those were .days of its\r\nyouthful self-confidence and unbending assurance. The view\r\nwas, as is well-known, materialistic and deterministic. That is to say, all \r\nobservation and experiment, according to it\r\ndemonstrated and posited:</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; First,</i> that this universe is made up of particles that push\r\nand pull each other, the particles having certain constant\r\nvalues, such as in respect of mass and volume.</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 230<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Secondly,</i> that the laws governing the relations among the\r\nparticles, in other words, their push and pull, are laws of\r\nsimple mechanics; they are fixed and definite and give us\r\ndeterminable and mensurable quantities called co-ordinates—\r\nby which one can ascertain the pattern or configuration of\r\nthings at a given moment and deduce from that the pattern\r\nor configuration of things at any other moment: the chain\r\nthat hangs things together is fixed and uniform and continuous\r\nand is not broken anywhere.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The scientific view of things thus discovered or affirmed\r\ncertain universal and immutable facts—axiomatic truths—\r\nwhich were called constants of Nature. These were the very\r\nbasic foundations upon which the whole edifice of scientific\r\nknowledge was erected. The chief among them were: (1)\r\nconservation of matter, (2) conservation of energy, (3) uniformity of nature and (4) the chain of causality and continuity. Above all, there was the fundamental implication of\r\nan independent—an absolute—time and space in which all\r\nthings existed and moved and had their being.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The whole business of experimental science was just to\r\nfind the absolutes of Nature, that is to say, facts and laws\r\ngoverning facts that do not depend for their existence upon\r\nanything but themselves. The purely objective world without\r\nany taint of an intruding subject was the field of its inquiry.\r\nIn fact, the old-world or Mediaeval Science—there was a\r\nScience even then—could not develop properly, did not strike\r\nthe right line of growth, precisely because it had a strong\r\nsubjective bias: the human factor, the personal element of\r\nthe observer or experimenter was unconsciously (at times\r\neven deliberately) introduced into the facts and explanations\r\nof Nature. The new departure of Modern Science consisted\r\nexactly in the elimination of this personal element and making\r\nobservation and experiment absolutely impersonal and thoroughly objective.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Well, the old-world spirit has had its revenge complete and\r\nabsolute in a strange manner. We are coming to that presently.\r\nNow, the constants or absolutes of which we spoke, which.\r\nwere the bed-rock of Modern Science, were gradually found\r\nto be rather shaky—very inconstant and relative. Take, for\r\nexample, the principle of conservation of matter. The principle</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 231<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">posited that in a given system the quantity of matter is constant\r\nin and through all transformations. Modern Science has\r\nfound out that this law holds good only in respect of gross\r\nmatter belonging to man-size Nature. But as soon as we\r\nenter into the domain of the ultimate constituents of matter,\r\nthe units of electric charges, the infinitesimals, we find that\r\nmatter is destroyed and is or can be recreated: material\r\nparticles are dematerialised into light waves or quanta, and\r\nlight quanta are precipitated back again into electric particles\r\nof matter. Similarly, the law of conservation of energy—that\r\nevery= mv2 <i>(m</i> being mass, <i>v</i> velocity)—does not hold<br>\r\ngood in respect of particles that move with the speed of light:</font>\r\n\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">mass is not a constant as in Newtonian mechanics, but varies\r\nwith velocity. Again, in classical mechanics, position and velocity are two \r\nabsolute determinates for alt scientific measurement, and Science after all is \r\nnothing if not a system of measurements. Now, in the normal size world, the two are easily\r\ndetermined; but in the sub-atomic world things are quite\r\ndifferent; only one can be determined accurately; the more\r\naccurate the one, the less so the other; and if both are to be\r\ndetermined, it can be only approximatively, the closer the\r\napproximation, the hazier the measure, and the farther the\r\napproximation, the more definite the measure. That is to\r\nsay, here we find not the exact measures of things, but only\r\nthe probable measures. Indeed, not fixity and accuracy, but\r\nprobability has become the central theme of modern physical\r\ncalculation.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The principle of indeterminacy carries two revolutionary\r\nimplications. First, that it is not possible to determine the\r\nmovement of the ultimate particles of matter individually\r\nand severally, it is not possible even theoretically to follow\r\nup the chain of modulations of an electron from its birth to\r\nits dissolution (if such is the curve of its destiny), as Laplace\r\nconsidered it quite possible for his super-mathematician. One\r\ncannot trace the complete evolution of each and every or\r\neven one particular particle, not because of a limitation in the\r\nhuman capacity, but because of an inherent impossibility in\r\nthe nature of things. In radioactive substances, for example,\r\nthere is no ground or data from which one can determine\r\nwhich particle will go off or not, whether it will go off the</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 232<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">next moment or wait for a million years. It is mere chance\r\nthat seems to reign here. In radiation too, there is no formula,\r\nand no formula can be framed for determining the course of\r\na photon in relation to a half-reflecting surface, whether it\r\nwill pass through or be reflected. In this field of infinitesimals\r\nwhat we know is the total behaviour of an assemblage of\r\nparticles, and the laws of nature are only laws of average\r\ncomputation. Statistics has ousted the more exact and rigid\r\narithmetics. And statistics, we know, is a precarious science:</font>&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">the knowledge it gives is contingent, contingent upon the particular way of arranging and classifying the data. However,\r\nthe certainty of classical mechanistic knowledge is gone, gone\r\ntoo the principle of uniformity of nature.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The second element brought in in the indeterminacy picture\r\nis the restoration of the &quot;subject&quot; to its honoured or even more\r\nthan the honoured place it had in the Mediaeval Ages, and\r\nfrom which it was pulled down by young arrogant Science.\r\nA fundamental question is now raised in the very methodology\r\nof the scientific apparatus. For Science, needless to say, is\r\nfirst and foremost observation. Now it is observed that the\r\nvery fact of observation affects and changes the observed fact.\r\nThe path of an electron, for example, has to be observed; one\r\nhas then to throw a ray of light—hurl a photon—upon it:</font>\r\n\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">the impact is sufficient to deflect the electron from the original\r\npath. If it is suggested that by correction and computation, by a backward calculation we can deduce the previous position, that too is not possible. For we cannot fix any position\r\nor point that is not vitiated by the observer\'s interference.\r\nHow to feel or note the consistency of a thing, if the touch\r\nitself, the temperature of the finger, were sufficient to change\r\nthe consistency? The trouble is, as the popular Indian saying\r\ngoes, the very amulet that is to exorcise the ghost is possessed\r\nby the ghost itself.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; So the scientists of today are waking up to this disconcerting\r\nfact. And some have put the question very boldly and frankly:</font>\r\n\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">do not all laws of Nature contain this original sin of the\r\nobserver\'s interference, indeed may not the laws be nothing\r\nelse but that? Thus Science has landed into the very heart—\r\nthe bog and quagmire, if you like—of abstruse metaphysics.\r\nEddington says, there is no other go for Science today but to</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 233<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><b>&nbsp;</b>admit and delcare that its scheme and pattern of things, as\r\ndescribed by what is called laws of Nature, is only a mental\r\nconstruct of the Scientist. The &quot;wonderful&quot; discoveries are\r\nnothing but jugglery and legerdemain of the mind—what it\r\nputs out of itself unconsciously into the outside world, it recovers again and is astonished at the miracle. A scientific law\r\nis a pure deduction from the mind\'s own disposition. Eddington\r\ngoes so far as to say that if a scientist is sufficiently introspective\r\nhe can trace out from within his brain each and every law of\r\nNature which he took so much pains to fish out from Nature\r\nby observation and experiment. Eddington gives an analogy\r\nto explain the nature of scientific law and scientific discovery.\r\nSuppose you have a fishing net of a particular size and with<br>\r\ninterstices of a particular dimension; you throw it into the\r\nsea and pull out with fishes in it. Now you count and assort\r\nthe fishes, and according to the data thus obtained, you\r\ndeclare that the entire sea consists of so many varieties of\r\nfish and of such sizes. The only error is that you could not\r\ntake into account the smaller fishes that escaped through the\r\ninterstices and the bigger ones that did not at all fall into the\r\nnet. Scientific statistics is something of this kind. Our mind\r\nis the net, and the pattern of Nature is determined by the\r\nmind\'s own pattern.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Eddington gives us absolutely no hope for any knowledge\r\nof an objective world apart from the objectification of mind\'s\r\nown constructs. This is a position which a scientist, <i>qua</i> scientist,\r\nfinds it difficult to maintain. Remedies and loop-holes have\r\nbeen suggested with what result we shall presently see.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Einstein\'s was, perhaps, the most radical and revolutionary\r\nsolution ever proposed. Indeed, it meant the reversal of the\r\nwhole scientific outlook, but something of the kind was<b> \r\n</b>art<b> \r\n</b>imperative need in order to save Science from inconsistencies\r\nthat seemed to be inherent in it. The scientific outlook was vitiated, Einstein \r\nsaid, because we started from wrong premises; two assumptions mainly were \r\nresponsible for the bankruptcy which befell latter-day Science. First, it was assumed\r\nthat a push and pull—a force (a gravitational or, more\r\ngenerally, a causal force) existed and that acted upon isolated\r\nand independent particles strewn about; and secondly, they\r\nwere strewn about in an independently existing time and</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 234<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">an independently existing space. Einstein has demonstrated,\r\nit seems, successfully that there is no Time and no Space\r\nactually, but times and spaces (this reminds one of a parallel\r\nconception in Sankhya and Patanjali), that time is not independent of space (nor space of time) but that time is another\r\ncoordinate or dimension necessary for all observation in\r\naddition to the three usual co-ordinates (or dimensions). This\r\nwas the explanation he found of the famous Michelson-Morley\r\nexperiment which failed to detect any difference in the velocity\r\nof light whether it moved with or against a moving object,\r\nwhich is an inconsistency according to the mechanistic view.1\r\nThe absolute dependence of time and space upon each other\r\nwas further demonstrated by the fact that it was absolutely\r\nimpossible to synchronise two distant clocks (moving with different speeds and \r\nthus forming different systems) with perfect accuracy, or determine exactly \r\nwhether two events happened simultaneously or not. In the final account of things,\r\nthis relative element that varies according to varying particulars had to be eliminated, sublated. In order to make a law\r\napplicable to all fields—from the astronomical through the\r\nnormal down to the microscopic or sub-atomic—in an equally\r\nvalid manner, the law had to divest itself of all local colour.\r\nThus, a scientific law became a sheer mathematical formula;</font>\r\n\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">it was no longer an objective law that governed the behaviour\r\nof things, but merely a mental rule or mnemonics to string\r\ntogether as many diverse things as possible in order to be able;</font>&nbsp;\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">to memorise them easily.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Again, the generalised law of relativity (that is to say, laws\r\ngoverning all motions, even accelerated motion and not\r\nmerely uniform motion) that sought to replace the laws. of\r\ngravitation did away also with the concepts of force and\r\ncausality: it stated that. things moved not because they were\r\npulled or pushed but because they followed the natural curve\r\nof space (they describe geodesies, <i>i.e.,</i> move in the line of least\r\ndistance). Space is not a plain surface, smooth and uniform,</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">1 The constancy of the velocity of light, it must be noted, is not altogether an\r\nobjective fact: it is a supposition by which Einstein tried to explain certain<br>\r\nanomalies in previous theories. It is really, as some have pointed out <i>(e.g.</i> Hans\r\nReichenbach—<i>Atom and Cosmos—</i>p. 136), a mental formula, part of a built-in<br>\r\nstructure, arbitrary to a certain extent which is so arranged that the speed becomes constant and equal for systems in different states of motion.</font><font size=\"2\">\r\n</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 235<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">but full of dimples and hollows, these occurring in the vicinity\r\nof masses of matter, the sun, for instance, (although one does\r\nnot see how or why a mass of matter should roll down the\r\ninclined plane of a curved surface without some kind of push\r\nand pull—the problem is not solved but merely shifted and\r\nput off). All this means to say that the pattern of the universe\r\nis absolutely geometrical and science in the end resolves itself\r\ninto geometry: the laws of Nature are nothing but theorems or corollaries \r\ndeduced and deducible from a few initial postulates. Once again, on this line of enquiry also the universe\r\nis dissolved into abstract and psychological factors.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Apart from the standpoint of theoretical physics developed\r\nby Einstein, the more practical aspect as brought out in\r\nWave Mechanics leads us into no less an abstract and theoretical domain. The Newtonian particle-picture, it is true,\r\nhas been maintained in the first phase of modern physics\r\nwhich specialised in what is called Quantum Mechanics. But\r\nwaves or particles—although the question as to their relative\r\nvalidity and verity still remains open—do not make much\r\ndifference in the fundamental outlook. For in either view, the\r\nindividual unit is beyond the ken of the scientist. A wave is\r\nnot a wave but just the probability of a wave: it is not even a\r\nprobable wave but a probability wave. Thus the pattern that\r\nWave Mechanics weaves to show the texture of the ultimate\r\nreality is nothing more than a calculus of probabilities. By\r\nwhichever way we proceed we seem to arrive always at the\r\nsame inevitable conclusion.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; So it is frankly admitted that what Science gives is not a\r\nfaithful description of actuality, not a representation of material\r\nexistence, but certain conventions or convenient signs to put\r\ntogether, to make a mental picture of our sensations and\r\nexperiences. That, does not give any clue to what the objective\r\nreality may or may not be like. Scientific laws are mental\r\nrules imposed upon Nature. It may be asked why does Nature\r\nyield to such imposition? There must be then some sort of<br>\r\nparallelism or commensurability between Nature and the\r\nobserving Mind, between the pattern of Nature and the Mind\'s\r\nscheme or replica of it. If we successfully read into Nature\r\nthings of the Mind, that means that there must be something\r\nvery common between the two. Mind\'s readings are not</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 236<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">mere figments, hanging in the air; for they are justified by\r\ntheir applicability, by their factual translation. This is arguing\r\nin a circle, a thorough-going mentalist like Eddington would\r\nsay. What are facts ? What is life ? Anything more than what\r\nthe senses and the mind have built up for us?</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Jeans himself is on the horns of a dilemma.1 Being a scientist,\r\nand not primarily a mathematician like Eddington, he cannot\r\nvery well acquiesce in the liquidation of the material world;</font>\r\n\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">nor can he refute successfully the facts and arguments that\r\nScience itself has brought forward in favour of mentalism.He wishes to keep the question open for further light and\r\nsurer grounds. In the meanwhile, however, he is reconciled\r\nto a modified form of mentalism. The laws of Nature, he says,\r\nare surely subjective in the sense that astronomical or geographical concepts, for example, such as the system of latitudes, longitudes, equator and axis, ellipse and quadrant and\r\nsextant, are subjective. These lines and figures are not drawn physically upon \r\nthe earth or in space: they are mental constructs, they are pointers or notations, but they note and point\r\nto the existence and the manner of existence of real objects\r\nin a real world.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In other words, one tries to come back more<b> </b> or less to the\r\ncommon-sense view of things. One does not argue about what\r\nis naturally given as objective reality; whatever the mental\r\ngloss over it, it is there all the same. One accepts it, takes it\r\non trust, if you like—one can admit even that it is an act of\r\nfaith, as Russell and the Neo-Realists would maintain.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; But Jeans\' position is remarkable and very significant in\r\none respect. When cornered in the process of argument, feeling\r\nthat the world is inexorably dematerialised and mentalised, he\r\nsuggests an issue which is natural to a philosopher, a mystic\r\nphilosopher alone. Well, let him state his position in his own\r\nwords, the passage, I repeat, is so remarkable and significant:</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &quot;When we view ourselves in space and time, our consciousnesses are obviously the separate individuals of a particle-picture, but when we pass beyond space and time, they may\r\nperhaps form ingredients of a single continuous stream of life.\r\nAs it is with light and electricity, so it may be with life; the\r\nphenomena may be individuals carrying on separate existence</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\" size=\"2\">1 <i>Physics and Philosophy,</i> by Sir James Jeans.</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 237<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">in space and time, while in the deeper reality beyond space\r\nand time we may all be members of one body. In brief, modern\r\nphysics is not altogether antagonistic to an objective idealism\r\nlike that of Hegel.&quot; (p. 204)<sup>1</sup></font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; A la bonne heure!</i> That runs close to Upanishadic knowledge.\r\nIt means that the world is objective—it is not the figment of\r\nan individual observer; but it is not material either, it is\r\nconsciousness in vibration. (Note the word &quot;consciousness&quot; is\r\nJeans\' own, not mine).</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Jeans is not alone to have such a revolutionary and unorthodox view. He seems to take courage from Dirac also. Dirac too\r\ncannot admit an annihilation of the material world. His\r\nproposal to save and salvage it follows a parallel line. He says\r\nthat the world presented or pictured by physical science may\r\nnot be and is not the actual world, but it posits a substratum\r\nof reality to which it conforms: the pattern presented by subjective laws is so composed because of a pressure, an impact\r\nfrom an analogous substratum. There is no chain of causal.\r\nrelation in the pattern itself, the relation of causality is between\r\nthe substratum reality and the pattern that it bodies forth.\r\nHere again we find ourselves at the end of physical inquiry\r\ndriving straight into the tenuous spaces of spiritual metaphysics.\r\nWe have one more example of how a modern physicist is\r\nmetamorphosed into a mystic. What Dirac says is tantamount\r\nto the very well-known spiritual experience that the world as\r\nit appears to us is a vesture or symbol of an inner order of\r\nreality out of which it has been broadcast—<i>sah paryagat</i>—and\r\nthe true causes of things are not on the surface, the so-called\r\nantecedents, but behind in the subtler world called therefore\r\nthe causal world, <i>karana jagat.</i></font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Even Eddington is not so absurd or impossible as it may seem\r\nto some. He says, as we have seen, that all so-called laws of\r\nNature can be discovered from within the mind itself, can be\r\ndeduced logically from psychologically given premises: no\r\nempiricial observation or objective experimentation is necessary\r\nto arrive at them: they are found <i>a priori</i> in the subject. Now,\r\nmystic experience always lays stress on extra-sensory knowledge: it declares that such a knowledge is not only possible,\r\nbut that this alone is the right and correct knowledge. All</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">1 op. cit.                                    \'\r\n</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 238<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">things—matter and mind and life and all—being but vibrations\r\nof consciousness, even as the colours of a spectrum are vibrations, electro-magnetic waves of different frequency, mystic\r\ndiscipline enables one to enter into that condition in which\r\none\'s consciousness mingles with all consciousness or with\r\nanother particular consciousness (Patanjali\'s term is <i>samyama),\r\n</i>and one can have all knowledge that one wishes to have by\r\nthis inner contact or concentration or identification, one discovers the knowledge within oneself, no external means of\r\nsense observation and experimental testing, no empirical inductive process is needed. We do not say that Eddington had in\r\nview anything of this kind, but that his attitude points in this\r\ndirection.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; That seems to be the burden, the underlying preoccupation\r\nof modern physical science: it has been forced to grope towards.\r\nsome kind of mystic perception; at least, it has been put into a\r\nframe of mind, due to the crumbling of the very fundamentals\r\nof the past structure, which is less obstructive to other sources\r\nand spheres and ways of knowledge. Certainly, we must admit\r\nthat we have moved very far from Laplace when we hear\r\ntoday a hard-boiled rationalist like De Broglie declare:</font>&nbsp;\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The idealisations more or less schematic that our\r\nmind builds up are capable of representing certain\r\nfacets of things, but they have inherent limitations and<br>\r\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\r\ncannot contain within their frames all the richness of\r\nthe reality.<sup>1</sup></font><sup> </sup>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The difficulty that modern Science encounters is not, however, at all a difficulty: it may be so to the philosopher, but\r\nnot to the mystic, the difficulty, that is to say, of positing a real\r\n\'objective world when all that we know or seize of it seems to be\r\nour own mental constructions that we impose upon it. Science\r\nhas come to such a pass that it can do no more than take an\r\ni.: objective world on trust.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Things need not, however, be so dismal looking. The difficulty arises because of a fundamental attitude—the attitude of\r\na purely reasoning being. But Reason or Mind is only one\r\nlayer or vein of the reality, and to see and understand and</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\" size=\"2\">1 <i>La Physique Nowelle et les Quanta,</i> by Louis de Broglie, p. 12.</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 239<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">explain that reality through one single track of approach will\r\nnaturally bias the view, it will present only what is real or&nbsp;\r\nimmediate to it, and all the rest will appear as secondary or a&nbsp;\r\nformation of it. That is, of course, a truth that has been clearly\r\nbrought out by the anti-intellectualist. But the vitalist\'s view is\r\nalso likewise vitiated by a similar bias, as he contacts reality\r\nonly through this prism of vital force. It is the old story of the\r\nUpanishad in which the seeker takes the Body, the Life and\r\nthe Mind one after another and declares each in its turn to be\r\nthe only and ultimate reality, the Brahman.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The truth of the matter is that the integral reality is to be\r\nseized by an integral organon. To an integralised consciousness the integral reality is directly and immediately presented,\r\neach aspect is apprehended in and through its own truth and substance. The \r\nsynthesis or integration is reached by a consciousness which is the basis and\' continent of all, collectively\r\nand severally, and of which all are vari6us formations and\r\nexpressions on various levels and degrees. This is the knowledge\r\nand experience given by the supreme spiritual consciousness.</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 240<hr>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\" align=\"right\"><b><font size=\"2\"><a href=\"-00_Contents\">\r\n			<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">HOME</span></a></font></b></td>\r\n	</tr>\r\n	</table>\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n</body>\r\n</html>','-38_Physics or Philosophy','','publish','closed','open','','38_physics-or-philosophy','','','2021-11-23 17:21:37','2021-11-23 17:21:37','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/38_physics-or-philosophy/',0,'post','',0),(1505,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:37','2021-11-23 17:21:37','<html>\r\n\r\n<head>\r\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=windows-1252\">\r\n<title>New Page 1</title>\r\n</head>\r\n\r\n<body>\r\n\r\n<div align=\"center\">\r\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\r\n		<tr>\r\n			<td>\r\n			<div align=\"center\">\r\n				<p style=\"margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\r\n				<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><b>EVOLUTION AND THE \r\n				EARTHLY DESTINT</b></font></p>\r\n				<p style=\"margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n				<p style=\"margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\r\n				<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><b>CONTENTS</b></font></p>\r\n				<p style=\"margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n				<p style=\"margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\r\n				<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><a href=\"evolution-and-the-earthly-destiny-01_Pre-Content\">\r\n				<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">Pre content</span></a></font></p>\r\n				<p style=\"margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\r\n				<font face=\"Times New Roman\">\r\n				<a href=\"-02_Publishers-Note\">\r\n				<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">Publisher Note</span></a></font></p>\r\n				<p style=\"margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n				<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"55%\">\r\n					<tr>\r\n						<td align=\"left\" width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n						<p style=\"margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\r\n						<font face=\"Times New Roman\">I</font></td>\r\n						<td align=\"left\" width=\"50%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n						<p style=\"margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">MAN AND THE EVOLUTION</font></p>\r\n						<div align=\"center\">\r\n							<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\r\n								<tr>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n									<p style=\"margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;</td>\r\n									<td width=\"45%\">\r\n									<p style=\"margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><a href=\"-03_Sri-Aurobindo\">\r\n<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">Sri Aurobindo</span></a></font></td>\r\n								</tr>\r\n								<tr>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n									<p style=\"margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;</td>\r\n									<td width=\"45%\">\r\n									<p style=\"margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><a href=\"-04_Natures-Own-Yoga\">\r\n<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">Nature\'s Own Yoga</span></a></font></td>\r\n								</tr>\r\n								<tr>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n									<p style=\"margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;</td>\r\n									<td width=\"45%\">\r\n									<p style=\"margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><a href=\"-05_The-Divine-Man\">\r\n<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">The Divine Man</span></a></font></td>\r\n								</tr>\r\n								<tr>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n									<p style=\"margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;</td>\r\n									<td width=\"45%\">\r\n									<p style=\"margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">\r\n<a href=\"-06_Lines-of-the-Descent-of-Consciousness\">\r\n<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">Lines of the Descent of Consciousness</span></a></font></td>\r\n								</tr>\r\n								<tr>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n									<p style=\"margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;</td>\r\n									<td width=\"45%\">\r\n									<p style=\"margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">\r\n<a href=\"-07_Evolution-of-the-Spiritual-Consciousness\">\r\n<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">Evolution of the Spiritual Consciousness</span></a></font></td>\r\n								</tr>\r\n								<tr>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n									<p style=\"margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;</td>\r\n									<td width=\"45%\">\r\n									<p style=\"margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><a href=\"-08_Consciousness-as-Energy\">\r\n<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">Consciousness as Energy</span></a></font></td>\r\n								</tr>\r\n								<tr>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n									<p style=\"margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;</td>\r\n									<td width=\"45%\">\r\n									<p style=\"margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><a href=\"-09_The-Intuition-of-the-Age\">\r\n<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">The Intuition of the Age</span></a></font></td>\r\n								</tr>\r\n								<tr>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n									<p style=\"margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;</td>\r\n									<td width=\"45%\">\r\n									<p style=\"margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><a href=\"-10_The-Creative-Soul-\">\r\n<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">The Creative Soul</span></a></font></td>\r\n								</tr>\r\n								<tr>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n									<p style=\"margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;</td>\r\n									<td width=\"45%\">\r\n									<p style=\"margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><a href=\"-11_Human-Progress\">\r\n<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">Human Progress</span></a></font></td>\r\n								</tr>\r\n								<tr>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n									<p style=\"margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;</td>\r\n									<td width=\"45%\">\r\n									<p style=\"margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><a href=\"-12_Human-Destiny\">\r\n<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">Human Destiny</span></a></font></td>\r\n								</tr>\r\n								<tr>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n									<p style=\"margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;</td>\r\n									<td width=\"45%\">\r\n									<p style=\"margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">\r\n<a href=\"-13_The-March-of-Civilisation-\">\r\n<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">The March of Civilisation</span></a></font></td>\r\n								</tr>\r\n								<tr>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n									<p style=\"margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;</td>\r\n									<td width=\"45%\">\r\n									<p style=\"margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\r\n									<font face=\"Times New Roman\">\r\n									<a href=\"-14_The-New-Humanity-\">\r\n									<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">The New Humanity</span></a></font></td>\r\n								</tr>\r\n							</table>\r\n						</div>\r\n						</td>\r\n					</tr>\r\n					<tr>\r\n						<td align=\"left\" width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n						<p style=\"margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\r\n						<font face=\"Times New Roman\">II</font></td>\r\n						<td align=\"left\" width=\"50%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n						<p style=\"margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">II INDIA AND HER <i>SWADHARMA</i></font><div align=\"center\">\r\n							<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\r\n								<tr>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\">&nbsp;</td>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"45%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">\r\n<a href=\"-15_The-Spiritual-Genius-of-India\">\r\n<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">The Spiritual Genius of India</span></a></font></td>\r\n								</tr>\r\n								<tr>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\">&nbsp;</td>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"45%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n									<font face=\"Times New Roman\">\r\n									<a href=\"-16_Vivekananda\">\r\n									<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">Vivekananda</span></a></font></td>\r\n								</tr>\r\n								<tr>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\">&nbsp;</td>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"45%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n									<font face=\"Times New Roman\">\r\n									<a href=\"-17_The-Basis-of-Unify\">\r\n									<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">The Basis of \r\n									Unity</span></a></font></td>\r\n								</tr>\r\n								<tr>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\">&nbsp;</td>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"45%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n									<font face=\"Times New Roman\">\r\n									<a href=\"-18_Towards-a-New-Ideology\">\r\n									<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">Towards a New Ideology</span></a></font></td>\r\n								</tr>\r\n								<tr>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\">&nbsp;</td>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"45%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n									<font face=\"Times New Roman\">\r\n									<a href=\"-19_A-Stainless-Steel-Frame\">\r\n									<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">A Stainless \r\n									Steel Frame</span></a></font></td>\r\n								</tr>\r\n								<tr>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\">&nbsp;</td>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"45%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n									<font face=\"Times New Roman\">\r\n									<a href=\"-20_The-Basis-of-Social-Reconstruction-\">\r\n									<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">The Basis of \r\n									Social Reconstruction</span></a></font></td>\r\n								</tr>\r\n								<tr>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\">&nbsp;</td>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"45%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n									<font face=\"Times New Roman\">\r\n									<a href=\"-21_The-Moral-and-the-Spiritual-\">\r\n									<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">The Moral and \r\n									the Spiritual</span></a></font></td>\r\n								</tr>\r\n								<tr>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\">&nbsp;</td>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"45%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n									<font face=\"Times New Roman\">\r\n									<a href=\"-22_The-World-is-One\">\r\n									<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">The World is \r\n									One</span></a></font></td>\r\n								</tr>\r\n								<tr>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\">&nbsp;</td>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"45%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n									<font face=\"Times New Roman\">\r\n									<a href=\"-23_Humanism-and-Humanism\">\r\n									<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">Humanism and \r\n									Humanism</span></a></font></td>\r\n								</tr>\r\n								<tr>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\">&nbsp;</td>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"45%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n									<font face=\"Times New Roman\">\r\n									<a href=\"-24_The-Eternal-East-and-West\">\r\n									<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">The Eternal \r\n									East and West</span></a></font></td>\r\n								</tr>\r\n							</table>\r\n						</div>\r\n						</td>\r\n					</tr>\r\n					<tr>\r\n						<td align=\"left\" width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n						<p style=\"margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\r\n						<font face=\"Times New Roman\">III</font></td>\r\n						<td align=\"left\" width=\"50%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n						<p style=\"margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">EDUCATION</font><div align=\"center\">\r\n							<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\r\n								<tr>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\">&nbsp;</td>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"45%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><a href=\"-25_The-Immortal-Person\">\r\n<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">The Immortal Person</span></a></font></td>\r\n								</tr>\r\n								<tr>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\">&nbsp;</td>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"45%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><a href=\"-26_The-Nature-of-Perfection\">\r\n<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">The Nature of Perfection</span></a></font></td>\r\n								</tr>\r\n								<tr>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\">&nbsp;</td>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"45%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><a href=\"-27_The-Relative-Best\">\r\n<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">The Relative Best</span></a></font></td>\r\n								</tr>\r\n								<tr>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\">&nbsp;</td>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"45%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">\r\n<a href=\"-28_Mind-and-the-Mental-World\">\r\n<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">Mind and the Mental World</span></a></font></td>\r\n								</tr>\r\n								<tr>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\">&nbsp;</td>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"45%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n									<font face=\"Times New Roman\">\r\n									<a href=\"-29_Education-is-Organisation\">\r\n									<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">Education is Organisation</span></a></font></td>\r\n								</tr>\r\n								<tr>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\">&nbsp;</td>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"45%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n									<font face=\"Times New Roman\">\r\n									<a href=\"-30_The-Spirit-of-Tapasya\">\r\n									<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">The Spirit of Tapasya</span></a></font></td>\r\n								</tr>\r\n								<tr>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\">&nbsp;</td>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"45%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n									<font face=\"Times New Roman\">\r\n									<a href=\"-31_Brahmacharya\">\r\n									<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">Brahmacharya</span></a></font></td>\r\n								</tr>\r\n								<tr>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\">&nbsp;</td>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"45%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n									<font face=\"Times New Roman\">\r\n									<a href=\"-32_Education-as-the-Growth-of-Consciousness\">\r\n									<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">Education \r\n									as the Growth of Consciousness</span></a></font></td>\r\n								</tr>\r\n								<tr>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\">&nbsp;</td>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"45%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n									<font face=\"Times New Roman\">\r\n									<a href=\"-33_Consciousness-as-Freedom\">\r\n									<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">Consciousness \r\n									as Freedom</span></a></font></td>\r\n								</tr>\r\n								<tr>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\">&nbsp;</td>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"45%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n									<font face=\"Times New Roman\">\r\n									<a href=\"-34_A-True-Professor\">\r\n									<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">A True \r\n									Professor</span></a></font></td>\r\n								</tr>\r\n							</table>\r\n						</div>\r\n						</td>\r\n					</tr>\r\n					<tr>\r\n						<td align=\"left\" width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n						<p style=\"margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\r\n						<font face=\"Times New Roman\">IV</font></td>\r\n						<td align=\"left\" width=\"50%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n						<p style=\"margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY </font>\r\n\r\n						<div align=\"center\">\r\n							<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\r\n								<tr>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\">&nbsp;</td>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"45%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><a href=\"-35_In-Quest-of-Reality\">\r\n<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">In Quest of Reality</span></a></font></td>\r\n								</tr>\r\n								<tr>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\">&nbsp;</td>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"45%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n									<font face=\"Times New Roman\">\r\n									<a href=\"-36_The-Observer-and-the-Observed\">\r\n									<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">The Observer \r\n									and the Observed</span></a> </font>\r\n\r\n									</td>\r\n								</tr>\r\n								<tr>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\">&nbsp;</td>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"45%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n									<font face=\"Times New Roman\">\r\n									<a href=\"-37_The-Mystery-of-the-Five-Senses\">\r\n									<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">The Mystery of the Five Senses</span></a></font></td>\r\n								</tr>\r\n								<tr>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\">&nbsp;</td>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"45%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n									<font face=\"Times New Roman\">\r\n									<a href=\"-38_Physics-or-Philosophy\">\r\n									<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">Physics or \r\n									Philosophy</span></a></font></td>\r\n								</tr>\r\n								<tr>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\">&nbsp;</td>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"45%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n									<font face=\"Times New Roman\">\r\n									<a href=\"-39_Cosmonautics\">\r\n									<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">Cosmonautics</span></a></font></td>\r\n								</tr>\r\n								<tr>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\">&nbsp;</td>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"45%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n									<font face=\"Times New Roman\">\r\n									<a href=\"-40_Darshana-and-Philosophy\">\r\n									<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">Darshana and \r\n									Philosophy</span></a></font></td>\r\n								</tr>\r\n								<tr>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\">&nbsp;</td>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"45%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n									<font face=\"Times New Roman\">\r\n									<a href=\"-41_The-Philosopher-as-an-Artist\">\r\n									<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">The Philosopher \r\n									as an Artist and\r\nPhilosophy äs an Art</span></a></font></td>\r\n								</tr>\r\n							</table>\r\n						</div>\r\n						</td>\r\n					</tr>\r\n					<tr>\r\n						<td align=\"left\" width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n						<p style=\"margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\r\n						<font face=\"Times New Roman\">V</font></td>\r\n						<td align=\"left\" width=\"50%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n						<p style=\"margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">POETRY AND MYSTICISM</font><div align=\"center\">\r\n							<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\r\n								<tr>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\">&nbsp;</td>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"45%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><a href=\"-42_Savitri-\">\r\n<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">Savitri</span></a></font></td>\r\n								</tr>\r\n								<tr>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\">&nbsp;</td>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"45%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">\r\n<a href=\"-43_Prayers-and-Meditations-of-the-Mother\">\r\n<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">Prayers and Meditations of the Mother</span></a></font></td>\r\n								</tr>\r\n								<tr>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\">&nbsp;</td>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"45%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><a href=\"-44_The-Approach-to-Mysticism\">\r\n<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">The Approach to Mysticism</span></a></font></td>\r\n								</tr>\r\n								<tr>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\">&nbsp;</td>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"45%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><a href=\"-45_Mystic-Poetry\">\r\n<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">Mystic Poetry</span></a></font></td>\r\n								</tr>\r\n								<tr>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\">&nbsp;</td>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"45%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><a href=\"-46_The-Poetry-in-the-Making\">\r\n<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">The Poetry in the Making</span></a></font></td>\r\n								</tr>\r\n								<tr>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\">&nbsp;</td>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"45%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><a href=\"-47_Hymn-to-Darkness\">\r\n<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">Hymn to Darkness</span></a></font></td>\r\n								</tr>\r\n								<tr>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\">&nbsp;</td>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"45%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><a href=\"-48_A-Vedic-Story\">\r\n<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">A Vedic Story</span></a></font></td>\r\n								</tr>\r\n								<tr>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\">&nbsp;</td>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"45%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">\r\n<a href=\"-49_A.-Vedic-Conception-of-the-Poet-\">\r\n<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">A Vedic Conception of the Poet</span></a></font></td>\r\n								</tr>\r\n								<tr>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\">&nbsp;</td>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"45%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">\r\n<a href=\"-50_The-Beautiful-in-the-Upanishads\">\r\n<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">The Beautiful in the Upanishads</span></a></font></td>\r\n								</tr>\r\n								<tr>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\">&nbsp;</td>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"45%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><a href=\"-51_Upanishadic-Symbolism\">\r\n<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">Upanishadic Symbolism</span></a></font></td>\r\n								</tr>\r\n								<tr>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\">&nbsp;</td>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"45%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><a href=\"-52_Rabindranath-Tagore\">\r\n<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">Rabindranath Tagore A Great Poet A Great Man</span></a></font></td>\r\n								</tr>\r\n								<tr>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\">&nbsp;</td>\r\n									<td align=\"left\" width=\"45%\" valign=\"top\">\r\n									<font face=\"Times New Roman\">\r\n									<a href=\"-53_Rabindranath-and-Sri-Aurobindo\">\r\n									<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">Rabindranath and Sri Aurobindo</span></a></font></td>\r\n								</tr>\r\n							</table>\r\n						</div>\r\n						</td>\r\n					</tr>\r\n				</table>\r\n			</div>\r\n			</td>\r\n		</tr>\r\n	</table>\r\n</div>\r\n\r\n</body>\r\n\r\n</html>\r\n','evolution-and-the-earthly-destiny-00_Contents','','publish','closed','open','','evolution-and-the-earthly-destiny-00_contents','','','2021-11-23 17:21:37','2021-11-23 17:21:37','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/evolution-and-the-earthly-destiny-00_contents/',0,'post','',0),(1506,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:37','2021-11-23 17:21:37','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2 Final//EN\">\r\n<html>\r\n<head>\r\n<title>spub.htm</title>\r\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html;charset=windows-1252\">\r\n</head>\r\n<body>\r\n\r\n<table border=\"0\" width=\"100%\" cellpadding=\"6\">\r\n	<tr>\r\n		<td>\r\n		<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n		<b>\r\n		<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>Sri Aurobindo</i></font></b><p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\n		<b>I</b></p>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">From a certain standpoint Sri Aurobindo\'s message is very\r\nsimple, almost self-evident. The sum and substance of all he\r\nsays is that man is growing and has to grow in consciousness\r\ntill he reaches the complete and perfect consciousness, not only\r\nin his individual but in his collective, that is to say, social life.\r\nIn fact, the growth of consciousness is the supreme secret of&nbsp;\r\nlife, the master key to earthly evolution.&nbsp;</font><p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Sri Aurobindo believes in evolution. Creation, according to\r\nhim, has, a purpose and man moves to a goal. That is nothing\r\nelse than the unfolding of consciousness. Originally all was\r\nMatter, only dead Matter. At a certain stage out of Matter\r\ncame Life: what was or appeared to be dead became alive.\r\nThus the plant world was born—the first primeval stirring of\r\nconsciousness, a consciousness vague, blind, practically unconscious, yet moved by a newly acquired or awakened\r\npulsation. There was again a period of gestation and incubation\r\nbringing out at the end a rudimentary Mind, a first conscious\r\nconsciousness: so the animal was born. Consciousness is clearer\r\nand freer here, emerging into formulation: it is now instinct\r\nor sensibility and in its higher grades infused with a streak of\r\nspontaneous thinking. Sensuous mentality gave birth to Mind\r\nproper, that is thought, reflection and man appeared. A fully\r\nawakened consciousness, consciousness that can turn round upon itself is the \r\ncharacteristic marking out human consciousness. </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Such then are the stages in the progression of consciousness;&nbsp; they are clearly observable and admitted practically on all\r\nhands. Only Sri Aurobindo points out two crucial characters </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">Page 3</font><hr align=\"justify\">\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">of this movement. First: Matter, Life, Mind-Intelligence—these\r\nare not distinct or separate entities, one coming after another,\r\nthe succeeding one simply adding itself to the preceding,\r\ncoming we do now know from where. Not so, for something\r\ncannot come out of nothing. If life came out of Matter, it is\r\nbecause life was there hidden in Matter Matter was secretly\r\nhousing, was instinct with life. That only can evolve which\r\nwas involved. So, again, if Mind came out of life, it is because<br>\r\nMind was involved in life and therefore also in Matter although\r\nat a farther remove. Yet again, vital mind developed into\r\nIntelligence and consciousness proper, and it could be only\r\nbecause that too was its secret nature and hence the secret\r\nnature of Life and even brute Matter. Thus the whole chain of\r\ngradation is linked together indissolubly and the binding reality\r\nthat runs through all is consciousness, overt or covert. It is\r\nindeed consciousness that lies at the root of existence—the<br>\r\nbasic substance, Matter is nothing but consciousness become\r\nunconscious; and the whole scheme or processus of the cosmos is\r\nthe increasing manifestation and expression of that conscious- .\r\nness. Secondly, the other character is that at each cross-over,\r\nthere is not only a rise in consciousness but also a reversal of<br>\r\nconsciousness, that is to say, the level attained turns back upon\r\nthe preceding levels, influencing and moulding them as far as\r\npossible in its own mode and law of existence. When life\r\nappeared in Matter, wherever there was material life, the\r\nmatter thus taken up by life behaved differently from dead\r\nmatter: an organic body does not not follow the strict mechanical laws of inanimate bodies. Likewise a life endowed with\r\nmind has a different functioning than mere life. And a body<br>\r\nwhich houses a life and mind, which has, as it were, flowered\r\ninto life and mind moves and acts in another way than an inert\r\nbody or even a vitalised body. Man\'s intelligence and reason\r\nhave reoriented or tend to reorient his vital instincts and\r\nreactions, even his bodily functions and forms. A conscious\r\nregulation, even refashioning of his life and body is the very\r\nessence of human consciousness, the urge of his nature, instead\r\nof a spontaneous <i>laissez-faire</i> movement of pure vitality or the\r\nmechanical go-round of the material base. These three major\r\nprovinces or layers of consciousness—Matter, Life and Mind\r\n—man has taken up into himself and in the light of his consciousness</font><p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">Page 4</font><hr align=\"justify\">\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">—his Intelligence—has studied and classified them\r\narranging them serially as the well-known sciences of Physics,\r\nBiology and Psychology.&nbsp;</font><p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Now, Sri Aurobindo says, evolution marches onward and\r\nwill rise beyond mind to another status of consciousness which\r\nhe calls Supermind. In the earthly scheme there will thus\r\nmanifest a new type, a higher functioning of consciousness and a new race or \r\nspecies will appear on earth with this new consciousness as the ruling principle. Out of the rock and mineral\r\ncame the plant, out of the plant the animal, out of the mere\r\nanimal man has come and out of man the Superman will come\r\ninevitably.&nbsp; </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Standing on the mental plane, immured within the dimensions of Reason and mental intelligence, it is not easy to\r\ncontemplate the type of consciousness that will be; even as it\r\nwas difficult for the ape to envisage the advent of his successor,\r\nman. But certain characteristic signs, rudimentary or fragmentary movements of the higher status are visible in the\r\nmental consciousness even as it is: the ape likewise was not\r\nwithout a glimmer of Reason and logic, even the faculty of\r\nratiocination that seems to be the exclusive property of man. There is, for \r\nexample, a movement we call Intuition, so different from Reason to which even Scientists and Mathematicians acknowledge their debt of gratitude for so many of their\r\ndiscoveries and inventions. There is also the other analogous\r\nmovement called Inspiration that rules the poet and the artist\r\ndisclosing to them a world of beauty and reality that is not\r\navailable to the normal human consciousness. Again, there is\r\nyet another group of human beings at the top of the ladder of\r\nevolution—mystics and sages—who <i>see</i> the truth, possess the\r\ntruth direct through a luminous immediacy of perception,\r\ncalled Revelation. Now, all these functionings of consciousness\r\nthat happen frequently enough within the domain of normal\r\nhumanity are still expressions of a higher mode of consciousness : they are not the product or play of Reason or logical\r\nintelligence which marks the character, the differentia of\r\nhuman consciousness. </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; But, as at present, these are mere glimmers and glimpses from\r\nelsewhere and man has no command or control over them. They\r\nare beyond the habitual conscious will, they come and go as </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">Page 5</font><hr align=\"justify\">\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">they like, happy visitations from another world, they do not\r\nabide our question and are not at our beck and call. The\r\nSupermind, on the contrary, is in full possession of that consciousness of which these are faint beginnings and distant\r\nechoes. The Superman will be born when man has risen above\r\nhis mind and emerged into the supramental consciousness.</font><p style=\"margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; text-indent:25px; line-height:150%\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; One thing needs to be pointed out here: it is that man is\r\nexpected to consciously transcend himself and deliver this\r\nsupermanhood, for it is to be a conscious process, a labour of\r\nthe wakeful will. That is the great difference which the new\r\ntransition has brought in. So long evolution was a spontaneous\r\nand apparently unconscious process, moving slowly and\r\ninadvertently as things in nature normally move. Man rose\r\nout of the animal: he simply found himself man one day,\r\nthere was no conscious effort, no previous knowledge of the\r\nchange on the part of the animal undergoing the change<br>\r\nLikewise the animal came out of its plant origin spontaneously\r\nand unwittingly: the plant too evolved out of the inert and\r\ninanimate matter through a natural process of slow mutation.\r\nBut now at the stage of manhood consciousness has become\r\nfully conscious, self-conscious, and therefore its further&nbsp; ascension\r\ncannot but be conscious, ever more conscious, the result of\r\ndeliberate energising. This is a process of self-transformation.\r\nIt has a method, a technique, a whole system of its own. The\r\ngrowth of consciousness, its culture and transformation is the\r\nend and purpose of all true education: its highest consummation, its supreme perfection is what is intended by Yoga, the\r\nmystic\'s system of inner discipline. </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; text-indent:25px; line-height:150%\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; We say, then, supramentalisation of consciousness is the goal\r\nNature is aiming at and man striving for: it is the next step\r\nthat earth and man are taking in their evolutionary urge. Man,\r\nhowever, represents a very crucial stage—he is the dividing\r\nline between two hemispheres—two modes of consciousness,\r\ntwo types of creation. As I have said, up to man it is a natural\r\nspontaneous unreflecting unconscious evolution: with man\r\nit is conscious, deliberate, wilful evolution. What was being\r\ndone behind the veil in ignorance will now be done openly in\r\nfull knowledge. The very first result will be the shortening of\r\nthe time factor. The conscious process increases the tempo,\r\ntelescopes into decades or years a process or development that </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">Page 6</font><hr align=\"justify\">\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">would take centuries or more otherwise; in man a growth is\r\nachieved in one life that would normally need several lives.\r\nThe other characteristic result is that when the Supermind\r\nestablishes itself, there is no more ignorance, it is all light and\r\nknowledge. Till the mental range, even at its highest heights,\r\nit is a mixture of light and darkness, of knowledge and ignorance: there is always an element of doubt, uncertainty or\r\npartial perception: there is a groping, a trial and one moves at\r\nbest from greater darkness to lesser shade. With the Supermind\r\nall that changes: the Superman lives always in the full daylight,\r\nin the zenith consciousness, in the plenitude of knowledge.\r\nHe moves from light to light, knowledge to knowledge, no\r\nlonger bound to the division and duality inherent in the present\r\nhuman consciousness. It may be that man may not at a bound\r\nreach the peak of the Supermind: for there are lower ranges,\r\nvoluntary limitations of the Light, less absolute formulations\r\nof the perfect being through which man will have to pass for a greater \r\nenrichment of his nature and for the establishment of other orders of luminous existence upon earth. Sri\r\nAurobindo has, in this connection, spoken of the Overmind\r\nand the Mind of Light. But these too lie beyond the border of\r\nmental twilight and are domains of Light, own delegates of\r\nSupermind. </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; It may not be out of place here just to mention a few characters proper to this supramental over-border consciousness. First\r\nof all, it is the seat and organon of complete knowledge:&nbsp; knowledge here is not the result of the deductive and inductive\r\nprocess of reason, it does not balance pros and cons and out of\r\nuncertain possibilities strike out an average probability: it is direct, straight, immediate, certain and absolute. Knowledge\r\nhere comes by identity—the knower and the known are one\r\nand what is known is therefore self-knowledge, Secondly, the\r\nwill too is not an effort or striving and struggling, but the\r\nspontaneous expression of the self-power of the consciousness; willing means achieving, one wills the inevitable truth for,\r\nknowledge and will too are one. Thirdly, it is the status of\r\nperfect delight, for one has passed beyond the vale of tears and\r\nentered the peace that passeth understanding, one has found\r\nthat Joy is the source of creation and the truth of existence is\r\nheld in Ecstasy. </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">Page 7</font><hr align=\"justify\">\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; It is in other words at bottom the Vedantic status of Sat-chit\r\nananda (perfect Being, Consciousness-energy and Beatitude),\r\nbut individualised serving as the basic reality of the world-life\r\nand existence: it is this that seeks to manifest and embody\r\nitself in its own dharma—supreme law—in and through the\r\nphysical forms and modes of that life and existence. Beyond\r\nthis it is not possible here to enter into the further mysteries of\r\nthe Arcanum. </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Lastly, another point and we have done. It is that all human\r\nefforts in the past in any realm or domain towards a higher life\r\nhas been contributory to this supreme consummation that\r\nSri Aurobindo envisages as coming or sure to come. It is very\r\noften asserted that human nature is irremediable and although\r\nwe may try at a little amelioration of his instinctive life, especially as a social being, there can be no permanent or radical \r\ncure of the original sin of Ignorance and Inconscicnce with\r\nwhich his earthly nature is branded. Reformers, idealists, even\r\nsaints and sages have seen and sought to counter the evil\r\n—some tried to get rid of it, others round it: but it is still there,\r\nas rampant as ever, apparently with no effect upon it. For\r\none thing, evil was sought to be cured by its opposite, the good,\r\nbut the good that belongs to the level of consciousness to\r\nwhich evil too belongs. In other words, we tried to deal with\r\nthe world and treat it with the force of the Mind, even though\r\nin some cases, the mind was a high or even the highest spiritual\r\nmind. To touch the roots of the malady that extend into our\r\ndeepest fibres, our most material being, dead inconscience,\r\none must rise to the very source of consciousness, the creative\r\ntruth-consciousness: the Supermind alone can transform the\r\nearth, transfigure the earthly life. In the second place, the\r\npast attempts did not all go in vain: they were preparations,\r\nthe first ground-work, on various levels and in various domains\r\nof human life and consciousness where the light infiltrated, to\r\nwhatever extent it may be and things, and forces were shaken\r\nand reshuffled to admit of other forces and inspirations; if\r\nnothing else, at least the possibility was created. </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Sri Aurobindo\'s aim, we have said, is not an individual\r\nfulfilment, however glorious and successful it might be, and\r\nnot merely the fulfilment of one limb only of the individual\r\nhowever deep and high. Sri Aurobindo embraced the whole&nbsp; </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">Page 8</font><hr align=\"justify\">\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">man and the whole society. A fulfilled life in society upon\r\nearth—the highest and completest life possible, not only\r\npossible but inevitable to the human being—that is the work\r\nfor which he laboured. Man\'s mind and intelligence, his life-\r\nenergy, his body-form are all taken up, purified of the lower\r\nformulation, remoulded into the mode and pattern of the\r\nsupramental truth-consciousness: he becomes a complete,\r\nintegral perfect being expressing and embodying in all his\r\nlimbs and movements the supreme reality made of utter truth\r\nand knowledge and power and delight. This being his individual life, his collective or social life too would figure the\r\nsame pattern. A new society in which men have found their\r\nsoul and soul function is a harmonious, a unitary body, composed of individuals who by living each one in his self live in\r\nall and living in all each one lives in his self. Likewise, an\r\naggregate of such societies—a society of nations, as it is already called \r\nsomewhat in a prophetic vein,—will also be an inherently harmonious and unified, even a unitary body too,\r\nsince all these larger units will express through their corporate\r\nlife each in its own special way the glory and greatness of the\r\nDivine Consciousness. </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In this global reconstitution of the earth life, Sri Aurobindo\r\ngives India a great role—a mighty destiny and a heavy responsibility. For he considers India as the repository of the\r\nspiritual consciousness, the Guardian of Truth, as the Veda\r\nsays, and in the new age of world unification her national\r\nbeing will act as the spearhead breaking into the old-world\r\nformations and signalling the shape of things to come. </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p align=center style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<b>\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">II </font></b>\r\n		<p align=center style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&quot;The poet of patriotism, the prophet of nationalism and the\r\nlover of humanity&quot; he was, in the famous words of his advocate\r\nand friend and follower who stood for him before the bar of\r\nHistory for his cause, and not merely before a British Court of\r\nJustice. Indeed he was all that, but today we have to add\r\nanother epithet and complete the description. For he is now\r\nthe builder of the Life Divine. This was indeed the secret\r\nTruth that worked in him from behind and gave to these </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">Page 9</font><hr align=\"justify\">\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">earlier preoccupations the reality and the beauty they attained\r\nand the fullness of their significance. He worked for human\r\nevolution, that was his life mission. He thus formulates the&nbsp;\r\nstages of human evolution: </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &quot;.Family, nationality, humanity are Vishnu\'s three strides\r\nfrom an isolated to a collective unity. The first has been\r\nfulfilled, we yet strive for the perfection of the second, to-\r\nwards the third we are reaching out our hands and the\r\npioneer work is already attempted&quot;. </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; But the supreme secret lies in Vishnu\'s fourth stride, from\r\nhumanity to divinity. That is the goal of the evolution and\r\nthat furnishes also the key to the solution of the problem.\r\nWhether in the matter of the family or the nationality or\r\nhumanity in general there has been a stalemate, a stagnation,\r\neven a frustration; an effort towards progress seemed to lead\r\nmore towards conflict, disharmony, away from what is beautiful and good and happy. That is bound to be. Man must reach\r\nhis very highest and deepest, his absolute itself before he can\r\narrive at perfection in the lower and the relative. Man must\r\nexceed himself if he is to fulfil himself. A new connotation has\r\nto be found for family and nationality and even humanity.\r\nThat connotation, Sri Aurobindo says, is divinity. </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; We must understand however that there is divinity and \r\ndivinity. There is a divinity that suffers, supports and transcends all that is existent. For it is the all-reality, all-consciousness, the ever-present and- omnipresent Immutable behind\r\nthe mutabilities of creation. That does not take part in the\r\ncosmic struggle, the universal urge of progress forward. Apart\r\nfrom the divinity that suffers, there is a divinity that shapes\r\n—and is shaped at the same time, shapes from behind and\r\nis shaped itself in front. This dynamic Divine Sri Aurobindo\r\ncalls the supramental Divine or the incarnate Divine Mother. </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In the inevitable course of evolution man is something that\r\nwill be surpassed, not in the sense that he will be rejected and\r\nthrown out as an unnecessary element, like some of the prehistoric animals, no, he will still be at the head of earthly\r\ncreation, but undergo a sea-change, as it were, and be transmuted into a divine creature. </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">Page 10</font><hr align=\"justify\">\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; As at present man is a mental being, that is to say, it is his\r\nmind—his reason and intellect—that governs him and it is\r\nthrough that faculty that he governs the world. But mind is not\r\nthe highest or the most powerful faculty in him, nor the last\r\nterm of his consciousness. Beyond the mind there rise other\r\npowers of consciousness, tier upon tier, and man can go there,\r\nlive there or bring them down into his normal life and change\r\nit into their pattern. The highest of these Sri Aurobindo calls\r\nthe plane of Truth-Consciousness, the Supermind. It is the\r\nsupreme luminous Power-—the Light of lights—towards which\r\nthe creation moves and by which the creation is moved in\r\nsecret. It is the heart-centre of fulfilled harmony. </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; text-indent:25px\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Man has been striving through his lesser powers, through\r\n&quot;the grace of the lower gods since his advent upon earth to\r\narrive at a reconstruction of his life and surroundings. That is\r\nwhy he has never attained the full measure of success. Indeed\r\na period of success or progress was always followed by a period\r\nof decline and retrogression, a so-called golden age by an age\r\nof iron. As a matter of fact today humanity finds itself terribly\r\nenclosed in a cage of iron as it were. The earth has become too\r\nsmall for his soaring capacities and multitudinous necessities\r\n—he is already thinking of a place in the moon! That is only\r\nthe sign and symbol of an inner impasse to which he has\r\narrived. The anguish of the human soul has reached its acme:&nbsp; the problems, social, political, educational, moral it is facing\r\nhave proved themselves to be totally insoluble. Yes, he has\r\nrun into a cul-de-sac, where he is caught as in a death-trap.\r\nNo ordinary rational methods, half-way nostrums can deliver\r\nhim any more. All the outer doors and issues are now closed\r\nfor him; the only way is to turn inward, there lies the open\r\nroad to freedom and fulfilment. That is the way to transcendence and surpassing. To attempt any other way is not only\r\nto try the impossible but to head straight towards doomsday. </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The time then is now, for the time is ripe. It will not do to\r\nsay that the way proposed is beyond the reach of the common\r\nman. He has neither the capacity nor the knowledge nor even\r\nthe inclination or impulse to surpass himself, to do anything\r\nnon-human. First of all, as I said, if man is to survive in any\r\nform, this is the only way and there is no second. Next, what\r\ndo we know of the capacity and impulsion even of the common </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">Page 11</font><hr align=\"justify\">\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">man ? Even in a smaller scale and on the material level, have\r\nwe not seen to what tremendous acts of heroism he can rise\r\nautomatically, through what travails—tapasya—of concentrated effort he agreed to pass, simply because the occasion\r\ndemanded it ? Man\'s secret soul is greater than all the limitation\r\nof his outward frame. </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; That does not mean that the entire human race will wholly\r\nchange over to the new life. All, without exception, are not\r\nexpected to come up to the highest level of fulfilment. But\r\nthat is not required, for the beginning at least. It is always the&nbsp;\r\nfew pioneers, a select group of forerunners that form the\r\nfoundation of a new creation A first snowball perhaps, but it\r\nmoves and gathers others on the way and builds up larger and\r\nlarger collectivities. At all crises of evolutionary cycles such<br>\r\nbeings inevitably appear, they are thrown up-by Nature or they\r\ncome down from above and incarnate; especially it is so when\r\nNature proposes to take a leap and not merely trudge and\r\ncrawl. </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; It is the fulfilment of Nature that has to happen and is\r\nhappening, the fulfilment of the inferior Nature in and through\r\nthe higher divine Nature. Here we come perhaps to the very\r\nheart of the mystery. For till now, till almost yesterday, we may\r\nsay in a general way, the spiritual life, any kind of divine life\r\nwas considered possible only through battling with Nature,\r\nthrough a struggle upstream against the current of Nature.\r\nIndeed Nature was despised, feared, rejected as an enemy of\r\nthe Spirit. But today the wheel seems to have turned full\r\ncircle. The, Spirit recognises the body as its counterpart and\r\nvisible form, welcomes the body as its earthly figure and\r\nexpression. The old antinomy has become obsolete, because\r\nthe body too on its side recognises that it has not the structure\r\nand character that millennial ignorance gave it. The material\r\nparticles that constitute the physical body are found to be after\r\nall not inert masses but quantas of energy, of luminous energy.<br>\r\nThe spiritual Light above demands nothing better for its\r\nearthly home. </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; This is symbolical of the collaboration that Nature is now\r\noffering to the Spirit. A new substance, made of light-energy\r\nemanating from Consciousness-Force, is now slowly permeating the earth atmosphere, as the Mother declares and it is this </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">Page 12</font><hr align=\"justify\">\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">that will serve as the basis of the new creation and give it its\r\nlaw and constitution. A new world built out of knowledge and\r\nvision and luminous power is destined to come, for man is no\r\nlonger in love with his ignorance, but a divine afflatus is&nbsp; possessing him. </font>\r\n\r\n<p align=justify style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The new world has to be based on new foundations. The\r\nold world was built from outside with superficial cheap elements\r\nthat lower Nature offers easily and profusely. It is body\'s needs,\r\nvital hungers assembled and arranged according to a plan\r\nsupplied by mind\'s ideas and notions under the directive and\r\ncompulsion of the ego, the sense or consciousness of one\'s\r\nseparate individual existence as against others. The new world\r\nwill start from the soul, the luminous divine element in man\r\nwhich is one with all and grow from within outward. It is as\r\nif the foundations are laid not below, but above—the tree of\r\nexistence would branch out not from below upwards, but from\r\nabove downward, in the image given by the ancient Rishis of\r\nIndia. The individual will therefore be not primarily a body\r\nhousing secondary—or as it is sometimes called epiphenomenal\r\n—movements such as those of the mind and the vital limited\r\nand largely conditioned by it. The individual will primarily be\r\na consciousness, a focus of energy-consciousness existing and\r\nacting in union and communion with all other similar individual foci, for all form one single undivided entity. The body .\r\nand life and mind are moulded in the substance and rhythm\r\nof that sovereign consciousness. The hard egoism or self-centred<br>\r\nness, the gross animality that seem to be the very constitution\r\nof the human individual are dissolved into the soul\'s radiant&nbsp; urges. </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The individual can be and is to be fulfilled in and through\r\nhis soul—the presiding consciousness that has at its disposal\r\nthe mind, the vital and the body as its instruments and means\r\nof expression, but which till now, because of an evolutionary\r\nnecessity of growth and development, acted more as an obstruction or a veil than as an aid or a channel. When in the new\r\nconsciousness the individual attains its soul-status, in other\r\nwords, its divinity, then a reshaping and recasting of the lower\r\n. limbs becomes possible and even inevitable. The soul-status\r\nmeans freedom, harmony, purity, knowledge, power, delight and immortality, absolute and inalienable. </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">Page 13</font><hr align=\"justify\">\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; As individuals grow in this line, the social structure too is\r\naltered and transmuted. The harmony and fullness that individuals present are automatically represented in the collective\r\ngrouping. Instead of a battling competitive society we have\r\nnot merely a, cooperative but a unitive community striving in a\r\ncommon aspiration towards a single unique achievement.\r\nFor all individuals know and feel that they are but various\r\nlimbs of the same organism, luminously and unfailingly\r\nfunctioning each in its and for its own appointment—expressing\r\ndifferently the one Light \'supreme. </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; And nations that are finding so difficult, almost impossible,\r\nto form a comity, that are in their disparate tendencies driving\r\ntowards a catastrophe, perhaps annihilation, shall undergo a\r\nsea-change. The nation, the national being is also a reality, a\r\ndivine reality that has to come to its own&quot;—that is to say, its\r\nown soul. For there is a collective soul, as well as an individual\r\nsoul. It is the presiding deity, the norm of consciousness and\r\nbeing that works out the growth and evolution of a collectivity&nbsp;\r\nthat has found a common life. This collectivity is also enlarging\r\nitself in wider and wider commonalty. As we see actually today\r\nthe nation is tending towards and growing into the supranation\r\nor Commonwealth or Federation as it is termed politically. </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The conception of the United- States of the world is taking\r\npossession of the human mind; it is being applied and larger\r\nand more integrated collective groupings than the nation are\r\ndeveloping; they may ere long become familiar realities. Such\r\n. formations moving towards and effectuating the one indivisible\r\nhumanity open out the possibility towards a superhumanity\r\nwhich will have to base itself on a new principle of organisation ; for that must be a new mode of consciousness. </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Even the family, the first unit of collective formation<b> \r\n</b>in<b> \r\n</b>humanity that has attained a fulfilled status, is yet capable of a\r\nremodelling, a transmutation in the higher supramental\r\nconsciousness. The family instead of being built upon blood-relationship may surely have a different foundation in soul-\r\nkinship, in affinity of consciousness, comradeship in life-work. It means a total revolution, a reversal of nature, the roots\r\nbeing above instead of being below, as already referred to. </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Such far-reaching changes may well be called for and inevitable if mankind is to be radically cured of all the illnesses of </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">Page 14</font><hr align=\"justify\">\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">which it is till now a natural prey The full health of a divine\r\nbody in its individual as well as its collective and global functioning is assured only when the human being is lifted out of\r\nits mental sheath and established in the supramenal status. </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; It is an adventure for the heroic soul, for the vanguards of\r\nhumanity; but its fruition will spread abroad a benefit that\r\neven the common level shall share, even those that denied shall\r\noffer their accession and adhesion. </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">Page 15</p>\r\n		<hr>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"right\"><b><font size=\"2\"><a href=\"-00_Contents\">\r\n			<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">HOME</span></a></font></b></td>\r\n	</tr>\r\n	</table>\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;</font>\r\n</body>\r\n</html>','-03_Sri Aurobindo','','publish','closed','open','','03_sri-aurobindo','','','2021-11-23 17:21:37','2021-11-23 17:21:37','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/03_sri-aurobindo/',0,'post','',0),(1507,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:37','2021-11-23 17:21:37','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2 Final//EN\">\r\n<html>\r\n<head>\r\n<title>12 the new.htm</title>\r\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html;charset=windows-1252\">\r\n</head>\r\n<body>\r\n\r\n<table border=\"0\" width=\"100%\" cellpadding=\"6\">\r\n	<tr>\r\n		<td>\r\n		<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n		<b><font face=\"Times New Roman\">\r\n		<i>The New Humanity</i> </font>\r\n\r\n		</b>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">THE world is in the throes of a new creation and the pangs of\r\nthat new birth have made mother Earth restless. It is no longer\r\na far-off ideal that our imagination struggles to visualise, nor a\r\nprophecy that yet remains to be fulfilled. It is Here and Now.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Although we may not know it, the New Man—the divine\r\nrace of humanity is already among us. It may be in our next\r\nneighbour, in our nearest brother, even in myself. Only a thin\r\nveil covers it. It marches just behind the line. It waits for an\r\noccasion to throw off the veil and place itself in the forefront.\r\nWe are living in strenuous times in which age-long institutions\r\nare going down and new forces rearing their heads, old habits\r\nare being cast off and new impulsions acquired. In every\r\nsphere of life, we see the urgent demand for a recasting, a fresh\r\nvaluation of things. From the base to the summit, from the\r\neconomic and political life to the artistic and spiritual, humanity\r\nis being shaken to bring out a new expression and articulation.\r\nThere is the hidden surge of a Power, the secret stress of a<br>\r\nSpirit that can no longer suffer to remain in the shade and\r\nbehind the mask, but wills to come out in the broad daylight\r\nand be recognised in its plenary virtues.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; That Power, that Spirit has been growing and gathering its\r\nstrength during all the millenniums that humanity has lived\r\nthrough. On the momentous day when man appeared on earth,\r\nthe Higher Man also took his birth. Since the hour the Spirit\r\nrefused to be imprisoned in its animal sheath and came out as\r\nman, it approached by that very uplift a greater freedom and a\r\nvaster movement. It was the crest of that underground wave\r\nwhich peered over the surface from age to age, from clime to\r\nclime through the experiences of poets and prophets and sages—\r\nthe Head of the Sacrificial Horse galloping towards the Dawn</font><p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 109<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">And now the days of captivity or rather of inner preparation\r\nare at an end. The voice in the wilderness was necessary, for it\r\nwas a call and a communion in the silence of the soul. Today\r\nthe silence seeks utterance. Today the shell is ripe enough to\r\nbreak and to bring out the mature and full-grown being. The\r\nking that was in hiding comes in glory and triumph, in his\r\ncomplete regalia.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Another humanity is rising out of the present human species.\r\nThe beings of the new order are everywhere and it is they who\r\nwill soon hold sway over earth, be the head and front of the\r\nterrestrial evolution in the cycle that is approaching as it was\r\nwith man in the cycle that is passing away. What will this new\r\norder of being be like ? It will be what man is not, also what\r\nman is. It will not be man, because it will overstep the limitations and incapacities inherent in man; and it will be man by\r\nthe realisation of those fundamental aspirations and yearnings\r\nthat have troubled and consoled the deeper strata—the\r\nsoul—in him throughout the varied experiences of his terrestrial\r\nlife.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The New Man will be Master—and not slave. He will be \r\nmaster, first, of himself and then of the world. Man as he actually is, is but a slave. He has no personal voice or choice; the\r\ndetermining soul, the <i>Ishwara,</i> in him is sleep-bound and hushed.\r\nHe is a mere plaything in the hands of nature and circumstances. Therefore it is that Science has become his supreme\r\n<i>Dharmashastra;</i> for science seeks to teach us the moods of Nature\r\nand the methods of propitiating her. Our actual ideal of man is\r\nthat of the cleverest slave. But the New Man will have found\r\nhimself and by and according to his inner will, mould and\r\ncreate his world. He will not be in awe of Nature and in an\r\nattitude of perpetual apprehension and hesitation, but will\r\nground himself on a secret harmony and union that will declare\r\nhim as the lord. We will recognise the New Man by his very\r\ngait and manner, by a certain kingly ease and dominion in\r\nevery shade of his expression.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Not that this sovereign power will have anything to do with\r\naggression or over-bearingness. It will not be a power that feels\r\nitself only by creating an eternal opponent—<i>Erbfeind—</i>by\r\ncoming in constant clash with a rival, that seeks to gain victory\r\nby subjugating. It will not be Nietzschean &quot;will<b> </b> to power,&quot;</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 110<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">which is, at best, a supreme <i>Asuric</i> power. It will rather be a\r\nDivine Power, for the strength it will exert and the victory it\r\nwill achieve will not come from the ego—it is the ego which\r\nrequires an object outside and against to feel and affirm itself—but it will come from a higher personal self which is one with\r\nthe cosmic soul and therefore with other personal souls. The\r\nAsura, in spite of, or rather, because of his aggressive vehemence betrays a lack of the sovereign power that is calm and at\r\nease and self-sufficient. The Devic power does not assert but\r\nsimply accomplishes; the forces of the world act not as its\r\nopponent but as its instrument. Thus the New Man shall\r\naffirm his individual sovereignty and do so to perfection by\r\nexpressing through it his unity with the cosmic powers, with the\r\ninfinite godhead. And by being <i>Swarat,</i> Self-Master, he will\r\nbecome <i>Samrat,</i> world-master.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; This mastery will be effected not merely in will, but in mind\r\nand heart also. For the New Man will know not by the intellect\r\nwhich is egocentric and therefore limited, not by ratiocination\r\nwhich is an indirect and doubtful process, but by direct vision,\r\nan inner communion, a soul revelation. The new knowledge\r\nwill be vast and profound and creative, based as it will be upon\r\nthe reality of things and not upon their shadows. Truth will\r\nshine through every experience and every utterance—&quot;a truth\r\nshall have its seat on our speech and mind and hearing&quot;,\r\nso have the Vedas said. The mind and intellect will not be\r\nactive and constructive agents but the luminous channel of a\r\nself-luminous knowledge. And the heart too which is now the\r\nfield of passion and egoism will be cleared of its noise and\r\nobscurity; a serener sky will shed its pure warmth and translucent glow. The knot will be rent asunder—<i>bhidyate hridaya\r\ngranthih—</i>and the vast and mighty streams of another ocean\r\nwill flow through. We will love not merely those to whom we\r\nare akin but God\'s creatures, one and all; we will love not\r\nwith the yearning and hunger of a mortal but with the wide\r\nand intense <i>Rasa</i> that lies in the divine identity of souls.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; And the new society will be based not upon competition, nor\r\neven upon co-operation. It will not be an open conflict, neither\r\nwill it be a convenient compromise of rival individual interests.\r\nIt will be the organic expression of the collective soul of\r\nhumanity, working and achieving through each and every</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 111<hr>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">individual soul its most wide-winging freedom, manifesting the\r\ngodhead that is proper to each and every one. It will be an organisation, most delicate and subtle and supple, the members\r\nof which will have no need to live upon one another but in and\r\nthrough one another. It will be, if you like, a henotheistic\r\nhierarchy in which everyone will be the greatest, since everyone\r\nis all and all everyone simultaneously.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The New Humanity will be something in the mould that we\r\ngive to the gods. It will supply the link that we see missing\r\nbetween gods and men; it will be the race of embodied gods.\r\nMan will attain that thing which has been his first desire and\r\nearliest dream, for which he coveted the gods—Immortality, <i>amritatwam.</i> The mortalities that cut and divide, limit and bind\r\nman make him the sorrowful being he is. These are due to his\r\nignorance and weakness and egoism. These are due to his soul\r\nitself. It is the soul that requires change, a new birth, as Christ\r\ndemanded. Ours is a little soul that has severed itself from the\r\nlarger and mightier self that it is. And therefore does it die\r\nevery moment and even while living is afraid to live and so lives\r\npoorly and miserably. But the age is now upon us when the<br>\r\ngod-like soul anointed with its immortal royalties is ready<b> \r\n</b>to\r\nemerge and claim our salutation.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The breath and the surge of the new creation cannot<b> \r\n</b>be<b> \r\n</b>mistaken. The question that confronts us today is no longer\r\nWhether the New Man, the Super-humanity, will come or if at\r\nall, when; but the question we have to answer is who among\r\nus are ready to be its receptacle, its instrument and embodiment.</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">Page 112<hr>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"right\"><b><font size=\"2\"><a href=\"-00_Contents\">\r\n			<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">HOME</span></a></font></b></p></td>\r\n	</tr>\r\n	</table>\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;\r\n</body>\r\n</html>','-14_The New Humanity','','publish','closed','open','','14_the-new-humanity','','','2021-11-23 17:21:37','2021-11-23 17:21:37','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/14_the-new-humanity/',0,'post','',0),(1508,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:38','2021-11-23 17:21:38','<html>\r\n\r\n<head>\r\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=windows-1252\">\r\n<title>Cosmonautics</title>\r\n</head>\r\n\r\n<body>\r\n\r\n<table border=\"0\" width=\"100%\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\">\r\n	<tr>\r\n		<td>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\n		<b><font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>Cosmonautics</i> </font></b></p>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">MODERN science, modern applied science, has brought about\r\nand is bringing about more and more a big change in the earth\r\natmosphere. It is not merely the dust and smoke, gases and\r\nfumes thrown out by the modern machineries from the earth\r\ninto the sky that have been increasing ominously in volume, but the less patent \r\nvibrations that have been released by advanced scientific projects and experiments and that have been\r\nencircling the earth more and more in a tight embrace. A\r\nquiet and clean air was such a treasure for human beings; men\r\nhave always longed for it as a necessity and also as a diversion,\r\nand it was so readily available. The saints and sages went up\r\nto mountain-tops and into deep forests and far away into open\r\nmeadows for a full-breath draught of that heavenly element.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; But now physically, materially, we know that the radiowaves \r\nand innumerable other cosmic waves have been constantly, ceaselessly hammering, churning the earth-atmosphere\r\nall around us. Human bodies are immersed in a real turmoil.\r\nThey are bathed in a whirlwind constantly. The nerves and\r\ntissues are being shaken from within to their very roots through-out one\'s life, day and night. There is no peace, no tranquillity\r\nupon earth; physical and material repose has altogether\r\ndisappeared. The high hill-tops or mountain-sides do not help\r\nany more nor the ocean depths nor any African jungle nor\r\neven the Sahara desert.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The incidence of illness, of disequilibrium among human\r\nbeings, is a pronounced phenomenon in modern age. Stability,\r\nsteadiness, measure, all the qualities that made for a balanced\r\nsober life in the past are on the decline, have almost disappeared. </font>&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 241<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">Ill-health, malaise, imbalance, physical and mental,\r\nare reigning supreme. And the million doctors upon earth are\r\nfinding it difficult to heal their patients or even themselves.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Is that the reason why man has now become so eager to\r\nquit earthly atmosphere and soar up into starry spaces? In\r\nany case, the human body is now, at least by way of experiment, being shifted to other atmospheres, other modes of\r\nliving. The important, the most significant thing however is\r\nnot so much the discovery of new regions of the universe but\r\nnew dimensions of the human body itself. No doubt this is just\r\nthe beginning, but there are indications, pointers towards un-thinkable possibilities in the future. Men are now training\r\nthemselves to be inhabitants not of earth only but of distant\r\nplaces. It is a demonstration of developments on unusual lines\r\nfor the body. At present to dwell or even to stay in unearthly\r\nregions, the earthly body has to be protected, buttressed, propped up, with much care and skill by a mechanical outfit\r\n— crude scaffolding after all. In the future, other simpler and\r\nnatural ways will surely be found.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; As we know, Nature has pushed up its secret consciousness\r\nto the human level and is still pushing it up, upward to levels\r\nof the higher man, towards the Superman. She has moulded the body for the \r\njelly-fish and moved up through all the intermediaries to the human body. Man\'s body like his consciousness has to be remoulded in such a way as to be able to enclose\r\n\' and express the superman-consciousness. The rigid natural laws that bind down \r\nthe body—the so-called natural laws of temperature and pressure, of respiration and circulation, of assimilation\r\nand rejection—have to be turned, obviated, neutralised so that\r\nman may be actually, physically a citizen of the world.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Now, the discipline that the physical body is made to undergo\r\nat present, in order to accustom itself to high flying, may one\r\nday point to the way for a new adaptation and disposition for\r\nthe body. As it is, the disruption that has been made in the\r\nearth atmosphere because of Science\'s new adventure is also a\r\nway to acclimatising the human body to new conditions. The\r\nnew conditions are becoming even more and more new and\r\nthe body is being forced to follow suit. At the beginning the\r\nresult is a rupture but that is the way towards a new disposition,\r\na new dispensation.</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 242<hr>\r\n\r\n<p align=center style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<b>\r\n<font face=\"Arial\">(2)</font>\r\n\r\n		</b>\r\n\r\n		<p align=center style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Showers, torrential streams of tiny infinitesimal particles\r\n—waves of invisible light, charges of electricity, all kinds of ultimate units \r\nof matter, are pouring down upon earth shrouding it, overwhelming it, drowning it, stifling it as it were. It is\r\n.not merely a discovery of what has already been there, a static\r\nreality since time immemorial, but that they have been coming,\r\narriving, adding ceaselessly to the volume already there, and\r\ncontinuing to do so more and more as time advances. For it is\r\nsaid that these particles, cosmic rays, radio-waves, have been\r\non their journey for such a long time from the very beginning\r\nof time that they are arriving only now into the earth atmosphere. And always \r\nthere are others that are arriving, are continuing to arrive at every instant from farther and farther\r\ndistances. The density and volume and the force of impact of\r\nthis additional quantity of matter are ever on the increase and\r\none does not know when and what will be the end. Not only\r\nso, not only the old existing particles but new particles, none\r\ncan gainsay the probability, are also being created continuously,\r\nin the process. And suppose even some are destroyed, the loss\r\nis more than compensated by the creation of new ones, may\r\nbe, of a different variety, with prospects of a new and novel\r\ndevelopment.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Thus the burden upon earth has been increasing—and the&nbsp;\r\nnature also of the burden is changing. The change is not perhaps\r\nvery obvious today but the body has already been feeling it\r\nand expressing its reactions in the instability of the balance so\r\nlong enjoyed by man. That is to say, the modern man physically\r\nlives or soon will have to live under a new set of circumstances\r\nand his physical body has to undergo a change commensurate\r\nwith its habitat or it will have to disappear.</font>&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The cosmonauts are teaching us at least the possibility of a\r\nnew, almost a revolutionary acclimatisation of the body, the\r\ncapability of the human organs to follow a different rhythm of\r\nlife in place of the old normal way. We know from the past\r\nhistory of the evolutionary stages of life that the advent of a\r\nnew species is signalled by a change in the conditions of living,\r\nand the change in the habitat involves a change in the form,\r\nthe organs and functions of the body: that is what is meant by</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 243<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><b>&nbsp;</b>the appearance of a new type of creature adapted to the new\r\nconditions. Even so today cosmic travels are forcing the human\r\nbody to adapt itself to new conditions and it is a very conscious\r\ndiscipline. The change in the body of living beings in the\r\nprevious stages is due to an unconscious pressure brought to\r\nbear upon it by an unconscious Nature. But now the situation.\r\nis different: man is attempting consciously to surpass himself,\r\nhe has begun to do it in the physical field with remarkable\r\nresults and a great promise. True, there is another factor, indeed\r\nthe major factor behind, within the inner consciousness of man\r\nand within the inner regions of the world. As I have said, it is\r\na revolutionary change there that is forcing itself upon the\r\noutside and the surface of existence.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Thus there is a twofold process for the new man to establish\r\nhimself here. First, of course, there is the psychological or inner\r\nchange and reorganisation: man\'s attempt to reach a new\r\nstatus of being and consciousness not in the category of the\r\nmere mental but a supramental status. Its nature and character\r\nand formation is being probed into by the new spiritual seekers\r\nand aspirants. That work is being done from within outward,\r\nand from above downward. This however is supplemented,\r\nsupported, effectuated or materialised by the other attempt\r\nfrom below going upward and from outside going inward.\r\nThat is the way of science, of the pragmatic man. The one we\r\nmay say somewhat philosophically, is the Purusha, the conscious being coming down; the other, Prakriti, pushing up,Nature driving upward or inward.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; It is true the process of acclimatisation that Nature follows\r\nis a slow one and gradual though somewhat crude, in spite of\r\nscientific refinements and subtleties; yet it is a help and has an\r\naccumulated effect. We may just record the progress achieved\r\nin the mere outward mechanisation from Lindberg\'s transatlantic crossing to Borman-company\'s journey to the moon.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Just at present the appearances are slender but the cumulative effect of these slender forerunners in the long run, or,\r\nwho knows may be in the short run, is sure to be tremendously\r\nobvious. It is expected that the human body itself will acquire\r\nnew dispositions forced by outer circumstances, the newly\r\ndeveloping environment and impelled by the inner stress of the\r\ndescending consciousness with its formative power. The power</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 244<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">and action of the descending consciousness is outside our ken,\r\nit is easily overlooked—unknown and invisible to the normal\r\nmind. But in fact it is a great deal due to this element and\r\nthanks to it, that man\'s phenomenal discoveries of today and\r\nmiraculous successes have been and are being achieved in the\r\nphysical field in such a quick and revolutionary manner. The\r\nMother has plainly declared that the new world is already\r\nthere built and ready and is pressing down upon the material<br>\r\ncover and sooner rather than later will force it open and\r\nmanifest itself.</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">Page 245</p>\r\n		<hr>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\" align=\"right\"><b><font size=\"2\"><a href=\"-00_Contents\">\r\n			<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">HOME</span></a></font></b></td>\r\n	</tr>\r\n	</table>\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p align=justify style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n</body>\r\n\r\n</html>\r\n','-39_Cosmonautics','','publish','closed','open','','39_cosmonautics','','','2021-11-23 17:21:38','2021-11-23 17:21:38','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/39_cosmonautics/',0,'post','',0),(1509,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:38','2021-11-23 17:21:38','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2 Final//EN\">\r\n<html>\r\n<head>\r\n<title>26 the mind.htm</title>\r\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html;charset=windows-1252\">\r\n</head>\r\n<body>\r\n\r\n<table border=\"0\" width=\"100%\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\">\r\n	<tr>\r\n		<td>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\n		<b><font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>Mind and the Mental World</i></font>\r\n\r\n		</b></p>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">THE world of the mind is a vast field, even vaster it seems than\r\nthe physical world. The physical world extends, science tells us,\r\nto millions of light-years. We may say practically, it is an\r\ninfinite extension and mind is a thing which surrounds, envelops\r\nthis measureless extension. Mind surpasses the physical on\r\nanother count, that is to say, in respect of speed. A material\r\nbody at its best travels at the speed of light, that is to say, in a\r\nsecond it goes about 200,000 miles (a little less). But thought\r\ndoes not meet any obstruction in respect of distance; whatever\r\nthe distance, it reaches its goal immediately, it does not take\r\naccount of time.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Perhaps because of its expansiveness and its speed, a Vedic\r\nRishi sends up a prayer to it not to be so elusive, not to go away\r\ntoo far but to return and dwell in its home. Evidently the\r\nRishi speaks of gathering and collecting together the dispersed\r\nuncontrolled thoughts and settling them in an ordered way in\r\nhis consciousness. We must note, however, that mind and\r\nmatter are two different categories and have different dimensions. Material space is not the same as mental space and the\r\nspeed of light and the speed of thought are not commensurable.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The mental world, the world of thoughts, is a world in itself.\r\nIt is autonomous. It moves in its own way with its own laws.\r\nWe human beings, we believe that it is we who think, that is,\r\nproduce or create our thoughts. We are the makers of our\r\nnotions and ideas. But in reality it is not so. Thoughts, ideas,\r\nnotions, all movements of the mind are self-existent realities.\r\nThey go about or flow on like the waves of a vast sea. Human\r\nbeings are mere instruments, receptacles that capture or seize\r\nsome undulations of this vast ocean. Man is man, that is to say,</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 186<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">a mental being, because in him the brain has developed to\r\nsuch an extent and in such a manner that it serves as antennae\r\nor as an aerial to receive vibrations from the mental world.\r\nIndeed the ordinary human mind is a sort of crossroads where\r\nall kinds of thoughts from all places meet, cross one another\r\nand make an ideal market place. In fact, an individual does\r\nnot possess any thought-movement which can be called his\r\nown. He only catches a contagion. And like a contagion\r\nthought-movements pass from one person to another although\r\none may think or feel that the movement is one\'s own.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In order to have one\'s own thought, in order to think by\r\noneself, a long process of education and training is necessary.\r\nA growing personal individual consciousness is the first requisite\r\nand for that one must do what the Vedic Rishi I spoke of\r\nsought to do, gather the thoughts that one has, collect them,\r\nsift them and try to have a control over them. One must\r\ndevelop the habit of admitting certain thoughts and rejecting others. Thoughts \r\nthat are useful, that carry light and peacefulness and happiness, are naturally those that are worth\r\naccepting. Those that are of a contrary nature should be\r\npushed out. This is an exercise that develops the individual\r\nconsciousness and the individual will.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Furthermore, one may try to recognise thoughts that are of\r\na different category, that do not seem to belong to the accustomed level of consciousness but carry a vibration that is of\r\nelsewhere, in other words, thought-movements that filter\r\nthrough and come down from higher ranges of consciousness.\r\nIt means an elevation of consciousness, your being rises into</font>&nbsp;\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">higher realities.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The true individual, the being who is capable of living and\r\ncreating independently, is formed of a stuff that lies in these\r\nhigher regions.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; It is only when one has found one\'s individual self seated\r\nin the Divine centre secret behind, organised around the centre\r\nall lesser movements, marshalled them according to an inner\r\nlaw, that one becomes master of one\'s environment and creative\r\nin the true sense of the word.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Mind is a force, thought and energy but that can be truly\r\nand fully effective when it is organised, directed, that is to say,\r\nit becomes then a guided missile. In an ordinary mind the</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 187<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">thoughts are, as I have said, dispersed, they go about in all\r\ndirections, to all objectives and therefore their efficacy is at\r\nits minimum. It is like light. Light-energy becomes immensely,\r\nincredibly powerful when it is concentrated, gathered towards\r\none point. It is in this way the light-ray nowadays is trying to\r\nreplace the surgeon\'s knife.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Usually when we think of a person or a thing, our thought-vibration reaches its object but because the vibration is diffuse\r\n—not polarised—it touches or just brushes its object very\r\nfaintly without almost any reaction from it. An organised,\r\ntruly individualised consciousness has its thought-movements\r\ntoo, so organised and controlled and directed that it moves\r\nwith a clear and forceful momentum. A mental vibration, a\r\nthought-movement becomes fully dynamic, totally effective,\r\nhowever, when it gets its support from the vital. The vital too\r\nin an organised and individualised personality loses its capriciousness and lends its support to the directing consciousness.</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 188<hr>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\" align=\"right\"><b><font size=\"2\"><a href=\"-00_Contents\">\r\n			<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">HOME</span></a></font></b></td>\r\n	</tr>\r\n	</table>\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n</body>\r\n</html>','-28_Mind and the Mental World','','publish','closed','open','','28_mind-and-the-mental-world','','','2021-11-23 17:21:38','2021-11-23 17:21:38','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/28_mind-and-the-mental-world/',0,'post','',0),(1510,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:38','2021-11-23 17:21:38','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2 Final//EN\">\r\n<html>\r\n<head>\r\n<title>31 sav.htm</title>\r\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html;charset=windows-1252\">\r\n</head>\r\n<body>\r\n\r\n<table border=\"0\" width=\"100%\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\">\r\n	<tr>\r\n		<td>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">V</font><p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\" size=3>POETRY AND MYSTICISM</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">&nbsp;</td>\r\n	</tr>\r\n	<tr>\r\n		<td>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\n		<b><font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>Savitri</i> </font></b></p>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">SAVITRI, the poem, the word of Sri Aurobindo is the \r\ncosmic Answer to the cosmic Question. And Savitri, the person, the Godhead, the \r\nDivine Woman is the Divine\'s response to the human aspiration.</font>\r\n\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">he world is a great \r\nquestion mark. It is a riddle, eternal and ever-recurring. Man has faced the \r\nriddle and sought to arrive at a solution since he has been given a mind to seek \r\nand interrogate.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; What is this universe? From \r\nwhere has it come? Whither is it going ? What is the purpose of it all ? Why is \r\nman here ? What is the object of his existence?</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Such is the mode of human \r\naspiration. And Ashwapati in his quest begins to explore the world and see what \r\nit is, the way it is built up. He observes it rising tier upon tier, level upon \r\nlevel of consciousness. He mounts these stairs, takes cognisance of the modes \r\nand functions of each and passes on enriched by the experiences that each \r\ncontributes to his developing consciousness. The ascent he finds is from \r\nignorance to knowledge. The human being starts from the darkest bed of \r\nignorance, the solid basis of rock as it were, the body, the material existence. \r\nIgnorance here is absolute inconscience. Out of the total absence of \r\nconsciousness, the being begins to awake and rise to a gradually \r\ndeveloping—widening, deepening and heightening —consciousness. That is how \r\nAshwapati advances, ascends from a purely bodily life and consciousness, to the \r\nnext rung of the ladder, the first appearance and expression of life-force, the \r\nvital consciousness—energies and forms of the small lower vital. He moves on, \r\nmoves upward, there is a growing light in</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\n\r\nPage 257<br clear=all>\r\n\r\n<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">and mixed with the obscurity; ignorance begins to \r\nshed its hard and dark coatings one by one and gives place to directed and \r\nmotivated energies. He meets beings and creatures appropriate to those levels \r\ncrawling and stirring and climbing, moved by the laws governing the respective \r\nregions. In this way Ashwapati passes on into the higher vital, into the border</font>&nbsp;\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">of the mental.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Ashwapati now observes \r\nwith a clear vividness that all these worlds and the beings and forces that \r\ninhabit them are stricken as it were with a bar sinister branded upon their \r\nbodies. In spite of an inherent urge of ascension the way is not a straight road \r\nbut devious and crooked breaking into by-lanes and blind alleys. There is a \r\ngreat corruption and perversion of natural movements towards Truth: falsehoods \r\nand pretensions, arrogance of blindness reign here in various degrees. Ashwapati \r\nsought to know the wherefore of it all. So he goes behind, dives down and comes \r\ninto a region that seems to be the source and basis of all ignorance and \r\nobscurity and falsehood. He comes into the very heart of the Night, the abyss of \r\nconsciousness. He meets there the Mother of Evil and the sons of darkness.<br>\r\nHe stands before</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-left:120px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">. . the gate of the false Infinite, <br>\r\nAn eternity of disastrous absolutes<sup>1</sup>.</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">Here are the forces that pull down and lure away to \r\nperdition all that man\'s aspirations and the world\'s urge seek to express and \r\nbuild of Divine things. It is the world in which the forces of the original \r\ninconscience find their primitive play. They are dark and dangerous: they prey \r\nupon earth\'s creatures who are not content with being vassals of darkness but \r\ntry to move to the Light.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">Dangerous is this passage for the celestial \r\naspirant:</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-left:120px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">Where the red Wolf waits by the fordless stream</font><p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-left:120px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;And Death\'s black eagles scream to the precipice..<sup>2</sup></font><sup>\r\n</sup>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">He must be absolutely vigilant, absolutely on his \r\nguard, absolutely sincere.</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">1 Sri Aurobindo: <i>Savitri, Book<b> </b>\r\nII<b>:</b> Canto</i> 8: p<b>.</b> 250.<br>\r\n2 <i>Ibid: Book II: Canto</i> 8: p. 260. </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 258<hr>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-left:120px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"left\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;Here must the traveller of the upward way—</font>\r\n\r\n<p align=left style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-left:120px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;For daring Hell\'s kingdoms winds the heavenly<b> </b>\r\nroute—</font>\r\n\r\n<p align=left style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-left:120px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;Pause or pass slowly through that perilous \r\nspace,</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-left:120px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"left\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;A prayer upon his lips and the great Name.<sup>1</sup></font><sup>\r\n</sup>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"left\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; But there is no escape. \r\nThe divine traveller has to pass through this region. For it lies athwart his \r\npath to the goal. Not only so, it is necessary to go through this Night. For \r\nAshwapati</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-left:120px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;Knew death for a cellar of the house of life,</font><p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-left:120px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;In destruction felt creation\'s hasty pace, </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-left:120px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;Knew loss as the price of a celestial gain\r\n</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-left:120px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;And hell as a short cut to heaven\'s gates.<sup>2</sup></font><sup>\r\n</sup>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Ashwapati now passes into \r\nthe higher luminous regions. He enters regions of larger, breath and wider \r\nmovement—the higher vital and then into the yet more luminous region of the \r\nhigher mind. He reaches the heavens where immortal sages and the divinities and \r\nthe gods themselves dwell. Even these Ashwapati finds to be only partial truths, \r\nvarious aspects, true but limited, of the One Reality beyond. Thus he leaves all \r\nbehind and reaches into the single sole Reality, the transcen-<br>\r\ndental Truth of things, the status vast and infinite and eternal, immutable \r\nexistence and consciousness and bliss.</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-left:120px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">A Vastness brooded free from sense of Space,\r\n</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-left:120px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">An Everlastingness cut off from Time. .\r\n</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-left:120px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&quot;A stillness absolute, incommunicable. .<sup>3</sup></font><sup>\r\n</sup>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">Here seems to be the end of the quest, and one \r\nwould fain stay there ever and ever in that status</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-left:120px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">. . occult, impenetrable,—\r\n</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-left:120px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">Infinite, eternal, unthinkable, alone.<sup>4</sup></font><sup>\r\n</sup>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">Ashwapati was perhaps about to be lured into that<b> </b> \r\nBliss but</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">1 <i>Ibid: Book II: Canto</i> 7: p. 238.<br>\r\n2 <i>Op. cit. Book II: Canto</i> 8: p. 262. </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i><font size=\"2\">Op. cit. Book III: Cantos</font></i><font size=\"2\"> \r\n1-2: pp. 349; 351.</font></font><font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\"> </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i><font size=\"2\">Op. cit.<b> </b> Book HI: Canto</font></i><font size=\"2\"><b> </b>\r\n1: p. 350.</font></font><font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\"> </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 259<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">suddenly a doubt enters into him—there is a \r\nhesitation, a<br>\r\nquestioning; he hears a voice:</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p align=left style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-left:120px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;The ego is dead; we are free from being and \r\ncare,<br>\r\n&nbsp;We have done with birth and death and work and fate.<br>\r\n&nbsp; 0 soul, it is too early to rejoice!<br>\r\n&nbsp;Thou hast reached the boundless silence of the Self,<br>\r\n&nbsp; Thou hast leaped into a glad divine abyss;</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-left:120px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;But where hast thou thrown self\'s mission and \r\nself\'s power ?<br>\r\n&nbsp;On what dead bank on the Eternal\'s road?<sup>1</sup></font><sup> </sup>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Ashwapati veers \r\nround. A new perception, a new consciousness begins to open within him. A new \r\nurge moves him. He has to start on a new journey, a new quest and achievement. \r\nThe world exists neither as a Truth nor as an illusion in itself. It exists in \r\nand through the Mother of the worlds. There is a motive in its existence and it \r\nis her will that is being worked out in that existence. The world moves for the \r\nfulfilment of a purpose that is being evolved through earth-life and human-<br>\r\nlife. The ignorant incomplete human life upon earth is not the be-all and \r\nend-all of the life here. That life has to evolve into a life of light and love \r\nand joy perfect here below. Nature as it is now willl be transmuted into a new \r\npure and radiant substance. Ashwapati is filled with this new urge and inspired \r\nby this new vision. He sees and understands now the truth of his life, the goal \r\nthat has to be achieved, the great dream that has to be realised here upon earth \r\nin and through matter. He sees how nature has been labouring ceaselessly and \r\ntirelessly through aeons through eternity onward. He is now almost impatient to \r\nsee the consummation here and now. The divine Voice however shows him the wisdom \r\nof working patiently, hastening slowly. The Voice admonishes him:</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-left:120px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp; I ask thee not to merge thy heart of flame</font><p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-left:120px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp; In the Immobile\'s wide uncaring bliss..\r\n</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-left:120px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp; Thy soul was born to share the\' laden Force;</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-left:120px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp; Obey thy nature and fulfil thy fate:</font><p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-left:120px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp; <font face=\"Times New Roman\">Accept the difficulty and godlike toil,</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">* <i>Op. cit. Book III: Canto 2:</i> p. \r\n351.</font><font size=\"2\"> </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 260<hr>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-left:120px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;For the slow-paced omniscient purpose live. .\r\n</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-left:120px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;All things shall change in God\'s \r\ntransfiguring hour.<sup>1</sup></font><sup>&nbsp;</sup><p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<font face=\"Times New Roman\">But the human flame once kindled is hard to put \r\ndown. It seeks an immediate result. It does not understand the fullness of time. \r\nSo Ashwapati cries out:</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-left:120px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">Heavy and long are the years our labour counts\r\n</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-left:120px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">And still the seals are firm upon man\'s soul,\r\n</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-left:120px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">And&nbsp; weary is the ancient Mother\'s heart..\r\n</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-left:120px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;Linger not long with thy transmuting hand\r\n</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-left:120px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;Pressed vainly on one golden bar of Time..\r\n</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-left:120px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;Let a great word be spoken from the heights</font><p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-left:120px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;And one great act unlock the doors of Fate.&quot;<sup>2</sup></font><sup>\r\n</sup>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; This great cry of \r\nthe human soul moved the Divine Mother and she granted at last its prayer. She \r\nanswered by bestowing of her motherly comfort on the yearning thirsty soul:</font>&nbsp;\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-left:120px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;0 strong forerunner, I have heard thy cry.\r\n</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-left:120px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;One shall descend and break the iron Law..\r\n</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-left:120px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;A seed shall be sown in Death\'s tremendous \r\nhour,\r\n</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-left:120px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;A branch of heaven transplant to human soil;</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-left:120px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;Nature shall overleap her mortal step;</font>&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-left:120px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<font face=\"Times New Roman\">Fate shall be changed by an unchanging will.<sup>3</sup></font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">And She herself came down upon earth as Ashwapati\'s \r\ndaughter to undertake the human labour and accomplish the Divine work.</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p align=center style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<font face=\"Arial\">(2)</font>\r\n\r\n		<p align=center style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">The Divine Mother is upon earth as a human \r\ncreature. She is to change the mortal earth into an immortal paradise. Earth at \r\npresent is a bundle of material inconscience. The Supreme Consciousness has \r\nmanifested itself as supreme unconsciousness.</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">1 <i>Op. cit. Book III: Canto</i> 4 pp. \r\n380; 386.</font><font size=\"2\"> </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">2 <i>Op. cit. Book III: Canto</i> 4 pp. \r\n390-391.</font><font size=\"2\"> </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">3 <i>Op. cit. Book III: Canto</i> 4 pp. \r\n391-392.</font><font size=\"2\"> </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 261<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">The Divine has lost itself in pulverising itself, \r\nscattering itself abroad. Immortality is thus entombed here below in death. The \r\ntask of the incarnate Supreme Consciousness is to revive the death-bound \r\ndivinity, to free the human consciousness in its earthly life from the obscurity \r\nof the material unconsciousness,<br>\r\nre-install it in its original radiant status of the Divine Consciousness.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Such is Savitri\'s mission. \r\nThis mission has two sessions or periods. The first, that of preparation; the \r\nsecond, that of fulfilment. Savitri, the human embodiment was given only twelve \r\nmonths out of her earthly life and in that short space of time she had to do all \r\nthe preparation. She knew her work from her very birth, she was conscious of her \r\nnature and the mission she was entrusted with. Now she is facing the crisis. \r\nDeath is there standing in front. What is to be done, how is\r\nshe to proceed ? She was told she is to conquer Death, she is to establish \r\nimmortal life upon mortal earth. The Divine Voice rings out:</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Arise, soul, and vanquish \r\nTime and Death.<sup>1</sup></font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Yes, she is ready to do \r\nit, but not for herself, but for her Love, the being who was the life other \r\nlife. Savitri is the Divine Consciousness but here in the mortal body she is \r\nclothed in the human consciousness; it is the human consciousness that she is to \r\nlead upward and beyond and it <i>is</i> in and through the human consciousness \r\nthat the Divine Realisation has to be expressed and established. The human \r\nSavitri declares: If Death is conquered, it is for the sake ofSatyavan living \r\neternally with her. She seems to say: What I wish to see is the living Satyavan \r\nand I united with him for ever. I do not need an earthly life without him; with \r\nhim I prefer to be in another world if necessary away from the obscurity and \r\nturmoil of this earth here.</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; My strength is taken from \r\nme and given to Death,</font><p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Why should I lift my hands to \r\nthe shut heavens..\r\n</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Why should I strive with earth\'s \r\nunyielding laws<br>\r\n<b>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </b> Or stave off death\'s inevitable hour ? </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"> <br>\r\n\' <i>Op cit. Book VII: Canto</i> 2: p. 539.</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 262<hr>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; This surely is best to \r\npactise with my fate</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; And follow close behind my \r\nlover\'s step</font>\r\n\r\n<p align=justify style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; And pass through night \r\nfrom twilight to the sun. <sup>1</sup></font><sup> </sup>\r\n		<p align=justify style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">But a thunderous voice descends from above shaking \r\nSavitri to the very basis of her existence.</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &quot;And what shall thy soul \r\nsay when it wakes and knows\r\n</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The work was left undone \r\nfor which it came?&quot;<sup>2</sup></font><sup> </sup>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Thus a crisis very similar \r\nto that which Ashwapati had to face now confronts Savitri also. Both of them \r\nwere at the crossroads away from the earth in the pure delights of the heavens \r\nor in the world labouring on earth\'s soil. Savitri\'s soul was now revealed to \r\nher in its fullness. She viewed the mighty destiny for\r\nwhich she had come down and the great work she had to achieve here upon earth, \r\nnot any personal or individual human satisfaction or achievement but a cosmic \r\nfulfilment, a global human realisation. The godhead in Savitri is now fully \r\nawake, established in its plenitude—the Divinity incarnate in the human frame. \r\nAll the godheads, all the goddess-emanations now entered into her and moulded \r\nthe totality of her mighty stature.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Here begins then the \r\nsecond stage of her mission,—her work and achievement, the conquest of Death. \r\nOnly the Divine human being can conquer Death. Savitri follows Death step by \r\nstep revealing gradually the mystery of death, his personality and his true \r\nmission, although the dark God thinks that it is he who is taking away Satyavan \r\nand Savitri along with him, to his own home, his black annihilation. For Death \r\nis that in its first appearance, it is utter destruction, nothing-ness, \r\nnon-existence. So the mighty Godhead declares in an imperious tone to the mortal \r\nwoman Savitri:</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; This is my silent dark \r\nimmensity,\r\n</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; This is the home of \r\neverlasting Night,</font><p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; This is the secrecy of \r\nNothingness&nbsp;\r\n</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Entombing the vanity of \r\nlife\'s desires..<br>\r\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Hopest thou still always to last and love<b> </b>?<sup>3</sup></font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">1 <i>Op. cit. Book VII: Canto</i> 2: p. \r\n539.</font><font size=\"2\"> </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">2 <i>Op. cit. Book VII: Canto 2:</i> p. \r\n540.</font><font size=\"2\"> </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">3 <i>Op. cit. Book IX: Canto</i> 2: p. \r\n661.</font><font size=\"2\"> </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 263<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Indeed Death is not merely \r\na destruction of the body, it is in reality nothingness, non-being. The moment \r\nbeing, existence, reality manifested itself, established itself as a material \r\nfact, simultaneously there came out and stood against it, its opposite \r\nnon-being, non-existence, non-reality; against an everlasting \'yes\' there was \r\nposited an everlasting \'no\'. And in \'fact, this everlasting No proves to be a \r\ngreater effective reality, it has wound itself around every constituent atom of \r\nthe\r\nuniverse. That is what has expressed itself in the material domain as the \r\nirreversible degradation of energy and in the mortal world it is denial and \r\ndoubt and falsehood—it is that which brings about failure in life, and \r\nfrustration, misery and grief. But then Savitri\'s vision penetrated beyond and \r\nshe saw, Death is a way of achieving the end more swiftly and more completely. \r\nThe negation is an apparent obstacle in order to increase, to purify and \r\nintensify the speed of the process by\r\nwhich the world and humanity is being remodelled and recreated. This terrible \r\nGodhead pursues the human endeavour till the end; until he finds that nothing \r\nmore is to be done;</font>\r\n\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">then his mission too is fulfilled.<sup>1</sup> So a \r\nlast. cry, the cry of a desperate dying Death, pierces the universe and throws \r\nthe final challenge to Savitri:</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 0 human claimant to \r\nimmortality,\r\n</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Reveal thy power, lay bare \r\nthy spirit\'s force,\r\n</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Then will I give back to \r\nthee Satyavan.\r\n</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Or if the Mighty Mother is \r\nwith thee,<br>\r\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Show me her face that I may worship her;</font>&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Let deathless eyes look \r\ninto the eyes of Death..2</font>\r\n\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp; </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp; Death\'s desire, his prayer too is \r\nfulfilled. He faces Savitri but this is not the Savitri against whom he fought. \r\nWhose is this voice ?</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">1 We are reminded here of a parallelism in \r\nGoethe\'s conception of the role of Satan (the Negative Principle) in human \r\naffairs. Satan is not merely a destroying<br>\r\ndevil, he is a constructive angel. For it is he</font><font size=\"2\"> </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-left:120px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i><font size=\"2\">Who must goad and<b> </b>tease</font></i></font><font size=\"2\">\r\n</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-left:120px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\" size=\"2\"><i>And toil to serve creation.\r\n</i></font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">whenever</font><font size=\"2\"> </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-left:120px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i><font size=\"2\">Man\'s efforts sink below his proper level.</font></i></font><font size=\"2\">\r\n</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">2 <i>Op. cit. Book X: Canto</i> 4: p. 745.</font><font size=\"2\">\r\n</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 264<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; I hail thee almighty and \r\nvictorious Death,</font><p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Thou grandiose Darkness of \r\nthe Infinite..\r\n</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; I have given thee thy \r\nawful shape of dread\r\n</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; And thy sharp sword of \r\nterror and grief and pain\r\n</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; To force the soul of man \r\nto struggle for light.<sup>1</sup></font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; What happens thereafter is \r\nsomething strange and tremendous and miraculous. Light flashed all around, a \r\nleaping tongue of fire spread out and the dark form of Death was burnt—not to \r\nashes but to. blazing sparks of light:</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; His body was eaten by \r\nlight, his spirit devoured.<sup>2</sup></font><sup> </sup>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">Thus Death came to his death—not to death in \r\nreality but to a new incarnation. Death returned to his original divine Reality, \r\nan emanation of the Divine Mother.</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; A secret splendour rose \r\nrevealed to sight\r\n</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Where once the vast \r\nembodied Void had stood.\r\n</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Night the dim mask had \r\ngrown a wonderful face.<sup>3</sup></font><sup> </sup>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">In that domain of pure transcendent light stood \r\nface to face the human Savitri and the transformed Satyavan.</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p align=center style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<font face=\"Arial\">(3)</font>\r\n\r\n		<p align=center style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">SAVITRI has entered into the deathless luminous \r\nworld where there is only faultless beauty, stainless delight and an unmeasured \r\nself-gathered strength. Savitri heard the melodious voice of the Divine:</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; You have now left earth\'s \r\nmiseries and its impossible conditions, you have reached the domain of unalloyed \r\nfelicity and you need not go back to the old turbulent life: dwell here both of \r\nyou and enjoy eternal bliss.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; But Savitri answered firm \r\nand moveless:</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <font face=\"Times New Roman\">I climb not to thy \r\neverlasting<b> \r\n</b>Day,<b><br>\r\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\r\n</b>Even as I have shunned thy eternal Night..</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\">1 <i>Op. cit. Book X: Canto</i> 4: p. 747. </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\">2 <i>Op<b>.</b> cit. Book X: Canto</i> 4: p. 749. </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\">3 <i>Op. cit. Book XI: Canto</i> 1: p. 762. </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 265<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Earth is the chosen \r\nplace of mightiest souls;</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Earth is the heroic \r\nspirit\'s battlefield. .</font><p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Thy servitudes on earth \r\nare greater, king,\r\n</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Than all the glorious \r\nliberties of heaven.<sup>1</sup></font><sup> </sup>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Once more Savitri, even \r\nlike Ashwapati, has to make a choice between two destinies, two \r\nsoul-movements—although the choice is already made even before it is offered to \r\nher. Ashwapati had to abandon, we know, the silent immutable transcendent status \r\nof pure light in order to bathe in this lower earthly light. Savitri too as the \r\nprototype of human consciousness chose and turned to this light of the earth.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The Rishi of the Upanishad \r\ndeclared: they who worship only Ignorance enter into darkness, but they who \r\nworship knowledge alone enter into a still darker darkness. This world of \r\nabsolute light which Savitri names \'everlasting day\' is what the Upanishadic \r\nRishi sees and describes as the golden lid upon the face\r\nof the Sun. The Sun is the complete integral-light of the Truth in its fullness. \r\nThe golden covering has to be removed if one is to see the Sun itself—to live \r\nthe integral life, one has to possess the integral truth.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; So it is that Savitri \r\ncomes down upon earth and standing upon its welcoming soil speaks to Satyavan as \r\nthough consoling him for having abandoned their own abode in heaven to dwell \r\namong mortal men:</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Heaven\'s touch fulfils but \r\ncancels not our earth. .\r\n</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Still am I she who came to \r\nthee mid the murmur</font><p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Of sunlit leaves upon this \r\nforest verge..\r\n</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; All that I was before, I \r\nam to thee still. .<sup>2</sup></font><sup> </sup>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Voicing Satyavan\'s \r\nthought and feeling, all humanity, the whole world in joy and gratefulness, \r\nutters this <i>mantra</i> of thanksgiving:</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; If this is she of whom the \r\nworld has heard,\r\n</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Wonder no more at any \r\nhappy change.<sup>3</sup></font>&nbsp;\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">1 <i>Op. cit. Book XI: Canto</i> 1: p. \r\n770.</font><font size=\"2\"> </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">2 <i>Op. cit. Book XII: Canto:</i> p. 808.<br>\r\n8 BooAA77.-p.812.</font><font size=\"2\"> </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 266<hr>\r\n\r\n<p align=center style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<b>\r\n<font face=\"Arial\">(4)</font>\r\n\r\n		</b>\r\n\r\n		<p align=center style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">IN her <i>Prayers and Meditations</i> the Mother \r\nsays:</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>Comme I\'homme n\'a pas voulu du repas que j\'avais \r\nprepare avec tant d\'amour et de soin, alors j\'ai invite Ie Dieu a Ie prendre.</i></font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>Et mon Dieu, Tu as accepte mon invitation et Tu \r\nes venu T\'asseoir a ma table; et en change de ma pauvre et humble offrande\r\nTu m\'as octroye la finale liberation</i></font><p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; What is this banquet that \r\nshe prepared for man and which man refused ? It is nothing else than the Life \r\nDivine here below —the life of the Gods enjoying immortality, full of the \r\nsupreme light and power, love and delight. Man refused because for him it is \r\nsomething too high, too great. Being a creature earth- bound and of small \r\ndimensions he can seize and appreciate only small things, little specks of a \r\nmaterial world. He refused, first of all, because of his ignorance, he does not \r\nknow, nor is he capable of conceiving that there are such things as immortal \r\nlife, divinity, unobscured light, griefless love, or a radiant, tranquil, \r\ninvisible energy. He does not know and yet he is arrogant, arrogant in his \r\nlittle knowledge, his petty power, in his blind self-sufficiency. Furthermore, \r\nbesides ignorance and\r\narrogance there is an element of revolt in him, for in his half- wakefulness \r\nwith his rudimentary consciousness, if ever he came in contact with something \r\nthat is above and beyond him, if a shadow of another world happens to cross his \r\nthreshold, he is not at peace, does not want to recognise but denies and even\r\ncurses it.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The Divine Mother brings \r\nsolace and salvation. For the Grace it is such a small and easy thing, it is a \r\nwonder how even such a simple, natural, inconspicuous thing could be refused by \r\nanybody.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; If man finds no use for \r\nthe gift she has brought down for him, naturally she will take it back and \r\nreturn it to Him to whom it belongs, for all things belong to the Supreme Lord,</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <sup>1</sup> &quot;Since the \r\nman refused the meal I had prepared with so much love and care,</font><p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;I invoked the God to take it.</font><font size=\"2\">\r\n</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp; My God, Thou hast accepted my \r\ninvitation, Thou hast come to sit at my table,</font><p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;and in exchange for my poor and \r\nhumble offering Thou hast granted<b> </b> to me the<br>\r\nlast liberation.&quot;</font><font size=\"2\"> </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 267<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">even She belongs to Him, as She is one with Him. \r\nThe Gita says: there is nothing else than the Brahman in the creation—the doer, \r\nthe doing and the deed, all are essentially He. In the sacrifice that is this \r\nmoving, acting universe, the offerer, the offering and the offered, each and \r\nevery element is the Brahman —<i>brahmarpanam brahma havih.</i></font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; This gesture of the Divine \r\nMother teaches us also what should be the approach and attitude of human beings \r\nin all their activities. In all our movements we should always remember Him, \r\nrefer to Him, consider that in the last analysis each and every movement comes \r\nfrom Him and we must always offer them to Him, return them to the parent-source \r\nfrom where they come, therein lies freedom, the divine detachment which the \r\nindividual must possess always in order to be one\r\nwith Him, feel one\'s identity with Him.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\n<font face=\"Arial\">&nbsp;(5)</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">MAN\'S refusal of the Divine Grace has been depicted \r\nvery beautifully and graphically in a perfect dramatic form by Sri Aurobindo in <i>\r\nSavitri.</i> The refusal comes one by one from the three constituent parts of \r\nthe human being. First of all man is a material being, a bodily creature, as \r\nsuch he is a being of ignorance and misery, of brutish blindness. He does not \r\nknow that there is something other than his present state of misfortune and dark \r\nfate. He is not even aware that there may be anything higher or nobler than the \r\nugliness he is steeped in. He lives on earth-life with an earth-consciousness, \r\nmoves mechanically and helplessly through vicissitudes over which he has no \r\ncontrol. Even so the material life is not a mere despicable thing; behind its \r\ndarkness, behind its sadness, behind all its\r\ninfirmities, the Divine Mother is there upholding it and infusing into it her \r\ngrace and beauty. Indeed, she is one with this world of sorrows, she has in \r\neffect become it in her infinite pity and love so that this material body of \r\nhers may become conscious of its divine substance and manifest her true form. \r\nBut the human being individualised and separated in egoistic consciousness has \r\nlost the sense of its inner reality and is vocal only in regard to its outward \r\nformulation. It is natural for physical man</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 268<hr>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">therefore to reject and deny the physical Godhead \r\nin him, he even curses it and wants to continue as he is. He yells therefore .in \r\nignorance and anguish:</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; I am the Man of Sorrows, I \r\nam he</font>&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<p align=justify style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Who is nailed on the wide \r\ncross of the Universe..</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; I toil like the animal, \r\nlike the animal die.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; I am man the rebel, man \r\nthe helpless serf..</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; I know my fate will ever \r\nbe the same,</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><b>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </b> &nbsp;It is my Nature\'s work \r\nthat cannot change..</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; I was made for evil, evil \r\nis my lot;</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Evil I must be and by evil \r\nlive;</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Naught other can I do, but \r\nbe myself;</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; What Nature made, that I \r\nmust remain.<sup>1</sup></font><sup> </sup>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The Divine glory manifests \r\nitself for a moment to the earthly consciousness but man refuses to be pulled \r\nout of its pigsty. The Grace with draws but in its Supreme Consciousness of \r\nunity and love consoles the fallen creature and gives it the assurance:</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><b>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </b> One day I \r\nwill return, a bringer of strength..</font><p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Misery shall pass \r\nabolished from the earth;</font>\r\n\r\n<p align=justify style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The world shall be freed \r\nfrom the anger of the Beast.<sup>.2</sup></font>\r\n\r\n		<p align=justify style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">The basic status or foundation of Man, in fact of \r\ncreation, is earth, the material organisation. After the body, next comes the \r\nlife and Life-power. Here man attains a larger dynamic being of energy and \r\ncreative activity. Here too, on this level, what man is or what he achieves is \r\nonly a reflection, a shadow, but mostly a misshapen resemblance, an aberration \r\nof the divine reality that hides behind, and yet half-reveals itself. That \r\nGodhead is the Mother\'s form of Might, we name it\r\nvariously, Kali and Durga and Lakshmi, for it is Her Grace that is ultimately \r\nexpressed and fulfilled in this world of vital power. It is because of this \r\nrealising power of the Mother that</font>&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">Slowly the Light grows greater in the East,\r\n</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Slowly the world \r\nprogresses on God\'s road.</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<sup><i><font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">1</font></i></sup><font size=\"2\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>Book \r\nVII: Canto</i> 4: pp. 574-6.<br>\r\n<i><sup>2</sup>Book VII: Canto</i> 4: p. 576.</font>\r\n		</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 269<hr>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><b>&nbsp;</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; His seal is on my \r\ntask, it cannot fail;</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; I shall hear the silver \r\nswing of heaven\'s gates<br>\r\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; When God comes out to meet the soul of the world.<sup>1</sup></font><sup>\r\n</sup>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; But man in the strength of \r\nhis ignorance and arrogance does not recognise this Goddess. Human power, we \r\nhave said, is a reflection, a shadow of the Divine Power but most often it is a \r\ndeformed, a perverted Divine Power. Man is full of his egoistic vital \r\nself-confidence: he believes it is his own will that is realising all, all which \r\nis achieved here; whatever he has created, it is through the might of his own \r\nmerit and whatever new creations will be done in the future will be through the<br>\r\nGrace of his own genius. A mighty vital selfhood obscures his consciousness and \r\nhe sees nothing else, understands nothing else beyond the reach of that limited \r\nvision. This is the Rakshasa, this is the Asura in man. Here is his philosophy \r\nof life:</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; \r\nI climb, a claimant to the throne of heaven.\r\n</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; \r\nThe last born of the earth, I stand the first..\r\n</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; \r\nI am God still unevolved in human form;</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; \r\nEven if he is not, he becomes in me. .</font><p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; \r\nNo magic can surpass my magic\'s skill.</font><p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; \r\nThere is no miracle I shall not achieve.<sup>2</sup></font><sup> </sup>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; So this vital being in man \r\nin his Rakshasic hunger and Asuric self-conceit rejects the Divine Power that is \r\nin fact behind him too, supporting him. The Goddess, in the wake of her \r\npredecessor, goes back from where she came, leaving however a, consoling word, \r\nassuring that one day she will return; she will bide her time. For one day,</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; \r\nThe cry of the ego shall be hushed within,\r\n</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; \r\nIts lion-roar that claims the world as food,\r\n</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; \r\nAll shall be might and bliss and happy force.<sup>3</sup></font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In his body man is the beast, in \r\nthe vital he is the Rakshasa and the Asura, he rises now into the mind.<b> </b> \r\nAnd in the mind</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">1 <i>Book VII: Canto</i> 4: p. 579.<br>\r\n<i>2-Book VII: Canto</i> 4: pp. 580-2.<br>\r\n<i>3Book VII: Canto</i> 4: p. 583.</font><font size=\"2\"> </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 270<hr>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">\'he is the human being proper, he has attained his \r\nown humanity. Here he has received the light of knowledge, a wider and deeper \r\nconsciousness, he has unveiled the secret mysteries of Nature, brought to play \r\nhidden forces that were unknown and untapped. All these achievements have been \r\npossible for man because it is the Mother of Light that is behind and has come \r\nforward to shed something of her luminous presence around. But man has no \r\ninkling of the presence of this luminous Deity, his own light has been a screen \r\nin front of the inner divine light. It is not possible for the human mind to \r\nseize the higher light: his consciousness, his knowledge is too narrow, too \r\nsuperficial, too dull to comprehend what is beyond. This Divine Light is also a \r\nthing of delight, the consciousness it possesses is also the very essence of Joy \r\nand Felicity. But all that is occult to the human knowledge. Man considers Truth \r\nis his property, whatever truth is there his understanding can grasp it and \r\nbring it to play: Truth and Reality are commensurate with his own consciousness, \r\nhis mental comprehension. What others speak of as realities of the spirit, \r\ntruths transcendental, are an illusion and delusion. This is what is usually \r\nknown as the scientific mind, the rational consciousness. An orthodox\r\nscientific mentality is in the first instance a thing of overweening \r\nself-confidence, of arrogant self-assertion. It declares in its formidable \r\npride:</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; I&nbsp; have seized the \r\ncosmic energies for my use.</font><p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; I have pored on her \r\ninfinitesimal elements\r\n</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; And her invisible atoms \r\nhave unmasked. .<br>\r\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; If God is at work his secrets I have found.<sup>1</sup></font><sup>\r\n</sup>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; This imperiousness in man \r\nseems however to be a sheer imperviousness: it is a mask, a hollow appearance; \r\nfor with all his knowledge, at the end he has attained no certainty, no \r\nabsoluteness. There is something behind, all the outer bravado he flourishes has \r\na sense of helplessness, at times almost as pitiable as that of a child; for he \r\nfinds at last</font>&nbsp;\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;All is a speculation or a \r\ndream:</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In the end the world \r\nitself becomes a doubt.<sup>2</sup></font><sup> </sup>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<i><font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">1</font></i><font face=\"Times New Roman\" size=\"2\"><i>Book \r\nVII.-Canto 4: p. 589.<br>\r\n</i>2 <i>Book VII: Canto</i> 4: p. 589, </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 271<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; It is true his survey of \r\nthe universe, his knowledge of boundless Nature and the inexhaustible \r\nmultiplicities of creation have given him a sense of the endless and the \r\ninfinite but he has not the necessary light or capacity to follow those lines of \r\ninfinity, on the contrary, there is a shrinking in him at the touch of such. \r\nvastnesses; his small humanity makes him desperately earth-bound, his aspiration \r\nfollows the lines of least resistance:</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Our smallness saves us from the \r\nInfinite.</font><p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In a frozen grandeur lone \r\nand desolate\r\n</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Call me not to die the \r\ngreat eternal Death. .\r\n</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Human I am, human let me \r\nremain<br>\r\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Till in the Inconscient I fall dumb and sleep.<sup>1</sup></font><sup>\r\n</sup>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Thus, this Goddess too, is \r\nrejected like her previous comrades, the Mother of Light, the Deity who is \r\nproperly the guide and ruler of man\'s own destiny. Even she is refused but hers \r\nis not to complain, in tranquil quietness she brings comfort and hope to the \r\ntroubled human mind and says she goes to come back in the fullness of her \r\nincarnation. She utters divinely:</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; One day I shall return, \r\nHis hands in mine,\r\n</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; And thou shalt see the \r\nface of the Absolute.\r\n</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Then shall the holy \r\nmarriage be achieved,</font><p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Then shall the divine \r\nfamily be born.<sup>2</sup></font><sup> </sup>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p align=center style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<font face=\"Arial\">(6)</font>\r\n\r\n		<p align=center style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">To the inconscient and ignorant human nature, \r\nSavitri, the Divine\'s delegate presents the powers and personalities that are \r\nbehind man\'s present infirmities—these broken images of true realities lying \r\nscattered about in the front of existence. Man will be made conscious, he is \r\nbeing made conscious step by step precisely by such relations from time to time. \r\nThe Vedic image is that of the eternal succession of dawns whose beginning no \r\none knows, nor the end, that creation proceeds from light to light, from \r\nconsciousness to higher reaches of consciousness.</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">1 <i>Book VII: Canto</i> 4: p. 590.</font><font size=\"2\">\r\n</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\" size=\"2\">2 <i>Book VII: Canto</i> 4: p. 591.</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 272<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">From the material life through the vital and the \r\nmental life he first reaches the spiritual life and finally the Life Divine. \r\nFrom the animal he rises to manhood, and in the end to Godhood.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; But there are \r\nintermediaries. The fullness of the realisation depends on the fullness of the \r\nincarnation. The Evil in the body, the Evil in the vital, the Evil in the mind \r\nare, whatever their virulence and intransigence, subsidiary agents, for they \r\nserve only a mightier Lord. The first original Sin is Death, the God of Denial, \r\nof non-existence. That is the very source— <i>fons et origo—</i>the fount and \r\norigin of all the misfortune, the fate that terrestrial life involves. This \r\ndemon, this anti-Divine has to be tracked and destroyed or dissolved into its \r\noriginal origin. This is the Nihil that negates the Divine—<i>Asat</i> that \r\nseeks to nullify <i>Sat</i> and that has created this world of ignorance and \r\nmisery, that is to say, in its outward pragmatic form. So Savitri sees the one \r\nsource and knows the remedy. Therefore she pursues death, pursues him to the \r\nend, that is, to the end of death. The luminous energy of the Supreme faces now \r\nits own shadow and blazes it up. The flaming Light corrodes into the substance \r\nof the darkness and makes of it her own transfigured substance. This then is the \r\ngift that Savitri brings to man, the Divine\'s own immortality, transfusing the \r\nmortality that reigns now upon earth.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In view of the necessity \r\nof the age, for the crucial, critical and, in a way, final consummation of \r\nNature\'s evolutionary urge, the Divine Himself has to come down in the fullness \r\nof His divinity; for only then can the earth be radically changed and wholly \r\ntransformed. In the beginning the Divine once came down, but by sacrificing \r\nHimself, being pulverised, scattered and lost in the infinitesimals of a \r\nuniversal, material, unconsciousness. Once again He has to come down, but this \r\ntime in the supreme glory of His victorious Luminosity.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; This then is the occult, \r\nthe symbolic sense of the Mother\'s gesture turning away from man with her gifts \r\nand returning to the Divine Himself, and inviting Him as the chief guest of \r\nhonour upon this earth. Or, in the Vedic image. He is to come as the flaming \r\nfront and leader of the journeying sacrifice that is this universal existence.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\n		Page 273</p>\r\n		<hr>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\" align=\"right\"><b><font size=\"2\"><a href=\"-00_Contents\">\r\n			<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">HOME</span></a></font></b></td>\r\n	</tr>\r\n	</table>\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n</body>\r\n</html>','-42_Savitri','','publish','closed','open','','42_savitri','','','2021-11-23 17:21:38','2021-11-23 17:21:38','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/42_savitri/',0,'post','',0),(1511,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:38','2021-11-23 17:21:38','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2 Final//EN\">\r\n<html>\r\n<head>\r\n<title>11 the march.htm</title>\r\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html;charset=windows-1252\">\r\n</head>\r\n<body>\r\n\r\n<table border=\"0\" width=\"100%\" cellpadding=\"6\">\r\n	<tr>\r\n		<td>\r\n		<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n		<b><font face=\"Times New Roman\">\r\n		<i>The March of Civilisation</i>&nbsp;\r\n</font></b>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">WE are familiar with the phrase &quot;Augustan Age&quot;: it is in\r\nreference to a particular period in a nation\'s history when its\r\ncreative power is at its highest both in respect of quantity\r\nand quality, especially in the domain of art and literature,\r\nfor it is here that the soul of a people finds expression most\r\neasily and spontaneously. Indeed, if we look at the panorama\r\nthat the course of human evolution unfolds, we see epochs of\r\nhigh light in various countries spread out as towering beacons\r\nor soaring peaks bathed in sunlight dominating the flat plains\r\nor darksome valleys of the usual normal periods. Take the\r\nAugustan Age itself which has given the name: it is a very\r\ncrucial and one of the earlier outflowerings of the human\r\ngenius on a considerable scale. We know of the appearance of\r\nindividuals on the stage of life each with a special mission and\r\nrole in various ages and various countries. They are great\r\nmen of action, great men of thought, creative artists or spiritual\r\nand religious teachers. In India we call them Vibhutis (we\r\ncan include the Avataras—Divine Incarnations—also in the\r\ncategory). Even so, there is a collective manifestation too, an\r\nupsurge in which a whole race or nation takes part and is carried and raised to \r\na higher level of living and achievement. There is a tide in the affairs not only of men, but of\r\npeoples also: and masses, large collectivities live on the crest\r\nof their consciousness, feeling and thinking deeply and nobly,\r\nacting and creating powerfully, with breadth of vision and\r\nintensity of aspiration, spreading all around something that\r\nis new and not too common, a happy guest come from else-where.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Ancient Greece, the fountainhead of European civilisation\r\n—of the world culture reigning today, one can almost say—</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 95<hr>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">found itself epitomised in the Periclean Age. The light—\r\ngrace, harmony, sweet reasonableness—that was Greece, reached its highest and largest, its most characteristic growth</font>\r\n\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">in that period. Earlier, at the very beginning of her life cycle,\r\nthere came indeed Homer and no later creation reached a\r\nhigher or even as high a status of creative power: but it was\r\na solitary peak, it was perhaps an announcement, not the realisation of the national glory. Pericles stood as the guardian,\r\nthe representative, the emblem and nucleus of a nation-wide\r\nefflorescence. Not to speak of the great names associated with\r\nthe age, even the common people—more than what was</font>\r\n\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">normally so characteristic of Greece—felt the tide that was\r\nmoving high and shared in that elevated sweep of life, of\r\nthought and creative activity. Greece withdrew. The stage\r\nwas made clear for Rome. Julius Caesar carried the Roman\r\ngenius to its sublimest summit: hut it remained for his great\r\nnephew to consolidate and give expression to that genius in\r\nits most characteristic manner and lent his name to a characteristic high-water mark of human civilisation.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Greece and Rome may be taken to represent two types of\r\nculture. And accordingly we can distinguish two types of\r\nelevation or crest-formation of human consciousness—one of\r\nlight, the other of power. In certain movements one feels\r\nthe intrusion, the expression of light, that is to say, the play\r\nof intelligence, understanding, knowledge, a fresh outlook and\r\nconsideration of the world and things, a revaluation in other\r\nterms and categories of a new consciousness. The greatest, at\r\nleast, the most representative movement of this kind is that\r\nof the Renaissance. It was really a New Illumination: a flood of light poured \r\nupon the mind and intellect and understanding of the period. There was a brightness, a brilliance, a happy\r\nagility and keenness in the movements of the brain. A largeness\r\nof vision, a curious sensibility, a wide and alert consciousness:</font>\r\n\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">these are some of the fundamental characteristics \r\nof this remarkable New Birth. It is the birth of what has been known\r\nas the scientific outlook, in the broadest sense: it is the threshold of the <i>modern epoch</i> of humanity. All the modern European\r\nlanguages leaped into maturity, as it were, each attaining its definitive form \r\nand full-blooded individuality. Art and literature flooded in their magnificent creativeness all nations</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 96<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">and peoples of the whole continent. The Romantic Revival,\r\nstarting somewhere about the beginning of the nineteenth\r\ncentury, is another outstanding example of a similar phenomenon, of the descent of light into human consciousness. The\r\nlight that descended into human consciousness at the time of\r\nthe Renaissance captured the higher mind and intelligence—\r\nthe Ray touched as it were the frontal lobe of the brain; the\r\nlater descent touched the heart, the feelings and emotive sensibility, it evoked \r\nmore vibrant, living and powerful perceptions, created varied and dynamic sense-complexes, new\r\nidealisms and aspirations. The manifestation of Power, the\r\ndescent or inrush of force—mighty and terrible—has been\r\nwell recognised and experienced in the great French Revolution. A violence came out from somewhere and seized man\r\nand society: man was thrown out of his gear, society broken\r\nto pieces. There came a change in the very character and\r\neven nature of man: and society had to be built upon other\r\nfoundations. The past was gone. <i>Divasa gatah.</i> Something very\r\nsimilar has happened again more recently, in Russia. The\r\nFrench Revolution brought in the bourgeois culture, the\r\nRussian Revolution has rung in the Proletariate.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In modern India, the movement that led her up to Independence was at a crucial moment a mighty evocation of both\r\nLight and Power. It had not perhaps initially the magnitude,\r\nthe manifest scope or scale of either the Renaissance or the\r\nGreat Revolutions we mention. But it carried a deeper import,\r\nits echo far-reaching into the future of humanity. For it meant\r\nnothing less than the spiritual awakening of India and therefore the spiritual regeneration of the whole world: it is the\r\nharbinger of the new epoch in human civilisation.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; These larger human movements are in a sense anonymous.\r\nThey are not essentially the creation of a single man as are\r\nsome of the well-known religious movements. They throw up\r\ngreat aspiring souls, strong men of action, indeed, but as part\r\nof themselves, in their various aspects, facets, centres of expression, lines of expansion. An Augustus, a Pericles, a Leo<b> \r\n</b>X<b>,\r\n</b>a Louis XIV, or a Vikramaditya are not more than nuclei,\r\nas I have already said, centres of reference round which their\r\nrespective epoch crystallises as a peak culture unit. They are\r\nnot creators or originators; they are rather organisers. A</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 97<hr>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">Buddha, a Christ or a Mohammed or even a Napoleon<b> \r\n</b>or Caesar or Alexander are truly creators: they bring with them\r\nsomething—some truth, some dynamic revelation—that was\r\nnot there before. They realise and embody each a particular\r\nprinciple of being, a unique mode of consciousness—a new\r\n\'gift to earth and mankind. Movements truly anonymous,\r\nhowever, have no single nucleus or centre of reference: they are multinucleur. The names that adorn the Renaissance are<br>\r\nmany, it had no single head; the men through whom the\r\ngreat French Revolution unrolled itself were many in number,\r\nthat is to say, the chiefs, who represented each a face or\r\nphase of the surging movement.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The cosmic spirit works itself out in the world and in human\r\naffairs in either of these forms : (1) as embodied in a single\r\npersonality and (2) as an impersonal movement, sometimes\r\nthrough many personalities, sometimes through a few outstanding personalities and sometimes even quite anonymously\r\nas a maps movement. Either mode has each its own special\r\npurpose, its function in the cosmic labour, its contribution to\r\nthe growth and unfoldment of the human consciousness upon\r\nearth as a whole. Generally, we may say, when it is an intensive\r\nwork, when it is a new truth that has to be disclosed and set in\r\nman\'s heart and consciousness, then the individual is called\r\nup and undertakes the work: when, however, the truth already\r\nsomehow found or near at hand is to be spread wide and\r\nmade familiar to men and established upon earth, then the\r\nlarger anonymous movements are born and have sway.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Indeed, these movements, the appearance of great souls\r\nupon earth and the manifestation of larger collective surges\r\nin human society, are not isolated happenings, having no reference or point of \r\ncontact with one another. On the contrary, they are two limbs of a global evolutionary process.\r\nIn and through them across countries and centuries the spirit\r\nof humanity moves towards greater and greater fulfilment.\r\nEvolution means the growth of consciousness. In man in his.collective existence the growth continues: it lies in two directions. First of all, in extension. A sufficiently large physical\r\nbody is needed to house the growing life and consciousness:</font>\r\n\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">therefore the unicellular organism has developed into the\r\nmulticellular. In the same way, in the earliest stages of human</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 98<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">society, the light and power of consciousness, characteristic\r\nof that age, found expression among a few only: it was the\r\nage of representative individuals, leaders—Rishi, Magi,\r\nPatriarch, Judge, King. Next a stage came when the cultural\r\nconsciousness widened and, instead of scattered individuals\r\nor some families, we have a large group, a whole class or\r\nsection of society who become the guardian of the light: thus\r\narose the Brahmin, the <i>elite,</i> the cultured class, the aristocracy\r\nof talents. The light and culture filters down further and\r\nembraces larger masses of people who take living interest and\r\nshare in the creative activities of man, in the higher preoccupations of mind and thought; this is the age of enlightened\r\nbourgeoisie. In comparatively recent times what is familiarly\r\nknown as the &quot;middle class&quot; was the repository and purveyor\r\nof human culture.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The light sinks further down and extends still more its\r\nscope seeking to penetrate and encircle the whole of humanity.\r\nThe general mass of mankind, the lowest strata of society\r\nhave to be taken in, elevated and illumined. That must be\r\nthe natural and inevitable consummation of all progress and\r\nevolution. And that is the secret sense and justification of the\r\nProletarian Revolution of today. Although, the many names\r\nand forms given to it by its violent partisans do not bring out\r\nor sufficiently honour the soul and spirit that informs it.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; This then is the pattern of cultural development as \r\nit proceeds in extension and largeness. It moves in ever- widening\r\nconcentric circles. Individuals, small centres few and far\r\nbetween, then larger groups and sections, finally vast masses\r\nare touched and moved (and will be moulded one day) by the infiltrating light. \r\nThat is how in modern times all movements are practically world-wide, encompassing all nations\r\nand peoples: there seems to be nothing left that is merely\r\nlocal or parochial. It is a single wave, as it were, that heaves\r\nup the whole of humanity. Political, social, economic and\r\neven spiritual movements, although not exactly of the same\r\ntype or pattern, all are interrelated, interlocked, inspired by\r\na common breath and move from one end of the earth to the\r\nother. They seem to be but modulations of the same world-\r\ntheme. A pulse-beat in Korea or Japan is felt across the\r\nPacific in America and across that continent, traversing again</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 99<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">the Atlantic it reaches England, sways the old continent in\r\n1   its turn and once more leaps forward through the Asiatic\r\nvastnesses back again to its place of origin. The wheel comes <i>,</i> indeed full circle: it is one movement girdling the earth.\r\nWhat one thinks or acts in one corner of the globe is thought\r\nand acted simultaneously by others at the farthest corner.\r\nVery evidently it is the age of radiography and electronics.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In the early stages of humanity its history consists of the \r\nisolated histories of various peoples and lands: intercommunication was difficult, therefore all communion was of the\r\nnature of infiltration and indirect influence. The difference\r\nbetween countries far distant from each other were well\r\nmarked and very considerable in respect of their cultures and\r\ncivilisations. To put it in a somewhat scholarly yet graphic\r\nmanner, we can say, the isometric chart of the tides of civilisation in various countries over the globe in those days presents\r\na very unequal and tortuous figure. On the other hand, a\r\ngraph depicting the situation in modern times would be\r\nformed by lines that are more even, uniform and straight. In<b> \r\n</b>other words, the world has become one, homogeneous: a\r\nconsciousness has grown same or similar on the whole in out-\r\nlook and life-impulse embracing all peoples and races in a\r\ntight embrace. The benefit of the descending or manifesting\r\nLight is now open equally and freely<b> </b> to each and every\r\nmember of the human kind.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Not only in extension but the growth or evolution has\r\nprogressed in another direction. There has not only been a quantitative but also \r\na qualitative development. Culture movements have grown in intent, in depth or elevation, in the\r\nmeaning and significance of the consciousness involved. And\r\nthey have converged towards a single aim and purpose. That\r\npurpose is not only the establishment of the global consciousness, but the expression and embodiment of the highest, the\r\nsupreme consciousness. The process here too, as in the domain\r\nof extension, is one of graduation, advance by stages. The\r\nlight, the light of awakening consciousness first touches the\r\nmore easily accessible parts of human nature, the higher\r\ndomains that are not too much involved in the gross material\r\nor animal nature. It is the realm of thoughts and ideas,<b> \r\n</b>of<b>&nbsp;\r\n</b>idealism, imagination and aspiration: it is man\'s mind, which</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 100<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">is the least heavily weighted or ballasted by a downward\r\ngravitational pull and the most buoyant and supple—the Ariel\r\nin him. It is his head that first receives the glow of the morning\r\nsun.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; If we look at Europe once again and cast a glance at its\r\norigins, we find at the source the Greece-Roman culture. It\r\nwas pre-eminently a culture based upon the powers of mind\r\nand reason: it included a strong and balanced body (both\r\nbody natural and body politic) under the aegis of <i>mens sana\r\n</i>(a sound mind). The light that was Greece was at its zenith\r\n/ a power of the higher mind and intelligence, intuitively dynamic in one—the earlier—phase through Plato, Pythagoras,\r\nHeraclitus and the mystic philosophers, and discursively and\r\nscientifically rational through the Aristotelian tradition. The\r\npractical and robust Roman did not indulge in the loftier\r\nand subtler activities of the higher or intutive mind; his was\r\napplied intelligence and its characteristic turn found expression in law and order and governance. Virgil was a representative poet of the race, finely sensitive and yet very self-conscious\r\n—earth-bound and mind-bound—as a creative artist: a clear\r\nand careful intelligence with an idealistic imagination that is\r\nyet sober and fancy-free is the very hall mark of his poetic genius. In the \r\npost-Roman age this bias for mental consciousness or the play of reason and \r\nintellectual understanding moved towards the superficial and more formal faculties\r\nof the brain ending in what is called scholasticism: it meant\r\nstagnation and decadence. It is out of this slough that the\r\nRenaissance raised the mind of Europe and bathed it with a\r\nnew light. That movement gave to the mind a wider scope,\r\nan alert curiosity, a keener understanding; it is, as I have said,\r\nthe beginning of that modern mentality which is known as the\r\nscientific outlook, that is to say, study of facts and induction\r\nfrom given data, observation and experience and experiment\r\ninstead of the other scholastic standpoint which goes by <i>a\r\npriori</i> the orising and abstraction and deduction and dogmatism.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; We may follow a little more closely the march of the centuries\r\nin their undulating movement. The creative intelligence of the\r\nRenaissance too belonged to a region of the higher mind, a\r\nkind of inspirational mind. It had not the altitude or even the</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 101<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">depth of the Greek mind nor its subtler resonances : but it\r\nregained and re-established and carried to a new degree the\r\nspirit of inquiry and curiosity, an appreciation of human\r\nmotives and preoccupations, a rational understanding of man\r\nand the mechanism of the world. The original intuitive fiat,\r\nthe. imaginative brilliance, the spirit of adventure (in the\r\nmental as well as the physical world) that inspired the epoch\r\ngradually dwindled: it gave place to an age of consolidation,\r\norganisation, stabilisation—the classical age. The seventeenth\r\ncentury Europe marked another peak of Europe\'s civilisation.\r\nThat is the Augustan Age to which we have referred. The\r\nfollowing century marked a further decline of the Intuition\r\nand higher imagination and we come to the eighteenth century <i>terre a terre</i> rationalism. Great figures still adorned that age—\r\nstalwarts that either stuck to the prevailing norm and gave it\r\na kind of stagnant nobility or already leaned towards the new\r\nlight that was dawning once more. Pope and Johnson, Montesquieu and Voltaire are its high-lights. The nineteenth century\r\nbrought in another crest wave with a special gift to mankind;</font>\r\n\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">apparently it was a reaction to the rigid classicism and dry\r\nrationalism of the preceding age, but it came burdened with a\r\nmore positive mission. Its magic name was Romanticism.\r\nMan opened his heart, his higher feeling and nobler emotional surge, his subtler sensibility and a general sweep of his\r\nvital being to the truths and realities of his own nature and of\r\nthe cosmic nature. Not the clear white and transparent almost\r\nglaring light of reason and logic, of the brain mind, but the\r\nrosy or rainbow tint of the emotive and aspiring personality\r\nthat seeks in and through the cosmic panorama and dreams<b> </b>of</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; A light that was ne\'er on sea or land...</font><p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><br>\r\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\r\nA glory that hath passed away from earth.</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The Romantic Revival was a veritable source movement:</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">it was, one can say, a kind of watershed from where various\r\nstreams of new creation and fresh adventure flowed down in\r\nall directions. Its echoes and repurcussions are met with even\r\ntoday and continue. The next stage that followed naturally\r\nand inevitably was man\'s preoccupation with his sense being,</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 102<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">his external, his physical and material personality. It is the age\r\nof Naturalism, Realism, Pragmatism, Scientism: it proclaims\r\nthe birth of the economic man. From the heart and emotions\r\nwe drop down into the field of the nervous and sensuous existence, from the vital sphere into the sphere of the body. And\r\nthat is where we are today. It means that we have been made\r\nmore than ever self-conscious on this plane and of this personality of ours. We have been given and are being given greater\r\nknowledge of its mechanism; we are intensively (and extensively too) getting familiar with all the drawbacks and lacunae\r\nthat are there so that we can remedy them—and discover new\r\nlatent forces too,—and re-create and possess a truly &quot;brave\r\nnew world&quot;.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; That is how the spirit of progress and evolution has worked\r\nand advanced in the European world. And one can take it as\r\nthe pattern of human growth generally; but in the scheme&nbsp;\r\ndescribed above we have left out one particular phase and\r\npurposely. I refer to the great event of Christ and Christianity. For without that European civilisation loses more than half of\r\nits import and value. After the Roman Decline began the ebb-tide, the trough, the dark shadow of the deepening abyss of\r\nthe Middle Ages. But even as the Night fell and darkness closed\r\naround, a new light glimmered, a star was born. A hope and a\r\nhelp shone &quot;in a naughty world&quot;. It was a ray of consciousness\r\nthat came from a secret cave, from a domain hidden behind\r\nand deep within in the human being. Christ brought a leaven\r\ninto the normal manifest mode of consciousness, an other-worldly mode into the worldly life. He established a living and\r\ndynamic contact with the soul, the inner person in man, the\r\nperson that is behind but still rules the external personality\r\nmade of mind and life and body consciousness. The Christ\r\nrevelation was also characteristic in the sense that it came as \'\r\na large, almost a mass movement—this approach of the soul\r\npersonality to earthly life. The movement faded or got adulterated, deformed like all human things; but something\r\nremained as a permanent possession of man\'s heritage.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; This episode links up with the inner story of mankind, its\r\nspiritual history. The growing or evolving consciousness of-man was not only an outgoing and widening movement: it was\r\nalso a heightening, an ascent into ranges that are not normally</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 103<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">perceived, towards summits of our true reality. We have spoken\r\nof the Graeco-Roman culture as the source and foundation of\r\nEuropean civilisation; but apart from that there was a secret\r\nvein of life that truly vivified it, led it by an occult but constant\r\ninfluence along channels and achievements that are meant\r\n\' to serve the final goal and purpose. The Mysteries prevalent\r\nand practised in Greece itself and Crete and the occult rites\r\nof Egyptian priests, the tradition of a secret knowledge and\r\ndiscipline found in the Kabbalah, the legendary worship of\r\ngods and goddesses—sometimes confused, sometimes identified with Nature forces—all point to the existence of a line of\r\nculture which is known in India as Yoga. If all other culture\r\nmeans knowledge, Yoga is the knowledge of knowledge. As the\r\nUpanishad says, there are two categories of knowledge, the\r\nsuperior and the inferior. The development of the mind and\r\nlife and body belongs to the domain of Inferior Knowledge:</font>\r\n\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">the development of the soul, the discovery of the Spirit means\r\nthe Superior Knowledge.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; This knowledge remained at the outset scattered, hidden,\r\nconfined to a few, a company of adepts: it had almost no direct\r\ncontact with the main current of life. Its religious aspect too\r\nwas so altered and popularised as to represent and serve the\r\nsecular life. The systematisation and propagation of that\r\nknowledge—at least the aspiration for that knowledge—was\r\nattempted on an effective scale in the Hebrew Old Testament.\r\nBut then a good amount of externalities, of the Inferior\r\nKnowledge was mixed up with the inner urge and the soul\r\nperception. The Christ with his New Testament came precisely\r\nwith the mission of cleaning the Augean stables, in place of the\r\ndross and coverings, the false and deformed godheads, to instal\r\nsomething of the purest ray of the inner consciousness, the\r\nunalloyed urge of the soul, the demand of our spiritual personality. The Church sought to build up society on that basis,\r\nattempting a fusion of the spiritual and the temporal power,\r\nso that instead of a profane secular world, a mundane or\r\nworldly world, there may be established God\'s own world, the\r\nCity of God.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The drive towards the building of Heaven upon earth and\r\nwith earth, the materialisation of the Spirit on a cosmic scale,\r\nthe remodelling of the whole human society in spiritual terms</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 104<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">was the secret inspiring the other Semitic Revelation, that of\r\nMohammed. The Arab Master sought to bring down and\r\nestablish and express in life-force what the Rabi of Bethlehem\r\nsaw and felt in the inner heart—one was a lover, the other\r\na servant warrior of God.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Turning to India we find a fuller and completer—if not a\r\nglobal—picture of the whole movement. India, we may say,\r\nis the spiritual world itself: and she epitomised the curve of\r\nhuman progress in a clearer and more significant manner.\r\n^ Indian history, not its political but its cultural and spiritual\r\nhistory, divides itself naturally into great movements with\r\ncorresponding epochs each dwelling upon and dealing with one\r\ndomain in the hierarchy of man\'s consciousness. The stages\r\nand epochs are well known: they are—(1) Vedic, (2) Upanishadic, (3) Darshanas—roughly from Buddha to Shankara,\r\n(4) Puranic, (5) <i>Bhagavata</i> or the Age of Bhakti, and finally\r\n(6) the Tantric. The last does not mean that it is the latest\r\nrevelation, the nearest to us in time, but that it represents a\r\nkind of complementary movement, it was there all along, for\r\nlong at least, and in which the others find their fruition and\r\nconsummation. We shall explain presently. The force of\r\nconsciousness that came and moved and moulded the first and\r\nthe earliest epoch was Revelation. It was a power of direct\r\nvision and occult will and cosmic perception . Its physical seat\r\nis somewhere behind and or just beyond the crown of the\r\nhead: the peak of man\'s manifest being that received the first\r\ntouch of Surya Savitri (the supreme Creative Consciousness)\r\nto whom it bowed down uttering the invocation <i>mantra</i> of\r\nGayatri. The Ray then entered the head at the crown and\r\nillumined it: the force of consciousness that ruled there is\r\nIntuition, the immediate perception of truth and reality, the\r\ncosmic consciousness gathered and concentrated at that peak.\r\nThat is Upanishadic knowledge. If the source and foundation\r\nof the Vedic initiation was occult vision, the Upanishad meant\r\na pure and direct Ideation. The next stage in the coming\r\ndown or propagation of the Light was when it reached further\r\ndown into the brain and the philosophical outlook grew with\r\nrational understanding and discursive argumentation as the\r\nchannel for expression, the power to be cultivated and the\r\nlimb to be developed. The Age of the Darshanas or Systems</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 105<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">of Philosophy started with the Buddha and continued till it\r\nreached its peak- in Shankaracharya. The age sought to give\r\na bright and strong mental, even an intellectual body to the\r\nspiritual light/the consciousness of the highest truth and reality.\r\nIn the Puranic Age the vital being was touched by the light\r\nof the spirit and principally on the highest, the mental level\r\nof that domain. It meant the advent of the element of feeling\r\nand emotiveness and imagination into the play of the Light,\r\nthe beginning of their reclamation. This was rendered more\r\nconcrete and more vibrant and intense in the next stage of\r\nthe movement. The whole emotional being was taken up into\r\nthe travailing crucible of consciousness. We may name it also\r\nas the age of the Bhagavatas, god-lovers, Bhaktas. It reached\r\nits climax in Chaitanya whose physical passion for God\r\ndenoted that the lower ranges of the vital being (its physical\r\nfoundations) were now stirred in man to awake and to receive\r\nthe Light. Finally remains the physical, the most material to be\r\nworked upon and made conscious and illumined. That was the\r\ntask of the Tantras. Viewed in that light one can easily understand why especial stress was laid in that system upon the\r\nesoteric discipline of the five <i>m\'s (pancha makara),</i> all preoccupied\r\nwith the handling and harnessing of the grossest physical\r\ninstincts and the most material instruments. The Tantric\r\ndiscipline bases itself upon Nature Power coiled up in Matter:</font>&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">the release of that all-conquering force through a purification\r\nand opening into the consciousness of the Divine Mother, the\r\ntranscendent creatrix of the universe. The dynamic materialising aspect of consciousness was what inspired the Tantras: the\r\nothers forming the Vedantic line, on the whole, were based\r\non the primacy of the static being, the Purusha, aloof and\r\nwithdrawing.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The Indian consciousness, we say, presented the movement\r\nas an intensive and inner, a spiritual process: it dealt with the\r\nsubstance itself, man\'s very nature and sought to know it from\r\nwithin and shape it consciously. In Europe where the frontal\r\nconsciousness is more stressed and valued, the more characteristic feature of its history is the unfoldment \r\nand metamorphosis of the forms and expressions, the residuary powers,\r\nas it were, of man\'s evolving personality, individual and social.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; To sum up then. Man progresses through cycles of crest</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 106<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">movements. They mark an ever-widening circle of the descent\r\nof Light, the growth of consciousness. Thus there is at first a\r\nsmall circle of <i>elite,</i> a few chosen people at the top, then\r\ngradually the limited aristocracy is widened out into a larger\r\nand larger democracy. One may describe the phenomenon in\r\nthe Indian terms of the Four Orders. In the beginning there\r\nis the Brahminic culture, culture confined only to the highest\r\nand the fewest possible select representatives. Then came the\r\nwave of Kshatriya culture which found a broader scope among\r\na larger community. In India, after the age of the Veda and\r\nthe Upanishad, came the age of the Ramayana and the\r\nMahabharata which was pre-eminently an age of Kshatriya-hood. In Europe too it was the bards and minstrels, sages and\r\nsoothsayers who originally created, preserved and propagated\r\nthe cultural movement: next came the epoch of the Arthurian\r\nlegends, the age of chivalry, of knights and templars with their\r\nheroic code of conduct and high living. In the epoch that\r\nfollowed, culture was still further broad-based and spread to the\r\nVaishya order. It is the culture of the bourgeoisie: it was\r\nbrought about, developed and maintained by that class in\r\nsociety preoccupied with the production or earning of wealth.\r\nThe economic bias of the literature of the period has often\r\nbeen pointed out. Lastly the fourth dimension of culture has\r\nmade its appearance today when it seeks to be coterminous\r\nwith the proletariate. With the arrival of the Sudra, culture\r\nhas extended to the very base of the social pyramid in its widest\r\ncommonalty.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; This movement of extension, looked at from the standpoint\r\nof intensiveness, is also a movement of devolution, of reclamation. The Brahminic stage represents culture that is knowledge;</font>\r\n\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">it touches the mind, it is the brain that is the recipient and\r\ninstrument of the Light. The Kshatriya comes into the field\r\nwhen the light, the vibration of awakening, from the mind\r\ncomes down into the vital energies, from the brain to the heart\r\nregion. The Vaishya spirit has taken up man still at a lower\r\nregion, the lower vital: the economic man that has his gaze\r\nfixed upon his stomach and entrails. Lastly, the final stage is\r\nreached when physical work, bodily labour, material service\r\nhave attained supreme importance and are considered almost\r\nas the only values worth the name for a human being. To walk</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 107<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">and work firmly upon Earth the Light needs a strong pair of\r\nfeet. Therefore, the Veda says, <i>Padbhyam sudro ajayata,</i> out of\r\nthe feet of the Cosmic Godhead the Sudra was born.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; That is how man has become and is becoming integrally\r\nconscious—conscious in and of all parts of his being. He is\r\nawakening and opening to the light that descends from above:</font>\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">indeed the true light, the light of truth is something transcendent and it is that that comes down and slowly inhabits\r\nthe world and possesses humanity. Its progress marks the steps\r\nof evolution. It means the gradual enlightening and illumining\r\nof the various layers of our being, the different strands of\r\nconsciousness from the higher to the lower, from the less dense\r\nto the more dense, from mind to the body. It means also in the\r\nsame process a canalisation, materialisation and fixing upon\r\nearth and in the physical being of the increasing powers of\r\nthe Light.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The Light as it descends from its own home above to the\r\nlower levels of our being expresses itself no doubt in one way,\r\nbut also gets diminished, modified, even deformed in another\r\nrespect. The work of purification certainly goes on and until\r\nthat is complete and there comes the fullest expression, it will\r\ncontinue. The action of light on the physical plane, for example,\r\non the body of the Cosmic Being is so blurred and confusing\r\napparently that it looks almost like the action of Darkness.\r\nAnd yet the Dark Night of the soul is not simply the obscurity\r\nof Ignorance. It is only the mud that lay\' diffused or settled\r\nin the being which has come up in its gathered mass in the\r\nprocess of churning and cleaning and appears like an obscure\r\nscreen.</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 108<hr>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"right\"><b><font size=\"2\"><a href=\"-00_Contents\">\r\n			<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">HOME</span></a></font></b></p></td>\r\n	</tr>\r\n	</table>\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<br clear=all>\r\n\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">.</font>\r\n</body>\r\n</html>','-13_The March of Civilisation','','publish','closed','open','','13_the-march-of-civilisation','','','2021-11-23 17:21:38','2021-11-23 17:21:38','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/13_the-march-of-civilisation/',0,'post','',0),(1512,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:38','2021-11-23 17:21:38','<html>\r\n\r\n<head>\r\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=windows-1252\">\r\n<title>Upanishadic Symbolism</title>\r\n</head>\r\n\r\n<body>\r\n\r\n<table border=\"0\" width=\"100%\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\">\r\n	<tr>\r\n		<td>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\n		<b><i>Upanishadic Symbolism</i></b></p>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; A</i> certain rationalistic critic divides the Upanishadic symbols\r\ninto three categories—those that are rational and can be\r\neasily understood by the mind; those that are not understood\r\nby the mind and yet do not go against reason, having nothing\r\ninherently irrational in them and may be simply called non-rational, those that seem to be quite irrational, for they go\r\nfrankly against all canons of logic and common sense. As an\r\nexample of the last, the irrational type, the critic cites a story\r\nfrom the <i>Chhandogya,</i> which may be rendered thus:</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; There was an aspirant, a student who was seeking after\r\nknowledge. One day there appeared to him a white dog. Soon,\r\nother dogs followed and addressed their predecessor: &quot;0 Lord,\r\nsing to our Food, for we desire to eat.&quot; The white dog answered, &quot;Come to me at dawn here in this very place.&quot; The\r\naspirant waited. The dogs, like singer-priests, circled round in\r\na ring. Then they sat and cried aloud; they cried out, <i>&quot;Om\r\n</i>we eat and <i>Om</i> we drink, may the gods bring here our food.&quot;</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Now, before any explanation is attempted it is important to\r\nbear in mind that the Upanishads speak of things experienced —not merely \r\nthought, reasoned or argued and that these experiences belong to a world and consciousness other than that\r\nof the mind and the senses. One should naturally expect here\r\na different language and mode of expression than that which\r\nis appropriate to mental and physical things. For example,\r\nthe world of dreams was once supposed to be a sheer chaos,\r\na mass of meaningless confusion; but now it is held to be quite\r\notherwise. Psychological scientists have discovered a method—\r\neven a very well-defined and strict method—in the madness of\r\nthat domain. It is an ordered, organised, significant world;</font>\r\n\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">but its terminology has to be understood, its code deciphered.</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 345<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">It is not a jargon, but a foreign language that must be learnt\r\nand mastered.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In the same way, the world of spiritual experiences is also\r\nsomething methodical, well-organized, significant. It may not\r\nbe and is not the rational world of the mind and the sense;,\r\nbut. it need not, for that reason, be devoid of meaning, mere\r\nfancifulness or a child\'s imagination running riot. Here also\r\nthe right key has to be found, the grammar and vocabulary<b> \r\n</b>of<b> \r\n</b>that language mastered. And as the best way to have complete\r\nmastery of a language is to live among the people who speak it,\r\nso, in the matter of spiritual language, the best and the only\r\nway to learn it is to go and live in its native country.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Now, as regards the interpretation of the story cited, should\r\nnot a suspicion arise naturally at the very outset that the dog\r\nof the story is not a dog but represents something else ? First, a\r\nsignificant epithet is given to it—<i>white;</i> secondly, although it\r\nasks for food, it says that <i>Om</i> is its food and <i>Om</i> is its drink. I n\r\nthe Vedas we have some references to dogs. Yama has twin\r\ndogs that &quot;guard the path and have powerful vision.&quot; They\r\nare his messengers, &quot;they move widely and delight in power\r\nand possess the vast strength.&quot; The Vedic Rishis pray to them\r\nfor Power and Bliss and for the vision of the Sun.1\r\nThere is also the Hound of Heaven, Sarama, who comes\r\ndown and discovers the luminous cows stolen and hidden\r\nby the Panis in their dark caves; she is the path-finder for\r\nIndra, the deliverer.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; My suggestion is that the dog is a symbol of the keen sight\r\nof Intuition, the unfailing perception of direct knowledge.\r\nWith this clue the Upanishadic story becomes quite sensible-\r\nand clear and not mere abracadabra. To the aspirant for\r\nKnowledge came first a purified power of direct understanding,\r\nan Intuition of fundamental value, and this brought others of\r\nthe same species in its train. They were all linked together\r\norganically—that is the significance of the circle, and formed\r\na rhythmic utterance and expression of the supreme truth <i>(Om).</i> It is also to be noted that they came and met at dawn\r\nto chant the Truth. Dawn is the opening and awakening of the\r\nconsciousness to truths that come from above and beyond.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; It may be asked why the dog has been chosen as the symbol</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<i><font size=\"2\">Rig Veda, X. 14-11,12.</font></i><font size=\"2\"> </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 346<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">of Intuition. In the Vedas, the cow and the horse also play a\r\nlarge part; even the donkey and the frog have their own assigned roles. These objects are taken from the environment of \r\nordinary life, and are those that are most familiar to the external consciousness, through which the inner experiences have\r\nto express themselves, if they are to be expressed at all. These material \r\nobjects represent various kinds of forces and movements and subtle and occult and spiritual dynamisms. Strictly<br>\r\nspeaking, however, symbols are not <i>chosen</i> in a subtle or spiritual\r\nexperience, that is to say, they are not arbitrarily selected and\r\nconstructed by the conscious intelligence. They form part of a\r\ndramatization (to use a term of the Freudian psychology of\r\ndreams), a psychological alchemy, whose method and process\r\nand rationale are very obscure, which can be penetrated only\r\nby the vision of a third eye.</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p align=center style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">I. THE SEVERAL LIGHTS</font>\r\n\r\n		<p align=center style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">The <i>Brihadaranjyaka</i> speaks of several lights that man possesses,\r\none in the absence of another, for his illumination and guidance.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; First of all, he has the Sun; it is the primary light by which\r\nhe lives and moves. When the Sun sets, the Moon rises to replace it. When both the Sun and the Moon set, he has recourse\r\nto the Fire. And when the Fire, too, is extinguished, there\r\ncomes the Word. In the end, when the Fire is quieted and the\r\nWord silenced, man is lighted by the Light of the Atman. This\r\nAtman is All-Knowledge, it is secreted within the life, within\r\nthe heart: it is self-luminous—<i>vijnanamayah pranesu hrdyantar-jyotih.</i></font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The progression indicated by the order of succession points\r\nto a gradual withdrawal from the outer to the inner light,\r\nfrom the surface to the deep, from the obvious to the secret,\r\nfrom the actual and derivative to the real and original. We\r\nbegin by the senses and move towards the Spirit.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The Sun is the first and the most immediate source of light\r\nthat man has and needs. He is the presiding deity of our waking\r\nconsciousness and has his seat in the eye—<i>caksusah adityah,\r\nadityah caksuh bhutva aksini pravisat.</i> The eye is the representative</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 347<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">of the senses; it is the sense <i>par excellence.</i> \r\nIn truth, sense-perception is the initial light with which we have to guide us, it is\r\nthe light with which we start on the way. A developed stage\r\ncomes when the Sun sets for us, that is to say, when we retire\r\nfrom the senses and rise into the mind, whose divinity is the\r\nMoon. It is the mental knowledge, the light of reason and\r\nintelligence, of reflection and imagination that govern our\r\nconsciousness. We have to proceed farther and get beyond the<br>\r\nmind, exceed the derivative light of the Moon. So when the\r\nMoon sets, the Fire is kindled. It is the light of the ardent and\r\naspiring heart, the glow of an inner urge, the instincts and\r\ninspirations of our secret life-will. Here we come into touch\r\nwith a source of knowledge and realization, a guidance\r\nmore direct than the mind and much deeper than the sense-\r\nperception. Still this light partakes more of heat than of pure\r\nluminosity; it is, one may say, incandescent feeling, but not\r\nvision. We must probe deeper, mount higher—reach heights\r\nand profundities that are serene and transparent. The Fire is\r\nto be quieted and silenced, says the Upanishad. Then we come nearer, to the \r\nimmediate vicinity of the Truth: an inner hearing opens, the direct voice of Truth—the Word—reaches us\r\nto lead and guide. Even so, however, we have not come to the\r\nend of our journey; the Word of revelation is not the ultimate\r\nLight. The Word too is a clothing, though a luminous clothing\r\n—<i>hiranmayam patram.</i> When this last veil dissolves and disappears, when utter silence, absolute calm and quietude reign\r\nin the entire consciousness, when no other lights trouble or\r\ndistract our attention, there appears the Atman in its own body;</font>\r\n\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">we stand face to face with the source of all lights, the self of the\r\nLight, the light of the Self. We are that Light and we become\r\nthat Light.</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p align=center style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">II. THE FOUR OBLATIONS</font>\r\n\r\n		<p align=center style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<i>The Word has four breasts. The Gods feed on two,</i> SWAHAKAR <i>and\r\n</i>VASHATKAR, <i>men upon the third,</i> HANTAKAR, <i>and the Ancestor<br>\r\nupon the fourth,</i> SWADHA1.—<br>\r\nRitualistically these four terms<b> </b>are the formulae for oblation\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<i><font size=\"2\">1 Srihadaranyaka Upanishad,</font></i><font size=\"2\"> V. 8 .i.\r\n</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 348<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">to four Deities, Powers or Presences, whom the sacrificer wishes\r\nto please and propitiate in order to have their help and blessing\r\nand in order thereby to discharge his dharma or duty of life. <i>Svaha</i> is the offering especially dedicated to Agni, the foremost\r\nof the Gods, for he is the divine messenger who carries men\'s\r\noffering to the Gods and brings their blessing to men. <i>Vasatkar\r\n</i>is the offering to the Gods generally. <i>Hantakar</i> is the offering to\r\nmankind, to our kin, an especial form of it being the worship\r\nof the guests, <i>sarvadevamayo\'tithi. Svadha</i> is the offering to the\r\ndeparted Fathers (Pitris).</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The duty of life consists, it is said, in the repaying of three\r\ndebts which every man contracts as soon as he takes birth\r\nupon earth—the debt to the Gods, to Men and to the Ancestors.\r\nThis threefold debt or duty has, in other terms, reference to\r\nthe three fields or domains wherein an embodied being lives\r\nand moves and to which he must adjust and react rightly if he\r\nis to secure for his life an integral fulfilment. These are the\r\nfamily, society and the world and beyond-world. The Gods\r\nare the Powers that rule the world and beyond, they are the\r\nforms and forces of the One Spirit underlying the universe,\r\nthe varied expressions of divine Truth and Reality. To worship\r\nthe Gods, to do one\'s duty by them, means to come into contact\r\nand to be united—in being, consciousness and activity—with\r\nthe universal and spiritual existence, which is the supreme end\r\nand purpose of human life. The second—a more circumscribed\r\nfield—is the society to which one belongs, the particular group\r\nof humanity in which he functions as a limb. The service to\r\nsociety or good citizenship entails the worship of humanity, of\r\nMan as a god. Lastly, man belongs to the family, which is the\r\nunit of society; and the backbone of the family is the continuous line of \r\nancestors, who are its presiding deity and represent the norm of a living dharma, the ethic of an ideal life.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; From the psychological standpoint, the four oblations are\r\nmovements or reactions of consciousness in its urge towards\r\nthe utterance and expression of Divine Truth. Like some other\r\nelements in the cosmic play, these also form a quartet—<i>catur\r\nvyuha—</i>and work together for a common purpose in view of a\r\nperfect and all-round result.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Svaha</i> is the offering and invocation. One must dedicate\r\neverything to the Divine, cast all one has or does into the Fire of</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 349<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">Aspiration that blazes up towards the Most High, and through\r\nthe tongue of that one-pointed flame call on the Divinity.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In doing so, in invoking the Truth and consecrating oneself\r\nto it, one begins to ascend to it step by step; and each step\r\nmeans a tearing of another veil and a further opening of the\r\npassage.. This graded mounting is <i>vasatkara.</i></font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Hantakara</i> is the appearance, the manifestation of the Divinity\r\n—that which makes the worshipper cry in delight, &quot;Hail!&quot;<b> \r\n</b>It<b> \r\n</b>is the coming of the Dawn—<i>ahana—</i>when the night has been\r\ntraversed and the lid rent open, the appearance of the Divine\r\nto a human vision for the human consciousness to seize, almost\r\nin a human form.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Finally, once the Truth is reached, it is to be held fast,\r\nfirmly established, embodied and fixed in its inherent nature\r\nhere in life and the waking consciousness. This is <i>Svadha,</i></font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The Gods feed upon <i>Svadha</i> and <i>Vasat,</i> as these represent the\r\nascending movement of human consciousness: it is man\'s self-giving and aspiration and the upward urge of his heart and\r\nsoul that reach to the Gods, and it is that which the immortals\r\ntake into themselves and are, as it were, nourished by, since it\r\nis something that appertains to their own nature.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; And in response they descend and approach and enter into\r\nthe aspiring human soul—this descent and revelation and near\r\nand concrete presence of Divinity, this <i>Hanta</i> is man\'s food, for\r\nby it his consciousness is nourished.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; This interchange, or mutual giving, the High Covenant\r\nbetween the Gods and Men, to which the Gita too refers</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; With this sacrifice nourish the Gods, that the Gods may\r\nnourish you; thus mutually nourishing ye shall obtain the\r\nhighest felicity<sup>1</sup></font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">is the very secret of the cosmic play, the basis of the\r\nspiritual evolution in the universal existence.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The Gods are the formations or particularisations of the\r\nTruth-consciousness, the multiple individualisations of the One\r\nspirit. The Pitris are the Divine Fathers, that is to say, souls\r\nthat once laboured and realised here below, and now have\r\npassed beyond. They dwell in another world, not too far removed from the earth, and from there, with the force of their</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i><font size=\"2\">lThe Gita,</font></i><font size=\"2\"><b> </b>III-ll.</font></font><font size=\"2\">\r\n</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 350<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">realisation, lend a more concrete help and guidance to the destiny that is being worked out upon earth. They are forces and\r\nformations of consciousness in an intermediate region between\r\nHere and There <i>(antariksa),</i> and serve to bring men and gods\r\nnearer to each other, inasmuch as they belong to both the\r\ncategories, being a divinised humanity or a humanised divinity.\r\nEach fixation of the Truth-consciousness in an earthly mould\r\nis a thing of joy to the Pitris; it is the <i>Svadha or</i> food by which they \r\nlive and grow, for it is the consolidation and also the resultant of their own realisation. The achievements of the sons\r\nare more easily and securely reared and grounded upon those\r\nof the forefathers, whose formative powers we have to invoke,\r\nso that we may pass on to the realisation, the firm embodiment\r\nof higher and greater destinies.</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p align=center style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">III.. THE PATH OF THE FATHERS AND THE PATH OF THE GODS</font>\r\n\r\n		<p align=justify style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">One is an ideal in and of the world, the \r\nother is an ideal transcending the world. The Path of the Fathers<i> (Pitryana)</i> enjoins\r\nthe right accomplishing of the <i>dharma</i> of Life—it is the path of\r\nworks, of Karma; it is the line of progressive evolution that\r\nman follows through the experience of life after life on earth.\r\nThe Path of the Gods <i>{Devayana)</i> runs above life\'s evolutionary\r\ncourse; it lifts man out of the terrestrial cycle and places him\r\nin a superior consciousness—it is the path of knowledge, of\r\nVidya.<sup>1</sup> The Path of the Fathers is the soul\'s southern or inferior\r\norbit <i>(daksinayana, aparardha);</i> the Path of the Gods is the\r\nnorthern or superior orbit <i>(uttarayana, parardha).</i> The former is\r\nalso called the Lunar Path and the latter the Solar Path.<sup>2</sup> For\r\nthe moon represents the mind,<sup>3</sup> and is therefore, an emblem\r\nthat befits man so long as he is a mental being and pursues a\r\ndharma that is limited by the mind; the sun, on the other hand,\r\nis the knowledge and consciousness that is beyond the mind—\r\nit is the eye of the Gods.<sup>4</sup> </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Man has two aspects or natures; he dwells in two worlds.\r\nThe first is the manifest world—the world of the body, the life</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\">1 <i>Karmapa pitrloko vidyaya devalokah (jayyaft)—Brihadaranyaka,<b> </b>1.5.16.</i>\r\n</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<i><font size=\"2\">2 Devalokddadityam. .pitrlokaccandram—Ibid., VI. 2.15.16.</font></i><font size=\"2\">\r\n</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\">3 <i>Candram mono bhutva—Aitareya,<b> </b>1.2.4; Manasascandramah-Ibitl., 1.1.4.</i>\r\n</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\">4 <i>Diviva caksuratatam—Rig Veda.</i> </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 351<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">and the mind. The body has flowered into the mind through\r\nthe life. The body gives the basis or the material, the life gives\r\npower and energy and the mind the directing knowledge. This\r\ntriune world forms the humanity of man. But there is another\r\naspect hidden behind this apparent nature, there is another\r\nworld where man dwells in his submerged, larger and higher\r\nconsciousness. To that his soul—the Purusha in his heart only\r\nhas access. It is the world where man\'s nature is transmuted\r\ninto another triune reality—Sat, Chit and Ananda.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The one, however, is not completely divorced from the other.\r\nThe apparent, the inferior nature is only a preparation for the\r\nreal, the superior nature. The Path of the Fathers concerns\r\nitself with man as a mental being and seeks so to ordain and\r\naccomplish its duties and ideals as to lead him on to the Path\r\nof the Gods; the mind, the life, and the body consciousness\r\nshould be so disciplined, educated, purified, they should\r\ndevelop along such a line and gradually rise to such a stage as<br>\r\nto make them fit to receive the light which belongs to the higher level, so \r\nallowing the human soul imbedded in them to extricate itself and pass on to the Immortal Life.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; And they who are thus lifted up into the Higher Orbit are\r\nfreed from the bondage to the cycle of rebirth. They enjoy the\r\nsupreme Liberation that is of the Spirit; and even when they\r\ndescend into the Inferior Path, it is to work out as free agents,\r\nas vehicles of the Divine, a special purpose, to bring down\r\nsomething of the substance and nature of the Solar reality into\r\nthe lower world, enlighten and elevate the lower, as far as it<b> \r\n</b>is<b> \r\n</b>allowed, into the higher.</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p align=center style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">IV. THE TRIPLE AGNI</font>\r\n\r\n		<p align=center style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">Agni is the divine spark in man, the naming consciousness in\r\nthe mortal which purifies and uplifts <i>(pavaka)</i> mortality into\r\nimmortality. It is the god &quot;seated in the secret heart, who is\r\nthe possession of infinity and the foundation of existence,&quot; as\r\nYama says to Nachiketas.<sup>1</sup></font><sup> </sup>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Indeed, it was to this godhead that Nachiketas turned and\r\nhe wanted to know of it and find it, when faith seized on his</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">1 <i>Katha,<b> </b>1.1.14.</i></font><font size=\"2\">\r\n</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 352<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">pure heart and he aspired for the higher spiritual life. The very\r\nopening hymn of the Rig Veda, too, is addressed to Agni, who\r\nis invoked as the vicar seated in the front of the sacrifice, the\r\ngiver of the supreme gifts.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; King Yama initiated Nachiketas into the mystery of Fire\r\nWorship and spoke of three fires that have to be kindled if one\r\naspires to enter the heaven of immortality.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The three fires are named elsewhere Garhapatya, Dakshina,and Ahavaniya.<sup>1</sup> They are the three tongues of the one central Agni, that dwells secreted in the hearth of the soul. They\r\nmanifest as aspirations that flame up from the three fundamental levels of our being, the body, the life and the mind.\r\nFor although the spiritual consciousness is the natural element\r\nof the soul and is gained in and through the soul, yet, in Order\r\nthat man may take possession of it and dwell in it consciously,\r\nin order that the soul\'s empire may be established, the external\r\nbeing too must respond to the soul\'s impact and yearn for its\r\ntruth in the Spirit. The mind, the life and the body which are\r\nusually obstructions in the path, must discover the secret\r\nflame that. is in them too—each has his own portion of the\r\nSoul\'s Fire—and mount<b> </b> on its ardent tongue towards the\r\nheights of the Spirit.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Garhapatya is the Fire in the body-consciousness, the fire\r\nof Earth, as it is sometimes called; Dakshina is the Fire of the moon or mind, and, Ahavaniya that of life.<sup>2</sup> The earthly fire\r\nis also the fire of the sun; the sun is the source of all earth\'s\r\nheat and symbolises at the same time the spiritual light manifested in the physical consciousness. The lunar fire is also the\r\nfire of the stars, the stars, mythologically, being the consorts\r\nor powers of the moon and they symbolise, in Yogic experience,\r\nthe intuitive thoughts. The fire of the life-force has its symbol\r\nin lightning, electric energy being its vehicle.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Agni in the physical consciousness is called <i>grhapati,</i> for the\r\nbody is the house in which the soul is lodged and he is its\r\nkeeper, guardian and lord. The fire in the mental consciousness is called <i>daksina;</i> for it is that which gives discernment,\r\nthe power to discriminate between the truth and the false-hood, it is that which by the pressure of its heat and light</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\">1 <i>Chhandyogya, IV, 11. 12, 13; V, 18.2.</i> </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\">2 <i>Chhandyogya, IV, 11. 12. 13; V, 18, 2.</i> </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 353<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">cleaves the wrong away from the right. And the fire in the life-force is called <i>ahavaniya;</i> for <i>prana</i> is not only the plane of\r\nhunger and desire, hut also of power and dynamism, it is that\r\nwhich calls forth forces, brings them into play and it is that\r\nwhich is to be invoked for the progression of the Sacrifice, for\r\nan onward march on the spiritual path.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Of the three fires one is the upholder—he who gives the\r\nfirm foundation, the stable house where the Sacrifice is performed and Truth realised; the second is the Knower, often\r\ncalled in the Veda <i>jataveda,</i> who guides and directs; and the\r\nthird the Doer, the effective Power, the driving Energy—<i>vaisvanara.</i></font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p align=center style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">V, THE FIVE GREAT ELEMENTS</font>\r\n\r\n		<p align=center style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">The five elements of the ancients—earth, water, fire, air and\r\nether or space—are symbols taken from the physical world to\r\nrepresent other worlds that are in it and behind it. Each one\r\nis a principle that constitutes the fundamental nature of a\r\nparticular plane of existence.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Earth represents the material world itself, Matter or existence in its most concrete, its grossest form. It is the basis of\r\nexistence, the world that supports other worlds <i>(dhara, dharitri),\r\n</i>the first or the lowest of the several ranges of creation. In man\r\nit is his body. The principle here is that of stability, substantiality, firmness, consistency.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Water represents the next rung—the vital world, the world\r\nof life-force <i>(prana).</i> Physiologically also we know that water is\r\nthe element forming three-fourths of the constituents of a\r\nliving body and that dead and dry are synonymous terms; it is\r\nthe medium in which the living cells dwell and through which\r\nthey draw their sustenance. Water is the veritable sap of life—\r\nit is the emblem of life itself. The principle it represents is\r\nthat of movement, continuity, perpetuity.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Fire represents the Heart. It is that which gives the inner\r\nmotive to the forces of life, it is the secret inspiration and\r\naspiration that drive the movements of life. It is the heat of\r\nconsciousness, the ardour of our central being that lives in the\r\nTruth and accepts nothing, nothing but the Truth. It is the</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 354<hr>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">pure and primal energy of our divine essence, driving ever\r\nupward and onward life\'s course of evolution.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Air is Mind, the world of thought, of conscious formation;</font>\r\n\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">it is where life-movements are taken up and given a shape or\r\narticulate formula for an organised expression. The forms here\r\nhave not, however, the concrete rigidity of Matter, but are\r\npliant and variable and fluid—in fact, they are more in the\r\nnature of possibilities, rather than actualities. The Vedic\r\nMaruts are thought-gods, and Indra (the Luminous Mind),\r\ntheir king, is called the Fashioner of perfect forms.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Ether or Space is the infinitude of the Spirit, the limitless\r\nPresence that dwells in and yet transcends the body, the life\r\nthe heart and the mind.</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p align=center style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">VI. THE SCIENCE<b> </b> OF THE FIVE<b> </b>FIRES</font>\r\n\r\n		<p align=center style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">The Science of the Five Agnis (Fires), as propounded by\r\nPravahan, explains and illustrates the process of the birth of\r\nthe body, the passage of the soul into earth existence. It\r\ndescribes the advent of the child, the building of the physical\r\nform of the human being. The process is conceived of as a\r\nsacrifice, the usual symbol with the Vedic Rishis for the expression of their vision and perception of universal processes of\r\nNature, physical and psychological. Here, the child is said to\r\nbe the final fruit of the sacrifice, the different stages in the\r\nprocess being: (i) Soma, (ii) Rain, (iii) Food, (iv) Semen, (v)\r\nChild. Soma means Rasa—physically the principle of water,\r\npsychologically the principle of delight—and symbolises and\r\nconstitutes the very soul and substance of life. Now it is said\r\nthat these five principles—the fundamental and constituent\r\nelements—are born out of the sacrifice, through the oblation\r\nor offering to the five Agnis. The first Agni is Heaven or the\r\nSky-God, and by offering to it one\'s faith and one\'s ardent\r\ndesire, one calls into manifestation Soma or Rasa or Water,\r\nthe basic principle of life. This water is next offered to the\r\nsecond Agni, the Rain-God, who sends down Rain. Rain,\r\nagain, is offered to the third Agni, the Earth, who brings\r\nforth Food. Food is, in its turn, offered to the fourth Agni, the\r\nFather or Male, who elaborates in himself the generating fluid.</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 355<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">Finally, this fluid is offered to the fifth Agni, the Mother<b> \r\n</b>or<b> \r\n</b>the Female, who delivers the Child.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The biological process, described in what may seem to be\r\ncrude and mediaeval terms, really reflects or echoes a more subtle and \r\npsychological process. The images used form perhaps part of the current popular notion about the matter, but\r\nthe esoteric sense goes beyond the outer symbols. The sky\r\nseems to be the far and tenuous region where the soul rests and\r\nawaits its next birth—it is the region of Soma, the <i>own Home\r\n</i>of Bliss and Immortality. Now when the time or call comes,\r\nthe soul stirs and journeys down—that is the Rain. Next, it\r\nenters the earth atmosphere and clothes itself with the earth\r\nconsciousness. Then it waits and calls for the formation of the\r\nmaterial body, first by the contribution of the father and then\r\nby that of the mother; when these two unite and the material\r\nbody is formed, the soul incarnates.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Apart from the question whether the biological phenomenon described is really a symbol and a cloak for another\r\norder of reality, and even taking it at its face value, what is\r\nto be noted here is the idea of a cosmic cycle, and a cosmic\r\ncycle that proceeds through the principle of sacrific. If it is\r\nasked what there is wonderful or particularly spiritual in this\r\nrather <i>naif</i> description of a very commonplace happening that\r\ngives it an honoured place in the Upanishads, the answer is<br>\r\nthat it <i>is</i> wonderful to see how the Upanishadic Rishi takes\r\nfrom an event its local, temporal and personal colour and incorporates it in a global movement, a cosmic cycle, as a limb\r\nof the Universal Brahman. The Upanishads contain passages which a puritanical \r\nmentality may perhaps describe as \'pornographic\' ; these have in fact been put by some on the <i>\r\nIndex ex-purgatorius.</i> But the ancients saw these matters with other eyes\r\nand through another consciousness.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; We have, in modern times, a movement towards a more\r\nConscious and courageous knowledge of things that were\r\ntaboo to puritan ages. Not to shut one\'s eyes to the lower,\r\ndarker and hidden strands of our nature, but to bring them\r\nout into the light of day and to face them is the best way of\r\ndealing with such elements, which otherwise, if they are repressed, exert an unhealthy influence on the mind and nature.\r\nThe Upanishadic view runs on the same lines, but, with the</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 356<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">unveiling and the natural—and not merely naturalistic—delineation of these under-worlds (concerning sex and food), it\r\nendows them with a perspective <i>sub specie aeternitatis.</i> The\r\nsexual function, for example, is easily equated to the double\r\nmovement of ascent and descent that is secreted in nature, or\r\nto the combined action of Purusha and Prakrit! in the cosmic\r\nPlay, or again to the hidden fount of Delight that holds and\r\nmoves the universe. In this view there is nothing merely\r\nsecular and profane, but all is woven into the cosmic spiritual\r\nwhole; and man is taught to consider and to mould all his\r\nmovements—of soul and mind and body—in the light and\r\nrhythm of that integral Reality.<sup>1</sup></font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The central secret of the transfigured consciousness lies, as\r\nwe have already indicated, in the mystic rite or law of Sacrifice. It is the one basic, fundamental, universal Law that\r\nupholds and explains the cosmic movement, conformity to\r\nwhich brings to the thrice-bound human being release and freedom. Sacrifice consists essentially of two elements or processes:</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">(i) The offering or self-giving of the lower reality to the higher,\r\nand, as a consequence, an answering movement of (ii) the\r\ndescent of the higher into the lower. The lower offered to the\r\nhigher means the lower sublimated and integrated into the\r\nhigher; and the descent of the higher into the lower means the\r\nincarnation of the former and the fulfilment of the latter. The\r\nGita elaborates the same idea when it says that by Sacrifice\r\nmen increase the gods and the gods increase men and by so<br>\r\nincreasing each other they attain the supreme Good. Nothing\r\nis, nothing is done, for its own sake, for an egocentric satisfaction ; all, even movements relating to food and to sex should\r\nbe dedicated to the Cosmic Being—Visva Purusha—and that\r\nalone received which comes from Him.</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">1 The secularisation of man\'s vital functions in modern ages has not been a\r\nsuccess. It has made him more egocentric and blatantly hedonistic. From an\r\noccult point of view he has in this way subjected himself to the influences of dark\r\nand undesirable world-forces, has made an opening, to use an Indian symbolism,\r\nfor Kali (the Spirit of the Iron Age) to enter into him. The sex-force is an extremely potent agent, but it is extremely fluid and elusive and uncontrollable. It\r\nwas for this reason that the ancients always sought to give it a proper mould, a\r\nright continent, a fixed and definite channel; the modems, on the other hand,\r\nallow it to run free and play with it recklessly. The result has been, in the life of\r\nthose born under such circumstances, a growing lack of poise and balance and a\r\ncorresponding incidence of neurasthenia, hysteria and all abnormal pathological\r\nconditions.</font><font size=\"2\"> </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 357<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">VII. THE COSMIC AND THE TRANSCENDENTAL</font><p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">The Supreme Reality which is always called Brahman in the\r\nUpanishads, has to be known and experienced in two ways;</font>\r\n\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">for it has two fundamental aspects or modes of being. The\r\nBrahman is universal and it is transcendental. The Truth, <i>satyam,</i> the Upanishad says in its symbolic etymology, is \'This\'\r\n(or, He) and \'That\' <i>(syat</i> + <i>tyat</i> i.e. <i>sat + tat).</i> \'This\' means\r\nthe Universal Brahman: it is what is referred to when the\r\nUpanishad says:</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Isavasyamidam sarvam:</i> All this is for habitation by the Lord;</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">or<b>,</b> <i>Sarvam khalvidam brahma:</i> All this is indeed the<b> </b>Brahman;</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">or, Sa <i>evedam sarvam:</i> He is indeed all this;</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">or, <i>Ahamevedam sarvam:</i> I am indeed all this;</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">or, <i>Atmaivedam sarvam:</i> The Self indeed is all this;</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">or again, <i>Sarvamasmi:</i> I am all.</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">The <i>Chhandyogya<sup>1</sup></i> gives a whole typal scheme of this universal\r\nreality and explains how to realise it and what are the results\r\nof the experience. The Universal Brahman means the cosmic\r\nmovement, the cyclic march of things and events taken in its\r\nglobal aspect. The typical movement that symbolises and\r\nepitomises the phenomenon, embodies the truth, is that of the\r\nsun. The movement consists of five stages which are called the\r\nfivefold <i>sama. Sama</i> means the equal Brahman that is ever\r\npresent in all, the Upanishad itself says deriving the word\r\nfrom <i>sama.</i> It is <i>Sama</i> also because it is a rhythmic movement,\r\na cadence—a music of the spheres. And a rhythmic movement,\r\nin virtue of its being a wave, consists of these five stages: (i) the\r\nstart, (ii) the rise, (iii) the peak, (iv) the decline and (v) the\r\nfall. Now the sun follows this curve and marks out the familiar\r\ndivisions of the day: dawn, forenoon, noon, afternoon and\r\nsunset. Sometimes two other stages are added, one at each\r\nend, one of preparation and another of final lapse—the twilights with regard to the sun—and then we have seven instead\r\nof five <i>samas.</i> Like the Sun, the Fire—that is to say, the sacrificial Fire—can also be seen in its fivefold cyclic movement: (i)\r\nthe lighting, (ii) the smoke, (iii) the flame, (iv) smouldering</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><b><font size=\"2\">* </font> </b> <font size=\"2\"> <i>Chhandyogya, II, III.</i></font></font><font size=\"2\">\r\n</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 358<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">and finally (v) extinction—the fuel as it is rubbed to produce&nbsp;\r\nthe fire and the ashes may be added as the two supernumerary\r\nstages. Or again, we may take the cycle of five seasons or of the\r\nfive worlds or of the deities that control these worlds. The\r\nliving wealth of this earth is also symbolised in a quintet—goat and sheep and cattle and horse and finally man. Coming\r\nto the microcosm, we have in man the cycle of his five senses,\r\nbasis of all knowledge and activity. For the macrocosm, to\r\nbring out its vast extra-human complexity, the Upanishad\r\nrefers to a quintet, each term of which is again a trinity:</font>\r\n\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">(i) the threefold Veda, the Divine Word that is the origin of\r\ncreation, (ii) the three worlds or fields—earth, air-belt or\r\natmosphere and space, (iii) the three principles or deities ruling respectively \r\nthese worlds—Fire, Air and Sun, (iv) their expressions, emanations or embodiments—stars and birds and\r\nlight-rays, and finally, (v) the original inhabitants of these\r\nworlds—to earth belong the reptiles, to the mid-region the\r\nGandharvas and to heaven the ancient Fathers.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Now, this is the All, the Universal. One has to realise it and\r\npossess in one\'s consciousness. And that can be done only in\r\none way: one has to identify oneself with it, be one with it,\r\nbecome it. Thus by losing one\'s individuality one lives the life\r\nuniversal; the small lean separate life is enlarged and moulded\r\nin the rhythm of the Rich and the Vast. It is thus that man\r\nshares in the consciousness and energy that inspire and move\r\nand sustain the cosmos. The Upanishad most emphatically<br>\r\nenjoins that one must not decry this cosmic godhead or deny\r\nany of its elements, not even such as are a taboo to the puritan\r\nmind. It is in and through an unimpaired global consciousness\r\nthat one attains the All-Life and lives uninterruptedly and\r\nperennially: <i>Sarvamanveti jyok jivati.</i></font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Still the Upanishad says this is not the final end. There is\r\nyet a higher status of reality and consciousness to which one\r\nhas to rise. For beyond the Cosmos lies the Transcendent. The\r\nUpanishad expresses this truth and experience in various\r\nsymbols. The cosmic reality, we have seen, is often conceived\r\nas a septenary, a unity of seven elements, principles and worlds, further to \r\ngive it its full complex value, it is considered not as a simple septet, but a threefold heptad—the\r\nwhole gamut, as it were, consisting of 21 notes or syllables. The</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 359<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">Upanishad says, this number does not exhaust the entire range;</font>\r\n\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">for there is yet a 22nd place. This is the world beyond the\r\nSun, griefless and deathless, the supreme Selfhood. The Veda\r\nalso sometimes speaks of the integral reality as being represented by the number 100 which is 99 + 1; in other words, 99\r\nrepresents the cosmic or universal, the unity being the reality\r\nbeyond, the Transcendent.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Elsewhere the Upanishad describes more graphically this\r\ntruth and the experience of it. It is said there that the sun has\r\nfive—we note the familiar five—movements of rising and\r\nsetting: (i) from East to West, (ii) from South to North, (iii)\r\nfrom West to East, (iv) from North to South and (v) from\r\nabove—from the Zenith—downward. These are the five\r\nnormal and apparent movements. But there is a sixth one;</font>\r\n\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">rather it is not a movement, but a status, where the sun neither\r\nrises nor sets, but is always visible fixed in the same position.\r\n.</font><p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Some Western and Westernised scholars have tried to show\r\nthat the phenomenon described here is an exclusively natural\r\nphenomenon, actually visible in the polar region where the\r\nsun never sets for six months and moves in a circle whose\r\nplane is parallel to the plane of the horizon on the summer\r\nsolstice and is gradually inclined as the sun regresses towards\r\nthe equinox (on which day just half the solar disc is visible\r\nabove the horizon). The sun may be said there to move in the\r\ndirection East-South-West-North and again East. Indeed the\r\nUpanishad mentions the positions of the sun in that order and\r\ngives a character to each successive station. The Ray from\r\nthe East is red, symbolising the <i>Rik,</i> the Southern Ray is\r\nwhite, symbolising the <i>Yajur,</i> the Western Ray is black symbolising the <i>Atharva.</i> The natural phenomenon, however, might\r\nhave been or might not have been before the mind\'s eye of the\r\nRishi, but the symbolism, the esotericism of it is clear enough\r\nin the way the Rishi speaks of it. Also, apart from the first\r\nfour movements (which it is already sufficiently difficult to\r\nidentify completely with what is visible), the fifth movement,\r\nas a separate descending movement from above appears to\r\nbe a foreign element in the context. And although, with regard to the sixth \r\nmovement or status, the sun is visible as such exactly from the point of the North Pole for a while, the ring of\r\nthe Rishi\'s utterance is unmistakably spiritual, it cannot but</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 360<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">refer to a fact of inner consciousness—that is at least what the\r\nphysical fact conveys to the Rishi and what he seeks to convey\r\nand express primarily.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Now this is what is sought to<b> </b> be conveyed and expressed.\r\nThe five movements of the sun here also are nothing but the\r\nfive <i>samas</i> and they refer to the cycle of the Cosmic or Universal\r\nBrahman. The sixth status where all movements cease, where\r\nthere is no rising and setting, no ebb and flow, no waxing and\r\nwaning, where there is the immutable, the ever-same unity, is\r\nvery evidently the Transcendental Brahman. It is That to\r\nwhich the Vedic Rishi refers when he prays for a constant and\r\nfixed vision of the eternal Sun—<i>-jyok ca suryam drise.</i></font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; It would be interesting to know what the five ranges<b> \r\n</b>or<b> \r\n</b>levels or movements of consciousness exactly are that make up\r\nthe Universal Brahman described in this passage. It is the\r\nmystic knowledge, the Upanishad says, of the secret delight in\r\nthings—<i>madhuvidya.</i> The five ranges are the five fundamental\r\nprinciples of delight—immortalities, the Veda would say—\r\nthat form the inner core of the pyramid of creation. They\r\nform a rising tier and are ruled respectively by the gods—<br>\r\nAgni, Indra, Varuna, Soma and Brahma—with their emanations and instrumental personalities—the Vasus, the Rudras,\r\nthe Adityas, the Maruts and the Sadhyas. We suggest that\r\nthese refer to the five well-known levels of being, the modes or\r\nnodi of consciousness or something very much like them. The\r\nUpanishad speaks elswhere of the five sheaths. The six Chakras\r\nof Tantric system lie in the same line. The first and the basic\r\nmode is the physical and the ascent from the physical: Agni\r\nand the Vasus are always intimately connected with the earth\r\nand the earth-principles (it can be compared with the Muladhara of the Tantras). Next, second in the line of ascent is\r\nthe Vital, the centre of power and dynamism of which the\r\nRudras are the deities and Indra the presiding God <i>(cf.\r\n</i>Swadhishthana of the Tantras—the navel centre). Indra, in\r\nthe Vedas, has two aspects, one of knowledge and vision and\r\nthe other of dynamic force and drive. In the first aspect he is\r\nmore often considered as the Lord of the Mind, of the Luminous Mind. In the present passage, Indra is taken in his\r\nsecond aspect and instead of the Maruts with whom he is\r\nusually invoked has the Rudras as his agents and associates.</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 361<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;The third in the line of ascension is the region of Varuna and\r\nthe Adityas, that is to say, of the large Mind and its lights\r\n—perhaps it can be connected with Tantric Ajnachakra. The\r\nfourth is the domain of Soma and the Maruts—this seems to\r\nbe the inner heart, the fount of delight and keen and sweeping\r\naspirations—the Anahata of the Tantras. The fifth is the&nbsp; region of the crown of the head, the domain of Brahma and\r\nthe Sadhyas: it is the Overmind status from where comes the\r\ndescending </font>inflatus<font face=\"Times New Roman\">, the creative Maya of Brahma. And when\r\nyou go beyond, you pass into the ultimate status of the Sun,\r\nthe reality absolute, the Transcendent which is indescribable,\r\nunseizable, indeterminate, indeterminable, incommensurable;</font>\r\n\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">and once there, one never returns, never—<i>na ca punaravartate na\r\nca punaravartate.</i></font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p align=center style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">VIII. HOW MANY GODS?</font>\r\n\r\n		<p align=justify style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&quot;How many Gods are there?&quot; Yajnavalkya was once asked.*\r\nThe Rishi answered, they say there are three thousand and\r\nthree of them, or three hundred and three, or again, thirty-\r\nthree; it may be said too there are six or three or two or one\r\nand a half or one finally. Indeed as the Upanishad says elsewhere, it is the One Unique who wished to be many: and all\r\nthe gods are the various glories <i>(mahima)</i> or emanations of the\r\nOne Divine. The ancient of ancient Rishis \'had declared long\r\nlong ago, in the earliest Veda, that there is one indivisible\r\nReality, the seers name it in various ways.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In Yajnavalkya\'s enumeration, however, it is to be noted,\r\nfirst of all, that he stresses on the number three. The principle\r\nof triplicity is of very wide application: it permeates all fields\r\nof consciousness and is evidently based upon a fundamental\r\nfact of reality. It seems to embody a truth of synthesis and\r\ncomprehension, points to the order and harmony that reigns\r\nin the cosmos, the spheric music. The metaphysical, that is to\r\nsay, the original principles that constitute existence are the\r\nwell-known triplets: (i) the superior: Sat, Chit, Ananda; and\r\n(ii) the inferior: Body, Life and Mind—this being a reflection\r\nor translation or concretisation of the former. We can see also</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\">1 <i>Brihadaranyaka<b> </b>III.9.</i></font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 362<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">here how the dual principle comes in, the twin godhead or the\r\ntwo gods to which Yajnavalkya refers. The same principle is\r\nfound in the conception of Ardhanarishwara, Male and\r\nFemale, Purusha-Prakriti. The Upanishad says<sup>1</sup> yet again that the One original Purusha was not pleased at being alone, so\r\nfor a companion he created out of himself the original Female.\r\nThe dual principle signifies creation, the manifesting activity\r\nof the Reality. But what is this one and a half to which Yajnavalkya refers? It simply means that <i>the other</i> created out of the\r\none is not a wholly separate, independent entity: it is not an\r\ninteger by itself, as in the Manichean system, but that it is a\r\nportion, a fraction of the One. And in the end, in the ultimate\r\nanalysis, or rather synthesis, there is but one single undivided\r\nand indivisible unity. The thousands and hundreds, very often mentioned also in \r\nthe Rig Veda, are not simply multiplications of the One, a graphic description of its many-sidedness; \r\nit indicates also the absolute fullness, the complete completeness <i>(purnasya purnam)</i> \r\nof the Reality. It includes and comprehends all and is a rounded totality, a full circle. The\r\nhundred-gated and the thousand-pillared cities of which the-ancient Rishis chanted are formations and embodiments of\r\nconsciousness human and divine, are realities whole and\r\nentire englobing all the layers and grades of consciousness.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Besides this metaphysics there is also an occult aspect in\r\nnumerology of which Pythagoras was a well-known adept and\r\nin which the Vedic Rishis too seem to take special delight. The\r\nmultiplication of numbers represents in a general way the\r\nprinciple of emanation. The One has divided and subdivided\r\nitself, but not in a haphazard way: it is not like the chaotic\r\npulverisation of a piece of stone by hammer-blows. The process of division and subdivision follows a pattern almost as\r\nneat and methodical as a genealogical tree. That is to say, the emanations form \r\na hierarchy. At the top, the apex of the pyramid, stands the one supreme \r\nGodhead. That Godhead is biune in respect of manifestation—the Divine and his creative\r\nPower. This two-in-one reality may be considered, according\r\nto one view of creation, as dividing into three forms or aspects\r\n—the well-known Brahma, Vishnu and Rudra of Hindu\r\nmythology. These may be termed the first or primary emanations. </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\">1<i>Brihadaranyaka<b> </b>1.4.</i></font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 363<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">Now, each one of them in its turn has its own emanations—the eleven Rudriyas are familiar. These are secondary\r\nand there are tertiary and other graded emanations—the last\r\nones touch the earth and embody physico-vital forces. The\r\nlowest formations or beings can trace their origin to one or\r\nother of the primaries and their nature and function partake\r\nof or are an echo of their first ancestor.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Man, however, is an epitome of creation. He embraces and\r\nincarnates the entire gamut of consciousness and comprises in\r\nhim all beings from the highest Divinity to the lowest jinn or\r\nelf. And yet each human being in his true personality is a lineal\r\ndescendant of one or other typal aspect or original Personality\r\nof the one supreme Reality; and his individual character is all\r\nthe more pronounced and well-defined the more organised\r\nand developed is the being. The psychic being in man is thus\r\na direct descent, an immediate emanation along a definite\r\nline of devolution of the supreme consciousness. We may now\r\nunderstand and explain easily why one chooses a particular\r\nIshta, an ideal god, what is the drive that pushes one to become a worshipper of Siva or Vishnu or any other deity. It is\r\nnot any rational understanding, a weighing of pros and cons\r\nand then a resultant conclusion that leads one to choose a path\r\nof religion or spirituality. It is the soul\'s natural call to the\r\nGod, the type of being and consciousness of which it is a\r\nspark, from which it has descended, it is the secret affinity—the spiritual blood-relation as it were—that determines the\r\nchoice and adherence. And it is this that we name Faith. And\r\nthe exclusiveness and violence and bitterness which attend\r\nsuch adherence and which go by the name of partisanship,\r\nsectarianism, fanaticism etc., are a deformation in the ignorance on the physico-vital plane of the secret loyalty to one\'s\r\nsource and origin. Of course, the pattern or law is not so\r\nsimple and rigid, but it gives a token or typal pattern. For it\r\nmust not be forgotten that the supreme source or the original\r\nis one and indivisible and in the highest integration consciousness is global and not exclusive. And the human being that\r\nattains such a status is not bound or wholly limited to one\r\nparticular formation: its personality is based on the truth of\r\nimpersonality. And yet the two can go together: an individual</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 364<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">can be impersonal in consciousness and yet personal in becoming and true to type.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The number of gods depends on the level of consciousness on\r\nwhich we stand. On this material plane there are as many gods\r\nas there are bodies or individual forms (adhar). And on the\r\nsupreme height there is only one God without a second. In\r\nbetween there are gradations of types and sub-types whose\r\nnumber and function vary according to the aspect of consciousness that reveals itself.</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p align=center style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">IX. NACHIKETAS THREE<b> </b>BOONS</font>\r\n\r\n		<p align=center style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">The three boons asked for by Nachiketas from Yama, Lord of\r\nDeath, and granted to him have been interpreted in different\r\nways. Here is one more attempt in the direction.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Nachiketas is the young aspiring human being still in the\r\nIgnorance—<i>naciketa,</i> meaning one without consciousness or\r\nknowledge. The three boons he asks for are in reference to the\r\nthree fundamental modes of being and consciousness that are\r\nat the very basis, forming, as it were, the ground-plan of the\r\nintegral reality. They are (i) the individual, (ii) the universal\r\nor cosmic and (iii) the transcendental.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The first boon regards the individual, that is to say, the individual identity and integrity. It asks for the maintenance of\r\nthat individuality so that it may be saved from the dissolution\r\nthat Death brings about. Death, of course, means the dissolution of the body, but it represents also dissolution pure and\r\nsimple. Indeed death is a process which does not stop with the\r\nphysical phenomenon, but continues even after; for with the\r\nbody gone, the other elements of the individual organism, the<br>\r\nvital and the mental too gradually fall off, fade and dissolve.\r\nNachiketas wishes to secure from Death the safety and preservation of the earthly personality, the particular organisation\r\nof mind and vital based upon a recognisable physical frame.\r\nThat is the first necessity for the aspiring mortal—for, it is said,\r\nthe body is the first instrument for the working out of one\'s life\r\nideal. But man\'s true personality, the real individuality lies\r\nbeyond, beyond the body, beyond the life, beyond the mind,\r\nbeyond the triple region that Death lords it over. That is the</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 365<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">divine world, the Heaven of the immortals, beyond death and\r\nbeyond sorrow and grief. It is the hearth secreted in the inner\r\nheart where burns the Divine Fire, the God of Life Everlasting.\r\nAnd this is the nodus that binds together the threefold status\r\nof the manifested existence, the body, the life and the mind.\r\nThis. triplicity is the structure of name and form built out of\r\nthe bricks of experience, the kiln, as it were, within which\r\nburns the Divine Agni, man\'s true soul. This soul can be\r\nreached only when one exceeds the bounds and limitations\r\nof the triple cord and experiences one\'s communion and\r\nidentity with all souls and all existence. Agni is the secret\r\ndivinity within, within the individual and within the world;</font>\r\n\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">he is the Immanent Divine, the cosmic godhead that holds\r\ntogether and marshals all the elements and components, all\r\nthe principles that make up the manifest universe. He it is\r\nthat has entered into the world and created facets of his own\r\nreality in multiple forms: and it is he that lies secret in the\r\nhuman being as the immortal soul through all its adventure of\r\nlife and death in the series of incarnations in terrestrial evolution. The adoration and realisation of this Immanent Divinity,\r\nthe worship of Agni taught by Yama in the second boon, consists in the triple sacrifice, the triple work, the triple union in \r\nthe triple status of the physical, the vital and the mental consciousness, the mastery of which leads one to the other shore,\r\nthe abode of perennial existence where the human soul enjoys\r\nits eternity and unending continuity in cosmic life. Therefore,\r\nAgni, the master of the psychic being, is called <i>jatavedas,</i> he\r\nwho knows the births, all the transmigrations from life to life.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The third boon is the secret of secrets, for it is the knowledge\r\nand realisation of Transcendence that is sought here. Beyond\r\nthe individual lies the universal; is there anything beyond the\r\nuniversal ? The release of the individual into the cosmic existence gives him the griefless life eternal: can the cosmos be\r\nrolled up and flung into something beyond? What would be\r\nthe nature of that thing ? What is there outside creation, out-side manifestation, outside Maya, to use a latter day term? Is\r\nthere existence or non-existence (utter dissolution or extinction\r\n—Death in his supreme and absolute status) ? King Yama did\r\nnot choose to answer immediately and even endeavoured to\r\ndissuade Nachiketas from pursuing the question over which</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 366<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">people were confounded, as he said. Evidently it was a much\r\ndiscussed problem in those days. Buddha was asked the same\r\nquestion and he evaded it, saying that the pragmatic man\r\nshould attend to practical and immediate realities and not\r\nwaste time and energy in discussing things ultimate and\r\nbeyond that have hardly any relation to the present and the\r\nactual.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; But Yama did answer and unveil the mystery and impart \r\nthe supreme secret knowledge—the knowledge of the Transcendent Brahman: it is out of the transcendent reality that the\r\nimmanent deity takes his birth. Hence the Divine Fire, the\r\nLord of creation and the Inner Master—<i>sarvabhutantaratma,\r\nantaryami—</i>is called <i>brahmajam,</i> born of the Brahman. Yama\r\nteaches the process of transcendence. Apart from the knowledge and experience first of the individual and then of the\r\ncosmic Brahman, there is a definite line along which the\r\nhuman consciousness (or unconsciousness, as it is at present)\r\nis to ascend and evolve. The first step is to learn to distinguish\r\nbetween the Good and the Pleasurable <i>(sreya</i> and <i>preya).</i> The\r\nline of pleasure leads to the external, the superficial, the false:</font>\r\n\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">while the other path leads towards the inner and the higher \r\ntruth. So the second step is the gradual withdrawal of the consciousness from the physical and the sensual and even the\r\nmental preoccupation and focussing it upon what is certain\r\nand permanent. In the midst of the death-ridden consciousness—in the heart of all that is unstable and fleeting—one\r\nhas to look for Agni, the eternal godhead, the Immortal in\r\nmortality, the Timeless in time through whom lies the passage to Immortality beyond Time.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Man has two souls corresponding to his double status. In\r\nthe inferior, the soul looks downward and is involved in the\r\ncurrent of Impermanence and Ignorance, it tastes of grief\r\nand sorrow and suffers death and dissolution: in the higher it\r\nlooks upward and communes and joins with the Eternal (the\r\ncosmic) and then with the Absolute (the transcendent). The\r\nlower is a reflection of the higher, the higher comes down in a\r\ndiminished and hence tarnished light. The message is that of\r\ndeliverance, the deliverance and reintegration of the lower soul out of its \r\nbondage of worldly ignorant life into the freedom and immortality first of its higher and then of its highest</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 367<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">status. It is true, however, that the Upanishad does not make \r\na, trenchant distinction between the cosmic and the transcendent and often it speaks of both in the same breath, as it\r\nwere. For in fact they are realities involved in each other and\r\ninterwoven. Indeed the triple status, including the Individual,\r\nforms one single totality and the three do not exclude or cancel\r\neach other; on the contrary, they combine and may be said to\r\nenhance each other\'s reality. The Transcendence expresses or\r\ndeploys itself in the cosmos—he goes abroad, <i>sa paryagat:</i> and\r\nthe cosmic individualises, concretises itself in the particular\r\nand the personal. The one single spiritual reality holds itself,\r\naspects itself in a threefold manner.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The teaching of Yama in brief may be said to be the gospel\r\nof immortality and it consists of the knowledge of triple immortality. And who else can be the best teacher of immortality\r\nthan Death himself, as Nachiketas pointedly said? The first\r\nimmortality is that of the physical existence and consciousness,\r\nthe preservation of the personal identity, the individual name\r\n. and form—this being in itself as expression and embodiment\r\nand instrument of the Inner Reality. This inner reality en-shrines the second immortality—the eternity and continuity\r\nof the soul\'s life through its incarnations in time, the divine\r\nAgni lit for ever and ever growing in flaming consciousness. And the third and \r\nfinal immortality is in the being and consciousness beyond time, beyond all relativities, the absolute\r\nand self-existent delight.</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 368<hr>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\" align=\"right\"><b><font size=\"2\"><a href=\"-00_Contents\">\r\n			<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">HOME</span></a></font></b></td>\r\n	</tr>\r\n	</table>\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n</body>\r\n\r\n</html>\r\n','-51_Upanishadic Symbolism','','publish','closed','open','','51_upanishadic-symbolism','','','2021-11-23 17:21:38','2021-11-23 17:21:38','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/51_upanishadic-symbolism/',0,'post','',0),(1513,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:38','2021-11-23 17:21:38','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2 Final//EN\">\r\n<html>\r\n<head>\r\n<title>32 prayer.htm</title>\r\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html;charset=windows-1252\">\r\n</head>\r\n<body>\r\n\r\n<table border=\"0\" width=\"100%\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\">\r\n	<tr>\r\n		<td>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\n		<b>\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>Prayers and Meditations of the Mother</i></font>\r\n\r\n		</b></p>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">THE <i>Prayers and Meditations</i> -of the Mother. It is Life Divine\r\nin song, it is Life Divine set to music—made sweet and lovely,\r\nnear and dear to us—a thing of beauty and a joy for ever.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; To some the ideal has appeared aloof and afar, cold and\r\nforbidding. The ascent is difficult involving immense pains and\r\ntiresome efforts. It is meant for the high-souled ascetic, not for\r\nthe weak earth-bound mortals. But here in the voice of the\r\nMother we hear not the call for a hazardous climb to the bare\r\ncold wind-swept peak of the Himalayas but a warm invitation\r\nfor a happy trek back to our own hearth and home. The voice\r\nof the Divine is the loving Mother\'s voice.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The <i>Prayers and Meditations</i> of the Mother are a music,\r\na music of the lyre—I say lyre, because there is a lyric beauty\r\nand poignancy in these utterances. And true lyricism means a\r\ndirect and spontaneous out flowing of the soul\'s intimate\r\nexperiences.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; This wonder-lyre has three strings, giving out a triple note\r\nor strain: there is a strain of philosophy, there is a strain Or\r\nyoga and there is a strain of poetry. We may also call them\r\nvalues and say there is a philosophical, a yogic and a poetic\r\nvalue in these contemplations. The philosophical strain or\r\nvalue means that the things said are presented, explained to\r\nthe intellect so that the human mind can seize them, understand them. The principles underlying the ideal, the fundamental ideas are elaborated in terms of reason and logical\r\ncomprehension, although the subject-matter treated is in the\r\nlast analysis beyond reason and logic. For example, here is\r\ntrue philosophy expressed in a philosophic manner as neatly\r\nas possible.</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 274<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>A quoi servirait L\'homme s\'il n\'etait pas fait pour jeter un pont\r\nentre Ce qui est eternellement, mais qui n\'est pas manifeste, et ce\r\nqui est manifeste, entre toutes les transcendances, toutes les splendours de la vie divine et toute 1\'obscure et douloureuse ignorance\r\ndu monde materiel? L\'homme est Ie lien entre ce qui doit etre et\r\nce qui est; il est la passerelle jetee sur I\'abime, il est Ie grand X en\r\ncroix, Ie trait d\'union quaternaire. Son domicile veritable, Ie\r\nsiege effectif de sa conscience doit etre dans Ie monde intermediaire\r\nau point de jonction des quatre bras de la croix, la ou tout I\'infini\r\nde 1\'impensable vient prendre forme precise pour etre projete dans\r\nL\'innombrable manifestation.</i> .<sup>l </sup></font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">Or again</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; text-indent:25px\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>Que de degres differents dans la conscience! II faudrait reserver\r\nce mot pour ce qui, dans un etre, est illumine par Ta presence,\r\ns\'est identifie a Toi et participe a Ta Conscience absolue, ce\r\nqui est &quot;parfaifement eveille&quot;, comme ait Ie Bouddha.<sup>2</sup>\r\n</i></font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; text-indent:25px\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>En dehors de cet etat, ily a des degres infinis de conscience descendant\r\njusqu\'a L\'obscurite complete, la veritable inconscience qui peut\r\netre un domaine pas encore touche par la lumiere de ton amour\r\n(ce qui parait improbable dans la substance physique), ou bien ce\r\nqui est, pour une raison d\'ignorance quelconque, hors de notre\r\nregion individuelle de perception.<sup>3</sup></i></font><sup> </sup>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; However, we note that the philosophical strain merges into\r\nthe yogic, rather the yogic strain is already involved in the</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; text-indent:25px\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">1&nbsp; Of what use would be man if he was not made to throw a bridge between\r\nThat which eternally is, but is not manifested, and that which is manifested;</font><font size=\"2\">&nbsp;\r\n</font><font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">between all the transcendences, all the splendours of the divine life and all the\r\nobscure and sorrowful ignorance of the material world ? Man is the intermediary\r\nbetween that which has to be and that which is; he is a bridge thrown over the\r\nabyss, he is the great X in the cross, the quaternary link. His true abode, the\r\neffective seat of his consciousness, should be in the intermediate world at the\r\njoining point of the four arms of the cross, where all the infinity of the Unknowable\r\ncomes to take precise form for being projected into the multitudinous manifestation ..</font><font size=\"2\">\r\n</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; text-indent:25px\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">2&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; How many and different are the degrees of consciousness! This word should\r\nbe reserved for that which, in a being, is illumined by Thy Presence, identifies\r\nitself with Thee and participates in Thy absolute Consciousness, for that which\r\nhas knowledge, which is &quot;perfectly awakened&quot; as says the Buddha.</font><font size=\"2\">\r\n</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; text-indent:25px\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">3&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Outside this state, there are infinite degrees of consciousness descending down\r\nto the complete darkness, the veritable inconscience which may be a domain not\r\nyet touched by the light of Thy divine love (but that appears improbable in\r\nphysical substance), or which is by reason of some ignorance, outside our individual region of perception.</font><font size=\"2\">\r\n</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 275<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">philosophical. Here is an obvious and clear expression of this\r\nstrain:</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>Il faudrait que chaque jour, chaque instant, soit I\'\'occasion d\'une \r\nconsecration nouvelle et plus complete; et non pas une de ces consecrations\r\nenthousiastes et trepidantes, suractives, pleine de l\'illusion de I\'oeuvre, mats une consecration profonde et silencieuse \r\nqui n\'est pas\r\nforcement apparente, mais qui penetre et transfigure toute action\r\nII faudrait que notre esprit paisible et solitaire repose toujours en\r\nToi, et que de ce pur sommet il ait la perception exacte des realites, de la Realite unique et eternelle, derriere les instables et fugitives apparences.</i><sup>1\r\n</sup></font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; We are given all the disciplines necessary for the growth of\r\nthe spiritual life: the processes, the procedures that have to be\r\nfollowed—object-lessons are given even for the uninitiated\r\nand for the very beginner, as well as instructions for those who\r\naim at the highest heights thus:</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>II est toujours bon de regarder de temps en temps en soi et de\r\nvoir qu\'on n\'est et ne peut rien, mais il faut en suite tourner son\r\nregard vers Toi en sachant que Tu es tout et que Tu peux tout.</i>&nbsp;\r\n</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>&nbsp;&nbsp; Tu es la vie de notre vie et\r\n</i></font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<i><font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </font></i>\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>la lumiere de notre etre,</i> </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>&nbsp; Tu es Ie mattre de nos destinees.<sup>2</sup></i> </font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Indeed philosophy and yoga go hand -in hand. Yoga is\r\napplied philosophy. What is at first mentally perceived and\r\nrecognised, what is accepted by the reason is made active and\r\ndynamic in life. The character embodies the abstract and\r\ngeneral principles, the vital energy executes them, that is\r\nyoga. Philosophy brings in the light of consciousness, yoga the</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; text-indent:25px\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">1&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Each day, each moment, must be an occasion for a \r\nnew and completer consecration; and not one of those enthusiastic and trepidant consecrations, over-active, full of the illusion of the work, but a profound and silent consecration\r\nwhich need not be apparent, but which penetrates and transfigures every action. </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; text-indent:25px\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">Our mind, solitary and at peace, must rest always in Thee, and from this pure\r\nsummit it must have the exact perception of realities, of the sole and eternal<br>\r\nReality, behind unstable fugitive appearances.</font><font size=\"2\"> </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; text-indent:25px\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">2&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; It is always good to look within ourselves from time to time and see that we\r\nare nothing and can do nothing, but we must then turn our look towards Thee,\r\nknowing that Thou art all and that Thou canst do all.\r\n</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\" size=\"2\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Thou art the life of our life and</font><font size=\"2\">\r\n</font>\r\n\r\n<p align=justify style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><font size=\"2\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; the light of our being,<br>\r\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\r\nThou art the master of our destiny</font>.</font>\r\n		<p align=center style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\nPage 276<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">energy of consciousness. Here we have an expression of what\r\nmay be called &quot;yogic philosophy&quot;.</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>II faut a chaque moment secouer Ie passe comme une poussiere qui\r\ntombe, afin qu\'elle ne salisse pas Ie chemin vierge qui, a chaque\r\nmoment aussi, s\'ouvre devant nous.<sup>1</sup></i> </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Once again we see emerging the third note, the note of\r\npoetry. In fact the <i>Prayers and Meditations</i> abound in the\r\nmost beautiful poetry, what can be more beautiful, even more\r\npoetically beautiful than these cadences!</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>Ta voix est si modeste, si impartiale, si sublime de patience et</i>\r\n<i>de misericorde qu\'elle ne se fait entendre avec aucune autorite, aucune\r\npuissance de volonte, mais comme une brise fraiche, douce et pure,</i> <i>comme un murmure cristallin qui donne la note d\'harmonie dans Ie\r\nconcert discordant. Seulement, pour celui qui salt ecouter la note,\r\nrespirer la brise, elle contient de tels tresors de beaute, un tel parfum\r\nde pure serenite et de noble grandeur, que toutes les folks illusions\r\ns\'\' evanouissent ou se transforment dans une joyeuse acceptation de la\r\nmerveilleuse verite entrevue.<sup>2</sup></i><sup> </sup></font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">Or more beautiful than the beautiful simplicity of these lines!</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>Comme me flamme qui brule silencieusement, comme un parfum\r\nqui monte tout droit, sans vaciller, mon amour va vers Toi.</i> .<sup>3</sup> </font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; If one asks for a classical perfection, here is a line that is on\r\na par with a Racinian verse—</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>Mon coeur s\'est endormi jusqu\'au trefonds de I\'etre. .*</i> </font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; text-indent:25px\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i><font size=\"2\">1&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </font> </i> \r\n<font size=\"2\">&nbsp;We must at each moment shake off the past like falling dust, so that it may\r\nnot soil the virgin path which, also at each moment, opens before us.</font></font><font size=\"2\">\r\n</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; text-indent:25px\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">2&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Thy voice is so modest, impartial, sublime in its patience and its mercy that\r\nit does not make itself heard with any authority, any potency of will; it is like a\r\ncool, soft and pure breeze; it is like a crystalline murmur that imparts a note of\r\nharmony to a discordant concert. Only for him who knows how to listen to that\r\nnote, how to breathe that breeze, it contains such a treasure of beauty and such,\r\na perfume of pure serenity and noble grandeur, that all extravagant illusions vanish\r\nor are transformed into a joyful acceptance of the marvellous truth that has been\r\nglimpsed.</font><font size=\"2\"> </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; text-indent:25px\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">3&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Like a flame that burns in silence, like a perfume that rises straight upward\r\nwithout wavering, my love goes to Thee..</font><font size=\"2\"> </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; text-indent:25px\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">4&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; My heart has fallen asleep, down to the very depths of my being.</font><font size=\"2\">\r\n</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 277<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; And here is a line flowing with all the milk and honey of\r\nthe Romantic muse—</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<i><font face=\"Arial\">&nbsp;</font><font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Et les heures s\'evanouissent comme des reves invecus..</font></i><sup><font face=\"Times New Roman\">1 </font>\r\n</sup>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">which possesses furthermore the magic of an indefinable\r\nmysticism so rare in the French language. The mystic element\r\ngives a special grace and flavour, a transcendent significance\r\nserving as an enveloping aura to the whole body of these\r\nPrayers and Meditations.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; One cannot, for example,<b> \r\n</b>but be bewitched by the mystic<b> \r\n</b>grandeur of this image:—</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 0 Conscience immobile et sereine, Tu veilles aux confins du\r\nmonde comme un sphinx d\'eternite. Et pourtant a certains Tu livres<br>\r\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\r\nTon secret,</i>,<sup>2 </sup></font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In fact three notes blend together indissolubly and form what\r\nwe call \'mantra\'—even like the triple mystic syllable AUM.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Once, in connection with Shakespeare, I said that a poet\'s\r\nlanguage, which is in truth the poet himself, may be considered\r\nas consisting of unit vocables, syllables, that are as it were\r\nfundamental particles, even like the nuclear particles, each\r\npoet having his own type of particle, with its own charge and\r\nspin and vibrations. Shakespeare\'s, I said, is a particle of\r\nLife-energy, a packet of living blood-vibration, pulsating as it\r\nwere, with real heart-beat. Likewise in Dante one feels it to be\r\na packet of Tapas—of ascetic energy, a bare clear concentrated\r\nflame-wave of consciousness, of thought-force. In the <i>Prayers\r\nand Meditations</i> the fundamental unit of expression seems to be\r\na packet of gracious light—one seems to touch the very hem\r\nof Mahalakshmi.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The voice in the <i>Prayers and Meditations</i> is Krishna\'s flute\r\ncalling the souls imprisoned in their worldly household to come\r\nout into the wide green expanses of infinity, in the midst of the\r\nglorious herds of light, to play and enjoy in the company of\r\nthe Lord of Delight.</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; text-indent:25px\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><sup><font size=\"2\">1</font></sup><font size=\"2\"> And the hours pass like dreams unlived..</font></font><font size=\"2\">\r\n</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; text-indent:25px\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\" size=\"2\"><sup>2</sup> 0 serene and immobile Consciousness, Thou watchest on the boundaries of\r\nthe world like a sphinx of eternity. And yet to some Thou givest out Thy secret.</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 278<hr>\r\n\r\n		<p align=center style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<b>\r\n<font face=\"Arial\">(2)</font>\r\n\r\n		</b>\r\n\r\n		<p align=center style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; We have spoken of the three notes or strains in the <i>Prayers\r\nand Meditations.</i> Apart from this triple theme which after all\r\nmeans mode or modulation in expression, there is a triplicity in\r\ndepth. Along with the strains, there are strands. Besides the\r\nvalue or quality of the things, the thing itself is a composite\r\nreality containing different levels. It is not a single, unilateral,\r\none-dimensional world, but it is multi-dimensional consisting\r\nof many worlds, one within another, all telescoped as it were,\r\nto form a single indivisible whole.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Now these prayers—who prays? And to whom? These\r\nmeditations—who meditates? And who is the object of the\r\nmeditation ? First of all there is the apparent obvious meaning,\r\nthat is on the very surface. It is the Mother\'s own prayers\r\noffered to her own beloved Lord. It is her own personal aspiration, the preoccupation of the individual human being that\r\nshe is. It is the secret story, the inner history of all that she\r\ndesires, asks for, questions, all that she has experienced and\r\nrealised and the farther more that she is to achieve, the revelations of a terrestrial creature of the particular name and form\r\nthat she happens to possess. Thus for example, the very opening\r\npassage of these prayers:</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>Quoique tout mon etre Te soit theoriquement consacre, \r\no Maitre Sublime, qui est la vie, la lumiere et l\'amour de toute chose j\'ai\r\npeine encore a appliquer cette consecration dans les details. II m\'a\r\nfallu plusieurs semaines pour savoir que la raison de cette meditation\r\necrite, sa legitimation, reside dans Ie fait de Te I\'adresser quotidiennement. Ainsi je materialiserai chaque jour un peu de la conversation\r\nque j\'ai si frequemment auec Toi; je Te ferai de mon mieux ma\r\nconfession</i>. <sup>.1</sup>&nbsp; </font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; But we notice immediately that these are not exclusively\r\npersonal, absolutely individual assertions. While speaking of</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; text-indent:25px\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">1&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Although my whole being is in theory conscrated to Thee, 0 Sublime Master,\r\nwho art the life, the light and the love in all things, I still find it hard to carry out\r\nthis consecration in detail. It has taken me several weeks to learn that the reason\r\nfor this written meditation, its justification lies in the very fact of addressing it\r\ndaily to Thee. In this way I shall put into material shape each day a little of the\r\nconversation I have so often with Thee; I shall make my confession to Thee as\r\nwell as it may be<b>..</b></font><font size=\"2\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 279<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">herself, spontaneously she seems to be speaking on behalf of\r\nall men. The words that she utters come as it were, from the\r\nlips of all mankind. She is the representative human being.\r\nShe gives expression to all that man feels or might feel but is notable or does not know how to express and articulate. Here is\r\nhow she describes her function as a representative person—so\r\nbeautifully, so poignantly:</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>Alors j\'ai pense a tous ceux qui veillaient sur Ie bateau<b> \r\n</b>pour<b> \r\n</b>assurer et proteger notre route, et avec reconnaissance, dans leur\r\ncoeur, j\'ai voulu faire naitre et vivre Ta Paix; puis j\'ai pense a tous ceux qui, constants et sans souci, dormaient du sommeil de I\'inconscience, et avec sollicitude pour leurs miseres, pitie pour leur souffrance\r\nlatente s\'eveillant en eux en meme temps que leur reveil, j\'ai voulu</i>&nbsp;\r\n<i>- qu\'un peu de Ta Paix habite leur coer, et fasse naitre en eux la vie\r\nde l\'esprit, la lumiere dissipant I\'ignorance. Puis j\'ai pense a tous\r\nles habitants de cette vaste mer, les visibles et les invisibles, et j\'ai\r\nvoulu que sur eux s\'etende Ta Paix. Puis j\'ai pense a ceux que nous\r\navions laisse au loin et dont I\'affection nous accompagne, et avec\r\nune grande tendresse, pour eux j\'ai voulu Ta Paix consciente et\r\ndurable, la plenitude de Ta Paix proportionnee a leur capacite de\r\nla recevoir. Puts j\'ai pense a tous ceux vers qui nous allons, que des\r\npreoccupations enfantines agitent et qui se battent pour de mesquines\r\ncompetitions d\'interet dans I\'ignorance et l\'egoisme; et avec ardeur, dans une grande aspiration, pour eux, j\'ai demande la pleine lumiere\r\nde Ta Paix. Puis j\'ai pense a tous ceux que nous connaissons, a\r\ntous ceux que nous ignorons, a toute la vie qui s\'elabore, a tout ce qui\r\na change de forme, a tout ce qui n\'est pas encore enforme, et pour tout\r\ncela, ainsi que pour ce a quoi je ne puis penser, pour tout ce qui est\r\npresent a ma memoire et pour tout ce que j\'oublie, dans un grand\r\nrecueillement et une muette adoration, j\'ai implore Ta Paix.<sup>1</sup></i><sup>\r\n</sup></font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">1&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; I then thought of all those who were watching over the ship to safeguard and\r\nprotect our route, and in gratitude, I willed that Thy peace should be born and\r\nlive in their hearts; then I thought of all those who, confident and carefree, slept\r\nthe sleep of inconscience and, with solicitude for their miseries, pity for their\r\nlatent suffering which would awake in them in their own waking, I willed that a</font><font size=\"2\">\r\n</font><font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">little of Thy Peace might dwell in their hearts and bring to birth in them the life\r\nof the Spirit, the light which dispels ignorance. I then thought of the dwellers of\r\nthis vast sea, visible and invisible, and I willed that over them might be extended\r\nThy Peace. I thought next of those whom we had left far away and whose affection\r\nis with us, and with a great tenderness I willed for them Thy conscious and lasting\r\nPeace, the plenitude of Thy Peace proportioned to their capacity to receive it.\r\nThen I thought of all those to whom we are going, who are restless with childish\r\npreoccupations and fight for mean competitions of interest in ignorance and</font><font size=\"2\">\r\n</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 280<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">Or again:</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>Ce que j\'ai voulu pour eux, avec<b> </b> Ta volonte, aux moments ou j\'ai pu Stre en communion veritable avec Toi, permets qu\'ils I\'aient recu\r\nen ce jour ou, tachant d\'oublier les contingences exterieures, Us se\r\nsont tournes vers les pensee la plus noble, vers les sentiment Ie\r\nmeilleur. Que la supreme serenite de<b> </b> Ta sublime Presence s\'eveille en\r\neux.<sup>1</sup></i> </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; But the Mother is not merely a representative, she has\r\nbecome all men, the entire humanity itself. She has identified\r\nherself with each person in her being and consciousness, she\r\nis one with all, all are merged in her. Her voice utters the cry\r\nof the human collectivity. Mother\'s <i>Prayers and Meditations</i>are the prayers and meditations of man. Thus again:</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Arial Narrow\">-</font><font face=\"Times New Roman\"> .. <i>il m\'a semble que j\'adoptais tous les habitants de ce bateau, que\r\nje les enveloppais tous dans un egal amour, et qu\'ainsi en chacun\r\nd\'eux quelque chose de Ta conscience s\'eveillerait.<sup>2</sup></i><sup> </sup></font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; She has so clearly and unequivocally expressed her oneness\r\nwith all men. She mentions specially the miserable, the poor\r\nand afflicted mankind:</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>Lorsque j\'etais enfant—vers I\'age de treize ans et pendant un\r\nan environ—tous les soirs des que j\'etais couchee, il me semblait que\r\nje sortais de mon corps et que je m\'elevais tout droit au-dessus de la</i> <i>Hudson, puis de la ville, tres haut. Je me voyais alors vetue d\'ung\r\nmagnifique robe doree, plus longue que moi; et a mesure que je</i> </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">egoism; and ardently, in a great aspiration for them I asked for the plenary light\r\nof Thy Peace. I next thought of all those whom we know, of all those whom we\r\ndo not know, of all the life that is working itself out, of all that has changed its\r\nform and all that is not yet in form, and for all that, and also for all of which\r\nI cannot think, for all that is present to my memory and for all that I forget, in a\r\ngreat ingathering and mute adoration, I implored Thy Peace.</font><font size=\"2\">\r\n</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; text-indent:25px\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">1&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; What I willed for them, with Thy will, at the moments when I could be in a\r\ntrue communion with Thee, grant that they may have received it on the day\r\nwhen, striving to forget external contingencies, they turned towards their noblest\r\nthought, towards their best feelings.</font><font size=\"2\"> </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; text-indent:25px\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">May the supreme serenity of Thy sublime Presence awake in them.</font><font size=\"2\">\r\n</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; text-indent:25px\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">2 ..&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; it seemed to me that I adopted all the inhabitants of this ship, and enveloped\r\nthem in an equal love, and that so in each one of them, something of Thy con-<br>\r\nsciousness would awake.</font><font size=\"2\"> </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 281<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>montais, cette robe s\'allongeait en s\'etendant circulairement autour\r\nde moi pour former comme un toit immense au-dessus de la ville.\r\nAlors je voyais de tous cotes sortir des hommes, des femmes, des<b> \r\n</b>enfants, des vieillards, des malades, des malheureux; ils s\'assemblaient\r\nsous la robe etendue, implorant secours, racontant leurs mis\'eres, leurs\r\nsouffrances, leurs peines. En reponse, la robe, souple et vivante,\r\ns\'allongeait vers eux individuellement, et des qu\'ils l\'avaient touches,\r\nils etaient consoles ou gueris, et rentraient dans leurs corps plus\r\nheureux et plus forts qu\'avant d\'en etre sortis.<sup>1</sup></i><sup> </sup></font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; But her being and consciousness are not limited to mankind\r\nalone. She has identified herself with even material objects,\r\nwith all the small insignificant physical things which our\r\nearthly existence deals with. This is how she takes leave of the\r\nhouse where she had lived, and the things it had sheltered, on\r\nthe eve of a long journey:</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>Je les remercie avec reconnaissance de tout Ie charme qu\'ils ont\r\nsu donner exterieurement a notre vie; je souhaite que, s\'il est dans\r\nleur destines de passer pour plus ou moins longtemps en d\'autres mains\r\nque les notres, ces mains leur soient douces et sachant tout Ie respect\r\nque I\'on doit a ce que Ton divin Amour, Seigneur, a fait surgir\r\nde l\'obscure inconscience du chaos.<sup>2</sup></i> </font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; It is to be noted how even a material object is taken up,\r\npurified and transformed almost into a living being by the\r\nMother\'s loving touch.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The same feeling of unity and oneness extends to the dumb</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; text-indent:25px\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">1&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; When I was a child—about the age of thirteen and for about a year—every\r\nnight as soon as I was in bed, it seemed to me that I came out of my body and rose\r\nstraight up above the house, then above the town, very high. I saw myself then,\r\nclad in a magnificent golden robe, longer than myself; and as I rose, that robe\r\nlengthened, spreading in a circle around me to form, as it were, an immense roof\r\nover the town. Then I would see coming out from all sides, men, women, children,\r\nthe old, the sick, the unhappy; they gathered under the outspread robe, imploring\r\nhelp, recounting their miseries, their sufferings, their pains. In reply, the robe,\r\nsupple and living, stretched out to them individually, and as soon as they touched\r\nit, they were consoled or healed, and entered back into their body happier and\r\nstronger than they had ever been before coming out of it.</font><font size=\"2\">\r\n</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; text-indent:25px\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">2&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; I thank them with gratitude for all the charm they have<b> </b> been able to impart<b> \r\n</b> from the outside to our life; I wish, if they are destined<b> </b> to pass for a long or a<br>\r\nbrief period into other hands than ours, that these hands may<b> \r\n</b>be gentle to them and<b> \r\n</b>may feel all the respect that is due to what Thy divine<b> \r\n</b>Love, 0 Lord, has made to<b> \r\n</b>emerge from the dark inconscience of chaos. (3.3.1914)</font><font size=\"2\">\r\n</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 282<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">plant world also. It is oneness not partial or vague but total and\r\nabsolute:</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>Une grande concentration s\'est emparee de moi et je me suis\r\napercue que je m\'identifiais avec une fleur de cerisier; puis a tracers\r\ncette fleur avec toutes les fleurs de cerisier; puis descendant plus\r\nprofondement dans la conscience, en suivant un courant de force\r\nbleutee, je devins tout a coup Ie cerisier lui-meme, dressant vers Ie\r\ndel, comme autant de bras, ses innombrables branches chargees de\r\nleur offrande fleurie. J\'entendis alors distinctement la phrase\r\nsuivante:</i> </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &quot;Ainsi tu t\'es unie a I\'ame des cerisiers et tu as pu de la sorte\r\nconstater que c\'est Ie Divin qui fait au ciel I\'offrande de cette pri\'ere\r\nde fleurs.&quot; Lorsque je I\'eus ecrit, tout s\'effaca; mais maintenant\r\nIe sang du cerisier coule dans mes veines, et avec lui une paix et une\r\nforce incomparables; quelle difference y a-t-il entre Ie corps humain\r\net Ie corps d\'un arbre? Aucune vraiment, et la conscience qui les\r\nanime est bien identiquement la meme.<sup>1</sup></i><sup> </sup></font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Indeed the Mother\'s voice is the voice of all men, all creatures, all beings, all things. She stands for the entire earth, not\r\nonly so, she is the Earth itself; the total terrestrial being is\r\nembodied in her, earth\'s aspiration, and pain and yearning\r\nfind utterance in her.</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>Le monde douloureux s\'est agenouille devant Toi, Seigneur, en\r\nmuette supplication la matiere torturee se blottit a Tes pieds, son\r\ndernier, son unique refuge; et en T\'implorant ainsi, elle T\'adore,\r\nToi qu\'elle ne connait ni ne comprend! Sa priere s\'eleve comme le\r\ncri d\'un agonisant; ce qui disparait sent confusement la possibility</i> </font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">1&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; A deep concentration seized on me, and I perceived that I was identifying\r\nmyself with a single cherry-blossom, then through it with all cherry-blossoms, and\r\nas I descended deeper in the consciousness, following a stream of bluish force, I\r\nbecame suddenly the cherry-tree itself, stretching towards the sky like so many\r\narms its innumerable branches laden with their sacrifice of flowers. Then I\r\nheard distinctly this sentence:</font><font size=\"2\"> </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &quot;Thus hast thou made thyself one with the soul of cherry-trees and so thou canst\r\ntake note that it is the Divine who makes the offering of this flower-prayer to\r\nheaven.&quot;</font><font size=\"2\"> </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; When I had written it, all was effaced; but now the blood of the cherry-tree\r\nflows in my veins and with it flows an incomparable peace and force. What\r\ndifference is there between the human body and the body of a tree? In truth there\r\nis none, the consciousness which animates them is identically the same.</font><font size=\"2\">\r\n</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 283<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>de revivre en Toi; la terre attend Ton arret dans me grandiose\r\nprosternation</i>..<sup>1</sup></font><sup> </sup>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; This is the second status of the Mother\'s being, the first is the\r\npersonal and individual, the second is this collective and universal being. But she is not merely the universe, she is the\r\nMother of the universe. Hers is not merely earth\'s prayer, but\r\nthe prayer of the Mother of the earth. It is not merely the\r\nprayer of the universe but the prayer of the Universal Mother\r\nto the Supreme Lord for the deliverance of the universe, for\r\nthe re-creation of the earth—indeed, for the deliverance of\r\nherself for the r-e-creation of herself out of the present ignorant\r\nmanifestation:</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; text-indent:25px\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>0 Mere, douce Mere que je suis, Tu es a la fois ce qui detruit</i></font>&nbsp;\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>et ce qui erige.</i></font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; text-indent:25px\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>L\'univers entier vit dans Ton sein de sa vie innombrable et<b> \r\n</b>Tu<b> \r\n</b>vis dans Ie moindre de ses atomes immensement.</i></font>&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; text-indent:25px\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>Et l\'aspiration de Ton infinitude se tourne vers Cela \r\nqui nest point\r\nmanifesto, afin d\'implorer toujours une plus complete et plus parfaite<br>\r\nmainifestation.&quot;<sup>2</sup></i></font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">Or again:</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; text-indent:25px\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>Je suis les bras puissants de Ta misericorde. Je suis la vaste\r\npoitrine de Ton amour sans limites. .Les bras ont enveloppe la\r\nterre douloureuse et la pressent tendrement sur Ie coeur genereux;</i></font>\r\n\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>et lentement un baiser de supreme benediction est pose sur cet atome\r\nen conflit: Ie baiser de la Mere qui console et guerit.</i> .<sup>3</sup></font><sup>\r\n</sup>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; text-indent:25px\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">1&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; This sorrowful world kneels before Thee, 0 Lord, in mute supplication; this\r\ntortured Matter nestles at thy feet, its last, its sole refuge; and so imploring Thee,\r\nit adores Thee, Thee whom it neither knows nor understands! Its prayer rises\r\nlike the cry of one in a last agony; that which is disappearing feels confusedly the\r\npossibility of living again in Thee; the earth awaits Thy decree in a grandiose\r\nprostration.</font><font size=\"2\"> </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; text-indent:25px\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">2&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Mother, sweet Mother, who I am. Thou art at once the destroyer and the\r\nbuilder.</font><font size=\"2\"> </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; text-indent:25px\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The whole universe lives in Thy breast with all its life innumerable and Thou\r\nlivest in Thy immensity in the least of its atoms.</font><font size=\"2\"> </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; text-indent:25px\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; And the aspiration of Thy infinitude turns towards That which is not manifested\r\nto cry to it for a manifestation ever more complete and more perfect.</font><font size=\"2\">\r\n</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; text-indent:25px\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">3&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; I am Thy puissant arms of mercy. I am the vast bosom of Thy limitless love..\r\nThe arms have enfolded the sorrowful earth and tenderly press it to the generous<br>\r\nheart; slowly a kiss of supreme benediction settles on this atom in conflict: the kiss\r\nof the Mother that consoles and heals.</font><font size=\"2\"> </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 284<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">And once more:</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>Toute la terre est dans nos bras comme un enfant malade\r\nqu\'\'il faut guerir et pour lequel on a, a cause meme de sa faiblesse,\r\nune tendresse toute speciale.<sup>1</sup></i></font><sup> </sup>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The triple status of the Mother, the individual, the collective\r\nand the transcendental (or, in other words, the personal, the\r\nuniversal and the supra-personal) has been condensed and\r\nepitomised in the magical note describing her first meeting with\r\nthe Lord:</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>Peu imports qu\'\'il y ait milliers d\'etres plonges dans la plus\r\nepaisse ignorance, Celui que nous avons vu hier est sur terre; sa\r\npresence suffit a prouver qu\'un jour viendra ou l\'ombre sera transformee en lumiere, et \r\nou effectivement, Ton regne sera instaure sur</i></font>\r\n\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>la terre.<sup>2</sup></i></font><sup> </sup>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; And the reality that Their manifestation upon earth has\r\nto establish, the supreme. achievement of Their terrestrial\r\nexistence is chanted, as it were, in these wonderfully mystic-\r\nSibylline-lines:</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>La mort a passe vaste et solennelle et tout s\'est tu religieusement\r\ndurant son passage. Une beaute surhumaine a paru sur la terre.<br>\r\nQuelque chose de plus merveilleux que la plus merveilleuse felicite fait\r\npressentir sa Presence.<sup>3</sup></i></font><sup>&nbsp;\r\n\r\n</sup>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p align=center style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<b>\r\n<font face=\"Arial\">(3)</font>\r\n\r\n		</b>\r\n\r\n		<p align=center style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n&nbsp;<p align=justify style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; I have spoken of the triple status, the three levels of her\r\nascending reality, these are in view of her manifestation of\'</font>\r\n\r\n		<p align=justify style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; text-indent:25px\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">1&nbsp;&nbsp; All the earth is in our arms like a sick child who must<b> </b> be cured and for whom\r\none has a special affection because of his very weakness.</font><font size=\"2\">\r\n</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; text-indent:25px\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">2&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; It matters not if there are hundreds of beings plunged in the densest ignorance.\r\nHe whom we saw yesterday, is here on earth; His presence is enough to prove that\r\na day shall come when darkness shall be transformed into light, when Thy reign\r\nshall be indeed established upon earth.</font><font size=\"2\"> </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; text-indent:25px\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">3&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Death has passed, vast and solemn, and all fell into a religious silence during\r\nits passage.</font><font size=\"2\"> </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; text-indent:25px\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; A superhuman beauty has appeared on the earth.</font><font size=\"2\">\r\n</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; text-indent:25px\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Something<b> \r\n</b>more marvellous than the most marvellous bliss has made felt the<b> \r\n</b>impress of its<b> </b>Presence.</font><font size=\"2\"> </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 285<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">world-labour. There is however, yet another status beyond—beyond the beyond—it is the relation between the Supreme\r\nLord and the Divine Mother in itself apart from their work\r\nit heir purpose in manifestation, it is their own \'Lila\' between\r\nthemselves, exclusively their own. The delight of this exclusively\r\npersonal play behind and beyond the creation sheds a secret\r\naroma in and through all this existence here and it is also the\r\nsource of the hidden magic that these utterances of the <i>Prayers\r\nand Meditations</i> contain, it is to this status surpassing all\r\nwonder that Sri Aurobindo refers so wistfully and so sweetly in\r\nthose famous opening lines, in &quot;A God\'s Labour\':<sup>1</sup></font><sup>\r\n</sup>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; I have gathered my dreams in a silver air</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Between the gold and the blue\r\n</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; And wrapped them softly and left them there</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; My jewelled dreams of you.</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">The delight of delights, the purest delight that exists up there\r\nin its self-sufficiency overflows, spills as it were, and a drop of\r\nthat nectar of immortality is what constitutes these universes\r\nhere below. </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i><font size=\"2\">1</font></i><font size=\"2\"> Sri Aurobindo: <i>Collected Pawns and Plays</i></font></font><font size=\"2\">\r\n</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 286<hr>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\" align=\"right\"><b><font size=\"2\"><a href=\"-00_Contents\">\r\n			<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">HOME</span></a></font></b></td>\r\n	</tr>\r\n	</table>\r\n\r\n\r\n</body>\r\n</html>','-43_Prayers and Meditations of the Mother','','publish','closed','open','','43_prayers-and-meditations-of-the-mother','','','2021-11-23 17:21:38','2021-11-23 17:21:38','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/43_prayers-and-meditations-of-the-mother/',0,'post','',0),(1514,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:38','2021-11-23 17:21:38','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2 Final//EN\">\r\n<html>\r\n<head>\r\n<title>35 poetry.htm</title>\r\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html;charset=windows-1252\">\r\n</head>\r\n<body>\r\n\r\n<table border=\"0\" width=\"100%\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\">\r\n	<tr>\r\n		<td>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\n		<b><font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>The Poetry in the Making</i> </font>\r\n		</b></p>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">Is the artist—the supreme artist, when he is a genius, that is to\r\nsay—conscious in his creation or is he unconscious ? Two\r\nquite opposite views have been taken of the problem by the\r\nbest of intelligences. On the one hand, it is said that genius is\r\ngenius precisely because it acts unconsciously, and on the other\r\nit is asserted with equal emphasis that genius is the capacity\r\nof taking infinite pains, which means it is absolutely a self-conscious activity.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; We take a third view of the matter and say that genius is\r\nneither unconscious or conscious but <i>superconscious.</i> And when\r\none&nbsp; is superconscious, one can be in appearance either conscious or unconscious. Let us at the outset try to explain a\r\nlittle this psychological riddle.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; When we say one is conscious, we usually mean that one\r\nis conscious with the mental consciousness, with the rational\r\nintelligence, with the light of the brain. But this need not be always so. For \r\none can be conscious with other forms of consciousness or in other planes of consciousness. In the average\r\nor normal man the consciousness is linked to or identified\r\nwith the brain function, the rational intelligence and so we\r\nconclude that without this wakeful brain activity there can\r\nbe no consciousness. But the fact is otherwise. The experiences\r\nof the mystic prove the point. The mystic is conscious on a\r\nlevel which we describe as higher than the mind and reason,\r\nhe has what may be called the overhead consciousness. (Apart\r\nfrom the normal consciousness, which is named <i>jagrat,</i> waking,\r\nthe Upanishad speaks of three other increasingly subtler states\r\nof consciousness, <i>swapna, sushupti</i> and <i>turvya.)</i> And then one\r\ncan be quite unconscious, as in <i>samadhi—</i>that can be <i>sushupti\r\n</i>or <i>tunya—</i>or partially conscious—in <i>swapna,</i> for example,</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 310<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">the external behaviour may be like that of a child or a lunatic\r\nor even a goblin.<b> </b> One can also remain normally conscious and\r\nstill be in the superconscience. Not only so, the mystic—the\r\nYogi—can be conscious on infraconscious levels also; that is to say, he can \r\nenter into and identify with the consciousness involved in life and even in Matter; he can feel and realise his\r\noneness with the animal world, the plant world and finally the\r\nworld of dead earth, of &quot;stocks and stones&quot; too. For all these\r\nstrands of existence have .each its own type of consciousness and\r\nall different from the mode of mind which is normally known\r\nas consciousness. When St. Francis addresses himself to the\r\nbrother Sun or the sister Moon, or when the Upanishad\r\nspeaks of the tree silhouetted against the sky, as if stilled in\r\ntrance, we feel there is something of this fusion and identification of consciousness with an infra-conscient existence.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; I said that the supreme artist is superconscious: \r\nhis consciousness withdraws from the normal mental consciousness\r\nand becomes awake and alive in another order of consciousness. To that superior consciousness the artist\'s mentality—his\r\nideas and dispositions, his judgments and valuations and acquisitions, in other words, his normal psychological make-up—serves as a channel, an instrument, a medium for transcription. Now, there are two stages, or rather two lines of activity\r\nin the processus, for they may be overlapping and practically simultaneous. \r\nFirst, there is the withdrawal and the in-gathering of consciousness and then its reappearance into expression.\r\nThe consciousness retires into a secret or subtle world—Words-worth\'s &quot;recollected in tranquillity&quot;—and comes back with<br>\r\nthe riches gathered or transmuted there. But the purity of the\r\ngold thus garnered and stalled in the artistry of words and\r\nsounds or lines and colours depends altogether upon the purity\r\nof the channel through which it has to pass. The mental\r\ni vehicle receives and records and it can do so to perfection if it\r\nis perfectly in tune with what it has to receive and record;</font>\r\n\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">otherwise the transcription becomes mixed and blurred, a\r\nfaint or confused echo, a poor show. The supreme creators are\r\nprecisely those in whom the receptacle, the instrumental\r\nfaculties offer the least resistance and record with absolute\r\nfidelity the experiences of the over or inner consciousness. In\r\nShakespeare, in Homer, in Valmiki the inflatus of the secret</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 311<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">consciousness, the inspiration, as it is usually termed, bears\r\ndown, sweeps away all obscurity or contrariety in the recording\r\nmentality, suffuses it with its own glow and puissance, indeed\r\nresolves it into its own substance, as it were. And the difference\r\nbetween the two, the secret norm and the recording form,\r\ndetermines the scale of the artist\'s creative value. It happens\r\noften that the obstruction of a too critically observant and\r\nself-conscious brain-mind successfully blocks up the flow of\r\nsomething supremely beautiful that wanted to come down\r\nand waited for an opportunity.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Artists themselves, almost invariably, speak of their <i>inspiration:</i> they look upon themselves more or less as mere instruments of something or some Power that is beyond them,\r\nbeyond their normal consciousness attached to the brain-\r\nmind, that controls them and which they cannot control. This\r\nperception has been given shape in myths and legends. Goddess\r\nSaraswati or the Muses are, however, for them not a mere\r\nmetaphor but concrete realities. To what extent a poet may<br>\r\nfeel himself to be a mere passive, almost inanimate, instrument—nothing more than a mirror or a sensitive photographic\r\nplate—is illustrated in the famous case of Coleridge. His <i>Kubia Khan,</i> as is well known, he heard in sleep and it was a\r\nlong poem very distinctly recited to him, but when he woke\r\nup and wanted to write it down he could remember only the\r\nopening lines, the rest having gone completely out of his\r\nmemory; in other words, the poem was ready-composed some-<br>\r\nwhere else, but the transmitting or recording instrument was\r\nfaulty and failed him. Indeed, it is a common experience to\r\nhear in sleep verses or musical tunes and what seem then to\r\nbe very beautiful things, but which leave no trace on the brain\r\nand are not recalled in memory.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Still, it must be noted that Coleridge is a rare example,\r\nfor the recording apparatus is not usually so faithful but puts\r\nup its own formations that disturb and alter the perfection of\r\nthe original. The passivity or neutrality of the intermediary is\r\nrelative, and there are infinite grades of it. Even when the\r\nlarger waves that play in it in the normal waking state are\r\nquieted down, smaller ripples of unconscious or half-conscious\r\nhabitual formations are thrown up and they are sufficient to\r\ncause the scattering and dispersal of the pure light from above.</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 312<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">The absolute passivity is attainable, perhaps, only by the\r\nYogi. And in this sense the supreme poet is a Yogi, for in his\r\nconsciousness the higher, deeper, subtler or other modes of\r\nexperiences pass through and are recorded with the minimum\r\naberration or diffraction.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; But the Yogi is a wholly conscious being; a perfect Yogi is \r\nhe who possesses a conscious and willed control over his instruments, he silences them, as and when he likes, and makes\r\nthem convey and express with as little deviation as possible\r\ntruths and realities from the Beyond. Now the question is, is it possible for \r\nthe poet also to do something like that, to consciously create and not to be a mere unconscious or helpless\r\nchannel? Conscious artistry, as we have said, means to be\r\nconscious on two levels of consciousness at the same time, to\r\nbe at home in both equally and simultaneously. The general\r\nexperience, however, is that of &quot;one at a time&quot;: if the artist\r\ndwells more in the one, the other retires into the background\r\nto the same measure. If he is in the over-consciousness, he is\r\nonly half-conscious in his brain consciousness, or even not\r\nconscious at all—he does not know how he has created, the\r\nsources or process of his creative activity, he is quite oblivious<br>\r\nof them, gone through them all as if<i> per saltum.</i> Such seems to\r\nhave been the case with the <i>primitives,</i> as they are called, the\r\nelemental poets—Shakespeare and Homer and Valmiki. In\r\nsome others, who come very near to them in poetic genius,\r\nyet not quite on a par, the instrumental intelligence is strong\r\nand active, it helps in its own way but in helping circumscribes and limits the original impulsion. The art here becomes consciously artistic, but loses something of the initial\r\nfreshness and spontaneity: it gains in correctness, polish and\r\nelegance and has now a style in lieu of Nature\'s own naturalness. I am thinking of Virgil and Milton and Kalidasa. Dante\'s\r\nplace is perhaps somewhere in between. Lower in the rung\r\nwhere the mental medium occupies a still more preponderant\r\nplace we have intellectual poetry, poetry of the later classical\r\nage whose representatives are Pope and Dryden. We can go\r\nfarther down and land in the domain of versification—although here, too, there can be a good amount of beauty in\r\nshape of ingenuity, cleverness and conceit: Voltaire and\r\nDelille are of this order in French poetry.</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 313<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The three or four major orders I speak of in reference to\r\nconscious artistry are exampled characteristically in the history\r\nof the evolution of Greek poetry. It must be remembered,\r\nhowever, at the very outset that the Greeks as a race were\r\nnothing if not rational and intellectual. It was an element of\r\nstrong self-consciousness that they brought into human culture\r\n—that was their special gift. Leaving out of account Homer\r\nwho was, as I said, a <i>primitive,</i> their classical age began with\r\nAeschylus who was the first and the most spontaneous and\r\nintuitive of the Great Three. Sophocles, who comes next, is\r\nmore balanced and self-controlled and pregnant with a\r\nreasoned thought-content clothed in polished phrasing. We feel\r\nhere that the artist knew what he was about and was exercising\r\na conscious control over his instruments and materials, unlike\r\nhis predecessor who seemed to be completely carried away by\r\n, the onrush of the poetic <i>enthousiasmos.</i> Sophocles, in spite of his\r\nartistic perfection or perhaps because of it, appears to be just\r\na little, one remove, away from the purity of the central\r\ninspiration—there is a veil, although a thin transparent veil,\r\nyet a veil between which intervenes. With the third of the\r\nBrotherhood, Euripides, we slide lower down—we arrive at a\r\npredominantly mental transcription of an experience or inner\r\nconception; but something of the major breath continues, an\r\naura, a rhythm that maintains the inner contact and thus\r\nsaves the poetry. In a subsequent age, in Theocritus, for example, poetry became truly very much \'sicklied o\'er with the \r\npale cast of thought\', so much of virtuosity and precocity entered into it; in other words, the poet then was an excessively\r\nself-conscious artist. That seems to be the general trend of all\r\nliterature.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; But should there be an inherent incompatibility between\r\nspontaneous creation and self-consciousness? As we have seen,\r\na harmony and fusion can and do happen of the superconscious and the normally conscious in the Yogi. Likewise, an\r\nartist also can be wakeful and transparent enough so that he\r\nis conscious on both the levels simultaneously—above, he is\r\nconscious of the source and origin of his inspiration, and on\r\nthe level plain he is conscious of the working of the instrument,\r\nhow the vehicle transcribes and embodies what comes from\r\nelsewhere. The poet\'s consciousness becomes then divalent as</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 314<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">it were—there is a sense of absolute passivity in respect of the\r\nreceiving apparatus and coupled and immisced with it there is\r\nalso the sense of dynamism, of conscious agency as in his\r\nsecret being he is the master of his apparatus and one with the\r\nInspirer—in other words, the poet is both a <i>seer (kavih)</i> and a<br>\r\n<i>creator</i> or <i>doer (poietes).</i></font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Not only so, the future development of the poetic consciousness seems inevitably to lead to such a consummation in which\r\nthe creative and the critical faculties will not be separate but\r\nform part of one and indivisible movement. Historically, human consciousness has \r\ngrown from unconsciousness to consciousness and from consciousness to self-consciousness; man\'s\r\ncreative and artistic genius too has moved <i>pari passu</i> in the\r\nsame direction. The earliest and primitive poets were mostly\r\nunconscious, that is to say, they wrote or said things as they\r\ncame to them spontaneously, without effort, without reflection,\r\nthey do not seem to know the whence and wherefore and\r\nwhither of it all, they know only that the wind bloweth as it\r\nlisteth. That was when man had not yet eaten the fruit of\r\nknowledge, was still in the innocence of childhood. But as he\r\ngrew up and progressed, he became more and more conscious,\r\ncapable of exerting and exercising a deliberate will and initiating a purposive action, not only in the external practical field\r\nbut also in the psychological domain. If the earlier group is\r\ncalled &quot;primitives&quot;, the later one, that of conscious artists,\r\nusually goes by the name of &quot;classicists.&quot; Modern creators\r\nhave gone one step farther in the direction of self-consciousness,\r\na return upon oneself, an inlook of full awareness and a free\r\nand alert activity of the critical faculties. An unconscious artist\r\nin the sense of the &quot;primitives&quot; is almost an impossible pheno-menon in the modern world. All are scientists: an artist cannot\r\nbut be consciously critical, deliberate, purposive in what he\r\ncreates and how he creates. Evidently, this has cost something\r\nof the old-world spontaneity and supremacy of utterance; but\r\nit cannot be helped, we cannot command the tide to roll back,\r\nCanute-like. The feature has to be accepted and a remedy and\r\nnew orientation discovered.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The modern critical self-consciousness in the artist originated\r\nwith the Romantics. The very essence of Romanticism is\r\ncuriosity—the scientist\'s pleasure in analysing, observing, experimenting, </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 315<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">changing the conditions of our reactions, mental\r\n. or sentimental or even nervous and physical by way of discovery of new and unforeseen or unexpected modes of &quot;psychoses&quot; or psychological states. Goethe, Wordsworth, Stendhal\r\nrepresented a mentality and initiated a movement which led\r\nlogically to the age of Hardy, Housman and Bridges and<b> \r\n</b>in\r\nthe end to that of Lawrence and Joyce, Ezra Pound and Eliot\r\nand Auden. On the Continent we can consider Flaubert as the last of the \r\nclassicists married to the. very quintessence of Romanticism. A hard, self-regarding, self-critical mentality, a cold\r\nscalpel-like gaze that penetrates and upturns the reverse side\r\nof things is intimately associated with the poetic genius of\r\nMallarme and constitutes almost the whole of Valery\'s. The\r\nimpassioned lines of a very modern poet like Aragon are also\r\ncharacterised by a consummate virtuosity in chiselled artistry,\r\nconscious and deliberate and willed at every step and turn.</font><p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The consciously purposive activity of the poetic consciousness—in fact, of all artistic consciousness—has shown itself\r\nwith a clear and unambiguous emphasis in -two directions.\r\nFirst of all with regard to the subject-matter: the old-world\r\npoets took things as they were, as they were obvious to the\r\neye, things of human nature and things of physical Nature,\r\nand without questioning dealt with them in the beauty of\r\ntheir normal form and function. The modern mentality has\r\nturned away from the normal and the obvious: it does not\r\naccept and admit the &quot;given&quot; as the final and definitive norm\r\nof things. It wishes to discover and establish other norms, it\r\nstrives to bring about changes in the nature and condition of\r\nthings, envisage the shape of things to come, work for a brave\r\nnew world. The poet of today, in spite of all his effort to remain a pure poet, in spite of Housman\'s advocacy of nonsense\r\nand not-sense being the essence of true Art, is almost invariably\r\nat heart an incorrigible prophet. In revolt against the old and\r\nestablished order of truths and customs, against all that is\r\nnormally considered as beautiful,—ideals and emotions and\r\nactivities of man or aspects and scenes and movements of\r\nNature—against God or spiritual life, the modern poet turns\r\ndeliberately to the ugly and the macabre, the meaningless, the\r\ninsignificant and the trifling—tins and teas, bone and dust\r\nand dustbin, hammer and sickle—he is still a prophet, a violent</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 316<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">one, an iconoclast, but one who has his own icon, a terribly\r\njealous being, that seeks to pull down the past, erase it, to\r\nbreak and batter and knead the elements in order to fashion\r\nout of them something conforming to his heart\'s desire. There\r\nis also the class who have the vision and found the truth and\r\nits solace, who are prophets, angelic and divine, messengers\r\nand harbingers of a new beauty that is to dawn upon earth.\r\nAnd yet there are others in whom the two strains mingle or\r\napproach in a strange- way. All this means that the artist is far\r\nfrom being a mere receiver, a mechanical executor, a passive\r\nunconscious instrument, but that he is supremely conscious\r\nand master of his faculties and implements. This fact is doubly\r\nreinforced when we find how much he is preoccupied with the\r\ntechnical aspect of his craft. The richness and variety of patterns that can be given to the poetic form know no bounds\r\ntoday. A few major rhythms were sufficient for the ancients to\r\ngive full expression to their poetic inflatus. For they cared more\r\nfor some major virtues, the basic and fundamental qualities—-\r\nsuch as truth, sublimity, nobility, forcefulness, purity, simplicity, clarity, straightforwardness; they were more preoccupied\r\nwith what they had to say and they wanted, no doubt, to say it\r\nbeautifully and powerfully; but the <i>modus operandi</i> was not\r\nsuch a passion or obsession with them, it had not attained that\r\nalmost absolute value for itself which modern craftsmanship\r\ngives it. As technology in practical life has become a thing of\r\noverwhelming importance to man today, become, in the<br>\r\nShakespearean phrase, his &quot;be-all and end-all&quot;, even so the\r\nsame spirit has invaded and pervaded his aesthetics too. The\r\nsubtleties, variations and refinements, the revolutions, reversals\r\nand inventions which the modern poet has ushered and takes\r\ndelight in, for their own sake, I repeat, for their intrinsic\r\ninterest, not for the sake of the subject which they have to\r\nembody and clothe, have never been dreamt by Aristotle, the\r\nsupreme legislator among the ancients, nor .by Horace, the\r\nalmost incomparable craftsman among the ancients in the\r\ndomain of poetry. Man has become, to be sure, a self-conscious\r\ncreator to the pith of his bone.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Such a stage in human evolution, the advent of <i>Homo Faber,\r\n</i>has been a necessity; it has to serve a purpose and it has done\r\nadmirably its work. Only we have to put it in its proper place.</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 317<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">The salvation of an extremely self-conscious age lies in an\r\nexceeding and not in a further enhancement or an exclusive\r\nconcentration of the self-consciousness, nor, of course, in a\r\nfalling back into the original unconsciousness. It is this shift in\r\nthe poise of consciousness that has been presaged and prepared by the conscious, the scientific artists of today. Their.\r\ntask is to forge an instrument for a type of poetic or artistic\r\ncreation completely new, unfamiliar, almost revolutionary\r\nwhich the older mould would find it impossible to render\r\nadequately. The yearning of the human consciousness was\r\nnot to rest satisfied with the familiar and the ordinary, the<br>\r\npressure was for the discovery of other strands, secret stores of\r\ntruth and reality and beauty. The first discovery was that of the great \r\nUnconscious, the dark and mysterious and all-powerful subconscient. Many of our \r\npoets and artists have been influenced by this power, some even sought to enter into that\r\nregion and become its denizens. But artistic inspiration is an\r\nemanation of Light; whatever may be the field of its play, it\r\ncan have its origin only in the higher spheres, if it is to be\r\ntruly beautiful and not merely curious and scientific.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; That is what is wanted at present in the artistic world—the\r\ntrue inspiration, the breath from higher altitudes. And here\r\ncomes the role of the mystic, the Yogi. The sense of evolution,\r\nthe march of human consciousness demands and prophesies\r\nthat the future poet has to be a mystic—in him will be fulfilled\r\nthe travail of man\'s conscious working. \'The self-conscious\r\ncraftsman, the tireless experimenter with his adventurous\r\nanalytic mind has sharpened his instrument, made it supple<br>\r\nand elastic, tempered, refined and enriched it; that is comparable to what we call the aspiration or call from below. Now\r\nthe Grace must descend and fulfil. And when one rises into\r\nthis higher consciousness beyond the brain and mind, when\r\none lives there habitually, one knows the why and the how of\r\nthings, one becomes a perfectly conscious operator and still\r\nretains all spontaneity and freshness and wonder and magic\r\nthat are usually associated with inconscience and irreflection.\r\nAs there is a spontaneity of instinct, there is likewise also a\r\nspontaneity of vision: a child is spontaneous in its movements,\r\n.even so a seer. Not only so, the higher spontaneity is more\r\nspontaneous, for the higher consciousness means not only</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 318<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">awareness but the free and untrammelled activity \r\nand expression of the truth and reality it is.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Genius had to be generally more or less unconscious in the\r\npast, because the instrument was not ready, was clogged as it\r\n\' were with its own lower grade movements; the higher inspiration had very often to bypass it, or rob it of its serviceable\r\nmaterials without its knowledge, in an almost clandestine\r\nway. Wherever it was awake and vigilant, we have seen it\r\ncausing a diminution in the poetic potential. And yet even so,\r\nit was being prepared for a greater role, a higher destiny it is\r\n.to fulfil in the future. A conscious and full participation of a\r\nrefined and transparent and enriched instrument in the delivery of superconscious truth and beauty will surely mean not\r\nonly a new but the very acme of aesthetic creation. We thus\r\nforesee the age of spiritual art in which the sense of creative\r\nbeauty in man will find its culmination. Such an art was only\r\nan exception, something secondary or even tertiary, kept in\r\nthe background, suggested here and there as a novel strain,\r\ncalled &quot;mystic&quot; to express its unfamiliar nature—unless, of\r\ncourse, it was openly and obviously scriptural and religious.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; I have spoken of the source of inspiration as essentially and\r\noriginally being a super-consciousness or over-consciousness.\r\nBut to be more precise and accurate I should add another\r\nsource, an <i>inner</i> consciousness. As the super-consciousness is\r\nimaged as lying <i>above</i> the normal consciousness, so the inner\r\nconsciousness may be described as lying <i>behind or within</i> it. The\r\nmovement of the inner consciousness has. found expression\r\nmore often and more largely than that of over-consciousness\r\nin the artistic creation of the past: and that was in keeping\r\nwith the nature of the old-world inspiration, for the inspiration that comes \r\nfrom the inner consciousness, which can be considered as the lyrical inspiration, tends to be naturally more\r\n&quot;spontaneous&quot;, less conscious, since it does not at all go by\r\nthe path of the head, it evades that as much as possible and\r\ngoes by the path of the heart.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; But the evolutionary urge, as I have said, has always been\r\nto bring down or instil more and more light and self-consciousness into the depths of the heart too: and the first result\r\nhas been an intellectualisation, a rationalisation of the consciousness, a movement of scientific observation and criticism</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 319<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">which very naturally leads to a desiccation of the poetic\r\nenthusiasm and fervour. But a period of transcendence is in\r\ngestation. All efforts of modern poets and craftsmen, even\r\nthose that seem apparently queer, bizarre and futile, are at\r\nbottom a travail for this transcendence, including those that\r\nseem contradictory to it.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Whether the original and true source of the poet\'s inspiration lies deep within or high above, all depends upon the\r\nmediating instrument—the mind (in its most general sense)\r\nand speech—for a successful transcription. Man\'s ever-growing\r\nconsciousness demanded also a conscious development and\r\nremoulding of these two factors. A growth, a heightening and\r\ndeepening of the consciousness meant inevitably a movement\r\ntowards the spiritual element in things. And that means, we<br>\r\nhave said, a twofold change in the future poet\'s make-up. First as regards the substance. The revolutionary shift that we\r\nnotice in modern poets towards a completely new domain of\r\nsubject-matter is a signpost that more is meant than what is\r\nexpressed. The superficialities and futilities that are dealt\r\nwith do not in their outward form give the real trend of things.\r\nIn and through all these major and constant preoccupation\r\nof our poets is &quot;the pain of the present and the passion for the\r\nfuture&quot;: they are, as already stated, more prophets than poets,\r\nbut prophets for the moment crying in the wilderness—\r\nalthough some have chosen the path of denial and revolt.\r\nThey are all looking ahead or beyond or deep down, always\r\nyearning for another truth and reality which will explain,\r\njustify and transmute the present calvary of human living.\r\nSuch an acute tension of consciousness has necessitated an\r\noverhauling of the vehicle of expression too, the creation of a\r\nmode of expressing the inexpressible. For that is indeed what\r\nhuman consciousness and craft are aiming at in the present\r\nstage of man\'s evolution. For everything, almost everything\r\nthat can be normally expressed has been expressed and in\r\na variety of ways as much as is possible: that is the history of\r\nman\'s aesthetic creativity. Now the eye probes into the unexpressed world; for the artist too the Upanishadic problem\r\nhas cropped up:                ,</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">By whom impelled does the mind fall to its target, what\r\nis the agent that is behind the eye and sees through the eyes,</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 320<hr>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">what is the hearing and what the speech that their respective\r\nsense organs do not and cannot convey and record adequately\r\nor at all ?</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Like the modern scientist the artist or craftsman too of\r\ntoday has become a philosopher, even a mystic philosopher.\r\nThe subtler and higher ranges of consciousness are now the object of inquiry and \r\ninvestigation and expression and revelation for the scientist as well as for the artist. The external\r\nsense-objects, the phenomenal movements are symbols and\r\nsignposts, graphs and pointer-readings of facts and realities\r\nthat lie hidden, behind or beyond. The artist and the scientist<br>\r\nare occult alchemists. What to make of this, for example:</font>&nbsp;\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">Beyond the shapes of empire, the capes of Carbonek, over\r\nthe topless waves of trenched Broceliande, drenched by\r\n&brvbar;the everlasting spray of existence, with no mind\'s sail\r\n&brvbar;             reefed or set, no slaves at the motived oars,\r\nI drove into and clove the wind from unseen shores. Swept\r\nfrom all altars, swallowed in a path of power by the wrath\r\nthat wrecks the pirates in the Narrow Seas,....multiple without dimension, indivisible without uniformity,\r\nthe ship of Solomon (blessed be he) drove on.<sup>1</sup></font><sup> </sup>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">Well, it is sheer incantation. It is word-weaving, rhythm-plaiting, thought-wringing in order to pass beyond these\r\nfrail materials, to get into contact with, to give some sense of\r\nthe mystery of existence that passeth understanding. We are very far indeed from \r\nthe &quot;natural&quot; poets, Homer or Shakespeare, Milton or Virgil. And this is from a profane, a mundane\r\npoet, not an ostensibly religious or spiritual poet. The level of\r\nthe poetic inspiration, at least of the poetic view and aspiration\r\nhas evidently shifted to a higher, a deeper degree. We may be\r\nspeaking of tins and tinsel, bones and dust, filth and misery,\r\nof the underworld of ignorance and ugliness,</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">All things uncomely and broken, all things worn out and\r\nold,</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\" size=\"2\">1 &quot;The Last Voyage&quot; by Charles Williams—.4 <i>Little Book of Modem Verse,<br>\r\n</i>(Faber and Faber).                       </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">Page 321</font><hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">and the imaginative idealist, the romantically spiritual poet<br>\r\nsays that these or</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-left:30px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">The cry of a child by the roadway, the creak of a \r\nlumbering\r\n&nbsp;cart,<b><br>\r\n&nbsp;</b>The heavy steps of the ploughman, splashing the. wintry</font>\r\n\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">mould,           </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-left:30px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">all, all the dark spots and blotches on the fair face of earth\r\nand humanity</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-left:30px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-left:30px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">Are wronging your image that blossoms a rose in the\r\ndeeps of my heart.</font>\r\n\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">and he cries out:</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-left:30px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">The wrong of unshapely things is a wrong too great to\r\nbe told;</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-left:30px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">and declares the ardent aspiration of his heart and soul:</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-left:30px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">I hunger to build them anew, and sit on a green knoll</font>\r\n\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">apart,<br>\r\nWith the earth and the sky and the water, re-made, like</font>\r\n\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">a casket of gold               .<br>\r\nFor my dreams of your image that blossoms a rose in the</font>\r\n\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">deeps of my heart.<sup>1</sup></font><sup> </sup>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; text-indent:25px\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">But the more truly modern mind looks at the thing in a slightly\r\ndifferent way. The good and the evil are not, to it, contrary\r\nto each other: one does not deny or negate the other. They\r\nare intermixed, fused in a mysterious identity. The best and\r\nthe worst are but two conditions, two potentials of the same\r\nentity. Baudelaire, who can be considered as the first of the\r\nreal moderns in many ways, saw and experienced this intimate polarity or identity of opposites in human nature and\r\nconsciousness. What is Evil, who is the Evil One:</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">1 W. B. Yeats: &quot;The Lover tells of the Rose in his Heart&quot;—<i>The Wind among<br>\r\nthe Reeds.</i></font><font size=\"2\"> </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 322<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-left:30px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>Une Idee, une Forme, Un Etre </i></font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-left:30px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>Parti de I\'azur et tombe </i></font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-left:30px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>Dans un Styx bourbeux et plombe </i></font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-left:30px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<i><font face=\"Times New Roman\">Ou</font></i><font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i> nul \r\nœil du Ciel ne penetre;<sup>1</sup></i></font><sup>\r\n</sup>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-left:30px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; {L\'Irremediable}</i></font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">And therefore it is not so irremediable as it appears to be. For the miracle happens and is an inevitable natural phenomenon, and that is why</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-left:30px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>Par l\'operation d\'un mystere vengeur<br>\r\nDans la brute assoupie un ange se reveille.2</i> </font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-left:30px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; {L\'Aube spirituelle)</i> </font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">Heaven and Earth are not incommensurables, divinity and\r\nhumanity function as one reality, towards one purpose and\r\nend: cruel heaven, miserable humanity? Well, this is how\r\nthey appear to the poet\'s eye:</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-left:30px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>Le Ciel! couvercle noir de la grande marmite<br>\r\nOu bout l\'imperceptible et vaste Humanite </i></font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-left:30px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\"><i>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; {Le Couvercle)</i> </font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In other words, the tension in the human consciousness\r\nhas been raised to the&nbsp; power, the heat of a brooding consciousness is about to lead it to an outburst of new creation—\r\n<i>sah tapastaptva.</i> Human self-consciousness, the turning of oneself upon oneself, the probing and projecting of oneself into\r\noneself—self-consciousness raised so often to the degree of\r\nself-torture, marks the acute travail of the spirit. The thousand\r\n&quot;isms&quot; and &quot;logics&quot; that pullulate in all fields of life, from\r\nthe political to the artistic or even the religious and the spiritual\r\nindicate how the human laboratory is working at white heat.\r\nThey are breaches in the circuit of the consciousness, volcanic\r\neruptions from below or cosmic-ray irruptions from above,</font>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; text-indent:25px\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">1 An Idea, a Form, a Being left the azure and fell into the<b> \r\n</b>mud and grey<b> \r\n</b>of a Styx where no eye from Heaven can penetrate.</font><font size=\"2\">\r\n</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; text-indent:25px\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">2 An avenging Mystery operating, out of the drowsy animal awakes an angel.\r\n</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; text-indent:25px\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font size=\"2\" face=\"Times New Roman\">3 Heaven! it is the dark lid upon the huge cauldron in which the imperceptible\r\nand vast humanity is boiling.\r\n—<i>Les Fleurs du Mal.</i></font><font size=\"2\"> </font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 323<hr>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">tearing open the normal limit and boundary—Baudelaire\'s\r\n<i>Couvercle</i> or the &quot;golden lid&quot; of the Upanishads—disclosing and bringing into the light of common day realities beyond\r\nand unseen till now.</font>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; If so long the poet was more or less a passive, a half-conscious\r\nor unconscious intermediary between the higher and the lower\r\nlights and delights, his role in the future will be better fulfilled\r\nwhen he becomes fully aware of it and consciously moulds and\r\ndirects his creative energies. The poet is and has to be the harbinger and minstrel of unheard-of melodies: he is the fashioner\r\nof the creative word that brings down and embodies the deepest\r\naspirations and experiences of the human consciousness. The\r\npoet is a missionary: he is missioned by Divine Beauty to\r\nradiate upon earth something other charm and wizardry. The fullness of his role \r\nhe can only play up when he is fully conscious—for it is under that condition that all obstructing and\r\nobscuring elements lying across the path of inspiration can be\r\ncompletely and wholly eradicated: the instrument purified\r\nand tempered and transmuted can hold and express golden\r\ntruths and beauties and puissances that otherwise escape the\r\ntoo human mould.</font>\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"center\">\r\nPage 324<hr>\r\n\r\n		<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\" align=\"right\"><b><font size=\"2\"><a href=\"-00_Contents\">\r\n			<span style=\"text-decoration: none\">HOME</span></a></font></b></td>\r\n	</tr>\r\n	</table>\r\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\" align=\"justify\">\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n</body>\r\n</html>','-46_The Poetry in the Making','','publish','closed','open','','46_the-poetry-in-the-making','','','2021-11-23 17:21:38','2021-11-23 17:21:38','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/46_the-poetry-in-the-making/',0,'post','',0),