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<b><font size="4">The World War</font></b></p>
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<FONT SIZE=3><b>ITS INNER BEARINGS</b></FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>THIS is a war to which even spiritual seekers can hardly
remain indifferent with impunity. There are spiritual paths, however,
that ask to render unto God what is God's and unto Satan what belongs
to Satan; in other words, spirituality is kept apart from what is
called worldliness, clean and untouched by the dust and murk of
Ignorance-Maya. The injunction accordingly is that they who are
worldly must remain worldly, they have no business, no right to
meddle with spirituality, and they who are spiritual should, on the
other hand, remain strictly spiritual, should have nothing to do with
worldliness. Because of this complete divorce between the spiritual
and the worldly, the world remains worldly even today, continues to
be the empire of unspirituality and obscurity, of suffering and
grief, it is unable to become a dynamic and living expression and
embodiment of the Spirit.</FONT></P>
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&nbsp;</P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Not that spiritual men have not served and worked for
the welfare of the world; but their work could not be wholly
effective, it was mixed, maimed, temporary in effect. This could not
be otherwise, for their activity proceeded from inferior and feebler
sources of inspiration and consciousness other than those that are
purely spiritual. Firstly, little more was possible for them than to
exercise an indirect influence; their spiritual realisation could
bring into the life of the world only a reminiscence, an echo, just a
touch and a ray from another world. Or, secondly, when they did take
part in worldly affairs, their activity could not rise much beyond
the worldly standard; it remained enclosed within the sphere of the
moral and the conventional, took such forms as, for example, charity </FONT><BR>
</P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 67</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>and
service and philanthropy. Nothing higher than ideas and ideals
confined to the moral, that is to say, the mental plane, could be
brought into play in the world and its practical life –even the
moral and mental idea itself has often been mistaken for true
spirituality. Thus the very ideal of governing or moulding our
worldly preoccupations according to a truly spiritual or a
supramental or transcendental consciousness was a rare phenomenon and
even where the ideal was found, it is doubtful whether the right
means and methods were discovered. Yet the sole secret of changing
man's destiny and transmuting the world lies in the discovery and
application of a supreme spiritual Conscious-Power.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Humanists once affirmed that nothing that concerned man
was alien to them, all came within their domain. The spiritual man
too can make the affirmation with the same or even a greater
emphasis. Indeed the spiritual consciousness in the highest degree
and greatest compass must needs govern and fashion man in his entire
being, in all his members and func&shy;tions. The ideal, as we have
said, has seldom been accepted; generally it has been considered as a
chimera and an impos&shy;sibility. That is why, we repeat, even to
this day the world has its cup of misery full to the brim<I> –
aniryam asukham.</I></FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>All this has to be said by way of explanation and
apology. For if we are spiritual seekers even then, or rather because
of. That, we too, we declare, have our say in a matter which looks so
mundane as this war. We refuse to own the nature and character so
often ascribed to us by the &quot;West, which finds a graphic
description -in the well-known lines of Matthew Arnold:</FONT></P>
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&nbsp;</P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>The East bow'd low before the blast</FONT></P>
<p align="justify" style="text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0"><FONT SIZE=3>In patient deep disdain.</FONT></p>
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<FONT SIZE=3>She let the legions thunder past,</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>And plunged in thought again.</FONT></P>
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<BR>
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<FONT SIZE=3>In fact, however, there is no insurmountable disparity
between spirituality and &quot;worldliness&quot;, between meditation
and the most &quot;terrible <I>work&quot; – ghore karmani: </I>the
Gita has definitively proved the truth of the fact millenniums ago.
War has not been the monopoly of warriors alone: it will not be</FONT><BR>
			</P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 68</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>much
of an exaggeration to say that Avatars, the incarnations of the
Divine, have done little else besides that. And what of the Divine
Mother herself? The main work of an Avatar is often to subdue the
evil-doers, those that follow and pull others to follow the Wrong
Path. And the Divine Mother, she who harbours in her bosom the
supreme Truth and Consciousness and Bliss, is in one <I>of </I>her
essential aspects, the slayer of the Demon, <I>of </I>the Asura.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Now, it is precisely with the Asura that we have to deal
in the present war. This is not like other wars-it is not a war of
one country with another, <I>of </I>one group <I>of </I>Imperialists
with another, nor is it merely the fierce endeavour <I>of </I>a
particular race or nation <I>for </I>world-domination: it is
something more than all that. This war has a deeper, a more solemn,
almost a grim significance. Some thinkers in Europe, not the mere
political leaders, but those who lead in thought and ideas and
ideals, to whom something <I>of </I>the inner world is revealed, have
realised the true nature <I>of </I>the present struggle and have
expressed it in no uncertain terms. Here is what <I>Jules </I>Romains,
one of the foremost thinkers and litterateurs <I>of </I>contemporary
France, says:</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>&quot;Since the end <I>of </I>the Middle Ages,
conquerors did harm perhaps to civilization, but they never claimed
to bring it into question. They ascribed their excesses and crimes to
motives of necessity, but never dreamed <I>for </I>a moment to hold
them up as exemplary actions on which subject nations were called
upon to fashion their morality, their code, their gospel.. . Since
the dawn of modern times the accidents <I>of </I>military history in
Europe have never meant <I>for </I>her the end <I>of </I>her most
precious spiritual and moral values and a sudden annulment <I>of </I>all
the work done by the past generations in the direction <I>of </I>mutual
respect, equity, goodwill – or, to put all into a single word, in
the direction <I>of </I>humanity.&quot;</FONT></P>
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&nbsp;</P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Modern thinkers do not speak <I>of </I>the Asura – the
Demon or the Titan – although the religiously minded sometimes
refer to the Anti-Christ; but the real, the inner significance of the
terms, is lost to a mind nurtured in science and empiricism; they are
considered as more <I>or </I>less imaginative symbols <I>for </I>certain
undesirable qualities <I>of </I>nature and character. Yet some have
perceived and expressed the external manifestation</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 69</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>and
activities of the Asura in a way sufficient to open men's eyes to the
realities involved. Thus they have declared that the present war is a
conflict between two ideals, to be sure, but also that the two ideals
are so different that they do not belong to the same plane or order;
they belong to different planes and different orders. On one side the
whole endeavour is to bring man down from the level to which he has
arisen in the course of evolution to something like his previous
level and to keep him imprisoned there. That this is really their
aim, the protagonists and partisans themselves have declared frankly
and freely and loudly enough, without any hesitation or reservation.
Hitler's 'Mein Kampf' has become the Scripture of the New Order; it
has come with a more categorical imperative, a more supernal
authority than the Veda, the Bible or the Koran.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>When man was a dweller of the forest, – a jungle man,
– akin to his forbear the ape, his character was wild and savage,
his motives and impulsions crude, violent, egoistic, almost wholly
imbedded in, what we call, the lower vital level; the light of the
higher intellect and intelligence had not entered into them. Today
there is an uprush of similar forces to possess and throw man back to
a similar condition. This new order asks only one thing of man,
namely, to be strong and powerful, that is to say, fierce, ruthless,
cruel and regimented. Regimentation can be said to be the very
characteristic of the order, the regimentation of a pack of wild dogs
or wolves. A particular country, nation or race-it is German,y in
Europe and, in her wake, Japan in Asia – is to be the sovereign
nation or master race <I>(Herrenvolk); </I>the rest of mankind –
other countries and peoples – should be pushed back to the status
of servants and slaves, mere hewers of wood and drawers of water.
What the helots were in ancient times, what the serfs were in the
mediaeval ages, and what the subject peoples were under the worst
forms of modern imperialism, even so will be the entire mankind under
the new overlordship, or something still worse. For whatever might
have been the external conditions in those ages and systems, the
upward aspirations of man were never doubted or questioned-they were
fully respected and honoured. The New Order has pulled all that down
and cast them to the winds. Furthermore in the new regime, it is not</FONT><BR>
			</P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 70</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>merely
the slaves that suffer in a degraded condition, the masters also, as
individuals, fare no better. The individual here has no respect, no
freedom or personal value. This society or community of the masters
even will be like a bee-hive or an ant-hill; the individuals are
merely functional units, they are but screws and bolts and nuts and
wheels in a huge relentless machinery. The higher and inner
realities, the spontaneous inspirations and self-creations of a free
soul – art, poetry, literature-sweetness and light – the good and
the beautiful – are to be banished for ever; they are to be
regarded as things of luxury which enervate the heart, diminish the
life-force, distort Nature's own virility. Man perhaps would be the
worshipper of Science, but of that Science which brings a tyrannical
mastery over material Nature, which serves to pile up tools and
instruments, arms and armaments, in order to ensure a dire efficiency
and a grim order in practical life.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Those that have stood against this Dark Force and its
over-shadowing menace – even though perhaps not wholly by choice or
free-will, but mostly compelled by circumstances – yet, because of
the stand they have taken, now bear the fate of the world on their
shoulders, carry the whole future of humanity in their march. It is
of course agreed that to have stood against the Asura does not mean
that one has become <I>sura, </I>divine or godlike; but to be able to
remain human, human instruments of the Divine, however frail, is
sufficient for the purpose, that ensures safety from the great
calamity. The rule of life of the Asura implies the end of progress,
the arrest of all evolution; it means even a reversal for man. The
Asura is a fixed type of being. He does not change, his is a hardened
mould, a settled immutable form of a particular consciousness, a
definite pattern of qualities and <I>activities – gunakarma.
</I>Asura-nature means a fundamental ego-centricism, violent and
concentrated self-will. Change is possible for the human being; he
can go downward, but he can move upward too, if he chooses. In the
Puranas a distinction has been made between the domain of enjoyment
and the domain of action. Man is the domain of action par excellence;
by him and through him evolve new and fresh lines of activity and
impulsion. The domain of enjoyment, on the other hand, is where we
reap the fruits of our past Karma; it is the result of an accumulated
drive of all </FONT><BR>
</P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 71</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>that
we have done, of all the movements we have initiated and carried out.
It is a status of being where there is only enjoyment, not of
becoming where there can be development and new creation. It is a
condition of gestation, as it were; there is no new Karma, no
initiative or change in the stuff of the consciousness. The Asuras
are <I>bhogamaya purusha, </I>beings of enjoyment; their domain is a
cumulus of enjoyings. They cannot strike out a fresh line of
activity, put forth a new mode of energy that can work out a growth
or transformation of nature. Their consciousness is an immutable
entity. The Asuras do not mend, they can only end. Man can certainly
acquire or imbibe Asuric force or Asura-like qualities and
impulsions; externally he can often act very much like the Asura; and
yet there is a difference. Along with the dross that soils and
obscures human nature, there is something more, a clarity that opens
to a higher light, an inner core of noble metal which does not submit
to any inferior influence. There is this something More in man which
always inspires and enables him to break away from the Asuric nature.
Moreover, though there may be an outer resemblance between the Asuric
qualities of man and the Asuric qualities of the Asura, there is an
intrinsic different, a difference in tone and temper, in rhythm and
vibration, proceeding as they do, from different sources. However
cruel, hard, selfish, egocentric man may be, he knows, he admits –
at times, if hot always, at heart, if not openly, subconsciously, if
not wholly consciously – that such is not the ideal way, that these
qualities are not qualifications, they are unworthy elements and have
to be discarded. But the Asura is ruthless, because he regards
ruthlessness as the right thing, as the perfect thing, it is an
integral part of his swabhava and swadharma, his law of being and his
highest good. Violence is the ornament of his character.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>The outrages committed by Spain in America, the
oppression of the Christians by Imperial Rome, the brutal treatment
of Christians by Christians themselves (the inquisition, that is to
say) or the misdeeds of Imperialists generally were wrong and, in
many cases, even inhuman and unpardonable. But when we compare with
what Nazi Germany has done in Poland or wants to do throughout the
world, we find that there is a difference between the two not only in
degree, but in kind.</FONT><BR>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 72</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>One
is an instance of the weakness of man, of his flesh being frail; the
other illustrates the might of the Asura, his very spirit is
unwilling. One is undivine; the other antidivine, positively hostile.
They who cannot discern this difference are colour-blind: there are
eyes to which all deeper shades of colour are black and all lighter
shades white.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>The Asura triumphs everywhere for a while because his
power is well-built, perfectly organised. Human power is constituted
differently and acts differently; it is full of faults and flaws to
start with and for a long time. There is no gap anywhere in the power
of the Asura, no tear or stitch-it is streamlined, solid, of one
piece; it is perfection itself in its own kind once for all. Man's
being is made up of conflicts and contradictions; he moves step by
step, slowly and laboriously, through gradual purification; he grows
through endeavour and struggle. Man triumphs over the Asura only in
so far as he moulds himself in the ways of the divine power. But in
the world, the Divine and his powers remain behind, because the field
of actuality in front is still the domain of the As'ura. The outer
field, the gross vehicle – body and life and mind – all this is
constituted by Ignorance and Falsehood; so the Asura can always
establish there his influence and hold sway and has actually done so.
Man becomes easily an instrument of the Asura, though often
unwittingly; the earth is naturally in the firm grasp of the Asura.
For the gods to conquer the earth, to establish their rule in the
earth consciousness requires labour and endeavour and time. </FONT>
</P>
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&nbsp;</P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>No doubt, the violences indulged by men in older times,
especially when they acted in groups and packs, were often inflamed
and inspired by an Asuric influence. But today it must be clearly
seen and recognised that it is the Asura himself with the whole band
of his army that has descended upon the earth; they have possessed a
powerfully organised human collectivity, shaped it in their mould,
using it to complete their conquest of mankind and consolidate their
definitive reign upon earth.</FONT></P>
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&nbsp;</P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>As we see it we believe that the whole future of
mankind, the entire value of earthly life depends upon the issue of
the present deadly combat. The path that man has followed so long
tended steadily towards progress and evolution – how-</FONT><BR>
			</P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 73</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>ever
slow his steps, however burdened with doubt and faintness his mind
and heart in the ascent. But now the crucial parting of the ways
looms before him. The question is, will the path of progress be
closed to him for ever, will he be compelled to revert to a former
unregenerate state or even something worse I than that? Or will he
remain free to follow that path, rise gradually and infallibly
towards perfection, towards a purer, I fuller, higher and vaster
luminous life? Will man come down' to live the life of a blind
helpless slave under the clutches of I the Asura or even altogether
lose his soul and become the legendary demon who carries no head but
only a decapitated trunk?</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>We believe that the war of today is a war between the
Asura and men, human instruments of the gods. Man certainly is a
weaker vessel in comparison with the Asura – on this material plane
of ours; but in man dwells the Divine – and against the divine
force and might, no asuric power can ultimately prevail. The human
being who has stood against the Asura has by that very act sided with
the gods and received the support and benediction of the Divine. The
more we become conscious about the nature of this war and consciously
take the side of the progressive force, of the divine force
supporting it, the more will the Asura be driven to retire, his power
diminished, his hold relaxed. But if through ignorance and blind
passion, through narrow vision and obscurant prejudice we fail to
distinguish the right from the wrong side, the dexter from the
sinister, surely we shall invite upon mankind utter misery and
desolation. It will be nothing less than a betrayal of the Divine
Cause.</FONT></P>
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&nbsp;</P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>The fate of India too is being decided in this
world-crisis – on the plains of Flanders, on the steppes of
Ukraine, on the farthest expanses of the Pacific. The freedom of
India will become inevitable and even imminent in proportion as she
becomes cognizant of the underlying character and significance of the
present struggle, deliberately takes the side of the evolutionary
force, works for the gods, in proportion as she grows to be an
instrument of the Divine Power. The instrument that the Divine
chooses is often, to all appearances, faulty and defective, but since
it has this higher and mightier support, it will surely outgrow all
its drawbacks</FONT><BR>
			</P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 74</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>and
lapses, it will surmount all dangers and obstacles and become
unconquerable. This – is what the spiritual seeker means by saying
that the Divine Grace can make the lame leap across the mountain.
India's destiny today hangs in the balance; it lies in the choice of
her path.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>A great opportunity is offered to India's soul, a mighty
auspicious moment is come, if she can choose. If she chooses rightly,
then can she arrive at the perfect fulfilment of her agelong
endeavour, her life mission. India has preserved and fostered through
the immemorial spiritual living of her saints and seers and sages the
invaluable treasure, the vitalising, the immortalising power of
spirituality, so that it can be placed at the service of terrestrial
life for the deliverance of mankind, for the transfiguration of the
human type. It is this for which India lives; by losing this India
loses all her reason of existence <I>– raison d'&ecirc;tre – the
e</I>arth and humanity too lose all significance. Today we are in the
midst of an incomparable ordeal. If we know how to take the final and
crucial step, we come out of it triumphant, a new soul and a new
body, and we make the path straight for the Lord. We have to
recognise clearly and unequivocally that victory on' one side will
mean that the path of the Divine – of progress and evolution and
fulfilment – will remain open, become wider and smoother and safer;
but if the victory is on the other side, the path will be closed
perhaps for ever, at least for many ages and even then the travail
will have to be undergone again under the most difficult conditions
and circumstances. Not with a political shortsightedness, not out of
-the considerations of convenience or diplomacy, of narrow parochial
interests, but with the steady vision of the soul that encompasses
the supreme welfare of humanity, we have to make our choice, we have
to go over to the right side and oppose the wrong one with all the
integrity of our life and being. The Allies, as they have been justly
called, are really our allies, our friends and comrades, in spite of
their thousand faults and defects; they have stood on the side of the
Truth whose manifestation and triumph is our goal. Even though they
did not know perhaps in, the beginning what they stood for, even
though perhaps as yet they do not comprehend the full sense and
solemnity of the issues, still they have chosen a side which is ours,
and we have to stand by them whole-</FONT><BR>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 75</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>heartedly
in an all-round comradeship if we want to be saved from a great
perdition.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>This war is a great menace; it is also a great
opportunity. It can land humanity into a catastrophe; it can also
raise it to levels which would not have been within its reach but for
the occasion. The Forces of Darkness have precipitated them&shy;selves
with all their might upon the world, but by their very downrush have
called upon the higher Forces of Light also to descend. The true' use
of the opportunity offered to man would be to bring about a change,
better still, a reversal, in his consciousness, that is to say, it
will be of highest utility if it forces upon him by the pressure of
inexorable circumstances – since normally he is so unwilling and
incapable to do it through a spontaneous inner awakening – the
inescapable decision that he P1ust change and shall change; and the
change is to be for or towards the birth of a spiritual consciousness
in earthly life. Indeed the war might be viewed&quot; as the
birth-pangs of such a spiritual consciousness. Whether the labour
would be sublimely fruitful here and how or end in barrenness is the
question the Fates and the gods are asking of man – the mortal
being – today.</FONT><BR>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 76</FONT></P>
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